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ny0227449 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/10/22 | Thai Flooding Is Called Worst in Decades | LOP BURI, Thailand — Devastating floods spreading from northeastern Thailand have left 17 people dead over the past two weeks as heavy rainfall has put entire villages underwater, destroyed crops and disrupted transportation and commerce. Thailand’s relatively well-organized government services appeared to have been caught by surprise and in some areas overwhelmed, with some survivors stranded for days without government aid. Officials describe the flooding, which follows deadly inundations in Vietnam and other nearby countries, as the worst in half a century. Damage is estimated at more than $650 million. Twenty-eight of the country’s 77 provinces have been affected, including provinces just north of the capital, Bangkok. With the surge of water moving toward the mouth of the country’s largest river system, the government has warned residents in some parts of the capital to prepare for flooding in the coming days. Ten of 33 major reservoirs in Thailand are over capacity and are being forced to dump water downstream, according to the government’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. Water is rushing through one crucial barrier about 110 miles north of Bangkok, the Pasak Jolasit dam here in Lop Buri Province, at more than two times the normal flow for October. Engineers said that despite many pleas from cities and towns downstream to hold back the water, they instead opened the gates wider when the dam’s reservoir reached 122 percent of its planned capacity. “If we get any more water than this, we might have problems with the stability of the dam,” Sornmith Singkanong, the head of water management, said from the dam’s control room. The water level was the highest recorded in the 11 years since the dam was completed. Mr. Sornmith said that the water levels in the reservoir appeared to have peaked — the rainy season typically tapers off this month — but that a surge could reach Bangkok within two days. Kallaya Witsahamunee, 59, a primary school teacher stranded on the second floor of her house in Lop Buri Province, said that the floodwater arrived suddenly this week. “It’s about neck-deep,” Ms. Kallaya said by telephone. She said Thursday that no officials or aid organizations had reached her village since the flooding began and that neighbors were delivering food by boat. Ms. Kallaya said that she did not remember any flooding in at least 15 years in her area. “I guess that’s why people got complacent,” she said. | Thailand;Floods |
ny0151082 | [
"sports",
"olympics"
] | 2008/08/11 | A Stabbing Rooted in Loss and Despair | BEIJING — Tang Yongming was like countless other middle-aged, marginally skilled men struggling to find their way in the new China. Laid off from a meter factory in the central city of Hangzhou, Mr. Tang, 47, found himself idle, broke and living alone in a rented room with no furniture and no future. Friends and former co-workers said he had become angry and unmoored as he watched China’s surging economy roar ahead without him. But even though Mr. Tang had moments of despair and frustration, those who knew him were at a loss to explain why he attacked a couple of American tourists and their Chinese guide on Saturday, fatally stabbing a 62-year-old man and slashing the others before leaping to his death from the balcony of the Drum Tower, one of Beijing’s best-known historic monuments. Todd Bachman, a Minnesota businessman whose son-in-law coaches the men’s volleyball team, was killed. His wife, Barbara, 62, was critically wounded, as was the guide, whose name has not been released. The attack, on the first day of the Olympic Games, punctured the feel-good bubble that had enveloped Beijing since the opening ceremonies on Friday night. Although the episode received modest coverage in the Chinese media, it has been widely discussed among local residents and foreign visitors, many of whom said they were stunned that such an act of brutality could have occurred amid the city’s thick blanket of security. President Hu Jintao, meeting Sunday with President Bush, expressed condolences to the victims and their families and said the police would fully investigate. “The Chinese side takes this unfortunate incident very seriously,” he said. The killing has provoked hand-wringing and debate on the Internet. Some people fretted that it could tarnish China’s moment of Olympic glory, while others used Mr. Tang’s murderous outburst to rail against a variety of unattended social ills: mental illness, chronic unemployment among laid-off state workers and the rise of xenophobic nationalism. One widely circulated posting, written anonymously on a popular Web site, seemed to capture the prevailing worry that Mr. Tang’s crime would harm China’s image: “Your actions have hurt not just two Americans, but they have hurt the way Americans will view China during the Games, the way all the people of the world will view China. The bright dream of these momentous Olympics has been darkened by you.” Much of the debate and the supposition about his motives have been swirling in a vacuum of substantial information. Mr. Tang was unemployed and arrived in Beijing on Aug. 1 for reasons that remain unclear. The only thing he left behind, investigators said, was the government-issued identification card in his pocket. The Chinese police have painted him as a man turned desperate by personal shortcomings. “He had lost all hope after a series of failures in his life and took his anger out on society,” the police said, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. Mr. Tang had no criminal record, investigators said, nor was he among the crowds of aggrieved citizens, so-called petitioners, who flock to the capital to file official appeals to the central government. On the outskirts of Hangzhou, where Mr. Tang spent most of his life, neighbors and former co-workers said he was often disgruntled and prone to argument. “He grumbled a great deal, very cynical,” Zhang Liping, a former colleague, said. “He had an unyielding mouth.” They agreed that Mr. Tang typified the many working men cast aside by ailing state-run industries. He was angry at being left behind by China’s headlong rush into an economy that lacked the succors of the Socialist past. “He had a quick temper and was always complaining about society,” said a former co-worker, who would only give his nickname, Aqing. Mr. Tang worked as a metal presser at the Hangzhou Meter Factory for more than two decades. When a private company bought the plant five or six years ago, his job was transferred elsewhere and Mr. Tang was demoted to guard at the factory gate. In 2004, colleagues said, he lost that job for reasons that were not clear. In 2006, his wife, who also worked at the meter factory, divorced him. Mr. Tang sold his house and rented a room nearby in Hengjie, a once-rural town that has become absorbed into Hangzhou’s industrial sprawl. Xinhua, quoting the police, said Mr. Tang’s 21-year-old son spent the money from the sale of the home. Last year the son was arrested for fraud and later received a six-month sentence for burglary. Jiang Beigen, his landlord, said Mr. Tang paid $53 a month for an unfurnished room. According to Mr. Jiang and other tenants, Mr. Tang seemed to own only one shirt and a single pair of pants, both of which he washed by hand at night. He had no job, they said, and often slept late into the day. Last week, Mr. Tang announced he was leaving town. According to the police, he called his son that evening and told him he would not be returning until he found success. | Olympic Games (2008);Murders and Attempted Murders;Beijing (China);Tang Yongming |
ny0114403 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2012/11/26 | Peyton Manning Leads Denver to 6th Consecutive Win | KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Peyton Manning was wooed by the Kansas City Chiefs early in the off-season, after the four-time most valuable player had been cut loose by the Indianapolis Colts and before he signed a five-year deal with the Denver Broncos . On Sunday, he showed exactly why Kansas City went after him. Manning threw for 285 yards and 2 touchdowns, and led the Broncos down the field in the final minutes when the Chiefs were frantically trying to get a stop, setting up a field goal that sealed a 17-9 victory and Denver’s sixth consecutive win. It allowed Manning to break a tie with the Broncos vice president John Elway with his 149th win as a starting quarterback, trailing only Brett Favre (186) for the most in N.F.L. history. “Peyton Manning is a Hall of Famer,” Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson said. “We played pretty good as a defense most of the game, but he made a few plays, one or two more plays than we’d like him to make, and he came up with a victory.” Manning was quick to pass the praise to someone else. In this case, it was Knowshon Moreno, who stepped into the lineup after Willis McGahee landed on injured reserve last week and ran for 85 yards. Manning also praised Jacob Tamme and Demaryius Thomas, who were on the receiving end of his touchdown throws. “I’ve got to tip my hat to Knowshon Moreno,” Manning said. “He stepped up today and did a heck of a job. Really an impressive effort by him.” Not so much by the Chiefs’ offense. Jamaal Charles ran for 107 yards, but the Chiefs (1-10) were done in by penalties, missed opportunities and a conservative approach that has not yielded a touchdown since the first quarter against Pittsburgh on Nov. 12, a stretch of more than 11 quarters and 173 minutes. They could manage only field goals by Ryan Succop for the second straight game. “It’s really about stopping the run,” Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey said. “If you can limit that run game, you put the weight on their passing game, which hasn’t been that great this year.” Kansas City quarterback Brady Quinn was 13 of 25 for 126 yards and an interception. “Hats off to our defense,” Broncos Coach John Fox said. Kansas City actually established an early lead for the third straight game on Succop’s first-quarter field goal, and seemed to be outplaying Denver (8-3) the entire first half. They had a chance to go ahead by 10-0 when they faced fourth-and-2 at the Denver 4, but Chiefs Coach Romeo Crennel elected to kick another field goal against a team that had scored at least 30 points in five consecutive games, drawing a chorus of boos. On the Broncos’ final drive of the first half, Manning completed five consecutive passes before finding Tamme on third-and-goal from the Kansas City 7 with 18 seconds left. Denver’s Matt Prater missed his second field goal try of the game early in the third quarter, and Succop’s 49-yarder gave Kansas City its first second-half lead of the season. (The Chiefs’ win came in overtime.) But once again, a failure to get into the end zone proved costly. Manning, who surpassed 3,000 yards passing earlier in the day, rode the legs of Moreno into Chiefs territory, and that is when he lobbed a pass over Jalil Brown and into the hands of Thomas for the go-ahead, 30-yard touchdown reception late in the third quarter. “That was a great catch down the sideline against tight coverage,” Manning said. The Chiefs twice had chances to overcome the 14-9 deficit late in the fourth quarter, but they failed to move the ball after taking over at their 37. After getting it back, Crennel chose to punt on fourth-and-6 at the Broncos’ 47 after a series of penalties ruined the drive. It was their last chance. | Football;Manning Peyton;Kansas City Chiefs;Denver Broncos;Records and Achievements |
ny0226334 | [
"sports",
"autoracing"
] | 2010/10/09 | Rough Day For Chase Contenders | Jamie McMurray and Elliott Sadler will start up front in Fontana, Calif., after a rough day of qualifying for several Chase contenders. McMurray had a fast lap of 185.285 miles per hour at Auto Club Speedway’s two-mile oval, just ahead of Sadler, another non-qualifier in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. It was McMurray’s fourth pole this season. | Automobile Racing;McMurray Jamie;Sadler Elliott |
ny0107676 | [
"business"
] | 2012/04/14 | Wal-Mart and Environmental Fund Team Up to Cut Waste | Michelle Harvey, an employee of the Environmental Defense Fund , has a security badge to a site that used to be considered enemy territory: the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores in Bentonville, Ark. An environmentalist in Bentonville sounds like the premise for a low-budget reality show, but Wal-Mart has been courting environmental groups and seeking their input on its policies in the seven years since it first announced a sustainability program. The company, the nation’s biggest retailer, has met some environmental goals and missed others. On Monday, it plans to announce that it now reuses or recycles more than 80 percent of the waste produced in its domestic stores and in its other United States operations. That is up from 64 percent as of 2009, but it is short of the zero-waste goal the company hopes to get to. Wal-Mart’s environmental push has helped transform public opinion of the company, easing the way for it to open stores in urban areas like Chicago and Los Angeles. About a quarter of Americans now have a favorable impression of Wal-Mart, about double the percentage that did in 2007 (the earliest available figure for Wal-Mart), according to the YouGov BrandIndex, which measures consumers’ impressions of companies and products. Before Wal-Mart announced the environmental initiative in 2005, H. Lee Scott, the chief executive, reviewed the legal and public relations problems the company was having. It had paid millions of dollars in fines for violating local pollution laws, and was facing a lawsuit claiming that Wal-Mart discriminated against women. Mr. Scott wondered if behaving differently could enhance the company’s reputation, he told Fortune . That year, Mr. Scott announced a wide-ranging plan to lessen the retailer’s environmental impact. Wal-Mart has issued regular updates on its progress since then. But some environmental and shop-local groups contend that the company’s business model remains inherently anti-environment. “Wal-Mart’s price pressure on manufacturers is undermining the durability and quality of products, which has contributed to a sharp increase in how much Americans buy and how much we discard,” said Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “The majority of what the company does is designed to accelerate consumption.” Vonda Lockwood, senior director of operations who handles the waste program at Wal-Mart, said she had heard the objections. “My question is, ‘So do we do nothing then?’ I feel like we are a retailer, we’re here to be a retailer, and in doing that we’re trying to be good partners as a retailer,” she said. In the report to be released next week, Wal-Mart will describe a mixed degree of progress on the goals Mr. Scott outlined seven years ago. Mr. Scott, who retired in 2009 as chief executive, serves on Wal-Mart’s board of directors. Mr. Scott initially said he wanted no waste from the stores to go to landfills. Ms. Lockwood said the company now recycles things like aluminum and shrink wrap, reuses items like wood pallets, donates usable food to charity and turns other food into animal feed or compost. Though it now recycles or otherwise reuses 80 percent of waste from its operations in the United States, it’s the remaining 20 percent that poses difficult problems, Ms. Lockwood said. “Now we’re down to the really hard stuff, for example, bathroom and parking lot trash that we’re never going to ask our associates to sort,” she said, adding that the company was figuring out how to deal with that. Mr. Scott said in 2005 that he wanted to reduce greenhouse gases from its stores by 20 percent over the next seven years, the end of 2012. Wal-Mart has so far reduced greenhouse gases at its stores that were open in 2005 by 12.74 percent, according to the report. He said he wanted to double the fuel efficiency of its trucks in the next 10 years. The company has improved fuel efficiency (which it defines as cases shipped per gallons burned) by 69 percent versus 2005 levels. The company said it wanted to be supplied by 100 percent renewable energy, and is now at 15 percent renewable energy globally. The Environmental Defense Fund and other groups have been advising Wal-Mart on its changes. For instance, Ms. Harvey said, her group had told Wal-Mart that incinerating trash was not an appropriate way to get to zero waste, and Wal-Mart ceased burning almost all of its trash as a result. The partnership between the fund and Wal-Mart started with Mr. Scott, who brought in the fund to provide feedback on his environmental goals. “If you’re serious about tackling environmental challenges, you can’t afford not to talk to anybody of that size,” said Jon Coifman, who works on corporate partnerships for the Environmental Defense Fund. The head of the fund took Mr. Scott on a trip to Mount Washington in New Hampshire, where the two bunked in a cabin and discussed how climate change would affect products that Wal-Mart sold, including coffee, Ms. Harvey said. The fund opened an office in Bentonville in 2007 so it could have direct access to Wal-Mart. It does not accept contributions from Wal-Mart or other corporations it works with. (The Environmental Defense Fund has, however, received grants through the Walton Family Foundation, which has no operational ties to the corporation, and a Walton family member, Sam Rawlings Walton, is a member of E.D.F.’s board of trustees.) Ms. Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance argued that Wal-Mart’s political contributions tended to favor anti-environmental politicians. Ms. Harvey said she “can’t disagree with those concerns,” but changing “practice on the ground can have far greater impact much more quickly than the political process.” As for Ms. Mitchell’s concerns about Wal-Mart’s business model, Ms. Harvey said that “a retail model in this country, starting back in the ’50s, was planned obsolescence and increased consumption, so I don’t think you can lay the burden on Wal-Mart.” In Bentonville, part of a fiercely Republican Benton County, where 67 percent of residents voted for John McCain in the 2008 election, there were lots of “closet environmentalists,” said Ms. Harvey, who moved from the Washington area to work there. “If you talk about core values — using things well, protecting the planet for kids,” she said, “there’s no disagreement.” “If you start talking political parties, there’s a lot of divergence,” she said. | Wal-Mart Stores Inc;Environmental Defense Fund;Recycling of Waste Materials;Shopping and Retail;Arkansas |
ny0219848 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2010/05/22 | Girardi’s and Manuel’s Moves Play Up Different Fortunes | Managers can change a game in an instant by switching pitchers, calling for a bunt or pinch-hitting at a critical point. But in Friday’s game against the Mets , Yankees Manager Joe Girardi ’s best move appeared to have been made last week, when he decided to skip Javier Vazquez’s start against the Boston Red Sox on Monday night. That gave Vazquez, who came into Friday’s game with an 8.01 earned run average, a softer opponent against whom he could continue to bolster his confidence. For Girardi, it was a perfect call; the Mets’ offense is not much of a challenge these days. Sure enough, Vazquez cruised through six innings, allowing just one hit, a bloop single by Angel Pagan. He struck out David Wright, Jason Bay and Ike Davis convincingly, and thanks to quick at-bats by Jose Reyes and Jeff Francoeur, he threw just 70 pitches. Sometimes, though, decisions are made for managers, not by them. Vazquez sustained a bruised right index finger while bunting in the top of the seventh and was replaced in the bottom of the inning. The X-rays on his finger were negative — the ball hit the finger where it meets the nail, leaving it bruised and swollen. Still, it was not immediately clear if he might miss his next start. “The good thing is it not’s broken,” Girardi said after the game. As for Vazquez’s performance, Girardi said emphatically: “He was rolling.” After his very shaky start to the season, Vazquez pitched well against Detroit on May 12, sidestepped the Red Sox (although he won the game in relief) and looked strong against the Mets. That’s three good performances in a row, and even with his bruised finger, Vazquez has to be feeling better about himself. Girardi has to be feeling, good, too, and not just about Vazquez. He played a hunch on Friday night by starting the Class AAA call-up Kevin Russo in left field, and Russo, who had never even had a major league hit, made his manager look like Eisenhower at Normandy. Russo, a 25-year-old native of Long Island, hit a two-run double in the top of the seventh that broke a scoreless tie, providing the Yankees with their only two runs of the game and giving Russo his first runs batted in in the majors. “He had a great night for us,” Girardi said. Girardi’s counterpart, Mets Manager Jerry Manuel , did not. His starting pitcher, Hisanori Takahashi, matched Vazquez zero for zero. But when it came to bringing in a reliever to start the seventh, Manuel guessed wrong. He turned to Elmer Dessens, just recalled from Class AAA, and Dessens, with help from a misplay in the field, quickly surrendered the Yankees’ runs. Before Friday’s game, Manuel and Girardi sat in the same seat in the same press room while addressing reporters. The questions they fielded were emblematic of the wide gap that exists between the teams. After a promising stretch in late April, Manuel’s club is back in last place, and his status as the team’s manager has become increasingly tenuous. During his 15 minutes in front of the microphone Friday, Manuel had to deal with a barrage of tough questions. Three-quarters of them were about John Maine, the Mets pitcher whom Manuel abruptly pulled from Thursday’s game after just five pitches. The topic was touchy not just because of Maine’s condition, but also because of how Manuel handled the situation, which included an argument in the dugout with his pitcher. Predictably, Manuel was also asked about whether he could continue to manage the Mets effectively when there is growing uncertainty about his status. “I still have to manage as if it’s a marathon for the team,” he answered. Again, he was asked about his status. In a bit of gallows humor that has come to define his public persona, Manuel responded, “Who knows?” The remark drew nervous laughter from the 40 or so reporters. Manuel, himself, chuckled loudly. After 20 questions, the reporters filed out. A worker hauled a tall screen with Yankees wallpaper on it and put it behind the lectern to block the Mets wallpaper. Another worker removed the Mets logo covering the microphone. A few minutes later, three dozen reporters filled back into the room to speak with Girardi. The mood was far more casual. Despite dropping 8 of the last 12 games going into the Mets series and being battered by injuries, the Yankees continue to look formidable. The biggest controversy this season has been Alex Rodriguez’s decision to step on the mound of Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden. And having steered the team to a world championship last season in his second year as Yankees manager, Girardi is now confident and even-toned, as he was on Friday. He sat with his arms on the table and leaned slightly toward the reporters and five television cameras. His news conference lasted just eight minutes and was punctuated by long breaks between questions. Girardi said “Wow” during particularly long pauses. After spending the past two weeks playing the Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays, Girardi almost seemed to relish a weekend series at Citi Field.. “We’ve run into a little tough 10, 12 games here,” Girardi said. “We want to get back on the right track.” The Mets, as is often the case, were all too willing to cooperate. | Manuel Jerry;Coaches and Managers;Girardi Joe;New York Mets;New York Yankees;Baseball;Maine John |
ny0068725 | [
"us"
] | 2014/12/09 | Considering Issues Political and Trivial | Reading the news about Eric Garner, the unarmed black man choked to death by a New York police officer, I somehow thought of a section label I’d seen in a Berlin museum this summer. Since I read it at the German Historical Museum, the label kept coming back to me. I wasn’t quite sure why. Now, after a grand jury declined to charge the officer with a crime, it has become clearer. The label spoke of a period in German life, from 1815 to 1848, in which political participation was suppressed, and people turned inward as a result. These years, the Biedermeier era, were marked by a “retreat into the idyll of private and family life,” it said, and a “refinement in fashion, home decor, literature, music and painting.” There are now protests over Mr. Garner’s death on the streets of New York, just as there were in Ferguson, Mo., when an 18-year-old black teenager was shot and killed by white police officer. But there is little hope of mega-change. A common idea floating around is that police officers should wear cameras. That Mr. Garner’s death was in fact recorded on camera, that two million-plus Americans now dwell in prison, that many millions more suffer the permanent effects of having once done so, and that an overwhelming number happen to be blacks arrested on drug charges that elude most white users and pushers — these facts are too much for our own Biedermeier age. It is easier to imagine how you would confront the injustices of someone else’s era than those of your own. It is unsettling to realize that slave owners didn’t think of themselves as horrible people, nor did segregationists in their wake. It took time and a new, hard-forged consensus to make it wrong, retrospectively, to have tolerated, or participated in, such things. So we must ask: What will our grandchildren think of the extraordinary inwardness of this period in America, when the life chances of so many citizens are growing bleaker and more volatile, while so many others devote inordinate amounts of time to worrying about the provenance of their chickens? The German museum label offered a new way of thinking about this juxtaposition. I have no beef with chickens. But we do seem to be living through a remarkable era of ducking the political and fetishizing the trivial. On its own, each object of fetishization may be judged worthy of our attention. But when you take them all together, you start to wonder about the issue of retreat. You see it in the gushy outpouring of attention — and parodying and analysis of its analysis — given to the new journalistic podcast “Serial.” It’s suddenly as if the American intelligentsia had nothing else to worry about. You see it in American food culture, which has begun to eclipse that of Europe in its obsessiveness. I remember moving to Paris as a boy, after a childhood in Ohio, and marveling at the level of food fanaticism. Now I return to the United States after travels in Europe and notice that American restaurants have stolen the mantle of fuss, with their special tasting menus and farm-to-esophagus chains of custody. When you lose faith in changing the world, you wonder how you can at least make it more efficient. Which accounts for another aspect of this culture of retreat: the obsession with seamlessness, with making things that were never that inconvenient more convenient. Taxi rides become Uber rides; calling a Chinese takeout joint becomes pressing a phone screen to order food. Nowhere is the retreat more pronounced, perhaps, than in the world of design, home decoration, urban gardening, etc. Ours is an age of renovation, not revolution. Think of the cumulative brain power spent on Pinterest, a self-described “visual discovery tool that you can use to find ideas for all your projects and interests.” Or the attention increasingly devoted to urban gardening. We plant seeds; we secede. The public sphere is dysfunctional, tired, underfunded. Chickens, light bulbs, car rides, tomatoes — these become the difference we can make. Join an online conversation at http://anand.ly and follow on Twitter.com/anandwrites | US;Food;Eric Garner |
ny0243871 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/03/13 | Bus-Crash Victims Were Part of Routine Casino Run | The discount buses travel all night, back and forth from the city, so players can try their luck at the grand gambling houses all across the New York region. The packages, to casinos in Connecticut and Atlantic City, are priced to sell. Vouchers for free food and turns at the slot machine, usually provided by the casinos, can completely offset the low price of the trip, which often begins on a Chinatown sidewalk in the afternoon and ends hours later when the same driver returns to Manhattan near the break of dawn. It was one such trip that ended horrifically on Saturday morning , when a packed bus overturned on a Bronx highway and slammed into a traffic sign stanchion, killing 14 passengers and injuring the driver and 19 others. The wrecked bus carried the logo of World Wide Tours, based in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The accident is the company’s fourth recorded crash in as many years, federal records show. Representatives at World Wide Travel, apparently the parent company, would not answer questions on Saturday. In a statement, the company’s owners said they were “heartbroken” and pledged to cooperate with investigators. Each passenger on the crashed bus paid $15 for a ticket, according to Matthew Yu, owner of the Chinatown-based ticket agency that coordinated sales for the trip. The bus most likely left Manhattan at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Mr. Yu said, and would have started its return trip from Mohegan Sun about 3:45 a.m. A sign outside Mr. Yu’s office advertises the Mohegan Sun bus trip with Chinese characters that translate roughly as “Go with the wind, be prosperous.” “Life is fragile,” Mr. Yu said, struggling to keep back tears. “It was supposed to be a happy trip.” He added that ticket sales had dropped on Saturday: “The whole day, it’s been slow.” As recently as late February, federal regulators had flagged World Wide Travel for a higher-than-average number of crashes and several cases of driver fatigue. The company was given 35 violations for various mechanical and driver safety problems in the past year, records show. A bus operated by the company was involved in a collision last year in Perth Amboy, N.J., that resulted in at least one injury; another collision, also causing an injury, was recorded in Westchester County in 2009, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The driver of the crashed bus, Ophadell Williams, was hospitalized on Saturday with chest pains and a fractured hip. He told the authorities that he believed a tractor-trailer cut him off and clipped the front of the bus. His wife, Holly Williams, said her husband is a veteran driver who makes the casino route daily and has worked for World Wide Travel for six months. An all-night excursion — for gamblers and bus drivers alike — is almost always part of the casino package offered by bus operators in the region. Academy Bus, based in Hoboken, N.J., advertises a round trip that leaves the Bronx at 8:45 p.m. and arrives at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut by 11:15 p.m. Six hours later, passengers reboard as late as 5:15 a.m. The fare: $24, including a $15 food voucher and $15 of slots play. “It doesn’t surprise me that they would be on the road at 5 in the morning,” said Marvin Steinberg, executive director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling , an occasional consultant to Foxwoods. He said he had seen buses coming and going from the Mohegan Sun casino at all hours, prompting concerns about driver fatigue. “I don’t know whether that bus driver slept while folks gambled, or didn’t sleep at all,” he said. In interviews, discount bus drivers said they often try to sneak in naps — sometimes curling up in an empty seat — while their passengers gamble. Marvin Ha, 45, of Brooklyn, a driver for the Sky Express bus lines, was picking up Foxwoods-bound passengers on the Bowery on Saturday afternoon. He said he stays alert on late-night trips with soda, tea, and the Parliament cigarettes he keeps tucked in the dashboard. “Tractor-trailers are our biggest problem,” Mr. Ha said. “When the rear of the truck slides toward you, you have to stay calm because if you steer too hard to avoid it, you might flip.” Anthony J. Emanuel, a lawyer in Garden City, N.Y., once represented a passenger who was injured on a World Wide Travel bus in 2009 during a late-night return trip from Atlantic City. Drivers on those trips, Mr. Emanuel said, are often overworked. “It’s a long day,” Mr. Emanuel said. The drivers “are up 20, 22 hours; you’re not surprised sometimes to see that.” | World Wide Tours;Accidents and Safety;Buses;Casinos;Mohegan Sun;Bronx (NYC);Interstate 95;Roads and Traffic |
ny0113439 | [
"science"
] | 2012/11/20 | Insect Video Contest Puts Small-Scale Drama in Focus | As soon as the ants start streaming across the screen in the video “ Ants Africa ,” you know trouble is afoot — on many, many feet actually. You know this partly because 36 seconds into the video, these words appear on screen: “A raiding column of female ants is on the hunt for prey,” and partly because of the ominous bass-driven music, “Mind Heist,” from the trailer to the movie “Inception.” Clearly, this video is not going to have a happy ending. These are predatory ants. They are fast. They are numerous. And they are living the purpose-driven life, the purpose being to kill some termites for lunch. Sure enough, the screen informs us, “Within a few minutes, a thousand termites are dead.” “Ants Africa” is the winner in the Open category in the 2012 YouTube Your Entomology Contest , a competition sponsored by the Entomological Society of America, which just ended its annual meeting in Knoxville. The entries in this category and others can be viewed online, along with videos from the past three years. The contest started in 2009, and the top winners receive $200 and a trophy. Video: Watch a selection of the contest entries. The videos offer a mix of entertaining natural history dramas like “Ants Africa” and earnest, instructional presentations, like “ Soybean Aphid Speed Scouting – How To ?,” which won in the Outreach category. They also offer hope for amateurs who have marveled at brilliant professional insect documentaries by the likes of David Attenborough. These are videos made by professional entomologists, but decidedly amateur videographers. Just as bird-watching became a possible hobby for the average person after World War I, when good binoculars became available to the public, watching and recording insects on video is now possible if you can afford a few hundred dollars for a camera. I talked to Marlin E. Rice, who made “Ants Africa,” about how he did it. Dr. Rice, who started the video contest, is a former president of the entomological society and a former professor of entomology at Iowa State University. He now works for DuPont Pioneer on the resistance of genetically modified corn to insect pests. He and his wife regularly go to Zambia to do volunteer work at an orphanage through their church. While there, he carries his video camera, which he bought a few years ago for “a couple hundred dollars,” he said. “It’s an old Sony model, only 2.1 megapixels.” In Zambia, he said, the ants were a regular sight, and whenever he saw them on the march, he would set down his video camera and record them. “That video has footage from five different trips to Zambia,” he said. He edited the footage with iMovie and added the soundtrack, which struck him the first time he heard it. “When that heavy bass came along when I was listening to ‘Mind Heist’,” he said, “I could picture ants crossing a landscape.” His video had some impressive competition, like “ Life in the Gutter ,” a look at the kind of insect life that can thrive in less than pristine urban water flows, and “ Hornworm Meets ‘Alien’ ,” which is exactly what it sounds like. In that entry, a horrifying number of parasitic wasp larvae — tiny translucent wormy things — tunnel through the skin of their host, a tomato hornworm, a large, green caterpillar that, if it hadn’t been eaten from the inside out, would have grown up to be a Carolina sphinx moth. No music is necessary for this video to ruin your lunch (I was eating at my desk when I started it and had to stop and come back to it later), but the cheery Latin brass and drums do enhance the pageantry of parasitic infection. All of the videos that feature insects (some focus on entomologists, who are much less interesting than their subjects of study) should inspire other amateurs, and that alone makes the contest a worthy enterprise. Dr. Price, though, said it was really designed just to encourage society members to have a bit of fun with their profession. Once a video goes on YouTube, anything is possible. As soon as I started watching “Ants Africa,” for instance, an ad popped up for “NY’s #1 Pest Pro.” A bit harsh, I thought. But if you stumbled upon the video by mistake, of course, the availability of exterminators might be comforting. The company does promise same-day service. | Insects;Contests and Prizes;Video Recordings and Downloads;Entomological Society of America;YouTube.com;Movies |
ny0293305 | [
"business"
] | 2016/06/10 | Tesla Model S Suspension Failures Under Scrutiny by Safety Agency | Tesla Motors, the maverick electric-car maker, is under scrutiny from federal regulators over suspension failures attributed to its biggest-selling model — along with reports that it had asked owners not to disclose the problem. The nation’s top auto safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said on Thursday that at least some Tesla customers who experienced suspension failures with Model S luxury cars were asked to sign confidentiality agreements about the issue. “The agency immediately informed Tesla that any language implying that consumers should not contact the agency regarding safety concerns is unacceptable, and N.H.T.S.A. expects Tesla to eliminate any such language,” said Bryan Thomas, an agency spokesman. “Tesla representatives told N.H.T.S.A. that it was not their intention to dissuade consumers from contacting the agency.” The regulator added that the agreements that Tesla required were “troublesome.” Tesla did not respond Thursday to requests for comment. [On Friday, the company responded in a blog post , saying there was no safety defect with the Model S nor any intent to discourage complaints to regulators.] The safety regulator is examining the Model S suspension — the springs, joints and other components that connect a car to its wheels — for possible defects that could be causing premature failures. Since October, it has received 33 complaints of suspension parts breaking. A suspension breakdown can cause severe steering problems and make driving impossible, according to filings listed on the agency’s website. A few of the complaints pertained to a requirement that owners sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for having their cars repaired. The suspension problems and the issue of the nondisclosure agreements have also been discussed on blogs for Tesla owners. The company reported that in 2015, it sold 25,200 Model S cars, which have a starting price of about $70,000. Tesla has just started offering a sport utility vehicle, the Model X, and is planning to offer a compact car, the Model 3, next year. The company hopes the Model 3 will become its top seller and says it has already received $1,000 deposits from about 375,000 potential buyers. Image Elon Musk, Tesla Motors’ chief, acknowledged safety problems in its first Roadster. Credit Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press The suspension issue with the Model S is the latest sign of quality concerns. The Model X S.U.V. was recalled earlier this year because of a problem with its rear seats. Tesla’s first model, the two-seat Roadster, which was produced from 2008 to 2011, also had its problems. At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting last month, Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, acknowledged that the Roadster had been plagued by a number of issues. “This car, even though it met all regulatory requirements, it was completely unsafe, broke down all the time and really didn’t work,” Mr. Musk said. Two years ago, the safety administration looked into two instances in which Model S cars caught fire. It determined that the fires were caused by road debris striking the vehicle’s underside, and closed the matter after Tesla agreed to reinforce the shield that protects the battery. For most of its 13-year history, Tesla has tried to break away from many standard auto industry practices, a strategy that at times courts controversy. Its practice of selling its cars online without dealers has led to court battles in several states. The company is also building a gigantic battery factory in Nevada and often announces news via tweets by Mr. Musk. “Everything they do, they try to do differently than the traditional auto company, but they all have to deal with the same rules,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst with the firm Autotrader. Ms. Krebs said she had never heard of a car company requiring customers to sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for repairs of potential safety defects. “It does raise eyebrows,” she said. “It may have happened before. I’ve just never seen it.” In its statement about the inquiry, the N.H.T.S.A. did not elaborate on the extent or details of Tesla’s use of nondisclosure agreements. But according to accounts posted online, some customers who complained about suspension problems had their cars fixed on the condition that they agreed in writing not to talk about the issue or how the company dealt with it. An auto industry blog, dailykanban.com , posted what it said were excerpts from the agreement , along with a scanned copy. “You agree to keep confidential our provision of the Goodwill, the terms of this agreement and the incidents or claims leading or related to our provision of the Goodwill,” the document said. “Goodwill” is the term Tesla used to refer to any repairs or compensation it made because of a suspension failure. The agreement posted on the blog released Tesla from any liability and barred the car owners from filing legal proceedings against the company. | Tesla;Electric Cars and Hybrids;Automobile safety;National Highway Traffic Safety Administration;Elon Musk |
ny0121944 | [
"us"
] | 2012/09/18 | Clarence Thomas Discusses His Life and the Court | WASHINGTON — Justice Clarence Thomas has not asked a question from the bench in more than six years, and he seldom appears in public in Washington, a city he says is full of cynics, smart alecks and people who have agendas rather than convictions. But he opened up last week in a public interview at the National Archives, talking about his race, his faith and relations among the justices after a term that ended with bitter divisions . For the most part, Justice Thomas spoke somberly about the weight of history and the burdens of his job. But he allowed himself the occasional bit of rueful humor. “People say horrible things,” he said, smiling. “They say that, well, I’m not black. So I’m just a little doubtful I should say I’m black.” He said he preferred a time when there was less identification of “who’s what,” and he recalled his youth. “I was Catholic,” he said. “You talk about a minority within a minority within a minority: a black Catholic in Savannah, Ga.” Yet, he said, “nobody bothered me.” The occasion for the interview was the Constitution’s 225th anniversary and the publication of a new book called “America’s Unwritten Constitution.” Its author, Akhil Reed Amar , a law professor at Yale, questioned Justice Thomas for more than an hour. When Professor Amar mentioned that there are, for the first time in history, no Protestants on the Supreme Court , Justice Thomas changed the subject. “We’re all from the Ivy League,” he said. “That seems to be more relevant than what faith we are.” (Justice Thomas is one of six Catholics on the court. The other three justices are Jewish.) He did say that religion played an important role in the nation’s founding and in his own life. “I grew up in a religious environment, and I’m proud of it,” he said. “I was going to be a priest; I’m proud of it. And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.” He did not elaborate on that last point, but there has often been an undercurrent of bitterness in Justice Thomas’s public remarks since his confirmation hearings in 1991, when he faced accusations of sexual harassment. The evening was sponsored by the Federalist Society , a conservative group, and the Constitutional Accountability Center , a liberal one. They agree, though, that constitutional interpretation should be rooted in the document’s text and history. Those are principles closely associated with Justice Thomas, but he seemed to dismiss them. “You’re supposed to say there’s some angle, some methodology you’re pushing,” he said. “There’s originalism. There’s textualism. All these useless peripheral debates other than just doing our jobs as best we can.” In June, the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care law by a 5-to-4 vote, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s four more liberal members in the majority. The chief justice’s vote was a surprise, and there were reports of a rift between him and some of his usual allies among the court’s conservatives. Justice Thomas did not address the controversy directly, but he said relationships on the court are cordial. “Do we agree?” he asked. “No more than the framers agreed.” But he said the disagreements were principled and civil. “These are good people,” he said of his colleagues. He cited Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the senior member of the court’s liberal wing, calling her “a fabulous judge” and a friend. “Now, how often do we agree?” he asked. “A lot, actually,” Professor Amar responded, and a look of incredulity passed over the justice’s face. Professor Amar noted that the court frequently rendered unanimous decisions. “Oh, the unanimous cases,” Justice Thomas said with a lightly mocking tone that suggested the professor was both right and wrong. “I like that. That’s really a shrewd move. There’s one category of cases in which we agree. What are they? The unanimous cases.” In fact, Justices Thomas and Ginsburg agreed in 21 percent of the court’s divided cases in the last term, tying for last place, according to Scotusblog . (The other pair of justices least likely to agree was Justice Ginsburg and Justice Antonin Scalia.) Even as Justice Thomas spoke passionately about the stain that slavery and segregation left on the nation’s history, he seemed wary about giving the courts too large a role in addressing their legacy. On Oct. 10, the court will hear a major case about affirmative action in higher education, Fisher v. University of Texas, and Justice Thomas will almost certainly vote against allowing the university to take account of race in admissions decisions. In reflecting on his youth, Justice Thomas rejected one of the rationales the Supreme Court offered in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education for forbidding segregation in public schools. “I hear people say, it affected your self-esteem to be segregated,” he said. “It never affected mine.” He also shared a memory about Justice Thurgood Marshall, who argued the Brown case and whom Justice Thomas succeeded on the Supreme Court. “I sat with him in a meeting when I first got to the court, a courtesy visit that was supposed to last 10 minutes,” Justice Thomas said. “It lasted two-and-a-half hours, and he regaled me with stories.” The meeting included a bit of advice, Justice Thomas said. “He looked at me very quiet and said, ‘I had to do in my time what I had to do, and you have to do in your time what you have to do.’ ” | Thomas Clarence;Supreme Court;Decisions and Verdicts;Constitution (US);Books and Literature;America's Unwritten Constitution (Book);Amar Akhil Reed |
ny0100604 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2015/12/11 | Fleeing Thailand, Top Investigator of Human Trafficking Says He Fears for His Safety | HONG KONG — When a senior police officer’s investigation produced more than 150 arrest warrants this year, it was seen as a tentative success in Thailand ’s pledge to crack down on human trafficking. But last month, that officer, Maj. Gen. Paween Pongsirin, resigned, and on Thursday said he had fled to Australia out of fear for his safety, raising questions about the extent of collusion between crime syndicates and the authorities in Thailand. “I’m not afraid of the good officials,” he said by telephone from Australia. “But there are bad police and bad military officers, and I know they are trying to get me.” Mr. Paween had led an investigation into a mass grave containing at least 36 bodies that was discovered in May near the border with Malaysia . That inquiry resulted in charges against more than 90 people from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, including a lieutenant general in the Thai Army, Manas Kongpan, who is accused of being a trafficking kingpin. Mr. Paween was expected to be a witness at the trials of the defendants. But he quit his post after refusing a transfer to Thailand’s deep south, where he said he would be under threat of retaliation from traffickers and corrupt local authorities. He flew to Singapore in mid-November and on Dec. 5 traveled to Australia, where he hopes to be granted asylum. Mr. Paween’s plans to seek asylum were first reported on Thursday by The Guardian and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Mr. Paween said he had faced growing demands from powerful people that he end his investigation, which featured people in the Thai establishment, including the army, the navy, the police, and local and national politicians. “Our work was transparent and open to the public,” he said. “There is no politics in it. It’s an evidence-based investigation.” But, he added, “We encountered many influential people.” Thailand, which is ruled by a military junta, has seldom had inquiries examining the behavior of officers, a fact that may have set off the resistance Mr. Paween said he faced. “In the history of arrests in the country, there are not many times we’ll see the arrest of a military general,” he said. “They are upset. They lose face. They are angry.” Mr. Paween said he believed his work was fulfilling a national agenda that included aggressively investigating and prosecuting those involved in human trafficking, which has received widespread international attention. “This is to help people who are suffering,” he said. “What I have done is righteous. We give justice.” The investigation, and the indication that Thailand was sincere about thwarting trafficking across its borders, may have contributed to the appearance of boats carrying thousands of migrants in the Andaman Sea in May. Rights groups say traffickers began to hold people at sea while awaiting payments, or even abandoned the boats out of fear of arrest, instead of holding them in camps in southern Thailand, as they had before. Mr. Paween said that he was under pressure to scale back his investigation and that he had received calls from angry superiors and people who warned him he was facing great risk. Soon after he submitted the case to prosecutors, he said, he was ordered to relocate to Thailand’s deep south. Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia is a hotbed of human trafficking. Rohingya — a predominantly Muslim group fleeing oppression in Myanmar — and migrants from Bangladesh are held in camps or offshore until their families can pay ransom for passage to Malaysia. Conditions in the camps can be brutal, and mass graves have been found on both sides of the Thailand-Malaysia border this year. Mr. Paween said on Thursday that he feared being sent to the area because of connections between traffickers and corrupt authorities. “There are many human traffickers there,” he said. “These influential people are rich. If I were to be sent there, I would be in the dangerous position.” Thailand is facing a long-running insurgency in the south, and Mr. Paween noted that the violence could easily provide cover for an attack on him. When he asked for another posting, he said, it was refused. His resignation prompted criticism in Thailand that an officer had little chance of success in tackling corruption among the police and armed forces. “A good person has no place in this country,” a columnist in the newspaper Thai Rath wrote after Mr. Paween’s resignation. Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said that Mr. Paween’s flight and the transfer of other investigators in the trafficking inquiry raised questions about the protection of witnesses and what would now happen to the case. “It is clear his investigation was truncated,” Mr. Robertson said. “He was pursuing leads, and he felt there was a lot more information to be gotten, particularly from financial documents to see where the money has gone. Obviously that got to be too much for some people. Who those people are is a big question.” Amy Smith, the executive director of the human rights group Fortify Rights, said in a written statement: “This trial is a test of Thailand’s commitment to end human trafficking, and the prognosis isn’t looking good.” “Paween and other investigators should be supported to combat human trafficking in Thailand,” the statement continued, “not be forced into hiding.” | Human trafficking;Paween Pongsirin;Thailand;Australia;Human Rights;Rohingya;Right of asylum;Malaysia;Myanmar,Burma |
ny0003789 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2013/04/11 | Uruguay: Same-Sex Marriage Is Legalized | Uruguayan lawmakers voted Wednesday to legalize same-sex marriage, making the South American country the third in the Americas to do so, after Canada and Argentina. President José Mujica, whose governing Broad Front majority backed the law, is expected to put it into effect within 10 days. | Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Legislation;Uruguay;Jose Mujica |
ny0001998 | [
"sports",
"autoracing"
] | 2013/03/08 | Nascar Fines Denny Hamlin for Criticizing Gen-6 Car | Denny Hamlin was fined $25,000 by Nascar for criticizing the new Gen-6 car after last week’s race at Phoenix. Hamlin had compared the new racecar unfavorably to last year’s car after his third-place finish, angering Nascar officials who are concerned about the Gen-6 car’s public perception. “I’m never going to believe in it,” Hamlin said. “And so as far as I’m concerned, I’m not going to pay the fine. If they suspend me, they suspend me at this point.” | Car Racing;Denny Hamlin;NASCAR |
ny0077365 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/05/08 | Long Lines of Mourners Pay Tribute to Officer Brian Moore | BETHPAGE, N.Y. — The word “wake” comes in part from the Old English “wacian,” which means to stay awake or keep watch. At the wake on Thursday for Officer Brian Moore, a steady stream of mourners kept watch over the body of a young man who had kept watch over New York City. On an incongruously beautiful spring afternoon, long lines of mourners — city police officers, state troopers, members of the Nassau County Sheriff’s Department and ordinary residents — made their way into the neo-Classical-style entrance of the Fredrick J. Chapey & Sons Funeral Home here on Long Island to pay their respects to Officer Moore. He died on Monday , two days after a gunman carrying a stolen pistol shot him as he sat in his patrol car on a Queens street. Although the wake did not officially begin until 2 p.m., shortly after noon the streets around the funeral home were flooded with a blue tide of police officers in dress uniforms, many with their ceremonial white gloves crisply tucked beneath their epaulets. Video Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York attended a wake for Police Officer Brian Moore in Bethpage, N.Y., on Thursday. Officer Moore died from a gunshot wound he received on Saturday in Queens. Credit Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Almost every unit in the Police Department, from evidence collection to counterterrorism, was represented, and fellow officers from as far away as Phoenix showed up in support. “I’m here to pay homage to a fallen hero,” said Richard Ditman, a 66-year-old former police officer from Stony Brook, N.Y. “That could be my son.” Officer Moore, 25, was on plainclothes patrol on Saturday with his partner, Officer Erik Jansen, when the two saw a man walking on a sidewalk, adjusting something in his waistband. They pulled up alongside the man and asked him what he was carrying, and the man drew a handgun, firing at close range and striking Officer Moore in the face . Young enough to still be living at home with his family, including his father, Raymond, who also served in the department, Officer Moore had been on the force for five years and was assigned to the 105th Precinct in Queens Village. Department officials said he was off to a promising career, making more than 150 arrests and earning several service medals. Image Officer Moore, 25, was shot in the head. Credit New York Police Department Officers from his station house were among the first to enter the funeral home. They had been called from the street outside — where they had been embracing one another and sipping from bottles of water — to file in loose ranks past tall white columns adorned with funereal blue ribbons. More blue ribbons lined the street lamps and utility poles on Hicksville Road, which, throughout the afternoon, was filled with police officers and the relatives of officers making the somber pilgrimage toward Officer Moore’s body. “I’ve been in this family” — the Police Department — “for 20 years,” said Chiquita Carter, whose husband, Richard, is a detective and whose son, Keenan, is a rookie officer, the same age as Officer Moore. “It was important to come out today to show we stick together.” Not long after the wake began, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo arrived, calling the killing of Officer Moore “a terrible tragedy.” Image Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, in crowd facing the camera, outside a Long Island funeral home on Thursday for the wake. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times “Once again, it’s an awful reminder of the sacrifice that men and women in law enforcement make,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I said to the father: ‘Your son must have really loved you. He followed Dad into the business.’ I know a little about that.” William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, also attended, but left without speaking to the news media. Deputy Inspector Mike Coyle, a senior officer at Officer Moore’s precinct, said the young man was “every commanding officer’s dream.” He added, “If I had an army of Brian Moores, there’d be no crime in the city.” Later in the day, Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, visited the funeral home and spoke about the risks inherent in police work: “Every day our law enforcement puts their lives on the line for public safety. It’s important, in my view, that people in government, people in Washington, come out and pay our respects.” Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived a little before 7:30 p.m. He walked solemnly toward the funeral home and spoke with police officers outside before entering. The mayor spent about 40 minutes inside and left without making a statement. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, also attended the wake. Image Mourners included the family of slain officer Wenjian Liu, who was shot in his patrol car in Brooklyn in December. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times Fatal shootings of police officers in New York and elsewhere are at a periodic low, but Officer Moore was the fifth city officer to be shot since December, when Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were killed, execution style, in their squad car on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. Members of Officer Liu’s family were among the mourners at Officer Moore’s wake. Security at the wake was tight. Tactical units from New York and Nassau County were stationed around the funeral home in body armor, carrying heavy weapons. Police dogs and their handlers patrolled the grounds as a police helicopter circled above. The wake was expected to be one of the largest for a slain city officer in years, said James Carver, the president of the Nassau County Police Benevolent Association. “As long as the memory of Officer Moore survives, he will never die,” Mr. Carver said. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that mourners came together to honor Officer Moore. On the day he died, about 1,000 people attended a candlelight vigil on an athletic field at Plainedge High School in North Massapequa, where he had been a student. The next day, another crowd stood silently by as Officer Moore’s body arrived at the funeral home in a Police Department ambulance that pulled up to the building after passing under a giant American flag draped between two fire trucks. A funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Friday at St. James Roman Catholic Church in Seaford, on Long Island. | Brian Moore;NYPD;Attacks on Police;Funerals;Murders and Homicides;Demetrius Blackwell;Long Island |
ny0200812 | [
"business"
] | 2009/09/17 | Subpoenas Said to Be Issued in Merrill Case | Capping a week of scrutiny for Bank of America , New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo took another swing on Wednesday at uncovering which of the bank’s executives knew about large losses and bonus payouts at Merrill Lynch just before the two banks merged last year. In an unusual move that could herald closer examination of corporate boards, Mr. Cuomo issued subpoenas to five current and former directors of the bank as part of his continuing inquiry into its hastily arranged takeover of Merrill, a person briefed on the investigation said. A second person briefed on the inquiry said the directors who had received subpoenas included members of the firm’s audit committee, which was responsible for reviewing significant legal matters, including the takeover of Merrill. Both the individuals who had been briefed on the inquiry asked not to be identified because they had signed confidentiality agreements involving the matter. The subpoenaed board members include William Barnet III, a real estate executive and the mayor of Spartanburg, S.C.; John T. Collins, a venture capital investor based in Boston; Tommy R. Franks , the retired four-star Army general; Walter E. Massey, the former president of Morehouse College in Atlanta; and Thomas J. May, head of the Boston utility company NSTAR, this person said. Mr. Cuomo’s office wants to know whether Bank of America’s board knew of additional losses discovered at Merrill after the merger was signed, as well as billions of dollars in bonus payments made to Merrill executives before the deal closed. Based on earlier interviews with the bank’s executives, investigators believe the bank’s audit committee and other directors might have known about losses and bonus payments before shareholders voted to approve the deal in early December, this person said. “A big unanswered question as we look back on the financial crisis is — where were the boards?” Mr. Cuomo said in an e-mail message. “Did the boards of directors of our largest financial institutions protect the rights of shareholders, were they misled, or were they little more than rubber stamps for management’s decision-making?” The scrutiny comes as Bank of America, which has accepted $45 billion in government bailouts, faces mounting pressures over its merger with Merrill. This week, Judge Jed S. Rakoff rejected a settlement that would have put an end to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into possible securities violations by the bank in the Merrill deal. In his ruling, the judge criticized the S.E.C. for not holding individuals at Bank of America accountable. The ruling could pave the way for a public court battle between the bank and the S.E.C. early next year. It is rare for prosecutors to subpoena members of a company’s board in a criminal case. Mr. Cuomo’s action is an indication that board members may not be immune to charges in cases where executives they oversee are prosecuted, said Cornelius Hurley, a professor at the Boston University School of Law. “I would be very concerned if I was a director of Bank of America,” Mr. Hurley said. Mr. Cuomo’s office plans to issue subpoenas to all 15 board members in the coming weeks, according to one of the people briefed on the investigation. Investigators plan to ask the directors how much they knew about Merrill’s losses, and what role they played in decisions about disclosing information to shareholders, the person said. The attorney general also plans to ask board members about what pressure the government may have brought to bear on the bank’s decision to disclose the bonuses and losses to shareholders, as well as whether government officials said they would remove management and the board if Bank of America didn’t proceed with the deal. A Bank of America spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said the bank will continue to cooperate with Mr. Cuomo’s office. “There is no basis for charges against either the company or individual members of the management team.” | Bank of America Corp;Cuomo Andrew M;Merrill Lynch & Co;Executive Compensation;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Boards of Directors;Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Franks Tommy R;Massey Walter E |
ny0244347 | [
"business",
"energy-environment"
] | 2011/04/04 | Ray LaHood to Unveil Pipeline Safety Effort | WASHINGTON — With so many pipeline accidents in the last few months that federal investigators cannot get to them all, the secretary of transportation plans to introduce a safety campaign on Monday aimed at coordinating federal, state and local oversight and making more information available to the public about potential hazards under foot. “I want to be able to say to people, when you throw a light switch, you shouldn’t cause an explosion in your front yard,” the secretary, Ray LaHood , said in an interview. “We ought to have the decency to tell people there’s a pipeline in the front yard, if they want to know that.” And pipeline owners will come under pressure to assure that their pipelines, mostly out of sight and out of mind, are safe, he said. Mr. LaHood will announce the campaign in Allentown, Pa., where an explosion from a natural gas pipeline killed five people on Feb. 9. In September, a 30-inch-diameter pipeline in San Bruno, Calif., exploded, killing eight people and burning down three dozen houses. Federal safety investigators, busy with the San Bruno catastrophe, said they did not have time to investigate the Allentown accident and would have to leave it to Pennsylvania officials. And in July, a pipeline in Kalamazoo, Mich., ruptured and spilled more than a million gallons of a petroleum mixture derived from Canadian tar sands. The form of oil , which has become more popular as world prices have risen, is especially corrosive, according to Anthony R. Swift, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. But federal regulations have not caught up with this problem, he said. Mr. LaHood is asking Congress to increase the civil penalties his department can levy on companies that violate pipeline rules — to $250,000 a day from the current $100,000, and to $2.5 million for a series of violations, up from $1 million. He also wants to close some regulatory loopholes, including those that allow some pipelines to escape any regulation at all. Companies that drill natural gas wells often transfer the gas to high-pressure transmission hubs through pipes that are sometimes completely unregulated, experts say. Deborah Nardone, a natural gas expert at the Sierra Club, said that to get permission to drill on private property, companies sometimes promise to deliver gas to the landowner’s home, and the pipe to the home is unregulated. Despite the series of recent accidents, the Transportation Department says those that result in death or serious injury are down nearly 60 percent over the last 20 years. But some of the accidents reveal deep problems. At San Bruno, for example, Pacific Gas and Electric did not understand what kind of pipe it had buried in the ground. Pipe fabrication flaws in the 1950s helped lay the groundwork for the accident, and more recent problems, including a poor understanding of the computers used to manage the system, may also have played a role. Aging pipelines are also a problem. In Pennsylvania, according to the Transportation Department, some cast iron pipes laid in the 1930s do not legally have to be replaced until 2111, when they would be 180 years old. New York State has a requirement that its oldest cast iron pipes be replaced by 2090, but many are already decades old, according to the department. Mr. LaHood said he had met with the executives of major natural gas companies to discuss better surveillance of pipelines and a new replacement schedule. Cynthia L. Quarterman, the administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said her office did not have the authority to order replacement of pipes unless it found an “imminent hazard.” And, she said, pipes only had to be “fit for service.” “There is no hundred-year deadline for any piece of pipe,” she said, although companies “have to assure it’s been operated and tested appropriately.” But Mr. LaHood said “the point of this is to get everybody around the table and say, O.K., another 100 years in the ground is not going to cut it. We’re trying to work with all the stakeholders to reach a conclusion.” Mr. Swift, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “Part of the problem is there hasn’t been a focus on the replacement schedule, what we do with these 50 or 70 years down the line. People are aware it’s aging, but it’s a process we didn’t plan for gracefully.” | Pipelines;Accidents and Safety;Regulation and Deregulation of Industry;LaHood Ray;Transportation Department (US);Explosions;Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration |
ny0195757 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2009/10/20 | Asian Catalyst Spurs Oil's Renewed Advance | SINGAPORE — The International Energy Agency in Paris this month raised its forecast for world oil demand next year for a fourth consecutive month. One of the main reasons cited was stronger than expected economic growth in Asia. A year ago, Asian exports were falling off a cliff, and economists were predicting the worst recession in 50 years. But the winds have turned quickly and Asia now appears to be experiencing its fastest recovery in 50 years. This is already affecting oil prices and will do so even more in coming months. Just as Asian demand drove oil prices up in the boom years, a new wave of Asian demand will probably push prices higher again, economists say. Most recent economic indicators seem to confirm that Asia is heading into a V-shaped recovery, rather than a double-dip recession. In the Asia region, excluding Japan, economic growth measured by gross domestic product accelerated in the second quarter to a 4.5 percent annual rate, up from 2.6 percent annual growth in the first quarter, Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist at Nomura, said in a research note. Excluding both China and Japan, aggregate G.D.P. growth was lower, but it still showed a slight recovery, to 1.1 percent year-on-year, after contracting 0.8 percent in the first quarter. “The V-shaped recovery in the manufacturing sector may be the sharpest on record,” said David Carbon, head of economic and currency research at DBS Group in Singapore. “Industrial production is already back to pre-crisis levels as of July.” He added: “Amazingly, to some, Asia has managed this all on its own power — import demand from the U.S. only turned north in June. As we have often argued, it’s a new world out there and Asia is at the center of it.” Industrial production in China, unlike other economies in Northeast Asia, did not drop significantly after the initial shock waves of the spreading economic crisis. Measured output, adjusted to filter out seasonal variations, started to pick up as early as March. By August it was 12.3 percent higher than a year earlier and growing faster than at any time in the previous 12 months, buoyed by the government’s massive stimulus policies. Meanwhile, factory production in Japan has continued to eke out growth since March, though the pace of expansion slowed sharply through the summer. And South Korean industrial output rose year-on-year for the first time in 10 months in July — up 0.9 percent — and rose again, by 1.2 percent, in August. The Asian recovery has been noted by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. “You guys must realize that there is a fundamental change in the market,” the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said at an OPEC meeting last month. “Economic growth is the name of the game. That’s what’s going to drive the price. As long as economic growth is there, the price is going to go up.” Crude oil prices have risen above $70 a barrel from a low of $32 in February and Mr. Carbon says he expects Asian demand to drive them up higher. “Hopefully we don’t go back to $140 a barrel,” he said, “but if you were to stretch this out over three to five years, that’s where my money would be.” Not everyone agrees. Jan Lambregts, global head of financial markets research at Rabobank International, told its Singapore clients that, despite the importance of Indian and Chinese demand, historically high crude oil inventory levels raised a doubt over the further upward potential for prices. Some of this year’s rise may have been driven by speculative demand, he said. Some economists, too, remain cautious about the strength of the Asian recovery, arguing it could transform into a W-shaped double dip. Exports, they note, are still anemic and could stay that way until Western economies pick up speed. Mr. Carbon disagreed, pointing to the growing importance of the Chinese market for its neighbors. “Since January, Asian exports to China have surged and are now 90 percent back to pre-crisis level,” he said. With that vast and unsaturated market on its doorstep, Mr. Carbon added, “beyond the next six months, we don’t think that Asia is going to be looking for a three- to four-year period of slow growth, like many people are predicting for the United States. That’s not what we see in our crystal ball.” Asia emerged from the 2000 to 2001 recession sooner and more robustly than the United States did, and “this time it’s leading the U.S. by an even bigger margin,” Mr. Carbon said. “Industrial output in Asia is already three-quarters back to pre-crisis levels, while it’s still falling in the US.” Based on this, he said, “Asia will recover before the U.S., and Asia’s demand for oil and other commodities will be back, all too quickly.” Manu Bhaskaran, of Centennial Asia Advisors, also believes demand for oil will continue to rise in the region. “The likely continued high growth in China and accelerating growth in India, Indonesia and Vietnam are all entering the higher energy intensity of their economic development,” Mr. Bhaskaran said. “This will push growth in energy demand in Asia relative to the rest of the globe.” According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009, released in June, global primary energy consumption — including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydro power — grew by 1.4 percent last year, the slowest rate since 2001. In the United States, the world’s leading energy user, consumption dropped 2.8 percent, the largest decline since 1982. But, for the first time, non-members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which groups 30 industrialized nations, saw their consumption leapfrog that of the O.E.C.D. members, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for 87 percent of growth in global energy consumption. For oil alone, global consumption fell last year by 0.6 percent, or 420,000 barrels a day — the first decline since 1993. That included a steep fall in demand, of 1.5 million barrels a day, from the O.E.C.D. countries — their third consecutive year of decline — and slower growth in demand, up just 1.1 million barrels a day, from outside the O.E.C.D., the report said. At the presentation of the review in London, the BP chief executive Tony Hayward said: “The center of gravity of the global energy markets has tilted sharply and irreversibly towards the emerging nations of the world, especially China.” Still, that needs to be kept in perspective, Mr. Carbon said. Asia may be driving the growth in global oil demand, but it still only accounted for 20 percent of total world consumption last year, he said. “The per capita consumption of oil in China and India is so low relative to the per capita consumption in the more developed countries,” Mr. Carbon added. “In China, it’s like a 10th or a 20th of what it is in the U.S.” | Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Far East South and Southeast Asia and Pacific Areas;China;Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0007348 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/05/26 | As Boozy Invaders Hit Beach, Hamptons Sound a Snooki Alert | AMAGANSETT, N.Y. — For generations, few beaches in the Hamptons were more coveted and jealously protected than Indian Wells. Its high dunes and wide stretches of clean white sand have inspired painters and writers, and have fed real estate values of up to $20 million for the mansions that face it. And only cars with the blue-and-white permits of town homeowners can be parked in its lot, giving the beach an exclusive, local flavor. Then, last summer, they started arriving by bus and by van, including one with an ominous black pirate flag: hundreds of young partyers from parts unknown, hauling kegs and cases of beer with them, guzzling it down fraternity style and, in a couple of cases immortalized in police summonses, relieving themselves in the dunes. The local newspaper, The East Hampton Star, called it The Invasion of the Beery Beach Blanketeers. Now, in the quieter precincts of the Hamptons, some residents are fearing that the shift in the societal order could be made worse this year by a new wave of partyers, some of them driven north by Hurricane Sandy rebuilding efforts at New Jersey’s rowdy beaches. They raise the question with only half-mock horror: Could Nicole Polizzi — a k a Snooki — be far behind, she who came to personify beach-side, drunken, disorderly conduct on MTV? The worry is less about the newcomers’ origins, they say, than about their tranquility-shattering behavior. “You don’t want to come across as snooty, but it’s about peace and quiet for all of us,” said Dayna Winter, 49, a registered dietitian and a year-round resident who watched with dismay last summer as some of the partyers tried to entice her 15-year-old niece to join them. (They failed.) “It’s not a party scene; it’s not what we want it to become.” Image Last year, a rowdy crowd began showing up at Indian Wells Beach in East Hampton, adding to the crowds and transportation log jam. Credit David Rattray “With the devastation of Sandy,” she added, “we’re all a little nervous.” Every year there is a new sense of invasion in the Hamptons, much of it based on perception and anecdotal evidence that the crowds keep getting larger and, recently, louder. But some statistics back it up. Hampton Jitney, the largest city-to-East End bus service, says its ridership has grown by roughly 5 percent each year since 2008. The Long Island Rail Road reports that summer ridership on its Hamptons-bound branch, the Montauk Line, increased by more than 30 percent — to 196,000 rides — from 2011 to 2012. Railroad officials expect it to rise that much more this season as they move the embarkation point of their crowded, Friday afternoon beach express, the Cannonball, to Penn Station from the less accessible Hunters Point, Queens. The express’s two reserved cars on Friday had a backlog of 500 requests, this for a Memorial Day weekend that was predicted to be a chilly washout. “People want to get out there and they want to get out there in a hurry, and unless they have a helicopter, the railroad’s the best bet,” said the railroad’s vice president for customer service, Joe Calderone. This is not necessarily welcome news for the helicopter set. The boom in public transportation arrivistes is in keeping with the latest phase in the Hamptons’ evolution, which has historically involved a tangle of class and sensibility issues, localism, and environmental concerns. Long after English settlers barged in on the Montauket tribe, their fields of livestock and crops gave way to a privileged world symbolized by old-money estates, khakis and blue blazers. Eventually came the nouveau riche with their mega-mansions, corporate planes and over-the-top tent parties. That invasion continues, exemplified by Jennifer Lopez’s recent purchase of a $10 million home in Watermill and the gridlock of helicopters at local airports. Now there comes a new, and apparently thirstier, group of day-trippers. “There was a time when you had to be on the inside to be part of the Hamptons, and that’s not true anymore,” said the East Hampton-based author Steven Gaines, whose 1998 book “Philistines at the Hedgerow” gave him something approaching Walter Cronkite status on the East End. “It’s become a tourist stop, and it has lost some of its exclusivity.” But, he said, perhaps this is inevitable in the Hamptons, where “it’s always a conflict between Them versus Us, and Them always wins.” Longtime residents say they have been here before. David E. Rattray, 49, the editor of East Hampton Star, said similar concerns swept Amagansett when a new group of young partyers took over a different part of the beach — which locals named Asparagus Beach, comparing the standing beachgoers to Asparagus stalks — in the 1970s. “It was the same kind of hand-wringing hysteria that ‘It’s the end of civilization as we know it,’ ” he said. Mr. Rattray is the fifth member of his family to edit the newspaper over the span of three generations, with roots in the community since the 1600s. “To us it’s one big blur of people from ‘away,’ ” he said. “That fear of Snooki thing may be the last people in pulling the ladder up behind them.” Image A new wave of revelers arrived on Friday. Credit Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times Councilwoman Sylvia Overby of East Hampton, who has been working on a plan to avoid the same beach drinking antics this summer, said she was concerned that the Indian Wells beach partyers represented something different from the merry denizens of Asparagus Beach. “A lot of those people ended up second-home owners out here and thinking about this place fondly; it wasn’t a hit and run,” she said. The situation at Indian Wells — in the East Hampton hamlet of Amagansett — was a couple of years in the making. A group of dozens of young merrymakers started having parties there toward the end of the 2011 season. Through word of mouth and then a post about the scene there on the plugged-in party Web site, Guest of a Guest, the crowd last summer grew into hundreds of people hauling pony kegs and cases of beer across the beach. And, in what Capt. Michael Sarlo of the East Hampton Police Department called “a new phenomenon,” there was the jarring arrival of packed buses and vans driving through the residents-only parking lot, dropping people off and picking them up. “It blew up out of nowhere,” said Kieran Brew, a local real estate agent. Marc Schultz, Ms. Winter’s husband and an investor, went so far as to suggest in a letter to the Star that authorities eliminate drinking during lifeguard hours. In a place where a couple of afternoon beers by the ocean is kind of the whole point, the idea fell flat. “Even friends were like, ‘What is he? Out of his mind?’ ” Mr. Schultz said. He added: “I just want us all to enjoy our summer without Spring Break in Cancún.” Less radical countermeasures are being considered, including a weekend plan to ban from the parking lot non-resident vehicles longer than 30 feet or carrying more than eight passengers. As for Snooki herself, she showed up in Seaside Heights, N.J., on “Today” on Friday to declare, “Everyone’s here and it’s getting rebuilt.” But an MTV spokesman, asked whether Season 3 of her new show could take her to the Hamptons, said, “You never know where it will take them.” | Hamptons;Hurricane Sandy;Beach |
ny0141116 | [
"sports",
"othersports"
] | 2008/02/25 | Slow Day Can’t Keep Angler From Title | GREENVILLE, S.C. — The spectator and media boats were starting to gather behind Alton Jones just after noon here Sunday as he started to build a seemingly insurmountable lead in the Bassmasters Classic. He was tucked in at a spot on Lake Hartwell the locals call Party Island, and camera shutters clicked and an ESPN broadcast crew bobbed in the water 75 yards away from where he was throwing his bait. Jones, a demure Texan, did not feel like a party. He waved off the boats that threatened his stealth and kept working his ditch. Jones, 44, did not know it, but by the time he flipped his fifth and final fish — a slight 2-pound 4-ounce bass — into his Skeeter boat at 12:47 p.m., he had built a six-pound lead. That is a substantial advantage on a good day of fishing, and an overwhelming one on a modest day like Sunday. Five hours later, Jones finally felt secure because he was raising the trophy for winning the Bassmasters Classic and the $500,000 first prize before a crowd of 13,300 at BI-LO Center. “When I went in to the weigh-in, I thought I had an outside chance at best that I would win the Bassmasters Classic,” Jones said. “I never dreamed it would be a victory with as poorly as I had done compared to the previous days.” Jones was 10th after Friday’s first round with 17 pounds 5 ounces, then leaped to first after catching 18 pounds 11 ounces on Saturday. He had only 13 pounds 7 ounces in his bag Sunday in the final round. Jones won the three-day event, the Super Bowl of the B.A.S.S. circuit, with 49 pounds 7 ounces. It was his first victory in 12 tries in the Classic and he won handily — by 5 pounds 2 ounces over Cliff Pace of Petal, Miss. “It was hard to keep track of them,” Pace said. “There was one here, one there all day long.” Kevin VanDam, a two-time winner of the Classic, finished third with 43 pounds 8 ounces. Skeet Reese, the 2007 Angler of the Year, was 12th with 39 pounds. Jones, who is from Waco, said his only tactics were to use a pigskin jig and a bait he called A J’s Go-To jig on 14-pound line. Jones said he stayed in drains full of timber that were 35 feet deep. When he cast, he fed the line to help the fall of the bait, then he would bump the bait along the bottom. “I was bringing bait down the middle of channel and as I felt the pigskin jig bump over a piece of wood, I would get ready because that’s when every one of my strikes would occur.” Jones said he did not catch a fish in the first two places he went Sunday. He caught his first fish at 10 a.m., moved to another spot and caught his next two on consecutive casts. Just after noon he moved to Party Island and caught his last two. Seemingly unaware that he was in command, Jones raced to two more spots on the lake with a flotilla of boats following him. VanDam and Reese said a change in the weather made it a grind. A cold front was harsher than expected and knocked some anglers off their game plans. “I made a gamble to stay shallow, I was betting on warmer weather,” Reese said. “The worst thing that could have happened was the cold front moving in as strong as it did. That made it a tournament of all or nothing.” | Jones Alton;Fishing Sport;ESPN;Reese Skeet |
ny0238839 | [
"us"
] | 2010/12/05 | Arizona’s Medicaid Cuts for Transplants Is Seen as Sign of Financial Times | With enrollments exploding, revenues shrinking and the low-hanging fruit plucked long ago, virtually every state has had to make painful cuts to its Medicaid program during the economic downturn. What distinguishes the reductions recently imposed in Arizona, where coverage was eliminated on Oct. 1 for certain transplants of the heart, liver, lung, pancreas and bone marrow, is the decision to stop paying for treatments urgently needed to ward off death. The cuts in transplant coverage, which could deny organs to 100 adults currently on the transplant list, are testament to both the severity of fiscal pressures on the states and the particular bloodlessness of budget-cutting in Arizona. “It’s a real sign of the times,” said Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy . “And I think this is a precursor to a much larger number of states having this discussion.” Policy choices with such life-threatening implications are all the more striking given the partisan framing of the health debate. Republicans have argued that the new health law will lead to rationing, warning even of “death panels.” Democrats have responded that care is already rationed, with 50 million people going largely without insurance, and that the law will bring greater equity. The Arizona case, said Diane Rowland, director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured , “is a classic example of making decisions based not on medical need but based on a budget.” And, she added, “it results, potentially, in denial of care to individuals in a life-or-death situation.” The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services do not monitor which states use Medicaid money for transplants. But health experts said no other state had withdrawn coverage for patients pursuing transplants. Arizona’s decision, by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, and the Republican-controlled Legislature, was made after state officials assessed success and survival rates for a number of transplant procedures. National transplant groups call the figures misleading. “It seems inappropriate that life-saving care has the potential to be withheld based solely on budgetary issues and the bureaucratic determination of relative benefits,” said Dr. Robert S. Gaston, president-elect of the American Society of Transplantation . There is usually a long-term consequence to short-term cuts in safety-net programs like Medicaid, which insures low-income Americans and is financed by state and federal governments. When payments to doctors are cut, fewer providers are willing to treat Medicaid patients. When eligibility levels are lowered, more people are left to seek charity care in emergency rooms. When optional benefits like dental services and prescription drugs are eliminated, conditions worsen until they require more expensive care. But no other state in recent memory has made such a numbers-driven calculation pitting the potential loss of life against modest savings. Jennifer Carusetta, the legislative liaison for Arizona’s Medicaid agency, said the transplant cuts would save a mere $800,000 in the current fiscal year, and only $1.4 million for a full year. The cuts were imposed in an effort to close a $2.6 billion shortfall in the state’s $8.9 billion budget for this year. The options available to states for cutting Medicaid have been limited because the federal stimulus package and the health care law have required them to maintain eligibility levels. That has left states to cut payments to providers and trim benefits not required by federal regulations. Many states, including Arizona, have done both. A September report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 39 states cut provider payments and 20 cut optional benefits in their 2010 fiscal years, with similar numbers planning to do so in 2011. Arizona reduced Medicaid payments to doctors by 5 percent last year and has frozen payments to hospitals and nursing homes for two years. All providers will undergo another 5 percent cut on April 1, Ms. Carusetta said. This year, Arizona became the only state to eliminate its Children’s Health Insurance Program , which would have affected 47,000 children of working-class parents. Lawmakers reversed course before the effective date only after concluding that the state might run afoul of federal requirements and lose billions of dollars in matching money. The state has also enacted a wide range of Medicaid cuts, eliminating coverage for emergency dental procedures, insulin pumps and orthotics. “We realize this has serious impacts on people,” Ms. Carusetta said. “Unfortunately, given the fiscal constraints facing our state, the Legislature has limited options at this point.” | Arizona;Medicaid;Transplants;Budgets and Budgeting;Health Insurance and Managed Care |
ny0197198 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/10/23 | A Case of Domestic Abuse Fraud Shows It’s Rarely Suspected | In the city’s rich history of fraud schemes, the cases described this week by the city’s Department of Investigation would not seem to rank up there with mortgage scams or fake Medicare patients: Six women were accused of posing as victims of domestic violence to gain subsidized housing. Such cases are so rare, and the issue so sensitive, that city officials and advocates for domestic violence victims said that they are not usually on the lookout for fraud when people come forward with claims of abuse. “The screening process that we have is really designed to understand what situation the person is in and how to best go about developing a safety plan for the individual and their children,” said Yolanda B. Jimenez, the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence , which operates two free drop-in centers, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens. “For everybody who calls, everyone who walks through the door, their claims are taken at face value.” More than 36,000 people have sought help at the centers since 2005 and can receive legal support, counseling and emergency shelter, among other services. Ms. Jimenez said she believed that there was no fraud involved in any of those cases. There would not seem to be much financial gain to domestic violence fraud. But there are a range of public benefits available to women who have been beaten by their spouses or companions. The women who were arrested forged documents, including police reports, identifying themselves as abuse victims to gain priority for government subsidized housing, officials said this week. There are long waiting lists for the housing, and only three groups of people are given priority: former foster care youths, intimidated witnesses referred by prosecutors, and victims of domestic violence. Nonprofit organizations offer services including immigration assistance, financial counseling and free legal advice to domestic violence victims. Victims who are not legal United States residents can gain eligibility for a so-called U visa, which will eventually lead to a green card, said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services . The agency screens applicants through law enforcement agencies, which provide referrals and documentation, Ms. Rhatigan said. In certain cases, victims of domestic violence who receive welfare are granted a waiver from work requirements. They also can stay in one of 42 emergency shelters for abuse victims, which are often smaller and more nurturing than typical shelters, with a higher staff-to-client ratio. At the city office in the Bronx where families apply for shelter, people who identify themselves as domestic violence victims are interviewed for up to an hour to determine if they need emergency shelter. No documentation is required to prove abuse, said Barbara Brancaccio, a spokeswoman for the city’s Human Resources Administration , which operates domestic violence shelters. At the shelters, employees occasionally discover that women have exaggerated their abuse, but they are not forced to leave the facilities, Ms. Brancaccio said. Bonnie Genevich, a division director for Good Shepherd Services , which runs a 20-bed shelter in Brooklyn for domestic violence victims, said staff members conduct thorough interviews. “We ask them a lot about the relationship to the abuser, the level of abuse, if there is a criminal record, if there’s been drug abuse, whether they’ve been abused during pregnancy, how often the incidents have occurred, where they occurred,” she said. “As you go on and on, you could tell if the story doesn’t hold together.” That said, the system is not “set up to catch people,” she said, adding that she has never encountered a case of fraud. Howard Marder, a spokesman for the New York City Housing Authority , where the suspected housing scheme was uncovered, said the agency reviewed all applications to check for “irregularities or alterations.” At least two forms of documentation are required to obtain abuse victim status, and they could include a police report, order of protection and family court petition. But in many cases, agencies will provide help even if victims of abuse have not called the police or sought treatment for injuries. “Some of them can’t or don’t have the documents they need,” said Maureen Curtis, the associate vice president of Bronx Criminal Justice and Community Programs for Safe Horizon . “Does it mean that the person is not a victim of domestic violence? No.” | Domestic Violence;Frauds and Swindling;Housing Authority (NYC);Department of Investigation;Citizenship and Immigration Services (US);Violence |
ny0096668 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2015/01/14 | Azarenka Isn’t Seeded for Australian Open | The two-time champion and former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka missed out on a seeding at the Australian Open after falling in the rankings to No. 41 in the first weeks of 2015. Serena Williams is the top seed on the women’s side, and Novak Djokovic holds the top men’s spot. | Tennis;Victoria Azarenka;Australian Open;Serena Williams;Novak Djokovic |
ny0249962 | [
"us"
] | 2011/02/18 | Small Brewers Want to Tap Into a Little of the Action | If you want to sample Scott Metzger’s Old Bat Rastard brew, you will have to travel to San Antonio, sit down at his pub, Freetail Brewing Company, and order a frothy glass from the tap or ask for a half-gallon growler to go. Pub owners like Mr. Metzger would love to sell their brews in retail stores, bars and restaurants, but state law prohibits it. So he and other owners have formed Texas Beer Freedom, a nonprofit lobbying organization, to push for legislation that would allow brewpubs to get their beer out beyond the bar. But the small brewers have to overcome some opponents with big names and deep pockets: the powerful beer distribution lobby. Mr. Metzger, who is also an economics lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said that while the locally brewed beer business is booming nationally, it is lagging in Texas, where the laws governing distribution are restrictive. As a result, he said, the state is losing out on tax revenue. “We and a lot of other brewpubs in the state are beginning to get a lot of nationwide notoriety for our beers,” Mr. Metzger said. “But we simply can’t get outside of our doors, literally.” Under state law, brewpubs can make and sell their beers only on site; they are not allowed to distribute their products themselves or through a separate wholesaler. Only breweries that do not sell their own products on site may distribute their beer through wholesalers. House Bill 660, filed by Representative Mike Villarreal, Democrat of San Antonio, would give them the green light to increase production, sell to beer distributors and sell directly to stores and restaurants if they produce 10,000 barrels of beer a year — the equivalent of 20,000 kegs — or less. But major beer distributors do not want to open those spigots. Their lobbyists argue that allowing brewpubs to sell their own wares would destroy the regulatory system in Texas that has operated, effectively and profitably, since the end of Prohibition. Rick Donley, president of the Beer Alliance of Texas, which lobbies for companies that distribute major-brand beer and some craft brews, said the three-tiered system — which regulates the production, distribution and retail sales of beer separately — made the beer business easier to regulate and tax, and keeps any one business from creating a monopoly. Because brewpubs are not currently regulated in the same way as distributors, Mr. Donley said he worries that their products could be shipped to dry counties or to minors. “This regulatory system has worked well since Prohibition,” Mr. Donley said. “Why anybody wants to disrupt it is a question I can never quite get an answer to.” It has worked well for the major beer producers. The top five brands in Texas, according to the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission, are Bud Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Coors Light and Natural Light. The brewpub supporters point that the legislation would make brewpubs that produce up to 10,000 barrels a year and sell directly to restaurants and stores subject to the same requirements as wholesalers and distributors “At the end of the day, it’s just about they don’t want increased competition and how that affects their personal wealth,” Mr. Metzger said. Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, the other major special interest group, declined to comment for this story. Together, the beer distribution groups have given lawmakers and Gov. Rick Perry approximately $2.5 million in campaign contributions since 2001, according to state campaign finance records. Mr. Villarreal said he hoped the brewers’ nonprofit group would generate enough support to force the big-name distributors and lawmakers to compromise. “My proposal is a start of the conversation,” he said. Texas Beer Freedom is relying on social networking and public rallies to garner support for the measure. “We know that we are definitely the underdog, big-time underdog,” Mr. Metzger said. “But that doesn’t mean we are not going to fight.” | Law and Legislation;Regulation and Deregulation of Industry;Texas;Restaurants |
ny0058603 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2014/08/05 | Washington Meeting of African Leaders Opens to Protests | WASHINGTON — Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the State Department on Monday, the start of a summit meeting here of more than 40 African heads of state, to denounce some of the leaders as “torturers” and “killers.” The protesters, who were mostly from Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, said they were angry that the White House was looking to enhance economic ties with repressive governments. “Stop financing dictators,” the crowd chanted. “President Obama, shame on you.” Obang Metho, director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia , referenced Mr. Obama’s message to African leaders during his 2009 trip. “Africa doesn’t need strongmen. It needs strong institutions,” Mr. Obama said at the time. Video Security is tight in Washington as dozens of African leaders convene for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Delegates arrive amid small protests, one against Ethiopia. Nathan Frandino reports. Credit Credit Reuters “Now he is sitting with strongmen,” Mr. Metho said. “Where are the strong institutions?” On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will host the leaders at the White House for dinner and will then take part in a series of meetings on Wednesday, mostly focused on increasing United States investment in Africa and promoting peace and stability on the continent. As the summit meeting began, the White House also announced that it would institute new programs and foreign assistance aimed at promoting gender equality in Africa. The sessions on Monday began with a forum on supporting civil society, and the leaders heard from Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “It’s not possible to succeed for your people unless they have a chance to shape the policies of their government, identify problems and root out injustices and find ways for groups to resolve their differences peacefully,” Mr. Biden said. Secretary of State John Kerry also addressed the leaders and met one-on-one with Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. When Mr. Kerry was in Congo earlier this year, he urged Mr. Kabila to step down after his current term, as Congo’s constitution requires. “Large majorities of Africans support free, accessible and fair elections and limiting their presidents to two terms in office,” Mr. Kerry said Monday. Protesters outside the State Department said they hoped that the Obama administration would continue to press Mr. Kabila on the term limit. U.S.-Africa Summit Reading List <a name="readinglist"></a>As President Obama hosts a gathering of more than 40 African leaders in Washington, explore the forces that are reshaping the African continent. “Obama must give a clear message that the president doesn’t change the constitution to stay in power,” said Constant Mbala, who moved to the United States from Congo 15 years ago. The streets between the White House and the State Department were largely absent of traffic on Monday, as Washington residents had been warned of street closings and the likelihood of traffic congestion because of heightened security and the dozens of motorcades that would be driving around town. African trade officials also convened with their American counterparts on Monday for annual meetings on the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The program, known as AGOA, lowers the tariffs on certain African goods imported to the United States, while countries in Africa are not obligated to lower the duties on any United States goods. It has been credited with helping to diversify and improve other sectors of the African economy, but oil still accounts for three-quarters of the African goods imported by the United States duty free. The program requires reauthorization by Congress next year, and one of the questions is whether South Africa should continue to benefit from preferential trade status, as some say that its current economic growth means that it should extend a preferential tariff system to some United States goods as well. But while speaking at a luncheon hosted by the National Press Club on Monday, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa dismissed this idea. “We look forward to a seamless, unconditional and long-term renewal of AGOA with South Africa included among the beneficiaries,” Mr. Zuma said. | Africa;Ethiopia;Democratic Republic of the Congo;Human Rights;International relations;Joseph Kabila |
ny0020844 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/09/05 | Hercule Poirot to Return in a New Christie Mystery | James Bond novels have carried on long beyond Ian Fleming. Decades after Margaret Mitchell’s death in 1949, “Gone With the Wind” spawned two sequels. In the latest continuation of a beloved literary property, a new Agatha Christie mystery will be released, the publisher said on Tuesday. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, said the new novel, written by Sophie Hannah and fully authorized by the Christie estate, will feature one of her most famous characters, the fastidious Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The novel, it said, is a “diabolically clever murder mystery sure to delight and baffle Christie’s fans, and those who have never read her work.” Ms. Hannah, a best-selling author of crime fiction, said she hoped to “create a puzzle that will confound and frustrate the incomparable Hercule Poirot for at least a good few chapters.” It is planned for release next September. | Books;Agatha Christie;Sophie Hannah |
ny0293604 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/06/21 | Hoping Jobs for India Follow, Modi Clears Investors’ Path | NEW DELHI — The Indian government announced sweeping changes on Monday to throw open its economy to foreign investment, providing a new path for global titans like Apple and Ikea to capitalize on the country’s growth, the fastest among the major emerging markets. The long-awaited rules, instituted through executive order, reinforced the government’s plan to develop more business-friendly policies as the country looks to spur job creation and maintain its momentum. Domestic and international companies have long complained about the difficulty of doing business in India , a factor that has stymied investment and growth. While the economy is still hampered by the country’s infrastructure deficiencies and sprawling bureaucracy, the changes represent a greater shift away from the socialist and protectionist policies of India’s modern post-independence history. The new rules will allow foreign investors to establish 100 percent ownership in companies involved in defense, civil aviation and food products, although with government approval. Foreign investors will also be permitted to buy up to 74 percent of Indian pharmaceutical companies without seeking government approval. The government similarly relaxed regulations that had made it difficult for companies like Apple and Ikea to establish retail operations in India. The election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 was widely expected to lead to more market-friendly policies , which he had championed in his years as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. The delay in bringing them about had led to widespread criticism that Mr. Modi was not moving fast enough to stimulate the economy. India’s latest reports on job creation may have tipped the scales in favor of further economic liberalization, some experts said. Domestic data showed weak employment numbers in the last quarter of 2015 in jewelry, automobiles and information technology, compared with a year earlier. The timing of his statement was almost certainly aimed at reassuring international markets. The rules were rolled out just two days after the surprise announcement by Raghuram G. Rajan , the widely respected governor of the central bank, that he would not continue for a second term. His departure has prompted uncertainty about the government’s reform plans. “Modi needed to send some signals to show government is bringing in economic reforms and they will happen with or without Rajan,” said Harsh V. Pant , a professor of international relations at King’s College in London. “The government is trying to recapture its mojo on the economic front.” Mr. Rajan, a popular figure among foreign investors, had enhanced India’s standing in international markets. But he had become controversial domestically, in part because of his crackdown on the debt-strapped banking industry and because critics wanted him to lower interest rates faster to stimulate domestic growth. His announcement that he would leave his job as governor of the central bank implied that he was moved at least in part by the preferences of the government of Mr. Modi. India began life as an independent country in 1947 with a heavily controlled, protectionist economy. It changed course in 1991 when a balance-of-payments crisis forced the government to loosen its controls on industry and reduce barriers to imports, among other things. Those changes are credited with spurring India’s transformation into the fastest-growing large economy in the world. But its growth rate of 7.6 percent is too slow to provide jobs for the one million people entering the work force each month. The previous government, and Mr. Modi’s, had promised further liberalization. Mr. Modi has struggled to enact the major changes he promised, such as making it easier for companies to acquire land, because his party does not control the upper house of Parliament. Monday’s policy shifts required only the approval of his top administration. Image Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India in June. Credit Edgard Garrido/Reuters Still, Mr. Modi is expected to win passage in July of a new law to allow the imposition of a uniform goods and services tax on the country, in place of the state-by-state taxation, making it easier for businesses to operate nationally. The tax change, together with new rules on foreign investment, could have as significant an impact on India’s economy as the 1991 reforms. “The set of reforms of the past two years could be of much greater significance than what happened in 1991,” said Surjit S. Bhalla, a New Delhi-based columnist and macroeconomic adviser on India to the Observatory Group , a consultancy. Particularly significant on Monday was the change allowing 100 percent foreign investment in defense companies in India, Mr. Bhalla and others said. India has been struggling to modernize its military in step with the growing strength and aggressiveness of China. Trying to stimulate foreign investment in defense, India in 2015 had allowed foreign ownership of up to 49 percent in defense companies but received little response. “With this liberalization, we would expect again some manufacturing activity in defense products to come in,” Shaktikanta Das, secretary of economic affairs at the Ministry of Finance, told reporters in New Delhi. “The driving force behind the whole thing is that all these investments should facilitate creation of jobs.” Previous rules, which all but required a local majority stake, had scared off foreign weapons makers who feared losing control of valuable technology, said Ben Moores, a defense analyst at IHS Jane’s, a global intelligence firm. Image Raghuram G. Rajan, who stepped down as the head of India’s central bank, last year in Mumbai. Credit Atul Loke for The New York Times Mr. Moores said the change would expose the big Indian defense companies, like Tata Advanced Systems and Hindustan Aeronautics, to competitive pressures for the first time. The Indian government plans to award more than 800 defense contracts worth $76.5 billion over the next 10 years, he said, on combat aircraft, tanks, anti-submarine equipment and more. There are benefits for smaller Indian companies as well, Mr. Moores said. Not only will their larger rivals potentially face direct, heavyweight competition from abroad, smaller companies will have opportunities to partner with outside defense contractors to gain expertise and domestic market share. Defense contractors like BAE Systems , which Mr. Moores said had been “burned” by previous experiences trying to operate in India, might now see a reason to try again. General Dynamics , which has a tank-making subsidiary, could also benefit from manufacturing inside India. The French company Dassault, which is selling Rafale fighter aircraft to India, may find a way to sweeten the $8.9 billion deal. India also relaxed its requirements that single-brand retail outlets purchase 30 percent of their supplies locally. This requirement has posed an obstacle to foreign investors who have been unable to find local sources. Apple, eager to expand its retail operations in India, had sought an exemption from this local sourcing requirement earlier this year but the Indian government appeared reluctant to comply. Under the new rules, foreign retail outlets will be given a three-year reprieve on the local sourcing requirement that could be extended to an additional five years, if the products being sold are “state of the art” and “cutting edge” technology, the government said in its announcement. An Apple spokeswoman said the company was evaluating the new rules and had no immediate comment. Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, visited India this year and met with Mr. Modi to discuss retail and manufacturing in the country, the Indian government said. Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak, a technology consulting firm in New Delhi, said the new rules removed a large hurdle to foreign single-brand retailers like Apple that wanted to open stores in India. “This will permit Apple to open its own stores and control the complete experience of the brand and the product,” Mr. Singhal said. The new pharmaceutical rules, allowing foreign firms to purchase portions of Indian drug companies, were also seen as a positive development. “This is a welcome step in the right direction,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw , chief executive of Biocon, one of India’s biggest biotechnology firms. But some consumer advocates worried that easier foreign investment could also undermine India’s role as the supplier of inexpensive generic drugs to poor countries throughout the world. “This is perhaps going to make it even easier for the bigger pharmaceutical companies to control India as a competitor in the global marketplace,” said Tahir Amin, co-founder of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, a New York-based nonprofit organization that works on access to medicines by challenging certain patents on drugs. “My prediction is the Indian generic marketplace is going to look very different in five years.” | India;Protectionism;Foreign Investment;Narendra Modi |
ny0064769 | [
"sports",
"worldcup"
] | 2014/06/11 | Help for Referees, in a Can | SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Even casual soccer fans may already be familiar with the sport’s infamous “magic spray,” the ubiquitous mist that team trainers use on seemingly every type of injury to help stricken — or, as they are occasionally known, faking — players recover from grave maladies without missing a single kick. Beginning with Thursday’s opening match of the World Cup here, however, the magic spray will have a new partner in mystical vapor: the vanishing spray. This latest addition to the aerosol array is not a medical tool to get players moving but rather an official’s tool to keep players back. At various points during every game, the referee will instruct one team to stay at least 10 yards away from the ball while the other team prepares to take a free kick. In the past, the referee would make a show of stepping off the required distance before indicating with his hand where the defenders, who often bunch together as a wall, had to stand. This display would then be followed by a familiar, wearying routine: As soon as the referee turned away, the players in the wall would shuffle forward, as if wiping their dirty shoes on a floor mat. The subversive shimmying effectively made the 10-yard rule more like 7 or 8, which is a significant difference for attackers hoping to curl a shot around the wall. If the referee noticed and had to readjust the wall, the inevitable delay — particularly if it happened multiple times each half — could make a game feel interminable. Now, the officials have (foamy) help. Once the referee calls for a free kick, he whips out a tiny can that he carries in a special belt, then sprays a bit of what looks like shaving cream at the spot where the kick should be taken before quickly pacing off the 10 yards. He then draws a line on the ground to show where the wall must go. If a player moves in front of the line before the ball is kicked, the referee can easily show the offender a yellow card for encroachment. It is a fast, clear and obvious way to handle the situation, and agronomists need not be concerned: Games with a heavy foul count do not leave fields looking as if they have been finger-painted on because by the time the players run back in the other direction, the spray has disappeared. “It’s a vital tool for ensuring that the rule is observed,” said Howard Webb, a top English referee who took charge of the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa and will be working in Brazil as well. Webb, who normally officiates in England’s Premier League, which does not use the spray, said that he was “still getting used to having a spray hanging from my waist the whole time.” Image Referee Carlos Vera using the spray during a 2013 Under-20 World Cup match. Credit Gero Breloer/Associated Press The spray, which is nontoxic, was invented in its current form by an Argentine journalist, Pablo Silva, and it first gained notice in 2008 when it was used in some South American competitions. In the years since, use of the substance, which can be used on all surfaces and is designed to fade away in 45 seconds to 2 minutes, has steadily become more widespread. “I think it makes it easier for the referees to make decisions,” United States defender Fabian Johnson said. “They have a hard job, and I think it makes the game a lot easier for them.” That is the biggest attraction of the spray, which will be seen far more often than the other new referee aid making its debut in Brazil, goal-line technology. The goal-line instruments are computer-operated cameras that will signal the referee, via a wrist buzzer, if a shot has fully crossed the goal line. They figure to be used a handful of times during the tournament. The spray, though, is quickly becoming a critical component in how referees manage a game and keep the pace of play moving. Major League Soccer is using the spray in its games. Peter Walton, a former Premier League referee who now heads the professional referees association in the United States, said he was initially skeptical about using the spray but had changed his mind. “When I first came to America, I thought it was a gimmick,” he said. “Within three weeks, I was totally sold on it.” The key, Walton said, is that the spray streamlines a process that was previously muddled. Once a referee sprays his line, “his management of that free kick area is done with, and he can then concentrate his thought process on the holding, the shoving, the blocking in the penalty area,” Walton said. “And the players accept it, because it’s tangible — you can see it,” he said. At least most of the time. While there have been a few comic slip-ups in the use of the spray — Jeffrey Solis, a Costa Rican referee, accidentally sprayed suds all over the shoes of two Mexican players last weekend — the most notable malfunction came during last season’s M.L.S. Cup. That game, which was officiated by Hilario Grajeda, was played in December in Kansas City, Kan., where temperatures dipped to about 20 degrees. When Grajeda went to use the spray in the frigid conditions, the spray was frozen. “He took the can out,” Walton recalled, sweeping his arm left to right as if to spray, “and nothing was coming out.” Walton then laughed before referring to the Amazonian site for several World Cup games in Brazil. “You won’t have that problem in Manaus,” he said. | 2014 World Cup;Referee;Soccer |
ny0219046 | [
"sports"
] | 2010/05/30 | Duke and Notre Dame Advance to Men’s Lacrosse Championship Game | BALTIMORE — The N.C.A.A. men’s lacrosse tournament has long been dominated by one of the most persistent monopolies in sports. Only four teams — Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Virginia — have won the title since 1992. Despite the game’s rapid growth, it has flourished in the same areas and been dominated by teams wearing familiar jerseys. But surprising victories in the semifinals Saturday by Duke and Notre Dame before a crowd of 44,389 at M&T Bank Stadium mean the sport will have its first newly minted champion in nearly two decades. No. 5 Duke upset No. 1 Virginia, 14-13, on a Max Quinzani shot with 12 seconds left in a scintillating game. Unseeded Notre Dame cruised past No. 7 Cornell , 12-7, in the other semifinal behind brilliant play in goal by Scott Rodgers. Neither Duke nor Notre Dame has won an N.C.A.A. men’s lacrosse title. This will be the first time two teams will play for the title without one of them having won one since 1973. For perspective, that was the third year of the N.C.A.A. tournament. A sport that is played mostly in places like upstate New York, Long Island and the Baltimore-Washington area is expanding its geographic horizons a bit, with programs in Durham, N.C., and South Bend, Ind., playing for the national title. “I feel like we’ve been knocking on this door,” Notre Dame Coach Kevin Corrigan said. “I’m excited that we’re in the championship game and I’m really hoping that if we can win a championship game, I can stop getting questions about lacrosse outside traditional areas.” The loss completed an emotional season for top-seeded Virginia, which became the biggest story in the sport when the reserve midfielder George Huguely was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Yeardley Love, who played for the Virginia women’s team. “I’m not going to lie and say it’s been easy,” Virginia’s Steele Stanwick said. “It’s been difficult.” The team has endured scrutiny and criticism, and the players lingered on the field, seemingly in disbelief, after their season ended. “I’m really proud of the team,” said Virginia Coach Dom Starsia, who wore a patch on his black polo shirt that read “Y. L.1” in honor of Love. “The fact that we played hard and came back and had a chance to roll over and we didn’t. The final score may be the least important part of what transpired here throughout the spring, really and truly.” Duke scored six straightgoals to take a 12-8 lead in the fourth quarter, but Virginia tied the score at 13-13 on a gutsy goal by Brian Carroll with 1 minute 21 seconds remaining. Then Quinzani scored his fourth goal of the game — all of them in the second half — by beating Virginia goalie Adam Ghitelman with a high shot from close range. Virginia finished its season with a 16-2 record. Both losses were to the Blue Devils, who have beaten Virginia in 9 of their past 10 meetings. Still, with No. 2 Syracuse losing in the first round of the tournament, Virginia was regarded as the heavy favorite to win the title. “It would have been so much easier if we’d won,” Starsia said. “I want to not let this diminish for them what they’ve done this season.” While Duke won thanks to its second-half offensive spurt, Notre Dame’s victory was built on a sturdy early performance from its goalie. Rodgers made eight first-quarter saves, rattling Cornell and setting the tone for a crisp and efficient defensive performance by the Irish. Corrigan channeled Yogi Berra when he described the impact Rodgers’s play had on Cornell. “I’ve been coaching for 30 years,” Corrigan said. “When goalies play well, guys shoot worse.” Corrigan’s theory had interesting implications on Saturday. Notre Dame is located the farthest west, by far, of any team to reach the national title game. Fittingly for such a far-flung squad, the Atlanta native Neal Hicks scored four goals to lead the Irish. Zach Brenneman added three. Brenneman is from East Hampton, not traditionally one of Long Island’s most fertile lacrosse areas. He said that he hoped Notre Dame’s appearance in the title game would help the sport’s growth. “It’s just like a great opportunity and I’ve always thought Notre Dame would be a contender every year,” Brenneman said. “Now we’re really putting us on the map. I think it’s great for the sport. It’s a growing sport and it’ll help maybe move the sport out West, which is what I think everyone wants.” Although the stranglehold that Virginia, Princeton, Syracuse and John Hopkins had on the sport has ended, at least temporarily, the question now is whether the national title trophy heads west or south this year. | Lacrosse;University of Notre Dame;Cornell University;Duke University;Northwestern University;University of Arizona;University of North Carolina;University of Maryland;College Athletics |
ny0014546 | [
"business"
] | 2013/11/22 | Jess Lee of Polyvore, on the Value of Simplicity | This interview with Jess Lee , chief executive of Polyvore, a fashion website, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant . Q. Were you in leadership roles as a child? A. No. I was very shy, but my mom was an entrepreneur and ran a translation company out of our home in Hong Kong. She would always tell me it’s best to be your own boss. She was very proud of it, so that was probably an early influence. I always knew that I wanted to do my own thing; I just didn’t know what it was. Q. What about after college? A. I studied computer science, and I had thought that my path would be to become an engineer. But I got a call from a recruiter at Google, who said, “You should come interview for the associate product manager program.” I didn’t know what a product manager was, so I just went, even though I already had another offer I was planning to take. I ended up meeting Marissa Mayer. I said to her: “I don’t know if I want to work here. I have this other offer. I think I’m going to be an engineer.” She told me: “The best advice I can give you is that when I had to make a choice between two paths, I always chose the more challenging one, and that has always been the correct decision. So you should think about that.” That’s how I ended up at Google. Q. What leadership lessons did you learn there? A. One was that you need to get the respect of the engineers. There’s a reason Google hires computer science majors to be product managers, because then you really know what the engineers are talking about. When I prioritize what work needs to get done, I can do the mental calculus of how long it will take. Q. So how did you end up at Polyvore? A. I always knew I wanted to do something different on my own. One of my friends showed me Polyvore, and I just fell in love with the product. I wrote a note to the founders — I didn’t know them — and just said: “Hey, this is amazing. I have some complaints and some suggestions.” I wrote a long list of complaints, and then they wrote back and said: “Hey, why don’t you fix this stuff yourself? Why don’t you join us?” We met for coffee and we clicked. In the beginning, I was writing code, selling ads, washing dishes, whatever needed to get done. After a few years the founders came to me and said, “We’d like to start recognizing you as a co-founder going forward.” They didn’t have to do that, but the company has a culture of rewarding people who do make a difference. A few years later they said, “We’ve decided to make you C.E.O.” Q. Have you heard any feedback since you’ve been C.E.O. that has made you adjust your leadership style a bit? Image Jess Lee, the C.E.O. of the fashion website Polyvore, sees value in streamlining. “We believe that you have to keep things as simple as possible, edit out the things that are unnecessary or extraneous and focus on polishing the details.” Credit Earl Wilson/The New York Times A. One of the things I’m really good at dealing with is ambiguity — when something’s changing constantly or if the next seven steps aren’t clear. What that led to was a lack of process and structure that was affecting people on the team, because they didn’t know what was supposed to happen next. So I started working more on putting systems in place for communication and creating a clearer road map. Q. Tell me about the culture of Polyvore. A. We always had a very distinct culture, but one of the first things I did was write it down. We have three values. The first one is “delight the user.” The others are “do a few things well’ and “make an impact.” Q. Tell me more about “do a few things well.” A. We believe that you have to keep things as simple as possible, edit out the things that are unnecessary or extraneous and focus on polishing the details. This applies to our user experience, as well as to the processes in the company. A pretty extreme example of this is that we did a “simplification month” in January. We just asked everyone in the company to make a list of everything that they do, identify the things that are important, and for the rest of the list, simplify it, optimize it or delete it so we can get the company to the simplest possible state. It’s really important to take the time to clean up all the entropy that otherwise will happen. Q. What else about your culture? A. One thing that’s fun is that we have an employee-of-the-month award. You get $500 to spend on the company. People have picked out a foosball table, or hired a food truck for the entire team to eat at for lunch, or bought a huge beanbag chair. We also had a Scotch-tasting party. Q. How do you hire? A. I’m trying to understand three things. One is their motivation. I like to ask, “What’s the most rewarding thing you’ve ever worked on, that you’re most proud of?” You learn a lot about what the person cares about, what they prioritize, and whether they say “I” or “we.” Then you just drill down a little bit more to understand what they actually did in the project. I also try to understand if they have the ability to break a big, hairy, complex problem down into smaller pieces, because that shows their problem-solving ability. You’re always going to be challenged to do something that seems impossible or difficult, and you have to be able to break it down in order to make any progress. For product managers, I’ll ask a weird, open-ended design question about an unrelated field so that the answer is not super-obvious, so they have to ask for clarification and break it down into a simpler problem and then solve those separate parts. I want to understand their problem-solving process, because some people immediately jump to drawing a solution on the board and some people try to actually understand the problem first. For people who are going to be managers, I’m looking for self-awareness and emotional intelligence. So I’ll ask questions like, what is the biggest misconception that people have about you? Because that really forces you to think about who you are as a person, and how people perceive you. Q. And how would you answer that question? A. I come across as pretty nice, but I’m tougher than I look. I really care about the things I care about. I will fight for them. I will stand up for those things. You might not guess that when you first meet me. | Job Recruiting and Hiring;Management;Polyvore;Jess Lee |
ny0275908 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/02/08 | Credit Suisse C.E.O. Asks for a Cut in His Bonus | LONDON — Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Credit Suisse, has asked the company’s board to reduce his bonus, days after the Swiss bank reported a multibillion-dollar loss in the fourth quarter. “I have asked the board of directors for a significant reduction in my bonus,” Mr. Thiam said in a statement issued by the bank on Sunday. Mr. Thiam, who joined the bank in July, did not indicate the size of the reduction in his bonus, but said his was the largest reduction within the management team. Sonntagszeitung, a weekly newspaper in Switzerland, first reported on Sunday that Mr. Thiam had sought a reduction in his bonus, based on an interview with him. On Thursday, Credit Suisse, which is based in Zurich and has large operations in New York and London, posted a loss of 5.83 billion Swiss francs, or about $5.88 billion, in contrast to a profit of 691 million francs in the same quarter a year earlier. The loss was greater than analysts had expected and sent Credit Suisse’s shares down as much as 12 percent in Zurich trading on Thursday. The loss was largely because of a write-down of 3.8 billion francs after Credit Suisse reassessed the value of its investment bank as part of a continuing overhaul. The full-year loss of 2.94 billion francs, or $2.96 billion, was the first annual loss for Credit Suisse since the bank reported a record loss of 8.2 billion francs in the midst of the financial crisis in 2008. The bank has been reshaping itself by shrinking its investment bank and placing greater emphasis on its wealth management business, particularly in Asia and other emerging markets. On Thursday, Credit Suisse vowed to accelerate its plans to cut costs by billions of dollars by the end of 2018, saying it would eliminate 4,000 positions held by employees and contractors. The bank employs about 48,000 people worldwide. Credit Suisse is one of several European banks that have brought in new management and announced plans to reshape their businesses in the past year. | Tidjane Thiam;Credit Suisse Group;Executive Compensation;Earnings Reports |
ny0105029 | [
"business",
"energy-environment"
] | 2012/03/15 | Electric Industry Runs Transformer Replacement Test | The electric grid, which keeps beer cold, houses warm, and city traffic from turning to chaos, depends on about 2,100 high-voltage transformers spread throughout the country. But engineers in the electric business and officials with the Department of Homeland Security have long been concerned that transformers are vulnerable to disruptions from extreme weather like hurricanes , as well as terrorist and computer attacks and even electrical disturbances from geomagnetic, or so-called solar, storms. One such storm, in 1989, blacked out the entire province of Quebec, and this week, a transformer fire of unknown origin blacked out parts of Boston. And while replacing transformers is not technically difficult, it is a logistical and time-consuming nightmare that can take up to two years. So this week the industry and the government have been carrying out an emergency drill unlike any that electrical engineers can remember, to explore how quickly the country could recover from a crippling blow to the power grid. Twelve trucks drove 800 miles from St. Louis to Houston to deliver three “recovery transformers.” When they arrived on Tuesday afternoon, workers began to install them as quickly as possible — reducing a task that normally takes weeks to several days. “If you have to order a transformer from someplace, it’s two years to do it,” said Richard J. Lordan, a senior technical expert at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium based in Palo Alto, Calif. Transformers were seen as a potential problem to the grid as far back as 1990, said Sarah Mahmood, a program manager at the Department of Homeland Security, which paid for about half of the cost of the $17 million drill, with the rest picked up by the electrical industry. Transformers are about the size of a one-car garage and usually painted some drab industrial color, but without them, intersecting power lines would be like elevated highways with no interchanges. For the test, the Electric Power Research Institute ordered three “recovery transformers” from a supplier, ABB in St. Louis. This week they were trucked to a substation owned by CenterPoint Energy near Houston. For security reasons, the company will not say precisely where. Shipping the replacements was a problem. Ordinary transformers are often too big and heavy to travel by road, and they require special rail cars. But because the transformers typically last 50 years, only a few dozen are shipped each year, so even the appropriate rail cars are in short supply. Ratcheting up the degree of difficulty, many of the places where a replacement transformer might have to go are no longer served by rail. So the research institute tried a different approach, substituting three smaller, more mobile transformers for one conventional one, and specifying a size that would fit on a modified truck trailer. (A standard transformer costs roughly $5 to $7 million; buying and combining the three singles is slightly more expensive.) Using a different transformer for each phase allowed shrinking the weight of the transformer from about 400,000 pounds for a single one to roughly 125,000 pounds for each of the three-phase units. In operation, the transformers are oil-filled, but in this case, the oil was shipped in tanker trucks in the convoy, to decrease weight. With three transformers, three crews can work simultaneously to set them up, and setting up a small transformer is faster than setting up a big one. In addition, installing a transformer usually requires pouring a concrete foundation, but one of these transformers was mounted on skids, eliminating that need.. Even with all these shortcuts, there were speed bumps. One is that utility executives think a stockpile is a good idea, but nobody is quite sure what to stockpile, or where. The industry rule of thumb is that for every 13 transformers in the field, there are 10 designs. And the initial model that they will stockpile will only work as a replacement for about 500 of the 2,100 transformers in the system. The next step will be a transformer unlike almost any in the field, that can be configured to work between more than two different voltages — say, operating not just between 138 kilovolts and 345 kilovolts, but also between 115 kilovolts and 345 kilovolts. That would cover a few hundred more. In recent years, electric companies have been required to build entire duplicate control centers, at least 10 miles from the primary center, to reduce the possibility of a catastrophe that would knock down sections of the grid for months. After a flurry of fines and public embarrassments, the utilities have become better at maintaining their power lines. But this is the industry’s first major effort to solve the transformer problem. A study for the Energy Department last year reinforced the need for speed, suggesting that hundreds of transformers could be lost to a “geomagnetic storm,” an eventuality that experts say could leave large parts of the North American continent blacked out for months. Many engineers doubt that that could happen, but see a value in trying to compress the replacement schedule. CenterPoint was reluctant to provide a precise schedule but it is trying to do in a few days what often takes six to eight weeks. | Electric Light and Power;Electric Power Research Institute;Homeland Security Department |
ny0272358 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/05/10 | For Merrick Garland and Republicans, a Tango of Praise and Rejection | WASHINGTON — Unfailingly punctual, he enters the office without a word. He shakes hands with staff members who rise hastily from their desks, and studies the home state curios on the walls. He is ushered in behind closed doors, and within the hour he leaves as quietly as he came, occasionally slipping out a back exit with his retinue. Then comes the statement, from one Republican senator after another: I had a pleasant visit with Judge Merrick B. Garland . He is an intelligent, talented jurist. However, I cannot support considering his nomination to the Supreme Court. With this tango of praise and rejection, the once sacrosanct process of filling a Supreme Court seat has taken a surreal turn. In the past, even eyebrow-raising nominees received a hearing and a vote. But Senate Republican leaders have said for nearly two months that Judge Garland, a relatively uncontroversial nominee, will get neither. White House officials have not blinked in this staring contest. They have scheduled meetings with any senator who will return their messages — 46 to date, including 14 Republicans. This to-and-fro has left Judge Garland, broadly regarded as a leading legal mind, looking a little like the earnest leaflet-clutching visitors who hope to raise awareness for their cause and grab a sandwich in the Senate cafeteria. The situation seems poised to grow only more complicated, with Donald J. Trump wearing the fire-engine-red baseball cap of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. While Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, has been implacable in his opposition to considering the nomination, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said his party should be pragmatic. If the Republicans lose the presidential election, he said, that might mean confirming Judge Garland in the lame-duck session before the Democratic victor could make a new — and potentially more liberal — nomination. “If we come to September and we have a certain candidate, that it doesn’t look promising, then we may want to reconsider,” Mr. Flake said with a coy smile. Democrats, meanwhile, are maintaining their optimism as the Senate returns this week from a recess, citing polls saying that most Americans think the Senate should consider Judge Garland’s nomination. They point to each incremental concession — a word of admiration here, a courtesy meeting there — as proof of Republicans’ weakening resolve. During the recess last week, the Democrats followed home some of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, with Mr. Obama giving regional television interviews and the group Americans United for Change driving around billboards to urge action on the nomination. And on Monday, the White House said that Judge Garland would submit a detailed questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday detailing his experience and credentials. Usually a routine step, the move this time is another tactic to pressure senators to act. The nomination impasse has become a serious campaign issue, said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader. “All you have to do is look at the Republicans’ numbers, which are dropping significantly,” he told reporters on Thursday. “And I think there’s going to come a time in the near future when even they’re going to say: ‘Oh, Mitch, I’ve had enough of this. Let’s go ahead with this hearing and have a vote and get this over with.’” Mr. McConnell, however, has emphasized that nearly every Republican senator agrees that the next president should get to nominate a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. (Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois have been the lone holdouts, calling for Judge Garland to get full consideration.) It is rare for the Senate to reject a Supreme Court nominee — the last time it did so was in 1987 , when it voted against Robert H. Bork after an ugly political battle. In 2005, Harriet E. Miers, President George W. Bush’s White House counsel, withdrew amid questions about her fitness for the court and her stance on issues like abortion. But even Ms. Miers, the 10th and most recent nominee to fail without a confirmation hearing, was expected to receive a hearing, albeit a potentially rough one, given the lackluster reviews of her meetings with senators. No president in at least the past century has had a Supreme Court nominee go unconfirmed on the grounds that it was an election year, according to Scotusblog , which covers the court. Calling on senator after senator in their offices, Judge Garland has filled the minutes with smiles and small talk. Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said he had met with Judge Garland because presidential nominees deserve such a courtesy. But they did not talk about judicial philosophy; Mr. Rounds said he had thanked him “for allowing the president to fulfill his part of the process.” “From there we went on and talked about hiking in the Black Hills and other opportunities,” Mr. Rounds said. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat who said he had known Judge Garland for decades, dating to when Mr. Blumenthal was a United States attorney, said the judge seemed “tentative” when they met. But he brushed away the idea that Judge Garland feels discouraged. “He knew he was getting into this situation, and he saw it as a service — and it is a service — to our country,” he said. “For him to endure this kind of grinding uncertainty and grilling, I think, is a service.” The afternoon before the Senate recessed, Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, one of the seven current Senate Republicans who voted in 1997 to approve Judge Garland’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said he had decided to sit down with him out of respect for his work bringing justice to the victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Reflecting on the six weeks since Mr. Obama had named Judge Garland, Mr. Inhofe dismissed the notion that his nomination process, apparently leading nowhere, was odd. “Doesn’t seem strange to me,” he said. “I just don’t know why we’re doing it.” A few hours later, an email reached reporters: Having met with Judge Garland, Mr. Inhofe and Senator James Lankford, another Oklahoma Republican, said they remained opposed to considering his nomination. The three men had not even emerged from behind the thick wooden doors of Mr. Inhofe’s office. | Supreme Court,SCOTUS;Merrick B Garland;US Politics;2016 Presidential Election;James M Inhofe;Mitch McConnell;Washington DC |
ny0177256 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2007/09/16 | This Summer’s Surprise Hit: An Elm City ID | New Haven NOT even heavy rain could slow the steady flow of people coming into City Hall on Tuesday to apply for a new photo identification card. The card, known as the Elm City Resident Card, is aimed at helping illegal immigrants open bank accounts and use city resources like the library, pools and beaches. Carlos Zuniga, 27, said he was in the country legally and was applying for the card because he wanted to open a bank account and hoped that it would help him get a job. “And if I’m stopped by the cops, I’ll have something to show them,” he said in Spanish through an interpreter. Since this city of 125,000 began issuing the cards on July 24, demand has been brisk, with over 3,200 issued as of last week. “We thought we’d do 5,000 cards in the first year,” Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said. “I think we’ll well exceed that.” He said the main purpose of the cards was to make the city’s estimated 10,000 to 15,000 illegal aliens safer. “With the undocumented community, street robberies and home invasions were taking place because they don’t have bank accounts and they carry large amounts of cash,” he said. Mr. DeStefano said Bank of America and Sovereign Bank were already accepting the cards to open a bank account. He said he expected every bank in the city to do the same by the end of the year. Mr. DeStefano said the city would try to make the cards more appealing to all residents by setting up a booth at Yale to offer the cards to students and by making them available to the city’s public school students. Close to 20 businesses allow customers to use the cards as debit cards, with a maximum of $150. They can also be used in parking meters. City officials have called the program the first of its kind. Eugenia Rene, 24, who works for a temp agency, said she went to City Hall on Tuesday to find out how her mother, who she said was in the country on a visa that was about to expire, could get a card. “I’m going to have heart surgery, and I need her to stay here for support and to watch my kids,” she said. Several people who were applying for the card Tuesday declined to speak to a reporter. Ana Winn, the project manager for the card program, said applicants must supply two items that prove residency, like a utility bill, and a legal form of photo identification. The credentials are verified before the cards are issued, which takes 7 to 10 days, she said. The card costs $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. Some opponents of the card program say it hurts workers who are legal residents. “Illegals come here with the specter of getting that ID card,” said Bill Farrel, 47, a roofer from North Haven who is the coordinator of Southern Connecticut Immigration Reform, a citizens’ group in the New Haven area. . “And we’re not making new jobs for them. They’re going to have to take from existing jobs.” The group has appealed a decision by the city denying a Freedom of Information request for the names of the people who have received the card. Mr. Farrel said he did not know what the group would do with the names if it received them. Mr. DeStefano said that to get the card, the city required the same documents that the Internal Revenue Service used to issue tax identification numbers to illegal immigrants. “We’re not making a national statement on immigration,” he said. “We’re just dealing with our reality, which is that a significant portion of our population is undocumented, and they are a significant part of our work force.” He added, “This is just a way to serve the people of New Haven and help many of them negotiate daily life.” | Connecticut;Immigration and Refugees;Identification Devices |
ny0119386 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/07/11 | New York Expanding 20 M.P.H. ‘Slow Zones’ in Neighborhoods | New York City drivers, anguished by bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, have long insisted that the Bloomberg administration was slowing them down. On Tuesday, in a rare moment of harmony, the city agreed. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a broad expansion of the city’s so-called neighborhood slow-zone program, which will lower the speed limit to 20 miles per hour from 30 in designated areas across as many as 13 neighborhoods. Mr. Bloomberg, speaking at a news conference in Corona, Queens, cited the city’s recent safety gains, which, he said, have driven annual traffic fatalities to their lowest rates since the age of horse-drawn carriages. He called the program the latest tool in “our assault on the No. 1 traffic killer — speeding.” The city’s first and only neighborhood slow zone was instituted in some areas of the Claremont section of the Bronx in November. Janette Sadik-Khan , the city’s transportation commissioner, said speeding in the zone had fallen about 10 percent. The new zones, which may also feature speed bumps and special signs, were tentatively selected based on crash history, community support and proximity to schools, senior centers and day care centers, among other factors, the city said. The neighborhoods include Corona, Boerum Hill in Brooklyn, Riverdale in the Bronx, Inwood in Manhattan and Rosebank on Staten Island. Ms. Sadik-Khan noted that, according to traffic data, a pedestrian hit by a car going 40 m.p.h. had only a 30 percent chance to survive. Those struck by a car at 30 m.p.h., she said, survive 80 percent of the time. At 20 m.p.h., the figure climbs to about 95 percent. Standing beside the intersection where the news conference was held — and often delayed as rattling No. 7 trains passed on the platform overhead — Victor Trejo, 47, said Corona’s drivers could stand to arrive at their destinations a few moments later. “They can have patience,” he said. “People come first.” City officials expressed frustration on Tuesday that a bill to install cameras that would monitor drivers and issue violations to speeders automatically had stalled in Albany despite the administration’s support. “It’s not their business,” Mr. Bloomberg said, adding, “The city should be in charge of its own destiny.” Earlier in the day, Ms. Sadik-Khan said, a contractor performing work for the city on the Grand Central Parkway in Forest Hills, Queens, was struck and killed by a car. The driver was arrested under suspicion that he had been driving while intoxicated, a police spokesman said. | Traffic Accidents and Safety;Bloomberg Michael R;Speed Limits and Speeding;New York City;Sadik-Khan Janette |
ny0285803 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2016/09/30 | In Letter, Redstones Urge Viacom and CBS to Explore Merger | The Redstones are playing hardball. The ailing 93-year-old mogul Sumner M. Redstone and his daughter, Shari Redstone, on Thursday made their intentions for the future of their $40 billion media empire crystal clear: They are calling for the reunification of CBS and Viacom in an all-stock deal that would leave the family in control of the combined company. The father-daughter duo outlined their plans for the proposed deal in a 251-word letter sent Thursday to the boards of CBS and Viacom, instructing the directors to consider combining the two media companies. While the Redstones encouraged “full and fair deliberation and negotiation” on the potential transaction, the subtext of the letter was that the family would determine the fate of the two companies and that it wanted those two companies to become one. The Redstones left the directors of CBS and Viacom with few other options besides continuing as independently controlled entities. In the letter, the Redstones stated that they would not “accept or support” any acquisition by a third party of either CBS or Viacom. They also said they would not support a deal that would “result in National Amusements surrendering its controlling position in either company or not controlling the combined company.” The blunt and public nature of the letter was not only a signal of Shari Redstone’s vision for the two companies but also a way to build momentum toward having them combined under the leadership of Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS. Mr. Moonves, 67, has expressed doubt about a corporate reunion, and winning him over is crucial to the plan to combine them. Kannan Venkateshwar, an analyst with Barclays, said in a research note that the benefits of a deal were predicated on “CBS management expanding its curation expertise to Viacom’s platform and being successful at it.” “In our view, it is unclear if Mr. Moonves would want to undertake such a turnaround project and spread his time across a bigger portfolio of assets when he is in a relatively strong position competitively with one major asset,” Mr. Venkateshwar continued. He said the likely solution would be for the Redstones “to allow complete strategic and operational freedom to Mr. Moonves across the portfolio.” The Redstone family controls about 80 percent of the voting stock in CBS and Viacom through National Amusements, the private theater chain company started by Mr. Redstone’s father. National Amusements directors who hold board positions at the two companies — Mr. Redstone, Ms. Redstone and David Andelman — would not participate in board discussions related to the proposed deal or vote the transaction. The development on Thursday continues the intense drama over the future of the Redstone media empire that has played out during the last year. At one point, the caustic fight for control included legal battles in three states, all centering on the question of whether or not Mr. Redstone had the mental capacity to make decisions about his businesses. Inside the Battle for Sumner Redstone’s $40 Billion Media Empire War has spread across the empire of Sumner Redstone, one of the entertainment industry’s most tenacious titans. At stake are the fortunes of his family and confidants, as well as the fate of Viacom and CBS. So far, Ms. Redstone has largely prevailed. Long-estranged from her father, she worked her way back into his good graces and was back at her father’s side when his former lover Manuela Herzer filed suit challenging his competency. After the abrupt dismissal of that suit in May, without any decision on Mr. Redstone’s mental capacity, Ms. Redstone then turned her attentions to the battle for control of her father’s $40 billion media empire. In quick order, the Redstones moved to reorder the board of National Amusements, then the board of Viacom, ultimately leading to the ouster of Philippe P. Dauman as chief executive of Viacom. Ms. Redstone had clashed with Mr. Dauman, her father’s longtime confidant. Now, Ms. Redstone’s attentions appear to be turned to the reunification of Viacom and CBS. In 1987, Mr. Redstone took control of Viacom through National Amusements in a hostile corporate takeover, then went on to acquire CBS in 2000 in a nearly $40 billion deal. Mr. Redstone then split the two companies apart in 2006 as questions were being asked about the future of both businesses. Since then, it has been a tale of two companies for CBS and Viacom as each tried to secure its place in an increasingly digital world. Today, CBS stands in a position of strength, with solid ratings at its TV network and experiments with new streaming ventures. In contrast, Viacom has struggled, with its cable networks like Comedy Central and MTV suffering ratings declines and its Paramount Pictures film studio delivering disappointment after disappointment at the box office. While CBS’s stock price is up about 40 percent in the last year, Viacom’s stock price has tumbled about 11 percent. In their letter Thursday, the Redstones stated that reuniting CBS and Viacom “would allow the combined company to respond even more aggressively and effectively to the challenges of the changing entertainment and media landscape.” Yet several hurdles remain beyond Mr. Moonves’s role, including whether the transaction would be structured to benefit all shareholders and not just the Redstone family. Mr. Redstone and Ms. Redstone stated in the letter that they thought the optimal structure for a potential CBS-Viacom deal would be an all-stock transaction, with the stockholders of each company receiving shares in the new company in the same class that they now own. CBS said in a statement: “CBS is in receipt of the letter, and its management and independent directors will take appropriate action to evaluate what is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.” Separately, Viacom announced that its board had “received a letter from National Amusements requesting that it explore a combination.” The company said the board was expected to create a special committee of independent directors to “carefully consider” the National Amusements request. Viacom is under a somewhat tight deadline to determine its future and settle on new leadership. Tom Dooley, the interim chief executive who succeeded Mr. Dauman, has said he will leave his position in November. | National Amusements;CBS;Viacom;Sumner M Redstone;Shari Redstone;Mergers and Acquisitions;Mass media |
ny0004755 | [
"sports",
"cycling"
] | 2013/04/07 | Nairo Quintana Captures Tour of the Basque Country | Colombia’s Nairo Quintana fended off the favorite Richie Porte of Australia to take a surprise overall win in the Tour of the Basque Country. Quintana, 23, finished second in the final individual 24-kilometer time trial at Beasain, Spain, 17 seconds behind Tony Martin, which was enough for Quintana to claim the biggest win of his career. Porte, the Paris to Nice winner, finished fourth in the time trial, and settled for second over all, 23 seconds behind Quintana in the final standings. Sergio Luis Henao of Colombia was third over all. | Road Cycling;Nairo Quintana;Tour of the Basque Country;Biking |
ny0117179 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/10/26 | Memoir of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed May Be Cited in Plea for Leniency | He was one of Al Qaeda ’s most elusive operatives, a master of disguise who helped to orchestrate the deadly 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa. He then stayed on the run for more than a dozen years until he was finally killed in 2011 in a shootout at a security checkpoint in Somalia. He was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed , a Qaeda leader in East Africa and, it turns out, the author of an autobiography that is now playing a role in a terrorism case in Federal District Court in Manhattan. “The main principle of our work in Kenya was to remain covert,” Mr. Mohammed wrote in one excerpt quoted in court papers. In another passage, he said, “I worked hard on the new Kenyan and Tanzanian brothers to raise their morale and to clarify the fundamentals of jihad in their minds.” In yet another section, Mr. Mohammed told how he stayed alive, given his clandestine mission, by moving to a house whose location was not known to anyone, including to fellow operatives. “Severance of all associations with previous places and colleagues is my successful way to survive in my line of work,” he wrote. The original Arabic version of the autobiography was posted on a jihadi Web site for a time in 2009, said Nelly Lahoud, a senior associate at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point, whose study about the document was published by the center in June. “It is a unique find,” she said Thursday. “This is the richest internal source we have of Al Qaeda’s inner workings and political culture.” Excerpts from an English translation, which is said to run 220 pages, were filed on Wednesday evening in federal court by lawyers for another Qaeda figure, Wadih El-Hage , a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon who had worked as a close aide to Osama bin Laden. Mr. El-Hage, who was convicted in 2001 in Manhattan of terrorism conspiracy, was depicted by prosecutors as a dangerous operative, privy to Bin Laden’s secrets and adept at carrying his messages. But many of the excerpts cited by his lawyers show Mr. Mohammed complaining, almost whining at times, about Mr. El-Hage, who was once his boss in Nairobi, where the East Africa Qaeda cell was based. By Mr. Mohammed’s account, Mr. El-Hage appeared more interested in making money buying and selling precious stones, even at the risk of revealing the cell’s mission. “I advised Wadih to stop the trading because it will expose our real activities,” Mr. Mohammed wrote. “But Wadih used to say that the brothers do not support us with our daily life expenses, and he needed to trade in order to make a living.” Mr. El-Hage’s lawyers, Joshua L. Dratel and Sam A. Schmidt, make it clear that they want to use the writings by Mr. Mohammed, who also was known as Haroun, to show that Mr. El-Hage was not as culpable in the conspiracy as the government contended and should be granted some leniency when he is resentenced. (Mr. El-Hage’s conviction was upheld on appeal but his life sentence was vacated.) But prosecutors sharply disagree with these arguments, according to a letter to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan that is part of the filing. In the letter, two prosecutors contend that “the Haroun autobiography thoroughly inculpates” Mr. El-Hage. They cite passages in which Mr. Mohammed described Mr. El-Hage traveling to Sudan to meet with Bin Laden and his being “in charge of finance/administration” of the terrorist cell. | El-Hage Wadih;Terrorism;Al Qaeda;Mohammed Fazul Abdullah |
ny0006212 | [
"business"
] | 2013/05/05 | An Economic Cure for Pandemics | THAT frightening word “pandemic” is back in the news. A strain of avian influenza has infected people in China, with a death toll of more than 25 as of late last week. The outbreak raises renewed questions about how to prepare for possible risks, should the strain become more easily communicable or should other deadly variations arise. Our current health care policies are not optimal for dealing with pandemics. The central problem is that these policies neglect what economists call “public goods”: items and services that benefit many people and can’t easily be withheld from those who don’t pay for them directly. Protection against communicable diseases is a core example of a public good, as is basic scientific research, which can yield new ideas that may be spread at very low additional cost. (In contrast, Medicare, which is publicly financed, has some elements of a public good, but any particular expenditure tends to benefit an individual receiving treatment, rather than being spread over a number of beneficiaries.) One obvious step forward would be to exempt biomedical research from cuts of the current federal budget sequestration. Research and development grants are a way to pay potential innovators up front — an important move, as an innovator can’t always charge high-enough prices for the value of its remedies when they’re actually needed. If a pandemic became a major issue in the United States, demand for remedies would surge far beyond the level associated with a typical seasonal flu outbreak, and permitting high prices would be unpopular — and perhaps unfair. The threat of contagion also makes it crucial to spread the net of protection as widely as possible, which again suggests low prices. Yet it is crucial to have some reward system in place for medical innovators. Well in advance of a pandemic, research needs to be done, and vaccine capacity and drug distribution facilities need to be built up. In the H.I.V./AIDS crisis, for instance, the United States was caught flat-footed — and an appropriate response has taken decades, in part because we were not prepared. Without government financing for such public goods, the capacity wouldn’t be there if a new pandemic produced a surge in demand. This would amount to an institutional failure. The government could also take another, more unusual step: it could promise to pay lucrative prices for the patents on drugs and vaccines that prove useful in dealing with pandemics. The point of buying the patent is to distribute the remedy, if needed, as widely and as cheaply as possible. If the pandemic never occurs, the reward wouldn’t have to be paid. But the very promise of such a reward might induce suppliers to take the risk of increasing capacity in advance. Without such a government promise, private patents could easily lead to very high prices and limited distribution, as has already occurred for some cancer drugs, which are being sold to patients for more than $100,000 a year . If anyone doubted a government pledge to pay big money for the rights to remedies, the patent’s value could be established by a competitive auction. Michael Kremer , a Harvard economics professor, outlined the procedure for such an auction in his research paper “Patent Buyouts.” The government should resist the strong temptation to skimp on rewards. Many health care breakthroughs come through university research programs and government grants, but bringing an innovation to fruition and managing wide and rapid distribution usually requires the profit-seeking private sector. In any single instance, the government could save money by confiscating rights, but in the longer run this would discourage the search for additional remedies. If anything, the American government — or, better yet, a consortium of governments — should pay more for pandemic remedies than what market-based auctions would yield. That’s because, if a major pandemic does arise, other countries may not respect intellectual property rights as they scramble to copy a drug or vaccine for domestic distribution. To encourage innovations, policy makers need to bolster the expectation of rewards. How many drugs should we cover with such prizes, and then distribute free or at minimal charge? It’s an interesting but perhaps insoluble moral question. But in the meantime, economics can offer practical advice. If the remedy is a public good, as is the case in fighting a communicable disease, the value of widespread treatment will make cheap distribution a good idea. Unfortunately, the United States lacks strong political coalitions for many beneficial public health measures. The Democratic Party has focused on insurance coverage and Medicaid expansion as political issues, while often wishing to lower prices of drugs or to weaken patent protection. The Obama administration’s new budget lowers spending on pharmaceuticals by an estimated $164 billion over 10 years, mostly through bargaining down Medicare drug prices. That makes it hard for the Democrats to embrace lucrative rewards for pharmaceutical companies or vaccine producers. Nor can we expect much on pandemic preparation from the current Republican Party, which has been focusing its fiscal conservatism on discretionary spending. That means disproportionate cuts for public health and research and development. This decision can be seen as at odds with a true conservative philosophy, which usually embraces the provision of public goods like a strong military and general national security. Such goods can also serve the purpose of protecting against bioterror. OVER all, the American government seems to be turning its back on its traditional role of producing and investing in national public goods. If there is any consistent tendency in recent government spending, it is that spending on entitlements like Social Security and Medicare — which provide mostly private benefits — is rising and that investment and spending on national public goods is falling. As a budget category, “government consumption and gross investment” is a proxy for many kinds of public goods spending. As a share of gross domestic product, it has fallen to less than 19 percent, from a peak of 24 percent in the 1980s, with no expected reversal in sight. Yet total government spending is expected to increase because of income transfers and entitlements. Neither political party seems able to halt that logic or even cares to make an issue of it. Focusing government on the production of public goods may sound like a trivial issue, too obvious to be worth a mention. But, in fact, we have been failing at it, and the consequences could be serious indeed. | Epidemic;Bird Flu;Pharmaceuticals;Research;US Politics;Inventions and Patents;US Economy;Vaccines Immunization;China;Medicine and Health |
ny0231613 | [
"science",
"earth"
] | 2010/09/13 | The Oil Spill’s Money Squeeze | In May, Harriet M. Perry, the director of the fisheries program at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory , was asked to examine some mysterious droplets found on blue crab larvae by scientists at Tulane University. An early test indicated that the droplets were oil , and she has continued to find similar droplets on fresh larvae samples taken all along the northern Gulf of Mexico. Despite the potential significance of the discovery, Dr. Perry does not have research money to cover further tests. And like other scientists across the Gulf Coast who are racing to sketch out the contours of the BP oil spill’s effects, she has few places to turn for help. The only federal agency to distribute any significant grant money for oil spill research, the National Science Foundation , is out of money until the next fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has only $2 million to give out, is still gearing up its program. A $500 million initiative for independent research promised by BP, which was to be awarded by an international panel of scientists, has become mired in a political fight over control. State agencies, too, are stymied. “We have met with every possible person we can regarding this issue, built the templates, sent in the requests, and we are waiting to see,” said Hank M. Bounds, the Mississippi commissioner of higher education, speaking of the needs of Ms. Perry and other scientists. There is plenty of science being done on the spill, but most of it is in the service of either the response effort, the federal Natural Damage Resource Assessment that will determine BP’s liability, or BP’s legal defense. Scientists who participate in those efforts may face restrictions on how they can use or publish their data. More important, they do not have a free hand in determining the scope of their studies. “Independent research is being squeezed by federal agencies on one side and BP on the other,” said Dr. Perry, whose only offer of help has come from BP (she declined). “It’s difficult for the fishing community and the environmentalists to understand why we are not receiving the money that we need.” Scientists view the situation as urgent because the environmental picture in the gulf region changes daily, as the plume of undersea oil disperses and degrades, fish eggs hatch and crabs molt. “Time is of the essence,” said Lisa Suatoni, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council , an environmental group. “Knowing the answers to basic questions like how much oil is below the surface, where is it going and what is its fate — those are answers that are slipping through our fingers.” John H. Paul, a biological oceanographer at the University of South Florida, has found evidence of stress and even genetic damage in plankton exposed to the spill. “Everything that I’ve done, I’ve not had funding for,” he said. “I’ve had to pull people off my other projects and say, ‘Here, let’s do this for two weeks.’ ” Ralph Portier, an environmental scientist at Louisiana State University, said earlier grants would have meant earlier answers to key questions like how long it will take for the oil in the marshes to break down. “We could have had a much better answer to that by now if we had started in the summer,” he said. But, Dr. Portier said, there was no mechanism set up to provide research money in the event of an oil spill. “We always seem to be reacting and reacting and reacting, rather than being proactive,” he said. Dr. Suatoni said the federal agencies that scientists normally looked to might not get significant allotments from Congress for spill research. “The government is afraid it’s going to look like we’re asking taxpayers to pay to study a spill that was a result of BP’s actions,” she said. Right after the spill, gulf research institutions exhausted their budgets, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for sea voyages and sampling. Scientists used their personal credit cards to begin research projects. After complaints about the scarcity of research dollars, BP announced that it would spend $500 million over 10 years in a program it called the Gulf Research Initiative. The original structure of the initiative, with an international panel of scientists appointed to review proposals, was applauded by many scientists, who were persuaded that BP genuinely intended to distance itself from the choice of projects and would set no limits on the publication of results. But gulf scientists and state officials expressed fears that the process would take too long and that the money would go to large, well-financed research institutions outside the gulf region. So BP wrote checks for $30 million to research centers in the region for “high-priority studies” — $10 million to the Florida Institute of Oceanography, $10 million to the Northern Gulf Institute, and $5 million to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, all university consortiums, and another $5 million to Louisiana State University. Last week, BP announced that $10 million of the initiative money had been awarded to the National Institutes of Health. The money was in high demand — the Florida Institute of Oceanography, for example, received 233 proposals and gave awards to only 27. BP promised that guidelines for disbursing the rest of the money were imminent, but politics intervened. Governors of the Gulf States still wanted more local control of the money, and in mid-June the White House backed them up, announcing, “As a part of this initiative, BP will work with governors, and state and local environmental and health authorities to design the long-term monitoring program to assure the environmental and public health of the gulf region.” A White House spokesman said that statement was never intended to delay the financing process, but the announcement forced BP to rethink its plans and caused anxiety among scientists. Some feared that the delay would extend indefinitely, and that as the spill receded from the public eye, the money would never materialize. Others divined a money grab by governors for their own cash-starved environmental departments. BP has said little, other than that it is following the “White House directive” to consult with the states. At least three of the governors have signed on to a proposal that a group called the Gulf of Mexico Alliance , a partnership led by state natural resource and environmental agencies, administer the money. Under the plan now being worked out, BP would appoint 10 members of the peer review board and each governor would appoint two members, said William W. Walker, the director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and the co-chairman of the alliance. In Mississippi’s case, he said, there would most likely be one appointee from a state agency and one from a research institution. But scientists are skeptical of the gulf alliance, in part because it is controlled by agencies rather than universities, and the public silence surrounding the negotiations has raised suspicions. “It looks like maybe BP caved,” said Gary M. King, a microbial ecologist at Louisiana State University. “There’s no sense of trust that a group of governors are actually going to do the right thing and ensure that there will be good science.” | Gulf of Mexico;Research;Environment;Grants (Corporate and Foundation);Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Offshore Drilling and Exploration;BP Plc;Accidents and Safety |
ny0087154 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/07/08 | 10 Years After London Bombings, Warnings of a Greater Threat | LONDON — As Britain mourned the 52 civilians killed 10 years ago in its most devastating terrorist attacks, government officials warned on Tuesday that the threat of terrorism had only increased, though its nature has shifted. Four suicide bombers linked to Al Qaeda detonated explosives on a London bus and on three subway trains in the attacks on July 7, 2005. About 700 people were wounded. Commemorations on Tuesday included a wreath-laying ceremony at a Hyde Park memorial for the victims, attended by Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson of London; a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral and a national moment of silence. The coordinated attacks changed British attitudes, bringing a new focus on the spread of terrorism and further empowering the government to try to forestall extremism, especially among people raised in Britain who are at risk of becoming radicalized. But British leaders are now warning that the rise of the Islamic State has again changed the calculus. Less than two weeks ago, 38 people, including 30 Britons, were killed when a young Tunisian, who was reported to have trained in Libya and to have claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire at a beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia. It was the deadliest act of terrorism against Britons since the attacks in 2005. Britain’s senior counterterrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police, said that the rise of Islamic State militants meant that Britain was now facing a “very different” threat. “We’ve seen another step change in terrorism in the way it works and connects across the world in the last couple of years,” he said. Mr. Cameron said on Twitter that “Ten years on from the 7/7 London attacks, the threat continues to be as real as it is deadly — but we will never be cowed by terrorism.” Image A man prayed on Tuesday at a memorial in London near where a bus was bombed 10 years ago. A national minute of silence was observed for the 52 people killed in the attacks. Credit Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Tony Blair, who was prime minister at the time of the attacks, warned that the threat to Britain and other Western countries from Islamist terrorism had increased, as the Islamic State had established itself “on the edges of Europe.” Counterterrorism experts like Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, have regularly noted that while Al Qaeda tended to favor large-scale coordinated assaults, the new dangers include so-called lone-wolf attacks, which are harder to prevent, by marginal actors whose radicalization and recruitment can happen quietly in British suburbs and towns through social media and small mosques. These lone-wolf attackers can be motivated by external events like the Syrian civil war or groomed into radicalism by anger and anomie. The case of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale — two British-born converts to Islam who killed Lee Rigby, an off-duty soldier in London, two years ago in retaliation for the killing of Muslims overseas by the British military — caught intelligence services and the police by surprise. Mr. Pantucci recently published a book, “ We Love Death as You Love Life ,” about such cases of “suburban terrorists.” The attacks 10 years ago, he wrote, “breathed vivid life into the concept of the homegrown terrorist, born and raised in town and city suburbs and beneficiaries of our schools and universities, who suddenly turn murderously against the state.” British officials estimate that about 700 Britons — and roughly 5,000 Europeans — have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join jihadist groups, including three schoolgirls from the Bethnal Green neighborhood in East London in February. Last week, a family of 12 that had not been seen since May issued a statement saying that it had joined the Islamic State. About half of the 700 Britons are estimated to have returned, but there are many others who are tempted to go, or who have tried but been turned back. It is increasingly difficult for intelligence services to keep track of all of them, officials say, bringing additional demands for increased surveillance of suspects and new debates about privacy. Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, described the events of July 7 as an “enduring reminder” of what his organization “is striving every day to prevent.” He said that “appalling acts are attempted by individuals who have grown up here but decided, for whatever twisted reasons, to identify their own country as the enemy.” This, he added, presented Britain with “a serious societal and security challenge.” Mr. Parker noted that in the months before the 2005 attacks, “there had been a degree of skepticism about the terrorism threat in the media: Surely it couldn’t happen here?” “The fact of 7/7 ended those arguments and led to a step change in the nation’s counterterrorism defenses,” he said. | Great Britain;Terrorism;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Al Qaeda;London |
ny0198910 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2009/07/07 | Ex-Inmate, Mohamed, Says Photos Show Abuse at Guantánamo | A former inmate of the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba, who was released to Britain this year, has asked a federal court in Washington to preserve “photographic evidence” that he says shows him being “savagely beaten” while a detainee. In an affidavit filed in June with United States District Court, the former inmate, Binyam Mohamed , said that video and still cameras had documented his abuse, and that he had seen some of the images, which he said were in the possession of his lawyers. He said in the affidavit that in May 2006 a guard “slammed my forehead down on the concrete floor,” and another “grabbed my testicles and punched me.” Later, another guard “slammed me and my Koran into the fence,” Mr. Mohamed said. He said soldiers had strapped him down and shaved half his beard, and “they then performed a humiliating ‘anal cavity search,’ although it was patently obvious that there was nothing to find.” A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon of the Navy, denied the allegations, saying, “In response to allegations made by Binyam Mohamed, repeated internal reviews showed no evidence of mistreatment while in U.S. custody.” Mr. Mohamed has previously alleged abuse, mainly by the C.I.A. in Morocco. The C.I.A. has declined to say whether he was ever held in Morocco and has denied that he, or anyone else in its custody, was ever tortured. Mr. Mohamed said that his lawyers were prohibited by the rules governing counsel for Guantánamo detainees from talking about the photographs, but that he was not. One of his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith, confirmed that he had a copy of at least one photo, and that he could not talk about it. He provided a copy of the affidavit by Mr. Mohamed, filed in connection to a pending legal action that began before his release. Under the rules for lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees, Mr. Stafford Smith said, the government has ordered him to destroy the photographic evidence now that Mr. Mohamed has been freed. He added that it had made similar requests in other cases of released detainees. Pakistani authorities picked up Mr. Mohamed, a British resident who was born in Ethiopia, in 2002 and turned him over to the Americans, who took him to Morocco, according to court documents in his case, and American and British officials. He eventually ended up at Guantánamo. Shortly after his capture, Bush administration officials said he was part of a plot to explode a dirty bomb in the United States. Before being released from Guantánamo in February , Mr. Mohamed was offered a plea bargain , which required him to agree to abandon his efforts to obtain documents that might bolster his torture claims and not to file lawsuits against the United States government or any of its officials. He rejected the offer and a few months later all charges against him were dropped. “I want these photos, as they are obviously the best evidence I could obtain to prove some of the worst aspects of my abuse,” Mr. Mohamed said in the affidavit. “It would help me show what happened, and how the statements extracted from me were the bitter fruit of torture.” | Mohamed Binyam;Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba);Detainees;Suits and Litigation;Torture |
ny0198101 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/07/27 | Among Democrats, Fear That Paterson Campaign Lacks Strategy and Fiscal Discipline | ALBANY — Can Gov. David A. Paterson get his money back? Over the past six months, the governor’s campaign spent expansively, paying at least 14 consultants to help him improve his position with voters. During that same period, his standing in public opinion polls plummeted, leaving him weakened and vulnerable to a primary challenge. Aides say the high number of consultants on the payroll is misleading, because the governor brought in a new team of advisers earlier this year, and let others go. But some Democrats worry that Mr. Paterson has not shown discipline in managing his campaign spending or his overall strategy. He now has about $5.4 million in his campaign account; his potential primary rival, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, has nearly twice that. The consultants paid by Mr. Paterson have included old friends, high-priced Washington consultants, Albany hands and holdovers from the Spitzer administration. Lisa E. Davis, an entertainment lawyer and longtime friend, pulls in $5,000 a month. The governor paid $15,000 to Global Strategy, a consulting firm also used by Eliot Spitzer, before severing his ties with the company. He briefly turned to Judy Smith, a Washington consultant, whose firm was paid $30,000; they parted ways after Ms. Smith was linked to the Paterson administration’s smear campaign against Caroline Kennedy following her aborted Senate candidacy, an episode that damaged the governor’s image. The campaign also paid $20,000 to a firm run by Bruce Gyory, a former staff member in the governor’s office; nearly $35,000 to a firm run by Jimmy Seigel, a media consultant; and $30,000 to a firm run by Cynthia R. Darrison, who was the governor’s top fund-raiser until they parted ways in February. She now works for Mr. Cuomo. Tracy Sefl, one of the governor’s more recently hired political consultants, whose firm is paid $20,000 a month, said Mr. Paterson’s new team is committed to keeping expenses down. “It’s very clear that there’s a then and a now,” said Ms. Sefl. “There is a clear line between the then and now and the very high costs that have been brought down that the governor has been concerned about.” The filings, however, do not suggest a spending slowdown, save for the fact that one of the heftiest expenses occurred in January, before the new team came in: a $270,000 bill from a Sheraton for a single fund-raiser, an amount that appears to be somewhat high, though the fund-raiser did bring in more than $2.5 million. “One of the people responsible for that is no longer with the campaign,” Ms. Sefl said, referring to Ms. Darrison. But Hilary Keller, a spokeswoman for Ms. Darrison’s firm, Darrison Barrett & Associates, said Mr. Paterson’s campaign was trying to deflect responsibility. “It is unfortunate that the governor’s representatives choose to blame the present financial circumstances of the governor’s campaign on others, rather than taking responsibility for their own difficulties,” she said. Over all, the governor’s campaign reported nearly $2.4 million in contributions in the first half of the year, about a third less than it raised in the last half of 2008. The campaign spent about $1.8 million. Mr. Cuomo’s campaign raised $5.1 million, according to filings released last week, and spent about $600,000. Certainly, not many expenses have been spared in the Paterson campaign. To help write the governor’s speech before the Gridiron Club earlier this year, the campaign paid $20,000 to bring in Mark Katz, the humorist who once punched up President Bill Clinton’s prose. To foot the bill for luxury hotel accommodations for the governor, his wife and two aides during the presidential inauguration, the campaign paid more than $20,000. There was the $1,000 bar bill racked up by the governor and volunteers at a Harlem lounge, and the time a photographer was reimbursed more than $200 for liquor that was used for a “campaign meeting.” There were also hundreds of dollars spent on dinners at Manhattan restaurants like BLT Steak, the $720 worth of gifts from Tiffany that the first lady gave out, and the $1,600 for lodging two staff members on two nights at the Beach House Inn on Shelter Island. The governor also incurred significant bills that were not counted in this filing. The campaign has paid only a $15,000 deposit for his biggest event of the season, a June fund-raiser celebrating his 55th birthday at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York. And it has not yet reported costs for automated calls made to Democratic voters in the wake of the governor’s controversial appointment of Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor. “There’s no question that the fund-raising has got to be a concern,” said Steven Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena Research Institute and a former press secretary for Assembly Democrats. “Look, he has $5 million in the bank. That’s a nice sum of money, but that gets spent incredibly quickly in a statewide campaign in New York.” Amid the spending, Mr. Paterson’s poll numbers have collapsed. In a January poll conducted by Siena, 60 percent of voters viewed him favorably, and 23 percent had a negative opinion. That had essentially flipped by April, when the same poll showed that 63 percent viewed him unfavorably. A more recent Siena poll suggested that Mr. Paterson’s numbers are inching up slowly, but nearly 70 percent of those polled still said they would prefer someone else as governor. As for his lagging fund-raising receipts, his supporters blamed the recent battle for control of the State Senate, saying it forced him to cancel several events. “He would have done better,” said Jay Jacobs, the Nassau County Democratic chairman who is expected to take over as state party chairman this year. “We will be doing more fund-raising, and I think his poll numbers will be moving up,” he said. | Paterson David A;Politics and Government;New York State;Elections;Polls and Public Opinion;Democratic Party |
ny0183106 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/12/09 | A New Vote on Phones, This Time, by Students | Under the century-old mural “New York City Receiving the Tributes of the Nation,” which covers much of the ceiling of the City Council chambers, Michelle Jean Baptiste was busy ripping the tar out of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday. “Who is the mayor to say what should go on with our kids outside of school ?” she said, pouring on the vitriol. Michelle is 17, and she was in high dudgeon over the mayor’s controversial ban on carrying cellphones into the city’s public schools. Along with their children, many parents oppose the ban, saying the students need to be able to call home quickly in case of an emergency. The mayor argues that the phones are a distraction and could facilitate cheating on tests. Cellphones in schools was the hot issue yesterday for the Model City Council, a six-year-old project for high school students that is run by the City University of New York . The young council members were considering a bill that would allow students to bring cellphones to school, but not inside the building — a measure identical to the one the real City Council deliberated on earlier this year. But the students’ vote, a squeaker, was different in surprising ways from the actual Council’s. Every nation seemed to be represented among the 47 students in attendance yesterday: there were two Chans, two Lis, two Islams, and one Smith. And nearly all trembled slightly with nervousness as they held sheaves of paper or notecards. The students, most of them 16 and 17, were instructed not to vote as high school students, but as if they represented their Council districts. So it was that Michelle Jean Baptiste, representing the 41st District in Brooklyn, was lacing into the mayor in tones reminiscent of the “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed” speech from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” Interviewed after the mock debate and vote, she remained fierce in her support of the bill. “Mike Bloomberg, I mean he’s not really supporting the people of New York,” she said. “He just has too much power, but he’s not really getting down to the people to see how we really feel on the issue.” Asked where she got her speaking style, Michelle, whose mother is a nurse and whose stepfather is a city police officer, said she was part of student government last year. “So I’m used to speaking,” she said. “But other than that, I’m shy.” Anna Potapova, who, like Michelle , attends James Madison High School in Brooklyn, voted against the cellphone bill. “This bill is useless,” said Anna, whose father is a construction worker and whose mother works in a law office. She noted that her district, the 12th in the Bronx, included many working-class households that could not afford cellphones. “Students can get into dangerous situations because of their cellphones” when other students try to steal them, she said in explaining her support for the ban. Anna grew anxious during the debate. “At the beginning, no, I wasn’t nervous,” she said. “Then the first two people spoke so well before me — then I started getting nervous.” Jill Simone Gross wielded the gavel as the presiding officer of the session. An associate professor of political science at Hunter College , she said that over the last six years, she had noticed that the students “are even better behaved than the real Council members might be.” “But maybe they’re also intimidated by their surroundings,” she added. In the end, the vote was close. The measure passed 24-to-23, a counterintuitive outcome, considering where the teenagers’ peer loyalties lie. The real Council, in July, passed the bill by a vote of 46-to-2. The mayor promptly vetoed it, and in September, the Council overrode the veto, again by a vote of 46-to-2. But the impact of the override is unclear. The state gave the mayor control of the schools in 2002, and the Council lacks authority to overrule him on disciplinary matters. For Braulio Acuria, 17, the mock council made him focus even more on his career goal. Braulio, who attends the Foreign Language and Global Studies High School in the Bronx, wants to enter politics, starting at the City Council. “This program has helped me find my way to politics,” he said. “I would like to represent my district.” | Education and Schools;City University of New York;Hunter College;Bloomberg Michael R;New York City;Politics and Government;Children and Youth |
ny0228494 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/07/26 | In Debate Over a Bronx School, a Bid for Respect | It began, innocuously enough, with a dispute over what to call a new school in the Bronx. Someone proposed J. D. Salinger. Someone else offered Michael Crichton. But the only names to gather support were Firefighter John G. Bellew and Lt. Curtis Meyran, who died together in 2005 while battling a fire in the Bronx on a day that became known as Black Sunday. Monica Major, president of the local Community Education Council, the group responsible for recommending school names, thought the firefighters were a perfect match for the area. “These men fought for the Bronx; their careers were in the Bronx,” she said. But that was not enough for Joe Bombace and the newly formed Van Nest Neighborhood Alliance, a group seeking to shed the area’s status as stepchild to the neighboring Morris Park. When they heard of the decision, they saw yet another neighborhood slight. The firefighters died in the Tremont section of the Bronx, nowhere near Van Nest. Mr. Bombace respected the men, but, he said, “Name something in the South Bronx after them.” “I felt that if it’s a local school, it should be named after a local hero,” he said. To understand the reasons for the dispute — and, ultimately, its resolution — requires a bit of a lesson in neighborhood one-upsmanship and cautious cooperation. When Mr. Bombace looks along Bronxdale Avenue — he calls it the Mason-Dixon line — he does not see an ordinary thoroughfare in a tiny, often-overlooked Bronx neighborhood. He sees a boundary that separates the comfortable on one side from his neglected brethren on the other. “We feel like we don’t get the fruits we deserve,” said Mr. Bombace, a stocky man with a bald head who lives in the same two-story house where he grew up. “It seems like we play second fiddle to the other side of Morris Park.” Mr. Bombace and other old-time residents have long complained that Morris Park, a middle-class neighborhood east of Bronxdale Avenue, gets most of the attention from politicians, the police and the community board while Van Nest and Lower Morris Park are brushed aside. (Some residents scoff at the neighborhood borders, and insist that the area is all one community.) But to those who see them, the slights are many. Van Nest has been without a bank branch for years; Morris Park has several. Graffiti stays up longer in Van Nest, they say. Van Nest Park is puny compared with Loreto Playground across the divide. Van Nest’s drug-dealing problems, finally on the wane, would never have been tolerated in Morris Park, they claim. That longstanding sense of neglect started Mr. Bombace on his campaign this summer, one that even his sympathizers called unfortunate, but one that resonated enough with his neighbors that it spilled into the local newspaper, bubbled up at a contentious community board meeting and boiled over at a councilman’s office. After Ms. Major and other officials had signed off on the name, Mr. Bombace came up with a name of his own for the school, which is set to open in the fall. “I said, ‘Wait a minute. I went to St. Dominic grammar school; I graduated in 1965,’ ” he said. “In 1964, the year before me, there was a fellow who lived on Garfield Street, which is in the Van Nest community. His name was James Romito.” Mr. Romito, the chief of the Port Authority Police Department, died in the 9/11 attack. He had not lived in Van Nest for more than 25 years (he actually lived on Van Buren Street, a few blocks from Garfield) and only a few people in the area remembered him. But a son of Van Nest, Mr. Bombace figured, is a son of Van Nest. When the Van Nest Neighborhood Alliance raised the school name issue at their monthly meeting, most of the roughly 30 people in attendance agreed that Mr. Romito should be honored, said Bernadette Ferrara, the group’s vice president. They debated the name at the next community board meeting, and spoke with members of Councilman James A. Vacca’s staff. The Bronx Times Reporter carried a front-page story on the controversy, inflaming things further. Ms. Ferrara — who signs her e-mail messages, “Van Nest is Back!” — said that naming the school for Mr. Romito could help revitalize the community. “When people are proud of where you live, you start raising the bar of the quality of life,” she said. “There’s a lot of history in Van Nest.” That depth of local history posed a formidable challenge to Ms. Major, and she admitted to some surprise. She lives in the area, but she had not heard of Mr. Romito. Ms. Major said she did not pay attention to the neighborhood rivalries and the accounting of slights. “These people have been here 30, 40 years,” she said. “It’s entrenched in them; they need to have these sort of lines.” “Everybody wants their community to stand on its own,” she added. “Every 10 blocks doesn’t want to be grouped with the 11th block. To me, it’s all the same — they’re a block apart.” Mr. Vacca’s office told Mr. Bombace and Ms. Ferrara that it was too late to change the name, that “it’s set in stone,” Mr. Bombace recalled. “I said the Ten Commandments are set in stone, but there’s the sacrament of penance performed every day.” Mr. Romito’s father, Anthony Romito, lives in the Country Club section of the Bronx, east of Van Nest. He learned of the proposed name through the newspapers, but he said the family was thrilled at the idea. His son “was always a Van Nest boy,” he said. In the end, Mr. Vacca negotiated a compromise that satisfied even Mr. Bombace. The school would be named for Mr. Bellew and Mr. Meyran, and, if the city approved it, Van Nest Park would be renamed for Mr. Romito. (The parks department is reviewing the requested name change.) Mr. Bombace said the war for neighborhood respect would continue, but he was optimistic that one day soon he would be sitting on a bench in Romito Park. “How could they say no to a hero?” he asked. “One door closed, another door opened.” | Bronx (NYC);Education and Schools;Fires and Firefighters;Names Organizational |
ny0139802 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2008/02/10 | Enthusiasm Cools for Hockey’s Foray Into the South | Almost 20 years ago, the N.H.L. embarked on a master plan to expand into the Sun Belt. The idea was to add teams in nontraditional hockey markets and, in the jargon of the day, increase the N.H.L.’s television footprint and make it popular across the United States. But today many of the league’s Sun Belt teams are enduring attendance problems, plummeting local television ratings and talk of franchise shifts. With N.H.L. clubs thriving in Canada and in traditional hockey cities in the northern United States, the league’s longstanding Southern strategy may have run its course. “It was a noble experiment,” said Drew Dorweiler of the Montreal valuation and accounting firm Wise, Blackman. “But five years from now, I can see quite a few Sun Belt teams relocating. At the least, the league will be short a couple.” Evidence that Southern teams are struggling abounds. Local TV viewership for the Atlanta Thrashers in the first half of the season was down 50 percent from last year and in Dallas, Tampa Bay and Phoenix it has dropped by 29 to 35 percent. (It rose by 50 to 114 percent in Detroit, St. Louis and Minnesota.) The Nashville Predators came close to leaving town recently after missing several attendance benchmarks associated with their arena lease. And according to Forbes magazine, four of the league’s five least valuable franchises are in southerly locales: Nashville, Washington, Phoenix and Atlanta. “There have been problems with a lot of teams in nontraditional markets since the late ’90s,” Dorweiler said. “Except for brief periods when a Florida or a Carolina has a Stanley Cup run, there just isn’t enough interest in the sport to make it work. There comes a point when the losses become too much, and teams are put on the block.” The Dallas Stars are the only warm-weather team estimated by Forbes to be in the N.H.L.’s top quarter in terms of value. “The Stars have done a great job of attracting people, largely because of the experience at the arena,” said Michael Rapkoch, president of Sports Value Consulting, a Dallas company that advises professional franchises. “They’ve found the right niche for hockey in Dallas. Other teams in nontraditional hockey markets have to find what fits their particular market.” Paul Kelly, president of the N.H.L. Players’ Association, said the players want all the clubs to be financially healthy, but “if a franchise is not doing all it can do to maximize revenue, that obviously affects the players.” “My own belief,” he said, “is that if a team from a nontraditional market has to relocate, it should go to one of the Canadian cities, like Winnipeg, where it would have the fan support and the revenue streams to do well.” With the N.H.L. turning increasingly to a receptive audience in Northern Europe, what happens with its efforts to “grow the sport” in America’s southern latitudes remains to be seen. “We missed the boat 20 years, 25 years ago,” the N.H.L. great Marcel Dionne said last week, speaking on the Toronto radio station Fan 590 of the league’s efforts to sell hockey in the South. “Keep on trying all you want,” he added. “It ain’t happening.” Another Sabre Departing? The Buffalo Sabres, still reeling from the loss of last year’s co-captains Daniel Brière and Chris Drury, are on the verge of losing another valuable player: Brian Campbell, their All-Star defenseman. Campbell, who will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, stopped contract renegotiation talks with the Sabres last month. The club faces a choice as the Feb. 26 trading deadline looms: either deal the swift-skating and clean-playing 28-year-old Campbell for top prospects now, or keep him for a playoff push. The ninth-place Sabres — last year they won the Presidents’ Trophy for finishing first in the Eastern Conference in the regular season — are just beneath the playoff cutoff in the muddled East. In Buffalo, the club is taking withering criticism for losing a roll call of top players to free agency — Brière, Drury, J. P. Dumont, Jay McKee and others — without getting anything in return. General Manager Darcy Regier said last month that he did not intend to trade Campbell, but he has since acknowledged that a trade is a possibility, and on Friday he told the Buffalo radio station WGR that Feb. 26 is “an important threshold date that we cannot ignore.” Welcome Returns The Ottawa Senators, atop the Eastern Conference all season, slumped badly over the past few weeks in the absence of their injured stars Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley. Things seemed dire for the Senators on Tuesday when they lost, 4-3, to Montreal, allowing the Canadiens to pull within 1 point of them. But Heatley returned Thursday, scoring twice in a 5-4 victory over Florida. And Alfredsson — who has missed six games — was expected to return for Saturday night’s rematch with the Canadiens in Ottawa. The Senators and the Canadiens will meet three more times before the schedule ends. For Bragging Rights The Beanpot tournament is one of those Boston traditions — like the tea party — that doesn’t have much practical value, but it is loaded with symbolism. The clash of four Boston N.C.A.A. teams comes each year on the first two Mondays of February. Boston University and Boston College have dominated, but there is good news this year for the other two teams, Harvard and Northeastern. Boston University and Boston College met in the first round. B.C. won, 4-3, last Monday before a capacity crowd at TD Banknorth Garden. Attendance exceeded that at any of the three N.H.L. games of the evening, in Newark, in Denver and even a sellout in Edmonton. Nathan Gerbe’s two goals — one that sent the game to overtime, the other that won it — stopped Boston University’s run of 11 Beanpot titles in 13 years. Boston College, ranked ninth in the nation, will play Harvard, No. 15, on Monday for the 56th Beanpot championship. | Hockey Ice;National Hockey League;Atlanta Thrashers;Nashville Predators;Carolina Hurricanes |
ny0095914 | [
"world"
] | 2015/01/01 | With Schoolgirls Taken by Boko Haram Still Missing, U.S.-Nigeria Ties Falter | STUTTGART, Germany — Soon after the Islamist group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 teenage girls in Nigeria in April, the United States sent surveillance drones and about 30 intelligence and security experts to help the Nigerian military try to rescue them. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the top general for American missions in Africa, rushed from his headquarters here to help the commanders in the crisis. Seven months later, the drone flights have dwindled, many of the advisers have gone home and not one of the kidnapped girls has been found. Many are believed to have been married off to Boko Haram fighters , who in the past six months have seized hundreds more civilians, including children, planted bombs in Nigerian cities and captured entire towns. In Washington, that fleeting moment of cooperation between Nigeria and the United States in May has now devolved into finger-pointing and stoked the distrust between the two countries’ militaries. Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States has accused the Obama administration of failing to support the fight against Boko Haram, prompting the State Department to fire back with condemnations of the Nigerian military’s dismal human rights record. “Tensions in the U.S.-Nigeria relationship are probably at their highest level in the past decade,” Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s former top diplomat for Africa, said in an interview. “There is a high degree of frustration on both sides. But this frustration should not be allowed to spin out of control.” Here in Stuttgart, officials at the headquarters of United States Africa Command offered their own bleak assessment of a corruption-plagued, poorly equipped Nigerian military that is “in tatters” as it confronts an enemy that now controls about 20 percent of the country. Image Gen. David M. Rodriguez is the top general for American missions in Africa. Credit Ted S. Warren/Associated Press “Ounce for ounce, Boko Haram is equal to if not better than the Nigerian military,” said one American official here, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational reports. The violence is in the meantime spilling into neighboring countries like Cameroon, which carried out its first airstrikes against Boko Haram this week, after militants overran a military base and attacked five villages there. Despite Boko Haram’s advances, United States Embassy officials in Abuja said Nigeria had canceled the last stage of American training of a newly created Nigerian Army battalion. The United States’ original effort to help locate and rescue the girls produced scant results, American and Nigerian officials said, in part because of distrust. Although the United States reached an agreement with Nigeria last spring to share some intelligence, American officials did not include raw intelligence data because they believe that Boko Haram has infiltrated the Nigerian security services. The United States has flown several hundred surveillance drone flights over the vast, densely forested regions in the northeast where the girls were seized, but officials in Stuttgart said that with few tips to guide the missions, the flights yielded little information, while diverting drones from other missions in war zones like Iraq and Syria. When the Pentagon did come up with what it calls “actionable intelligence” from the drone flights — for example, information that might have indicated the location of some of the girls — and turned it over to the Nigerian commanders to pursue, they did nothing with the information, Africa Command officials said. In addition, United States security assistance to Nigeria has been sharply limited by American legal prohibitions against close dealings with foreign militaries that have engaged in human rights abuses. Boko Haram: The Other Islamic State Maps showing the violent rise of the Islamist militant group that is waging a campaign of terror in Nigeria. Last summer, the United States blocked the sale of American-made Cobra attack helicopters to Nigeria from Israel, amid concerns in Washington about Nigeria’s ability to use and maintain that type of helicopter in its effort against Boko Haram, and continuing worries about Nigeria’s protection of civilians when conducting military operations. Those restrictions have drawn sharp criticism from Nigerian officials. In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in November, Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States, Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, said his government was dissatisfied with the “scope, nature and content” of American support in the fight against Boko Haram. He also disputed allegations of human rights violations committed by Nigerian soldiers. “We find it difficult to understand how and why in spite of the U.S. presence in Nigeria with their sophisticated military technology, Boko Haram should be expanding and becoming more deadly,” he said. Mr. Adefuye accused Washington of failing to provide the lethal weapons needed to defeat Boko Haram. In June, the Pentagon gave Nigeria some Toyota trucks, communications equipment and body armor. “There is no use giving us the type of support that enables us to deliver light jabs to the terrorists when what we need to give them is the killer punch,” the ambassador said. Mr. Adefuye’s speech prompted a strong response from the State Department the next day. “We continue to urge Nigeria to investigate allegations of abuses perpetrated by Nigerian security forces, as well as offer Nigeria assistance in developing the doctrine and training needed to improve the military’s effectiveness,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, told reporters in Washington. “We wouldn’t be raising that concern if we didn’t feel and others didn’t feel that they were warranted.” Groups like Human Rights Watch say the Nigerian military has at times burned hundreds of homes and committed other abuses as it battled Boko Haram and its presumed supporters. Video In Nigeria, more than 200 schoolgirls have been held captive since last April. Some background information on the Islamist group that has been trying to topple the country’s government for years. Credit Credit Sunday Alamba/Associated Press By this time, cooperation on the ground was also wearing thin. When Maj. Gen. James B. Linder, the head of American Special Operations forces in Africa, visited Nigeria in late October, he was barred from visiting the base where American trainers were instructing the new Nigerian Army battalion created to help fight Boko Haram. General Linder was left waiting at the gate in what some American officials viewed as another dig at the Pentagon. Africa Command officials insisted it was a “coordination issue that was remedied with a meeting later in the day. “We continue to engage with Nigeria on a broad range of training, equipping, and information-sharing projects across all of the military services,” Benjamin Benson, an Africa Command spokesman, said in an email. Secretary of State John Kerry called Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, on Tuesday in part to discuss Boko Haram. The strains between the two militaries are not new, and with Nigeria preparing for national elections in February, American officials fear that earlier assessments may overtake their cautious optimism from the spring. Testifying before House and Senate hearings, administration officials in May offered an unusually candid criticism of the Nigerian military. “We’re now looking at a military force that’s, quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage,” said Alice Friend, the Pentagon’s principal director for African affairs at the time. Sarah Sewall, the undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights, said at a separate hearing that despite Nigeria’s $5.8 billion security budget for 2014, “corruption prevents supplies as basic as bullets and transport vehicles from reaching the front lines of the struggle against Boko Haram.” | Nigeria;Boko Haram;Kidnapping and Hostages;US Military;Women and Girls;United States Africa Command;US Foreign Policy |
ny0227968 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/07/27 | ‘Blame Germany’ Is Not a Sound Economic Policy | PARIS — It is time to stop demanding the impossible of Germany and consider what practical steps Berlin could take to improve domestic demand and help rebalance the world’s economy and Europe’s. For months, “blame Germany” has been a favorite parlor game — second only to “blame China” — among economists and policy makers in Washington, Paris and London looking for scapegoats for global imbalances. Germany’s big current account surplus, its export-driven growth model, its fiscal conservatism and the infuriating propensity of its citizens for wage restraint and saving, rather than spending, have made it a target for critics from the U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, on down. “Concerns about growth, as Europe makes needed policy adjustments, threaten to undercut the momentum of recovery,” Mr. Geithner wrote last month in a letter to G-20 finance ministers that was clearly aimed at Germany. He followed that up with a visit to Berlin to admonish the Germans against premature retrenchment. Yet most of the policy prescriptions addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel have been unrealistic for a country with an aging, shrinking population and fears of deficit spending and inflation that are well grounded in history. For one thing, Berlin actually spent more of its gross domestic product on fiscal stimulus than any other continental European state during the financial crisis . Short-time work programs kept unemployment low, and the recovery is now robust. Having held down wages to regain competitiveness after being the economic sick man of Europe a decade ago, Germany is not about to throw away those hard-won gains voluntarily. Nor is there much room to cut taxes for a government obliged to respect a constitutional “debt brake” and needing to make provision for a swelling army of retirees. Even if it did cut taxes, history suggests that thrifty Germans would squirrel the money away, rather than splash out in the stores. So what can Berlin do to stimulate domestic demand without busting its budget or weighing down its wage costs? Economists have identified three areas where the government could harness untapped growth potential: infrastructure, services and the place of women in the economy. Despite Germans’ love affair with the car and the power of the automobile industry, motorways and roads in western Germany are aging, congested and in need of renewal. There is also scope to develop high-speed rail and broadband networks. The Austrian economist Franz Nauschnigg advocates a model of public-private partnership that would enable state-owned companies to borrow cheaply with a government guarantee and recoup the outlay through tolls, road pricing or a few cents added to gasoline taxes. Under this scenario, the cost of building infrastructure would be removed from the state budget under European Union accounting rules and the companies would be able to amortize the investment over the lifetime of the asset, rather than in the year the money was spent. Mr. Nauschnigg, who works for the Austrian central bank but was writing in a personal capacity, cites his country’s experience in 1995 to 1999, when sharp deficit cuts were accompanied by a package of infrastructure investments. “The strategy proved successful. Austria integrated well into the E.U. single market, while the budget deficit was lowered by around 3 percent of G.D.P. without losses in growth and employment,” he wrote in a policy brief. “Additional infrastructure was created, increasing growth potential.” Scrapping overregulation and restrictions on competition would help free the services sector, which is smaller in Germany than in most other advanced economies. Compared with the United States, Britain and even highly regulated France, Germany has more limited shopping hours, for example. “In a wealthy country like Germany, private demand is largely based on the services sector,” a Deutsche Bank economist, Philipp Ehmer, said in a research note. “Simple, labor-intensive services are best suited to boost domestic demand. In these sectors, Germany could create additional employment.” Potential growth areas include health and long-term care services, which now account for less than 10 percent of services-sector spending, excluding retail trade, as well as education and telecommunications. Mr. Ehmer recommends wage or income subsidies to encourage the creation of low-paid service jobs in the retail or hotel and restaurant sectors, but acknowledges the measure may prove too costly for the public purse. He also says government-funded conscientious objectors doing civilian service instead of military duty are crowding out the private sector in providing care to the elderly. The third growth area is to bring more women into the work force by investing more in preschool child care. Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen began this several years ago against fierce conservative resistance. Even the government’s official Web site admits that “one of the main obstacles” to women’s climbing the career ladder “is the fact that the network of child-care facilities, particularly for small infants, is not so good on a European comparison.” | Germany;Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0235879 | [
"technology",
"companies"
] | 2010/01/15 | Intel’s Bet on Innovation Pays Off in Faster Chips | MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — At about this time last year, Intel ’s board decided to invest $7 billion in new chip plants in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. With the global economy reeling, businesses and consumers had pulled way back on their typical technology spending, and sales of personal computers had started to decline at their steepest rates in history. The major two-year investment was a matter of faith — in an economic recovery and in the Internet continuing to drive a long-term increase in demand for computers, smartphones and other devices with chips inside. “As you can imagine, there was a lot of uncertainty in that January board meeting,” said Jane E. Shaw, the chairman of Intel’s board and former chief executive at the pharmaceutical company Aerogen, in an interview. Today, Intel’s bet on the future is looking as if it will pay off big. The first chips from the plants arrived this month, made with techniques that let the company create smaller, faster and lower-power products than its main competitors. Just as it has in past downturns, Intel has used its hefty pile of cash to advance its manufacturing prowess and technology while rival chip makers have struggled to stay afloat. Meanwhile, broader technology spending is on the rebound, suggesting that both companies and consumers are more optimistic about their own futures. On Thursday, Intel, the first major tech company to report earnings , said that revenue rose 28 percent to $10.6 billion in the fourth quarter, and the company earned the largest gross profit margin in its history. Net income was $2.3 billion, or 40 cents a share, up tenfold from the $234 million, or 4 cents a share, it earned in the last quarter of 2008. This week, Gartner, a technology research firm, reported that worldwide PC shipments rose 22 percent to 90 million units during the fourth quarter, which is a healthy recovery from the dismal fourth quarter of 2008. Because of its investment in the downturn, Intel, which makes the chips at the heart of most PCs, is poised to benefit from that surge more than most tech firms. “They continued to innovate while many of their competitors were swimming in debt and reducing their head count,” said Bill Kreher, an analyst with Edward Jones. “The big and strong will emerge even stronger from the downturn, and Intel is no exception.” Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected Intel to earn 30 cents a share on revenue of $10.17 billion, significantly underestimating Intel’s performance. Company executives attributed the gains to its manufacturing strengths and a long-term plan that lowered the company’s annual operations spending. “The cumulative impact has left us more nimble, more competitive and more flexible that I can ever recall — certainly since the ’70s,” wrote Paul S. Otellini , Intel’s chief executive, in an e-mail interview before the earnings report. But Intel also showed especially strong gains from one of its riskiest bets in recent memory — the Atom chip, a cheaper processor that is used in the small laptops known as netbooks and is being adapted for use in smartphones. The company said it sold $1.4 billion of Atom chips over the last year. Intel executives had feared that the Atom and netbooks could undermine the company’s more profitable business with traditional laptops, but they pushed hard on the products anyway. The new plants produce the chip at a lower cost, and Intel is the leading player in the fast-growing netbook market. “I have to give them a pat on the back for having the guts to go with Atom despite the fact that it could have hurt their business,” said Fred Weber, a former executive with Intel’s rival, Advanced Micro Devices. “They built the right chip for the right time.” But there are clouds on the horizon. Although Intel recently paid A.M.D. $1.25 billion to settle long-running litigation, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York attorney general’s office have filed sweeping antitrust lawsuits against the company. The European Union fined Intel $1.45 billion last May. The governments charge that the company, the world’s largest chip maker, has abused its market power to squelch competition and charge higher prices to its customers. Industry experts also wonder how long Intel can continue to leverage its manufacturing muscle. Contract chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing continue to improve their production skills and have a wide variety of customers that help keep their plants full. Intel’s rivals like A.M.D. and Qualcomm are reducing capital costs by using such contract chip makers. Indeed, A.M.D. spun off its factories into a new chip-making venture called Globalfoundries, which is backed by large investments from the government of Abu Dhabi. China continues to invest in contract chip makers as well. More significantly, demand for chips that use the ARM architecture, a competitor to Intel’s architecture, has been rising. Most commonly found in cellphones, ARM chips have started to make their way into computers and even computer servers — two markets where Intel commands an approximately 80 percent share. “There is a possibility that Intel’s financial monopoly will be broken,” said Mr. Weber, who has also received past investments from Intel for a start-up. “Was this Intel’s last chance to crank that old model? I highly doubt it. But it’s actually getting interesting to speculate about now.” Intel generated in $11 billion in cash from its operations last year, and its financial strength has enabled it to withstand the economic and political winds and still pour money into some of the most expensive manufacturing facilities ever built. The company’s critics have long contended that it has earned such a luxury through anticompetitive practices. But other large tech firms are in similarly strong positions and have used the recession as an opportunity to get a leg up on competitors. Oracle, the leader in database software, has moved to acquire the fallen angel Sun Microsystems, adding a large hardware business to its portfolio. Cisco Systems, the largest networking equipment seller, spent more than $7 billion last year on acquisitions that bolstered its positions in new markets. And Hewlett-Packard, the largest technology company, added the vast services business of Electronic Data Systems to complement its hardware and software product lines. Mr. Otellini makes no apologies about Intel’s favorable position and said the company would march on into new areas like cellphones, cars and consumer devices on the back of its manufacturing might. “Everyone in the company knows that innovation is our lifeblood and did a fabulous job on delivering it,” he said. | Computer Chips;Intel Corp;Computers and the Internet;Antitrust Actions and Laws;Otellini Paul S |
ny0226378 | [
"us"
] | 2010/10/31 | Campaign Ads Portray Liberal Demon by Bay | The commercial could be mistaken for a low-budget San Francisco tourism advertisement, with images of Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge and AT&T Park. In fact, it’s an attack ad from the Pennsylvania Senate race. As the commercial unfolds, the face of the Democratic candidate, Joe Sestak, is superimposed over the city’s landmarks to portray Mr. Sestak, a retired Navy admiral who lives in the same Pennsylvania county where he grew up, as “just another San Francisco liberal.” Mr. Sestak, a congressman, earned this distinction by voting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi “100 percent of the time,” according to the ad for his Republican opponent, Pat Toomey. “That might fly in San Francisco,” the ad concludes, “but it’s too extreme in Pennsylvania.” In the waning days of a highly charged election season, Republicans near and far are united against a common opponent: San Francisco. In ads and stump speeches, the city is repeatedly flogged as a symbol of the kind of out-of-step liberalism that Republicans vow to banish if they wrest control of Congress from Ms. Pelosi and the Democrats. Nationally, the Republican National Committee has begun a “Fire Pelosi 2010 Bus Tour,” and ads tying Democrats to San Francisco have proliferated. In Georgia, a conservative Democrat seeking to distance himself from Ms. Pelosi is running a commercial featuring gyrating hippies and warning: “Georgia is a long way from San Francisco.” In California, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, a candidate for lieutenant governor, and District Attorney Kamala Harris, a candidate for attorney general, are both fending off attacks related to their hometown. Mr. Newsom’s opponent, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, has repeatedly ridiculed San Francisco policies like a ban on plastic bags as out of touch and overreaching. Ms. Harris’s opponent, Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles district attorney, has been subtler, employing images of San Francisco while skewering Ms. Harris in television ads. The political message makers are not playing hunches. A Field poll last summer asked voters if they would be more or less likely to vote for a politician if they knew that politician was from the San Francisco Bay Area. Outside the Bay Area, 22 percent said they would be less likely to vote for the San Francisco politician while only 5 percent said they would be more likely, according to Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll. “San Francisco is viewed, in some ways correctly, as being different than the rest of the state,” Mr. DiCamillo said. “In a close race, specifically in the A.G.’s race, where it seems where the candidates are from is one of the primary distinctions between the two, it could make a difference.” Political observers say the subtext of running against San Francisco is about cultural values. The message is an effort to galvanize the Republican base and appeal to moderate Democrats. Dick Polman, a political columnist with The Philadelphia Inquirer, said the message of the Toomey ad was unspoken but obvious, tying San Francisco to a gay lifestyle that makes conservatives uncomfortable. “Nancy Pelosi is from San Francisco, and we all know who lives in San Francisco. The ad doesn’t have to show Castro Street,” Mr. Polman said. “In Pennsylvania, that message would be aimed at cultural conservatives, many of them registered Democrats, who generally view Democratic social permissiveness and government spending as part of a continuum.” Local leaders, of course, reject the portrayals. “The San Francisco Bay Area offers a kind of liberal freedom that allows people to come here without their being handicapped by the stereotypes that have blocked them elsewhere,” said Art Agnos, who served as mayor from 1988 to 1992. “It’s ironic that politicians or their advisers are trying to stereotype San Francisco because it defies stereotypes.” The anti-San Francisco strategy has been especially visible in the race for lieutenant governor. Mr. Maldonado has taken a rhetorical sledgehammer to the city — and its mayor, Mr. Newsom — to rally the Republicans’ conservative base. As he took the stage at the California Republican Convention in August, Mr. Maldonado showed an eight-minute video calling San Francisco the “Nanny of the Month,” a reference to the city’s policies restricting bottled water in city offices, banning soda from vending machines on city property and forbidding plastic bags at supermarkets. The video repeated at least a dozen times a clip of Mr. Newsom declaring that same-sex marriage would become widespread “whether you like it or not” and showed images of Mr. Newsom’s decree honoring Colt Studios, a gay pornographer. “While Gavin was cheering for gay porn, there were 11 homicides in the first 15 days of 2007,” the video said. Mr. Maldonado has since clarified that it is Mr. Newsom’s “policies, not the city” that he despises. “It’s a wonderful city with a lot of charm,” he said in a recent interview. But Mr. Maldonado, a successful vegetable and berry farmer from the Central Coast, chafed at what he said were Mr. Newsom’s elitist urban attitude and out-of-touch policies. “I think he looks down at me, and that’s somewhat sad,” Mr. Maldonado said. “He goes to L.A. He stays in San Francisco or pops into Sacramento. But he won’t go to San Diego, Stockton, Bakersfield. He won’t go to real California, to where blue-collar, hard-working people are. He knows his policies won’t work there.” Mr. Newsom argued that San Francisco’s efforts to legalize same-sex marriage and to ban plastic bags and his promotion of green technology are ahead of their time. “History usually judges us quite well,” Mr. Newsom said. “This is one of the most innovative, dynamic, desired places to live in the world by people. Conservatives should look to San Francisco for example.” Mr. Cooley has taken a more restrained approach in his contest against Ms. Harris. His first television ad showed her face above the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge rising before her, as a man’s voice described Ms. Harris’s “errors and misjudgments.” “My opponent is trying to use very vague basic-level tactics to distract from the issues,” Ms. Harris said. “There are certainly stereotypes that people would like to attach to what it means to be from San Francisco, and I reject them.” Analysts say the attacks may be effective against a candidate like Ms. Harris, who has been criticized for opposing the death penalty. “In the end, voters are most comfortable with someone who appears to be in the middle,” said Larry Gerston, a political science professor at San Jose State University. “One wonders if she’s going to be tarred and feathered just because she’s the D.A. in San Francisco.” At a ceremony in San Francisco last week, Ms. Pelosi said she would not “take the bait” in response to the San Francisco bashing. “Instead of saying how they’re going to run the country, they want to try and talk about San Francisco,” she said. Ms. Pelosi added that she was proud of the city named for St. Francis of Assisi, and then quoted him: “Where there is hatred, may we bring love, and where there is despair, may we bring hope.” | Political Advertising;United States Politics and Government;San Francisco (Calif);Democratic Party;Advertising and Marketing;Polls and Public Opinion |
ny0034200 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/12/06 | New York City Increases Its Resistance to Federal Entreaties on Foreign-Born Detainees | For years, New York City correction officials routinely provided federal immigration authorities with information about foreign-born detainees in their custody. The city, in response to federal requests, would transfer many of those detainees into federal custody, often leading to their deportation. But a series of laws passed by the City Council over the past two years sought to restrict this cooperative agreement. And according to new city statistics , the laws appear to be achieving their goal, prompting celebration — albeit guarded — among immigrants’ advocates. From July, when the most recent of the restrictive laws went into effect, to September, city officials responded to 904 federal hold requests, known as detainers, according to the statistics. Of those detainers, the city declined to honor 331, or 37 percent. In contrast, until the laws were passed, the city customarily honored every detainer, according to city officials. “We feel good about the impact that this legislation has had because it has stopped the deportation of a lot of New Yorkers,” Javier H. Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road New York , an advocacy group, said on Thursday. “Our hope,” he said, “is that with the new administration we can increase the number of New Yorkers who will not be turned over to immigration.” Even with the new city laws, New York’s restrictions are still not as tight as those of other major cities, like Chicago and Washington, advocates said. Cooperation between local governments and federal immigration authorities has been a deeply contentious issue around the United States. Some jurisdictions, convinced that the federal government has not done enough to enforce immigration laws, have increased their role in immigration enforcement. But others, concerned about the impact of deportations on their communities, have tried to put distance between themselves and the immigration machinery of the federal government. Much of the recent debate has surrounded the federal Secure Communities program. The initiative allows Homeland Security officials to more easily compare the fingerprints of every suspect booked at a local jail with those in its files. If they find that a suspect is a noncitizen who is in the country illegally or has a criminal record, they may issue a detainer. The Secure Communities program, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, has been vehemently opposed by some elected officials around the country, who have sought to limit their jurisdictions’ participation. In November 2011, the City Council passed a law that narrowed the range of detainers the city would honor. Among other terms, the law prevented correction officers from transferring immigrants to federal custody if the inmates had no convictions or outstanding warrants, had not previously been deported, were not suspected gang members or did not appear on a terrorist watch list. The effect on the detainer system was immediate: Correction officials went from routinely honoring all detainers to, according to the recently released statistics, about 75 percent of them. In February, the Council imposed additional restrictions, including blocking detainers for immigrants facing all but the most serious misdemeanor charges, like sexual abuse, assault and gun possession. Under these new guidelines, the percentage of detainers the city rebuffed rose to about 37 percent from about 25 percent. The rates may have even been higher had the federal government not concurrently altered its own detainer policy , limiting the range of immigrants it would seek custody of. Still, immigrant advocates said they would press for more restrictions and have reoriented their lobby toward Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who has vowed to end the city’s cooperation with federal immigration detainers except for detainees convicted of “violent or serious felonies.” Newark, San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif., are also among the cities that have more restrictive detainer policies than New York, according to Emily Tucker, staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy , an advocacy group in New York. “New York City can do much better than these numbers show we are doing at the moment,” she said. | Immigration;Immigration detention;Deportation;City council;NYC |
ny0008808 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/05/14 | Chinese Leaders Warn of ‘Dangerous’ Western Values | HONG KONG — The Chinese Communist Party has warned officials to combat “dangerous” Western values and other perceived ideological threats, in a directive that analysts said on Monday reflected the determination of China’s leader to preserve top-down political control even as he considers economic liberalization. The warning emerged on Chinese news Web sites that carried accounts from local party committees describing a directive from the Central Committee General Office, the administrative engine of the party leadership under Xi Jinping. The central document, “Concerning the Situation in the Ideological Sphere,” has not been openly published, and most references to it disappeared from Chinese news and government Web sites by Monday afternoon, apparently reflecting censors’ skittishness about publicizing such warnings. But what did come to light in the local summaries exuded anxiety about the party’s grip on opinion. Mr. Xi has been credited with strengthening national cohesiveness since he became general secretary in November, said a summary of a party organization meeting last week of the Commission of Urban-Rural Development of Chongqing, a municipality in southwest China. “At the same time, the central leadership has made a thorough analysis of and shown a staunch stance toward seven serious problems in the ideological sphere that merit attention, giving a clearer understanding of the sharpness and complexity of struggle in the ideological sphere,” said the account, which later disappeared from the commission’s Web site. The Chinese government has confronted demands for democratic changes from activists emboldened by Mr. Xi’s vows to respect the law. In recent days, some activists have cited rumors that the party issued a warning against seven ideas that are considered anathema, including media freedom and judicial independence. But the official summaries did not include such language. Officials must “fully understand the dangers posed by views and theories advocated by the West,” said the account from Chongqing, which said officials must “cut off at the source channels for disseminating erroneous currents of thought.” “Strengthen management of the Internet, enhance guidance of opinion, purify the environment on the Internet, give no opportunities that lawless elements can seize on,” it said. Reports on other local party committee Web sites in northeast and southwest China also described the directive, although in less detail. Image President Xi Jinping has commissioned officials to study areas of potential economic change. Credit Pool photo by Jason Lee The demands for ideological conformity show that Mr. Xi and other leaders want to inoculate the public from expectations of major political liberalization, even as they explore loosening some state controls over the economy, several analysts said. “If anything, there seems to be some regression in the ideological sphere,” said Chen Ziming, a prominent political commentator in Beijing who supports democratic change. “I think that there will be some steps forward in economic reform, but there are no notions of political reform. Such warnings reflect that mentality.” Calls for orthodoxy from Chinese leaders are by no means new. But Mr. Xi is caught in a sharpening conundrum, trying to satisfy widespread public expectations for cleaner, more accountable government and a fairer share of prosperity while also defending centralized control, said Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in California who specializes in Chinese politics. “I think in his mind he has two conflicting priorities,” Professor Pei said. “The top priority is to maintain the party’s rule,” he said. “But he also has this immediate political priority; that is, he wants to show he will end this period of stagnation. But clearly the two priorities are in conflict with each other.” Mr. Xi has commissioned officials and researchers to study seven areas of potential economic change, including loosening state controls on bank interest rates and on resource prices, said a Chinese businessman with close links to senior leaders, confirming a report in The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday. Some of the proposals are likely to be endorsed by a meeting of the party’s Central Committee late this year, said the businessman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing concern about harming his ties to leaders. On Monday, the prime minister, Li Keqiang, reinforced the theme of change, urging officials to cut red tape stifling market competition, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. “The market is the creator of social wealth,” Mr. Li said. “Let go of the powers that should be let go.” Yet Mr. Xi has accompanied such signals of change with the messages defending party tradition and control. In December, he said China must absorb the lessons of the collapse of the Soviet Union, for which he blamed political ill-discipline and ideological laxity under Mikhail S. Gorbachev. More recently, Mr. Xi told officials that the Chinese Communist Party might not have survived if it had disowned Mao Zedong in the same way that the Soviet Union condemned Stalin, a party newspaper, The Guangming Daily, reported last week. If Mr. Xi is to advance some economic liberalization, he must first convince potential opponents that he will not jeopardize one-party control, said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an American businessman who wrote an authorized biography of the former party leader Jiang Zemin and has met Mr. Xi and other senior officials. “It’s not an irrational combination in the Chinese system,” Mr. Kuhn said in an interview. “My guess is that some of the talk is designed to consolidate a position so that he’s not attacked by the extreme left. People can read into Xi what they like, because he gives each side the opportunity to see what they like.” | China;Communist Party of China;Xi Jinping |
ny0267987 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2016/03/13 | Angelique Kerber Drops Another Indian Wells Opener | Angelique Kerber, the Australian Open champion, crashed out of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., on Saturday, and two other top-seeded women also left in the second round at Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The second-seeded Kerber of Germany lost, 7-5, 7-5, to Denisa Allertova of the Czech Republic in the opening match of the day on the main stadium court. Fourth-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain dropped a 7-5, 6-1 decision to Christina McHale of the United States, and sixth-seeded Carla Suárez Navarro of Spain withdrew because of a right ankle injury. Kerber, who beat Serena Williams in January for the title in Australia, led Allertova, 4-2, in the second set but fell behind, 6-5, then double-faulted, giving Allertova match point. Kerber, No. 2 in the world, then hit a forehand long to finish her third straight opening-match loss in the event. “I was trying to find my rhythm and play my game, but it was not my day,” said Kerber, who still was adjusting to the demands on her time that go with being a Grand Slam champion. “The pressure is much different than it was a few months ago,” Kerber said, “it’s a completely new situation for me, but I’m trying to get used to it. I will try to learn from this experience, this match, and get better in the next few weeks.” Seventh-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland survived with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Lauren Davis of the United States, and ninth-seeded Roberta Vinci of Italy held off Margarita Gasparyan of Russia, 6-3, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (5). But the big winner was Williams, who did not play. She will face Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan on Sunday — and seldom needs any help. Williams, ranked No. 1 in the world, is in the top half of the bracket with third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, a possible semifinal foe; fifth-seeded Simona Halep, a potential quarterfinal opponent; and eighth-seeded Petra Kvitova. Bencic and Vinci are the highest seeds left in the bottom half of the bracket. On the men’s side, second-seeded Andy Murray of Scotland beat Marcel Granollers of Spain, 6-4, 7-6 (3), and third-seeded Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland beat Illya Marchenko of Ukraine, 6-3 6-2. Sixth-seeded Tomas Berdych, eighth-seeded Richard Gasquet, 12th-seeded Milos Raonic and 13th-seeded Gaël Monfils also advanced with straight-set wins. Berdych, of the Czech Republic, beat Juan Martín del Potro of Argentina, 7-6 (4), 6-2; Gasquet topped his fellow Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, 6-4, 6-1; Raonic, a Canadian, was a 6-1, 6-3 winner over Iñigo Cervantes-Huegun of Spain; and Monfils, of France, beat Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain, 7-5, 7-6 (1). The only loss of note was by Nick Kyrgios of Australia, the 24th seed, who was beaten by Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain, 7-6 (4), 7-5. At 2-2 in the second set, the umpire Damien Dumusois docked Kyrgios a point for using foul language. Muguruza, who reached the Wimbledon final last year and finished at No. 3 in the world, has struggled early this season and said a few days ago that she needed a good deal more work on her game. She made a few dozen mistakes against McHale, who was No. 24 in the world before a bout of mononucleosis derailed her late in 2012. She is No. 62 now. “I think Christina was playing very good today,” Muguruza said. “The first set it was much more tough and difficult, and she was playing very good and she got the first set. Then, the second set, I think my energy went a little bit down, and she kind of used it and went for the match. “Obviously you’re frustrated when you’re trying and you don’t find really what you want to do,” she added. SUPPORT FOR NADAL Real Madrid, the Spanish soccer giant, joined the defense of Rafael Nadal after doping accusations made by Roselyne Bachelot, the former French minister for health and sport. Bachelot said on French television on Thursday that Nadal’s seven-month injury hiatus in 2012 was “probably due to a positive doping test.” On Saturday, Real Madrid expressed its “total support” for Nadal and called the accusations “unjustifiable and intolerable.” Nadal is a prominent fan of Madrid and a “member of honor” of the club. The Spanish Olympic Committee, the national team manager Vicente del Bosque and Barcelona Coach Luis Enrique have also supported Nadal, who denies any wrongdoing. | Tennis;Angelique Kerber;Indian Wells Masters,BNP Paribas Open;Indian Wells |
ny0229919 | [
"us"
] | 2010/09/18 | Wisconsin: Prosecutor Refuses Calls to Resign | District Attorney Ken Kratz of Calumet County said Friday that he would get therapy but would not resign despite calls for him to step down over sexually tinged text messages he sent to a domestic abuse victim. In one message, he asked whether she was “the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected D.A.” At the time, he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend on strangulation charges. | Wisconsin;Domestic Violence;Sexual Harassment;Courts;Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations |
ny0166518 | [
"us"
] | 2006/08/15 | Trailer Homes’ Locks Found Vulnerable | WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency has discovered that the same keys can open many of the 118,000 trailer homes being used by Gulf Coast hurricane victims, and will replace locks on an undetermined number as a result. The problem stems from the limited number of lock types that locksmiths provide to trailer manufacturers for building mobile homes, and the limited number of key patterns that were cut for each type. Only three types are used, and a FEMA spokesman, John P. Philbin, said locksmiths had cut just 50 different patterns for the first kind. Another manufacturer, Mr. Philbin said, had 100 and 200 patterns for the second and third kinds. Taken in all, the numbers increase the likelihood that a trailer can be opened by someone other than the occupant. Mr. Philbin said he did not know how many trailers had been distributed for each key pattern cut or how many locks would need to be replaced. | Hurricanes and Tropical Storms;Federal Emergency Management Agency |
ny0028529 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/01/23 | Super Bowl Ads Will Be Heavy on Colas, Beers and Cars | EACH year within the Super Bowl, Madison Avenue plays an Ad Bowl, as marketers spend large amounts of time and treasure to create commercials that will, they hope, win plaudits and move merchandise. And within each Ad Bowl, two categories of consumer products usually account for a supersize amount of spots: automobiles and beverages. Super Bowl XLVII, to be broadcast on Feb. 3 on CBS, is no exception. At this point, as sponsors continue to share their plans for the game, it looks as if six automakers — the Chrysler Group, Ford Motor, the Hyundai Motor Group, Mercedes-Benz USA, Toyota Motor and Volkswagen of America — will advertise eight brands in the game, including Audi, Hyundai, Kia, Lincoln and Volkswagen. (Cars.com, an auto-shopping site, will also advertise.) It also appears that six marketers — Anheuser-Busch InBev, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, the Milk Processor Education Program, PepsiCo and SodaStream International — will advertise eight beverages, including two new beers, Budweiser Black Crown and Beck’s Sapphire, and three colas, Coke, Pepsi-Cola and Pepsi Next. The Super Bowl is typically the most-watched television show each year. It is, commensurately, typically the most expensive ad vehicle each year. For the coming game, CBS charged an estimated $3.7 million to $3.8 million for each 30 seconds of commercial time. As eye-popping as those prices are, all the commercial time in the game has been sold out for at least two weeks. The Super Bowl offers marketers “spectacle, huge numbers and an environment in which more people are engaged in the advertising,” said Steve Shannon, vice president for marketing at the Hyundai Motor America unit of the Hyundai Motor Group, which is buying two commercials in the game. This will be the sixth consecutive Super Bowl with spots for the Hyundai brand. “A lot of us are there,” Mr. Shannon said of the automakers, because “it sells cars.” For instance, the two models that Hyundai Motor America advertised during the 2012 Super Bowl — the Genesis coupe R-Spec and the Veloster Turbo — “have the shortest-day supply of any of our vehicles,” Mr. Shannon said, referring to a widely-followed measure of automotive demand. The Super Bowl is also a draw for auto brands because “we can get the year off to a good start,” he added. “In the automotive business, you don’t want to dig yourself a hole early in the year and have to dig out.” Image A Super Bowl commercial for the Hyundai Santa Fe features six boys who team up to tackle a bunch of bullies. It is scheduled to run in the first quarter. Mr. Shannon spoke during a visit to New York on Tuesday to give reporters previews of the Hyundai Super Bowl XLVII commercials. The humorous spots, created by Innocean USA, will promote the new seven-passenger Hyundai Santa Fe, in the first quarter, and the Hyundai Sonata Turbo, in the second. To take advantage of the increasing willingness of consumers to watch Super Bowl ads before the game in social media like Facebook and share them with friends, the Hyundai commercials will be released before the game, Mr. Shannon said; each is to run 45 seconds, 15 seconds longer than its in-game counterpart. The Super Bowl is “now a social media extravaganza,” he said. “The traffic it drives to automotive Web sites and our own HyundaiUSA.com is, without question, giant.” A beverage giant that joined Hyundai Motor America in describing ad plans to reporters on Tuesday, the Coca-Cola Company, is also making social media an intrinsic part of its Super Bowl strategy. “We want to have a sustained conversation with consumers year-round,” said Pio Schunker, senior vice president for integrated marketing communications at the Coca-Cola North America division of Coca-Cola, and “the scale and size of the Super Bowl” will help “kick-start a really big conversation.” The Facebook page for Coca-Cola is already offering fans a preview of a 60-second Coke commercial , by Wieden & Kennedy, that will run in the first half of the game. Other social media, like Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and YouTube, will be enlisted in promoting the commercial. It offers viewers a chance to vote for one of three thirsty teams — cowboys, showgirls or “badlanders” (motorcycle toughs) — to win a fanciful “Coke Chase” across a desert. The winning team is to be revealed in a 30-second commercial to run immediately after the Super Bowl, Mr. Schunker said. After that, the first 50,000 people who took part in the campaign and logged onto, or signed up for, the My Coke Rewards Web site will win coupons for free 20-ounce bottles of Coke, Coke Zero or Diet Coke, he said. The campaign, backed by what Mr. Schunker called an extensive “social plan,” will continue throughout 2013, he said. It will be part of a three-year initiative to refocus on “those fundamentals that need to anchor our ‘Open Happiness’ umbrella campaign” for the Coke brand, he said. “We have to get back to the love of the liquid,” he added. The “Coke Chase” campaign is concentrated on refreshing, thirst-quenching qualities, he said. For instance, if the Super Bowl effort “does really well,” Mr. Schunker said, “we might come back with the game on ‘American Idol,’ ” which Coca-Cola sponsors, asking viewers to vote for a winning team. The winner could be a different team from the one that wins the vote before and during the Super Bowl, he added. | advertising,marketing;Super Bowl;Drink;Cars;Football |
ny0016759 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/10/01 | Defining and Demanding a Musician’s Fair Shake in the Internet Age | RICHMOND, Va. — In the music business, they still talk about the “Lars curse.” It has been 13 years since Metallica’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, identified the screen names of more than 300,000 Napster users in a copyright infringement lawsuit. The tarring he received in response — being derided as greedy and insensitive to fans — still makes musicians think twice before complaining about the problems with digital music. But it hasn’t stopped David Lowery. As the leader of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, Mr. Lowery had a modicum of fame in the 1980s and ’90s. But over the last year, he has become a celebrity among musicians for speaking out about artists’ shrinking paychecks and the influence of Silicon Valley over copyright, economics and public discourse. In public appearances and no-holds-barred blog posts, Mr. Lowery, 53, has come to represent the anger of musicians in the digital age. When an NPR Music intern confessed in a blog post last year that she paid very little for her music, he scolded her in a 3,800-word open letter that framed the issue in moral terms. Since then, he has attacked Pandora for trying to lower royalty rates, accused Google of masterminding a broad anti-copyright campaign and compared people who doubt the effect of piracy on musicians to those who think President Obama is a Muslim . “Once the cobra bit me, I might as well just eat the cobra,” Mr. Lowery said in a recent interview at his home here. “Nothing worse can happen to me.” The issue has become hot as technology companies like Pandora and Google have replaced major record labels as the villains of choice for industry critics. Recently, Thom Yorke of Radiohead caused a stir by removing some of his music from Spotify and saying that the service would hurt new artists . To his detractors, Mr. Lowery is a divisive ranter who pines for a lost, pre-Internet economy. But his knowledge of legal and technological minutiae — he is a lecturer at the University of Georgia’s music business program — make his arguments hard to dismiss. “He’s telling his personal story and standing up to the big corporations who claim to support songwriters, even as they work to undermine our rights behind the scenes,” said Paul Williams, the songwriter and president of Ascap. “He hasn’t flinched, and I think that’s given courage to other artists.” Like most musicians, Mr. Lowery has seen his royalties fall with the overall drop in record sales. In 2002, his share of songwriting royalties from sales of the first Camper Van Beethoven album (released in 1985) was $1,147; last year it was about $440, a 62 percent decline. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, the value of record sales and streams fell about 44 percent in that time, to $7.1 billion last year, from $12.6 billion in 2002. At the same time, the nature of royalties has changed, going from larger payments attached to CDs and downloads to fractions of a penny from streaming services. Pandora, for example, pays record labels and performers a combined 0.12 cent every time it streams a song; Spotify’s rates are not disclosed but are usually estimated at around half a cent per stream. “As little as I was getting paid in 2002, it looks pretty nice compared to almost nothing,” Mr. Lowery said. Mr. Lowery, who still plays with both his bands (Camper Van Beethoven released its eighth studio album, “La Costa Perdida,” in January), said he had been an early believer in the promise of the Web for artists. But in a process he describes as less of a light-bulb eureka moment than “a fluorescent light with a bad ballast, flickering there, wanting to come on,” he gradually shifted. “What we do as musicians was slowly being devalued and demonetized, especially for niche artists who are never going to make it up on the road,” said Mr. Lowery, his face stubbled with red hair and his voice still slightly raw from a concert the night before. On “The Trichordist,” a blog Mr. Lowery writes with a mostly anonymous group of like-minded independents — “a leaderless jihad,” he calls it — this conversation is an unvarnished monologue, with Mr. Lowery’s own royalty statements as visual aids. One popular recent post: “My Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89, Less Than What I Make From a Single T-Shirt Sale!” That figure was for songwriting and did not include additional payments as a performer. His heated tone, and his tendency to see corporate tentacles everywhere, have not endeared Mr. Lowery to everyone on his side of the business. After being rejected from a conference this year whose sponsors included Google, Mr. Lowery accused CASH Music , a two-person nonprofit that makes open-source software, of being “at best quislings and at worst shills” for not publicly defending him. Jesse von Doom, CASH Music’s co-executive director, said in an interview that his organization has indeed received $105,000 in grants from Google in the last two years. But he insisted that no strings were attached to those grants, and that he’s nobody’s shill. “The problem with David,” Mr. von Doom said, “is that he is driving the car in the right direction, and veering off the cliff some of the time.” Mr. Lowery’s modest three-story house here would seem an unlikely headquarters for an assault on technology companies. Sitting at his computer in his home recording studio in a room decorated with portraits of Lewis and Clark, Mr. Lowery recalled one of his blog posts, which offered qualified support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill aborted in early 2012 after a thunderbolt of opposition from Google, Wikipedia and other Web titans. One of the first comments on that post, Mr. Lowery said, was, “We’re going to turn you into Lars Ulrich.” Some of Mr. Lowery’s ideas oppose the unquestioned credos of music on the Internet. For example, he thinks musicians would benefit more from scarcity of their work online — and from the power to withdraw from any service using their work — than from the ubiquity we have come to expect from services like Spotify and Pandora. He and his Trichordist colleagues also advocate for an “ethical Internet” supported by strong copyright laws and industry practices that pay artists fair royalties. In response, he has been mocked as naïve. “People say, ‘Hey, man, you can’t fight this, we’re moving from ownership to access,’ ” Mr. Lowery said. “That’s exactly why I’m fighting it. We have to get it right. I want to get those rates right.” Speaking of young musicians like his students at the University of Georgia, he added, “I want them to have the same advantages I’ve had, to get paid fairly.” | Music;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Royalties;Audio Recordings;Copyrights |
ny0290421 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2016/01/19 | Morocco: Belgian Linked to Leader of the Paris Attacks Is Arrested | Moroccan officials announced Monday that they had detained a Belgian man thought to be a close friend of one of the leaders of the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13. The man, whom Belgian and Moroccan news sources identified as Gelel Attar, is of Belgian and Moroccan background, as were most of those who participated in the attacks. Mr. Attar was sentenced in absentia at a trial last summer in Belgium to five years in prison for involvement in a terrorist network. Two of the Paris attackers were also sentenced in absentia in that trial: Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who helped organize the attacks, and Chakib Akrouh, one of the attackers. | Gelel Attar;Paris Attacks;Belgium;Morocco |
ny0215303 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2010/04/05 | Stanford Advances to Women’s Final | SAN ANTONIO — And next year, it will be a sister act. Shades of Venus and Serena. On Sunday night, one Ogwumike, a sophomore forward named Nnemkadi, was enough for Stanford to hold off Oklahoma, 73-66, and reach the women’s national championship game for the second time in three years. Stanford (36-1), which last won a title under the longtime coach Tara VanDerveer in 1992, began the night as the last team to beat Connecticut, two years ago in the semifinals . Now it will try to do it again, after the Huskies (38-0) extended their winning streak to 77 games with a 70-50 victory over Baylor in the second semifinal. With her highly regarded sister, Chiney — a 6-foot-3 Houston high school senior who will join her next season in Palo Alto, Calif. — watching from behind the Stanford bench, Ogwumike, who is known as Nneka, dominated the game with 38 points and 16 rebounds. When the Sooners twice cut what had been an 18-point lead with less than seven minutes to play to 3, Ogwumike carried the Cardinal across the finish with 6 points in the last 21.7 seconds. Ogwumike made 13 of 25 shots from the field and 12 of 13 from the free-throw line. Her 38 points were the second-highest total in women’s Final Four history, after Sheryl Swoopes’s 47 in 1993. “We just didn’t have an answer for Nneka all night long,” said Oklahoma Coach Sherri Coale, whose team also lost in the semifinals last season, by 2 to Louisville. Of the coaches at this year’s Final Four, Coale was the only one without a national title. “She’s just so bouncy, so hard to keep off the glass,” Coale said of Ogwumike, lamenting that the Sooners did not have a bigger, stronger defender than Amanda Thompson. From the outset, Oklahoma showed a disturbing trend at both ends. On offense, the Sooners had trouble hitting the rim, much less getting the ball through it, missing their first 6 shots and 17 of their first 20 on their way to 25 percent shooting in the first half. On defense, they had just as little success in trying to deal with Stanford’s superior frontcourt skills, especially those of the 6-2, high-jumping Ogwumike. The drastic change in Ogwumike from freshman year to sophomore is what has elevated Stanford from semifinalist in 2009 to finalist in 2010. Nimble, quick and dangerous near the basket, she scored Stanford’s first 8 points as the Cardinal moved out to an 8-4 lead. But Oklahoma also had difficulty containing Stanford’s other big players: Kayla Pedersen and Jayne Appel. Stanford teams coached by VanDerveer throughout her 31-year career have almost always been served well by good court spacing and passing, but it really helps when players the size of Appel and Pedersen, both 6-4, and Ogwumike can shoot in the post with either hand and pass expertly, too. Appel’s health has been an issue for the last month, her sprained right ankle keeping her off the practice court and in a walking boot as recently as Saturday. She was not going to win any end-to-end sprints Sunday night and occasionally struggled elevating off the right foot. But the ball still has a way of finding a player of her size inside, leaving Ogwumike and Pedersen to find the seams in the Oklahoma defense and combine for 23 of Stanford’s 34 points as it built a 13-point lead at the half. With her points and rebounds piling up, Ogwumike scored on a putback to give the Cardinal a 41-26 lead early in the second half. “She’s just a tough matchup for a lot of people,” Coale said. “Someone closer to her size would help.” But Oklahoma had no intention of going away. Dormant all night, its perimeter game made a late appearance. When Thompson dropped in a 3-pointer, the lead was just 66-62. A jumper and a drive by Danielle Robinson, a junior guard who led Oklahoma with 23 points, twice made it a one-possession game. “Too little, too late; it just took us too long to get going,” Coale said, though not without paying tribute to her team, which was not expected to be here after losing Courtney Paris to graduation and its best shooter, Whitney Hand, to an injury in November. On both subsequent possessions, Stanford knew where to put the ball, in Ogwemike’s hands. On her career-best night, she was too skilled for Oklahoma and, over all, Stanford was too big to fail. | NCAA Basketball Tournament (Women);Stanford University;University of Oklahoma;Basketball |
ny0025118 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/08/31 | Signs of a Shift Among Egyptian Protesters to Antigovernment, From Pro-Morsi | CAIRO — The continuing protests against the military takeover here showed signs on Friday of shifting into a movement against the authoritarian tactics of the new government rather than one demanding the return of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. Although the evidence is tentative and anecdotal, any expansion of the protests’ base would be a significant setback for the new government. It has so far enjoyed considerable support for its crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood, whom it describes as violence-prone extremists. As tens of thousands gathered in the streets of Cairo for the ninth Friday of protests against the takeover, few carried the posters of Mr. Morsi’s face that were once the banner of the Brotherhood’s “anti-coup” coalition. Instead, almost everyone held a sign with a logo memorializing the mass killing by security forces of hundreds of Morsi supporters on Aug. 14: a four-fingered salute, because the Arabic word for fourth is the name of the square where the protesters were staging their sit-in, Rabaa. In a sharp change from the past, some of the marchers said openly that they did not expect Mr. Morsi to return to office, or they grudgingly acknowledged his government’s failures. At least a few said they did not want him back for longer than it took to hand over power to a new government or oversee new elections. “For me the first goal is to remove Sisi,” said Ibrahim Salah, a 27-year-old tour leader, referring to Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi , who pushed out Mr. Morsi and installed the new government. “And then to remove the Mubarak regime, which never really left,” he added. In at least one march by thousands of demonstrators in the neighborhood of Mohandiseen, many carried signs opposing both the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement behind Mr. Morsi, and the new government installed by General Sisi. Pro-Morsi demonstrators had rallied around his “legitimacy” as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, while General Sisi’s supporters claimed for him a “mandate” to crush the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. At the Mohandiseen march, many signs said, “No legitimacy and no mandate; the revolution is back!” A Brotherhood spokesman disavowed the march and directed journalists to other protests called by the Brotherhood. “The demonstrations are starting to get more representative of the people and not just the Islamists, because people are beginning to see that this was a bloody coup,” said Abdullah Salah, 20, who was at the march with four friends. He said he had voted against the Islamists in the first round of the presidential election in May 2012 and started joining protests with them only after the mass shootings. “Somebody has to be accountable,” he added. Even some young Islamists sought to distance their protests from Mr. Morsi’s restoration. “I’m not ready to take a bullet for Morsi,” said a 37-year-old Muslim Brotherhood member who gave only his first name, Hani. “It’s a matter of democracy — not a person.” It was unclear whether the shift represented a change in strategy by the Brotherhood intended to broaden its appeal, a bottom-up response to the crackdown or a combination of both. So far, the protests remain associated primarily with the Brotherhood; no other major political party or activist group has joined them, noted H. A. Hellyer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies Egyptian politics. “I don’t think they have turned any tide,” he said. “They might at some point, but that depends on how unpopular the military gets,” he added, noting that polls show a sizable majority of Egyptians still admire their military. But Friday’s marches were larger than those held a week earlier despite a tight lockdown by security forces and a threat from the police to use deadly ammunition. Security forces have killed more than a thousand Morsi supporters at protests in just the past 16 days, and the police have arrested thousands of Brotherhood members, including most of group’s leaders. Large demonstrations also took place in several other cities, but reliable reports of their size were hard to obtain. The protests were mostly peaceful with a few flashes of violence. State news media reported that seven protesters had been killed around the country in clashes with the security forces or pro-government vigilantes. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood who demonstrated Friday vowed that they would organize more protests even though the crackdown has all but cut off communication with their leaders. “Before it was a pyramid,” said Mustafa Shafiq, 23. “Now it’s a network. This is better.” | Arab Spring;Muslim Brotherhood Egypt;Mohamed Morsi;Cairo;Egypt |
ny0130969 | [
"sports"
] | 2012/12/02 | Trout Beats Cotto to Keep W.B.A. Title | Several days before attempting to defend his World Boxing Association super welterweight title against Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden, Austin Trout declared “I’m the present and future of the sport.” Trout, 27, backed up those words Saturday night by refusing to let the 32-year-old Cotto, a four-time champion, catch up with him. Trout (26-0 with 14 knockouts) soundly beat Cotto (37-4, 30 knockouts) in a 12-round unanimous decision before 13,096 spectators, many of them cheering and waving Puerto Rican flags in support of Cotto — a native of Caguas, P.R. — and loudly booing Trout. “I’ve been preparing for this fight for my entire life,” Trout said after the bout. “Fighting Miguel Cotto is a dream come true, it was the hardest fight of my career.” Trout set the tone early by wobbling Cotto with a hard left hand in the first round. Cotto quickly regained his footing and his composure, but the taller and longer-reaching Trout kept Cotto at bay until midway through the sixth round when Cotto connected with a razor-sharp right hand to Trout’s face. But Trout hardly blinked. Trout’s southpaw style gave Cotto trouble throughout, as Cotto had a tough time attempting to square up the champion and attack him with any consistency. “I had to show him I was the bigger guy and push him back a couple of times to show him he had no advantage,” Trout said. Cotto had his greatest success in the closing seconds of the 10th round, backing Trout into his corner with a flurry of punches that dazed Trout and had the crowd cheering. But Trout refused to give Cotto any openings after that. “He came at me with both hands, and we fought to the end,” Cotto said. “I’m satisfied with the job I did tonight.” When asked if he thought he had won, Cotto said, “Who do you think won the fight? Just listen to those fans.” The fans were still cheering for Cotto, who has long made the Garden his second home, having won all seven of his previous fights there. The crowd had been serenading him with chants of “Cott-O, Cott-O” from the time he entered the ring. But none of that fazed Trout, who lives in Las Cruces, N.M., and arrived on Saturday night’s stage by first winning the W.B.A. interim super welterweight world championship in February 2011 by defeating Rigoberto Alvarez. He had since made three successful defenses of his title while fighting in the shadows of Cotto and a crowded stable of marquee welterweights. Though quiet outside the ring, Cotto has spoken loudly with his fists since turning pro in 2001. Along the way, Cotto has earned millions on the strength of his reputation for taking on the toughest fighters of his generation, and Trout was no exception. In recent years, Cotto has been doing battle with a steady stream of marquee opponents, a list that includes Shane Mosley, whom Cotto defeated in 2007 to retain his W.B.A. welterweight crown, and Antonio Margarito, who took that title away from him in 2008. Cotto lost to Manny Pacquiao in a heralded bout in 2009, but met Margarito again last year and defeated him to retain the W.B.A. light-middleweight title. In May, however, Cotto lost his light-middleweight crown to Floyd Mayweather Jr. The Cotto-Trout affair was the main event of a nine-card bout that began with John Thompson, a middleweight from Newark (10-0), defeating Eli Agustama of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (6-6), in a six-round unanimous decision. Eddie Gomez (12-0), a rising super welterweights from the Bronx, dealt Luis Hernandez (9-1) of Rio Piedras, P.R., his first loss as a professional with a six-round unanimous decision. A pair of hard-punching featherweights fought next, with Jorge Diaz (17-1) of New Brunswick, N.J., brawling past Victor Sanchez (3-5-1) of Houston in six rounds to earn a unanimous decision. Another fighter from Newark, a lightweight named Michael Perez (18-1-1), twice dropped Fernando Carcamo (10-5) to the canvas to capture a unanimous decision. Jeffrey Fontanez (9-0), a lightweight from Cotto’s hometown, Caguas, electrified the crowd with a vicious, sweeping left-handed knockout of Pedro Arcos (12-3-1) of Tijuana, Mexico, in the second round of their scheduled six-round bout. The Puerto Rican faithful were back on their feet a short time later as Jorge Melendez (25-2-1) of Manati, P.R., dominated James Winchester (15-7) of Greensboro, N.C. Melendez scored a technical knockout 54 seconds into the fourth round of their scheduled eight-round super welterweight fight. After the Melendez bout, the cheers began to swell for the arrival of Daniel Jacobs, a super middleweight from Brooklyn. Jacobs, nicknamed the Miracle Man, was found to have spinal cancer in May 2011 and was temporarily paralyzed below the waist. Jacobs (24-1) did not disappoint, overcoming a slow start to defeat Chris Fitzpatrick (15-3) of Cleveland by technical knockout at the end of the fifth round. Jayson Velez (20-0), delighted the crowd by capturing the vacant World Boxing Council Silver Featherweight title with a third-round technical knockout of Salvador Sanchez II (30-5-3) of Mexico. | Boxing;Cotto Miguel;Trout Austin;World Boxing Assn;Madison Square Garden |
ny0164394 | [
"technology"
] | 2006/11/23 | When Beige Won’t Do | SOME blush at the touch. Others hum softly into the night. All of them, with their sensuous curves and luminescent faces, beg to be beheld. They are a new crop of personal computers that emphasize the personal. With attention to form, texture and materials, these machines are intended to make a statement about their owners, much the way an elegant wristwatch, the cut and make of a fine suit or a stylish car can suggest taste and social station. These are PCs meant as much to be seen as to be used. “It’s differentiation through personalization,” Xavier Lauwaert, product manager for the Sony VAIO line of computers, said of the deepening trend of greatly enhancing the aesthetics of contemporary computers for the home and office. “But it is also through design,” he said, adding that some people no longer want computers that are hard-edged black boxes — even if their prices are falling below $500. Mr. Lauwaert said the new stylish yet full-featured PC is a “kind of show-off piece,” something that might cost the owner several thousand dollars but “creates envy in their friends so that now he wants something better; she wants something better.” This year, Sony introduced its VAIO LS1 PC/TV computer ($2,100), which seems to float in a sheet of clear plastic. Also this year, Sony released its VAIO N Series notebooks (about $1,000), which it said were “designed to complement any home’s motif” with “cool colors” and “smooth lines.” One color for the notebooks, “wenge brown,” a creamy coffee color named for an African hardwood, is intended to help computers fit easily among wood-grain furnishings, Mr. Lauwaert said. Combining performance with style, in an era when a basic computer can be both nameless and inexpensive, is a hedge against making the PC a mere commodity, Mr. Lauwaert said. Computers long ago ceased to be simply tools, many of their makers say. Instead, like digital music players and digital cameras, they are coming to reflect people’s tastes and aspirations. “I do think it’s a great thing, designing them into looking like something you want as part of your décor,” said Richard Mishaan, an interior designer in New York. “Everywhere nowadays you are seeing them in a multitude of rooms in the house. I think we were waiting for them to get to be flat-screened, black and cool-looking.” Mark Karnes, the general manager for the personal audio business division of Shure, the high-end earbud maker, said consumers were attracted to style in electronics. “It means something,” he said. Lauren Searl, a recent college graduate who studied graphic arts, said looks were important when she bought a notebook computer recently for her home in Washington. “The big black computer was not aesthetically pleasing,” she said. “I was more interested in how it would look in my home. That was really part of my purchasing process.” She bought an Apple MacBook — white, she noted, to complement the color scheme of her bedroom, where she would use it. Apple Computer is widely credited with long ago shattering conventions that had for years dictated how a computer had to feel and look. Windows-based personal computers generally lagged far behind in fusing function with form in ways that consumers found exciting. But that is changing, executives from mainstay computer companies like Dell and Toshiba say. One of the boldest of these new PCs is the Dell XPS M2010, which starts at $3,000. It is neither fully a desktop nor a notebook computer, but something Dell unofficially calls a “portable desktop.” Weighing in at 18 pounds, this is not a computer that could ever be tossed into a backpack and lugged to a coffeehouse for catching up on e-mail. It also has a 20.1-inch L.C.D. monitor, giving it a large overall footprint. Yet when the monitor is folded down, the entire computer — the black, slab-like main body and wireless keyboard — seems to snap into a huge clamshell laptop. The multijointed hinge that joins the monitor to the main body also doubles as a handle, providing a firm grip for carrying, albeit for short distances. Brett Faulk, director of the notebook product group for Dell, said the M2010 was meant to fit into a lifestyle that increasingly revolves around computer-based entertainment and communication: managing and viewing digital pictures, watching videos and handling increasing loads of data. “As we are increasingly weaving these things into our lives — in our very DNA, if you will,” Mr. Faulk said, “the very products that make this all possible are integrating into our daily lives and routines.” From the start, he said, the M2010 was designed to integrate into such a lifestyle while looking as if it belonged in the home. To accomplish this, Dell drew from both a notebook and a desktop computer. The main body of the M2010 is closed, meaning that upgrading its components is difficult. But like a desktop, the computer has a detachable wireless keyboard, a wireless mouse (though the keyboard also has a notebooklike touch pad for mouse navigation) and a remote control for entertainment features like watching DVD movies. The M2010 actually seems to blush when users press its panel controls, glowing for a moment or two at the touch. Over the last several years, Mr. Faulk noted, notebook computers have become increasingly powerful, popular and affordable, their sales surpassing those of desktop computers. He said Dell had also noticed that consumers were embracing wireless computing, common in newer notebooks. Taking those factors into account, Mr. Faulk said he began asking questions. Among them was, How can we deliver an even higher-performance convergent desktop-replacing notebook? Earlier designs featured a 19-inch display, but Dell engineers found that size clumsy for a standard laptop configuration. Instead, Dell engineers came up with a sort of hybrid between a laptop and a desktop. Its briefcaselike design gives the XPS M2010, which has eight speakers and a subwoofer for 7.1 surround sound playback, its distinctive profile and mobility. Under its shiny black skin (the back of the monitor is covered in a sort of dark leatherette) is a 2.16-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor; a range of specifications can raise the computer’s overall price to almost $5,000. Also striking from any vantage point is the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 ($2,500), a large notebook computer with sculptured lines that reveal themselves once the shiny, 10-pound notebook is opened. In sharp contrast to its silvery exterior, its interior is shiny black with details and surfaces that are smooth to the touch. Its 17-inch display is bright and inviting, especially considering that it features a built-in HD-DVD drive for viewing high-definition DVD movies. Beneath its hood revs a 2-gigahertz Intel Core Duo processor. And like many of the new, stylish PCs, it has a TV tuner, enabling consumers to plug it into a cable or satellite connection to view and record television on the computer. (An upgraded model, the G35-AV660, which costs $3,000, has Intel’s more powerful Core 2 Duo processor as well as more memory and more storage capacity, with two 120-gigabyte hard drives.) Mr. Lauwaert of Sony said he realized that most consumers were not going to buy computers that cost far more than discount beige boxes. “Many are satisfied with the low-rent product,” he said. “Ultimately, that is what’s happening in the PC market. But there’s another segment of the population that wants to bring friends into the living room and say, ‘Look at this!’ ” | Computers and the Internet;Sony Corp;Apple Computer Inc;Toshiba Corporation;Dell Inc |
ny0291623 | [
"business"
] | 2016/01/15 | Brown-Forman to Sell Southern Comfort and Tuaca | Brown-Forman, the American spirits maker, said its Southern Comfort and Tuaca brands would be sold to the Louisiana-based Sazerac. The sale, expected to close by March 1, will result in a one-time operating income gain of about $475 million for Brown-Forman in fiscal 2016, the company said. The chief of Brown-Forman, Paul Varga, said the sale reflected the company’s evolving portfolio strategy and its focus on top brands like Jack Daniel’s. Brown-Forman acquired Southern Comfort in 1979, but the brand has struggled in recent years. Sazerac’s holdings in Kentucky include the Buffalo Trace, Barton 1792 and Glenmore distilleries. | Brown-Forman;Sazerac;Alcohol;Mergers and Acquisitions |
ny0284035 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/07/13 | Ireland, Home to U.S. ‘Inversions,’ Sees Huge Growth in G.D.P. | In the United States, politicians, lawmakers and officials have derided “inversion deals,” which allow an American company to move its headquarters overseas to cut its tax bills. In Ireland, they are celebrating them. The Irish government on Tuesday revised the country’s economic growth rate in 2015 to 26.3 percent from a preliminary estimate of 7.8 percent. While Ireland’s economy has been on the upswing since the country repaid its bailout, it wasn’t that the Celtic Tiger suddenly came roaring back in an unexpected way. Rather, it was the magic of those inversion deals and other sleights of finance. Under a typical inversion deal, a United States company takes over a foreign counterpart and, in the process, shifts its headquarters overseas. The takeover targets for such deals are typically based in countries with low corporate taxes — like Ireland, with its 12.5 percent rate. The combined company’s global profits are then reported in its new home base, regardless of where they are earned. In essence, Ireland’s G.D.P. is artificially inflated. Inversions have drawn the ire of the Obama administration, since they put a greater burden on American taxpayers. Last year, the medical device maker Medtronic bought its rival Covidien, reincorporating in Ireland. More recently, Johnson Controls of Milwaukee agreed to join up with Tyco of Cork, Ireland. (Tyco itself has hopped from locale to locale, having been in Bermuda, then Switzerland, before ending up in Ireland.) Inversions like that were one of the main drivers for the sharp rise in G.D.P., according to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office. The country’s economy was also bolstered by the import of new aircraft for international leasing activities, another financial gimmick. Michael Noonan, Ireland’s finance minister, went to great lengths to explain that the recovery is real — and not the result of some financial good fortune. He pointed to other strong data including government revenue, consumer spending and a jobs report as being “consistent with an economy where recovery is firmly established.” “Peoples’ lives are improving with more at work than at any time since the onset of the downturn,” Mr. Noonan said in a statement . There is no longer a need to make severe cuts to public services, Mr. Noonan noted, referring to Ireland’s painful austerity program. “Rather we have room to invest in services and infrastructure.” Still, the statistics office acknowledged the economic fluidity of the inversion deals. “Employment has not changed greatly as a result” of the sudden expansion, the statement said. In any case, inversions may not be such big business for Ireland in the future. In April, American officials announced new rules aimed at reducing the economic incentives for the deals. The rules quickly scuppered a proposed $152 billion merger between the American drug maker Pfizer and Allergan of Ireland. And Ireland’s economy, while still growing, is hardly the robust economic engine the double-digit rate of last year would imply. The country’s G.D.P. expanded at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in the first quarter of 2016. | Ireland;US;Corporate tax;GDP;Tax shelter |
ny0275907 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/02/08 | German Regulator Orders Halt to Maple Bank Transactions | FRANKFURT — German regulators said on Sunday that they had imposed a moratorium on business activity by a niche investment bank in Frankfurt that played a prominent role in attempts by the Porsche family to take over Volkswagen several years ago. The German banking regulator, known as Bafin, said that it ordered a halt to financial transactions by Maple Bank, the German subsidiary of Maple Financial Group of Canada. With obligations of about 2.6 billion euros, or $2.9 billion, the bank is overly indebted, Bafin said. Maple Bank is also the target of a tax evasion investigation that led to raids on bank offices in September. It was the first time since December 2012 that German regulators have ordered a bank to close. Maple Bank has about €5 billion in assets and is not big enough to pose a threat to the stability of the financial system, Bafin said in a statement. No one answered the phone at Maple Bank offices in Frankfurt on Sunday, and bank employees did not respond to emails seeking comment. Maple Bank was at the center of an attempt in 2008 by Porsche, the sports car maker, and its family owners to take over Volkswagen . The takeover bid is also the focus of a criminal trial underway in Stuttgart, Germany, against two former Porsche executives accused of market manipulation. Maple Bank, which advertises on its website that it specializes in market transactions, helped Porsche lock up Volkswagen shares using a complex combination of derivatives. Porsche eventually failed to achieve its goal of acquiring 75 percent of Volkswagen, and Volkswagen wound up buying Porsche instead . However, the deal left the Porsche family with a majority of Volkswagen’s voting shares and four seats on the supervisory board. In addition, the chairman of the Volkswagen supervisory board, Hans Dieter Pötsch, is closely associated with the family. Image Wendelin Wiedeking in November 2008, when he was the chief executive of Porsche. He and the former chief financial officer are on trial on charges that they deliberately misled investors in October 2008 to drive up the Volkswagen share price. Credit Michael Latz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Porsche family’s oversight of Volkswagen came under criticism on Sunday from the head of Norway’s Government Pension Fund, which — with $800 billion in assets — is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. The fund, which invests Norway’s oil wealth, has a 1.2 percent stake in Volkswagen. The carmaker, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, has been tainted by its admission in September that it programmed 11 million cars to cheat on emissions tests. Yngve Slyngstad, the chief executive of the Norwegian fund, said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper published on Sunday that, in the wake of the scandal, the Porsche family has not been open to suggestions for overhauls. “I don’t think that the family owners will change anything in the structure” of Volkswagen, Mr. Slyngstad said. “The family does not give us as co-owners the impression that they want to listen to us.” Wendelin Wiedeking, the former chief executive of Porsche, and Holger Härter, the former chief financial officer, are on trial in Stuttgart on charges that they deliberately misled investors in October 2008 to drive up the Volkswagen share price. Porsche was threatened financially at the time, according to prosecutors, because a sharp decline in Volkswagen shares forced it to post cash to protect Maple Bank from losses. At the time, Porsche had acquired 42.6 percent of Volkswagen voting shares and options equal to an additional 31.5 percent. News that Porsche had locked up 74.1 percent of Volkswagen shocked investors and provoked a scramble by hedge funds that had bet the shares would fall and needed to cover their positions. Volkswagen shares soared because only a fraction of the company was available for trading on stock markets. Mr. Wiedeking and Mr. Härter are contesting the charges. A verdict is expected by the end of February. Porsche SE, the Porsche family holding company, has not had any business dealings with Maple Bank for several years and has no financial exposure to it, Albrecht Bamler, a spokesman for Porsche, said on Sunday. | Maple Bank;Germany;Porsche;Volkswagen;Banking and Finance;Regulation and Deregulation;Mergers and Acquisitions |
ny0168073 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2006/01/12 | Case Turns on What Led to Detectives' Killing | Photographed against a plain backdrop, the handcuffs were hard to mistake. They were engraved Rafferty, block letters on polished steel, spelling the name of the detective who carried them on the night he was killed, Sept. 10, 2004. The picture was one of dozens displayed yesterday in the trial of Marlon Legere, the man accused of killing Detective Patrick H. Rafferty and his partner, Detective Robert L. Parker. But the object's significance as a symbol of police work could exceed its forensic value. Mr. Legere is charged with six counts of first-degree murder, one for each detective under three different theories of the crime. With little but the details in dispute, his defense centers on his state of mind. When he was approached by the detectives, Mr. Legere was sitting in his mother's car in front of her house in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. For months, his mother had been contacting Detective Parker to complain that Mr. Legere was taking her car without permission. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Legere took hold of Detective Parker's gun and shot him and his partner. Defense lawyers have suggested that Mr. Legere was unaware that the men were law enforcement officers, in an effort to cast doubt on the first-degree murder charges. Introducing the evidence found inside the car, a prosecutor, Mitchell Benson, displayed photographs including Detective Rafferty's handcuffs and pay stub on an overhead projector, then asked to show some of the same items to the jury. Mr. Benson is characteristically meticulous, but his attention to these details prompted the judge to hurry him along. "They saw a picture of it already, come on," said the judge, Justice Anne G. Feldman of State Supreme Court. Mr. Benson called witnesses who gave accounts he framed as the flight from the shooting: a man limping from the scene to take control of a van, a van speeding down a street, a van running a red light. Mr. Legere, who walks with a cane because one of the dying officers shot him, watched studiously, wearing black glasses too big for his eyes and too small to reach behind his ears. His lawyers have said his statements to the police immediately after the shooting could be challenged because of his physical condition at the time. Defense lawyers picked at the witnesses, asking for a few clarifications in a style more closely resembling test preparation than dramatic cross-examination. The courtroom contained its share of drama on Tuesday, when prosecutors played a tape of Detective Parker calling 911. The recording, though emotionally stirring, did little to establish Mr. Legere's state of mind. For that, there were the handcuffs found on the front seat of his mother's car, a piece of evidence both sides are pressing for advantage. "They're going to try to show that the detective was effectuating an arrest," Wayne C. Bodden, a lawyer for Mr. Legere, said in an interview yesterday. "We aren't so much fighting about the evidence, we're fighting about what the evidence means. I think these same cuffs suggest a struggle that goes against any idea of an execution." | BROOKLYN (NYC);MURDERS AND ATTEMPTED MURDERS |
ny0274141 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/02/04 | Walmart Sues Puerto Rico, Claiming an Unfair and Onerous Tax Burden | The last thing Puerto Rico would seem to need is another fight about money. But the island’s government, already facing multiple battles over billions of dollars in debt, was in yet another courtroom on Wednesday, locked in a legal dispute with its biggest sales-tax collector and its biggest private employer — the mighty retailer Walmart . This time the dispute is not about bond payments, but taxes: the taxes that Puerto Rico is charging Walmart for the goods it brings from its distributors off the island — including in the United States — to sell in its stores in Puerto Rico. In May, the island raised the special tax on those goods to 6.5 percent from 2 percent for the largest retailers. Walmart filed suit in December, saying the increase left it with an effective income tax of 91.5 percent. The tax “sentences Walmart in Puerto Rico to death, for a crime there is no evidence it committed,” Walmart’s lawyer, Neal S. Manne, told the court. “No business can operate for long in an environment where 91.5 percent of its net income is confiscated through taxes,” the company said in its complaint. Walmart argues that the tax is illegal — a violation of both the Commerce Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Walmart says it was singled out for the tax increase and is the only entity in Puerto Rico subject to such a high tax burden. Puerto Rico has countered that Walmart can well afford to pay the tax and should because of the profits it reaps on the island. Both sides of the dispute are making oral arguments this week before Judge José Fusté, of the United States District Court in San Juan, who agreed to an expedited hearing of the case, at Walmart’s request. Image Walmart, one of the biggest American stores in Puerto Rico, is suing the local government over a recent change that increases its tax rate. Credit Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo for The New York Times Suppose, the company said in seeking a quick ruling, that it pays the tax now but it is later found to be unconstitutional. Given Puerto Rico’s perilous financial situation, the government will have surely spent the money by then, or even be bankrupt, the company posited. Then Walmart would not be able to get a refund. The fight is not just playing out in a courtroom. It has engaged residents as well, who have a classic love-hate relationship with the retailer. Some love it because it employs them, sells some of their locally made products and gives them access to goods they might not otherwise find on the island. Others hate it because, they say, it crowds out local competition and disrupts Puerto Rican neighborhoods and daily routines. Walmart has 55 stores in Puerto Rico, including some operated under different names, and it employs almost 15,000 people. And now that Puerto Rico’s government is nearly out of cash and still has a $72 billion debt to be paid, some are incensed that Walmart is balking at the tax, contending that as one of the largest retailers in the world, it can well afford to pay. They hooted at the notion that the tax was a “death sentence.” “They have a lot of money,” said Antonio Hernández Brignoni, 83, wheeling a shopping cart through a bustling Walmart parking lot in the small city of Hatillo on a recent day. “Come here at midnight and you’ll see how much money they make.” Midnight, he explained, was when Walmart’s managers would be counting the cash in the till. But the company counters that the tax rate is “three times the average effective tax rate that Walmart’s affiliated companies pay worldwide,” making it one of the highest taxes in the world. Much of the courtroom discussion so far has centered on Puerto Rico’s finances, with Judge Fusté expressing frustration over the government’s failure to produce audited financial statements for 2014 and 2015. Members of Congress have made much the same complaint in hearings on how to help Puerto Rico unwind its debts. On Wednesday, Melba Acosta Febo, president of Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank, offered testimony on the island’s financial problems and warned that they were worsening. In making its case for a quick ruling, Walmart noted in court filings that Puerto Rico has been unable to pay much smaller tax refunds, due to individual taxpayers, since 2014. It also cited a 2010 tax case in which the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico found another tax unlawful, but did not order a refund “because of the difficult state of the public finances in our country.” “There is no doubt that the situation is complex and demands judicial creativity,” the court said. Puerto Rico’s finances have become even more grim since that ruling, and last year the government issued a five-year plan of economic reforms intended to reassure creditors that it was going to bring its budget into balance and spur business investment and growth. Walmart is not disputing the need for economic reforms, but argues that the new tax runs counter to the goals. To keep the proceedings moving quickly, Judge Fusté began hearing two issues simultaneously this week: whether his court has jurisdiction and whether the tax is constitutional. Puerto Rico says the case does not belong in federal court and is seeking to have it moved to a court of the commonwealth. The tax at issue was signed into law last year, amending a previous corporate alternative minimum tax . Like the federal version, Puerto Rico’s alternative minimum tax is payable whenever it exceeds the taxpayer’s “regular” income tax. In other words, taxes are calculated both ways and the company pays the higher amount. While Walmart said it believed that even the previous rate of 2 percent was discriminatory, it had not affected Walmart since the alternative tax had generally been lower than regular income tax. But the increase has changed that calculation. Puerto Rico said it based the tax on the same mechanism that the federal government uses for its alternative minimum tax. Reasoning that a larger company with more transactions would have more ability to game the numbers, Puerto Rico’s lawmakers imposed higher rates on the biggest companies. The highest, 6.5 percent, applies only to businesses on the island with revenues of more than $2.75 billion. Walmart argues that it appears to be the only one meeting that description. It also said it appeared that Puerto Rico’s lawmakers were playing Robin Hood when they pushed Walmart’s tax rate skyward. It quoted the House Speaker, Jaime Perelló Borrás, as telling fellow lawmakers that by taxing Walmart more, they were able to tax Puerto Rico’s homegrown businesses less. That meant the tax was discriminatory, Walmart said. Rómulo Soto, a shopper in Hatillo, said he liked Walmart because of its vast offerings and he said he would be sorry if it closed. But he was unpersuaded by its complaints about being singled out unfairly for a high tax rate. “They are selling more, so they should pay more taxes,” he said. “Right now, all the money that they generate here just goes back to the States. If they pay more taxes here, it’s going to help our whole society.” | Puerto Rico;Walmart Stores;Corporate tax;Lawsuits;Debt |
ny0128761 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2012/06/28 | News Corp. Said to Back Spinoff of Papers | Rupert Murdoch was getting cold feet. For months, his top lieutenants at News Corporation had been prodding him to spin off the newspaper unit, which was underperforming but had long been close to his heart. Mr. Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, was seriously considering the proposal. But as discussions progressed he became reluctant to follow through. It took increased pressure from Chase Carey, the chief operating officer, and David DeVoe, the chief financial officer, to persuade him to support the strategy and bring it to a vote before the board, according to two people with knowledge of the company. “He had to put aside his emotional attachment,” said one of the people, who was not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions. With Mr. Murdoch on board, the plan reached fruition, and on Wednesday night the directors voted to approve the plan. On Thursday morning, News Corporation announced it was separating the publishing unit and the lucrative entertainment division into two companies. Mr. Murdoch will remain chairman of both companies and will be chief executive of the entertainment company. “There is much work to be done, but our board and I believe that this new corporate structure we are pursuing would accelerate News Corporation’s businesses to grow to new heights, and enable each company and its divisions to recognize their full potential – and unlock even greater long-term shareholder value,” Mr. Murdoch said in a statement. Investors and factions within News Corporation have for years called for such a split, all the while running into Mr. Murdoch’s resistance to break off the newspaper business, which early on helped propel him to the top of a $54 billion media conglomerate. But the phone-hacking scandal that erupted in Britain last summer added urgency to the calls for a spinoff, affecting the company’s ability to make deals in unrelated areas of the business. In effect, News Corporation had evolved into a successful entertainment company with a newspaper problem, several people close to the company have said. “The idea this was this integrated media company isn’t true,” said one of those people, who was briefed on News Corporation’s strategy but could not discuss its internal dynamics for attribution. “Everything else managed to do well, and the newspapers had become difficult and even toxic.” Signs of the friction emerged subtly but steadily as the financial fortunes of the company’s assets diverged. Mr. Carey was negotiating lucrative retransmission deals with cable operators as the newspapers continued to suffer from an industrywide downturn. While News Corporation executives sat at a table with George Clooney and Alexander Payne and cheered the Fox Searchlight movie “The Descendants” at the Oscars last February, Mr. Murdoch visited the newsroom of The Sun tabloid in London, which was accused of widespread bribery to “a network of corrupted officials.” The newspapers, once seen as a tool of political and financial influence, had become a liability in both. “The newspapers have been a roadblock to investors,” said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG Research. Although he did not mention the newspapers, David Haslingden, president and chief operating officer of the Fox Networks Group, recently expressed frustration that the company’s cable channels were undervalued. “Some businesses, most particularly ours, are undervalued as a result of them not being a very clear understanding of the potential here,” Mr. Haslingden said at a Nomura Securities meeting in May. In the year that ended June 2011, the publishing unit contributed $864 million in operating profit, compared with $4.6 billion in operating profit from entertainment units including the cable channels, the 20th Century Fox studio and Fox Broadcasting, according to the company. The split within the company was mirrored by a generational divide within the Murdoch family, according to people close to family members. James Murdoch, Mr. Murdoch’s son and the company’s deputy chief operating officer, oversees Star TV in Asia, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. The company’s fast-growing Star India business also reports directly to him. The pay TV business is in many ways as near to James Murdoch’s heart as newspapers are to his father, said these people, who declined to be identified to preserve their relationship with the family. Both James Murdoch and Mr. Carey, who formerly ran DirecTV and whose background is in pay TV, have expressed exasperation that the company had become too entangled in the publishing business. In 2010, Mr. Carey called the company’s underperforming stock price “absurd,” adding that he thought the company was still “overly identified” with the publishing business. A revised structure featuring divided companies would create a new environment of uncertainty, and anxiety, for News Corporation’s publishing unit. For journalists, being owned by News Corporation was a double-edged sword. There were the accusations of editorial bias that go along with being associated with Mr. Murdoch, the kind leveled constantly at Fox News. But there was also the benefit of being owned by a deep-pocketed media giant willing to spend on journalism at a time the industry was shrinking. For example, News Corporation has invested in The Journal, introducing a weekend magazine, WSJ, a Saturday lifestyle section called Off Duty and hours of live video. It remains the largest daily newspaper in the United States with a weekday circulation of 2.1 million, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. “You look at ‘Avatar’ making a couple of billion dollars and you think, ‘Good. Keep it up. Keep the ‘Simpsons’ on,’ “ said a reporter in the paper’s Washington bureau who insisted on anonymity. The reporter added: “That has been the perception. You’re part of something a whole lot bigger so you’re going to be O.K.” Mr. Greenfield, the analyst, estimated that the publishing company would be worth about $1.78 a share by fiscal year 2013, or less than the $5 billion News Corporation paid to acquire Dow Jones & Company in 2007. Putting the newspapers in a separate company could help News Corporation revisit its $12 billion bid for BSkyB, analysts have said, though that will not happen soon. News Corporation is under British regulators’ microscope for phone hacking at its tabloids and perceived chumminess with politicians in seeking approval for the BSkyB takeover. A separate entertainment company could also make it easier for News Corporation to obtain regulatory approval on other potential pay TV acquisitions. | News Corporation;News and News Media;Newspapers;Television;Cable Television;Stocks and Bonds |
ny0074988 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2015/04/23 | 2015 N.F.L. Schedule Matchups to Circle on the Calendar | In case you missed the three-hour (!) television special that revealed next season’s N.F.L. schedule , here is a look at five games that are particularly intriguing. (Yes, two involve the Buffalo Bills.) Sept. 13, 4:25 p.m. Eastern Tennessee Titans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers What a way to start the season, with a matchup of the two worst teams from last year, both 2-14. The Buccaneers and the Titans do possess the top two draft picks: Could this game be the first professional showdown between Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota? Remember the Rose Bowl score: Mariota 59, Winston 20. Alternatively, it could be the first showdown between Winston and, say, defensive tackle Leonard Williams. Not quite as compelling. Nov. 12, 8:25 p.m. Buffalo Bills at Jets In Thursday night action, Coach Rex Ryan returns to face the team that fired him after six seasons. Ryan is the rare coach who may be walking into a better situation than the one he was fired from. The Bills were a respectable 9-7 last season before Coach Doug Marrone quit under murky circumstances . By contrast, Ryan left the Jets and his successor, Todd Bowles, deep in rebuilding mode after a 4-12 season with Geno Smith as the starting quarterback. Image After Rex Ryan was fired by the Jets, he stayed in the A.F.C. East and became the coach of the Bills. Credit Brett Carlsen/Getty Images If the Bills are to break the league-longest streak of 15 seasons without a playoff appearance , this is the kind of game they must win. Nov. 26, 8:30 p.m. Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers Game 3 of the Thanksgiving triple-header may be the most appealing, as Brett Favre’s No. 4 jersey will be retired . The Packers have not hosted a game on Thanksgiving since 1923, a 19-0 victory over the Hammond (Ind.) Pros at long-forgotten Bellevue Park. It should be an emotional night in Green Bay, but Chicago fans may not be so glad to see Favre there. As a Packer, Favre was 22-10 against the Bears. Nov. 29, 8:30 p.m. New England Patriots at Denver Broncos Who is the greatest modern quarterback? Peyton Manning, with his record-breaking passing numbers, or Tom Brady, with his four Super Bowl rings? The debate may go on as long as Wilt Chamberlain versus Bill Russell, and this game will give partisans one more chance to make their cases. Will it be the final meeting between these two? Despite speculation, Manning has not officially said that he will retire after this season, but at 39, he cannot have too many more left in him. Dec. 13, 1 p.m. Buffalo Bills at Philadelphia Eagles LeSean McCoy returns to Philadelphia after the Eagles traded him away. Over six seasons in Philly, McCoy missed just six games and ran for 1,000 yards four times. He was a beloved figure in Philadelphia, generally known to sportscasters and fans alike by his nickname, Shady. Chip Kelly’s dramatic remake of the team this off-season has shaken Philadelphia fans, though many are still giving him the benefit of the doubt. McCoy will certainly be cheered when he returns. Will the fans be cheering their own team? It all depends on how the new-look team is faring after the first 13 games. | Football;Bills;NFL; Super Bowl; Super Bowl 2015;Buccaneers;Titans |
ny0107327 | [
"sports"
] | 2012/04/24 | USA Track and Field Chooses Max Siegel as New Leader | Just three months before the London Olympics and more than a year after its last chief executive left in a messy, protracted dispute, USA Track and Field finally settled on a new leader on Monday. In hiring Max Siegel, it did not travel far from its home base, choosing a former board member who has been serving as a marketing consultant for the organization since last year. Siegel, 47, begins work on May 1 and said he was sticking by the organization’s high goals for success in London. “We said 30 medals and we’re sticking by the 30 medals,” he said. The United States team won only 23 medals in the 2008 Beijing Games, considered a major disappointment and part of why the organization has been without a chief executive for so long. It is a sign of the turmoil that has engulfed the organization in recent years that Siegel was asked why he wanted to run one of the biggest national governing bodies of Olympic sports but also its most fraught with conflict. Turns out, the board of directors asked him the same question. “Who wouldn’t want to challenge this challenge?” Siegel said. “I’m excited about the impact I can have on this organization but also on lifestyle.” Stephanie Hightower, the chairman of the board and once a candidate for this job before the organization thought better of hiring its chairman, said Siegel had all the right answers for the board. “He knows what the challenges are,” she said. “It’s not about him. It’s about the organization. Once we heard him answer that question, we were very excited about him.” Siegel served on USA Track and Field’s board from 2009 to 2011. His resume also includes being president of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc., being in charge of Nascar’s Drive for Diversity program and bring a senior vice president of Sony/BMG as the head of its successful gospel division. His predecessor, Doug Logan, was a much bigger name in the sporting universe, but lasted only two years in the job before being fired in September 2010, shortly after the Beijing Olympics, because of conflicts with the board. Logan, former commissioner of Major League Soccer, was due $1.8 million on his contract when he was fired, which has been the subject of a lengthy legal process ever since. The board complained about Logan’s fund-raising record, as well as his fractured relationships with many in the sport. Hightower said Siegel’s base salary would be $500,000, significantly lower than Logan’s. The organization had a protracted search for Logan’s replacement in 2011 and came up with no one. Mike McNees, the chief operating officer, has been serving as interim chief executive since Logan was ousted. | Siegel Max;USA Track and Field;Logan Doug;Appointments and Executive Changes;Olympic Games (2012);Track and Field |
ny0189738 | [
"nyregion",
"long-island"
] | 2009/05/17 | Long Island Uses Federal Funds to Flip Foreclosures | JUST as foreclosure has shut the door to homeownership for some families, it is opening the door to a small number of others for whom homeownership used to be out of reach. When Evelyn O’Hara signed a contract last month to buy her first house, in Valley Stream, she became the first owner in Nassau County to benefit from a federal program that rehabilitates foreclosed homes, or homes that have been abandoned or left vacant. The program is meant to bring back higher home values in neighborhoods hard hit by foreclosures. “Most minority communities have been hit heavily with foreclosures,” said Wayne J. Hall Sr., the mayor of the Village of Hempstead. “We have about 400 houses in foreclosure, maybe more. Some are in pretty good shape, but when they’re boarded up, squatters come in and that brings down the value of the neighborhood. This program will help bring our village back.” Ms. O’Hara’s new three-bedroom Cape, with hardwood floors, new appliances and a private backyard, is one of six houses in Nassau that were bought from Fannie Mae through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which awards grants to municipalities for the rehabilitation. Nassau County, which received $3.1 million in grant money, partnered with the Long Island Housing Partnership and Bedford Construction, a private developer in Valley Stream, to buy the homes. The six homes in Nassau — one each in Valley Stream, Hempstead, Massapequa, Elmont, Glen Cove and Westbury — were bought for a total of $1.3 million. The Long Island Housing Partnership is in charge of buying the houses, rehabilitating them and selling them to eligible buyers at reduced prices, from $170,000 to $275,000, said Peter Elkowitz, the group’s president. The plan is to reinvest the money from the sale of each house to buy and renovate others, he said. The number of foreclosed homes in Nassau County jumped to 1,337 from 767 from the last quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, according to the Nassau County Office of Housing and Homeless Services. In Suffolk, the number of foreclosures rose to 769 from 442 during the same period. Now that the nation’s largest banks have lifted the moratorium on foreclosures, the numbers are expected to keep rising, Mr. Elkowitz said. “Every foreclosure brings the property value down by 6 percent,” he said. “Our first goal is to stabilize the communities and to bring back the property value.” Ms. O’Hara, 29, an English teacher at Oceanside Middle School, has been living with her parents in Valley Stream and is getting married in July. “We had been looking for a house and hadn’t had much luck,” she said. She qualified for the stabilization program because she was a first-time home buyer, her credit was approved and her income was low enough. The guidelines set the limit at 120 percent of the national median income: $85,600 for a single individual, $122,200 for a family of four. She also had to complete a course on the finances of homeownership. The county’s goal, said Connie Lassandro, director of the Nassau County Office of Housing and Homeless Services, is to turn over at least 100 houses over the next few years, concentrating on the Hempstead-Roosevelt-Freeport region, which has been hit hard with foreclosures. “The problem started after many people obtained mortgages who shouldn’t have,” she said. “But it has been further exacerbated by so many people losing their jobs.” Suffolk County and the Towns of Islip and Babylon are also taking part in the program. Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, said the county and the two towns had $11 million to spend, and were reviewing the foreclosures to select which ones to buy. “Some of the specific pockets first being considered are Huntington Station, Mastic-Shirley and North Bellport,” he said. “We plan to buy the houses at 75 percent of their value and then flip them to first-time buyers.” | Foreclosures;Housing and Real Estate;Long Island (NY) |
ny0014251 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/11/12 | Filipinos in U.S. Feel Helpless as They Try to Contact Kin | LOS ANGELES — When the typhoon hit the Philippine city of Ormoc on Friday, Joy Malinao scrambled to get in touch with her brother, who still lives there. But communications in the area were dead. She checked Facebook constantly, and asked friends elsewhere in the Philippines if they had heard from him. They had not. Finally, her brother got a text message through: The home where they had grown up was barely standing — the roof had blown off — but he was safe. As estimates of the death toll and damage have soared since Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines, members of this city’s sizable Filipino community have been left feeling helpless, as they struggle to reach loved ones and try to figure out what they can do from across the Pacific. “It’s really hard when you’re away from home during something like this,” said Ms. Malinao, 31, who came to the United States in 2006. “But basically you can’t do anything,” she said. “It’s frustrating.” More than 300,000 Filipinos live in Southern California, the largest population of Filipinos in the United States. Ms. Malinao drove from her home in Santa Barbara, Calif., to Los Angeles over the weekend to stay with other Filipino friends, hoping they could help one another get information from home. By Monday, as local organization solicited donations for the relief effort, many people still had not heard from friends or family in the Philippines. Alex Montances, a regional coordinator for the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns , who had helped his organization raise more than $7,000 for victims, was still seeking word of his cousins or his uncle, who live in Tacloban, one of the hardest-hit cities. “The last thing we heard from on Friday, before everything cut out, was that my uncle’s house was completely gone,” he said. “My godparents were on the roof of their house. I’m scrambling to get our relief campaign up and running, but it hits very close to home for me. My parents and everyone, we’re just waiting.” In Filipinotown, just east of Hollywood, immigrants stopped into the Bahay Kubo restaurant, where they watched news of the typhoon’s victims broadcast in the Tagalog language. Like many others, Errol Santos, 60, said he had been messaging friends in Tacloban on Facebook. He had no replies. Trinidad Limbaga, who works at a souvenir shop connected to Bahay Kubo, said she could not even message her sister, who still lives in Leyte Province, on Facebook. Because her family is so poor, she said, they do not have phones or Internet connections. She would have to hope that other relatives in the Philippines would eventually get in touch with them, and then send word. “I don’t want to think about what might have happened,” said Ms. Limbaga, 79. Teri Red, Ms. Limbaga’s daughter, said she and several friends had gathered about 20 boxes of used clothes, which they were trying to figure out how to ship to the relief victims. The collection was one of myriad relief efforts, including special collections at churches on Sunday. Bing De La Vega, with the Philippine Disaster Relief Organization , said his group had organized a charity five-kilometer walk on Sunday, which contributed to the almost $10,000 it has raised. It was also buying up toiletries from across the region to send to the Philippines, and planned another fund-raiser in December. “The Filipinos here really feel the sadness, especially since that part of the Philippines was really hit with a one-two punch, with an earthquake and then the typhoon just a month apart,” he said. “The community is still gearing up, trying to do whatever we can from here, which at this point is mostly through financial donations.” Mr. De La Vega, the husband of Maria Hellen Barber-De La Vega, consul general for the Philippines in Los Angeles, said the consulate here was trying to set up a special ham radio station so Filipinos could communicate with loved ones in Tacloban. Now that she knows her brother is safe, Ms. Malinao has turned her attention to helping her hometown. Like many others here, she was not sure: Should she donate money or goods? Should she go home to volunteer? To start with, she and her friends had decided to give to several local charity organizations in Ormoc. “It’s frustrating to watch it all unfold from afar and you just can’t do much about it,” she said. “But you have to trust that the government is doing everything it can to help the victims. And we’re so happy that people all over the world have extended their support to my hometown.” | Typhoon Haiyan;Philippines;Filipino American;California;Fatalities,casualties;Humanitarian aid;Hurricanes;Los Angeles |
ny0118428 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2012/10/13 | I.M.F. Sees Economic Growth Faltering Worldwide | WORLD economic growth is faltering, the International Monetary Fund said this week, as it forecast that most of the large developed economies would either shrink this year or grow at paltry rates of 2 percent or less. Developing economies will do better, but the forecasts for them are falling as well. “The world economic recovery continues, but it has weakened further,” the fund’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, told a news conference in Tokyo, where the I.M.F. and World Bank were holding their annual meetings. “In advanced economies, growth is now too low to make a substantial dent in unemployment, and in major emerging markets, growth, which had been strong earlier, has also decreased.” As can be seen in the accompanying chart, only Japan and the United States, among the large industrialized countries, are now forecast to grow more than 2 percent this year, and both are pegged to grow just 2.2 percent. The figures refer to growth for the entire year relative to the previous year, not to a comparison of the fourth quarter of each year. In April, the I.M.F. forecast that global growth would be 3.5 percent in 2012 — the slowest rate in three years — but would rise to 4.1 percent in 2013. Now it forecasts growth of just 3.3 percent this year, and 3.6 percent in 2013. The British economy, which in April was expected to post modest growth of 0.8 percent this year, now is expected to shrink by 0.4 percent. Some of the sharpest cuts in the forecasts came in major developing economies; the forecast of Brazil’s growth this year was cut in half to 1.5 percent. But Mr. Blanchard emphasized that “we do not see these developments, be it in China, India, or Brazil, as signs of a hard landing in any of these countries.” He added, “Indeed, we see positive policy measures being taken in all three countries, but the numbers suggest that these countries are going to have lower growth for some time, at least lower than some of the very high growth rates that we saw in earlier times.” Brazil is still seen as likely to experience a rapid rebound in growth, rising to 4 percent in 2013. The fund’s World Economic Outlook praised the country for “targeted fiscal measures aimed at boosting demand in the near term” and for easing its monetary policy. In general, the report praised central banks in developing countries for their innovative ways of easing monetary policies, like bond purchases. It said that at the moment, fiscal stimulus was likely to have a larger impact than it normally would, although the ability of countries to apply such stimulus was limited by the need to bring deficits under control over the longer term. Growth rates are forecast to rise in most countries in 2013, but not in the United States, where it is forecast to dip to 2.1 percent, or in Japan, where the rate is expected to fall to 1.2 percent. | Economic Conditions and Trends;Forecasts;International Monetary Fund;Gross Domestic Product |
ny0094588 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2015/01/11 | Julio Scherer García, Investigative Journalist in Mexico, Dies at 88 | MEXICO CITY — Julio Scherer García, a newspaper and magazine editor who created a school of critical journalism that unmasked Mexico’s political corruption and helped lay the groundwork for the country’s democratic transition, died here on Jan. 7. He was 88. His death was announced by the magazine Proceso , which he founded in 1976. He had been treated for a gastrointestinal illness for two years, the magazine’s website said. Over seven decades, Mr. Scherer defied Mexican presidents, shook up the newspaper culture by introducing political reporting and diverse opinion, and interviewed some of the world’s most notable figures, including John F. Kennedy, Zhou Enlai, Fidel Castro and Pablo Picasso. But it was as the founder and editor of the weekly Proceso , an investigative magazine, that Mr. Scherer made his deepest mark. Its extensively documented articles broke the stranglehold on information imposed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., which governed Mexico for more than 70 years through coercion, corruption and distribution of the spoils, including to owners of the more docile news media. Proceso published articles exposing the lavish homes built by Mexico City’s brutal police chief, Arturo Durazo Moreno, an emblematic figure of corruption in the 1970s, and the luxurious Acapulco hideaway of former President José López Portillo. The magazine’s success emboldened other publications to become more independent, contributing to the P.R.I.’s electoral defeat in 2000. “As though it were a platitude, we recite that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ ” Mr. Scherer said in 2002. “But we should take the English statesman Lord Acton seriously. Absolute power destroys principles, degrades habits and attacks desire, the intangible grace of life.” Journalism “would lose its meaning if it didn’t follow the dark labyrinths of power,” he added. Mr. Scherer helped train a generation of reporters who now work at Mexico’s top daily newspapers and emulate his hard questioning of those in power. “He never stopped being a reporter,” said Carlos Puig, a former Washington correspondent for Proceso. “He would come to the Monday meeting with 20 tips and say, ‘Now, let’s make them stories.’ ” He would prod his reporters all week but never read their articles before they went to press, Mr. Puig said, adding, “He knew that they would never reach his exacting level, and nothing would be published.” Describing him as an “incendiary journalist,” his friend and collaborator Elena Poniatowska, a Mexican journalist and writer, said in a 2005 homage, “I wonder if it is possible to understand Mexico’s reality without the pen of Julio Scherer García.” After retiring as editor in 1996, Mr. Scherer continued to write a column in Proceso, as well as many books. (He wrote 22.) He interviewed the leader of the Zapatista rebels, the indigenous rebel force in southern Mexico, and talked to some of Mexico’s most notorious drug traffickers, including Ismael Zambada, a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, at a mountain hide-out. Criticized for that interview, Mr. Scherer replied, “If the Devil offers me an interview, I go to hell.” Mr. Scherer was born on April 7, 1926, in Mexico City. His father, Pablo Scherer, was the son of a prosperous German immigrant; his mother, Paz García Gómez, came from a prominent legal family. Mr. Scherer studied law and philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but dropped out to work as a messenger at one of Mexico’s main daily newspapers, Excélsior. He became the paper’s editor in 1968, at the age of 42. He introduced political and foreign reporting, and invited a diverse group of opinion writers to join the newspaper. But the newspaper, which was run as a cooperative, ousted him as editor in 1976 in a coup widely seen as having been encouraged, if not engineered, by President Luis Echeverría. Many reporters followed Mr. Scherer out the door and joined him when he founded Proceso four months later. Mr. Scherer’s wife, Susana Ibarra Puga, died in 1989. He is survived by nine children and a number of grandchildren. In a tribute to her father in the literary magazine Letras Libres in October, his youngest daughter, María, recalled him working at his Olivetti typewriter — he kept two, in case one broke — with a photo of his late wife and a small Mexican flag by his side. He refused to give interviews, she said, adding, “My father has insisted, and rightly so, that his work speaks for him: his interviews, his articles.” | Obituary;Julio Scherer Garcia;News media,journalism;Proceso |
ny0143565 | [
"nyregion",
"long-island"
] | 2008/10/05 | New York Republicans’ Hopes Hang on State Senator From Long Island | AT 82, Caesar Trunzo is the oldest member of the State Senate. Having held office since the Nixon adminstration, he is running once again, for his 19th consecutive term. But this time is different. For one thing, Senator Trunzo, a Republican from Brentwood, faces his toughest challenge ever, from Brian X. Foley, 50, a Democrat from Blue Point who is Brookhaven’s town supervisor. The candidates are campaigning at malls and train stations, in television ads and in mailings in the Third District, bordered roughly by the Long Island Expressway and Fire Island. But far more is at stake than a local election; the balance of power in Albany could hinge on the result. Unseating Mr. Trunzo could tip control of the Senate to Democrats for the first time in decades, so this contest is drawing statewide attention and big dollars. “It’s going to be a very competitive race,” said Michael D. Dawidziak, a bipartisan political consultant who is not working in the contest. Arthur J. Kremer, a former Democratic assemblyman, called the contest a tossup. Either way, the outcome could also have repercussions for all of Long Island, because of the crucial role its senators have played in state issues like school aid. For decades, Republicans from the Island have been the dominant bloc in the Senate. Their caucus currently holds eight of the Island’s nine Senate seats, and during legislative session they meet over breakfast every two weeks. Their clout was newly demonstrated in June when Dean G. Skelos of Rockville Centre was elevated to Senate majority leader after Joseph L. Bruno retired. Other Long Island senators head key committees on finance, health, environmental conservation, higher education, consumer protection and corporations and authorities. “Long Island would be far better off with the Republicans,” said Matthew T. Crosson, president of the Long Island Association, a major business group whose political action committee endorsed Senator Trunzo. Mr. Crosson predicted that if Democrats controlled the Senate, New York City leaders would shift aid from suburbia to the city, and “that would have the direct effect of raising property taxes” to make up the shortfall. Mr. Skelos, whose leadership post depends on the Republicans’ retaining their majority, agreed: “Not only would Long Island be hurt, but other suburban and rural communities would have no say. It would be very destructive.” Democrats dispute those claims. “That’s complete nonsense,” said the party’s chairman in Nassau, Jay S. Jacobs. Suburban senators would be essential in a new majority, and their districts’ needs would have to be met to pass the budget, he said. Suffolk’s Democratic chairman, Richard H. Schaffer, predicted that with a Democratic suburban bloc, “we’ll actually make out even better.” Mr. Trunzo boasted that he represents 5 of the state’s 10 school districts that get the most aid. Mr. Foley vowed “to see that Long Island gets its fair share.” He accused the Republicans of “trying to have it both ways,” since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg endorsed Senator Trunzo and other Republicans for helping the city. Lawrence C. Levy, executive director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said: “The worst-case scenario would be if the Democrats took control without a Long Island seat falling. Long Island districts would be at the end of the line for any sort of special aid.” If the Democrats win by overturning one local senator, they could help that district but ignore the others, he said. The Island might emerge relatively unscathed if a coalition of suburban Democratic senators pushed for their districts. The image of city-oriented Democrats is an obsolete stereotype from old-style regionalism pitting the city against upstate and the suburbs, Democratic leaders say. “We’re really representing all of New York as one state, from Syracuse to Stony Brook,” said Malcolm A. Smith of Queens, the Senate minority leader. Among statewide Democrats, Gov. David A. Paterson is a graduate of Hempstead High School and Hofstra Law School, United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lives in Westchester, and the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, hails from Nassau. Democrats also hold the county executive posts and legislatures in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester Counties, as well as many offices upstate. The party cannot alienate its broadened base, leaders say, and it would be political suicide to undercut new suburban senators, endangering their re-election and Senate control. Republicans have reigned over the Senate since the 1930s, except for a brief interlude in 1965. Now the Senate lingers as the last major Republican outpost in New York, and the party’s state chairman, Joseph N. Mondello from Nassau, is intent on retaining control. The Republicans’ once-firm grip on the Senate has been at risk since their majority dwindled to a two-seat margin. “A much larger issue is at stake — reapportionment,” said Desmond Ryan, a Republican lobbyist from Suffolk. Decades of a politically split Legislature have resulted in the Senate carving up its districts to favor Republicans, the Assembly doing the same for its districts for Democrats, and the two parties trading off Congressional districts. Winning the Senate would set the stage for Democrats to redraw all lines after the 2010 census. In the fight for the Third Senatorial District, Mr. Foley said that his campaign would spend up to $1.5 million and predicted that Mr. Trunzo could double that. The senator declined to give a figure. Democrats see multiple factors pointing to an upset. In 2006, Jimmy Dahroug, a little-known challenger with few funds, made a good showing, losing by only 9 percentage points. This time, Mr. Foley is much better known and financed. Brookhaven, where he is the supervisor, forms about half the district. Mr. Dahroug had threatened a primary but dropped out, so the Democrats appear to be united. By contrast, Senator Trunzo is embroiled in internal strife. He has spurned pleas from some Republicans to step down as the party chairman in Islip, where Supervisor Peter McGowan was forced out in a scandal and Democrats won the Town Board. Foremost in Mr. Trunzo’s favor is the power of incumbency. Thirty-six years in office make him far better known, especially in the Islip part of the district, which generally turns out a bigger vote than the Brookhaven area. He has never lost an election, vanquishing foes like Mr. Foley’s father, John, and an up-and-coming Steve Levy, now the county executive. Over the years, Mr. Trunzo has doled out millions of dollars in state aid to hundreds of local recipients like the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little Leagues, fire districts and ambulance corps. State and local labor federations and government unions have endorsed Mr. Trunzo, but the formidable state teachers’ union has opted for neutrality. Mr. Foley also claims endorsements from some unions, as well as from the upstate billionaire Tom Golisano. The Trunzo campaign portrays Mr. Foley as the “tax man” who raised Brookhaven taxes. Mr. Foley says he cleaned up a corrupt town and saved millions of dollars. The Foley campaign portrays Mr. Trunzo as ineffective, heading no committee and silent in Senate debate for three years. “Baloney,” the senator said with a smile and wave of his hand. “I may be a quiet guy, but I work hard at this. All the nonprofits come to me, and they don’t forget the help.” One of his slogans is: “You don’t fix what’s not broken.” The South Shore district ranges from Fire Island summer homes to Hispanic neighborhoods in Brentwood. It has about 63,000 enrolled Republicans, 55,000 Democrats and 43,000 unaffiliated voters. A Siena Research Institute poll of 405 likely voters in mid-September found 46 percent for Mr. Trunzo and 40 percent for Mr. Foley, with a 5 percent margin of sampling error. Democrats called that encouraging, contending that Mr. Trunzo was at maximum name recognition and Mr. Foley was just starting his mass media campaign. Appearing at a conference in Shirley for homeowners trying to stave off foreclosure, Mr. Trunzo was approached by a worried resident who declined to give her name but said, “I just want to say thank you for setting this up.” Mr. Foley got an equally warm reception at the Stop & Shop in Holbrook, accompanied by a dozen sign-toting volunteers. Patricia Bishop, a retired school secretary pushing a cart, referred to Mr. Trunzo. “It’s time for new blood,” she said, “even though I’m a senior citizen myself.” | Foley Brian X;Trunzo Caesar;Politics and Government;Legislatures and Parliaments;Long Island (NY) |
ny0140984 | [
"us"
] | 2008/02/22 | Across the Bay, on a School Bus Wearing Skis | LA POINTE, Wis. — From a distance, the large red aluminum contraption parked on the frozen shore of Lake Superior here looks like a small houseboat perched on skis. Up closer, as schoolchildren pile in with their backpacks and iPods, it becomes clear that the mystery vehicle, with two large fans on the back, is something else entirely. For residents of this remote village on an ice-locked island off the tip of mainland Wisconsin , the gliding boatmobile, known here as a windsled, is a kind of school bus. That’s right: in one of the more unorthodox modes of student travel anywhere in the country, the children of La Pointe, on Madeline Island (full-time population 250, triple that in the summer), actually windsled to class several weeks out of every year. It is the transportation a school district needs when students are separated from class by more than two miles of jigsaw ice blocks coming together to form something that approximates a floating road of shallow depth across a bay. Everyone here knows the windsled as a homegrown solution to a tricky set of circumstances: Sometimes Lake Superior — the largest, coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes — is too chunky with ice for a ferry but not quite solid enough to make an ice bridge between La Pointe and the mainland town of Bayfield, the location of the upper school. During those times, the Bayfield School District turns to its windsled, locally designed, built and operated to glide over thin ice. “I thought it was kind of strange at first,” said Emma Dalzell, 14, who recently moved to La Pointe from Madison, Wis., where she did not have to cross an icy bay to get to school. Now the commute has become routine. Put aside all those romantic notions about surfing to school. Though the trip offers a breathtaking panorama in a winter-wonderland sort of way, with this part of Lake Superior taking on the look of the grandest, most pristine ice rink the imagination can conjure, the windsled is purely utilitarian. The 9,000-pound vehicle, propelled by its twin fans and steered by a driver much the way a regular bus would be, is heated and has padded benches with room for about 20 students. Beyond that, there are no luxuries. Loud and bumping along at 18 miles an hour, it hardly qualifies as a thrill ride. So while it is a novelty, students are no more enchanted by it than first-period math class. “It’s just an everyday thing,” said Carrie Nelson, 14. “It’s just our life.” The other day, Dylan Griggs, 13, sat toward the back of the sled’s enclosed cab with his hands over his ears for most of the 10-minute ride to school. Asked if he liked windsledding to class, he said: “No. It’s loud, annoying.” But nonetheless necessary. This part of heavily forested northern Wisconsin, some 60 miles east of Duluth, Minn., the nearest city, is known for the severity of its winters. Wind chills often fail to rise above zero for days at a time. But rather than hibernating or canceling the routines of everyday life, people not only cope with the weather but also seem to relish it. On a recent 5-degree morning, Judy Patterson, who works at a coffeehouse in La Pointe, said: “I love it. We look forward to the ice all year.” No surprise, then, that officials of the school district have worked to make sure weather does not stand in their way. “When I was hired for the district, I heard immediately about the windsled,” said Linda Kunelius, who became superintendent last year. It was summer, so she went to see the sled in its garage. “I thought it looked like a houseboat on pontoons,” she recalled. Beyond its unusual appearance, Ms. Kunelius learned something else: Given the small district’s limited budget, operating the windsled was fast becoming a financial hardship. Because of the pounding it takes on the ice, the windsled is a high-maintenance machine. It was built in 2000 with a grant of half a million dollars from the federal Department of Transportation. (Earlier models were smaller and less sophisticated.) But the cost of its operation fell on the district, which, in acknowledgment that running it entails some inherent risk, also carries extra liability insurance. Last year’s operating cost for the windsled, which serves 20 students who routinely need transportation across the bay, was $21,358. (In warmer weather, the district pays for a ferry, whose cost last year was $30,435.) Ms. Kunelius found that the district had not been receiving state financing for the ice commute because it did not qualify as an official school bus route. The district immediately sought to change that, turning to the local state senator, Robert Jauch. Mr. Jauch said he had had an interesting time introducing the financing measure. “Frankly it created lots of laughter and puzzled looks, like, ‘What are you trying to do?’ ” he said. “You know the preoccupation with earmarks. The natural question was, ‘What are you trying to pull here?’ The simple fact is that this isn’t a bridge to nowhere. It’s the only means to get somewhere.” Legislators did finally approve a budget item providing operating money of up to $35,000 for the sled, he said. “If we pay for a yellow bus with four wheels,” he added, “then we ought to pay for this too.” The windsled was built by Arnie and Ronald Nelson, brothers who own a local construction business and who operate the sled under contract with La Pointe and the school district. It is kept light on its feet by its forward motion and the way the design disperses its four and a half tons over its 336 square feet. The Nelsons regularly check the ice for safety. Once it freezes to a depth of greater than 11 inches, as it typically does by mid-to-late winter, the bay is deemed safe for cars and light trucks. A road is then plowed in the top layer of ice, and at that point the students are shuttled across by minivan. The ice road is open to anyone who wants to drive it. And many people do. The way across the bay is without obstruction in any direction, and seems as if it could stretch to the horizon. It brings new meaning to the idea of “open road.” There are no houses, no fences, no trees. No traffic lights, school zones or pedestrian crossings. Steve Dunn, the Bayfield fire chief, summed up the benefits of frozen-lake travel for the windsled and other vehicles this way: “What’s nice here is if you start sliding, you’re not going to hit anything.” | Ice;Sleds;Commuting;Wisconsin |
ny0000029 | [
"us"
] | 2013/03/03 | Effort Ends to Find Florida Man Taken by Sinkhole | SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) — The effort to find the body of a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole under his home was called off Saturday while crews tried to learn how far the underground cavity reached and whether more homes were at risk. Mike Merrill, the Hillsborough County administrator, said that rescuers were ending the effort to find the body of the man, Jeff Bush, 37, and that they planned to bring in heavy equipment on Sunday to begin demolishing the four-bedroom home. “At this point it’s really not possible to recover the body,” Mr. Merrill said, later adding “we’re dealing with a very unusual sinkhole.” Mr. Bush was in his bedroom on Thursday night in Seffner, 15 miles east of Tampa, when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but escaped unharmed. Mr. Bush’s brother Jeremy jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued by a sheriff’s deputy. Image Police tape kept onlookers safely across the street on Friday. Credit Brian Blanco/Reuters Testing determined that the house next door to the Bushes also was compromised by the sinkhole, according to Ronnie Rivera, a spokesman for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue. Experts say thousands of sinkholes erupt yearly in Florida because of the state’s unique geography, though deaths rarely occur. “There’s hardly a place in Florida that’s immune to sinkholes,” said Sandy Nettles, who owns a geology consulting company in the Tampa area. “There’s no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur.” Most sinkholes are small, like one found Saturday morning in Largo, about 35 miles from Seffner. The Largo sinkhole, about 10 feet long and several feet wide, is in a mall parking lot. Such discoveries are common throughout the year in Florida. A sinkhole near Orlando grew to 400 feet across in 1981 and swallowed five cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool. Image Jeff Bush Credit Jeremy Bush/Jeremy Bush, via Associated Press The state is prone because it sits on limestone , a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations, making them even more prone to sinkholes. Jonathan Arthur, the state geologist, said other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors — extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction — that can cause sinkholes. The sinkhole here caused the concrete floor of Mr. Bush’s home to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the house was turning in. It gave way with a crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Mr. Bush’s brother running. Jeremy Bush said he jumped into the hole but could not see his brother before the ground crumbled around him. A sheriff’s deputy pulled him to safety. “The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn’t care — I wanted to save my brother,” Jeremy Bush said through tears on Friday in a neighbor’s yard. “But I just couldn’t do nothing.” | Sinkholes;Engineering;Fatalities,casualties;Florida;Seffner FL |
ny0223538 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2010/11/07 | Giants’ Reynaud To Miss Seattle Game | Another member of the Giants did not make the trip to Seattle for Sunday’s game with the Seahawks . The team announced that receiver Darius Reynaud (hamstring) had been downgraded from questionable to out. Last week, three other Giants — offensive tackle William Beatty (foot), fullback Madison Hedgecock (hamstring) and center Shaun O’Hara (foot) — were declared out. ¶Indianapolis put receiver Anthony Gonzalez on injured reserve with a left knee injury. He is the 12th Colt to go on season-ending injured reserve. colt (AP) | New York Giants;Seattle Seahawks;Sports Injuries;Football;Reynaud Darius |
ny0012664 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/11/28 | Council Bill Aims to Limit Use of E-Cigarettes as Their Popularity Grows | The City Council is seeking to add electronic cigarettes to New York’s ban on smoking in public places. The city has long prohibited smoking in workplaces, and since 2002 under the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has extended the ban to bars and restaurants, parks, beaches and plazas. Now, a councilman and the city’s health commissioner say that more and more people are using electronic cigarettes — battery-powered, smokeless nicotine-delivery systems — in public places, and that this poses a threat to public health and may encourage a new generation to smoke. The councilman James Gennaro, one of the lead sponsors of the proposal to ban e-cigarettes in public places, and the commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, said that a loophole in current law allowing for electronic cigarettes was sowing confusion. People are lighting up electronic cigarettes in restaurants, creating conflict with other patrons and waiters who have to mediate, they said. Mr. Gennaro said children who could not differentiate between regular and electronic smoking were getting the message that smoking is socially acceptable. “We see these cigarettes are really starting to proliferate, and it’s unacceptable,” Mr. Gennaro said on Wednesday. “I get reports of people smoking cigarettes in public libraries. Certainly, they’re becoming more common in restaurants and bars.” But the makers of electronic cigarettes say that they are safe because they do not burn tar or tobacco, and they signaled their readiness on Wednesday to fight the proposed ban vigorously. They say the e-cigarettes are a good alternative to regular smoking for people who cannot quit. “I think you have to ask yourself, if you make it just as inconvenient to use an electronic cigarette as a tobacco cigarette, people are just going to keep smoking their Marlboros,” said Craig Weiss, president and chief executive of NJoy, one of the larger electronic cigarette companies. “That does not benefit the public.” A public hearing before the Council is set for next Wednesday, and the Council is expected to vote on the proposal on Dec. 19, at its last scheduled voting meeting before new members and a new mayor take office. New York and Chicago are among the first large cities to consider banning e-cigarettes. New Jersey, North Dakota and Utah have recently included electronic cigarettes in their bans on smoking in workplaces, bars and restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. So have dozens of localities, including Pittsfield, Mass.; Savannah, Ga.; Ketchum, Idaho; and Suffolk County, on Long Island. Electronic cigarettes are designed to imitate conventional cigarettes by using a heating element to vaporize a flavored liquid and, typically, nicotine. The vapor is inhaled, a process sometimes called “vaping” rather than smoking, and transmits the nicotine that smokers crave. Dr. Farley and other advocates of a ban say that electronic cigarettes have not been well studied and should be treated warily because their potential hazards are unknown. “While more study is needed on electronic cigarettes, waiting to act is a risk we should not take,” he said. But Mr. Weiss said that to argue against something based on lack of knowledge was not a reasonable way to make public policy. “ ‘Without the information, I’m going to regulate’ — that’s not an appropriate thing to do,” he said. Karen Blumenfeld, executive director of an antismoking group called GASP, for Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy , said on Wednesday that the claim that electronic smoking was safe reminded her of the “'40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, when doctors used to say smoking was good for your throat , it would calm your nerves.” Opponents of e-cigarettes also argue that they are a gateway to conventional cigarettes, particularly for teenagers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the percentage of middle- and high-school students who use electronic cigarettes more than doubled from 2011 to 2012. In a statement with that report, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said teenagers who used e-cigarettes could become addicted to nicotine and go on to smoke regular cigarettes. But Mr. Weiss, the NJoy executive, said: “There is no scientific data to support the argument that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking. On the contrary, there is a significant amount of research that indicates e-cigarettes can be a novel approach for moving smokers away from tobacco cigarettes.” The e-cigarette industry is growing and seems to have a hip image. One electronic cigarette company, Blu, has been acquired by the tobacco company Lorillard. The former Facebook president Sean Parker and Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, have invested in Njoy. Mr. Weiss said that he saw Mr. Parker’s and Mr. Thiel’s investment as evidence not so much of trendiness as of a prediction that electronic cigarettes were “paradigm shifting” in the way of successful Internet companies. At several bars in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday evening, patrons and bartenders said they were not bothered by electronic cigarettes. Lisa Graziano, 39, a bartender at the Charleston, said she enjoyed smoking e-cigarettes, even though she abhors regular cigarettes. “I’m very much against smoking, but with these there’s no smoke,” she said, blowing billows of sweet-smelling steam after drawing on a thin, black tube with a tip that glowed lavender. “I remember when Bloomberg passed the original ban, I was so happy,” she said. “I don’t even smoke but I love the hookah” — a type of electronic cigarette. “You push the button and you get the flavor.” To emphasize her point, she smoked it next to a pregnant woman, who said she was not bothered. “It certainly doesn’t bother anyone around here, and that’s the point,” Ms. Graziano said. “I despise regular cigarettes.” David Slifkin, 45, the Charleston’s manager, said he did not think business would be affected by any ban. “The people who smoke those in here, it’s less than 2 percent,” he said. Cory Sterling, 27, a bartender at the Gibson, called the proposed ban “a little silly.” He added, “It doesn’t seem to bother any of the customers, and when it’s cold and no one wants to stand outside, it’s a good alternative.” | Smoking;New York City Council;Mike Bloomberg;NYC;James F Gennaro;Thomas A Farley |
ny0028718 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2013/01/12 | Makers of Violent Video Games Marshal Support to Fend Off Regulation | WASHINGTON — With the Newtown, Conn., massacre spurring concern over violent video games, makers of popular games like Call of Duty and Mortal Kombat are rallying Congressional support to try to fend off their biggest regulatory threat in two decades. The $60 billion industry is facing intense political pressure from an unlikely alliance of critics who say that violent imagery in video games has contributed to a culture of violence. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with industry executives on Friday to discuss the concerns, highlighting the issue’s prominence. No clear link has emerged between the Connecticut rampage and the gunman Adam Lanza’s interest in video games. Even so, the industry’s detractors want to see a federal study on the impact of violent gaming, as well as cigarette-style warning labels and other measures to curb the games’ graphic imagery. “Connecticut has changed things,” Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Virginia Republican and a frequent critic of what he terms the shocking violence of games, said in an interview. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’re going to do something.” Gun laws have been the Obama administration’s central focus in considering responses to the shootings. But a violent media culture is being scrutinized, too, alongside mental health laws and policies. “The stool has three legs, and this is one of them,” Mr. Wolf said of violent video games. Studies on the impact of gaming violence offer conflicting evidence. But science aside, public rhetoric has clearly shifted since the shootings, with politicians and even the National Rifle Association — normally a fan of shooting games — quick to blame video games and Hollywood movies for inuring children to violence. “I don’t let games like Call of Duty in my house,” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said this week on MSNBC. “You cannot tell me that a kid sitting in a basement for hours playing Call of Duty and killing people over and over and over again does not desensitize that child to the real-life effects of violence.” Residents in Southington, Conn., 30 miles northeast of Newtown, went so far as to organize a rally to destroy violent games. (The event was canceled this week.) Mr. Biden, meeting with some of the industry’s biggest manufacturers and retailers, withheld judgment on whether graphic games fuel violence. But he added quickly, “You all know the judgment other people have made.” Industry executives are steeling for a political battle, and they have strong support from Congress as well as from the courts. Industry representatives have already spoken with more than a dozen lawmakers’ offices since the shootings, urging them to resist threatened regulations. They say video games are a harmless, legally protected diversion already well regulated by the industry itself through ratings that restricting some games to “mature” audiences. With game makers on the defensive, they have begun pulling together scientific research, legal opinions and marketing studies to make their case to federal officials. “This has been litigated all the way to the Supreme Court,” Michael Gallagher, chief executive of the industry’s main lobbying arm, said in an interview, referring to a 2011 ruling that rejected a California ban on selling violent games to minors on First Amendment grounds. Twenty years ago, with graphic video games still a nascent technology, manufacturers faced similar threats of a crackdown over violent games. Even Captain Kangaroo — Bob Keeshan — lobbied for stricter oversight. The industry, heading off government action, responded at that time by creating the ratings labels, similar to movie ratings, that are ubiquitous on store shelves today. Image Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. meeting Friday with video game industry executives, a response to last month's massacre. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images This time, with a more formidable presence in Washington, the industry is not so willing to discuss voluntary concessions. Game makers have spent more than $20 million since 2008 on federal lobbying, and millions more on campaign donations. Mr. Gallagher’s group, the Entertainment Software Association, has five outside lobbying firms to push its interests in Washington. And the industry has enjoyed not only a hands-off approach from Congress, which has rejected past efforts to toughen regulations, but also tax breaks that have spurred sharp growth. Game makers even have their own bipartisan Congressional caucus, with 39 lawmakers joining to keep the industry competitive. One of those lawmakers, Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, suggested that the focus on violent video games is misplaced. He said that video games in general are “a healthy form of education and entertainment for our family” and said ratings made it easy to keep inappropriate games from his children. “We find it harder, though, to shield our children from the relentless, in-your-face glorification of violence promoted on our TV screens and in the movies,” he added. “It’s everywhere, and you can’t seem to find the remote fast enough.” Executives cite 2009 research by the Federal Trade Commission crediting game makers for going further than any other media group to shield children from inappropriate material. Major retailers like GameStop consistently refused to sell “mature” rated games to minors, the commission found, and game makers usually did not market them to children. The industry’s biggest political asset may be the 2011 ruling by the Supreme Court that found restrictions on the sale of video games to be unconstitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, wrote that evidence linking games to violence was unpersuasive and that games had the same legal protection as violent literary classics like Grimm’s Fairy Tales or “Snow White.” The scientific record is mixed. Some researchers have found that games bring out real-life aggression, making players less empathetic. But other studies say the linkage is exaggerated and that game-playing does not predict bullying or delinquency. The authorities have linked some past attacks, directly or indirectly, to the gunman’s fascination with violent games. In the 2011 rampage in Norway that killed 77 people, for example, the gunman played Call of Duty six hours a day to practice shooting. In the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, which killed 12 people, the two teenage gunmen were said to have been obsessed with a game called Doom, featuring bloodshed and explosions. There have been reports that Mr. Lanza, 20, the Newtown gunman who killed himself after his rampage, liked World of Warcraft and other violent games, as do many young men. James E. Holmes, 25, who is accused in last summer’s massacre at a theater in Aurora, Col., was a fan of the same game. But the authorities in Connecticut and Colorado have not established a direct link between those attacks and the gunmen’s interest in those games. | Computer and Video Games;Violence in Media;Regulation and Deregulation;US Politics;Entertainment Software Assn;Joe Biden;Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting |
ny0081014 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/02/25 | The Troubles Pronouncing Shola Olatoye, New York’s Housing Chief | It happened again this month at a hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Public Housing. The subject at hand: the partnership between the New York City Housing Authority and a private developer to preserve more than 800 apartments. Answering questions: the housing agency’s chairwoman, Shola Olatoye. “Good morning, Chair Shantola ... Ola ... Chair,” said Letitia James, the public advocate. “Good morning, Chair Alatoya,” Councilwoman Rosie Mendez said. Catching herself, Ms. Mendez added: “I said that correct, right? No? Hold it. This is a trick. O.K. Alatoye? I need to get this right. Please.” It has been a full year since Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Ms. Olatoye, 40, to her high-profile position overseeing housing for more than 400,000 residents, but her name remains a phonetic obstacle course to many who have tried to pronounce it. Those who need to introduce her or welcome her in public appearances, where formality dictates that she be addressed by her last name, routinely mangle it. So do some in broadcast media. Through it all, Ms. Olatoye has maintained her composure — smiling, joking that maybe she should hand out phonics flash cards, and patiently enunciating her name as a first-grade teacher might. “o-LAH-twoh-yay.” “It’s been my whole life,” she said outside the Council hearing room that day. “I just go with it.” But this is New York, a melting pot of vowels and consonants, where names that are unfamiliar elsewhere in the country are common in the city’s corridors of power, including government. A correct pronunciation of even the most challenging tongue twister, once perhaps merely a sign of sophistication, is now expected. Ms. James said she was “pretty embarrassed” by her performance at the hearing. (On her second turn at the microphone, Ms. James tried “Chairwoman Olatali.”) She later apologized to Ms. Olatoye, who she said brushed it off. “I went back to my office and said it 10 times,” Ms. James said. “It was self-imposed punishment.” Ms. James noted that the names of Mr. de Blasio’s administrators reflect the diversity of the city, specifically mentioning Dr. Ramanathan Raju (president of the Health and Hospitals Corporation ) and Nisha Agarwal (commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs ). But she and others said they found Ms. Olatoye’s last name the most daunting. It could be the “oye” that throws people off, some speculate, or it may just look harder than it really is. Think John Travolta’s “Adele Dazeem,” for the singer Idina Menzel , at the Oscars last year. “Even when she said it I couldn’t distinguish what the difference was,” said Councilwoman Mendez, comparing her pronunciation with Ms. Olatoye’s. Shola Olatoye on Her Name Ms. Olatoye, chairwoman of the New York City Housing Authority, discusses the pronunciation of her name and its origin. Ms. Mendez, like other members of the Council, often defaults to “Madam Chair,” both out of respect and to play it safe. Ms. Olatoye, who grew up Waterbury, Conn., uses a shortened version of her first name, Oyeshola (o-YAY-show-lah), which means “God’s gracious gift” in the language of the Yoruba, a large ethnic group in Nigeria, where her father is from. Her interlocutors seem to have little trouble with “Shola.” (SHOW-lah) But even Mr. de Blasio wrestled with “Olatoye” when he announced her appointment last February, managing the correct sound only by speaking with the utmost deliberation. “I’m about to talk about Shola o-LAH-toe-yay,” the mayor said, so pleased with himself that he high-fived her. (While his rendering was not perfect, Ms. Olatoye signaled her approval.) “I’ve been working on that: o-LAH-toe-yay,” he said. “Shola, I’ve been practicing Yoruba all day — o-LAH-toe-yay.” Seemingly exhausted from the effort, Mr. de Blasio then mostly switched to “Shola” for the rest of the introduction. A month and a half later, at a news conference announcing new boilers for a Brooklyn housing project, he botched the surname, putting the accent on the third syllable. Senator Charles E. Schumer, relying on the mayor for guidance, also mispronounced it. But since then the mayor has done better. Ms. James said she was “less interested in how to pronounce her name and more interested in correcting the conditions at Nycha,” as the public housing agency is known. But Ms. James, who goes by Tish, said it took Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg two years to learn how to pronounce her first name, so she empathized. “He kept calling me Trish,” she said. “I guess he knew a lot of Trishes.” At the Housing Authority, Ms. Olatoye’s staff posted a primer through internal communications last summer to help employees say the name correctly. But Ms. Olatoye clearly has bigger fish to fry — she is completing the agency’s financial strategy, and she is pregnant with her third child, due in May. While she is good-natured about the butchering of her name, however, she said she expected to see progress. “People should know how to say my last name,” she said. Then she added helpfully: “It sounds just like it’s spelled.” | Housing Authority NYC;Bill de Blasio;Shola Olatoye;Letitia James;NYC |
ny0224509 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2010/11/14 | Penn Tops Harvard to Claim Share of Ivy League Football Title | PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania won at least a share of its 15th Ivy League championship Saturday by routing Harvard, 34-14 , but Quakers Coach Al Bagnoli made sure to point out afterward that this had not been just another championship season. Owen Thomas, a ferocious and well-liked defensive lineman who would have been a senior captain, committed suicide in April . The Quakers dedicated the season to Thomas, and they said they were motivated by his memory to win a second straight Ivy title. “Really, he was front and center in everything we were trying to do,” said Bagnoli, whose teams have won eight Ivy League championships in his 19 seasons at Penn. Saturday was Senior Day at Franklin Field, and a photo of the Quakers seniors was on the cover of the game program. The navy No. 40 jersey that would have been worn by Thomas was front and center in the photo. Receiving critical contributions from their offense, defense and special teams, the Quakers (8-1, 6-0) outclassed the Crimson (6-3, 4-2), rolling to a 27-0 lead by the end of the third quarter. “Owen’s been in everybody’s thoughts every day, every minute and every second throughout the whole year,” said the junior linebacker Eric Rask, who had 11 tackles and blocked a field-goal attempt. “It’s an awesome feeling to win it for him.” After Harvard stalled on its last drive, the Quakers gleefully dumped the contents of a water bucket on Bagnoli — even though 57 seconds remained. Unlike last year’s celebration after a victory at Harvard, Bagnoli did not tumble into a somersault this time. Penn can clinch the title outright by winning its season finale Saturday at Cornell (2-7, 1-5). Yale (7-2, 5-1) is the only team that can tie the Quakers, but the Bulldogs will have to beat their archrival, Harvard, to do so. Penn is looking to finish 7-0 in Ivy play for the sixth time under Bagnoli. “It’s really old-time football, and it’s impressive,” Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said of the Quakers’ style. Harvard quarterback Collier Winters passed for 219 yards, but he needed 44 attempts, and he was intercepted three times, once in the end zone. Collier’s only touchdown pass, a jump-ball throw to Mike Cook, very easily could have been intercepted. Brandon Colavita, a 220-pound Penn sophomore who thought he would only be a short-yardage back this year, hammered out 122 yards and 2 touchdowns on 17 carries. Billy Ragone, the Quakers’ 220-pound sophomore quarterback , rushed for 64 yards and a touchdown. “They’re not going to try to juke you,” the Harvard senior safety Collin Zych said. Penn ground down yet another opponent. Five minutes into the second half, most of the members of the Crimson defense had their hands on their hips as they looked over to the sideline for a call. “We wore them down as the game went on, and things opened up at the end,” Colavita said. Besides blocking a field-goal try — which Penn turned into its first touchdown— the Quakers capitalized on two other special-teams mistakes by Harvard. Early in the second quarter, a Penn punt glanced off a member of the Harvard return team, setting up a field goal. Early in the third quarter, a Harvard player tried to down a punt at the Penn 1, but the ball caromed off Quakers returner Bradford Blackmon. Blackmon picked it up and ran 38 yards, and Penn scored six plays later on a 25-yard pass from Ragone to Jeff Jack. “They just really did a great job in every special-teams phase,” Murphy said. With Thomas’s memory a powerful season-long incentive, the Quakers were invincible once again. “Given all the adversity we’ve overcome,” Bagnoli said, “it’s one of the most satisfying things we’ve done.” | Harvard University;University of Pennsylvania;Football;Thomas Owen |
ny0179183 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2007/08/29 | U.S. Troops Arrest Members of Iran Ministry in Baghdad | BAGHDAD, Wednesday, Aug. 29 — An Iranian Energy Ministry delegation was arrested by American troops at a hotel in central Baghdad during an official visit to Iraq , the Iranian state news agency, IRNA, and hotel staff said Tuesday night. American forces confirmed that a group of Iranians was detained after coalition forces searched them and their Iraqi escorts at a checkpoint, found unauthorized weapons in their vehicles and confiscated them. The American statement did not mention the hotel, but it is near the checkpoint on the east bank of the Tigris where United States forces said the group was stopped and searched. Staff at an Iraqi state-owned hotel called the Sheraton Ishtar said Wednesday that the delegation was detained while the members were eating dinner in the ground floor restaurant, where they had apparently proceeded from the nearby checkpoint. They said six Iranians were led away blindfolded and handcuffed shortly after 10 p.m. Hotel officials said the delegation checked into the hotel on Monday bearing a letter of invitation from the Iraqi Electricity Ministry. The detentions are certain to increase tensions between Iran and the United States, which has repeatedly said that Iran arms and finances Shiite militias attacking American and Iraqi forces in Iraq. Iran has denied the accusations, and has protested the arrest of five Iranians by American troops in northern Iraq in January. The United States has said the five had links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Tehran has denied the accusation, saying they were diplomats. Mohaned Abed, the Sheraton’s night manager, identified the members of the Iranian delegation from hotel records as Jamal Bayati, Abathar Mirzani, Mohsen Ashouri, Saed Raai, Hassan Tharif and Bahmatullah Muradi, who was accompanied by his wife. Mr. Abed, 39, said 14 people had been detained: six members of the delegation, Mr. Muradi’s wife — who was not handcuffed or blindfolded — and seven Iraqis who accompanied them. They included drivers and interpreters; the Iranians appeared to speak little or no Arabic, Mr. Abed said. “The American soldiers arrived about 9.30 p.m., entered the hotel and their commander asked me about the Iranian delegation, how many they were, their room numbers and did I have a copy of their room keys,” he said. “I told him that the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity had invited them, that they were guests of the ministry and that we had a letter from the ministry confirming this.” Mr. Abed said the soldiers entered the al-Warkaa restaurant on the ground floor where the Iranians were having dinner, brought them into the lobby and questioned them. “After about 15 or 20 minutes they gathered the Iranians’ personal belongings, put them in plastic folders, put blindfolds on their eyes and then accompanied the delegation outside the hotel,” he said. | Iraq;United States Armament and Defense;Iran |
ny0052923 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2014/07/02 | Mets Cling to Glimmers of Hope After Loss to Braves | ATLANTA — Terry Collins sat slumped in a chair and looked down. The Mets had just lost to the Braves, 5-4, had fallen a season-worst 10 games below .500 and were now nine games behind the Braves, who were atop the National League East. Collins, the Mets’ manager, had just been asked how the team could save its season before it slipped away for good. Collins paused, still looking down, searching for some glimmer of hope. The Mets would play the Braves five times over the next nine days, he pointed out. They could still cut into the Braves’ lead. He was rationalizing, but he at least sounded confident. “You’re always trying to climb back in it,” Collins said. This loss, though, was the kind that could pierce a team’s hope. Over the first five innings, the Mets scored four runs on nine hits. Their veterans, Curtis Granderson and Daniel Murphy, each hit two-run homers. But over the final four innings, they managed just one more hit. In the ninth, the Braves’ closer, Craig Kimbrel, struck out the side in order. The Mets struck out 13 times in total. Four runs might have been enough, had Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched up to the standards of the Mets’ rotation. Instead, the Braves tattooed him for five runs in five innings, all of which came on two outs. Four different Braves drove in at least one run — from their star, Freddie Freeman, to their starting pitcher, Mike Minor. “There’s a reason why they’ve won,” Collins said of the Braves’ clutch hitting. “They do have a knack for it. Those are the kind of players they have over there.” This had seemed to be a particularly important start for Matsuzaka, considering that Dillon Gee was getting closer to rejoining the team and that the Mets had to decide soon whom he would replace in the rotation. But now, after another bad outing, Matsuzaka had allowed 10 runs over his last two starts, against the Braves and the Pirates. And in his six starts since the start of June, his earned run average had ballooned to 5.20. “As a pitcher in my position, regardless of what actually happened in the game, these are unforgivable mistakes that I’ve made,” he said through an interpreter. The Mets now have only 78 games to make up nine games and catch the Braves, but they are clinging to some hope. They can take comfort in smaller victories. Ruben Tejada extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Travis d’Arnaud is batting .333 in his first seven games since rejoining the team. And Murphy has continued to hit well. “It’s still baseball,” Murphy said. “You still come out here and you still play hard. Guys are always finding a reason to play hard. There shouldn’t be a reason why you’re not going to play hard, try to play the game the right way. For me, it’s the 24 men that I have the pleasure of coming to the field with every day. That doesn’t change.” | Baseball;Braves;Mets;Dillon Gee;Curtis Granderson;Daisuke Matsuzaka;Daniel Murphy |
ny0270263 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2016/04/01 | #OscarsSoWhite Makes a Court Appearance | LOS ANGELES — The debate over race in Hollywood edged its way into the legal system by way of a judge’s order. The case was filed by the music executive Gerald E. Heller, who is alleging that the makers of “Straight Outta Compton” defamed him and infringed his rights. Mr. Heller may now get his day in court, after a ruling issued on Wednesday by Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, of the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Mr. Heller, who was once in business with N.W.A., the rap group at the center of the film, is arguing in a lawsuit filed last fall that Paul Giamatti’s portrayal of him as a sleazy, exploitive music manager violated his rights and impaired his livelihood. NBCUniversal, parent of Universal Pictures, which distributed “Straight Outta Compton,” has joined various writers and producers, including Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, in opposing the suit. The suit survived a motion to dismiss filed by the defendants after the judge allowed Mr. Heller to file an amended complaint. In his ruling, Judge Fitzgerald noted that Mr. Heller’s dealings with N.W.A. were a legitimate topic of public interest. As a result, Mr. Heller is part of the exploding social debate over diversity, the judge wrote. “An older, white man with extensive experience in the music business is contrasted with young black men who feel underpaid, undervalued and exploited,” he ruled. Such issues, he added, “permeate our society, including the entertainment sector, as shown by the recent #OscarsSoWhite controversy, which itself arose in part because of the film,” which was largely snubbed in the most recent Academy Award nominations. Because Mr. Heller, known as Jerry, figures in that broad debate, the judge reasoned, some of his claims may be barred in California by a measure called the Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or Anti-SLAPP, law. The law protects activity that involves rights of petition and free speech. Mr. Heller will still be allowed to file an amended complaint to prove that specific elements of the film were defamatory. But he will also have to overcome a precedent from the 1990s, in which, as Judge Fitzgerald noted, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco surmised that viewers have learned not to take docudramas too seriously. “To the contrary,” the appeals court wrote, “most of them are aware by now that parts of such programs are more fiction than fact.” “Straight Outta Compton,” which was released last August, continues to create many legal dramas of its own in three Los Angeles courtrooms. Aside from the suit before Judge Fitzgerald, one involves a case filed in state civil court, in which the family of Terry Carter sued those involved with the film over his death near the set of a Compton promotional shoot for the movie. A criminal case has been filed against Marion Knight Jr., known as Suge, who was also portrayed in the film. He is accused of murdering Mr. Carter by running over him with a truck. | Movies;Jerry Heller;Defamation;Lawsuits;N.W.A.;Straight Outta Compton |
ny0142978 | [
"technology",
"companies"
] | 2008/11/15 | Crisis Hits Tech Sector With Layoffs as Sales Slump | Joining a rapidly growing list of technology companies reeling from the financial turmoil, Sun Microsystems , which sells server computers, has started a broad overhaul in which up to 6,000 employees could lose their jobs. Before the stock market opened Friday, Sun disclosed that it would lay off 5,000 to 6,000 workers, or 15 percent to 18 percent of its work force. The company, already dealing with layoffs announced in May, expects to save $700 million to $800 million a year as a result of the moves, while also taking up to $600 million in charges in the next 12 months. “The focus here is to eliminate some of the inefficiencies that have made it hard to do business with Sun,” said Jonathan I. Schwartz, chief executive at Sun, adding that a “new economic reality” had taken hold in the market. Sun shares were up about 3.9 percent in afternoon trading. In the last two weeks, several of the technology industry’s biggest names have issued dire forecasts. Last week, Cisco Systems, the largest provider of network equipment, warned that sales in its current quarter could drop 10 percent. Intel, the world’s largest producer of chips used in PCs and servers, added to the gloom this week saying its sales for the current quarter could plummet as much as 19 percent as both consumer and corporate customers had pulled back on technology spending. In addition, other Silicon Valley companies tied to the chip industry, including Applied Materials and National Semiconductor, have started layoffs. While many of the companies focus on corporate sales, others closer to consumer markets are suffering as well. Qualcomm, which makes chips used in cellphones, said mobile device makers have suddenly cut back on their orders. Nokia, a large cellphone maker, confirmed as much Friday by lowering its industrywide sales outlook for the fourth quarter and announcing further cost cuts in 2009. For many companies, the sudden drop in orders started in October and worsened in November. “Even during the 2000 bust, the decline was more measured,” said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Collins Stewart. “This seems to be going into a free fall.” Sun’s change in strategy follows a period of intense scrutiny for Sun and Mr. Schwartz as the company has fought longer-term problems. Sun, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has battled for years to offset a slow, steady decline in its primary high-end server business. Defending those sales has become more difficult as Sun’s customers on Wall Street curtailed their technology spending because of the financial turmoil. Sun is more dependent on Wall Street business than rivals like I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard and Dell. “We were certainly the first to enter this,” Mr. Schwartz said, “and I would like to believe we will be the first to exit it.” Late last month, Sun reported a first-quarter loss of $1.68 billion and a 7 percent year-over-year drop in revenue to $2.99 billion. At the time, Sun cautioned that it would probably reorganize to bring costs in line. While Sun has talked of a “new reality,” its investors have been reacting to the company’s larger issues for some time. Sun’s shares have lost more than 80 percent of their value in the last year, reducing the company’s market value to $3 billion. In its last fiscal year, Sun posted revenue of $13.8 billion and has $2 billion in cash. Southeastern Asset Management, an investment firm based in Memphis, has increased its stake in Sun to more than 20 percent in the last year. Recently, it disclosed an intention to talk with Sun’s management and possibly other companies about the ways to make the most of Sun’s assets, which include a vast software intellectual property portfolio. In addition, Relational Investors, founded by the activist investor Ralph V. Whitworth, has purchased close to 15 million shares of Sun since the end of June, giving it close to a 3 percent stake in the company. Mr. Schwartz maintained that these large Sun investors agree with the company’s strategy. “I just met with Ralph,” Mr. Schwartz said. “We’re all focused on the same thing.” Sun’s management continues to remain optimistic when speaking about the company’s future, pointing to a number of fast-growing hardware and software businesses. The company has spent the last few years developing products and acquiring software makers, leaving it with what many analysts consider a strong portfolio. The major challenge has been expanding these businesses at a rate strong enough to offset declining sales from Sun’s traditional businesses. In an effort to move forward, Sun has realigned its management structure to create a pair of software organizations aimed at different parts of the technology market. The moves include the resignation of Rich Green, formerly executive vice president in charge of Sun’s software business. Mr. Green returned to Sun just two years ago in a bid to inject new life into the company’s software business. Sun has bet on an open-source software strategy where it offers free access to top products such as its Solaris operating system and MySQL database. The company argues that this model increases interest in its products and can translate into hardware sales. With plenty of cash on hand and a sympathetic board, Sun has rejected calls for more radical action, like selling off part of its hardware business or going private. Analysts, however, remain concerned that Sun’s costs are too high given current economic conditions and the ongoing decline in sales. “This by itself is not enough,” Shebly Seyrafi, an analyst with Calyon Securities, said. Mr. Schwartz declined to delve into all of the specific areas where Sun’s job cuts will occur, although he did say that the sales group would be affected. “We are not canceling products or exiting businesses,” Mr. Schwartz said, adding that Sun remained committed to using the open-source strategy as a way of trying to attract business. “We are going to go plow the market and auger it open with the world’s most compelling price tag,” he said. | Sun Microsystems Inc;Layoffs and Job Reductions |
ny0240048 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/12/09 | Karzai’s Blasé Response to Leaked Cables Relieves U.S. | KABUL, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called it “extraordinarily embarrassing,” which might also describe the sentiments beneath the decorous tableau on Wednesday night in the palace of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan . A little more than a week after the disclosure of a cache of secret American diplomatic cables that quoted Karl W. Eikenberry , the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, describing Mr. Karzai’s “inability to grasp the most rudimentary principles of state-building,” among other criticisms, Mr. Karzai, Mr. Eikenberry and Mr. Gates shared their first public forum together since the cables were leaked. Not that anyone would have known that something was amiss. Mr. Eikenberry sat genially in the front row of American spectators, busily taking notes, as Mr. Gates stood alongside Mr. Karzai, smiling broadly. Asked about the cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, Mr. Gates first acknowledged that they were “extraordinarily embarrassing for the United States.” Then he tried to limit the damage. “At the end of the day, nations and leaders make decisions based on their interests,” Mr. Gates said. “And I would say that America’s best partners and friends, and I include among them President Karzai, have responded to this in my view in an extraordinarily statesmanlike way.” Mr. Gates shifted to a higher gear: “And I’m deeply grateful, and frankly I think the American government will not forget this statesmanlike response. I think I also could say with great confidence, President Karzai and I have been meeting together privately now for four years. I don’t think either of us would be embarrassed to have a single thing we said to each other made public.” Mr. Gates was praising Mr. Karzai for his response four days earlier to the disclosures, when in a news conference with the Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, he dismissed the cables as beneath his interest. Mr. Karzai also said, referring to criticism from his own ministers as reported in the cables, that people might say things casually in private that did not reflect their more considered views. His response was a relief to American officials, who embraced him in 2001 as a promising leader but had been alternately exasperated and infuriated over the ensuing years by what they considered his erratic behavior. As Mr. Eikenberry wrote in a July 2009 cable, Mr. Karzai had a “deep-seated insecurity as a leader.” That cable was a forerunner to his assessment in a November 2009 cable that called Mr. Karzai “not a reliable partner” for the United States. The November cable was leaked months before the current trove, souring relations between Mr. Eikenberry and Mr. Karzai before the WikiLeaks disclosures. Mr. Gates was in Afghanistan to make an assessment of the war for a White House review, to be completed this month. The conclusion of the report — that there has been progress since President Obama sent 30,000 additional American forces but more work needs to be done — has already been described by administration officials. “As I return to Washington, the United States government will be finishing work on an evaluation of the situation here, and I will go back convinced that our strategy is working,” Mr. Gates said at the news conference. There remains deep skepticism about the strategy in parts of official Washington and Afghanistan, even among military officers. Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Gates heard largely optimistic reviews in a trip to Helmand and Kandahar Provinces in the south. Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, the commander of 20,000 United States Marines in Helmand Province, said that “the conditions are set in certain parts of the province right now for us to be able to turn over significant responsibility in the realm of security to the Afghans themselves” — a goal of Mr. Obama, who wants to begin the withdrawal of some United States forces next July. At Forward Operating Base Howz-e-Madad in Kandahar Province, where fighting was fierce this summer and fall, Col. Art Kandarian told reporters traveling with Mr. Gates that “four months ago you would not be able to fly in here without taking some fire at this location.” He said his troops were now working to clear insurgents and homemade bombs from Afghanistan’s Highway 1. | Wikileaks;Karzai Hamid;United States International Relations;Classified Information and State Secrets;United States Defense and Military Forces;United States Politics and Government;Afghanistan;State Department;Gates Robert M;Eikenberry Karl W |
ny0278157 | [
"sports"
] | 2016/11/21 | As U.S. Soccer Weighs Jurgen Klinsmann’s Future, He Says, ‘I’m Not Afraid’ | Jurgen Klinsmann, whose status as coach of the United States men’s national team is under intense scrutiny, said Sunday night that he was “very comfortable” with his position and that he believed those calling for him to be fired were “being disrespectful” and “ignoring the facts” about his tenure as the team’s leader. Speaking in a telephone interview, Klinsmann — who had recently returned from Berlin, where he attended a state dinner last week with President Obama and Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany — said that he had exchanged text messages with Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer, and that he expected to talk with Gulati in the coming days. That discussion will take place in the shadow of mounting criticism of Klinsmann’s performance and after the team’s two recent losses in qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, including a humiliating 4-0 defeat to Costa Rica on Tuesday that has many fans calling on Gulati to fire Klinsmann. “I’m not afraid,” Klinsmann said. “What you need to do is stick to the facts. Soccer is emotional, and a lot of people make conclusions without knowing anything about the inside of the team or the sport. I still believe we will get the points we need to qualify, and I am even confident we could win the group.” He added: “The fact is, we lost two games. There is a lot of talk from people who don’t understand soccer or the team.” Klinsmann, who is known for his upbeat disposition, could be overly optimistic. In countries that expect to reach the World Cup tournament, as the United States does every four years, starting the final round of qualifying with two losses generally means the coach’s job is in jeopardy — and Klinsmann acknowledged that he understands that. If Gulati decides to replace Klinsmann, it could be announced as soon as this week, according to several soccer executives familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss a personnel decision. This could be an ideal time to make a switch: The United States does not play its next World Cup qualifier until March, allowing a new coach several months to get acclimated. Bruce Arena, who coached the national team from 1998 to 2006, is the top candidate to replace Klinsmann if Gulati decides to make a change. Klinsmann conceded that he understood the criticism — “I am not saying I have nothing to be blamed for,” he said — and in many other countries, he probably would have been fired after a disappointing flameout in the 2015 Gold Cup, the regional championship tournament the United States hosted, or after his team’s loss to Mexico in the Confederations Cup playoff later that year. That Gulati, who pursued Klinsmann for five years before hiring him in 2011, has stuck with him this long is indicative of how much Gulati has staked on Klinsmann, a former striker for Germany. Yet now, with calls for change from both inside and outside U.S. Soccer growing, the potential for a switch is significant. Many believe that Klinsmann’s constant tinkering with lineups and formations has kept the United States team from growing tactically, and some believe that the Americans’ collapse in the second half against Costa Rica last week was indicative of Klinsmann’s no longer being able to motivate his players. Klinsmann directly disputed that charge Sunday, saying he did not believe any players quit against Costa Rica, even as they gave up three goals after intermission. “There was nobody giving up at that time,” Klinsmann said. “That was a normal emotional situation when things go wrong. When they get the second goal there, it was like a knock in your neck. I played those games many, many times. The whole stadium goes bananas. It’s totally human to put your head down for a second. And then they counter us for two more. Those games will always happen. We just couldn’t stop it, but the players did not stop trying.” Judging the national team’s arc in 2016 solely on those games, Klinsmann added, would be unfair. He said that this year had been “very, very successful” for the national team, citing the Americans’ run to the semifinals of the Copa América as well as the development of younger players like Bobby Wood and John Brooks. That Brooks, a defender, had two rough performances against Mexico and Costa Rica — particularly Costa Rica — is, as Klinsmann said, “part of the development process,” and one of the reasons he argued that making a coaching change would be a mistake. “We are coaching a team through a transitional phase,” Klinsmann said. “We still have to break in younger players. We still have to look for leadership for the team. There are still a lot of technical and chemistry challenges ahead that are normal in this time period. And you put the final pieces together as you go towards Russia, which I am absolutely sure we will do.” From the very beginning of his relationship with Gulati, Klinsmann said, he has stressed that patience was crucial — a point he will probably try to make to Gulati when they speak about the team’s current situation. “I always made it clear to Sunil, if you really want to move up to the top 15 in the world, you need to have consistency in what you’re doing,” Klinsmann said. “If you react emotionally, you will become a roller coaster.” Many would argue that Gulati and others at U.S. Soccer have given Klinsmann more than enough time. And although Klinsmann is confident, a poor result in the next qualifying game — at home against Honduras, with a trip to Panama scheduled days later — would make things even more tenuous. By that time, a coaching change on the fly would be especially difficult. That is why it is expected that a resolution of the coaching situation will be reached soon. Klinsmann will either receive a vote of confidence or be fired. Either way, it has been an emotional few days for the coach, who traveled to Germany from Costa Rica and said he spent “an amazing” two and a half hours with President Obama and other world leaders. Klinsmann presented President Obama with a German national team jersey with the No. 44 on the back, and gave Merkel a United States jersey with the No. 1 on it. Of course, even President Obama asked Klinsmann a question about the national team situation. “He said, ‘It didn’t go well down there in Costa Rica, did it?’” Klinsmann recalled. “And I said, ‘Nope, Mr. President — it didn’t go well at all.’” | Soccer;United States Soccer Federation;US Men's Soccer Team;Jurgen Klinsmann;2018 FIFA World Cup |
ny0020811 | [
"us"
] | 2013/09/05 | Albuquerque Becomes Latest Focal Point in Abortion Wars | ALBUQUERQUE — At the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum , three dozen people, many of them teenagers, arrived last month without warning. Wearing T-shirts that said “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust,” they demanded that the museum include an exhibit on what they called the “American genocide” of legal abortion, and fanned out to scatter cards with pictures of bloody “late-term abortion victims.” They then moved outside to picket with a banner calling Albuquerque “America’s Auschwitz.” Albuquerque has become the latest flash point in the abortion wars, with Operation Rescue , the militant group based in Kansas, calling it the “late-term abortion capital of the country.” This is because a private clinic, Southwestern Women’s Options , is one of only a few nationwide that offers abortions after the sixth month of pregnancy. A pitched political battle is now under way. After failed attempts in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, abortion opponents have collected enough signatures to hold a referendum over whether to make Albuquerque the first city in the country to ban abortions at 20 weeks after conception, just as a dozen states have done. Abortion rights advocates see an ominous parallel with events in Kansas in recent years. Operation Rescue moved its headquarters to Wichita, Kan., in 2003 and labeled it the late-term abortion capital to underscore the group’s campaign against a clinic there run by Dr. George R. Tiller. In May 2009, a gunman killed Dr. Tiller in the foyer of his church. Operation Rescue leaders, who had denounced violence, said they had no connection with the killer. The drive for a city referendum has been led here by a couple who trained with Operation Rescue in Kansas and moved here three years ago as anti-abortion “missionaries.” Image A coalition of abortion rights advocates at a rally in response to the opponents. Credit Mark Holm for The New York Times “We felt called to come and serve in Albuquerque,” said Tara Shaver, 29. She and her husband, Bud, moved here largely to find a way to shut down Southwestern Women’s Options, she said. Ms. Shaver is the spokeswoman for a coalition of Roman Catholic, evangelical and other groups pushing the ballot initiative. City officials say the proposed 20-week ban is expected to be put to voters this fall. The Shavers’ newcomer status and close ties to Operation Rescue, which is known for harassment of clinics, have become rallying points for abortion rights defenders here. “The fact that they call themselves missionaries is really offensive,” said Joan Lamunyon Sanford, director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and a leader of a coalition fighting the 20-week proposal. “We don’t need outsiders bringing in this kind of disruption.” The Shavers arrived in Wichita in 2009 to start a year as Operation Rescue interns, living on a stipend from the group to learn its methods of documenting medical lapses at abortion clinics and offering “sidewalk counseling” to women entering clinics. After Dr. Tiller’s murder, two of the physicians from his clinic joined the practice of Dr. Curtis Boyd at Southwestern Women’s Options here in Albuquerque. Anti-abortion groups believe that this clinic is now performing more late-term procedures than any other in the country, though no data are available. Image Tara and Bud Shaver moved to Albuquerque largely to find a way to shut down an abortion clinic. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times The Shavers invited Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust , a California-based group with close ties to Operation Rescue, to hold a “training camp” in Albuquerque early last month. About 30 youths, mainly from California, came. The youths finished their sessions here with a series of aggressive public activities. In addition to the protests at the Holocaust museum, they marched outside the home of a university-based doctor who teaches abortion methods and at a birthing center he advises. They passed out fliers with photographs of three doctors from the Southwestern clinic, labeling them “Killers Among Us.” Some here are fighting back."Operation Rescue Terror Tactics Not Welcome in ABQ,” read one banner at a rally held by abortion rights supporters late last month. “Out-of-state interests have come to try to impress their beliefs on New Mexicans,” Diane Denish, a former lieutenant governor and Democratic candidate for governor in 2010, told the crowd of 250. Mr. Shaver, 34, defended the activism by outsiders. Patients are drawn to the Albuquerque clinic from other states, he said, and “it was the national implications of late-term abortions in New Mexico that brought us here.” Image A group of young abortion opponents calling themselves the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust staged a protest last month at the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum. Credit Mark Holm for The New York Times “A certain amount of social tension is necessary to cause change,” he said, citing the methods of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. No polling has yet been done to indicate whether the proposed 20-week ban would pass. Albuquerque has traditionally been Democratic but has turned to the right in the last few years, electing a Republican mayor and a conservative City Council, and evangelicals have joined Catholics in opposing abortion. Courts have blocked such bans as unconstitutional in three states, and the American Civil Liberties Union has already said that if the Albuquerque ban passes, it will quickly file a lawsuit. Dr. Boyd and other officials of Southwestern Women’s Options did not respond to requests for comment. On a recent morning, a dozen or so abortion opponents stood outside the clinic with signs, evoking supportive honks from a few passing cars. Over two hours about a dozen women, some visibly pregnant, some with out-of-state license plates, arrived at the clinic to start what, in the later months of a pregnancy, can be a two- or three-day procedure. While some protesters waved pictures of bloody fetuses, others called out, “We’d like to help you,” and “This is not a safe place.” Some Jewish leaders here are still angry about the Holocaust comparisons and picketing of the museum, which continued over three days. “This protest was misguided and offensive,” said Randee B. Kaiser, chairwoman of the museum’s board. But Kristina Garza, 26, a leader of the California group, said that she considered the museum action a success, forcing Albuquerque residents to learn more about abortion practices in their city. Her group travels the country visiting high schools and colleges to enlist new abortion opponents. “It’s quite possible we’ll return to Albuquerque this fall,” she said. She did not rule out further aggressive protests, at the museum or elsewhere. “To deny recognition of our generation’s holocaust is discrimination,” Ms. Garza said. | Abortion;Albuquerque;Operation Rescue;US Politics;New Mexico;Southwestern Women's Options |
ny0113218 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/11/05 | New York State Senate Races Tighter After Storm | The fight for control of the New York State Senate has grown unexpectedly competitive in the final moments of this year’s campaign, with Hurricane Sandy adding a large dose of uncertainty to the vote on Tuesday. All 213 state legislative seats are up for grabs, and the outcome of the Senate races is critical to shaping the balance of power in Albany, where Democrats hold the governor’s office and the Assembly, but have had to compromise or abandon elements of their agenda because Republicans control the State Senate. Republicans have long been favored to keep control of the Senate, but recent polls have shown Democratic candidates performing well in a number of critical contests. The fallout from the storm has introduced another variable to the election, threatening to depress turnout in two downstate districts where Republicans had hoped to pick up Senate seats and fortify their majority. “There’s no precedent; there’s no way to predict,” said Steven A. Greenberg, a pollster at Siena College. “I think that the final outcome for the Senate is very much an open question.” Both parties believe it may not be possible to determine on election night which party has won control of the chamber. And the presence of a four-member breakaway faction within the Senate Democrats complicates matters further, raising the specter of a leadership dispute akin to the one that roiled Albany after the 2008 elections. Republicans, who are outnumbered by Democrats in the state’s electorate, hold a 33-to-29 majority in the Senate, and through redistricting that favored their incumbents this year, they added a seat to the Senate. In their campaigns, Republicans have stressed their economic bona fides, pointing to their work with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, to pass a cap on increases in local property taxes and improve the state’s job climate. They have also drawn attention to the relative tranquillity in the state capital since Republicans regained the majority in the Senate in the 2010 elections. “I would hope that voters would look at the stability of the last two years and understand that we work better with Andrew Cuomo than the Democrats do,” said State Senator Thomas W. Libous, a Republican from Binghamton and the leader of his party’s campaign efforts. Mr. Libous said the election was “harder for me to predict” because of the storm, but he added, “At the end of the day, even if it’s close, we’re still going to be in the majority.” Democrats are counting on President Obama’s popularity in the state to help their candidates. They have tried to focus attention on areas where they say the Senate Republicans have blocked progress in Albany, including measures to protect women’s rights, raise the minimum wage, tighten gun laws and overhaul campaign-finance laws. “All we’ve done, and we’ve done it successfully to this point, is peel the onion back and let the voters and the people of the state see what damage the Senate Republicans are doing on the issues they care about,” said State Senator Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens Democrat and the chief of his caucus’s campaign committee. “In the final days,” he said, “we’re seeing that our path to the majority is a lot wider than anyone gave us credit for.” Both parties are focusing on a relatively small number of competitive races. In the Rochester area, Ted O’Brien, a Democrat, is favored to defeat Assemblyman Sean T. Hanna, a Republican, in a contest to succeed James S. Alesi, a Republican senator who is not seeking re-election. Republicans are hoping to win a new Senate seat in the Hudson Valley that they created through redistricting, although a Siena poll conducted last week showed the race, between Assemblyman George Amedore, a Republican, and Cecilia Tkaczyk, a Democrat, to be too close to predict. Downstate, the only door-knocking in recent days has focused on distributing food and water, not trying to solicit votes. The New York City Board of Elections said on Sunday that it would relocate or combine more than 60 polling places because of the storm, most of them in Brooklyn and Queens. The hurricane disrupted two of the most competitive races in the state: one in Westchester County, where Bob Cohen, a Republican, is battling Assemblyman George S. Latimer, a Democrat, to fill the seat represented by Senator Suzi Oppenheimer, a Democrat who is retiring; the other in Queens, where Senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., a Democrat, is facing a tough challenge from a Republican city councilman, Eric A. Ulrich. Some of the more conservative areas of the Queens Senate district — which gained much of the Rockaway Peninsula through redistricting — were hit particularly hard by the hurricane. That could hurt Mr. Ulrich’s chances on Tuesday if turnout in those areas is low. Mr. Ulrich spent Sunday in Breezy Point, Queens, which was devastated by the storm and a raging fire that consumed scores of homes. Mr. Addabbo coordinated deliveries of food, pajamas and blankets from his district office in Howard Beach, which flooded during the storm and has now been turned into a 24-hour distribution point for donated goods. “I have never had so many grown men cry on my shoulder,” Mr. Addabbo said. “Some of them have no homes. They need to rebuild. They’re not thinking of voting. And I, personally, haven’t either.” | Elections State Legislature;New York State;Voting and Voters;Hurricane Sandy (2012) |
ny0139681 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2008/02/17 | As O’Neal’s Shadow Fades, Who Will Cast the Next One? | NEW ORLEANS — Shaquille O’Neal was everywhere, dominating the French Quarter the way he once dominated the fourth quarter. That was his DunkTruck parked in front of the local aquarium, drawing curious onlookers and dunking contestants Friday morning. That was his party, with the N.F.L. star Reggie Bush as co-host, drawing the brightest stars Friday night. For the first time in his 16-year career, O’Neal is not an All-Star. But his hulking frame still cast a very large shadow at this All-Star Weekend. “His presence is felt,” said Toronto ’s Jason Kapono, a contestant in Saturday’s 3-point shootout and O’Neal’s former Miami teammate. “But it is weird.” It is hard to imagine an All-Star Game without O’Neal, who was selected 14 times since 1992 and twice named its most valuable player. (Injuries knocked him out of three games; another was wiped out by the 1999 lockout.) It is hard, too, to picture the N.B.A.’s spotlight event without O’Neal’s breakdancing, rattling basket stanchions, crashing gratuitously into courtside seats, dribbling coast to coast as a 7-foot-1 point-center (complete with crossover dribble), posing for television cameras, handing out nicknames to players, clowning around on the bench and cracking up the news media horde. It is not just O’Neal’s powerful scoring presence that ultimately defines his career, but also the fact that no elite N.B.A. player has ever appeared to have so much fun doing it. O’Neal, a four-time champion, is known in league circles as the Godfather (just one of the many nicknames he has carried). He is the superstar who young players are most likely to seek out for counsel. He is the guy who everyone wants for a teammate. And he is the N.B.A.’s reigning goofball, a role that has endeared him to players, fans, children and reporters for nearly two decades. “Everybody wants to play with Shaq,” Allen Iverson , the Denver star, said. “Everybody wants to be around Shaq.” There have been other dominant players. There have been other player-comedians. But O’Neal is unique, the only star who can light up an arena, whether or not he has the ball. The league once obsessed over finding the next Michael Jordan . With O’Neal turning 36 in a few weeks, it seems time to start considering who will replace him. “Nobody,” Iverson said. “Nobody will ever be like Shaq, on or off the court. It don’t get no better than that.” But it seemed worth trying, anyway. No single player is likely to fill O’Neal’s dual role as the most dominant and most amusing star. So creating the next O’Neal required some creativity, and a splitting of tasks. The result might be an All-Star Frankenstein’s monster: part Dwight Howard, part Gilbert Arenas, part Amare Stoudemire, part LeBron James , part Chris Paul and part, um, Damon Jones? “You’d have to put probably like a Damon Jones inside a Dwight Howard,” the Boston star Paul Pierce said. “Something like that.” Howard is the chiseled Orlando center, who at age 22 most resembles a young O’Neal, both physically and in his style of game. Jones is the fast-talking, self-promoting Cleveland sharpshooter, who served as an O’Neal sidekick on the Heat in 2005. “That’s scary,” Howard, smiling, said of the proposed fusion with Jones. “Damon Jones. Oh, wow.” Stoudemire, the Suns ’ freakishly athletic power forward and O’Neal’s new teammate, merely hoped that O’Neal “had a couple sons, a couple little Shaqs out there” to take his place. Then Stoudemire noted that the Suns’ training staff “was able to reincarnate” the creaky Grant Hill , “so hopefully we can do the same with Shaq.” So N.B.A. stars agree: It would take a major breach of scientific ethics to replicate O’Neal. Arenas, Washington ’s quirky star, is the most likely to replace O’Neal as the league’s leading goofball and supplier of one-liners. It was Arenas who mused that an Olympic gold medal was more valuable than an N.B.A. title because he could always sign 10 one-year deals “and hop on every team that I think can win a championship that year.” “And in 10 years, I might pull out three of them,” he said. It sounded like something O’Neal might have said. He once wryly bemoaned the taxes taken from his considerable paycheck and said: “Who the hell is FICA? When I meet him, I’m going to punch him in the face.” O’Neal nominated Stoudemire to be his heir as the game’s most powerful dunker. Portland ’s Greg Oden, whose rookie season was wiped out by knee surgery, is physically imposing and charismatic. But Howard is the consensus choice to succeed O’Neal as the game’s best center and possibly as the next larger-than-life personality. Although often reserved in public, Howard has been known to show off his dance moves, break up teammates on the bench and generally act like an overgrown kid. Howard flashed his playful side in Saturday night’s dunk contest, donning a Superman shirt (O’Neal’s signature logo) and cape, then taking off from just inside the free-throw line to dunk a ball thrown by his teammate Jameer Nelson from behind the baseline. “He’s young, he’s funny, he’s good-looking, athletic, he’s just a nice guy,” O’Neal said Friday, at the start of the Dunkman of the Year competition. “He probably needs to open up a little more.” From there, the task grows difficult. Who else has a Web site devoted to his ramblings? Who else collects aliases (Diesel, the Big Aristotle, the Big Shakespeare , the Big I.P.O., Wilt Chamberneezee) the way he collects dunks? (Howard slyly disclosed that he has “a couple little nicknames, but I can’t reveal them yet.”) Who else can take credit for nicknaming four current All-Stars — Pierce (the Truth), Dwyane Wade (Flash), Tim Duncan (the Big Fundamental) and Kevin Garnett (the Big Ticket)? “All the good nicknames out there,” O’Neal said, “I made up.” James, the Cavaliers ’ selfless superstar, and Paul, the Hornets ’ gifted young playmaker, are possible heirs to be the player everyone wants as a teammate. The Godfather role is tougher to fill. O’Neal has always been approachable and generous with his time and advice. Many young players have sought him out over the past decade. Denver’s Carmelo Anthony recalled, “He’s one of the few guys in the N.B.A. who reached out to me my rookie year and tried to walk me through a lot of things.” Not surprisingly, O’Neal himself said he would be irreplaceable. “In order to have Godfather status, you have to really pay your dues, and you have to take a lot of people out; I took all the big men out,” he said, naming Rik Smits, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon . “Everybody. I took them out.” Soon, it will be O’Neal’s turn to bow out, leaving a gaping hole in the N.B.A. landscape behind him. That, or a hideous genetic hybrid. | Shaquille O'Neal;Basketball;NBA;Phoenix Suns |
ny0251929 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2011/02/25 | David Toms Shares Lead in Mexico | David Toms got off to a good start in a bid for his first PGA Tour win in five years, shooting a five-under-par 66 to share the first-round lead with three others at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Andres Gonzales, Mark Hensby and Kyle Stanley also opened at 66. | Golf;Toms David |
ny0142067 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2008/11/19 | Producer Prices Plunge in October | WASHINGTON (AP) — Producer prices plunged a record amount in October as energy prices fell by the largest amount in 22 years. The Labor Department said Tuesday that wholesale prices dropped 2.8 percent in October, the biggest one-month decline on records that go back more than 60 years. The previous record was a 1.6 percent fall in October 2001, the month after the terrorist attacks. The overall decline in the department’s Producer Price Index was bigger than the 1.8 percent drop that analysts had expected. However, core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was not as restrained, rising by a bigger-than-expected 0.4 percent. The 0.4 percent rise in core inflation was attributed partly to special factors and did not alter the view that plunging energy prices and a sharply slowing economy were combining to reduce inflation pressures. The 2.8 percent overall decrease was the third straight month that wholesale prices have fallen. Many economists believe the economy has fallen into a recession that could be the worst downturn in more than two decades. The expectation is that falling inflation pressures will give the Federal Reserve room to cut interest rates further to combat the downturn. The Fed cut interest rates by a half-point in a coordinated move with other central banks on Oct. 8 when the turmoil in financial markets was gaining intensity and followed with another half-point reduction on Oct. 29. That pushed the target rate for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge one another, down to 1 percent, matching a low recorded only once before in the last half-century. Many economists believe the Fed will cut the funds rate again when officials hold their last regular meeting of the year on Dec. 16. Tuesday’s report showed that energy prices dropped 12.8 percent in October, the biggest one-month fall since a 14 percent decline in July 1986. All types of energy showed big declines, with gasoline falling by a record 24.9 percent, surpassing the old mark of a 22.1 percent drop in March 1986. Home heating oil prices were down 9.6 percent, natural gas intended for home uses fell 5.9 percent, and liquefied petroleum gas dropped 27.6 percent, the biggest decline in more than three decades. Food costs edged down 0.2 percent as declines in the price of milk and meats offset a big jump in vegetable prices. Excluding food and energy, the 0.4 percent increase in core prices reflected higher costs for light trucks, the category that includes sport utility vehicles. The price of tires, civilian aircraft and malt beverages also were higher, although the cost of passenger cars fell 1.7 percent. | Producer Price Index;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates) |
ny0087995 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2015/07/22 | K.K.R.’s Buyout of First Data Has a Chance of Turning a Profit | The acquisition of First Data by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts looked to be a $29 billion mistake right after it closed in late 2007. K.K.R., the buyout firm led by Henry Kravis, nevertheless may turn a modest profit after all. First Data, a credit card processing pioneer, has filed to go public again , and its turnaround seems to be on track. The remaking of the company started in earnest in 2013 under its new chief executive, Frank Bisignano, formerly a top executive at JPMorgan. K.K.R. liked what it saw, and last year, doubled down on the investment by adding $1.2 billion more of equity as part of a $3.5 billion financing round. A Breakingviews analysis at the time concluded the owners stood a good chance of turning a disaster into a decent profit. A year on, Mr. Bisignano’s numbers are on the right path. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $2.7 billion in 2014. That was a 9 percent improvement on the year before. The firm also reported narrower losses, as it did in the first quarter of this year. The roughly $40 billion enterprise value that seemed feasible last year looks about right. With $21 billion of net debt stripped out, the equity could be worth nearly $20 billion. That would mean an annualized internal rate of return of about 9 percent, before fees, for K.K.R., according to Breakingviews calculations. In remarks in the prospectus, the chief executive makes a big deal of First Data’s past – and continuing – ability to innovate, an important factor in the technology-driven payments world. In particular, Mr. Bisignano points to the acquisition and nurturing of Clover, a Silicon Valley payments start-up. Yet First Data is also part of the old guard. It was the first processor of Visa and MasterCard bank-issued credit cards in the 1970s, according to its website. Before its last turn as a listed company, starting in 1992, First Data belonged to American Express for a decade. It’s not yet obvious that the company will be able to reinvent itself again. First Data seems ready for a second public life. The challenge in this latest phase will be to disrupt, not be disrupted. | IPO;First Data;Mobile Commerce;Frank J Bisignano;KKR |
ny0247758 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/05/17 | New York Regents Add Test Results to Teacher Evaluations | New York State education officials voted on Monday to put into effect, for the first time, regulations that teachers be evaluated in part by the progress their students make on standardized tests. The new rule, approved in a 14-to-3 vote by the Board of Regents, affirms the most significant change in decades to the way teachers are evaluated. The new rules stem from a change in state law passed last year. The board on Monday also reduced the number of high school Regents examinations to be offered each year, because of an $8 million shortfall in the state testing budget. Beginning in 2012, there will be no exams in January, depriving thousands of students in New York City alone chances of graduating early, making up tests they have failed, or getting a jump start on future tests. The tests, which are required for graduation, are to be given only in June and August. City principals predicted a cascade of consequences, including declining graduation rates. “It is going to have a dramatic impact on progress reports and school report card rates,” said Edward Tom, the principal of the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, a small, high-performing school. “It will absolutely affect instruction, hands down, because the June test will have exponentially higher stakes, and everyone is going to be teaching to that test.” Italian, French and Spanish Regents exams in high school will be eliminated statewide, the board announced; school districts will use locally developed tests instead. The Regents also put off the development of new English tests for 9th and 10th grades; the tests were intended to provide an extra source of information for the new evaluation systems for teachers and principals. The high cost of creating an evaluation system with an emphasis on testing was a concern for the Regents who voted against the measure. The problem, they said, was that objective, high-quality tests that would be capable of measuring teacher performance were not in place. The new evaluation system, which will also affect how principals are evaluated, will go into effect in the next school year for those teaching math and English in grades four through eight, and for all teachers in two years if local union chapters approve. Under the new rules, state standardized tests could be used for up to 40 percent of a teacher’s annual evaluation. At a minimum, standardized tests will count for 20 percent of a teacher’s evaluation, with tests developed by districts counting for the other 20 percent. Most of the remaining 60 percent of the evaluation will be drawn from observations by principals. “This is not an administration that believes in using tests alone to evaluate teachers,” John B. King Jr., the newly appointed education commissioner, said before the Regents voted. State union officials were furious that a final-hour change to the regulations had increased the possible weight of state tests. Legislation that passed with union support said the tests would count for only 20 percent. The union indicated it would most likely challenge the change. Richard C. Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers union, said, “N.Y.S.U.T. will suspend its collaboration with the State Education Department through the remainder of the school year if these pass today, so we can re-evaluate this relationship.” Kathleen M. Cashin, the Regent from Brooklyn, voted against the change, saying it would hold teachers accountable for a new standard without providing more training for them to improve. The tests being used, she added, were also flawed. But James O. Jackson, the Regent representing Albany, said the changes in the system were a good start. Currently, teachers are given only a “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” rating, based on a shifting set of factors; the new system would shift the emphasis to a teacher’s results in class. Under the new system, teachers and principals would be rated each year as “highly effective,” “effective,” “developing” or “ineffective.” A teacher rated ineffective for two years could face dismissal. | Performance Evaluations (Labor);Education (K-12);Tests and Examinations;Board of Regents (NYS);New York State United Teachers;Iannuzzi Richard C;New York State |
ny0058243 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2014/09/22 | Jacob DeGrom and Mets Usher Braves to Playoff Elimination | ATLANTA — Jacob deGrom hopes Mets Manager Terry Collins lets him make one last start. With the way he’s pitching, deGrom sees no reason to stop now even though the Mets might want to keep him under 185 innings for the season. A rookie, deGrom has pitched 1782/3 innings this season, including seven starts in the minors. “I told him I would like to make my next one,” deGrom said. “Why not?” DeGrom struck out 10 in six innings as the Mets finished a three-game sweep that knocked the Atlanta Braves out of the playoff hunt Sunday with a 10-2 victory. A half-game out of first place in the National League East on July 29, the Braves have gone 18-30 since then to fall to 15 games behind Washington. Atlanta was eliminated from the wild-card chase when Pittsburgh beat Milwaukee, 1-0, earlier Sunday. The Braves lost for the 14th time in 18 games in September as deGrom struck out 10 in six innings to extend his impressive streak since June 21. In his last start, deGrom (9-6) tied the single-game major league record by striking out the first eight batters he faced. Against Atlanta, the shaggy-haired right-hander struck out eight of the first 11 batters. DeGrom allowed three hits, three walks and two runs — one earned — as he threw 63 of his 100 pitches for strikes. In his last 15 starts, deGrom is 9-2 with a 1.90 earned run average covering 991/3 innings. DeGrom also used his bat, earning the second run batted in of his career with a squeeze bunt that put the Mets ahead by 6-2 in the sixth. The light-hitting Braves dropped to 8-60 when scoring two runs or fewer and were swept for the seventh time this season in a series of three or more games. The Mets went up in the first on Daniel Murphy’s R.B.I. groundout and took a 2-0 lead in the second on a sacrifice fly by Ruben Tejada. They increased their lead to 5-0 in the fourth when Curtis Granderson scored on Christian Bethancourt’s passed ball, Anthony Recker hit a sacrifice fly and Tejada hit his fourth homer. Braves starter Ervin Santana (14-10) gave up six hits and five runs with two walks and four strikeouts in five innings. Atlanta cut its deficit to 5-2 in the fifth. Justin Upton scored when Andrelton Simmons reached on shortstop Tejada’s fielding error and Emilio Bonifacio drew a bases-loaded walk to push home another run. But deGrom, who faced eight batters in the inning, struck out Phil Gosselin to leave the bases loaded. Atlanta ranks second-worst in the majors in runs scored and has the third most strikeouts in the N.L. DeGrom said Collins told him that he and General Manager Sandy Alderson would soon decide on a potential 23rd major league start for the rookie. | Jacob deGrom;Mets;Braves;Baseball |
ny0011153 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/02/23 | Bobby Valentine To Lead Sacred Heart’s Athletic Department | In October, standing next to the Yankee Stadium infield before one of his last games as manager of the Boston Red Sox, Bobby Valentine was asked what he would do next if he were fired when the season ended. “I don’t know,” said Valentine, who was let go three days later. “But it will be something interesting. Those are the only kinds of jobs I take.” Valentine, the part-time restaurateur and broadcaster, former public safety official, longtime major league manager in two countries and self-proclaimed inventor of the wrap sandwich, has kept his word with another unorthodox career choice. Even by Valentine’s standards, it was a thunderbolt of the unexpected. Beginning in July, Valentine will be the athletic director for Sacred Heart University , a Division I program in Fairfield, Conn., with 31 sports. Valentine, 62, grew up in Stamford, about 20 miles away. It will be Valentine’s first collegiate administrative job. “This is what I do,” Valentine said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon. “I accept challenges, and I enjoy life. And to hell with public perception. “We’ll see if I can lend some of my entrepreneurial spirit to the job.” Sacred Heart announced the retirement of its longtime athletic director, Don Cook, in November. Valentine, who has spoken at Sacred Heart several times and appeared at fund-raisers for the university, became a candidate for the post a month later. Valentine’s renown in the area as a former manager of the Mets, Red Sox and Texas Rangers and as a businessman — he once had sports bars in several cities along the Connecticut coastline — was a significant draw for Sacred Heart, which moved up from Division II in 1999. Image Fired after a 69-93 season, Bobby Valentine will become the athletic director for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times The university, whose baseball team has appeared in the last two N.C.A.A. championship tournaments, has called a news conference for Tuesday to introduce Valentine as its athletic director. A university press officer said Sacred Heart officials would not comment on Valentine’s appointment until then. Valentine also said he wanted to say little until Tuesday. “It’ll be a very interesting thing to do,” he said. “I’m certainly not afraid of expanding my résumé.” Valentine, who also managed twice in Japan, was hired in a surprising move by the Red Sox before the 2012 season. The unconventional pick upset some of Boston’s veteran players before the regular season started. The Red Sox, troubled by injuries that turned the lineup into a cavalcade of minor leaguers, finished 69-93, their worst record since 1965. Before taking the Boston assignment, Valentine was named the director of public safety in Stamford. He also still owns a popular bar and restaurant in Stamford, where in 1982, while working as a cook in the kitchen, Valentine ran out of toast for club sandwiches and threw all the ingredients into a tortilla . “I rolled it up, and I melted a little cheese on the top to keep the tortilla from opening up,” Valentine said last year. At first he called it a “Club Mex” but later began calling it a wrap. “We put it on the menu as a club sandwich wrap: turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato and cheese,” Valentine said. “Now, yes, I had eaten burritos. But had someone put American sandwich ingredients in a tortilla? I don’t think so.” Sacred Heart said Cook, the outgoing athletic director, would stay in the job until July, when Valentine would take over. With a little snicker Friday, Valentine said, “That gives me time to hit the ground running.” | College Sports;Baseball;Bobby Valentine;Sacred Heart University;Red Sox;College |
ny0173648 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2007/10/02 | Some Banks in Europe Suffer, Too | FRANKFURT, Oct. 1 — Europe’s biggest bank, UBS, has become the Continent’s biggest casualty of the American mortgage crisis, reporting Monday that it had written down $3.4 billion in the value of mortgage-backed securities and would post a loss in the third quarter. The write-downs had been expected. But the loss ran deeper than analysts anticipated, and it underscored the extent to which some of Europe’s largest and most prominent financial institutions are exposed to investments that rest on shaky American mortgages. UBS’s domestic rival, Credit Suisse , reported that its earnings had also been hurt but that it would still have a profit in the quarter. Now, investor scrutiny is turning to Deutsche Bank , which has yet to disclose write-downs, despite warning that it would not emerge from the credit market turmoil unscathed. UBS’s misadventure is typical of other European banks: expansion into sometimes exotic investments, which promised high yields, but sustained heavy losses when the subprime-lending crisis wiped out the market for the securities. “They obviously took a huge bet,” said Simon Adamson, a banking analyst at CreditSights, an independent research firm in London. “For a sophisticated investment bank, they did not take a view that is any different than the smaller regional banks that invested in these markets.” UBS accompanied its disclosure with a housecleaning of senior executives and a warning that it would eliminate 1,500 jobs by year-end, most in its investment banking division, the locus of its troubles. “What you have observed today is a combination of the principle of management accountability and acceleration of structural change,” said the chief executive of UBS, Marcel Rohner, who will take control of investment banking as part of the management shuffle. Mr. Rohner, 43, has been in his job only since July, when his predecessor, Peter A. Wuffli, was ousted because of losses at the bank’s internal hedge fund. Some analysts said Mr. Rohner appeared to have accepted draconian write-downs to put all the bad news behind quickly. “Marcel Rohner can’t go back and have a second bite at the cherry; he’s got to do it all now,” said David Williams, head of banking research in London at the investment bank Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller. The write-downs will tip UBS into its first quarterly loss since 1998, when it had to write down its investment in the ill-fated hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. UBS, of Zurich, expects to lose 600 million to 800 million Swiss francs ($513 million to $684 million) this quarter. But the bank is still on track to earn 10 billion Swiss francs ($8.6 billion) in the first nine months of the year, on the strength of its wealth management business, the largest in the world. Investors applauded UBS for its seeming candor, bidding up the bank’s shares more than 3 percent after they had slumped initially. Shares of Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank also rose, reflecting what analysts said was a sense that the banks were starting to get a grip on their losses. Still, UBS’s aggressive expansion into mortgage-backed securities and other complex investment vehicles — often with fewer hedges than its competitors — surprised some analysts, given the bank’s experience. “They did it in a way that left them more exposed,” Mr. Adamson said. In a conference call with analysts, Mr. Rohner defended the bank’s approach as a “dynamic risk position.” “There are days when you hedge more; there are days when you hedge less,” he said. UBS’s exposure falls into two main categories: $19 billion worth of positions in subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, and what it calls a warehouse of collateralized debt obligations — loans that financial institutions repackage and sell to other banks or investors. While the numbers were large, they did not raise red flags with the bank’s risk managers because they carried good credit ratings. “The problem was in assets that attracted very little risk weight,” Mr. Rohner said, adding that UBS would reduce its balance sheet over the next 18 months. The write-downs were the latest setback for UBS, which has tried, with mixed success, to transform itself from a conservative lender and private bank into a major league investment bank. By hiring top investment bankers, UBS catapulted itself onto Wall Street and began to compete with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. But in May, the bank shut its internal hedge fund, Dillon Read Capital, because of bad investments in bonds backed by subprime mortgages. On Monday, the head of the investment bank, Huw Jenkins, and the chief financial officer of the group, Clive Standish, both resigned. UBS’s executive vice chairman, Marco Suter, will become chief financial officer; its chief risk officer, Walter Stuerzinger, will be chief operating officer. “Normally, when you’re looking at a bank, you wouldn’t take an awful lot of notice of management changes,” Mr. Adamson of CreditSights said. “But in UBS’s case, there has been such significant change that it must have some impact on the way UBS is managed internally.” So far, the only European banks to slip into crisis because of the credit upheaval have been relatively minor institutions. In Britain, people lined up at Northern Rock, a mortgage lender, to get their money out. In Germany, two midsize banks, Sachsen LB and IKB Deutsche Industriebank, fell into trouble and had to be bailed out. But investors are waiting nervously for details from Deutsche Bank, the largest German financial institution. Its chief executive, Josef Ackermann, has twice warned about the effects of the upheaval on the company’s results, and has called on all banks to come clean about their exposure. Speculation in the market last week put Deutsche Bank’s potential write-downs at 1.7 billion euros ($2.4 billion). The bank, which is scheduled to report earnings on Oct. 31, declined to comment on potential losses. But a spokesman, Ronald Weichert, insisted that Deutsche Bank was being open. “Contrary to the Swiss, who remained silent, Deutsche Bank issued a statement in September,” he said, adding, “We can, if we like, make an announcement between now and the end of October.” | Mortgages;Europe;Banks and Banking;Finances;UBS AG;Credit Suisse Group;Deutsche Bank AG;Long-Term Capital Management |
ny0263653 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2011/12/19 | Blackhawks Beat Flames, 4-2 | Chicago’s Joel Quenneville became the 10th coach to earn 600 N.H.L. victories as the Blackhawks beat the Calgary Flames , 4-2, on Sunday night for their fifth straight win. Chicago climbed past Minnesota into first place in the N.H.L. standings with a league-leading 46 points. The Blackhawks are 7-0-1 in their last eight games. Marian Hossa had a goal and an assist and Ray Emery made 22 saves for Chicago. Emery, who has taken over for the struggling No. 1 goalie Corey Crawford, started and won for the fifth straight game while improving to 9-1-2 over all. Steve Montador, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Patrick Kane also scored for the Blackhawks. Calgary’s Olli Jokinen and Curtis Glencross scored power-play goals in the third period. PANTHERS 3, HURRICANES 2 Kris Versteeg scored 3 minutes, 8 seconds into overtime, giving Florida a victory at home against Carolina. Sean Bergenheim and Jason Garrison also scored for Florida, and Jose Theodore made 24 saves. The Panthers stretched their lead in the Southeast Division to 8 points. Tim Gleason and Chad LaRose had goals for the Hurricanes. Carolina has lost 10 of 12. BLUES 6, BLUE JACKETS 4 Jason Arnott triggered a four-goal rally in the third period with the tiebreaking score to lead host St. Louis past Columbus. The Blues won for the fifth time in six games and improved to 13-3-1 at home, tying Detroit for the most home wins. St. Louis is 13-2-4 under Coach Ken Hitchcock, who took over for the fired Davis Payne on Nov. 6. The Blues moved into third place in the Western Conference with 42 points after being 14th in the 15-team group on Nov. 7. Alex Steen, Alex Pietrangelo and Patrik Berglund also scored in the third period for St. Louis. T.J. Oshie and Kevin Shattenkirk added goals for the Blues. Jaroslav Halak (6-7-4) made 28 saves. | Chicago Blackhawks;Calgary Flames;Hockey Ice;National Hockey League;Quenneville Joel;Records and Achievements;Coaches and Managers |
ny0116766 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2012/10/16 | Mexican Doctor’s Baths for Corpses Reinvigorate Cold Cases | CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Alejandro Hernández Cárdenas took a scorched-looking, decomposed head and five stiff, bloated hands and gently submerged them in his secret solution. After they soak for three days, he said, any scars, lesions or birthmarks the victim might have had will reappear. They did. The putrid head looked human again, with full lips, large pores and a massive bruise on the forehead. The hands had recovered their identifying prints. “Science advances,” said Dr. Hernández Cárdenas, “whenever there are difficult situations.” The newly revealed details may never lead to a conviction, or even an arrest, but Dr. Hernández Cárdenas, a forensic odontologist who works in the Ciudad Juárez Forensic Science Lab, has attained the kind of star status that could be produced only in a city like this, with its semidesert climate, exorbitant murder rate and can-do frontier creativity. Dr. Hernández Cárdenas developed the rehydration technique, which he primarily uses on full bodies, more or less single-handedly, and he even pays part of the cost for the chemicals that turn back the clock on his brittle subjects. Forensic experts have long used glycerin injections to reconstitute fingers to get prints, but that is not practical for entire bodies — particularly not in the scorching heat of Ciudad Juárez, where bodies decompose and mummify quickly. Only through rehydration does the corpse regain some of its original condition, helping the police by revealing lesions and bringing internal organs back to nearly their state at the time of death. On most days, Dr. Hernández Cárdenas can be found in the lab here rehydrating some of the bodies that were stored or buried without being identified from 2009 to 2011, the height of the violence between competing criminal syndicates in this border city. With nearly 8,000 people killed during that period, he always has plenty to do, and his process tends to include both music and dark humor. He says he talks to the corpses, consoling them while he works, indulging them with romantic music as they float in the “Jacuzzi,” the chemical-filled tub he uses for rehydration. If the individual features that reappear on a victim’s face look menacing, ballads give way to rap and hip-hop, which fill the impeccably clean but foul-smelling lab. Dr. Hernández Cárdenas, 55, focuses mainly on helping rehydrate the hundreds of unclaimed corpses in his hometown, particularly those of women, so they can be identified and the murderers tracked down. “It would have even been a sin not to do it,” said Dr. Hernández Cárdenas, who said his work sometimes keeps him up at night. “I used to take many girls to bed,” he said, “but not the way you think.” He has often been frustrated by the lack of justice for those whose deaths he comes to know so intimately. Of the 150 or so bodies he has rehydrated so far, only a handful have provided clues that led to arrests. Rather casually, he said he also avoids following up to see whether law-enforcement agents have identified the bodies he has worked on, fearing that corrupt officials or criminals will come after him. “He who knows less, lives more,” he said. “One doesn’t even trust the authorities.” The biggest supporters of his work are the families of the disappeared, who see in his chemical solutions the chance for closure. Experts, who say Ciudad Juárez is the only place where the technique has been deployed, tend to discuss his efforts in more scientific terms. Dr. Hernández Cárdenas has a patent application that is due for approval this month. “If it holds up, I think it would be an accomplishment and an amazing advance,” said Elizabeth Gardner, a professor of forensic science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who has witnessed Dr. Hernández Cárdenas’s process. Dr. Hernández Cárdenas, a former boxer, never intended to get into this line of work. Married at 17 and a father of three soon after, he struggled to put himself through college, where he studied orthodontics. He drove a Red Cross ambulance by night to make ends meet, a side job that came to define his destiny. One night in 1977, he delivered 28 bodies — killed in an explosion — to a morgue. The forensic team asked him to inspect their mouths for identifying traits, a fascinating challenge for the self-described obsessive doctor. Dr. Hernández Cárdenas continued splitting his time between his elderly patients’ prosthetic teeth (he still has his practice) and Red Cross duties until he got a break at the forensic lab in 2002. He was put in charge of analyzing the cadavers’ teeth to determine their age. Once he was there, a question that had nagged him for years began consuming his time: could the fingertip rehydration used by forensic specialists throughout the world somehow be applied to entire bodies? Suddenly, “I had material, I had time, I had authorization” to experiment, Dr. Hernández Cárdenas said. He began experimenting with fingers and ears available at the city’s forensic lab, placing them in glass jars — “I kept eating Gerber,” he said — slightly tweaking the chemical proportions each time while enduring his colleagues’ teasing. One morning, he arrived at the lab to find that one of the jars contained a perfectly intact finger. “I thought my co-workers were playing a trick on me,” he said. But their response left him cold. “We don’t mess with your filthiness,” they assured Dr. Hernández Cárdenas. In 2008, he managed to properly rehydrate his first full body, becoming a quasi-celebrity among the city’s residents and in the country’s forensic science circles. “He is in high demand,” said Carlos Reynosa, coordinator of the forensic science master’s program at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez. Staff members from the American Consulate and the United States Agency for International Development have also inquired about, and observed, Dr. Hernández Cárdenas’s method. Unfortunately, he said, officials and academics are not the only ones interested in his methods. Now divorced, Dr. Hernández Cárdenas said his intriguing reputation follows him everywhere in Ciudad Juárez. Women, in the midst of dinner dates, often ask him about his work, demanding details that he refuses to divulge. “I don’t think it’s an adequate subject to talk about with a lady,” he said. | Forensic Science;Ciudad Juarez (Mexico);Murders and Attempted Murders;Drug Abuse and Traffic;Mexico;Hernandez Cardenas Alejandro |
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