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ny0097640 | [
"us"
] | 2015/06/11 | Texas Ruling on Abortion Leads to Call for Clarity | For more than two decades, courts have struggled with a fuzzy legal standard set by the Supreme Court for judging abortion laws: When does a rule governing doctors or clinics or medical procedures become an unconstitutional “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion? Now, after a federal appeals court decision on Tuesday that could force many of Texas’ remaining abortion clinics to close for good, many legal experts are hoping the Supreme Court will be forced to provide some clarity. Abortion rights groups have been leery in recent years of taking their battles to the increasingly conservative Supreme Court. But this week, faced with the full effect of what they call an onerous 2013 Texas law, they say they have little choice but to press for strong action from the top. “It’s time for the Supreme Court to step in and make it clear that the constitutional protections for abortion services are real,” said Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights , a legal group that is defending Texas clinics and other abortion providers that feel under siege across the country. “All of this is heading toward a major, major Supreme Court case on abortion rights,” she said, with the Texas case a likely contender. Ultimately, the rights groups seek a Supreme Court decision that would do more than reaffirm the right to abortion to the point that a fetus is viable, but would also define more forcefully when a regulation is an illegal undue burden. This kind of ruling is needed, the groups say, because states are creating ever more roadblocks to abortion, like waiting periods, 20-week limits and costly building rules. On Tuesday, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, largely let stand the 2013 Texas law, which requires abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, requires abortion clinics to meet the costly building and staffing standards of surgery centers, and provides for sharp cutbacks in abortions that are nonsurgical, performed with medication. The building and staffing requirements had been stayed by the Supreme Court while the appeals court considered the case, but the other parts of the law had taken effect in 2013. As a result, the number of abortion clinics in the state had declined to 18, from 41. In about three weeks, if the law is allowed to take full effect, the number of clinics would fall to nine or 10 in one of the country’s largest states, making access especially difficult for rural women. On Wednesday, the clinics asked the appeals court to further delay enforcement of the 2013 law to prevent further clinic closings and “irreparable harm” while they appeal to the Supreme Court. If, as expected, the court does not grant that stay, the groups will ask the Supreme Court to issue a stay while it considers whether to hear the case. The stay would require the votes of five justices. Anti-abortion leaders and politicians said the law’s provisions were intended to enhance patient welfare. “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agrees that the State of Texas has a right to increase safety standards at abortion facilities to protect the health and safety of women,” said Joe Pojman, the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life , on Wednesday. Fewer Abortion Clinics in Texas If the law requiring abortion facilities to be licensed as ambulatory surgery centers takes effect, Texas would be left with fewer than 10 clinics. But major medical associations say these measures do not benefit patients. The clinics and their supporters say the law is a barely disguised effort to curb abortions. At issue in the Texas law and many others is the undue burden standard laid out by the Supreme Court in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey , which legal experts call the most important abortion decision since Roe v. Wade in 1973. The ruling held that “the State may enact regulations to further the health or safety of a woman seeking an abortion, but may not impose unnecessary health regulations that present a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion.” “An undue burden exists,” it continued, “and therefore a provision of law is invalid if its purpose or effect is to place substantial obstacles in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.” Under this principle, the court ruled that Pennsylvania’s 24-hour waiting period, parental notification for juveniles and clinic reporting rules were permitted. But it overturned a requirement that women notify their husbands before obtaining abortions. The definition of “undue burden” has never been clear: Is a rule unconstitutional if it serves little or no legitimate purpose, which is how abortion rights groups characterize much of the Texas law, or only if it has a major effect on access to abortion, which seems to have been the approach taken by the Fifth Circuit panel in its Tuesday decision? “It’s ripe for the Supreme Court to revisit the undue burden standard,” said B. Jessie Hill, a professor of constitutional law at Case Western Reserve University, noting that the legal “fuzziness” of the concept had led to confusion and contradictory rulings in the courts. As much as a clarification is needed, it is far from certain that the court will take on the Texas case, said Michael C. Dorf, a professor of law at Cornell University. In the years from Roe v. Wade, in 1973, to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992, the Supreme Court decided about 20 abortion-related cases. Yet in the last 23 years, it has decided only three, Professor Dorf said. “It’s clear to me that the court is very reluctant to take abortion cases,” he said, possibly because the issue is so bitterly divisive and the outcomes are too unpredictable for either liberal or conservative justices to feel comfortable taking on a case. The clinics’ advocates seem optimistic, noting that last fall, the Supreme Court granted a similar stay pending the Fifth Circuit decision announced this week, preventing what could have been the irreversible closing of many clinics that did not meet the mandated standards for surgery centers. In the meantime, the Supreme Court is expected to say next week whether it will hear two other abortion-related cases: North Carolina’s appeal of a federal court’s decision to strike down a law that requires doctors to describe the fetus to the woman during a mandatory ultrasound, and Mississippi’s appeal of a federal ruling that it cannot force the closing of the state’s only abortion clinic. Both cases pose significant constitutional issues, but neither would have the potential reach of a hearing on the Texas law and clarification of “undue burden,” legal experts said. | Texas;Abortion;Supreme Court,SCOTUS |
ny0172971 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/11/13 | A Toast to Tuscany, With a Staten Island Red | CRESPINA, Italy, Nov. 7 — The visit to this picturesque corner of Tuscany probably will not spawn a best-selling sequel with a title like “Under the Staten Island Sun.” But in the not-too-distant future, Staten Island will bring a little bit of Tuscany to New York, in the form of a vineyard being developed at the Staten Island Botanical Garden. A group of businessmen from the borough spent a few days this month rambling through lush vineyards, Renaissance villas and an Etruscan tomb, seeking the essence of the Tuscan experience to transplant back home. They hope the vineyard, which they said would be the first large-scale venture of its kind in the city, will entice more visitors to the oft-forgotten borough. “We were looking for something to draw tourists off the ferry and see what Staten Island has to offer,” said Henry Arlin Salmon, a Staten Island real estate appraiser and one of the members of the Tuscan Gardens Vineyard Founders Group, which is behind the planned winery. The Tuscan angle seemed natural, considering that nearly 38 percent of Staten Island residents are of Italian ancestry, according to the 2000 Census, more than any other county in the United States, said Joseph J. LiBassi, a promoter of the vineyard project and a member of the botanical garden’s board. “The vineyard encapsulates what Italians brought to Staten Island: agriculture, wine, culture.” Of course, he added, the vineyard should appeal to non-Italians, too. “There are a lot of wine aficionados,” he said. Work on the vineyard should start in the spring on about two acres of botanical garden land next to the Tuscan Villa and the Tuscan Garden exhibitions under construction. (The Tuscan Garden is based on the Villa Gamberaia, at Settignano, near Florence.) Experts in viticulture and enology at Cornell University are helping determine which Italian grape varieties will have the best chance of thriving on Staten Island, “which can get pretty damp,” Mr. Salmon said. Because it is illegal to import vine cuttings into the United States, the plants will most likely come from vineyards in upstate New York or, perhaps, California. Eventually, the idea is to make red wine — and someday maybe white — from the 2,000 vines that organizers of the vineyard figure will be planted at the botanical garden. It will be years, however, before anyone can get a tasting of Staten Island red. As for potential names for the winery? Mr. LiBassi proposed “Crespina Staten Wine.” R. Randy Lee, a real estate developer and the chairman of the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation, suggested “Vespucci” or “Verrazano.” The wine is also expected to incorporate the kind of heritage grape varieties that would have been known in colonial times. “After all, George Washington wasn’t importing wines from Tuscany,” Mr. Lee said. “I’m not sure how it will taste, but we want to reproduce it.” The interest in heritage grape varieties is one reason the Staten Island delegation came to this part of Tuscany, to meet with Piergiorgio Castellani, a winemaker trying to save indigenous local grape varieties from extinction. Mr. Castellani plans to travel to Staten Island in February to provide technical assistance on the vineyard. The borough, he said, “is not the best microclimate in the world; it’s close to a large city, there’s pollution. So they have to find a compromise solution that will mix resistant, adaptable vines with the right Tuscan varieties.” Mr. Castellani, who escorted the Staten Island group to the University of Pisa to meet with viticulture experts, added: “The principal aim of the project is didactic. We’ve given them a broad basis of knowledge so they can go forward.” Once the vineyard is up and running, visitors will be able to follow winemaking from the vine to the bottle. “It’s basically chemistry; you mash grapes, and there’s a chemical reaction,” Mr. Salmon said. “Let’s face it, wine is exciting.” The visit from the Staten Island delegation caused a major buzz in this small town roughly 21 miles south of Pisa that is known for its hoot owls. Officials in Crespina were thrilled when Staten Island officials accepted their invitation to be a sister city. “For a town of 4,000, it was like entering a skyscraper,” said Thomas D’Addona, Crespina’s mayor. In addition to a small parade down the town’s main street (serenaded by the Walking Sharks Street Band) and a crossbow demonstration, the town’s celebrations included a photo session with Giancarlo Giannini, an Italian movie star who has a home in the area. A previous sister city partnership with the French town of Penchard some time ago was kept alive for a few years and then passed into oblivion, local officials said. But the vineyard at the botanical garden, everyone involved agreed, will be one tangible link across the ocean. “If they want us for the grape harvest, we’ll be ready to go with our boots and tools,” Mr. D’Addona said. | Wines;Staten Island Botanical Garden;Staten Island (NYC) |
ny0196929 | [
"science"
] | 2009/10/08 | 3 Win Nobel for Ribosome Research | Three scientists who showed how the information encoded on strands of DNA is translated into the thousands of proteins that make up living matter will share the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday. The trio are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Each will get a third of the prize, worth 10 million Swedish kronors total, or $1.4 million, in a Dec. 10 ceremony in Stockholm. Working independently and using, among other things, the X-rays generated by powerful particle accelerators and prodigious computer calculations, the three winners and their colleagues succeeded in mapping the locations of the hundreds of thousands of atoms in the giant molecular complexes inside cells known as ribosomes. In a news release, the Swedish academy said the three were being honored “for having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level.” The work, scientists said, has had important medical implications. Some antibiotics work by gumming up the ribosomes of bacteria, allowing those bacteria to be stopped at no danger to their host. The ribosome research, the academy said, is being used to develop new antibiotics. Dr. Ramakrishnan was born in Chidambaram, India, in 1952 and obtained his Ph.D. at Ohio University. He holds United States citizenship. Dr. Steitz was born in Milwaukee in 1940 and got his Ph.D. from Harvard. Dr. Yonath was born in Jerusalem in 1939, earned her Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science and has worked in Israel her whole life. She said on Wednesday that she was both surprised and not surprised at being awarded a Nobel Prize. Speaking by telephone, Dr. Yonath said people had long been telling her that her project was a potential winner. But at the same time, she said, there were “many, many people with fantastic work standing in line.” She said she was working and watching over her 13-year-old granddaughter when she received the news. One of the first people who called to congratulate her was the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize with the late leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat in 1994. Dr. Yonath is the fourth woman to win the chemistry prize and the first since 1964, said Thomas Lane, president of the American Chemical Society. Mr. Lane said it reflected “a tremendous change in the demographics of the field.” More than 50 percent of chemistry degrees are now earned by women, he said. In a telephone interview, Dr. Ramakrishnan said that when he was first told of the prize he thought it was a joke. “It was a bit overwhelming,” he said. Asked what he would do with the money, he laughed and said he did not even own a car, but that he might buy a new cello for his son who is a cellist in New York. If the sequence of letters in the DNA forms the blueprint for life, ribosomes are the factory floor. It starts in the nucleus of a cell with the master hereditary molecule DNA, which spells out the recipe for life and in particular the proteins that do all the work in the body using a four-letter alphabet of chemical bases, or nucleotides, designated by A, G, C and T. When a gene, a stretch of DNA that contains the instructions for making a protein, is copied to make a similar stretch of single-stranded RNA, something like a mirror image of DNA, that bit of RNA floats from the nucleus over to a ribosome (there are many ribosomes, but they all have the same basic structure), where another RNA molecule reads the first one and assembles amino acids in the proper order to construct a protein. That much biologists knew by the 1960s, but they could not go any farther without understanding the detailed structure of the ribosome, a forbidding task since it contains hundreds of thousands of atoms. Enter Dr. Yonath. “She’s the one who is really the trailblazer,” said Jeremy M. Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. In the late 1970s, Dr. Yonath set out to solve this problem by growing crystals of the ribosome material from a desert bacteria known as Geobacillus stearothemophilus and then irradiating it with X-rays. Passing through the layers in a crystal, X-rays are diffracted into a pattern of dots and blobs that can be read by a computer to reconstruct the internal structure of the ribosome, a technique known as X-ray crystallography that had helped decipher the double helix of DNA itself. But getting several hundred thousand atoms to sit for such a portrait was no easy task. It took 25,000 tries before the first ribosome crystals were created in 1980 and 20 years before the crystals were good enough to produce the X-ray patterns: millions of black dots pregnant with meaning about the arrangement of atoms in the so-called large sub unit, which makes up one of two parts of the ribosome. Dr. Yonath’s success, meanwhile, had drawn others into the field, including Dr. Steitz, who solved a key problem on how to interpret the dots on the diagram of the large sub unit, aided by electron microscope images of the ribosome obtained by Joachim Frank, then at the Wadsworth Center in Albany and now at Columbia. Meanwhile, Dr. Ramakrishnan, who got his start in ribosomes working as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale with Dr. Steitz’s colleague Peter Moore, decoded the structure of the other half of the ribosome, the so-called small sub unit. Both Dr. Steitz and Dr. Ramakrishnan did their X-ray work at the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s National Synchrotron Light Source, where intense radiation lost from whirling beams of electrons can be used for probing the properties of matter. They published their results in 2000, the same year that Dr. Yonath published her own analysis of both parts of the ribosome. Dr. Steitz is the co-founder of the company Rib-X Pharmaceuticals of New Haven, formed to apply the ribosome research to develop and commercialize drugs for the treatment of multi-antibiotic resistant infections. Besides the implications for biomedical research, another consequence of the ribosome work was to resolve an old “classic chicken and egg problem” about evolution, Dr. Berg of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences explained. If ribosomes are needed to make proteins but they are also made of proteins, which came first? The answer, Dr. Berg said, is that the active core of the ribosome is made of RNA. The protein seems to have been added later, which means the ribosome is “an RNA-based machine that evolved the ability to make proteins.” If ribosomes depended on proteins to function, that would have been a paradox. “This is a key point in evolution,” Dr. Berg said, “when RNA learned to make proteins.” | Nobel Prizes;Chemistry;Ramakrishnan Venkatraman;Steitz Thomas A;Yonath Ada E |
ny0027667 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2013/01/26 | Hawks Rally From 27 Down to Top Celtics in Double Overtime | Kyle Korver scored 27 points and the Atlanta Hawks overcame a 27-point deficit in the first half to beat Boston, 123-111, in double overtime on Friday night, handing the visiting Celtics their sixth straight loss. Jeff Teague had 23 points for Atlanta before fouling out in the first overtime. Al Horford had 24 points and 13 rebounds. Josh Smith, who opened the second overtime with a 3-point play, had 17 points and 14 rebounds. Kevin Garnett had 24 points and 10 rebounds but fouled out in the second overtime as the Celtics were left with their longest losing streak in six years. Rajon Rondo had 16 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds for his fifth triple-double of the season. Korver had all of his career-high eight 3-pointers in the second half, setting a franchise record, and five in the fourth quarter. HEAT 110, PISTONS 88 Dwyane Wade scored 29 points and sparked a pivotal run to help host Miami to its fourth straight victory with a win over Detroit. After falling behind by 9, the Heat outscored Detroit, 26-4, during a seven-minute stretch in the second quarter to take a 60-47 lead. Wade scored 15 points during the spurt. LeBron James had 23 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for the Heat, who shot 56 percent. One of the night’s biggest cheers came when Michael Drysch, a 50-year-old computer technician from McHenry, Ill., made a half-court shot to win $75,000 and a hug from James. BULLS 103, WARRIORS 87 Kirk Hinrich scored a season-high 25 points, hitting six of seven 3-pointers in Chicago’s victory over visiting Golden State. Image Ricky Rubio said he was upset Wednesday after being called back to the bench late in that game. Credit Jim Mone/Associated Press Nate Robinson added 22 points off the bench in the Bulls’ third straight victory. Jimmy Butler had 16 points and a career-high 12 rebounds starting in place of Luol Deng, who missed his fourth consecutive game due to a right hamstring injury. GRIZZLIES 101, NETS 77 Marc Gasol had 20 points and 9 rebounds and host Memphis built a 30-point lead in the second half en route to a victory over the Nets. Memphis, which had seven players in double figures, won for the fourth time in the past five games. Brook Lopez led the Nets with 18 points, while Deron Williams scored 12, adding six assists. WIZARDS 114, WOLVES 101 John Wall had 14 points and 5 assists in his first start of the season, and Washington finally hit double digits in wins with a victory over visiting Minnesota. Wall, who came off the bench for the first seven games after his return from a knee injury, had assists on the Wizards’ first two baskets in a game in which Washington never trailed. Before the game, Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio said that he had apologized to the acting coach Terry Porter for an outburst during the team’s loss to the Nets on Wednesday. Rubio, upset that he sat out the final minutes, said once he cooled down he understood Porter’s decision not to put him back in the game. CAVALIERS 113, BUCKS 108 Kyrie Irving scored 35 points and Cleveland rallied from a 20-point deficit in the third quarter to defeat visiting Milwaukee. Irving scored 16 points in the third quarter to help Cleveland get back in the game. He added 8 points down the stretch as the Cavaliers posted back-to-back wins for only the second time this season. | Ricky Rubio;Timberwolves;Terry Porter;NBA;Delonte West;Mavericks;Basketball |
ny0080196 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/02/01 | Events on Long Island for Feb. 1-7, 2015 | A guide to cultural and recreational events on Long Island. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to [email protected]. Comedy HUNTINGTON The Paramount Jim Breuer. Feb. 14 at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. $29.50 to $59.50. The Paramount, 370 New York Avenue. 631-673-7300; paramountny.com. NORTHPORT John W. Engeman Theater at Northport John Pizzi, one-man show featuring comedy, magic and ventriloquism. Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. $45. John W. Engeman Theater at Northport, 250 Main Street. 631-261-2900; engemantheater.com. PATCHOGUE Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts “February Laughter in the Lobby,” special Valentine’s Day comedy showcase, hosted by Stevie G.B., featuring Joey Giarratano and Sherry Davey. Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. $10. Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, 71 East Main Street. 631-207-1313; patchoguetheatre.com. PECONIC Osprey’s Dominion Vineyards LaughNYC presents: “An Amazing Night of Hilarious Comedy to Benefit the North Fork Animal Welfare League.” Feb. 7, 8 to 9:30 p.m. Osprey’s Dominion Vineyards, 44075 Main Road. 631-471-6335; ospreysdominion.com. Film GARDEN CITY Adelphi University Performing Arts Center Screening of the English National Opera’s “Peter Grimes.” Feb. 7 at 2 p.m. $20. Adelphi University Performing Arts Center, 1 South Avenue. 516-877-4000; aupac.adelphi.edu. HOLBROOK Sachem Public Library “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North.” Elizabeth Sturges Llerena will introduce this documentary, in which she is featured, about one family’s discovery that their New England ancestors were the first and largest slave-trading family in United States history. Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. Free. Sachem Public Library, 150 Holbrook Road. 631-588-5024; sachemlibrary.org. LEVITTOWN Levittown Public Library “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” directed by Lasse Hallström. Feb. 6 at 1:30 and 7 p.m. Free. Levittown Public Library, 1 Bluegrass Lane. 516-731-5728; liwg.com. WATER MILL Parrish Art Museum A/V Geeks presents “Love is . . . ?”, a screening of 16-millimeter films from the 1950s and ’60s about romance, love and marriage. Feb. 13 at 6 p.m. $10. Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway. 631-283-2118; parrishart.org/AVGeeks. WESTHAMPTON BEACH Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center “A Film About Coffee,” documentary directed by Brandon Loper. Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. $5 to $15. Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, 76 Main Street. 631-288-1500; whbpac.org. For Children EAST HAMPTON Guild Hall Citarella Valentine Cookie Decorating Workshop, decorating cookies under the direction of an experienced pastry chef. Ages 6 and up. Feb. 7, 1 to 2 p.m. $6 and $8. Guild Hall, 158 Main Street. 631-324-4050; guildhall.org. GARDEN CITY Long Island Children’s Museum “Healthyville,” health and wellness lessons. Through May 3. “Blooming With Love Flowers,” create and decorate a blooming flower with heart-shaped petals. Feb. 3 through 6, 2:30 to 4 p.m. Free with museum admission. “Music and Movement,” pick up a musical instrument and add your voice to the sing-along song session. Feb. 4, 11:30 a.m. to noon. $3 with museum admission, $11 and $12. Long Island Children’s Museum, 11 Davis Avenue. 516-224-5800; licm.org. HUNTINGTON Book Revue Reading and signing of “I Love Going to the Butcher,” by Lee Seelig. Feb. 8 at noon. Free. Book Revue, 313 New York Avenue. 631-271-1442; bookrevue.com. PORT WASHINGTON Landmark on Main Street The Paper Bag Players present “Hot Feet” a celebration of classic sketches. Feb. 8 at 2 p.m. $15 and $18. Landmark on Main Street, 232 Main Street. 516-767-6444; landmarkonmainstreet.org/. ROSLYN HARBOR Nassau County Museum of Art Family Sundays at the Museum. Weekly, 1 to 4 p.m. Through March 8. Free with museum admission, $4 to $10; children 4 and under and members, free. Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive. nassaumuseum.org; 516-484-9337. Music and Dance BAY SHORE Y.M.C.A. Boulton Center for the Performing Arts Amy Helm, singer-songwriter. Feb. 5 at 8 p.m. $35 and $40. Y.M.C.A. Boulton Center for the Performing Arts, 37 West Main Street. boultoncenter.org; 631-969-1101. BELLPORT Bellport United Methodist Church The Sliphorn Orchestra of Long Island, an ensemble of more than 30 trombones. Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. Free; donations accepted. Bellport United Methodist Church, 185 South Country Road. umcbellport.org; 631-286-1832. BRENTWOOD Brentwood Public Library Jazz to Soul in Love, Rhonda Denet, flanked by the Silver Fox Songs duo, will perform a collection of jazz standards and soul classics. Feb. 15, 2 to 3:30 p.m. Free. Brentwood Public Library, 34 Second Avenue. 631-273-7883; brentwood.suffolk.lib.ny.us. BROOKVILLE Tilles Center for the Performing Arts Tango Buenos Aires, dance performance. Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. $33 to $63. Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, 720 Northern Boulevard. 516-299-3100; tillescenter.org. DIX HILLS Dix Hills Performing Arts Center Almost Queen, tribute to Queen. Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. $25 to $35. “Just 60s: The Stories ... The Songs..” Feb. 8 at 2 p.m. $25 to $35. Dr. K’s Motown Revue. Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. $25 to $35. Dix Hills Performing Arts Center, 305 North Service Road. 631-656-2148; dhpac.org. EAST HAMPTON Guild Hall JDTLab: Songs of the Heart by Sheree M.C. Elder, composer, songwriter, and vocalist; featuring the musician and songwriter Daniel Eugene and the percussionist Dereck Rey. Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Free. Guild Hall, 158 Main Street. 631-324-4050; guildhall.org. GARDEN CITY Adelphi University Performing Arts Center Taylor 2, dance performance. Feb. 13 through Feb. 20. $30 and $35. Adelphi University Performing Arts Center, 1 South Avenue. 516-877-4000; aupac.adelphi.edu. GARDEN CITY Unitarian Universalist Church of Central Nassau Garden City Chamber Music Society Concert, music by Beethoven, Clara Schumann and Ravel. Feb. 1 at 3 p.m. $10 and $12. Unitarian Universalist Church of Central Nassau, 223 Stewart Avenue. 516-248-8855; uuccn.org. GLEN HEAD Glenwood Landing Elementary School Northwinds Symphonic Band Small Ensemble Concert, classical, contemporary and lighter selections by Mozart, Cook, Stravinsky, Hornsby and others. Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. Free. Glenwood Landing Elementary School, 60 Cody Avenue. 516-277-7600. HEMPSTEAD Nassau Coliseum Marc Anthony. Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. $79.05 to $222.30. Nassau Coliseum, 1255 Hempstead Turnpike. 516-794-9300; nassaucoliseum.com. HUNTINGTON Heckscher Museum of Art First Friday: Timo Vollbrecht, saxophone. Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. Free. Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue. heckscher.org; 631-351-3250. HUNTINGTON St. John’s Episcopal Church Bach at St. John’s. Oboist Peggy Pearson leads the Bach Chamber Players in three short cantatas. Feb. 8 at 4 p.m. $10 to $25. St. John’s Episcopal Church, 12 Prospect Street. 631-385-0373; ridotto.org. LEVITTOWN Levittown Public Library My “Jazzy” Valentine. The music of Richard Rodgers will be presented by Paul Joseph, composer-pianist, and his jazz trio. Feb. 13, 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. Free, ticket suggested. Levittown Public Library , 1 Bluegrass Lane. 516-731-5728; liwg.com. NORTHPORT John W. Engeman Theater at Northport The Ken Kresge Jazz Trio. Feb. 4 and 8. $45. John W. Engeman Theater at Northport, 250 Main Street. engemantheater.com; 631-261-2900. PATCHOGUE Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts Girls with Guitars 2. Feb. 5 at 7 p.m. $20. Mickey B’s Golden Oldies Winter Spectacular, with the Marcels, the Happenings, the Jarmels, Lenny Cocco and the Chimes, Vito Balsamo, the Fireflies and the Eternals. Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. $42. Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, 71 East Main Street. 631-207-1313; patchoguetheatre.com. PORT WASHINGTON Landmark on Main Street Black Violin — Wil Baptiste and Kevin Sylvester, also known as Kev Marcus — perform a blend of classical, hip-hop, rock, R&B and bluegrass music. Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. $25. On Your Radar, with WFUV’s John Platt, with Spuyten Duyvil, Toby Walker and Carsie Blanton. Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. $37 to $47. Landmark on Main Street, 232 Main Street. 516-767-6444; landmarkonmainstreet.org/. RIVERHEAD Riverhead Free Library “Drumming Circle,” an hour of drumming with Jerome. Feb. 14, 2 to 3 p.m. Free. Riverhead Free Library, 330 Court Street. 631-727-3228; river.suffolk.lib.ny.us. SAG HARBOR Bay Street Theater Nancy Atlas, rock. Through March 27. $20. Bay Street Theater, Main and Bay Streets. 631-725-9500; baystreet.org. SHOREHAM North Shore Public Library Zig Zag Quartet, flamenco, modern Argentine tangos, Caribbean music and more. Feb. 8 at 2 p.m. Free. North Shore Public Library, 250 Route 25A. 631-929-4488; northshorepubliclibrary.org. Image RIVERHEAD “Southold” (2014), mixed media by Valerie Zeman, is in “Squares,” part of the annual all-media members’ show at the East End Arts Gallery, 133 East Main Street, on display through March 6. eastendarts.org ; 631-727-0900. Credit Valerie Zeman STONY BROOK University Cafe, Stony Brook University The Kennedys, folk-rock duo. Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. $22 and $27. University Cafe, Stony Brook University, 100 Nicolls Road. 631-632-1093; universitycafe.org. WESTHAMPTON BEACH Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center Scars on 45, British indie-rock quartet. Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. $25. Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, 76 Main Street. 631-288-1500; whbpac.org. Outdoors WESTHAMPTON BEACH Cupsogue Beach County Park Cresli seal walk at Cupsogue Beach. Two-hour walk to observe and photograph seals in the wild. Through April 26. $3 and $5; reservations required. Cupsogue Beach County Park, Dune Road. 631-244-3352; cresli.org. Spoken Word BRENTWOOD Brentwood Public Library Bilingual book discussion: “White Teeth.” Feb. 4, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Free. Brentwood Public Library, 34 Second Avenue. 631-273-7883; brentwood.suffolk.lib.ny.us. LAWRENCE Peninsula Public Library “Italian Mannerism: Bronzino: Illustrated Art Lecture,” with Ines Powell, art historian and educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Feb. 2 at 1 p.m. Free. Storytellers in Painting: Illustrated Art Lecture, with Vivian Gordon, art historian and lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Feb. 9 at 1 p.m. Free. Peninsula Public Library, 280 Central Avenue. 516-239-3262; nassaulibrary.org/peninsula. OYSTER BAY Oyster Bay Historical Society “Footsteps of a Forgotten Soldier,” Black History Month discussion with David Carl and Denice Sheppard on the military documents and pension files of David Carll, a Civil War veteran who served with the 26th Regiment United States Colored Troops. Feb. 7 at 1 p.m. Free. Oyster Bay Historical Society, 20 Summit Street. 516-922-5032; oysterbayhistorical.org. ROSLYN HARBOR Nassau County Museum of Art “Brown Bag Lecture.” Riva Ettus, museum docent, leads a talk on the art in the exhibition “China Then and Now.” Feb. 5 at 1 p.m. Free with museum admission, $4 to $10, children 4 and under and members free. Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive. 516-484-9337; nassaumuseum.org. Theater EAST HAMPTON Guild Hall JDTLab: A Staged Reading of “Honor Killing,” a new play by Sarah Bierstock. Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m. Free. Guild Hall, 158 Main Street. 631-324-4050; guildhall.org. LINDENHURST Studio Theater “Spider’s Web,” by Agatha Christie. Feb. 6 through 22. $25. Studio Theater, 141 South Wellwood Avenue. 631-226-8400; studiotheatreli.com. NORTHPORT John W. Engeman Theater at Northport “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” a play by Christopher Durang. Through March 8. Starting at $59. John W. Engeman Theater at Northport, 250 Main Street. 631-261-2900; engemantheater.com. OAKDALE CM Performing Arts Center “Bring It On: The Musical,” directed by Patrick Grossman. Through Feb. 8. $18 to $27. CM Performing Arts Center, 931 Montauk Highway. 631-218-2810; cmpac.com. PORT JEFFERSON Theater Three “Don’t Dress For Dinner,” comedy by Marc Camoletti, adapted by Robin Hawdon. Through Feb. 7. $15 to $30. Theater Three, 412 Main Street. 631-928-9100; theaterthree.com. RIVERHEAD Riverhead Free Library “Dare to Dream,” David Mills performs a one-man show of the works of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Feb. 1, 2 to 4 p.m. Free. Riverhead Free Library, 330 Court Street. river.suffolk.lib.ny.us; 631-727-3228. Museums and Galleries AMAGANSETT Sylvester and Company at Home “Dennis Lawrence: New Works,” paintings. Through Feb. 1. Mondays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sylvester and Company at Home, 154 Main Street. 631-267-9777; sylvesterathome.com. CUTCHOGUE Alex Ferrone Photography Gallery “Small Works: The Botanical Exhibit,” flora life by 15 regional and award-winning photographers. Through Feb. 15. Alex Ferrone Photography Gallery, 25425 Main Road. alexferrone.com; 631-734-8545. EAST HAMPTON The Drawing Room “Winter Salon,” drawings, prints, paintings, photographs. Through Feb. 28. Free. Seasonal hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Drawing Room, 66 Newtown Lane. 631-324-5016; drawingroom-gallery.com. EAST ISLIP Islip Art Museum “Remembering Things Past/Alexander Percy: The Texture of Color.” Through March 29. Suggested donation, $5. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Islip Art Museum, 50 Irish Lane. 631-224-5402; islipartmuseum.org. GARDEN CITY Ruth S. Harley University Center Gallery, Adelphi University “Amani Willett: Underground Railroad,” an exhibition featuring more than 15 works by artist and photographer Amani Willett. Through Feb. 27. Mondays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ruth S. Harley University Center Gallery, Adelphi University, 1 South Avenue. 516-877-3126; adelphi.edu/artmuseum/. GARDEN CITY Firehouse Plaza Art Gallery “Perform,” drawings, paintings and duct tape installations by Tirtzah Bassel. Through Feb. 27. Free. Mondays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Firehouse Plaza Art Gallery, 1 Education Drive. 516-572-7162; ncc.edu/firehousegallery. GLASSBORO Rowan University Art Gallery “Simulate — Permeate,” artists using new media. Through March 7. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Rowan University Art Gallery, 201 Mullica Hill Road. rowan.edu/artgallery; 856-256-4521. GLEN COVE Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center “Objects of Witness: Testimony From Holocaust Artifacts,” artifacts lent or donated by Holocaust survivors and their families. Through April 30. Suggested donation, $4 to $10. Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center, 100 Crescent Beach Road. hmtcli.org; 516-571-8040. HEMPSTEAD Hofstra University Museum “Exploring the Centuries: 3rd-20th-Century Asian Art,” woodblock prints, hand-painted scrolls, metal works and sculpture that highlight artistic practices and traditions from Japan, China and India. Through Feb. 8. “From Portraits to Tweets: Imagery, Technology and the U.S. Presidency,” at the Hofstra University Museum, Emily Lowe Gallery, South Campus. Feb. 3 through May. 8. Free. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hofstra University Museum , Hofstra University. 516-463-5672; hofstra.edu/museum. HUNTINGTON Heckscher Museum of Art “Power, Politics and War: Selections From the Permanent Collection,” continuing. “Modern Alchemy: Experiments in Photography.” Through March 15. $4 to $8; children under 10, free. “Ferdinand Richardt’s Niagara: A Study in Landscape Painting.” Through April 12. $4 to $8; children under 10, free. Wednesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue. 631-351-3250; heckscher.org. HUNTINGTON STATION South Huntington Public Library “The Universe From My Window,” Linda Louis, oil paintings. Through Feb. 4. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays 1 to 5 p.m. South Huntington Public Library, 145 Pidgeon Hill Road. 631-549-4411; shpl.info. JAMESPORT Rosalie Dimon Gallery, Jamesport Manor Inn Works by the abstract painter Ine Wijtvliet and the classical painter Natalia Clarke. Through Feb. 4. Wednesdays through Mondays, noon to 10 p.m. Rosalie Dimon Gallery, Jamesport Manor Inn, 370 Manor Road. 631-722-0500; jamesportmanorinn.com. MANHASSET Manhasset Public Library Chinese art and culture exhibit of Chinese artists’ painting and calligraphy. Feb. 1 through March 27. Reception: Feb. 21, 2 to 4 p.m. Manhasset Public Library, 30 Onderdonk Avenue. 516-627-2300. OYSTER BAY Oyster Bay Historical Society “The Other Side,” 29 photographs by Xiomáro of the William Floyd Estate, a National Parks unit of the Fire Island National Seashore. Through March 29. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Oyster Bay Historical Society, 20 Summit Street. 516-922-5032; oysterbayhistorical.org. RIVERHEAD Riverhead Town Hall Photographs by Jackie Stevens. Through Feb. 27. Mondays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Riverhead Town Hall, 200 Howell Avenue. riverheadli.com; 631-727-3200 . ROCKVILLE CENTRE Frank and Gertrude Kaiser Art Gallery, Molloy College Contemporary African-American Folk Art, includes the works of Purvis Young, Ray Finster and Derek Webster in honor of Black History Month. Feb. 6 through March 25. “Poor Art Student..11!”, a student exhibition. Through Feb. 3. Free. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Molloy College Art Gallery, 1000 Hempstead Avenue. 516-323-3000; molloy.edu/artgallery. ROSLYN Bryant Library “The Alchemists — Group Exhibit.” Through Feb. 28. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bryant Library, 2 Paper Mill Road. 516-621-2240; nassaulibrary.org/bryant. ROSLYN HARBOR Nassau County Museum of Art “China Then and Now,” art from the classical, early modern and contemporary periods. “Long Island Collects the Arts of China,” from local collectors’ holdings. Gavin Rain, paintings. Through March 8. $4 to $10; children under 5 and members, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive. nassaumuseum.org; 516-484-9337. SOUTHAMPTON Southampton Cultural Center Annual Black History Month exhibition. Through March 2. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Southampton Cultural Center, 25 Pond Lane. 631-287-4377; southamptonculturalcenter.org. STONY BROOK Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages “LIMarts: Here and Now,” member artists’ exhibition. Through Feb. 1. Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages, 1200 Route 25A. 631-751-0066; longislandmuseum.org. STONY BROOK Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University “K.E.,” a solo exhibition featuring the Swiss artist Zimoun. Feb. 5 through April 9. Reception: Feb. 5, 5 to 7 p.m. Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University, 100 Nicolls Road. 631-632-2800. SYOSSET Syosset Public Library Pastels by Christine Di Mauro. Feb. 3 through Feb. 26. Free. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Syosset Public Library, 225 South Oyster Bay Road. 516-921-7161; syossetlibrary.org. WATER MILL Parrish Art Museum 2015 Student Exhibition. Through March 1. $10, Free for members, children and students. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway. parrishart.org; 631-283-2118. | The arts;Long Island |
ny0257452 | [
"science"
] | 2011/01/18 | Trying to Measure Dogs’ Scat-Sniffing Abilities | Scat-sniffing dogs are becoming increasingly popular among scientists as assistants that can gather data about a wildlife area. The dogs can be trained to sniff out the scat of other animals and to help researchers estimate population statistics. But according to new research in The Journal of Wildlife Management , a dog’s ability to sniff scat could vary based on a number of factors, including air temperature and precipitation. “We really wanted to understand what some of the factors were that limit dogs’ abilities to detect,” said Sarah Reed , the study’s lead author and a conservation biologist with Colorado State University and the Wildlife Conservation Society. The study was part of her graduate research at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Reed and her colleagues found that precipitation had the greatest influence on the dogs’ abilities. Dogs are more likely to find scat between May and October, when it is drier, since the scat has a chance to accumulate. Air temperature also seems to have an effect, since dogs can’t smell as well when they are overheated and panting. The exact effect depends on a specific dog’s heat tolerance, Dr. Reed said. She hopes that other researchers will create calibration tools that measure how optimally their detection dogs perform in different conditions. Regardless of their handicaps, dogs are much more capable than humans at scoping out scat. Trained dogs can detect scat up to 33 feet away about 75 percent of the time, the researchers found. Humans, on the other hand, can see scat only within three to five feet. | Dogs;Smell (Olfaction);Research;Science and Technology |
ny0130070 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/06/15 | Trying to Keep Drinking Fountains Flowing in New York City Parks | So many fountains. So little time. That might be the mantra of the parks department’s battalion of plumbers: 43 men with the unenviable task of keeping 3,114 drinking fountains flowing in the hot summer months, just as millions of parched New Yorkers and tourists descend on playgrounds, ball fields, beaches and parks. A key lieutenant in the struggle is Gus M. Menocal, a licensed master plumber who oversees all of Queens. That some of the pipes delivering those cold, satisfying sips date to the 1930s is the least of his worries. He also deals with thieves who, under cover of darkness, pry off bronze bowls and brass valves to sell for scrap. He contends with children who, in the light of day, pour sand down drains, shove twigs in spouts and leave water balloon shrapnel behind. He chafes at ball players who wash their cleats in fountains. (“Ball field clay is the worst,” he said.) And, always, there are trees, whose pollen does more than agitate allergies; it is also a notorious clogger of traps, the J-shaped pipes that carry water away. It is perhaps a minor miracle, then, that the drinking fountains work as well as they do. The parks department estimates that 93 percent of drinking fountains accomplish their main goal — providing fresh water — at any given time. That’s not to say that all fountains display the most robust pressure or the swiftest drainage. Far from it. “From a usability standpoint, there are tons of challenges,” said Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation. “Summer can be rough on fountains. But most park users want to know if they can get a drink.” In recent years, amid budget cuts and shrinking staff, maintaining the more than 1,900 parks has become an ever greater challenge. Even with new parks and esplanades opening every month, the annual maintenance and operations budget has trended downward, falling by $54 million in the last four years. Last week, the city took the politically risky step of soliciting corporate sponsorships for basketball courts and dog runs to find new revenue for park maintenance. The city’s plumbing work force has held steady. Nonetheless, plumbing supervisors like Mr. Menocal seem to operate in triage mode, scrutinizing service requests to decide what should move to the top of the list. Broken fountains — both drinking and decorative — compete with balky toilets and sprayless showers. “We chip away at the high-priority orders,” he said. “It changes from day to day. It’s a living, breathing thing.” In a generally positive report card on the maintenance of large parks, New Yorkers for Parks , an advocacy group, last year singled out drinking fountains as a weak link, assigning them a D grade, on average, for a range of problems. The report considered more than whether drinking fountains basically worked. It also took into account water pressure, leaks, structural integrity and the presence of glass and litter. “We have been surveying the conditions of a host of parks features for almost a decade, and consistently, drinking fountains score at or close to the bottom,” said Holly M. Leicht, the group’s executive director, adding that she found the city’s estimate of the percentage of working fountains surprising. “With the administration rightly encouraging us to drink New York City tap water and reduce plastic bottle waste,” she said, “it’s incumbent upon the city to keep drinking fountains in working order, especially in our parks.” On a breezy afternoon in Queens, Mr. Menocal, a 44-year-old Bronx native who learned the plumbing trade from his father, was juggling 100 active work orders, including some for drinking fountains. A few of those were in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a giant among park properties at 1,255 acres and a plumbing monster, with miles of water mains and 103 drinking fountains. He pulled up to a set of three boxy concrete drinking fountains, circa 1939, that were halfway between the Unisphere and the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. One of them was a “leaker,” meaning its bubbler — the unit containing the nozzle and push button — was dribbling water through a faulty joint. “It’s wasting water,” said Mr. Menocal, as he strode up to the fountain, holding a new bubbler cartridge. He took out a socket wrench, replaced the bubbler and pressed the knob again. The leak was gone, but water shot past the basin. He made one adjustment and the water stayed put. “We like to have a nice little arc that comes right into the middle of the bowl,” he said. Nearby, a more modern drinking fountain was awaiting an overhaul at Meadow Lake. It had been vandalized some time during the winter. Thieves had ripped off the bronze bowl, taking the brass valve assembly and copper pipe for good measure. Replacement of the missing parts alone would run upward of $1,000. “These guys probably had a hammer and chiseled the tamper-proof screws,” Mr. Menocal said. “They use crowbars, hammers, whatever they can get their hands on.” More expensive still are the dry well jobs. Instead of draining into the sewer system, drinking fountains sit atop submerged beds of gravel, called dry wells, that allow water to seep into the ground. But when sand, dirt and clay wash down the drain, dry wells become compacted and the water has nowhere to go. So it sits in the bowl. Mr. Menocal identified three dry wells in Queens that would need replacing this summer. Coordinating the excavators and plumbers, landscapers and stone masons, can take several days. Mr. Benepe conceded that, as a boy growing up on the Upper West Side, he and his friends were sometimes guilty of drinking fountain abuse. Their weapon of choice was not sand, however. “One of our favorite tricks was to jam Popsicle sticks into the spout” so that the water would run until it was cold, he said. “Out of guilt for that, I’ve devoted 27 years to the parks department.” | Fountains;Water;Parks and Recreation Department (NYC);Plumbing;New York City |
ny0082290 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2015/10/20 | U.S. and Iraqi Forces Take Offensive Against ISIS on Several Fronts | BAGHDAD — Struggling to regain the initiative after a long impasse in the battle against Islamic State militants, the Iraqi government and the American-led coalition are for the first time in months putting military pressure on the jihadists on multiple fronts, officials say. Supported by increased American air power, Iraqi forces are on the outskirts of Ramadi, pressing to encircle the capital of Anbar Province, which the militants took in May, and cut it off from resupply and reinforcements. To the north of Baghdad, Iraqi military forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are trying to expand their foothold at the Baiji oil refinery after retaking it from the Islamic State on Friday . And in northeast Syria, the American military last week said it had parachuted 50 tons of ammunition to Syrian Arab fighters. The intent was that those fighters would join a larger body of Kurdish forces in advancing toward Raqqa, the Islamic State’s capital in Syria, and perhaps draw some Islamic State fighters away from Iraq to defend the city. “We are doing what you always try to do to the enemy and that is force him to fight in more than one direction at the same time,” said Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, who last month became the American commander for the effort in Iraq and Syria. He had previously served in Iraq as a brigade commander who worked with the Sunni tribes in Anbar Province. The campaign that General MacFarland inherited is not on the timetable originally envisioned. The United States Central Command, which oversees American operations in the Middle East, had once hoped that Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, would be in the Iraqi government’s hands by now. Instead, the American-led coalition has found itself trying to jump-start a counteroffensive against the Islamic State in a region in which the Russians and Iranians are asserting themselves in neighboring Syria, and Shiite militias remain a potent political force in Iraq. At the same time, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq has been struggling to build up his authority. Even as the Iraqis have moved on the offensive, they face formidable challenges. Ramadi, for example, is defended by 600 or more militants who have fortified their positions and are still able to sneak fighters to the city on the Euphrates River. Image Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland became the American commander for the effort in Iraq and Syria last month. Credit Pool photo by Khalid Mohammed And even if the Iraqis succeed in evicting the Islamic State from many of their strongholds, holding them will be a challenge. While Iraqi tribes can help secure some towns and cities, Iraqi provincial police are also supposed to play an important role. But the training of those police forces is just in the early phases: So far, a small team of Italian Carabinieri has trained just 246 police officers, about half of whom are federal police, officials said. But after a long lull, partly imposed by scorching heat and Muslim holidays, the Iraqis and their partners are trying to put the militants on the defensive and force them out of some long-held bastions into the open where they can be more readily targeted by airstrikes, Iraqi officials said. The aim, Iraq’s defense minister, Khaled al-Obeidi, said in an interview, is “to busy the enemy on different axes.” As described by American officials and their allies, the overall strategy is less a product of clockwork synchronization than taking advantage of opportunities that have arisen in recent weeks. The first step to speed up the Ramadi offensive was taken in late August when Mr. Abadi appointed a new head of the Anbar Operations Command, Maj. Gen. Ismail Mahalawi, who he hoped would be more aggressive than his predecessor, who had been wounded in a mortar attack. Some 10,000 Iraqi troops have been trying to isolate the city, advancing from the north, west, south and southeast. One of their key objectives is a bridge that spans the Euphrates northwest of the city, which Iraqi forces want to take in order to stop the Islamic State from using the river to bring in reinforcements. For the first time, Iraqi F-16 warplanes with pilots trained in the Arizona desert have joined other allied warplanes in carrying out airstrikes to support Iraqi ground troops, officials said. The Islamic State fighters holding Ramadi, American officials say, are accomplished in combining terrorist tactics, like the use of suicide car bombs, with more conventional military tactics like rigging houses with explosive traps and packing stretches of road with explosives and then covering the areas with mortar and sniper fire. Untangling the Overlapping Conflicts in the Syrian War What started as a popular uprising against the Syrian government four years ago has become a proto-world war with nearly a dozen countries embroiled in two overlapping conflicts. To help the Iraqi military forge a path through the fortifications, the United States is providing the Iraqi forces with armored bulldozers and mine-clearing devices in which a cable festooned with explosives is fired across the battlefield and then detonated. Progress has been slow despite increased supporting fire from American air operations — about 70 strikes in the past two weeks, according to the Pentagon. An Iraqi unit advanced to an apartment complex on the southern fringe of the city in recent days only to withdraw after the militants counterattacked. While Iraqi soldiers have been edging toward Ramadi, about 5,000 Iraqi soldiers and national police officers, along with around 10,000 Shiite militia fighters, have been mounting a parallel push in and around the Baiji refinery. Militants are still being pursued in the nearby town of Baiji, where some neighborhoods have been battered by artillery and airstrikes and many electrical cables have been severed. The refinery itself, a sprawling installation that has changed hands several times in fighting over the past year, has been so damaged it will probably take years to restore it to full use, officials say. But it is still considered an important installation, and its location is strategically vital: Control of the surrounding area would provide a potential steppingstone for any eventual Iraqi offensive against the Islamic State in the northern province of Nineveh, where the militants control the major city of Mosul. Image Shiite militias, fighting with Iraqi forces, moved to expand their foothold around Baiji on Saturday, a day after retaking parts of the city from the Islamic State. Credit Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Long-term control of Baiji would also improve the security of the two major Iraqi cities to the south — Tikrit and Samarra — and would curtail access to a major road to the southwest that the Islamic State has been using to funnel fighters from Mosul to Anbar. The Baiji offensive is being overseen by Maj. Gen. Juma al-Jubouri, from the Iraqi military’s command center in Salahuddin. But Iraq and the American-led coalition are not the only ones who have a stake in the success. So important is this juncture of the campaign that Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, arrived on the scene last week, apparently to help guide some of the Shiite militias that Iran has been supporting, American officials said. The Baiji offensive is a critical one for Mr. Abadi, who is facing internal political pressures within his Shiite coalition to show some progress and who is dealing with militias who have a mind of their own. Officials say allowing the militias to take a major role in that fight eases some of those tensions and also routes most of the militias away from the Ramadi offensive, where a major presence of the irregular forces might alienate the mostly Sunni population or lead to sectarian abuses. The Iraqi government’s reliance on militia forces there is also partly a reflection of how efforts to train and equip army units, which American officials believe should conduct the main counteroffensive against the Islamic State, have lagged behind goals set last year. That objective was to train 12 brigades, but the readjusted goal is eight, officials said: six Iraq Army brigades and two Kurdish ones. Still, the participation of the militias is a sensitive issue for the United States, which has made clear that it will conduct airstrikes only to support Iraqi government forces. At the Americans’ insistence, Iraq’s counterterrorism services, the federal police and the Iraq Army were given the lead in the Baiji operation. But the Shiite militia fighters have clearly benefited from the weeks of United States bombing. “Look, we’re trying to do this cleanly,” said one senior American officer in Washington, meaning supporting only Iraq forces, not the Iranian-trained militias, “but in Iraq, it’s just never that clean.” | Iraq;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;US Military;Shiite;Ramadi;US;Haider al-Abadi |
ny0287002 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2016/08/05 | This Year’s Subway Series Is Ending Just in Time | The Mets and the Yankees now go their separate ways, and it is just as well. They split their four-game series, two victories apiece, meaning nobody won. How fitting. The season has discouraged both teams, and their shared angst can be suffocating. Before their 4-1 victory on Thursday, the Mets placed their most productive player, outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, on the disabled list with a strained right quadriceps. The majors’ most decorated active slugger, the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez, cannot break into the lineup. The managers’ patience is running out. The issue with Cespedes is the propriety of playing golf on Wednesday while already nursing the quad injury. The issue with Rodriguez, essentially, is why he remains on the team if there is next to no chance he will play. The Mets’ Terry Collins, who is so patient with the news media that he won the writers’ Good Guy Award last season, fumed when the word “golf” was mentioned during his pregame news conference. He did not wait for a question before snapping, “Seriously, don’t go there,” and insisting that Cespedes’s golfing was irrelevant. “You guys all try to draw a connection,” Collins said. “Well, what if he went fishing? I mean, what the hell? Golfing had nothing to do with his leg. His leg has been bothering him, last night it bothered him even more, we made a decision it was time to put him on the D.L.” When pressed on the perception that Cespedes was not being as careful as he should have been, considering that the quad has bothered him for almost a month, Collins dug in. Image Yankees Manager Joe Girardi, center, was questioned on Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez, the majors’ most decorated active slugger, cannot break into the lineup. Credit Elsa/Getty Images “I don’t care about perception,” he said. “I deal with reality. The reality is, he was O.K. to play last night. The reality is, he came up after his last at-bat and said, ‘My leg’s bothering me again.’ It happened from: He got on base, he ran the bases. It didn’t hurt him in the fourth inning. It didn’t hurt him in the sixth inning. It hurt him in the ninth inning. That’s reality, O.K.?” It was not O.K. to Sandy Alderson, the Mets’ general manager, who said he had told people close to Cespedes that golfing with a bum leg looked really bad. “The golf is bad optics, let’s just start there,” Alderson said. “Our doctors have told us that probably had no impact on the injury, positive or negative, but let’s face it: Play golf during the day and go out injured in the evening? It’s a bad visual, and I think he recognizes that, at this point.” In Alderson’s first job as a general manager, with the powerhouse Oakland Athletics of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the slugger Jose Canseco exasperated him with off-field antics. When Canseco became unbearable — and his production declined — Alderson traded him. Cespedes may beat Alderson to it by opting out of his contract this fall and testing free agency again. But perception aside, Alderson pointed out fairly that Cespedes had tried for weeks to avoid the disabled list. His mistake was judgment, not effort. “I think everybody is taking it seriously,” Alderson said. “I think Yoenis takes it seriously. But Yoenis has his own personal life that sometimes is larger than life. We’ve seen that from the beginning of spring training.” To stay in the pennant race and earn a chance to defend their National League title, the Mets badly need Cespedes. Their lineup struggles in the clutch but is much more imposing with Cespedes between Neil Walker and the newcomer Jay Bruce, whose three-run homer gave the Mets their margin of victory Thursday. “You walk in that room, you look around and you go to certain guys and say, ‘We need you to pick it up — not to do what Yoenis Cespedes does, but try to help out and pick up the load,’” Collins said. “There’s a lot of guys in that clubhouse right now that have got to do a little bit more.” Collins, as manager, faces a daily outfield puzzle because none of his better options fit easily in center. Alderson, though, worries less about how the pieces fit. He recognizes that if the Mets do not start hitting, nothing else matters; they cannot field their way to October. The Mets are closer to fourth place than they are to first, with Washington threatening to run away with the division. Another late-summer sprint for the Mets — with the Nationals much better, and without Matt Harvey, David Wright or Lucas Duda — seems improbable. “On the one hand, it might be difficult to match what we did last year,” Alderson said. “On the other hand, at least with respect to the wild-card issue, we don’t have to match it. But we have to play better. We can’t win one game, lose two, win one, lose two, win two, lose one. We’ve got to put something together, and now’s the time to do it.” The Yankees acknowledged at the nonwaiver trading deadline that their time is not now. They plugged new prospects into their farm system and promoted Gary Sanchez, who started Thursday for the second game in a row as the designated hitter. That role had initially belonged to Rodriguez, whose usefulness has steadily eroded, four homers shy of 700. He has value as a mentor, but Manager Joe Girardi did not even mention that benefit on Thursday. He just seemed wearied, especially by the suggestion that his life would be easier without Rodriguez on the team. “These aren’t really fair questions,” Girardi said. “I mean, are they? He’s part of our club and he’s going to continue to be part of our club, that’s the bottom line.” Every star commands attention, especially in New York. Rodriguez is healthy but extraneous. Cespedes is injured but needed. Their teams are exasperated, and the scrutiny of the Subway Series only heightens the stress. Time for a break till next year. | Baseball;Mets;Yankees;Yoenis Cespedes;Terry L Collins;Coaches;Alex Rodriguez;Joe Girardi |
ny0023019 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/09/15 | Before Doubleheader, Debating Wright’s Return | Hours before the Mets played the Miami Marlins in a doubleheader Saturday, David Wright played a simulated game in an empty Citi Field. He took grounders. He ran the bases. He batted against Ricky Bones, the Mets’ bullpen coach. A group that included Travis d’Arnaud gathered to watch. Manager Terry Collins looked on, arms crossed. These practice at-bats, these grounders, were arguably more important than any taken in the two games later. The health of Wright, who is recovering from a strained right hamstring, would seem to supersede anything the Mets do in games that are essentially auditions for spots on the 2014 team. Then why bring Wright back this season, Collins was asked. “Why not?” Collins answered. Reporters then peppered him with questions about whether he was unnecessarily risking the health of Wright, who is not yet ready to play but could be soon. (A meeting will be held Tuesday to evaluate his progress.) Facing the barrage of questions, Collins became defensive. He said he would not put Wright in Bubble Wrap. He said injuries were a part of the game. He said: “Hey, look, we’re trying to win baseball games here. And our fans deserve that.” At his locker, after spending a few hours on the field, Wright insisted he wanted to return this season, for himself, his teammates and the fans. Wright said about the fans, “I want to go out there and try to put on a good show for them.” But even if the Mets had Wright on Saturday, what kind of show would it be? The Mets entered the doubleheader 65-81 and in fourth place in the National League East. Their ace, Matt Harvey, was contemplating having an operation that would keep him out for about a year. They were a few weeks removed from trading away two key veterans, Marlon Byrd and John Buck. And the Marlins were supposed to be the worse team. Considering all that, some might wonder who would attend a doubleheader between these two teams. About an hour before the first game started, David Dec and his girlfriend, Corrine Cecala, bought matching hats and shirts in the concourse. Dec had surprised Cecala with tickets. “It’s a great price for two games,” Dec said. Dec, who said he was a Yankees fan, continued: “It’s not going to be good baseball. It’s the Marlins and the Mets.” Cecala said, “He’s being a trouper.” Further down the concourse, Colin Harrison and his son Mark admired the field. They were in New York on a vacation from Bexley, England, and they wanted to experience an American baseball game. “If the Yankees had been in town, we would have seen the Yankees,” the elder Harrison said. He and his son planned to leave after the first game of the doubleheader, he added. They had other sights to see. Over at the food court beyond center field, three old friends drank beers and ate food from Shake Shack. Each year, the three, Joe Devine, Mike Simone, and Darren Gutowski, try to get together for an outing. “We still love our Mets, even though they’ve struggled,” Devine said. Yet they were still debating whether to stay for the second game, when Daisuke Matsuzaka would be on the mound. “We’ll see how the first one goes,” Simone said. The day’s festivities began soon thereafter. It was the final Bark in the Park day of the season, so hundreds of fans paraded their dogs around the warning track and then found their seats. The park was not full, but plenty of spectators dotted the stands. As the Mets lost the first game, 3-0, some fans had their picture taken with SpongeBob SquarePants, others watched the Texas A&M-Alabama football game on TV in the Caesars Club lounge, and many sat and watched a well-pitched game. Even though the Mets went on to win the second game, 3-1, the early loss confirmed that they would finish with a losing record for the fifth straight season. By the time Game 2 began, about 40 minutes after the end of the first, the park had mostly emptied. INSIDE PITCH In a scary moment during Game 1 the doubleheader, Mets reliever Frank Francisco was hit on the hand by a line drive from Logan Morrison. Francisco fell to the ground, left the game and was sent for X-rays. ... In the second game, Daisuke Matsuzaka allowed two hits in seven innings for his first major league victory in more than a year. | Baseball;Mets;David Wright;Terry L Collins;Miami Marlins |
ny0005292 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2013/04/24 | Car Bomb Strikes French Embassy in Libya | CAIRO — A car bomb destroyed about half of the French Embassy in Libya early Tuesday, officials said, in the most significant attack against a Western interest in the country since the killing last September of the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens. The explosion injured two French guards, one critically, but most employees had not yet arrived, Libyan and French officials said. The attack, in Tripoli, was a new blow to the transitional government’s hope of improving the sense of public security after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly two years ago. It was one of the largest in a string of attacks on diplomatic missions since the end of his rule, and the first major one in the capital. The French and Libyan governments labeled the explosion an act of terrorism, and the pattern of attacks on Western diplomatic missions indicated Islamist militants were responsible. Many Libyan militants have vowed to fight what they see as a foreign crusade to remake their country as a Western-style liberal democracy instead of an Islamic state. They resent the Western powers for their military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to say nothing of the history of European colonialism in North Africa. Militants have expressed special anger at France, in Facebook posts and other forums, for its intervention in neighboring Mali, a former French colony. French troops landed there in January to help the government roll back a hard-line Islamist takeover, and the blast outside the embassy came just a day after the French Parliament voted to extend the deployment of those troops. That hostility may seem incongruous after Libyans praised France for its leading role in the Western air campaign that saved the Libyan insurrection. But even then, many Libyans suspected France and the other Western powers of intervening to seek oil or influence. And some Islamist militants further believe the Western powers sought to “seize the revolution” to “recreate Libya in a Western image of secular democracy,” said Prof. George Joffe, a Libya scholar at Cambridge University. The bomb went off just after 7 a.m. A Libyan official involved in investigating the crime scene said the blast had taken place when the shift of Libyan guards who stand outside was changing, avoiding Libyan casualties. The explosion broke the windows and damaged the facades of more than two dozen buildings over an area as wide as 500 yards. Plumes of smoke billowed from the burning wreckage of the car, described by the official as a Renault, parked by the embassy walls. A burst water main flooded the street. A nearby resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, compared the blast to the worst days of violence during the civil war in Iraq. “I lived in Baghdad, and I woke up to explosions as big as this one,” she said. “I was knocked out of bed.” As in other recent attacks in Libya, no one claimed responsibility. The Libyan government vowed “to cooperate with all parties to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.” “The people and government categorically reject such acts,” the government said in a statement. It added, “They do not reflect the respect and appreciation that the Libyan people hold for the French Republic and the French people,” specifically recalling French support for the revolution. In Paris, President François Hollande said in a statement that the bombing had been “aimed, by way of France, at all the countries of the international community engaged in the struggle against terrorism.” He added, “France expects the Libyan authorities to shed the fullest light on this unacceptable act so that the perpetrators are identified and brought to justice.” Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, flew Tuesday to Tripoli, where he toured the site with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan of Libya. Mr. Fabius told reporters that Libya had pledged to punish the “terrorists” responsible for what he called the “cowardly” attack, according to news agencies. But pursuing the attackers may be difficult. The new Libyan government commands few disciplined police or military officers. Its forces often seem outmatched against the freewheeling militias formed during and after the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi. Indeed, it is sometimes hard to distinguish the autonomous militias from the loosely organized brigades nominally reporting to the government. The killing of Mr. Stevens, the ambassador, illustrates the problem: seven months later, little progress has been made to hold anyone to account. That failure received renewed attention in Washington on Tuesday when the Republican chairmen of five House committees released a report about the September attack, which took place in Benghazi. The report accused Hillary Rodham Clinton, then secretary of state, and other top officials of overriding requests for more security from American diplomats in Tripoli. Mrs. Clinton has said she tried to provide adequate security and does not recall requests for more. Benghazi is a Libyan hub of Islamist militancy, and attacks on diplomatic missions have been more common there. In June, armed fighters attacked the convoy of the British ambassador. And in January, militants tried to ambush the Italian consul. Last month, Libyan officials said they had arrested two men in the kidnapping near Benghazi of five British humanitarian activists, at least two of them women who were sexually assaulted. In the aftermath of the attacks, most Western diplomats have pulled out of Benghazi and retreated to Tripoli. But the attack on the French Embassy may raise new questions about security there as well. “Until very recently, everybody was pointing to the chaos and anarchy in Benghazi as the reason that an incident such as the attack on the U.S. Consulate there could take place,” said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya researcher for the International Crisis Group. “Now people are coming to grips with the fact that even in the capital, where you have the most presence of the state, that same kind of anarchy rules,” she said. | Tripoli;Diplomats Embassies and Consulates;France;Bombs;Libya |
ny0057273 | [
"business"
] | 2014/09/30 | Magic Opens Doors, No Tricks Required | MY perspective of traveling is probably similar to that of other business travelers, except that I’m in a nontraditional career. I’m an illusionist and an escape artist. Houdini is my hero. When I started flying to give performances I thought it was really exciting. That lasted for about 30 flights. Now, flying is so routine I don’t even think about it much. It’s like brushing my teeth. The first really long flight I ever took was when I was 18 years old. I decided to study the craft of magic and went to Las Vegas to do that. I got interested in magic when I was a very young boy in Trento, Italy, and saw my mom, who is a serious person, break into a big smile when she saw a street magician. He was part of a small circus that came to town, and I was fascinated by the smells and colors. My mom, however, was absolutely captivated by the magician, and that’s when I thought making people smile with magic was a pretty good way to make a living. And so far, I’m loving every minute of it. I remember dreaming about being able to sit in business class since I was always in coach. Many years ago I was sitting in the first row of economy class, just behind the business class section. I thought the comfortable seats in business class were just incredible. To pass the time, I started practicing with cards. An elegant lady who was sitting just in front of me in business class turned her head in my direction and started to watch what I was doing. I really thought she was annoyed with the noise I was making shuffling my cards. At some point she approached me and I absolutely thought she was going to ask me to stop. Instead, she asked me if I was a magician. When I said yes, she told me how much she enjoyed magic and asked me to give her a demonstration. She actually invited me to sit in the empty seat right next to her in that business class section. After a while I started to catch the attention of other passengers seated around us. Not only did my dream of sitting in business class come true that day, but by the time we arrived at our destination, I had landed some private gigs and made new friends, too. And, yes, those business class seats were as comfortable as I imagined. I’ll be dreaming about those comfortable seats again next month when I start flying a lot on tiny commuter planes, twice a week or more, for “The Illusionists,” which is a traveling stage show. The only time I almost got into some trouble was at the Singapore Changi Airport. I didn’t know that handcuffs were prohibited in Singapore and unfortunately I had decided to pack some in my luggage. When I was going through customs, the security officials took one look at the handcuffs and one look at me, and I thought I was going to be arrested or fined or thrown out. I had to explain that I was an escape artist and that the handcuffs were part of my act. Luckily, the series of performances I was doing in Singapore were being heavily promoted with billboards and ads on buses. The security people were quite nice once all was sorted out, but they didn’t let me keep my handcuffs. Instead, an officer came to the show each night with my handcuffs, and after I used them in the performance, he took them back for safekeeping, which was fine by me. | Business travel;Airlines,airplanes;Magic;Andrew Basso |
ny0025500 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/08/06 | Study Links TV Viewership and Twitter Conversations | A first-of-its-kind study by Nielsen has affirmed what nearly everyone in the television industry already suspected: Twitter conversations sometimes do cause people to turn on the TV. The study, to be released on Tuesday, examined Twitter chatter and minute-by-minute Nielsen ratings of 221 episodes of prime-time shows on major networks. Most of the time, there was no statistically significant relationship between the two sets of data. But Twitter messages were shown to cause a “significant increase” in ratings 29 percent of the time, said Mike Hess, an executive vice president at Nielsen and the senior researcher involved in the study. A causal connection was also shown in the other direction: that is, the ratings had an effect on the volume of related messages 48 percent of the time. Some genres of shows were much more likely to benefit from Twitter conversation than others. “Over all, this does validate that additional research around this influence is worth pursuing,” Mr. Hess said. Nielsen and Twitter are business partners — they are promoting a new metric called a Nielsen Twitter TV Rating that measures online conversations about shows — so the study may provoke some skepticism. Its findings, though, are likely to be cheered by networks and marketing firms that have invested heavily in social media. Anecdotes about spikes in the ratings credited to Twitter chatter have given producers and advertisers new hopes of assembling mass audiences. Mitchell J. Lovett, a professor at the University of Rochester who has studied Twitter-television correlations, said that demonstrating causality had proved difficult in the past. “It is hard to distinguish whether Twitter (or other social media) activity simply reflects existing interest (the person talks about the show because of an interest in watching or plans to watch) rather than causes it,” he wrote via e-mail. For that reason, the Nielsen study “could be groundbreaking,” he said, though he cautioned that he had not examined its methodology yet. | Nielsen Media Research;Social Media;TV;Ratings |
ny0264815 | [
"sports"
] | 2011/12/13 | Maryland’s Men’s Track in Danger of Elimination | COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Lap splits and training programs are usually Andrew Valmon’s daily concerns. But in recent weeks, fund-raising and the search for possible endowment money have been added to his to-do list as the University of Maryland track coach. Maryland needs to raise nearly $4.2 million by July 1 to save its storied men’s track program, which once won 24 consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference outdoor titles and produced stars like the hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah. Men’s track and five other programs at Maryland will be eliminated unless more money can be found in the coming months. “We know we cannot do this with car washes and alike,” said Valmon, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 4x400-meter relay and the coach of the United States Olympic men’s team next summer in London. “We’ve found ourselves in a serious situation where we’re battling to see if we can move forward as a team.” To that end, the university started a Web site Friday for donations. In addition, a Facebook page in support of the Maryland teams already has more than 13,500 members. The eventual fate of Maryland track could echo far beyond this suburban campus just outside Washington, raising concerns about the plight of nonrevenue sports at universities nationwide and perhaps the makeup of future United States Olympic track teams. Division I Football Bowl Subdivision universities must offer a minimum of 16 intercollegiate sports, including eight for women. Joel Maxcy, an associate professor of sport and recreation management at Temple University, said that given the economic climate and the increasing pressure for success from the revenue-generating sports like football and basketball, he expected “more universities to cut sports toward that minimum.” Such moves are expected despite track’s having high participation at the collegiate level. According to the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, the sport ranks first among women and second among men in participants at Division I universities. Among minority athletes, women’s track was No. 1 and men’s track was second in participation. “You put those numbers next to what’s happening at Maryland, and it shows that we have to do a better job of selling ourselves,” said Sam Seemes, the chief operating officer for the coaches association. “Most university administrators aren’t sure what to think of our sport. Most students don’t know when the big meets are. Because of that, we have the potential for a lot more Marylands out there.” Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College, said Maryland was like a majority of F.B.S. programs in that it runs a large operating deficit. He calculates the median operating deficit nationwide to be about $10 million. In today’s economic climate, retaining programs like Maryland track, no matter how successful, does not add up at most universities, he said. At Maryland, Valmon acknowledged that as the coach of the men’s and women’s teams, he was expected to do more than train athletes these days. “You have to be ready to fund-raise, to reach out to large donors, to keep your program running,” he said. Track’s marquee event, the Summer Olympics, usually does little to spur interest or generate income at the collegiate level. Seemes said the Olympics, which will open in late July in London, were too infrequent to benefit most track programs. But Valmon contends that the coming London Games could help Maryland’s fund-raising. “At least track and field will be more in the news as we build toward London,” he said. With the Millrose Games moving out of Madison Square Garden after a nearly 100-year run, the premier track events held annually in the United States that the casual fan knows about have dwindled to the Penn Relays, the N.C.A.A. championships and a handful of others. “If collegiate track meets were attended even at 50 percent of what revenue sports are, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” said Greg McMillan, an exercise physiologist and elite coach based in Flagstaff, Ariz. “We have plenty of athletes entering the sport, and we even have a recession -resistant running boom going on, but those in charge can’t seem to get the sport positioned for TV or gain a clear focus on how the sport of track and field should operate.” If nonrevenue programs like Maryland men’s track continue to be eliminated, it could eventually affect how the United States Olympic team is assembled. Although few college athletes go on to compete in the Olympics, their university programs have been top training sites in the past. Nehemiah, for example, once headlined the Terrapins’ success; Steve Prefontaine was the face of Oregon track, with Marty Liquori serving the same role at Villanova and Jim Ryun at Kansas. “In the U.S., the traditional route for most professional athletes is to attend a Division I school, then turn pro,” Barbara MacLeod, an economics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, said in an e-mail. “In Europe, however, most sports competition occurs through clubs, not schools.” MacLeod added: “If many other colleges follow Maryland’s lead to cut track, I believe we’ll see a resurgence of club activity. The end result will be reconfiguring of competition, but not a detriment to U.S. Olympic prospects.” If sufficient money is not raised, Maryland men’s track will cease to exist by July 1, the last day of the United States Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, Ore. Such an occurrence would mean Valmon would be in charge of the United States men’s squad but would not have a collegiate men’s team to return home to. “That’s something I try not to think about,” said Valmon, who had only two full scholarships for men’s track when he took over at Maryland in 2003. “Right now, we’re determined to turn this thing around. We’ve gotten over the initial shock. We’re moving forward to do the best we can to save our program.” | University of Maryland;Track and Field;Endowments;Economic Conditions and Trends;College Athletics;NCAA Track and Field Championships;Colleges and Universities |
ny0016078 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/10/26 | Publishing Executive at Amazon to Depart | Laurence J. Kirshbaum, a stalwart of New York publishing who joined Amazon in 2011 to lead its New York publishing imprint, will leave the company in January, Amazon said on Friday. Sarah Gelman, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said that Mr. Kirshbaum was “instrumental” in starting Amazon’s New York publishing office. “We’re sorry to see him go,” she said in an e-mail. Mr. Kirshbaum declined to comment. Daphne Durham, the publisher for Amazon Publishing’s adult trade and children’s businesses, will take over Mr. Kirshbaum’s duties, Ms. Gelman said. Mr. Kirshbaum’s departure is the latest sign that Amazon’s publishing performance in New York has failed to meet the initial expectations. Traditional publishers worried at first about Amazon’s growing power, and news reports speculated about whether New York was “facing a full-scale invasion from Seattle.” Mr. Kirshbaum, whose background was in the more commercial side of publishing, was initially successful in signing some top authors, including Timothy Ferriss (“The Four-Hour Chef”), Penny Marshall (“My Mother Was Nuts”) and Billy Ray Cyrus (“Hillbilly Heart”). But he was unable to persuade Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookstore chain, to sell Amazon’s books in its stores. Independent booksellers, who tend to see Amazon as a discount retailer that undercuts their business, almost uniformly refused to sell its books. Image Laurence J. Kirshbaum Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times That damaged Amazon’s ability to persuade authors and agents, who depend on print sales, to make deals with Amazon. Most book sales still come from print rather than digital. Benjamin Anastas, whose book “Too Good to Be True” was published by Amazon in 2012, said that he knew the lack of brick-and-mortar sales would be a “stumbling block” from the beginning. But Amazon executives promised that their Web site was a major advantage. “They said what they could depend on and what other publishers couldn’t was that they have this incredible retail space, which is the Amazon online bookstore,” Mr. Anastas said. While he said he would consider publishing with Amazon again, he acknowledged that “it was frustrating not having the book in more bookstores.” Shelf Awareness, an industry publication, first reported the news of Mr. Kirshbaum’s departure. Mr. Kirshbaum, 69, began his career at Random House and eventually became the chairman and chief executive of the Time Warner Book Group. He retired in 2005 and became a literary agent. He is expected to return to work as an agent. In August, a sexual assault lawsuit was filed against Mr. Kirshbaum in Manhattan Supreme Court. His lawyer, Catherine Redich, declined to comment on the status of the case. Ms. Gelman of Amazon said that the New York office would continue to grow and that new imprints were expected to be introduced soon. Amazon Publishing includes imprints that are based in Seattle and focus on genre fiction like mystery, thrillers and romance. | Books;Amazon;Laurence J Kirshbaum;Publishing |
ny0203537 | [
"business"
] | 2009/08/08 | Measuring the ‘Clunker’ Effect Involves Lots of Assumptions | WASHINGTON THE “cash for clunkers” program will be back in full swing this weekend after President Obama signed a program extension on Friday. The $2 billion infusion should help dealers sell thousands of cars to customers who can reap a bounty of $3,500 to $4,500 for trading in an old vehicle. The short-term effect will be obvious, but the program’s longer-term value — either as a method of stimulating the economy or saving energy — is less clear. Economists say that most buyers simply moved up the timing of their purchase, and that the projected gasoline savings are exaggerated because many of the trade-ins were seldom used. The program’s first $1 billion was considered money well spent, at least by the new car industry, because it lured a quarter-million buyers into dealerships; the vehicles they purchased would go about 60 percent farther on a gallon of gasoline than the ones they turned in. But measuring the stimulative effect of the program would require employing scientific methods like those used in drug trials, where some participants are given a placebo instead of the drug being tested. The problem, according to market experts, is that nearly everyone who bought new cars would have done so at some point anyway. So what will sales be like in the coming months, now that many consumers have moved up their plans to buy a new vehicle? There were extra sales in July and the same will be true in August. And the number of sales under the program will be measured precisely — the Transportation Department said 245,384 vehicles had been sold by Friday morning, with rebates totaling $1.03 billion. But the Transportation Department will not be able to measure how many shoppers would have purchased a car this fall — when the 2010 models go on sale — or in the winter or spring. Likewise the fuel savings will be hard to calculate. Here is a possible best case: The average clunker traveled 12,000 miles a year at 16 miles a gallon, consuming 750 gallons. It was replaced with a new vehicle — probably a car, although the “clunkers” offered by the public were often pickups or S.U.V.’s — that can travel the same 12,000 miles on 480 gallons, a savings of 270 gallons. Multiply by 245,000, the number of vehicles purchased using the first $1 billion of incentives, and the country burns 66.2 million fewer gallons of gasoline a year, or about 1.6 million barrels. At the rate America burns oil, that is about a two-hour supply. Here is a possible worst case: The clunker was a pickup or S.U.V. driven only a few thousand miles a year because the family had other vehicles. When the cost of fuel went up, the gas-guzzling clunker was relegated to the back of the driveway. Now the family has traded the clunker for a new fuel-efficient sedan, which will be driven 12,000 miles a year. The miles it displaces are not the ones that would have been traveled in the old S.U.V., but by another sedan that is still on the road. That, in turn, reduces the mileage improvement and gasoline savings achieved. In multicar households — which is to say, in most American households — the newest car often gets driven the most miles, and the oldest one the least. So, some researchers rightly ask, how fuel-efficient is the car the family still owns but which will now be parked more often? “There’s no real way to calculate it without making a bunch of assumptions,” said Lee Schipper, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Stanford. Others acknowledge the problem. “The cash for clunkers program helps the economy a lot and improves oil security a little,” said Jason S. Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center and an old hand at energy and pollution policy. He formerly headed a multistate clean air agency, and served on President Obama’s transition team . “The fuel-saving benefits pale in comparison to President Obama’s significant strengthening of mileage standards earlier this year,” Mr. Grumet said, “but every little bit helps.” He was referring to the national fuel economy standard signed into law in May that will be phased in beginning with the 2012 model year. By 2016, cars will have to average 39 miles a gallon. That raises more questions. Seven years from now, when cars have to average 39 miles a gallon, what will we think of a government program that enticed hundreds of thousands of consumers to buy vehicles that got 30 miles a gallon (and that in 2016 will be middle-aged)? Had the program not existed, some of those buyers might have waited until 2012, when the new mileage rules begin to be phased in. But in the end, “cash for clunkers” may help undo a previous government program: for years, small businesses got a tax break for buying S.U.V.’s, but only if they were the very largest — at least 6,000 pounds. | Car Allowance Rebate System;Automobiles;Law and Legislation;Obama Barack;Senate |
ny0046371 | [
"science"
] | 2014/02/25 | Clues to a Very Old Extinction and Pizza for War Zones | A homicide trail that had been cold for 252 million years is suddenly warm. A new vaccine can withstand high temperatures, and here comes pizza that doesn’t need a fridge. Even January, it turns out, was warmer than you thought. Developments Geology A Break in an Extinction Case What happened 252 million years ago to cause the extinction of 96 percent of species on Earth? Researchers are reporting a break in the case. By using volcanic ash to date fossils formed during the die-off, researchers writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that the entire episode lasted just 60,000 years . Knowing it happened so rapidly (geologically speaking) will help them evaluate different hypotheses for what set off the extinction. Physics Snakes Make Good Planes More than a living nightmare, flying snakes are a unique case of aerodynamics in nature, researchers from Virginia Tech say . By submerging a 3-D printed model of the paradise tree snake in water, they concluded that its flying style, which closely matches the S-shaped slithering of most snakes, actually achieved better lift than some conventional wings. The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Biology , could prove useful in the development of planes and flying robots. Video An airborne serpent can be the stuff of nightmares or a delicious aerodynamic puzzle. Credit Credit Jake Socha Health A Vaccine That Can Stand the Heat A vaccine for meningitis A that can withstand high temperatures and survive for days without refrigeration is proving useful in West Africa. The vaccine, MenAfriVac , was designed for use in the so-called African meningitis belt, where heat and lack of refrigeration have hobbled efforts to vaccinate people against the widespread disease, The Guardian reported . Out of 15,000 vials administered in a 2012 trial, only nine had to be discarded because of spoilage, researchers wrote in the journal Vaccine . Chemistry Developing a War-Zone Pizza It’s hard to get good pizza delivered to a war zone. But scientists at a United States military lab in Natick, Mass., say they are closing in on a recipe for a pie that doesn’t need to be frozen or refrigerated, The Washington Post reported. The moisture from tomatoes and cheese has long stymied efforts to include pizza in M.R.E.s (meals ready to eat). But researchers are finding that tweaking acidity levels and adding humectants — ingredients that absorb ambient water — do the trick. The taste isn’t bad, researchers promise. Climate Warmer Than You Thought? Image Snow melted in New York City this month. Credit John Moore/Getty Images Yes, the Eastern United States was colder than normal, but for the planet, last month was the fourth-warmest January on record , government weather analysts reported. Alaska and parts of California had temperatures up to 15 degrees above normal, and Brazil, most of Europe and several other regions were unseasonably warm, too. Over all, it was the 347th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average, the report said. Biology Breast Milk, Varied by Gender Doctors have long known that breast milk evolves to fit the changing needs of a growing baby. Now research suggests it might contain different nutrients depending on the sex of the child, The Guardian reported . Rhesus monkeys produce milk with 35 percent more fat and protein for male babies, Katie Hinde, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, said at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . For girls, the monkeys produce milk higher in calcium. Genetics Mice, Chromosomes and Calico Cats Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, have found a new imaging technique that helps them study the three-dimensional structure of the inactive X chromosome in female mammals. Although the scientists used the technique in mouse cells, the X-chromosome inactivation is the same phenomenon that silences the gene for black or orange fur in calico cats (nearly all of which are female) and produces that distinctive calico pattern. A report in the Week column on Feb. 25 about a new finding on the genetics of the black and orange pattern in calico cats misstated the significance of the research. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, reported on a new imaging technique they used to study the three-dimensional structure of the inactive X chromosome in female mammals. The scientists did not discover that an inactive chromosome is the cause of the calico pattern; that discovery was reported in 1961. | Archaeology;Snake;Meningitis;Vaccines Immunization;US Military;Climate Change;Global Warming;Breastfeeding;Cat;Paleontology |
ny0189741 | [
"nyregion",
"long-island"
] | 2009/05/17 | Men at Work, or at Least You Hope So | THE workmen have been here since 9 a.m., and I am exhausted. It’s always the same: I feel like taking to my bed and hiding under the covers every time the plumber/electrician/carpenter rolls up in his truck. Usually the anxiety has been building for several days. Will they show up when they say they will? Or will I be trapped in the house in a fit of rising impatience, only to get a late-afternoon phone call detailing the exigencies of someone else’s bathroom remodeling? Or no call at all — leaving me frantically dialing a cellphone whose mailbox is full. Finally, the truck pulls up. You know they’re there, they know you know they’re there, but they continue to sit in the truck. Although this gives you time to race around and remove the overflowing laundry basket or whatever else is obstructing the path to the problem area, you know you are now on Workman Time. Eastern Standard or any other form of real time has ceased to exist. The only markers are the beginning and end of the job. You are not in control. When at last they decide to get out of the truck to “check things out,” you wait the way you might for the results of an X-ray or an M.R.I. What have they found? Is it still in the early stages? Does it require minor surgery or is it terminal and in need of immediate replacement? You wait for the thump and shuffle, the creaking and banging to stop and a distant voice to announce, “This doesn’t look good.” All workmen find my house full of unwelcome surprises. Ocean Grove, the Jersey Shore town where I live, is a quirky place. A lot of its cottages began life as tents in the early years of the town’s founding as the site of a Methodist camp meeting. Friends who remodel often find old newspapers and scraps of tent canvas in the walls. So you want to hire people who understand the oddities of the place. However, that experience can be daunting. They shake their heads and explain that summer people just used whatever was lying around. One man told me he saw a house where someone used extension cords in the walls for wiring. My scalp prickled. Could there be extension cords in my walls? I had to use extreme self-control not to insist that we remove all the wallboard immediately. Then there’s the crawl space — awful, dark, damp and full of unspeakable things. The plumber has to go down there, and so does the carpenter-ant guy. It’s embarrassing — once the plumber found a dead possum. Shame aside, I also had to make a lot of phone calls because he wasn’t about to deal with it. I try to keep busy when workmen are here, but it’s hard to concentrate. Daily life is on hold, but not in a relaxing way. My house is small, and no room is that far removed from any other. I consider hunkering down at my desk, but that is in the room with the leaky window, today’s repair project. I could just go sit in a closet if I had one big enough. However, I also know that if I don’t keep an eye out, something noxious could get dumped in the perennials. So I watch the clock, longing for lunch hour, when I might be able to run an errand or at least do some yoga . I haven’t even decided which when they return to eat their sandwiches in the garden, presenting a cheerful tableau from every window. Unsettling as it is to feel that you are swimming aimlessly around in a cluttered goldfish bowl, worse is the nagging sense of responsibility. While I have to believe that workmen know what they’re doing, they seem terrifyingly vulnerable. They use dangerous tools. They climb up on the roof. What if they hurt themselves? Besides the legal implications, I quake at the thought of dialing 911 or making the run to the emergency room. If they need the bathroom, I have to rush in ahead of them to make sure that there is toilet paper and that nothing too personal is lying around. One member of a painting crew asked to use the bathroom so often that I began to worry that he had some medical problem. After he quit the job, I found the empty bottle from the codeine cough medicine. I could sympathize: Painting is boring work. Nowadays, there is often a language barrier — and the English-speaking boss has a way of dropping the crew off to do the work, then hitting the road. You can find yourself alone with the smiling workmen and the Spanish/Portuguese/Polish dictionary. This is my situation today. The guy who is working on the window is still up on the roof replacing the outside frame, and it’s getting dark. Nervously trotting into the yard, I see he’s come down to measure a piece of wood. “Obscuro,” I say, pointing at the sky. Not knowing a language makes me feel like an idiot. “Sí,” he says, politely acknowledging my random remark, “ ’Scuro.” He climbs back up the ladder. The house is only one and a half stories. If he fell, he probably wouldn’t be killed, but he certainly could do himself damage. Eventually the boss shows up and sits in the idling truck for another eternity. At last the workman comes down. I see the glow of his cigarette in the dusk. (I know I will find it, along with many others, in the flowerbeds over the next few weeks.) But he’s off the roof and I’m not about to interfere. He and the boss confer for a bit. The job is done. No more problems with the window, they tell me. Dizzy with relief, I accept a price that is more than the estimate because of a surprise hike in the price of wood or nails or coffee. I don’t care. I write the check. I’d pay twice as much just to be left alone. | Restoration and Renovation;Families and Family Life |
ny0149018 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/09/17 | NATO Tries to Reduce Afghan Casualties | KABUL, Afghanistan — The senior American military commander in Afghanistan said Tuesday that in an effort to reduce civilian casualties, he had tightened the rules around when NATO troops here may use lethal force. The commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan , also said that the military mission in Afghanistan was still short-handed by thousands of troops. General McKiernan was speaking to reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates , who arrived here after attending the ceremony for the change of American commanders in Baghdad. President Bush has ordered that an additional Marine Corps battalion and an Army brigade combat team arrive in Afghanistan by early next year. But even then, General McKiernan said, the Afghan mission requires at least three more combat brigades. The total of additional combat and support troops needed could exceed 15,000. The additional forces are required to stem violence across Afghanistan, which is up about 30 percent compared with this time last year, the general said in an interview at his headquarters here. Because of the troop shortage, he said, the military was relying more on air power; that has contributed to the rise in civilian casualties, which has outraged Afghans and brought international condemnation. The civilian casualties have also become one of the greatest sources of tension between NATO forces and the Afghan government. Hoping to reduce that toll, General McKiernan said, he issued a “revised tactical order” to NATO troops on Sept. 2, which emphasized putting Afghan forces out front in searches of homes and requiring multiple sources of information before attacking targets. It also set rules calibrating how quickly troops may increase their use of force to lethal levels, the general said. Most of the rules were already in place, General McKiernan said, but the revised order also was meant to re-emphasize proper procedures, especially as new forces are scheduled to enter the combat zone in the coming months. The revised order was issued after an American strike in Western Afghanistan in August, but fell short of the formal status-of-forces agreement demanded by the Afghan government in the wake of that strike. The Afghan government and the United Nations said that the strike had killed about 90 civilians. The United States military says only 5 to 7 civilians were killed, along with more than 30 insurgents. But General McKiernan has reopened the military’s investigation of the episode. For civilians and American and NATO forces, this year has been the deadliest since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which released its latest casualty figures on Tuesday. It said 1,445 civilians were killed in the first eight months of this year, compared with 1,040 for the same period in 2007. Of those deaths, 800, or 55 percent, were attributed to the Taliban and other insurgent forces, twice the number from last year, as they press a campaign of intimidation aimed at civilians who support the government. In a common refrain of military commanders, General McKiernan said ultimate success in the war depended on competent government and economic development. He also acknowledged that a particularly vexing problem facing the military effort was that the insurgents have found a haven across the border in tribal areas of Pakistan, where American commandos carried out an incursion from Afghanistan on Sept. 3. That incursion, along with a rising number of strikes by unmanned drones, has severely strained relations between the United States and Pakistan. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, made a hastily arranged visit to Pakistan on Tuesday for talks aimed at easing those tensions. Like Mr. Gates, he arrived after attending the ceremony in Baghdad where Gen. Ray Odierno took over command of American forces in Iraq from Gen. David H. Petraeus. Admiral Mullen’s visit also coincided with conflicting accounts about a possible second American raid on Monday, as well as a warning by the Pakistan military that it would shoot at any foreign forces that crossed the border. A Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said the Pakistani Army reserved the right to use force to defend the country and its people, but he said there was “no change in policy.” Asked what the Pakistan military would do if there was a future incursion by American troops, he said: “There is a big ‘if’ involved. We will see to it when such a situation arises.” A Pakistani governor made a televised appearance on Tuesday to insist that American forces had tried to cross the border early Monday and had been repulsed by Pakistani fire, as local residents and a Pakistani government official had said the day before. But the Pakistani and United States military publicly denied any such incursion, and a Pakistani intelligence official said an American helicopter had mistakenly crossed the border briefly, leading Pakistani ground forces to fire into the air. In an interview on Pakistani television on Tuesday, the governor, Owais Ahmed Ghani of North-West Frontier Province, said that only Pakistan had “a right to conduct operations on its soil.” He said that Pakistan “will jealously guard its right,” and that incursions will not be tolerated. The Pakistani leadership, meanwhile, has warned that American attacks on Pakistani soil threaten to undermine the country’s democratically elected government. “This situation doesn’t help democracy,” Pakistan’s newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, was quoted as saying after meeting in London on Tuesday with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain. Asked about future cross-border raids, Mr. Zardari said, “I don’t think there will be any more.” | Afghanistan War (2001- );Civilian Casualties;McKiernan David D;United States Armament and Defense;North Atlantic Treaty Organization;Taliban;United States Army;Gates Robert M;Afghanistan |
ny0001731 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/03/31 | A Review of Toro Pazzo, in Wantagh | Chris Santoro has a sense of humor. The owner of Toro Pazzo , a year-and-a-half-old restaurant in Wantagh, Mr. Santoro said playfully that his name could be translated as “holy bull” in Italian, so he chose as the restaurant’s logo a snorting bull with a halo. Speaking on the phone after my visits, he added that the word “pazzo,” meaning “crazy,” reflected his vision of what the restaurant should be: not just a place with good food but one that was also fun, where patrons could enjoy themselves. Toro Pazzo is Mr. Santoro’s first restaurant; he was previously general manager of Dodici in Rockville Centre. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights there is often live music, a guitarist or a band, and the layout lends itself to that. The bar is to the side and up three steps from the dining room, with space there to accommodate musicians; larger bands play in the main dining room. The dining room is long and narrow, with walls painted hunter green and plum and a long banquette in those colors running the length of the room. The décor has dueling themes: lots of statues and paintings of bulls compete with depictions of New York City landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. Tables are butcher block; napkins are cloth. Image Pollo saporito, with a sauce enlivened by fresh tomatoes. Credit Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times Toro Pazzo illustrates why Long Islanders love Italian restaurants, with its warm, friendly staff, huge portions and flavor-packed food from the chef, Benny Collado. In addition to the usual appetizers and entrees, the restaurant has a roster of eight panini (available all evening except on Fridays and Saturdays after 5 p.m.). We tried the campania, two crunchy triangles filled with Italian sausage, red peppers, roasted onions and smoked mozzarella. The gooey, tasty treat was accompanied by a boat of roasted red pepper sauce for dipping and an above-average Caesar salad. Another salad that satisfied, called the lepontina, combined mixed greens, shaved fennel, orange segments and Asiago cheese in a balsamic-mustard vinaigrette. An especially appealing appetizer, the bruschetta with shrimp, consisted of three crostini and a mound of chopped tomatoes, red onions and nubs of shrimp. We were also happy with the tender baked clams, in a lush sauce of lemon, white wine and roasted garlic and lightly sprinkled with crumbs. The tasty pasta e fagioli was a hearty opener, topped with croutons and Parmesan. We were less taken with the mozzarella in carrozza; though the sauce was great, the bread was soggy. Image A Zombie Martini at the bar, which has space to accommodate musicians. Credit Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times Long Islanders love calamari, and Toro Pazzo offers four varieties: traditional (fried, with marinara sauce), arrabbiata (fried, then sautéed with a spicy marinara sauce, and topped with cherry peppers), Luciano (sautéed with lemon, white wine and garlic, with toasted bread crumbs on top) and Piscopio (named for a customer), sautéed with crumbled sausage, lemon and white wine. We tried the traditional and were presented with an overflowing platter, enough for four to share and some of it chewier than we would have liked. Among the pastas, the linguine puttanesca was a standout, its vibrant tomato sauce filled with capers, black and green olives, anchovies and onions. In contrast, pappardelle Bolognese was bland and light on the sauce. Fillet of sole was a surprise hit. The delicate fish had the lightest of breadings and a delicious white wine sauce with caper berries. Two chicken entrees impressed as well; pollo saporito, also lightly breaded, had a sauce sparked by fresh tomatoes. Pollo al Toro Pazzo, called chicken scarpariello at other restaurants, had pieces of roasted chicken on the bone, sausage, onions, roasted potatoes, garlic and white wine. It also had a hefty dose of the peppers known as pepperoncini. Desserts are house made. The most impressive was the bananas Foster, made at the table: a flamed creation of bananas, ice cream, rum, banana liqueur and brown sugar. Italian cheesecake and chocolate mousse were properly creamy. Tiramisù was a generous square but needed more mascarpone cheese. Toro Pazzo is lighting up the small shopping center it occupies. On a recent Saturday a big, festive group of nearly 30 was gathered near the back of the restaurant, while up front a multigenerational group of seven was having its own party. I could understand why — it’s that kind of place. | Restaurant;Wantagh NY;Toro Pazzo Wantagh NY Restaurant |
ny0226109 | [
"business",
"smallbusiness"
] | 2010/10/21 | Getting Your Product Onto Retail Shelves | Business owners with a product to sell often dream of winning shelf space in the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world. But these days, with the recovery dragging, it is a challenge to get shelf space in any store. Here is how Brian Chossek, the president of Garlic Gold in Ventura, Calif., won his first account — at Gelson’s , a Southern California grocery chain that now has 18 stores. Mr. Chossek went to Gelson’s Santa Barbara location late one night when things were slow and buttonholed the produce manager, who then connected him with the produce buyer. Mr. Chossek persuaded the buyer to let him give an in-store demonstration that he hoped would prove that Garlic Gold, a seasoning that features toasted organic garlic nuggets, would sell. During a four-hour demo, Mr. Chossek sold 92 bottles. After that, he gave demonstrations in the store every weekend and four weeks later, Garlic Gold was sold in a second store. Within six months, it was on the shelves at every Gelson’s store. Every time he approached a new Gelson’s location, he gave the store a free case of the product to test. Garlic Gold is now carried in more than 3,000 stores nationwide. This guide offers suggestions and lessons learned by other tenacious owners who have managed to get their products onto retail shelves: START SMALL AND LOCAL You might be aiming for Target, but big-box retailers want to see a track record. Online sales are one way to provide evidence that your product can sell. Another is to take it to small stores, maybe even stores where you shop. When Dana Rubinstein and Tamar Rosenthal started Dapple , a line of natural cleaning products for homes with babies, they envisioned it lining the shelves at drugstore chains like Rite Aid and Duane Reade. Their repeated calls went unreturned, however, so they started taking their products to smaller stores in their Manhattan neighborhood and asking owners if they would carry them. “We went to one baby boutique where we shopped, carrying a couple of cases of product, and asked the owner if he would give us a chance,” Ms. Rubinstein said. They got their first yes. “He gave us really good placement because we were his customers and also moms who knew lots of other moms.” LISTEN TO THE BUYERS Visit the stores — and specific departments — where you want your product sold. Buyers want to know what differentiates your product from what they already sell, said Grace Kang, a former buyer who is chief executive of Retail Recipes , a consulting firm in New York. Jill Cartwright went a step further. While developing a line of ergonomic diaper bags for her business, Go GaGa , she got a part-time job at what is now called Isis Parenting , a maternity and baby store in Boston. Ms. Cartwright used the job as an opportunity to study the market and the competition. She also sought buyer feedback. “I talked to other local retailers and buyers to make sure I had the features they wanted, the color palette and the price point,” she said. She wound up changing the design so the bags could be used as all-purpose totes, too. And Isis was one of the first stores to carry Go GaGa’s bags, which she said were now carried by 150 retailers. EXPECT TO HEAR NO When Danielle LiVolsi was trying to get her organic multi-nut butter, NuttZo , into Whole Foods stores in Southern California, she made a batch in her San Diego kitchen, arranged it in a basket, grabbed her best friend and drove to the chain’s offices in Los Angeles. “We both had years of experience in sales so we felt pretty confident,” Ms. LiVolsi said. “We were shut down so fast, we didn’t even get past the receptionist. We just left the basket.” She e-mailed the buyer the next morning and was told her sample could not be accepted because it had not come in a tamper-proof jar, so Ms. LiVolsi asked her manufacturer to do the smallest run possible and soon had 500 jars. She sent a case of NuttZo back to the buyer and received an e-mail a few days later telling her they were passing on it because she had no sales force and no sales. “For most people, that would have been a no, but not in my world,” Ms. LiVolsi said. “There’s always a way in.” From another business owner at a small-business networking group, she learned of Whole Foods’ local producer program , which encourages businesses to sell products directly to their local Whole Foods stores. Ms. LiVolsi took some NuttZo into the Whole Foods closest to her home, calling first to make sure the grocery team leader was there: “I walked in with my jars, gave him my elevator pitch and he put me on the shelf.” She then visited 17 of the 29 Whole Foods stores in Southern California, opening countless jars of NuttZo along the way for buyers to try. GO TO TRADE SHOWS Trade shows can be expensive but offer exposure to a wide range of retailers looking for new products. It is an especially good way to reach small stores, Mr. Chossek said. He walked away from his first industry trade show, The Natural Products Expo West , with 50 orders from small stores from around the country. It is crucial, however, to pick the right show. If you aim for one that is too broadly focused, you may go unnoticed or feel out of place. Christopher Louis, founder of Fetch , a tennis-themed sportswear company, spent $6,000 and a week exhibiting at a clothing trade show in Las Vegas in 2007. To his surprise, he said, he found that, “it was mostly hip-hop and skateboard fashions — not country-club wear. I didn’t get any orders.” He now exhibits only at trade shows geared toward tennis. He also started asking for a list of buyers attending the shows and then cold-calls them repeatedly until he gets them on the phone. CONSIDER A BROKER If you cannot afford to hire a dedicated sales person, you can contract with a broker or several brokers in different regions to sell for you, said Kevin McLaughlin, principal in Resound Marketing , a Princeton, N.J., consultancy that helps emerging companies get their products into stores. Brokers — also called independent manufacturer’s representatives — get paid only when they make a sale, generally a fee of 5 to 15 percent of the deal. And they usually have relationships with regional buyers at different retailers in specific industries. MAKE THE BUYER CALL YOU The best way to get your product onto a store’s shelves is to have the buyer call you because customers are asking for it. Those customers have usually read about it — or have heard about it from someone who has read about it. Send your product to bloggers and ask for feedback to start building a relationship. If they get to know your product, they may write about it. It was vegan food bloggers, said Susan Johnson, chief executive of Xan Confections , which produces all-natural specialty chocolates, who helped draw attention to Xan’s line of vegan chocolates. Xan chocolates are now carried in 200 stores in 20 states. “Everything about getting your product on store shelves has to do with building relationships,” Ms. Johnson said. “Relationships with bloggers, brokers, buyers and, of course, the customer.” | Small Business;Shopping and Retail |
ny0276948 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2016/11/03 | Morning Agenda: Wells Fargo Hit Again, Bygone Times | The dust hasn’t even settled on the scandal over fake accounts at Wells Fargo. And now, the bank has even more bad headlines to deal with, with a $50 million payment to settle a class-action lawsuit. The battered lender was accused of overcharging hundreds of thousands of homeowners for appraisals made when borrowers fell behind on their loans. The lawsuit claims that Wells Fargo used one of its own subsidiaries to conduct appraisals on the value of the homes and routinely marked up the cost. The proposed settlement calls for Wells Fargo to automatically mail checks to more than 250,000 customers nationwide whose home loans were serviced by the bank between 2005 and 2010. Wells Fargo said it disagreed with the claims but agreed to settle the case to avoid further litigation. Bygone Times If you’re a chief executive and technology is racing ahead of you, how do you keep growing and offering new products? How do you stay employed? The Deal Professor observes that for some chief executives, the answer is to buy up other companies. This was evident in Microsoft buying LinkedIn. You can also look to the pharmaceutical companies that opted to buy up other businesses for their drugs instead of developing products themselves. What’s the likely result? A return to the conglomerates of the 1960s, and oligopolies, where industries are dominated by a few big players. This is particularly evident in media and telecommunications — take AT&T’s push to be among the big content providers. Not everyone has managed to follow the trend, though. Gannett’s effort to be the last one standing against a backdrop of fading advertising income has fallen through. After six months of negotiations and just weeks after agreeing to a price, Gannett dropped its $680 million-plus takeover bid for Tronc, the owner of The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune. The banks financing the deal balked as the advertising market deteriorated. The upshot for this particular part of the media sector is that the industry is ailing and investors cannot see the appeal of a struggling newspaper empire. Newspapers too may have to look back to a bygone era, when a family or a newspaper mogul might have been willing to sacrifice short-term profit for a longer-term vision, Breakingviews argues . Quotation of the Day “The government didn’t want to cause embarrassment or give outsiders the impression that China is plagued with corruption. But they’re not thinking like that anymore.” — Jerome A. Cohen, a longtime legal adviser to Western companies. An investigation into GlaxoSmithKline , which resulted in record penalties of nearly $500 million and a string of guilty pleas by executives, upended the power dynamic in China and became a cautionary tale for other international companies. It showed how the increasingly assertive government was determined to tighten its grip over multinationals. Coming Up • The Federal Reserve issues a statement on monetary policy after its two-day meeting. | Lawsuits;Newspaper;Mergers and Acquisitions;Wells Fargo & |
ny0101065 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2015/12/17 | MetLife to Host Copa América Final | MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., will be the site of the 2016 Centennial Copa América final on June 26. ■ River Plate of Argentina, the South American champion, booked a place in the Club World Cup final for the first time in 19 years by beating Sanfrecce Hiroshima, 1-0, in Osaka, Japan. River will face Barcelona or Guangzhou Evergrande of China in Sunday’s final. | Soccer;MetLife Stadium NJ;New Jersey;Copa America;River Plate Soccer Team |
ny0139222 | [
"us"
] | 2008/02/27 | In Wiretap Law’s Stead, Uncertainty | WASHINGTON — All last week, intelligence officials fielded calls from nervous lawyers for the country’s phone companies. With a wiretapping law allowed to lapse in Congress, they were no longer certain what they were supposed to do when the government came to them with a wiretapping order, administration officials said. “They’re raising questions, and they’re saying, ‘Look, we’ve got an expired piece of legislation,’ ” recounted a senior administration official who was involved in the conversations. “It’s not crystal clear.” President Bush and his senior aides have been warning for the last 10 days that the country was left more vulnerable by the expiration of the surveillance law on Feb. 16, and said last week that the government had already lost valuable counterterrorism intelligence because of Congressional inaction. But as a practical matter, the issue is less about harm that has actually been done than about the prospect that such harm will be done because of uncertainty in the government and the telecommunications industry over what is now allowed, officials involved in the discussions say. Even with the law lapsed, intelligence officials continue to be able to put wiretaps on terrorism and espionage suspects under directives that were approved before the expiration of the six-month law, the Protect America Act, which gave the government a freer hand in deciding whom to wiretap without court approval. Theoretically, intelligence officials would have to revert to older — and, they say, more cumbersome — legal standards if they were now to stumble onto a new terrorist group that was not covered by a previous wiretapping order. But that has not happened since the surveillance law expired, administration officials said. One lawyer in the telecommunications industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because wiretapping operations are classified, said he had seen little practical effect on the industry’s surveillance operations since the law expired. Most operations appear to have continued unabated, the lawyer said. Democrats have been arguing for days that the administration has exaggerated the actual national security harm. A group of former intelligence officials chimed in Tuesday in a letter to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. The administration’s recent comments about wiretapping tools “have distorted rather than enhanced” the debate over the law, said the letter, signed by Rand Beers, Richard A. Clarke, Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick, retired, and Suzanne E. Spaulding, all of whom have served in senior intelligence capacities in recent years. The expiration of the temporary law “does not put America at greater risk,” the group said, adding that “America’s security cannot be captive to partisan bickering and distortions.” Administration officials said that in the wake of the surveillance law’s expiration, most phone providers had continued to carry out valid wiretapping orders, but that at least one company had expressed reluctance over particular operations. The issue, according to Congressional and administration officials, hinged on whether the government could expand existing wiretapping orders to include new phone numbers or e-mail addresses in surveillance of the same targets covered by the original orders. By the end of last week, the question had been worked out in the government’s favor “for the time being,” administration officials said. But they emphasized that the uncertainty of the legal landscape threatened to disrupt future operations. Fueling that uncertainty, officials said, is the continuing debate in Congress over whether phone providers that helped in the National Security Agency’s post-Sept. 11 program of wiretapping without warrants should be given retroactive immunity to shield them from some 40 lawsuits over the program. Divisions in Congress over that question led to the decision by House Democratic leaders to allow the surveillance law to lapse rather than approve a White House-backed bill, passed by the Senate, that included immunity. Mr. Bush said this week that the lack of immunity for the telecommunications industry would make it harder for the government to enlist private companies as partners in spying operations. “They’re getting sued for billions of dollars, and it’s not fair,” he said Monday in remarks to the National Governors Association. “And it will create doubt amongst private-sector folks who need to help protect us.” “If you’ve done something that you think is perfectly legal,” the president added, “and all of a sudden you’re facing billions of dollars of lawsuits, it’s going to be hard to provide — with credibility — assurances that we can go forward.” Democratic aides in the House and the Senate have been meeting for two weeks to negotiate compromise legislation. The aides have been discussing several options short of an all-or-nothing approach to the immunity question. One idea, officials said, is to have a special court examine the companies’ role in the N.S.A. program, while another proposal might allow the federal government to substitute itself as a defendant for the companies in pending lawsuits. | Wiretapping and Other Eavesdropping Devices and Methods;Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA);Immunity from Prosecution;Telephones and Telecommunications;Washington (DC) |
ny0188032 | [
"technology",
"companies"
] | 2009/04/30 | Cost Cuts at Qwest Help Profits Climb | Qwest Communications International reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday, helped by deep cost cuts, and it held steady on its profit target for the year. Qwest said its first-quarter profit rose to $206 million, or 12 cents a share, from $150 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with the same quarter a year ago. Excluding a charge for severance and other items, Reuters Estimates said Qwest earned 13 cents a share, well ahead of the average analyst expectation for 8 cents a share. An analyst at the investment firm D. A. Davidson, Donna Jaegers, said investors now expected Qwest to beat its 2009 profit target, but she warned that they might be celebrating too soon. “I think you’ve seen the best of cost-cutting and revenue will continue to erode because of line losses,” she said. “If maintenance costs go up, margins will fall.” Qwest’s revenue fell 7 percent, to $3.17 billion, and was below the average analyst estimate of $3.24 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. Ms. Jaegers said this was mostly because of a change in accounting for wireless and Qwest’s exit from unprofitable carrier customers. Quarterly operating expenses fell 9 percent compared with a year ago, to $2.6 billion. The company’s work force was down 10 percent from a year ago at 32,800. Executives told analysts on a conference call there was room for more job cuts this year. Qwest recently took on Verizon Wireless as a partner, replacing Sprint Nextel, which has been losing customers. Shares in Qwest rose 3.1 percent, to $3.68. For the year, Qwest expects adjusted earnings of $4.2 billion to $4.4 billion. | Qwest Communications International Inc;Company Reports |
ny0051437 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/10/30 | Proposed Internet Tax Draws Hungarians to Streets in Protest | WARSAW — Hungary’s leadership is under pressure to drop plans to tax Internet use, a move seen as a way to cut off public debate by limiting information not controlled by the rightist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Tens of thousands of Hungarians gathered in the streets of Budapest this week to protest the plan. “This is limiting free access to the Internet and information,” said Balazs Gulyas, 27, a former member of the Hungarian Socialist Party who set up a Facebook page last week that inspired the protests. “It is an attempt to create a digital iron curtain around Hungary.” Mr. Gulyas’s page had attracted more than 230,000 followers by Wednesday afternoon, a day after a large demonstration in the capital, giving it more followers than Hungary’s governing party, Fidesz. The government denies the tax was devised to inhibit access to information, saying it is an extension of an existing tax on telephones that is being put in effect because a growing share of communication has moved online. Zoltan Kovacs, a government spokesman, described the protests as an attempt by the country’s splintered opposition to organize around a movement that it pretended was nonpartisan. Mr. Gulyas, he said, is “but one of the many political activists who try to camouflage a political movement as civilian.” Mr. Gulyas responded, “I have created the Facebook page and the event entirely of my own initiative.” Mr. Orban won a second consecutive term in April when his Fidesz party and a small conservative ally won a two-thirds majority in Parliament, which effectively allows it to pass whatever laws it wants. It has come under increasing criticism at home and from many Western governments, including in Washington, for its authoritarian impulses. Earlier this month, the United States Embassy in Budapest said it would deny visas to six Hungarian officials in response to “credible evidence” that they were involved in attempts to elicit bribes from American companies. The appearance on Sunday of M. André Goodfriend, the chargé d’affaires at the United States Embassy in Budapest, at a protest against the bill inspired a heated exchange on Twitter between him and Mr. Kovacs. “Checkin’ the mood, André?!” Mr. Kovacs asked in a post on the social network, asking why the diplomat had attended a demonstration organized by “liberals” and the Socialist Party. “As Chargés d’Affaires? Interesting. Eh?” From his Twitter account , Mr. Goodfriend said: “When I want to influence, I speak. Otherwise, I’m listening. Sometimes, there’s not enough listening.” On Wednesday, Mr. Kovacs tried to play down any acrimony with the United States. “We believe that it’s a mutual interest to sort out the problems we are encountering,” he said. Under the bill proposed by the government last week, which followed tax increases in banking, energy and other economic sectors, data traffic would be taxed at the rate of 150 Hungarian forint, or about 62 cents, per gigabyte. After an initial protest on Sunday that drew about 10,000 people, the government said it would alter the proposal to cap the tax at 700 forint a month. The ceiling would apply to each Internet subscription, whether on computers, mobile devices or cable services. Government officials say the tax would be levied on Internet providers, not customers. Their critics, however, say it is inevitable that any taxes would be passed on to consumers. None of the back-and-forth appeased the demonstrators, who turned out in much larger numbers on Tuesday and in a growing number of cities. “A lot of people feel that the Internet has been a sort of refuge,” Mr. Gulyas said, “and now the government is interfering with that.” | Hungary;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Censorship;Viktor Orban;Tax;Freedom of speech |
ny0032486 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/12/02 | Merchandise Uses Olympics Principles Against Russian Anti-Gay Laws | One of the mainstays of the Olympics is the myriad examples of branded merchandise that are sold to support the Games, not to mention burnish the images of official sponsors. The supporters of an effort to help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens of Russia, where the Winter Games are to be held in February, are adapting that marketing tactic with a line of protest merchandise to be sold by American Apparel and promoted by athletes. Two organizations, All Out and Athlete Ally , are leading the effort, called Principle 6 after a principle of the charter of the International Olympic Committee that declares any form of discrimination on the grounds of “race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise” to be “incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement.” There are widespread fears that a federal law that took effect in Russia in June, barring “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships,” is an attempt to suppress homosexuality among Russians and will also discriminate against gay athletes and visitors at the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. The proponents of the Principle 6 campaign say it can be effective because it will avoid the Olympic committee’s strictures against political statements or demonstrations by using the committee’s own language as a rallying cry for nondiscrimination. The line of Principle 6 branded merchandise will bear a rewritten version of the principle’s declaration: “Sport does not discriminate on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise.” (The paraphrase also serves to avoid another sticky issue: The Olympic committee is zealous in its policing of the use of the words “Olympic” or “Olympics” by anyone other than its members and official sponsors.) “We needed to come up with a campaign that would enable everyone to speak out,” said Hudson Taylor, executive director of Athlete Ally. “Principle 6 is a great opportunity to point out how the Russian law is antithetical to the spirit of the Olympic movement.” Andre Banks, executive director of All Out, said the merchandise “allows us to deliver the Principle 6 message on a scale that would make the campaign incredibly powerful.” Image Belle Brockhoff, an Australian snowboarder who came out as a lesbian and plans to compete in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, will appear in Principle 6 merchandise on the American Apparel website as well as on a webiste, principle6.org . American Apparel is to sell the merchandise online, beginning early Monday morning, and in stores around the world, beginning on Jan. 1. The line will include T-shirts, hoodies, hats, bags and underwear. The proceeds from the sales of the merchandise, minus the costs, “will go to benefit Russian L.G.B.T. groups in St. Petersburg and Moscow,” Mr. Banks said. Brian Ellner, a member of the Athlete Ally board, called the merchandise “a safe way for both fans and athletes to be visible and take a stand.” “That’s enormously important,” he added, “but our greatest challenge remains keeping the world focused on the real violence and intimidation the Russian L.G.B.T. community experiences.” The face of promotions for the merchandise will be Belle Brockhoff, a snowboarder from Australia who plans to compete in Sochi and came out as a lesbian in August. Images of her wearing a Principle 6 T-shirt are to appear on principle6.org as well as the American Apparel website. Among other athletes who will model merchandise for the Principle 6 website are the tennis player James Blake, the football player Chris Kluwe and the rugby player David Pocock. According to All Out and Athlete Ally, at least four dozen athletes will work on the Principle 6 campaign. Among them are at least two others bound for the Winter Games: Blake Skjellerup, a speed skater from New Zealand, who is gay, and Mike Janyk, a Canadian alpine skier , who is straight. Other athletes with Olympic ties who will help support the campaign include competitors in the Summer Games like Nick Symmonds and former Olympians like Greg Louganis and Cameron Myler. | Olympics;Discrimination;Homosexuality;Athlete Ally;International Olympic Committee;American Apparel;Sochi;2014 Winter Olympics;Russia |
ny0165766 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2006/09/08 | Texas: Border Agent Pleads Guilty | A Border Patrol agent stationed at Falfurrias pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Houston to four felonies, including selling government identification documents to immigrants and assisting in the smuggling of cocaine. Prosecutors said the agent, David Duque Jr., 36, was under surveillance when he allowed a vehicle with almost a kilogram of cocaine to enter the United States, for which he admitted being paid $5,000 by an undercover informant. Mr. Duque could face 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on Nov. 17. | Voter Registration and Requirements;Ohio |
ny0232070 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2010/08/05 | Sorry, No Cake for the President’s 49th Birthday | CHICAGO — Let’s face it, turning 49 is no fun. Especially when your wife and children are not around to celebrate. But to have the birthday cake scratched by the Secret Service? On his last birthday before hitting the half-century mark, President Obama found himself marking the occasion on Wednesday with all the surreal advantages and disadvantages that come with being the most powerful man in the world. With his wife and younger daughter vacationing in Spain and his older daughter off at summer camp, Mr. Obama was left to start the big day at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. meeting in Washington, only to discover that his security detail had refused to let the union present him with a cake. Still, deflating as that may be, what other bachelor birthday boy can salvage the day by hopping onto Air Force One to fly home to Chicago and hang with friends? The home-alone president planned to spend the evening at a private dinner with friends, and aides said he looked forward to spending the night in his own house for a change. He will spend Thursday visiting a Ford plant in the area and attending fund-raisers. The Democratic National Committee happily held 600 birthday parties for him around the country to collect gifts in the form of campaign checks. Mr. Obama had little to say about the big occasion but in recent days has hinted at pretty normal reactions to creeping age. “I want everyone to know when I was 20, I could order a 12-inch,” he lamented at a sub shop in New Jersey last week. “I’m turning 49 next week, which means just the half.” As Mr. Obama appeared before the A.F.L.-C.I.O. on Wednesday morning, he said he was glad to spend the birthday with friends. “I’m a little disappointed there wasn’t a cake, though,” he said. “I’m going to have to talk to Secret Service.” Richard L. Trumka , the union president, agreed. “You got to talk to those guys because they nixed the cake,” he said. Mr. Obama joked, “They’re probably eating it right now.” | Obama Barack;Birthdays;Cakes;Secret Service |
ny0116815 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2012/10/28 | Tracking Voters’ Clicks Online to Try to Sway Them | A few weeks ago, Thomas Goddard, a community college student in Santa Clara, Calif., and a devoted supporter of President Obama , clicked on mittromney.com to check out the candidate’s position on abortion . Then, as he visited other Web sites, he started seeing advertisements asking him to donate to Mitt Romney ’s campaign. One mentioned family values, he said, and seemed aimed at someone with more conservative leanings. “It doesn’t make any sense,” Mr. Goddard said. “I’m the opposite of a Romney supporter. But ever since I went to the Romney site, they’ve been following me.” One of the hallmarks of this campaign is the use of increasingly sophisticated — but not always accurate — data-mining techniques to customize ads for voters based on the digital trails they leave as they visit Internet sites. It is a practice pioneered by online retailers who work with third-party information resellers to create detailed portraits of consumers, all the better to show them relevant marketing pitches. Mr. Goddard, for example, may have received those Romney ads because of “retargeting” software designed to show people ads for certain sites or products they have previously viewed. Now, in the election’s final weeks, both presidential campaigns have drastically increased their use of such third-party surveillance engines, according to Evidon, a company that helps businesses and consumers monitor and control third-party tracking software. Over the month of September, Evidon identified 76 different tracking programs on barackobama.com — two more trackers than it found on Best Buy’s Web site — compared with 53 in May. It found 40 different trackers on mittromney.com last month, compared with 25 in May. The report provides a rare glimpse into the number of third-party tracking programs that are operating on the campaign Web sites — as many as or more than on some of the most popular retailers’ sites. The campaigns directly hire some companies, like ad agencies or data management firms, that marry information collected about voters on a campaign site with data about them from other sources. But these entities, in turn, may bring their own software partners to the sites to perform data-mining activities like retargeting voters or tracking the political links they share with their social networks. Now some consumer advocates say the proliferation of these trackers raises the risk that information about millions of people’s political beliefs could spread to dozens of business-to-business companies whose names many voters have never even heard. There is growing concern that the campaigns or third-party trackers may later use that voter data for purposes the public never imagined, like excluding someone from a job offer based on his or her past political affiliations. “Is the data going to be sold to marketers or shared with other campaigns?” said Christopher Calabrese, the legislative counsel for privacy-related issues at the American Civil Liberties Union. “We simply don’t know how this information is going to be used in the future and where it is going to end up.” Evidon offers a free software program called Ghostery that people can use to identify third-party trackers on the sites they visit. On Oct. 18 the program identified 19 different trackers on the Obama Web site and 12 on the Romney site. A reporter contacted 10 for comment. Among those who responded, Cassie Piercey, a spokeswoman for ValueClick , whose MediaPlex marketing analytics division was identified as operating on the Obama site by Ghostery, said she could not comment on specific clients and referred a reporter to the company’s privacy policy . The policy says that ValueClick may collect information about users — like their Internet Protocol addresses, Web browsing histories, online purchases and searches — that does not involve identifiable information like their names, and that the company may share that data with its clients and marketing partners. Adam Berke, the president of AdRoll, an advertising and retargeting company identified by Evidon on the Obama site, said the company did not aggregate user data or share it with other clients. Meanwhile, Nanda Kishore, the chief technology officer of ShareThis , a service found on the Romney site by Ghostery that collects information about the links visitors share with their social networks, said the company collects only “anonymous” information about users and does not share or sell it. The privacy policies on the campaigns’ Web sites acknowledge that they work with third parties that may collect user data. Evidon executives said the tracking companies on the campaign sites included services that collect details about people’s online behavior in order to help mold ads to their political concerns; advertising networks that track people’s browsing history to measure the effectiveness of ads; and companies that record user behavior so they can analyze the effectiveness of sites to attract and hold on to Web traffic. Officials with both campaigns emphasize that such data collection is “anonymous” because third-party companies use code numbers, not real names, to track site visitors. Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the Web site does not allow its partners to share data collected from visitors with other clients or use it for other purposes like marketing consumer goods. “We are committed to protecting individual privacy and employ strong safeguards to protect personal information,” Mr. Fetcher wrote in an e-mail. “We do not provide any personal information to outside entities, and we stipulate that third-party partners not use data collected on the site for other purposes.” In response to a reporter’s query about whether the Romney site placed limitations on the collection or use of voter data by its partners, Ryan Williams, a campaign spokesman, wrote in an e-mail: “The Romney campaign respects the privacy rights of all Americans. We are committed to ensuring that all of our voter outreach is governed by the highest ethical standards.” Evidon compiled the statistics on campaign tracking by aggregating data from a panel of about seven million volunteers who use its Ghostery program. From May to September, Evidon identified 97 tracking programs — “far more than the average site employs,” a company report said — on the Obama and Romney sites combined. (Some trackers appeared on both sites.) The campaigns’ increased use of tracking technology represents “a significant windfall for online data collectors and ad targeting companies,” Andy Kahl, the director of consumer products at Evidon, wrote in the report. But, he added, “the campaigns need to realize that being on top of which technology partners are appearing on their site, and ensuring clarity into what these partners can and can’t do with the data, is essential.” Industry executives say the campaigns simply use data-mining to show the most relevant message to each voter. “Political campaigns now for the first time can actually reach out to prospective voters with messaging that addresses each person’s specific interests and causes,” according to a recent report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group. But privacy advocates say such personalization raises questions about transparency. “Individual voters may not be aware that the message they are getting is based on information that has been gleaned about their activities around the Web and is precisely targeted to them,” said Mr. Calabrese of the A.C.L.U. “It may be a private message just for me that is not the type of statement the campaign makes publicly.” While some voters may be turned off by the customized campaign appeals, for others, they are expected. “Companies are doing it, why shouldn’t campaigns?” said Michael James, a New Jersey high school teacher who visited both campaign sites this year to determine whom he would support. “The Internet has changed privacy. We can’t expect either campaign to pretend we’re living in the past.” | Presidential Election of 2012;Political Advertising;Data-Mining and Database Marketing;Computers and the Internet;Romney Mitt;Obama Barack;Online Advertising;Privacy;Interactive Advertising Bureau;ValueClick Inc |
ny0194312 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/11/19 | 22 Arrests in Staten Island Gambling and Loan Sharking Raids | Twenty-two people, including reputed members of organized crime families and a New York State court officer, were arrested on loan sharking and gambling charges in early-morning raids on Staten Island, the authorities said on Wednesday. The raids were conducted by the state attorney general’s Organized Crime Task Force and the New York Police Department. Frederick Grimaldi, a deputy chief at the city’s Department of Sanitation, was among those arrested. Mr. Grimaldi was charged with acting with his father-in-law, Michael Murdocco, a reputed Gambino family soldier, to leak contract bids in exchange for money, officials said. Mr. Grimaldi and Mr. Murdocco pleaded not guilty at their arraignments in Richmond County Supreme Court and were released on bail. Scott Weissman, a state court officer, was charged in connection with a bookmaking operation. Also arrested were two reputed Gambino family associates, Carmine Sciandra and Benedetto Casale, who owns the Casale Tile store on Staten Island. Mr. Weissman, Mr. Sciandra and Mr. Casale pleaded not guilty and were released on bail. “These investigations uncovered the intricate network that organized crime families had developed in Staten Island,” said Daniel M. Donovan, the Richmond County district attorney. Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said the inquiry started with an unsuccessful attempt by members of the Luchese crime family to bribe police officers with $250,000. Mr. Kelly said arrests on the bribery charges were made last month. | Staten Island (NYC);Organized Crime;Bribery |
ny0031060 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2013/06/30 | Vanderbilt Ousts 4 Football Players | NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt has dismissed four football players from the team and kicked them off campus while the Nashville police investigate whether a sex crime occurred in a campus dormitory. The university’s public affairs department announced Friday that the players — none of whom it named — were suspended from the team. The university issued another release Saturday indicating they were removed from the team and on interim suspension from the university “effective immediately, pending further investigation and/or a hearing.” University officials said the players could not return to campus without permission from the office of student conduct and academic integrity. A Nashville Police Department spokesman said Friday that Vanderbilt’s decision was related to the police inquiry. | Vanderbilt University;College Sports;Rape;Football |
ny0003145 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/04/04 | Long Island Man Says Catholic Church Rebuffed Him After Gay Marriage | Days after Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said the Roman Catholic Church should do a better job of reaching out to gay men and lesbians, a Catholic man on Long Island came forward to say he had been ousted from his parish duties because he married his boyfriend. Nicholas Coppola, 47, has been an active member of St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church in Oceanside for a decade, assisting the bereaved at funerals, serving at the altar and once a week teaching children preparing for confirmation about the faith. Openly gay, he had years ago introduced his partner, David Krespo, to parishioners and clergy, and found only welcome, he said on Wednesday. But he said things at the parish shifted in January after he returned from a postponed honeymoon after becoming legally married in October. His pastor, the Rev. Nicholas D. Lombardi, called him into his office and told him that the Diocese of Rockville Centre had received a complaint, through an anonymous letter, that Mr. Coppola should not be teaching children because he was both gay and married. “He said, ‘Nick, I have no choice but to remove you,’ ” Mr. Coppola recalled Father Lombardi telling him. The pastor showed him the anonymous missive, and a fax from the vicar general, Bishop Robert Brennan, which stated: “While not on a witch hunt, I know it would be of concern to you if a catechist were, in fact, ‘married’ as you described.” Mr. Coppola said he met with Bishop Brennan twice to ask to be permitted back into a public role at his parish. He was advised that because he made a public statement against church teachings, “things were not going to change,” he said. “The church has the right to have people in public positions who accurately represent its teachings,” said Sean Dolan, director of communications for the diocese. “If someone decides to get married in a homosexual marriage, they don’t quite understand, or at least don’t follow, Catholic teaching.” | Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Catholic Church;Rockville Centre NY |
ny0192682 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2009/02/06 | White House Faith Office to Expand | WASHINGTON — President Obama signed an executive order Thursday to create a revamped White House office for religion-based and neighborhood programs, expanding an initiative started by the Bush administration that provides government support — and financing — to religious and charitable organizations that deliver social services. “No matter how much money we invest or how sensibly we design our policies, the change that Americans are looking for will not come from government alone,” Mr. Obama said. “There is a force for good greater than government.” In announcing the expansion of the religion office, Mr. Obama did not settle the biggest question: Can religious groups that receive federal money for social service programs hire only those who share their faith? The Bush administration said yes. But many religious groups and others that are concerned about employment discrimination and protecting the separation of church and state had pushed hard for Mr. Obama to repeal the Bush policies. Meanwhile, other religious groups were lobbying to preserve their right to use religion as a criterion in hiring. Some religious social service providers warned they might stop working with the government if they were forced to change policies. Instead of deciding the issue, the president called Thursday for a legal review of the policy case by case before determining whether religious groups can receive government money and selectively hire employees based on their religious beliefs. Mr. Obama told an audience in Ohio last summer, “You can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them.” Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister who led religious outreach for Mr. Obama during the presidential race, will direct the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mr. DuBois said in an interview, “The president is still very much committed to clear constitutionality and legality in this program. He’s committed to nondiscrimination.” But Mr. DuBois said that after Mr. Obama gave his speech in Ohio “we have realized there’s a tremendous lack of clarity in this area, so we’ll review on a case by case basis.” “If we are consistently finding the same thing, and presenting the same recommendations to the president,” he said, then the administration might seek to recommend a change in the law. Asked whether his office would work with religious groups outside the mainstream, like the Church of Scientology, that may seek government grants for social services, Mr. DuBois said: “There’s no picking or choosing or cherry-picking of groups. That was allowed before, but it will not be the practice moving forward.” The president also announced the formation of a 25-member advisory council that includes religious leaders and heads of nonprofit groups, among them, several evangelical Christians, the president of Catholic Charities U.S.A., a rabbi, a Muslim community organizer and the openly gay director of a nonprofit group. Mr. Obama, who spoke about his Christian faith frequently during his presidential campaign, said Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast that religion should not be “wielded as a tool to divide us from one another.” He called on believers of all faiths to set aside divisions “to lift up those who have fallen on hard times.” “No matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate,” Mr. Obama told an audience of Republicans and Democrats, diplomats and members of the clergy. “There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.” Mr. Obama signed the executive order on Thursday away from the view of television cameras or an audience. | United States Politics and Government;Religion and Churches;Obama Barack |
ny0152015 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/08/31 | Desolate Dots in the Sea Stir Deep Emotions as South Korea Resists a Japanese Claim | DOKDO, South Korea — Each day, weather permitting, hundreds of South Koreans sail to this cluster of nearly uninhabitable islets and outcroppings, seven seasick hours from the Korean mainland. The waves are so unpredictable that only a little more than half of the visitors can land. When they do, it is for a 20-minute stay to snap photos from a wharf, the largest flat surface on this 46-acre collection of two main islets and dozens of other specks of land. The rest of the visitors must content themselves with circling on the ferry, waving South Korean flags and throwing cookie crumbs at the sea gulls flying overhead. Still, over the past three years, the voyage to these islets, which South Korea administers but Japan claims, has become a popular pilgrimage for Koreans. This year, 80,000 people have set foot here, undeterred by the lack of a souvenir shop, restaurant or public toilet. “When Japan claims Dokdo as its own territory, we Koreans feel as outraged as if someone pointed at our wife and claimed that she is his own,” said Cho Whan-bok, secretary general of the Northeast Asian History Foundation, a government-affiliated institute established in 2006 to examine territorial and other disputes with neighboring countries. For outsiders, the dispute over islets that seem to rise vertically from the sea and have little economic value might seem esoteric. But for those Koreans who have never forgiven Japan for its brutal occupation of their country and who continue to measure success against Japanese competitors, the dispute over what the South Koreans call Dokdo and Japan calls Takeshima is very real, and very emotional. Both countries trace their claim back over centuries. Japan says it reconfirmed its right to Takeshima in 1905, during its war with Russia. For Koreans, however, that was an annexation that marked the prelude to Japan’s colonial rule, from 1910 to 1945, a period during which they were banned from using their language and many women were lured or forced into sexual slavery in front-line brothels for Japan’s Imperial Army. The postwar peace treaty between a defeated Japan and the Allied powers did not resolve sovereignty over the islets, and since the 1950s, South Korea has maintained a police garrison here. Japan repeatedly urged South Korea to take the issue to the International Court of Justice, and South Korea repeatedly declined, arguing that there was nothing to discuss. Then, in 2005, members of the prefectural assembly in Shimane, on Japan’s western coast, declared Feb. 22 — the 100th anniversary of the day the Japanese took over the islets — to be Takeshima Day, to highlight the Japanese claim. Their resolution set off a firestorm in South Korea. “If the Japanese try to take this island from us, we will fight to the end,” said Kwak Young-hwan, captain of the 5,000-ton Sambong, the South Korean Coast Guard’s largest patrol boat, which prowls the waters around Dokdo. “If we run out of firepower, we will ram our ship against the intruders! Our national pride is at stake.” The dispute heated up again this year, with the two countries engaging in a tit-for-tat struggle that, at one point, dragged in the United States — an ally of both nations. In July, the Japanese Ministry of Education issued a new manual for teachers and textbook publishers urging them to instruct Japanese students that the islets rightfully belong to Japan. South Korea responded by recalling its ambassador to Tokyo for three weeks. South Korean citizens chimed in, with a small group of protesters decapitating pheasants — Japan’s national bird — in front of the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul. The administrators of the Seoul subway system removed a Japanese company’s condom advertisements. Even North Korea, still technically at war with the South, criticized Japan. Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main state-run newspaper, said that Japan’s new educational manual on Dokdo was “a militarist racket for territorial expansion” and that it could “ignite a war around the Korean Peninsula.” In July, in the midst of the uproar, the United States Board on Geographic Names changed the island’s status from “South Korean” to “undesignated sovereignty,” outraging South Koreans, many of whom saw it as yet another instance of their nation’s fate being arbitrarily decided by a bigger power. The board insisted that its decision was just technical. But the Bush administration intervened, ordering the board to restore the old designation. The move was well received in Seoul. When President Bush visited this month, after years of tension between the United States and South Korea over North Korean policy, tens of thousands of residents greeted him waving American flags and placards that read “Welcome President Bush!” Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Nobutaka Machimura, later said, “There is no need for us to overreact to a decision made by just one organization in the United States.” South Korea’s offensive in the battle for world opinion featured a press trip last week that included a reporter for The New York Times. The government sponsored the voyage, aboard a Coast Guard ship, for journalists working for foreign news organizations. Among the post-World War II generations of Koreans, a desire to surpass Japan — and fear that they could once again be subjugated by a larger neighbor — remains a powerful driving force. Mr. Cho of the Northeast Asian History Foundation said, “Even in sports, such as Olympic baseball, South Koreans get twice as happy when they beat Japan as when they defeat, say, the United States.” In this charged atmosphere, Dokdo, which means “solitary island,” is more than a collection of rocks. South Koreans like to personify it as if it were a sibling or a spouse. A popular modern version of “Arirang,” the song Koreans most associate with their national spirit, begins: “Dokdo, did you sleep well last night?” “I feel lonely and isolated serving here,” said Kim Eun-taek, 24, a police conscript stationed on Dokdo. “But I feel immensely proud. Not every South Korean gets a chance to guard the easternmost territory of our nation.” “Besides,” he said, a rifle on his shoulder as he gazed across the sea toward Japan, “I never liked the Japanese.” Dokdo is not an easy posting. Until a South Korean company recently donated desalinization equipment, the islets had no reliable water supply. There are almost no trees, and winter weather cuts off ferry service for weeks at a stretch. Although regional security experts say South Korea and Japan have too much at stake to use military means to settle their differences here, the South Korean Coast Guard says that the number of Japanese patrol boats sailing around the islets has increased since the sovereignty issue resurfaced in 2005. Kim Sung-do, 68, an octopus fisherman, and his wife have lived here for 40 years as Dokdo’s only year-round civilian residents. He said he did not expect the Japanese to invade. But “if they ever do that,” Mr. Kim said, “I will fight them, even if the only weapons I have are my bare fists.” In front of his concrete home, at the foot of a bluff, seven South Korean flags whipped in the wind. | South Korea;Japan;International Relations |
ny0189007 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2009/05/03 | Tamils Say Sri Lankan Military Shelled Hospital | COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Artillery strikes on a field hospital killed 64 people and wounded 87 on Friday and Saturday, according to a report on a pro-rebel Web site that accused the government of the shelling . The government immediately dismissed the report, and said several loud blasts heard by soldiers in the area could have been rebels mishandling explosives. The government has barred journalists and most aid workers from the conflict area, and independent verification of either report was not possible. Such charges and countercharges have accompanied the 25-year conflict between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ; each side has been accused of endangering and killing civilians. But now, with the government forces saying victory over the rebels is in sight, international concerns over civilian casualties have increased. The military now faces only a few hundred Tiger fighters in a four-square-mile strip of territory, in which an estimated 50,000 civilians are trapped . The report on the hospital attack, posted on the Web site www.TamilNet.com , said the military fired two rounds of artillery that struck the hospital — the only remaining hospital in the battle zone, at Mullivaaykkaal. | Sri Lanka;Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam;Hospitals;Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare |
ny0278164 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2016/11/21 | Landon Collins’s Development Keeps the Giants on the Rise | EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — A year ago, Landon Collins would stand at the back of the Giants’ secondary looking confused and fretful. A rookie safety, he was the Giants’ last line of defense and the last person the team could rely on. His head was swimming, even drowning, in the details of a playbook full of mystifying schemes and signals. “Everything comes at you fast,” Collins said of games at the time. One season later, Collins patrols his space at the rear of the Giants’ defense with cunning and conviction — an evolving star who can snicker at the befuddlement he once felt on the field. “It’s very slow out there now,” Collins said Sunday. “Everything just comes to me.” Collins is not only the Giants’ most improved player; he has become the team’s defensive savior. With the Giants clinging to a 6-point lead late in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears, Collins stepped in front of a Bears receiver to snatch his fifth interception in four games. The turnover, with only 71 seconds left, ended a Chicago charge into Giants territory and sealed a 22-16 Giants victory. The victory was the Giants’ fifth straight, giving them their best record through 10 games, at 7-3, since the 2008 Giants were 9-1. The Bears fell to 2-8. The outcome kept the Giants in the playoff hunt, and although they looked lifeless in the first half offensively, defensively and on special teams, they again survived another close game. Their seven victories have been by a total of 27 points. Last season, with opponents sometimes seizing on Collins’s inexperience, the Giants lost nearly every close game. “It’s a different year, and we all can feel that,” a smiling Collins said Sunday. Collins’s performance has also provided a measure of redemption for the Giants’ front office, which traded up to select him in the second round of the 2015 draft only to watch him struggle. Those humbling moments jolted Collins, a premier high school recruit in Louisiana and an all-American defensive back at Alabama. Image The Giants sacking Jay Cutler in the fourth quarter. In the first half, the Giants played so lifelessly that the home crowd responded with sustained booing. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press “I never doubted myself,” Collins said. “But I knew I would have to adapt and grow. I studied and worked very hard in the off-season to get to the stage I’m at now.” On Sunday, Collins certainly had help as a swarming defensive front four sacked Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler four times. Defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, who had two and a half sacks, was a constant in the Bears’ backfield, flashing the kind of speed, agility and strength that had made him a Pro Bowl player in 2011 and 2012. The Giants were preying on one of the N.F.L.’s worst teams, and the Bears sustained multiple injuries Sunday, further weakening their roster. Late in the game, in a scary scene that silenced the MetLife Stadium crowd, Bears linebacker Leonard Floyd injured his neck in an awkward collision with Giants running back Rashad Jennings. Floyd’s head and shoulders were immobilized on a stretcher as he was removed from the field on a cart after spending several minutes prone on the field. After the game, the Bears announced that Floyd, a first-round draft pick in April, had been released from a hospital and would fly back to Chicago with the team. The Bears had entered the game already missing their best wide receiver, Alshon Jeffery, who was suspended by the N.F.L. for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs. In the second quarter on Sunday, the Bears also lost the star tight end Zach Miller, who Bears Coach John Fox said had a broken bone in his foot. Because of additional injuries, by the second half, the Bears were playing with three backup offensive linemen. Despite their misfortunes, the Bears stormed to a 7-point lead in the first half. Sunday’s game was played in blustery conditions and featured three missed extra-point attempts — two by Giants kicker Robbie Gould — which had not happened in an N.F.L. game since 1993. In the second quarter, the Giants played so lifelessly that the crowd responded with sustained booing. But the Giants emerged from their locker room after halftime seemingly filled with a new resolve, marching down the field in nine plays to tie the score on a 9-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to tight end Will Tye. On the Giants’ next possession, Manning, who completed 21 of 36 passes for 227 yards, scrambled for a first down on a third-down play. When he appeared to be running from the pocket on the next play, the Bears’ secondary sprinted forward. Manning, seeing multiple receivers break open, pulled up and threw deep to Victor Cruz for a 48-yard gain. Three plays later, the Giants took a 22-16 lead with a 15-yard touchdown catch by the rookie wide receiver Sterling Shepard. But in the game’s final minutes, Cutler, who completed 17 of 30 passes for 252 yards, moved the Bears into Giants territory. On a play that began at the Giants’ 30, Pierre-Paul barged into the backfield, overwhelming Cutler on a sack that resulted in a fumble, recovered by a Chicago lineman. After a procedure penalty on the Bears, Cutler was being harassed in a collapsing pocket when he stepped forward and fired toward wide receiver Marquess Wilson. Collins had seen Wilson’s pass route before, in his extensive film study of the Bears. In fact, the Cincinnati Bengals had run a similar route in a loss to the Giants on Nov. 14. Maybe the Bears saw something in what the Bengals had tried and thought it would work for them a week later. But Collins, calm and composed, knew he had seen it before. The game, once so fast, now seemed slow. Collins was waiting for Cutler’s pass before it reached Wilson. The Giants, beleaguered after their first five games, remain undefeated since then. It is only one year later for Collins, but it feels like a new world. “My confidence level is through the roof,” he said Sunday evening. | Football;Giants;Chicago Bears;Landon Collins;Odell Beckham Jr.;Victor Cruz;Eli Manning;Jay Cutler |
ny0150364 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/09/22 | Fans in Mourning as Sun Sets on the Old Yankee Stadium | The new $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium sat like a jewel of the South Bronx, its fresh concrete and gold lettering gleaming in the late September sunshine. But it was the old stadium across the street — 85 years and 5 months old — that people swarmed around and snapped pictures of and stared at one last time on Sunday. Matt Aquino, 48, who saw his first game there in 1964, told the story about the day he and his father watched Mickey Mantle hit a home run. His father set down his favorite Zippo lighter to pick him up so that he could see. The lighter was lost for good when they sat back down, and his father never let him forget it. He said he thinks about his father, who died 10 years ago, every time he returns to Yankee Stadium. Other stories poured forth from people outside the stadium who remembered some small, touching moment in the life of the hulking stadium. The Yankees played their last game there on Sunday night, and tens of thousands of people — fathers and sons, women wearing T-shirts proclaiming, “I was there,” children in Yankee pinstripes — converged on East 161st Street and River Avenue to mourn the passing of what many of them considered sacred ground. It was perhaps a testament to the stadium’s pull that some fans did not even have tickets to the game. They wanted to get one last look. “I just wanted to say my proper goodbye,” said Robert Liebowitz, 48, a post office manager from Brooklyn. He sat outside, next to a placard he had made that listed his first game (June 11, 1967), last game (June 22, 2008) and hot dogs eaten (many). In April, the Yankees will move into the new stadium. The old one will be torn down. The mood among many fans was sentimental, emotional, philosophical. One man said they should have called the new stadium something different, anything but Yankee Stadium. “The new Yankee Stadium will never be like this one,” said another fan, Al Fekety, 46, of Staten Island. “It’s kind of like when you fall in love. You fall in love once, and you fall in love with one stadium.” Mr. Fekety stood near an Italian sausage cart outside the gates, talking of love and, as many were on Sunday, economics. Mr. Fekety did not have a ticket, and he asked fans walking by if they had one to sell him. He had been at it for nearly two hours with no luck. “Someone offered me a ticket for $500,” he said. “I said, ‘No thanks.’ ” There was a heavy police presence inside and outside the stadium to deter fans from attempting to literally take a piece of the stadium home with them. Two middle-aged men were arrested about 2 p.m. for trying to steal a ballpark sign reading, “Beer $8.50,” a Yankee spokesman said. The final game came too soon for many, because the Yankees are unlikely to make the playoffs this year, and fans’ nostalgia was tinged with disappointment. There were other disappointments as well. The Yankees opened the gates to fans about 1 p.m., well before the scheduled first pitch at 8:15 p.m., to let people walk on the field, along the track at the edge of the outfield and behind home plate. But many came believing they did not need a ticket to get on the field. But once at the gates, they learned from police officers with bullhorns that only ticket holders would be allowed inside. Michael Potter, 42, a social worker from Staten Island, went to the stadium with his wife hoping to take the tour without tickets. Instead, they walked around the stadium’s edge, snapping photos. “I’ll take some pictures, go back home and listen to the Giants game,” said Mr. Potter, who carried a handheld radio in his back pocket. The ballpark in the Bronx has long been the symbol of New York City’s appetite for victory, hero worship and the way things used to be. There have been two stadiums, really: one the scene of iconic events in Yankee history, the other the repository of New Yorkers’ hopes and dreams. Bruce Egloff, 59, a Manhattan doorman who was watching the game on television at his Long Island home, remembered grabbing a handful of centerfield dirt and slipping it into his pocket after he watched a baseball miracle: Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, when Don Larsen of the Yankees pitched a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers — meaning none of the batters he faced reached base. Mr. Egloff was 7. Out on River Avenue, there was the sense that something was ending, something people had a hard time putting into words. Vincent Ventura, 59, a retired police officer, aimed his small video camera at the crowds in the bars along River Avenue. He saw his first game in 1958, with his father. “The memories will last,” Mr. Ventura said. “It’s only concrete. Memories last forever.” When Yankee Stadium opened on April 18, 1923, about 74,200 people watched the Yankees dedicate what was then the biggest stadium in baseball. The Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox, 4-1. Though a Red Sox batter got the first official hit in the stadium, Babe Ruth landed the first home run. In a sign of things to come, two men were arrested before the game for trying to sell their tickets at excessive prices. Excessive is relative, however. One man was charged for offering his $1.10 grandstand seat for $1.25. | Yankee Stadium (NYC);Baseball;Stadiums and Arenas;New York Yankees |
ny0109299 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2012/05/26 | Lakhdar Boumediene Starts Anew in France After Years at Guantánamo | Nice, France IT was James, a thickset American interrogator nicknamed “the Elephant,” who first told Lakhdar Boumediene that investigators were certain of his innocence, that two years of questioning had shown he was no terrorist, but that it did not matter, Mr. Boumediene says. The interrogations would continue through what ended up being seven years, three months, three weeks and four days at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba. An aid worker handling orphans in Sarajevo, Mr. Boumediene (pronounced boom-eh-DIEN) found himself swept up in the panic that followed Sept. 11, 2001. He likens himself to a caged cat, toyed with and tormented by fate and circumstance. “I learned patience,” Mr. Boumediene, 46, said. He is a private man, trim and square-jawed and meticulously kempt, his eyes set in deep gray hollows. “There is no other choice but patience.” The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008. The government did not appeal, a Defense Department spokesman noted, though he declined to answer further questions about Mr. Boumediene’s case. A State Department representative declined to discuss the case as well, except to point to a Justice Department statement announcing Mr. Boumediene’s transfer to France, in 2009. More than a decade has passed since his arrest in Bosnia, since American operatives shackled his feet and hands, dropped a black bag over his head and flew him to Guantánamo. Since his release three years ago, Mr. Boumediene, an Algerian by birth, has lived anonymously in the south of France, quietly enraged but determined to start anew and to resist the pull of that anger. He calls Guantánamo a “black hole.” Islam carried him through, he says. In truth, though, he still cannot escape it, and is still racked by questions. “I think back over everything in my life, all the stages, who my friends were, who I did this or that with, who I had a simple coffee with,” Mr. Boumediene said. “I do not know, even now, why I was at Guantánamo.” THERE were early accusations of a plot to bomb the American Embassy in Sarajevo; he lived in that city with his family, working for the Red Crescent, the Muslim branch of the Red Cross. President George W. Bush hailed his arrest in a State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002. In time, those accusations disappeared, Mr. Boumediene says, replaced by questions about his work with Muslim aid groups and suggestions that those groups financed Islamic terrorism. According to a classified detainee assessment from April 2008, published by WikiLeaks, investigators believed that he was a member of Al Qaeda and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. Those charges, too, later vanished. In a landmark case that bears Mr. Boumediene’s name, the Supreme Court in 2008 affirmed the right of Guantánamo detainees to challenge their imprisonment in court. Mr. Boumediene petitioned for his release. In court, the government’s sole claim was that Mr. Boumediene had intended to travel to Afghanistan to take up arms against the United States. A federal judge rejected that charge as unsubstantiated, noting that it had come from a single unnamed informer. Mr. Boumediene arrived in France on May 15, 2009, the first of two non-French former detainees to settle here. Mr. Boumediene retreated into himself at Guantánamo, he says. He speaks little of his past now; with few exceptions, his neighbors know him only as a husband and a father. He lives with the wife and two daughters from whom he was once taken, and a son born here two years ago. More than vengeance, or even justice, he wants a return to normalcy. He lives at the whim of the French state, though. France has permitted Mr. Boumediene to settle in public housing in Nice, where his wife has family, but he is not a French citizen, nor has he been granted asylum or permanent residence. His Algerian and Bosnian passports, misplaced by the American authorities, have not been reissued, leaving him effectively stateless. Money comes in a monthly transfer to his French bank account. He does not know who, exactly, pays it. (The terms of his release have not been made public or revealed even to him.) He has been seeking work for years. RECRUITERS typically scan his résumé with an air of approval, he said, until noting that it ends in 2001. He tells them that his is a “particular case,” that he spent time in prison. He avoids the word “Guantánamo,” he said, as it often stirs more fear than sympathy. Mr. Boumediene arrived at Guantánamo on Jan. 20, 2002, nine days after the camp began operations. He was beaten on arrival, he said. Refusing food for the final 28 months of his detention, he was force-fed through a tube inserted up a nostril and down his throat, he said. There was a hole in the seat of the chair to which he was chained, sometimes clothed, sometimes not; as the liquid streamed into his stomach, his bowels often released. He emerged gaunt, with wrists scarred from seven years of handcuffs, almost unable to walk without the shackles to which he had grown accustomed, he said. Crowds terrified him, as did rooms with closed doors, said Nathalie Berger, a doctor who worked with Mr. Boumediene shortly after his release. Dr. Berger was moved, she said, by his equanimity and his “strength to live.” “He has no hate for the American people,” she said, though Mr. Bush is another matter. Mr. Boumediene has been disappointed too by President Obama, who pledged to close Guantánamo but has not done so. Born in the hills of northwestern Algeria, Mr. Boumediene served for two years in the Algerian military before following a friend to Pakistan in 1990, to aid refugees of the Afghan civil war. He found work as a proctor at an orphanage and school operated by a Kuwaiti aid organization, a post that investigators later seized on as evidence of ties to terrorism. A man identified as a director of the group, Zahid al-Shaikh, is the brother of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, who has been held at Guantánamo since 2006 and is now to be tried before a military court. Mr. Shaikh’s signature appeared on Mr. Boumediene’s contract, but the two had little interaction, Mr. Boumediene said. He moved to Yemen, studying at the French cultural center in Sana; fighting there drove him to Albania, where he worked for the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. Deadly riots erupted in 1997, and he received a transfer to Bosnia. Violence seemed to trail him, his interrogators noted. He has come to understand their suspicions, he said. In Nice, Mr. Boumediene has grown friendly with a neighbor, Babette. She brings him coffee, he said, and gifts for his young son. They share meals at Christmas and on Muslim holy days. He feared she might no longer come if she knew his past. In January, though, it was the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, and there was media coverage. Babette asked if it was true. “I told her, ‘It’s fate, and it’s life,’ ” Mr. Boumediene said. She still comes to call, he said, and still calls him “my brother.” “Little by little, now, there are people who know who I am,” he said. Some offer cautious words of encouragement, others their apologies. “I do not know what the right reaction is,” he said, but he does like a reaction, just the same. | Boumediene Lakhdar;Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba);Detainees;Human Rights and Human Rights Violations |
ny0183882 | [
"business"
] | 2007/12/12 | Zetia - Cholesterol Drugs - Merck - Schering-Plough - Clinical Trials - Congress | A Congressional committee is investigating Merck and Schering-Plough for their handling of a critical clinical trial of Zetia, their blockbuster cholesterol -lowering drug. On Tuesday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce demanded more information about delays in the trial, which was completed in April 2006 but whose results have not yet been released. In a letter to Merck and Schering, the committee’s top two members asked officials at both companies to agree to talk to investigators and said both companies should retain important documents about the trial, called Enhance. Independent scientists have viewed Enhance as crucial because it is the first trial that would answer whether Zetia’s ability to lower cholesterol has real biological benefits for patients. The results might also help answer nagging questions about Zetia’s safety. Zetia and Vytorin, a companion drug, are among the most popular of all prescription medicines. One million prescriptions are filled worldwide each week, at a cost of $5 billion annually. But compared with other cholesterol drugs there is far less evidence of their safety and effectiveness. “We are concerned with the delay in releasing the results of the study,” said the letter, which was signed by two Michigan Democrats, John D. Dingell, the committee’s chairman, and Bart Stupak, the chairman of the committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations. The letter asked the companies to provide their records to the committee by Dec. 25. Lee Davies, a Schering spokesman, said the companies had not yet officially received the letter as of Tuesday night and could not comment on it. Schering and Merck jointly market Zetia and Vytorin and split their profits about equally. The Enhance trial covered 720 patients with very high cholesterol and was intended to prove that the combination of Zetia and an older cholesterol medicine would reduce the growth of plaque in the arteries more than the older medicine alone. Cardiologists view the growth of plaque as a good marker for the risk of heart attack and strokes. If the trial revealed that patients taking Zetia did not have a reduction in plaque growth, the results would add to questions about Zetia’s effectiveness. Schering and Merck were originally expected to release the results of the trial at a conference in the spring of 2007, then in the fall. Last month, after being criticized by cardiologists, they said they would release the results next March. The companies say the results are still blinded, meaning that they do not know whether the drug succeeded or failed. Zetia, whose generic name is ezetimibe, is a relatively new cholesterol medicine that works differently from cholesterol drugs like Lipitor . Medicines like Lipitor, called statins, slow the liver’s ability to produce cholesterol, while Zetia limits the body’s absorption of cholesterol. Doctors often prescribe Zetia with low-dose statins, as an alternative to increasing the statin dose. Some patients dislike high-dose statins because they can cause muscle pain . Some prominent cardiologists, including Dr. Steven Nissen, the chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, are concerned that Zetia may not work as well as statins, which have added benefits, he said. Other doctors are not as concerned. Zetia has been proved to lower LDL, or bad, cholesterol by 15 to 20 percent. Every other medicine that lowers LDL also reduces heart attacks, and there is no reason to believe Zetia to be an exception, said Dr. Michael Crawford, the interim chief of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco. | Cholesterol;Medicine and Health;Merck & Company Inc;Schering Plough Corp;Drugs (Pharmaceuticals);Tests and Testing;House of Representatives;Senate;Zetia |
ny0238848 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2010/12/05 | Jeh C. Johnson Says Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Is Possible | WASHINGTON — Few officials have had to handle more legal mayhem and institutional queasiness at the Pentagon this year than Jeh C. Johnson , the Defense Department’s general counsel and a co-author of an intensely debated new report on the effects of allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the United States military. As Mr. Johnson recounted in an interview at the Pentagon last week, “A year ago, this subject was so sensitive that whenever I had a conversation with anybody about it in the building, it was always a group of three or less, behind closed doors.” As he wrote the report, which is a crucial factor in the Congressional debate over reversing the “ don’t ask, don’t tell ” policy, he had to navigate the growing legal challenges to the 17-year-old law, which requires gay men and lesbians in the military to keep their sexual orientation secret or face discharge. In October, a series of court decisions whipsawed the Pentagon into suspending and then resuming enforcement of the law over the course of little more than a week, creating bewilderment at recruiting stations and confusion among Defense Department lawyers. Wrangling in the courts continued into November. “In the space of eight days we had to shift course on the worldwide enforcement of the law twice, and in the space of a month faced the possibility of shifting course four different times,” Mr. Johnson told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. The experiences have turned Mr. Johnson into a force behind the Pentagon’s argument that Congress has to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and soon, or the courts will do it for them. Although it is not at all clear whether the Supreme Court would strike down the law, Mr. Johnson and his boss, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, are warning of the dangers of repeal by abrupt “judicial fiat,” which they said would not give the Pentagon enough time to prepare the armed forces for change. But Mr. Johnson, 53, an early fund-raiser for President Obama in New York and the first black partner at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, also has a window into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” debate from beyond the courtroom — from his own family history. His uncle, Robert B. Johnson, was not only one of the Tuskegee Airmen, but was also a participant in what is known as the Freeman Field Mutiny in 1945, when a group of the airmen were arrested for entering an all-white officers’ club at Freeman Field in Indiana. The airmen were imprisoned for 10 days until the Army chief of staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, intervened. Three years later, President Harry S. Truman integrated the military by executive order. Although Mr. Johnson says that discrimination based on race and sexual orientation are different — sexual orientation, he maintains, is “not a self-identifier” — he has found similarities in the way the armed forces reacted in both cases to the prospect of change. The study Mr. Johnson wrote with Gen. Carter F. Ham found that, over all, 70 percent of the troops surveyed said the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” would have little effect, but about 60 percent of Marines predicted a negative impact. The opposition to integrating the armed forces in the 1940s, Mr. Johnson said, was as high as 80 percent. “The lesson to be drawn from that,” he said, “is that very often the predictions about what is going to happen overestimate the negative consequences and underestimate the military’s ability to adapt.” Mr. Johnson said he did not consider his work on the study as an assignment to advance civil rights. As the Defense Department’s lawyer and the report’s co-author, his position is that the Pentagon could make the change, but whether it should, he said, is up to Congress. In the meantime, Mr. Johnson is handling a raft of other issues like the stalled efforts to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay and legal reviews of all United States military operations, including drone strikes. He supervises 10,000 Defense Department lawyers around the world and a staff of 200 at the Pentagon. Mr. Johnson’s first name, pronounced “Jay,” is taken from a Liberian chief whom his grandfather, Charles S. Johnson, a sociologist who was president of Fisk University, met during a League of Nations mission to Africa in 1930. He has never served in the military, but when Bill Clinton was president, Mr. Johnson told their mutual friend, the lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., that he wanted to work in the new administration and got the job of Air Force counsel, in part, he said, to advance diversity. “I had never set foot in the Pentagon,” he said. Mr. Johnson served in the Pentagon from 1998 to 2001 and then returned to his job as a litigator at Paul, Weiss, but he wanted to go back to the capital. “The scent and allure of Washington was very compelling to him,” said Gordon Davis, a former New York City parks commissioner and the founding chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center who is a friend of Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson, who is married and has two children, now has a home in Georgetown, but he has kept his old house in Montclair, N.J. Most of his waking hours are spent at the Pentagon. As he told the Senate Armed Services Committee about what he faces on “don’t ask, don’t tell”: “This legal uncertainty is not going away anytime soon.” | United States Defense and Military Forces;Law and Legislation;Homosexuality;Defense Department;Johnson Jeh C;Obama Barack |
ny0244809 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2011/04/27 | Much Ado Over Royal Wedding in Secular Republic of France | PARIS — For a country proud of its republican streak, France is making quite a fuss over the British royal wedding. Despite the fact that the major royal events are rare — the wedding Friday between Prince William and Kate Middleton will be the first big British royal celebration since the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 — the ceremony and the surrounding hoopla this week serve to remind the French of their own tempestuous associations with royalty, which retains associations in this secular country. Since the engagement was announced in November, media coverage has been building. Point de Vue, a popular weekly magazine, has been focusing on little else. It normally sells 200,000 copies a week but its chief editor, Colombe Pringle, expects the wedding special this week to sell 750,000. Other rivals like Paris Match have also been publishing commemorative editions. Le Figaro, one of the most popular dailies, offered a 79-page special entitled: “So British.” On French television, three major channels — TF1, France 2 and M6 — will show the ceremony live. Olivier Debeugny, 37, who lives in the Paris region and works in insurance, said that his mother and aunt would be glued to their set at home in Lille on Friday. “I have no idea why,” he said, “and I’m not sure that they could tell you why, either.” As in many other countries, sales of royal memorabilia have been brisk in France. Ruth Thibaudière, assistant manager of the WH Smith store in central Paris, which sells British books, newspapers, food and other products, said recent sales had been three times higher than last year’s levels, mostly due to wedding-themed items like mugs, plates, key rings and bookmarks. Many of her French clients, she said, have been “amazed at what it incurs, at how big it is.” Even if they cannot always explain why, among many French, there remains a certain fascination with their cross-Channel neighbors. “We’ve always had a very specific relationship with the British,” said Bruno Jeanbart, director of OpinionWay, a Paris-based research and polling firm. “In the 20th century, the enemy was Germany. Or was the real enemy the British? There’s always been a kind of competition between the two countries.” While many Frenchmen enjoy chiding their cross-Channel cousins about their culinary shortcomings, poor weather and generally quirky ways, the fact that an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 French people live in London alone tells a different story (the number of British living in all of France is estimated at about 200,000). A poll in Le Figaro last weekend found 95 percent of the French expatriates were happy in the British capital. But beyond the love-hate relationship with Britain , the French have conflicting feelings about monarchy, secularism and the intersection with politics. “There’s always been a significant interest in royalty in France,” Mr. Jeanbart said. Indeed, late last year, the discovery by scientists that an embalmed head apparently belonged to King Henri IV, the first of the Bourbon line, appeared to stir real public interest, with follow-up news articles and Internet buzz. To some, the apparent interest stems from a nostalgia for lost traditions, perhaps even a sense of guilt that the French rejected royalty and chopped off Louis XVI’s head in 1793. And there still is a fringe royalist movement in France, which is steeped in a yearning for a strong, conservative and pure France, rooted in the land and propped up by the pillars of the Catholic Church and the army. Disparate groups keep alive the idea of restoring the monarchy, which was partially restored after the French Revolution and later abandoned. The last Bourbon monarch, Louis-Philippe I, who was referred to as the “citizen King,” abdicated in 1848. (He was the last king to rule France, although Emperor Napoleon III would serve as its last monarch.) The current monarchists include the political party Alliance Royale and the right-wing pressure group Action Française, with its radical youth arm, the Camelots du Roi. Other groups include the Manants du Roi and Nouvelle Action Royaliste. In the highly unlikely event of a restoration, the throne could pass to Jean d'Orléans, the duke of de Vendôme and son of the Count of Paris. He is the main descendant of the House of Orléans and was himself married in 2009 at Notre-Dame de Senlis Cathedral in a service attended by 900 people including politicians, business and social figures and representatives of European royal families. He runs a charitable foundation. Another potential claimant would be the Spanish-born Prince Louis Alphonse of Bourbon, the duke of Anjou. Apart from the French royal line, there is the House of Grimaldi, which serves as something of a surrogate royal family in France. In July, Monaco will celebrate the wedding of Prince Albert II to the South African former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock, though the impending nuptials have been overshadowed by the grander preparations in London. Even though France’s royalty may be long gone, its vestiges remain. In many ways, French society remains hierarchical, for example with senior positions in government and industry often earmarked for those who attended the most prestigious schools. And politics here has retained a monarchical style. “We look for a true leader, someone who rules from the center. Before it was the king, then we had the emperor, now it’s the president,” Mr. Jeanbart said. “Since the 5th Republic, we’ve had a kind of elected king,” he added, referring to the constitutional changes introduced under Charles de Gaulle in 1958. That sense of a regal presidency was personified by leaders like François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac. But the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been criticized for jettisoning tradition and is seen more as a “king of bling,” with arriviste tastes and media ubiquity. Perhaps wounded by the barbs, Mr. Sarkozy has himself compared his predecessors to the “rois fainéants,” or “lazy kings,” who ruled France without energy in times past. Still, there is another, competing narrative, one that suggests that the recent fascination of the French with monarchy is in fact a media creation. Maurice Szafran, a writer and chief executive of the French publication Marianne, says the perception of a royal yearning might be more refrain than reality. “It could be that our press is more passionate about the story than the French people are,” he said on French radio last week. “In the coming weeks, we’ll find out.” | Royal Family;Prince William of Wales;Middleton Kate;France;Great Britain |
ny0218144 | [
"business"
] | 2010/05/11 | Snakes on a Plane? No, but Almost Anything Else | I’M a pretty mild-mannered guy, and I love talking to people. So business travel is a good fit for me. I’m not hassled by much of anything since I often create my own havoc as I try to board a plane. I’ve been traveling for Ripley’s for about two years now, mostly for trade shows. Obviously, you’re competing for people’s attention at these events, so part of my job is to make sure that Ripley’s brand is presented well, especially with the “believe it or not” factor. That’s why I travel with scorpion lollipops, shrunken heads and other oddities. My experiences with security are almost funny to me at this point. I’ve gotten to know some agents at La Guardia, including a supervisor. So getting through the line is usually easier for me if the ones I know are working. If I have a problem, it usually plays out the same way. For example, I put the scorpion lollipops in a carry-on. There are usually about 60 of them, in assorted flavors. It’s real candy, with a real scorpion encased in it. I put my bag on the conveyer belt, and then it gets mixed in with other bags. Then the security guard tasked with looking at the bags starts to scrutinize my bag. Passengers around me usually get slightly annoyed because the line is being held up. One time I just yelled out, “It’s my bag.” That probably was a mistake since the guard became very concerned and yelled back, “How do you know it’s your bag? Why would this be your bag?” I just calmly replied, “It has to be mine, I work at Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” Fortunately, the other passengers behind me started laughing. The security guard didn’t think it was funny. I had to step aside and watch as he opened the bag. The next thing I know, a bunch of security guards — it seemed like every one in the terminal — came over to look at the scorpion lollipops. But I was allowed on the plane, no problem. So were the lollipops. A similar situation happened with a shrunken head I was carrying. This time, a couple in line with me, a man and his wife, wound up sitting by me on the plane. The poor woman couldn’t stop staring at the overhead compartment where I had put the bag with the head in it. I told her we were perfectly safe and nothing was going to jump out. She was completely creeped out. Her husband kept teasing her about it, which probably wasn’t a smart move. Then other people around us overheard the conversation and wanted to know more about the shrunken head. People always tell me about strange things they may have in their attics or weird stories they’ve heard. I’ve found that everybody really likes weird things, maybe because they make them feel relatively normal. And maybe that’s part of my job, making people feel kind of normal, compared to the stuff that I see every day. I’m currently trying to figure out how I’m going to travel with a live penguin and a dead stuffed two-headed calf that now resides in a fairly big display case. There are a few things I won’t fly with. We have a vampire-killing kit that has a gun, wooden stakes, silver bullets and holy water. I’d never get that through security. I won’t travel with a bloody swimsuit that was found in a shark’s belly. Or the necklace of human fingers we have on display. Those two things just completely creep me out. I also won’t travel with snakes. I’m sure snakes are perfectly nice creatures. But I don’t do snakes. Ever. | Ripley's Believe it or Not;Business Travel |
ny0186698 | [
"us"
] | 2009/04/03 | Blagojevich Indictment Lays Out ‘Enterprise’ of Corruption | CHICAGO — Rod R. Blagojevich , the ousted governor of Illinois, used his chance to fill the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama as one more money-making plan in a vast racketeering scheme, federal prosecutors said Thursday, an operation they portrayed as the “Blagojevich Enterprise.” In a 19-count indictment , prosecutors said the “primary purpose of the Blagojevich Enterprise was to exercise and preserve power over the government of the State of Illinois for the financial and political benefit of” Mr. Blagojevich, his family and his friends. Running 75 pages, the indictment had been expected for nearly four months, since Mr. Blagojevich was arrested. The former governor, a second-term Democrat whose political career has come apart, was charged with 16 felonies, including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion conspiracy, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal agents. Five of his closest advisers — his brother, one of his top fund-raisers, two of his former chiefs of staff and a Springfield businessman — were also charged with crimes. Mr. Blagojevich, who was believed to be vacationing with his family near Walt Disney World in Florida when the indictment was announced here late Thursday, issued a statement through his publicist. “I’m saddened and hurt, but I am not surprised by the indictment,” he said. “I am innocent. I now will fight in the courts to clear my name.” The indictment lays out a broad pattern of corruption spanning from before Mr. Blagojevich was elected governor in 2002 to the day of his arrest, Dec. 9. He used his official position, the indictment suggested, to seek financial gain in nearly every element of government work, from picking members of state commissions to signing legislation. Mr. Blagojevich sought a return on deals to give money to a hospital, to approve legislation helpful to racetrack owners, to pick a particular candidate to fill the Senate seat and, according to the indictment, from a United States representative who was pressing for a $2 million grant for a publicly supported school. The indictment describes the member of Congress as United States Congressman A, one of a series of unidentified public officials listed throughout the document only by letters of the alphabet. White House officials confirmed that Rahm Emanuel, a former House member who is President Obama’s chief of staff, was Congressman A. In 2006, when Congressman A was making inquiries about the status of state grant money intended for the school, Mr. Blagojevich sent a message that a brother of the representative (apparently, officials said, Ari Emanuel, an agent in Hollywood) needed to have a fund-raiser for Mr. Blagojevich, the indictment says. Mr. Blagojevich told an employee not to release the grant money, already in the state’s budget, until the governor gave further notice. According to the indictment, the fund-raiser never occurred. Then last year, the indictment says, Mr. Blagojevich seemed to envision multiple, varying plans for how he might secure money or win a high-paying job through his choice of who would fill Mr. Obama’s seat. Among them, the documents say, Mr. Blagojevich believed he might get $1.5 million in campaign contributions from an associate of one person, identified only as Senate Candidate A, who hoped to receive the appointment. In December, at the time of Mr. Blagojevich’s arrest at his home on the North Side of Chicago, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said he had gone forward with a criminal complaint — not a formal indictment after a review of the case by a grand jury — because telephone calls intercepted by agents had forced the authorities to move quickly to stop what Mr. Fitzgerald described as a crime spree in progress. At that point, the Senate seat, now held by Roland W. Burris, was still vacant. Some legal experts had suggested that Mr. Fitzgerald’s choice might signal that he did not yet have a prosecutable case in hand; some raised broader questions about the strength of his case and the difficult legal distinction between illegal acts and simply unseemly political talk. But legal experts said that the scope of the indictment on Thursday showed no signs that prosecutors were backing away from their case. “It weaves together all the series of acts we’ve all been hearing about,” said Leonard L. Cavise, a professor at the DePaul University College of Law who has expertise in criminal defense. “It’s broad ranging. It will be a very complex trial.” Some of the most serious counts against Mr. Blagojevich carry prison sentences of as long as 20 years. Mr. Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, was not charged with any crimes but was repeatedly mentioned in the indictment as another element of his efforts to win money. Prosecutors said Ms. Blagojevich, who has worked as a real estate agent, had received thousands of dollars in payments on deals for which she had done little or nothing. At another point, Mr. Blagojevich talked of putting his wife on the state’s Pollution Control Board — where she would be paid a salary — but an adviser reminded him that she was not qualified for the job. “This indictment is bittersweet news for my client,” said Ms. Blagojevich’s lawyer, Raymond Pijon. “There is a sense of relief over what the government elected to do relating to her case, but it is a sad occasion for her family.” Mr. Blagojevich, formerly a state legislator and member of Congress, got his start in politics thanks in large part to the political operation of a powerful Chicago alderman, Dick Mell, who is Ms. Blagojevich’s father. In Chicago, a place long plagued with a reputation for political shenanigans, the indictment came at a delicate moment. It was hardly the message officials here were trying to send on Thursday as international officials arrived to study the city’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. And the indictment seemed to erase some of the progress political leaders here had been trying to make in regard to the state’s reputation for political machines, deal-making and elected officials on trial. “To say it’s a sad day is an understatement,” said State Representative Tom Cross, the Republican leader in the House. “You want desperately just to climb out of this hole, this ethics garbage dump we have. Every day you think you can climb out, then this adds another bulldozer of dirt on top of you.” Only this week, a “reform commission” created by Gov. Patrick J. Quinn — elevated to the position after Mr. Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office — announced proposals to cap campaign contributions, bar lobbyists from giving to campaigns and make more information available to the public. “It’s a sad day for the people of Illinois, and now the defendants will have their day in court,” Mr. Quinn said late Thursday. “The people of our state want clear and honest government, and that’s why I’m governor today.” | Blagojevich Rod R;Illinois;Frauds and Swindling;United States Politics and Government;Governors (US);Racketeering and Racketeers |
ny0050563 | [
"business"
] | 2014/10/17 | Walmart Workers Demand $15 Wage in Several Protests | As retail workers step up demands for higher wages and more stable working hours, a trade organization has warned that many retailers cannot afford to pay more, intensifying a debate over fair pay in a struggling industry. Labor activists have long denounced retailers like Walmart for employing an army of low-wage, part-time workers to staff their stores. As retail sales flounder in an uncertain economy, those activists — and even a growing number of retailers — are linking those sluggish sales to the retailers’ own low wages. On Thursday, organizers of a group called Our Walmart took to the streets in New York, Washington and Phoenix to draw attention to their campaign to change labor practices in retailing and other low-wage industries like fast-food restaurants. By not paying their workers a living wage, the activists say, such businesses squeeze the very people they hope to sell to. “I can’t afford anything,” said LaRanda Jackson, 20, who earns $8.75 an hour working on the sales floor at a Walmart in Cincinnati. “Sometimes I can’t afford soap, toothpaste, tissue. Sometimes I have to go without washing my clothes.” Ms. Jackson was among 14 Walmart employees and 12 others who were arrested and charged with civil disobedience Thursday after staging a protest outside the Manhattan residence of Alice Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune, demanding that Walmart set a base pay of $15 for all its workers — much like the demands of the fast-growing movement of fast-food workers. But the National Retail Federation, a retail industry group, has resisted demands for a higher minimum wage. Given the tough winds facing the industry, the group said this week, raising the minimum wage would simply eat away at many retailers’ bottom lines, and ultimately threaten retail jobs. In a report , the group said that retailers in fact offered jobs to millions of younger, inexperienced workers, as well as workers like teenagers and college students looking for scheduling flexibility, which was behind the concentration of low-wage jobs in the industry. The federation argued that retail workers earn above-average pay if temporary workers, including those hired for holiday sales, are excluded. Retail workers ages 25 to 54 who work full time for at least three consecutive months make an average of $38,376 a year, slightly more than full-time workers in nonretail jobs, the group said. “Now is not the right time to be mandating a minimum-wage increase,” the federation’s president, Matthew R. Shay, said in a briefing Thursday. “We’d rather much be focusing on what do we need to be doing to stimulate growth.” Image Fourteen Walmart employees and 12 others were arrested and charged with civil disobedience Thursday. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Walmart also stressed that many of its workers were quickly prompted to better-paying jobs. “At Walmart, it doesn’t take too long to advance beyond the minimum wage level,” said Kory Lundberg, a spokesman for Walmart. He said that Walmart had promoted 170,000 people last year to jobs with higher pay. “It’s obviously a very important debate, but starting wage isn’t the main issue,” he said. “The main issue is the opportunity you have to grow and advance and take home higher pay.” And speaking to reporters after a conference call Wednesday, Douglas McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, stressed that less than 6,000 workers of its American work force of 1.3 million currently made the minimum wage, and that the retailer intended to eventually move them off that wage level. Still, Ms. Jackson, 20, who has worked at Walmart for 15 months and supports her mother and four brothers on her salary, said that low hourly wages weren’t the only problem. She was sometimes assigned as little as 25 hours a week, greatly reducing her take-home pay, she said. With Thursday’s protests, the Walmart protesters borrowed several publicity-winning ideas from the fast-food movement: engaging in civil disobedience and holding protests in media centers, like New York and Washington. The Walmart protests also adopted the fast-food workers’ call for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. That demand helped push Seattle to enact a $15 minimum wage while San Francisco is considering one. Labor strategists had voiced frustration in recent months that the campaign to raise wages at Walmart was getting far less attention and traction than the movement of fast-food workers. The Walmart demonstrators have sought to turn up the pressure by personalizing their campaign — holding protests outside the Arizona home of Rob Walton, Walmart’s chairman, and the Park Avenue apartment of Ms. Walton, his sister. Both are large Walmart shareholders and children of Sam Walton, the company’s founder. The demonstrators also protested at an office of the Walton Family Foundation in Washington. A number of retailers are now rethinking what they pay their workers. Ikea, the home furnishings giant, said in June that it would raise the minimum wage at all its United States stores starting next year, with average base pay for an Ikea employee rising to $10.76 an hour. Gap also raised minimum hourly pay for workers across all of its brands to $9 in June, and said that workers will receive at least $10 an hour in June 2015. The company said in a statement at the time that the move would have a “positive impact” on its employees and was “good for business.” Over all, a growing number of retailers cited stagnating incomes and weak spending as a threat to profits, the Center for American Progress said in a report last week. “It’s simple. When Americans don’t have disposable income, retailers don’t have customers,” Brendan V. Duke, a policy analyst at the center, said last week. “It’s time for retailers and the rest of corporate America to connect the dots and realize the only way our economy can sustain consumer demand is by giving their workers a raise.” | Walmart Stores;Retail;Civil Unrest;Living Wage;Wages and salaries;Jobs;Our Walmart |
ny0240393 | [
"business",
"advertisingemail"
] | 2010/12/01 | Air Force Moves to Fix Tanker Bidding Mistake | The Air Force on Tuesday said it had tried to rectify a mixup over a $35 billion tanker contract by deliberately providing two rivals data about each other’s bid. A spokesman for the Air Force, Col. Les A. Kodlick, said the agency took that unusual step after it realized that one firm, the European Aeronautics Defense and Space Company, had opened a computer file containing some of the data but that its rival, Boeing , had not. The mixup, which started when the Air Force inadvertently sent each company the wrong data in November, has thrown the long-running effort to replace its aging aerial refueling tankers into turmoil again. The difference in how the companies handled the data, which emerged from interviews on Tuesday, has stoked Boeing’s concern about whether the process might be tainted. It hinted that it might file a formal protest. “Until we’re satisfied we have a complete picture, we’re keeping our options open for how we go forward,” said Daniel C. Beck, a Boeing spokesman. The Air Force said last week that it had reassigned two officials who mistakenly sent compact discs to the companies that contained government assessments of the refueling capacities of their rival’s planes. At the time, the Air Force said both companies had promptly reported the error and returned the discs and said it saw no reason to halt the bidding. Colonel Kodlick said Tuesday that forensic investigators had inspected computers at both companies. He said the inspections confirmed that Boeing’s employees had not opened a folder with the data about its competitor’s plane, while an EADS worker had “inadvertently opened” a file containing part of the government’s scoring of Boeing’s bid. The Air Force then sought to neutralize the difference by resending each firm the other’s data and inviting them to examine it, Colonel Kodlick said. The Air Force created formulas to compare the planes’ refueling capacities and costs. Mr. Beck, the Boeing spokesman, said that when two Boeing employees had initially inserted the disc into a laptop, they saw that the name of the folder referred to the EADS tanker. Mr. Beck said the employees “immediately removed the disc and locked it in a tamper-proof safe without opening any files or viewing any data on the disc.” Sean O’Keefe, the chief executive of EADS North America, told reporters last week that none of his workers had read documents containing information about Boeing’s bid. Mr. O’Keefe said Tuesday his worker had stopped at the first page. “As soon as we realized what we had, the disc was packed up and returned to the Air Force,” he said. Two earlier efforts to award the contract were nullified by accusations of corruption and questions about the bid evaluations. | Military Aircraft;European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co;Boeing Co |
ny0043739 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2014/05/23 | Brassard’s Condition Worse in French | Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault likes to make a little joke as English-language reporters clear out of the room before he gives the French-language portion of his daily news briefings. “My answers are a lot better in French,” he says. “If I were you guys I would hang around.” On Thursday morning, that turned out to be true. During the English-language portion of his briefing, he was noncommittal about forward Derick Brassard’s status for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Thursday night, calling Brassard “day to day.” But in French he was far more definitive about whether Brassard would play. “I would say right now, I expect not.” Brassard was hurt on the second shift of Game 1 in Montreal after being hit by Canadiens defenseman Mike Weaver and did not return that night. He missed Game 2 but practiced on the two days that followed and seemed ready to return from his undisclosed injury. But according to Vigneault he is not ready, or at least according to Vigneault in French. In Brassard’s absence, Vigneault will probably stick with the lines that worked in Game 2: Dominic Moore playing with Mats Zuccarello and Benoit Pouliot; and Daniel Carcillo playing on the fourth line with Brain Boyle and Derek Dorsett. Brassard has four goals and three assists this postseason and was a linchpin in the Rangers’ victories in the first two rounds. But Moore has played well in Brassard’s place: in the first two games against the Canadiens Moore had two assists and a plus-3 mark, tied for the best in the series. | Montreal Canadiens;Rangers;Alain Vigneault;Derick Brassard;Ice hockey |
ny0092313 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2015/08/19 | Texting Comes of Age as a Political Messenger | WASHINGTON — Even a presidential candidate’s most devoted supporters could be forgiven for trying to tune out the torrent of campaign emails, Twitter messages, Facebook posts, Instagrams and Snapchats that steadily flood voters’ inboxes and social-media feeds in this digitized, pixelated, endlessly streaming election cycle. But a text message is different. A text message — despite its no-frills, retro essence — is something personal. Something invasive. Something almost guaranteed to be read. So last month, when Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont staged what his aides called the most important night of his three-month-old campaign for the Democratic nomination — cramming 100,000 of his followers into house parties from coast to coast, to whip them into foot soldiers — he did not solicit email addresses or corral the attendees into a special Facebook group. Instead, his digital organizing director, Claire Sandberg, asked each participant to send a quick text establishing contact with the campaign. “We need to turn crowds and popular support and Bernie into winning,” she said over a video hookup. “So everyone, please, take out your smartphone right now and text the word ‘work.’ ” Within hours, the Sanders campaign said, it received nearly 50,000 responses. The killer app for the 2016 presidential campaign is not an app at all. It is not even new. Texting — that 1990s-vintage technology — has suddenly become a go-to vehicle for presidential campaigns when they need to get a message out as widely and quickly as possible, and with confidence that it will be read. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Hillary Rodham Clinton asked voters to text them during speeches announcing their campaigns this year, an indication of the ease with which cellphone numbers can be collected to build a database of supporters. The candidates’ one-line appeals could do the work of dozens of volunteers roaming the crowds with clipboards. Image A scoreboard display at a Sanders rally in Portland, Ore., encouraged attendees to text the campaign. Credit via Bernie Sanders campaign Mr. Sanders’s campaign is structuring the foundation of its vast volunteer effort through texting and linking to a mobile module on its website. And aides to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky sent text messages rallying his supporters to sign petitions and express support for him online while he gave an hourslong Senate floor speech in May about the National Security Agency surveillance program. Of course, candidates have experimented with text messages for years. President Obama’s 2008 campaign tried to announce his vice-presidential choice by text, though news organizations beat him to it. I n 2012 , his campaign amassed about one million cellphone numbers but, an aide recalled, never set up a campaign team to exploit them. In those campaign cycles, political text messages could seem more jarring. “A text is almost a sacred thing,” said Vincent Harris, the digital director for Mr. Paul’s campaign. “This space is reserved for your closest friends, your family, people who know you well enough to have your number and bypass a voice mail or email. I think it’s taken several years for the electorate to warm up to this.” Mr. Harris recalled a “largely unsuccessful” texting campaign for Bob McDonnell during his winning race for governor of Virginia in 2009, when voters refused to surrender their cellphone numbers even after they were offered free tickets to a Washington Redskins game. But since then, as social-media use has exploded, people’s attitudes toward text messages have shifted. Now that they routinely accept interruptions on their cellphones for traffic and weather alerts, Uber pickups, restaurant reservations and hair-salon appointment reminders, they are just as likely to welcome hearing from someone they want to see in the White House. Above all, candidates are texting to build crowds, which in turn helps generate news media coverage that is like oxygen to the more than 20 candidates. As Mr. Sanders toured the West Coast recently, for example, supporters at each stop received texts ahead of time promoting his appearance. More than 27,000 turned out in Los Angeles. What gives texting its political power is its ability to cut through a lot of other advertising noise: targeted posts on Facebook and Twitter, web video commercials and the pitter-patter of emails pleading for campaign contributions. A text message, by contrast, offers the nearest thing a candidate can get to ensuring that a message will be opened and read. Texting can also be useful in reaching younger voters, who can be harder to contact through other means. As commonplace as they have become, though, text messages still feel somewhat personal and intrusive. So campaigns are being careful about when and how to use them — and creative about how to forestall irritation. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign replied to every text message sent after her June rally on Roosevelt Island in New York City with an inside joke: a photo of Mrs. Clinton, wearing sunglasses and glaring at her BlackBerry, that spawned the “ Texts From Hillary ” meme and blog. This is not to say texting will replace email as the primary tool for reaching out to voters. For one thing, the inherent pushiness of a text message comes at a price: Sending 50,000 texts can cost $500. Charges for mass emails are a fraction of that. And email still dominates in soliciting smaller donations, although that could change. Technology firms like Blue State Digital , on the left, and IMGE , on the right, are trying to perfect ways to allow voters to authorize donations by texting. But asking for money too often can get on voters’ nerves. Fast. “People who will walk around with like 20,000 unread emails will still want to clear the notification circle on the text messages,” said Joe Rospars, the chief executive of Blue State Digital. “But there’s two sides to that. You can also quickly annoy people.” Too many emails can be ignored or filtered into the trash. But too many texts can cause a much more visceral reaction — perhaps turning off a voter completely and irrevocably. Excess “can be unforgivable on text,” said Laura Olin, who helped manage the Obama campaign’s text messaging in 2012, “because you are getting into people’s faces.” | 2016 Presidential Election;Text messaging;Mobile phone;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Hillary Clinton;Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders;Rand Paul;Ted Cruz;Democrats |
ny0219812 | [
"business"
] | 2010/05/22 | In a Swing, Markets Move Higher | What began as another losing day for the stock market on Friday ended instead with a gain, a welcome close to a tumultuous week during which the Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 400 points. The mood on Wall Street was hardly euphoric, however. Even as the stock market recovered from an early slide that briefly pushed the Dow below 10,000, crucial parts of the credit markets remained under stress. Worries about the health of the global economy — particularly the possible effect of Europe’s financial crisis on the American economy — continued to weigh on investor confidence, suggesting that Friday’s gains might prove fleeting. But for a day, at least, greed again trumped fear in the stock market. Investors swooped in to buy after a decline that, only a day before, had pushed the market into what is known as a correction, which is typically characterized as a 10 percent decline in a short period of time. “It was an encouraging close,” said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for Standard & Poor’s. “The damage, however, was done,” he wrote in a research note. At the close on Friday, the Dow index was 125.38 points, or 1.25 percent, higher at 10,193.39. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 16.10 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,087.69, and the Nasdaq was 25.03 points or 1.14 percent higher at 2,229.04. But for the week, the Dow and the S.& P. 500 index were down more than 4 percent, while Nasdaq was 5 percent lower. The volatility that has characterized the markets in recent weeks continued, adding to investors’ anxiety. “Definitely people think we are not out of the woods yet,” said Justin Golden, a senior strategist for Macro Risk Advisors. Many institutional investors were awaiting more news from Europe about how governments there would handle the debt crisis in Greece. Financial shares led the market higher after the Senate approved a far-reaching financial regulatory bill on Thursday. While the bill, if signed into law, would hurt banks’ profitability, the step nonetheless removed some of the uncertainty hanging over the industry. Some analysts also said the measure was less rigorous than many had feared. Citigroup rose 12 cents to close at $3.75. Bank of America gained 69 cents to $15.99. William T. Fitzpatrick, equities analyst for Optique Capital Management, said the financial industry was rebounding after a severe sell-off and there was more certainty in the market after the Senate vote on Thursday. “We are getting closer to some closure,” he said. Jim Eckenrode, a banking analyst at TowerGroup, a financial services consulting firm, said the banking industry as a whole was also stabilizing, adding to investors’ confidence. “We are seeing generally better financial performance,” Mr. Eckenrode said, adding that the “tide has turned” in terms of credit delinquencies and that reserves for loan losses had gone back down. The Treasury’s 10-year note fell 7/32, to 102 7/32. The yield rose to 3.24 percent from 3.21 percent late on Thursday. | Stocks and Bonds;Credit and Debt;Germany;Euro (Currency) |
ny0197132 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/10/24 | Prosecutors Say Kerik Helped Fake Bills for Home Renovations | Bernard B. Kerik , the former city police commissioner, had a fax sent to the contractor who renovated his Bronx apartment in 2004 that showed that he helped fake the bill for the work, prosecutors said. They contend that the renovation was worth about $250,000 and was mostly paid for by a construction company suspected of having ties to organized crime. The fax stated that besides $24,800 Mr. Kerik paid for renovation of his Riverdale apartment, he paid another $8,000 in cash or by credit card, according to papers unsealed on Wednesday. But prosecutors, preparing for Mr. Kerik’s now-delayed corruption trial, said the contractor would testify that he never received the money. The case against Mr. Kerik centers on allegations that a construction company with suspected ties to the Mafia paid most of the costs for the renovations at Mr. Kerik’s home in the hope that he would help the company obtain a city license. Mr. Kerik, 54, was the city’s corrections commissioner at the time. In the past, Mr. Kerik’s lawyers have argued that he paid the renovation bill presented to him and that he did not know whether anyone else had paid more money. Mr. Kerik’s legal team could not be reached for comment Friday. Mr. Kerik’s trial had been scheduled to begin Monday, but it was postponed on Friday. No reason was given, and no new date was set. On Tuesday, Judge Stephen C. Robinson revoked Mr. Kerik’s $500,000 bail, sending him to jail, because he said that Mr. Kerik had leaked sealed information in a bid to create public sympathy before the trial. In a stinging rebuke, the judge called Mr. Kerik a “toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance.” Mr. Kerik’s lawyers filed an appeal Friday evening challenging the bail revocation. Judge Reena Raggi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan denied a request to lift the revocation but ordered the matter to be argued before a three-judge panel on Thursday. The court was not able to provide a copy of the appeal, and the defense did not respond to requests for one. Prosecutors told the court that they planned to call Mr. Kerik’s former lawyers as witnesses, according to papers unsealed this week. The prosecutors said that Mr. Kerik authorized his former lawyers to lie to the authorities about the renovation costs. Mr. Kerik, who was once President George W. Bush’s top choice to lead the federal Department of Homeland Security , faces corruption, conspiracy and tax fraud charges in the United States District Court in White Plains. He was being held in the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, where he has been segregated from other inmates because of his law enforcement background. | Kerik Bernard B;Frauds and Swindling;Ethics;Organized Crime;Building (Construction);Robinson Stephen C;Raggi Reena;Police Department (NYC);Homeland Security Department |
ny0268311 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/04/03 | Lots to Love About a Gecko | All was quiet in the reptile room of Ron Peteroy’s Staten Island home one recent Wednesday morning, save the soft chirp of a few doomed crickets. But in and around the hundreds of glass tanks and plastic tubs that lined the walls, bulgy-eyed creatures were stirring. A fan-footed gecko darted down the wall after a bug. A baby mourning gecko, 2 days old and inchworm-size, scampered across Mr. Peteroy’s finger. A gargoyle gecko, chunky with mottled red and black stripes, gargoyled atop her cage. Some people think furry mammals make nice pets. Mr. Peteroy recommends a reptile. “A cat is a cat is a cat is a cat,” he said. “They may be different sizes, different fur patterns, different size ears. But you’ve got lizards with no legs, you’ve got lizards with two legs, you’ve got lizards with four legs, you’ve got snakes that have remnants of legs. You find me a blue, green and yellow cat or a blue, green and yellow dog.” Blue, green, yellow, pink. Teal to tawny from one minute to the next. Stripes and spots and swirling scales. Eyeballs patterned like galaxies. There is no end to the marvels of the lizard, particularly, in Mr. Peteroy’s opinion, the gecko. They lick their lidless eyeballs to keep them clean and moist. The tiny hairs on their feet bond at the molecular level with the surfaces they climb and have inspired an entire branch of robotics . Image Ron Peteroy of Staten Island prefers his low-maintenance pet lizards to furry mammals. “Arboreal reptiles really enjoy a vantage point,” he said as a Smallwood’s anole explored his head. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times The neon day gecko is as wondrously garish as a Las Vegas night. The Australian rough knob-tailed gecko, helmet-headed and pebble-skinned, uncannily resembles an alien humanoid baby. “Here’s where I’m going to blow your mind,” Mr. Peteroy said, pulling out a tank containing a self-sustaining colony of mourning geckos. “There’s just females. There’s no such thing as a male. They are self-reproducing and self-cloning. This is a parthenogenetic gecko.” This being springtime, the mourning gecko tank was filling up with eggs. In fact, there were gecko eggs everywhere. Little hard round ones and green, spotted, soft-shell ones that resembled miniature half-inflated rugby balls. Fan-footed gecko eggs were stuck to the wall, thanks to an epoxy-like substance in the shells. The eggs were tinted pink with the embryo inside. “I will literally have 100 times this amount of babies in five months,” Mr. Peteroy said. Mr. Peteroy, a 40-year-old stay-at-home dad and former marine carpenter, breeds geckos and sells them at reptile shows to support his hobby, which is to breed more geckos. (Geckos hail from warm countries all over the world, but most of the ones sold in this country are captive-bred.) He spends eight to 10 hours a day in a small, fluorescent-lit room on a side street in the neighborhood called Castleton Corners, living and breathing gecko essence and chatting with fellow reptile enthusiasts. “Twenty years ago,” Mr. Peteroy said, “nobody but the obscure kept reptiles — you had to be a nerd. You had to be a biker. You had to be unwanted.” Nowadays, he said, the appeal of the lizard is broadening. He offered no proof but plenty of reasons. Geckos are nonallergenic. They are decidedly low maintenance. Image Lizards on parade: crested gecko, gargoyle gecko, neon day gecko, Smallwood’s anole and African fat-tailed gecko. Credit Andy Newman “My cat screams three times a day for its can of food, chasing you around going RAAAAAAOOOO, and then you give it a can of food and it takes two bites and then it’s scratching at the door to be let out after it stinks up the litter box that smells up the entire house,” Mr. Peteroy said. “This? I change the cage once a year. I feed it three times a week.” He pulled out a shallow plastic tub. There were two smaller tubs inside, filled with dirt, some fake ivy branches and a couple of lids from food-storage containers, under one of which lurked a velvet gecko. “You would think ‘Whoa, the guy just throws it in a box,’” he said. But geckos’ needs are very basic — temperature, a moist living environment, hiding spots and food. “Everything this little guy is looking for, I have provided it.” And notwithstanding their coldbloodedness, lizards can be affectionate with their keepers. “We fall just short on the snuggle and cuddle,” Mr. Peteroy said, “but we have reptiles that will interact, and will love you.” Mr. Peteroy has harbored a passion for reptiles most of his life. He got in trouble in 2009 when he was caught trafficking protected snakes and turtles, but he paid his debt to society (a $5,000 fine, he said). He swears he possesses only legal animals now — how many, he is not sure. “I don’t know,” he said. “Around a thousand.” A few days later, Mr. Peteroy was fattening up some geckos for a reptile show in White Plains . The FedEx man had just delivered a box of 3,000 juvenile crickets. Mr. Peteroy dusted crickets with calcium powder and sprinkled them liberally into gecko tanks. He squeezed purple goo made from dried fruit and ground-up bugs into miniature dishes. He was talking about how geckos can bring a man peace, and even a measure of enlightenment. “Instead of getting angry with the guy that cuts you off, instead of, ‘Hey, you, you bumped into my bumper,’ it’s like: ‘Oh, those eggs are going to hatch today. I can’t wait to get home and see that.’” | Ron Peteroy;Lizards;Staten Island;Pet;Reptile;Breeders |
ny0252601 | [
"sports"
] | 2011/11/24 | Rays of Hope in a Year of Scandal | In a year when sports too often melted into scandal, it’s even more important on Thanksgiving to remember those who deserve a thank-you note: The concerned Penn State students who organized a candlelight vigil for those who said they were sexually abused, two nights after the downtown riot by less thoughtful demonstrators in State College, Pa. Commissioner Bud Selig, the major league owners and union leaders who finally agreed on blood testing for human growth hormone. Kris Jenkins, the former Jets defensive tackle who described the “hell” of what pro football is really like — “you’re directly playing with your life, the quality of it and the longevity of it” — in interviews with Greg Bishop of The New York Times. Donnie Walsh, who restored the Knicks to playoff respectability in his third season as president before coming to a “mutual” decision with the owner James L. Dolan to remain a consultant who, it is hoped, will be consulted. Eric LeGrand, the former Rutgers football player recovering with a smile and a purpose from a spinal-cord injury that paralyzed him below the neck. The L.P.G.A. golfers who persuaded the communications company R. R. Donnelley, local sponsors, equipment makers and Commissioner Mike Whan to ante up, allowing the first Founders Cup outside Phoenix to donate $1 million, half to the L.P.G.A.-U.S.G.A. Girls Golf program , half to charities designated by the players, who took no prize money. The N.H.L. governors for providing Winnipeg, Manitoba, with the former Atlanta franchise 15 years after the previous Winnipeg franchise moved to Phoenix. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, who gilded Yankees lore, one with his 3,000th hit, the other with his record 602nd save; and Jorge Posada, whose value as a catcher and switch-slugger won’t be fully appreciated until he’s no longer in pinstripes. Don Carter, the Dallas Mavericks’ founder, who was finally able to celebrate an N.B.A. title. Sandy Alderson, for taking on what appears to be a long and hard, if not impossible, job: rebuilding the Mets into a contender. Tim Thomas, the goaltender who dominated during the Boston Bruins’ first Stanley Cup championship since 1972 with three Game 7 playoff victories (two with shutouts), and allowed only eight goals in the seven-game finals. John Mara and Robert K. Kraft, the N.F.L. owners most involved in settling the long and tedious lockout of the players. Tony La Russa, who retired at 67 with impeccable Hall of Fame credentials as a manager: three World Series triumphs (two with the Cardinals, one with the Athletics) and 2,728 regular-season wins, third on the career list behind Connie Mack and John McGraw. Harry Carson, the former Giants captain and Hall of Fame linebacker who preaches the perils of concussions to listeners everywhere. Rafael Nadal, who proved his class as a champion by offering praise and politely stepping aside for Novak Djokovic’s parade to the top of men’s tennis. Joe Namath, the Jets’ iconic quarterback, and Dave Robertson, the Yankees’ setup reliever, for contributing to the tornado relief effort in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Each went to the University of Alabama there, and Robertson lives there in the off-season. Bernard Hopkins, at 46 the oldest boxer to wear a significant belt, the World Boxing Council light heavyweight championship. Jack Waitz, for running in the annual New York Mini women’s 10-kilometer race and the New York City marathon to honor his wife, Grete, the nine-time winner of the marathon who died of cancer in April at 57. The doctors in northern New Jersey who treat retired athletes pro bono on behalf of the Pain Alternatives, Solutions and Treatment Medical Resource Group. Jim Thome, the slugger who almost silently surpassed the 600-home-run mark , who has not had links to performance-enhancing drugs and has no hint of an egotistical attitude. Jack McKeon (80 years old) and Davey Johnson (68), who returned to major league managing with the Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals. Kemba Walker, who carried the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team through the Big East tournament, then to the N.C.A.A. championship. Eli Manning, the Giants’ elite (yes, elite) quarterback , who always wins and loses with the style and grace instilled in him by his father, Archie, and brother Peyton. Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter who competed in the world track and field championships on carbon fiber blades; his legs were partly amputated as an infant because of a congenital problem. Rory McIlroy, who went out of his way to visit survivors of the Haiti earthquake before winning golf’s United States Open with a record score. The Women’s World Cup champions from Japan, who were inspired by their nation’s devastation from the March earthquake and tsunami, as well as Ichiro Suzuki, the Mariners outfielder; the golfers Ai Miyazato and Ryo Ishikawa; and all the others who promised significant financial contributions to Japan’s recovery. | Baseball;College Athletics;Football;Basketball;Boxing;Hockey Ice;Pennsylvania State University;Human Growth Hormone;Athletics and Sports |
ny0072098 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2015/03/30 | Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky Hopes for a Hollywood Ending | LOS ANGELES — An ascendant star heads west, with his best friends in tow, to Tinseltown, where boom times and madcap adventures await. As that star, Frank Kaminsky, winds down his Wisconsin basketball career, his life has begun to resemble one of his favorite television series, “Entourage,” right down to the guest appearance by a celebrity playing himself. Kaminsky’s memory-making trip to California began with a meet-and-greet with the actor Will Ferrell when a star for Ferrell was unveiled on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. It ended with Kaminsky’s big-cheese status on display against Arizona in the Badgers’ successful defense of their West Regional title in the N.C.A.A. tournament. In between, Kaminsky and his teammates were treated to the quintessential Los Angeles experience, including a private screening of the movie based on the “Entourage” series, three months ahead of its scheduled release. They received the invitation from the producer Doug Ellin, a Badgers fan. Kaminsky, who averaged 26 points, 7 rebounds and 38.5 minutes a game in the wins over North Carolina and Arizona that returned Wisconsin to the Final Four, said he identified with the leading man of “Entourage,” Vincent Chase, played by Adrian Grenier. In Kaminsky’s Wisconsin entourage, the role of best friend (Eric Murphy on the show, played by Kevin Connolly) is inhabited by Jordan Smith, a reserve guard. The position of the abrasive agent Ari Gold (played by Jeremy Piven) could be filled by only one person: Coach Bo Ryan, Kaminsky said, “because he yells at us all the time.” The Chase character, loosely based on Mark Wahlberg, appears as comfortable in the spotlight as Kaminsky is in the lane. But it was not always so. Kaminsky needed time to grow accustomed to being the offense’s center of attention. And when he watches “Entourage” — he has seen all 96 episodes multiple times, he said — Kaminsky recognizes the same ambivalence he has felt about a life lived for public (and material) consumption. What Kaminsky likes best about “Entourage” — both the Hollywood version and his own — is that behind all the glamour and the glitter, the story is of close friends following their own collective compass. Image Kaminsky, nicknamed Frank the Tank after a Will Ferrell character, interviewed Ferrell in Los Angeles last week. “Vince likes the spotlight because he’s a movie star,” Kaminsky said, “but does he really actually care about what people think? I don’t think so.” Kaminsky, an all-purpose 7-footer, did not look ready for his close-up during last year’s Final Four. In the Badgers’ semifinal loss to Kentucky, he did not attempt a free throw or a 3-pointer. In Wisconsin’s games this year at Staples Center, Kaminsky played with a headliner’s assertiveness. He drove doggedly enough to take 20 free throws in the two games but also stepped back to try three 3-pointers, two of which he made. “I’m just going to try to do whatever I can to help our team,” Kaminsky said Saturday night in the afterglow of the Badgers’ 85-78 victory over Arizona . The Johnny Drama character in Kaminsky’s entourage is Sam Dekker, a genuine talent who struggled to step out from his Badgers brother’s shadow. Dekker, a junior forward, took a giant leap Saturday with a 27-point performance that included 5-of-6 shooting from behind the arc. On the way to being named the outstanding player of the West Region, Dekker said, he realized how fortunate he was to be playing alongside Kaminsky. “It helps to have this guy next to me get a lot of attention,” Dekker said of Kaminsky. “Some guys turn their heads, and I’m able to get some easy looks.” Dekker attempted two 3-pointers last year against Kentucky and finished with 15 points. No wonder he and Kaminsky are relishing getting another shot at the unbeaten Wildcats. An N.C.A.A. Bracket for Risk-Takers For this bracket, the more unusual that your picks are, the more points you’ll receive — so long as those picks are correct. It may be the same matchup as last year, but Kaminsky and Dekker see themselves as different, more polished performers. This rematch is the carrot that kept them from giving serious consideration to leaving Wisconsin last year for the N.B.A. “It wasn’t a tough decision for me, how painful that loss was and how much I wanted to improve my game,” Dekker said. “Frank and I both, we really didn’t have to talk about it much. That loss left a sour taste in our mouths, so we wanted to get back.” Kaminsky did not sound like a Hollywood big shot, or even the big man on campus, when he said, “I can’t be more grateful for the opportunity that the school has given me to be put in this position.” It was at Wisconsin that Kaminsky acquired the nickname Frank the Tank, inspired by Ferrell’s character in the movie “Old School.” To meet the actor himself was a thrill, said Kaminsky, who interviewed Ferrell for an “Access Hollywood” segment. He described the experience on his Instagram account as “by far the coolest thing I’ve done.” After meeting Ferrell, Kaminsky said he believed they were probably best friends now. If he had not been joking, it would have been proof that he could have a bright future in Los Angeles, the land of air kisses and temporary sets. A charge-drawing flop on Saturday against Arizona was another sign that he could fit in fine among the acting crowd. With his fine play this season, Kaminsky may be rising high enough to show up on the radar of the belly-flopping Los Angeles Lakers, who are headed for the draft lottery. “If I’m given the opportunity, I obviously would not say no,” Kaminsky said. “This is a great place.” | College basketball;Frank Kaminsky;Will Ferrell;Los Angeles;NCAA;Staples Center;Bo Ryan;NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness;University of Wisconsin-Madison |
ny0244776 | [
"business"
] | 2011/04/27 | David Sokol May Cast Pall Over Berkshire Meeting | David L. Sokol was treated like a rock star at last year’s annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway , the conglomerate run by Warren E. Buffett . Shareholders lined up for autographs and snapshots of the executive considered by many to be Mr. Buffett’s successor. Mr. Sokol will not attend Berkshire’s meeting this weekend. He announced his resignation abruptly last month after reports emerged that he had made a profit by buying the stock of a company in his own account shortly before Mr. Buffett announced he was buying the company. The sudden downfall came as a surprise to outsiders who had watched Mr. Sokol rise in the business world. He helped build a small Omaha energy business into a multibillion-dollar corporation, sold it to Berkshire Hathaway and by all appearances became one of his boss’s favorite executives. Mr. Sokol served as Mr. Buffett’s Mr. Fix-it, a turnaround artist trusted to tackle difficult jobs. But people who worked for Mr. Sokol saw a side of him that Mr. Buffett perhaps did not. His brass-knuckled approach alienated some Berkshire employees, as when he suggested that people with an illness or other personal problems were problematic and when he unceremoniously fired a top executive and made him leave the office that day. Flashes of his management style can be found in some earlier litigation as well. In one civil case, a judge rebuked Mr. Sokol for tampering with his company’s numbers so that a joint-venture partner would get a smaller payout. In another case, Mr. Sokol sued to find out which employees at a Berkshire unit were disparaging him. And he irritated colleagues at two of Berkshire’s subsidiaries, Johns Manville and NetJets, by frequently invoking Mr. Buffett’s name to burnish his own image inside the company. Some people at Berkshire were puzzled over why Mr. Buffett favored him so much, as when he credited Mr. Sokol for a turnaround of Johns Manville even though the unit’s profits fell sharply after he took over. Now, Mr. Sokol’s trading is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to two people close to the inquiry who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. So the question of just what Mr. Buffett saw in Mr. Sokol — and why he has supported him publicly — will surely be a persistent topic of conversation this weekend in Omaha, at the usually jubilant occasion known as the Woodstock of Capitalism. Shareholders’ questions may cast a pall over the peppy affair as they consider the conduct of Mr. Sokol, who was already wealthy and was on the cusp of running one of America’s most respected companies. “The reasons behind Sokol’s actions are a mystery,” said Whitney Tilson, a fund manager and longtime Berkshire shareholder. “At the very least, he exercised very poor judgment.” Mr. Sokol has said that he resigned to focus on family investments and that the stocks were a good investment for his family that he would do again. He did not respond to questions sent by e-mail or to phone messages for this article. In some ways, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Sokol seem to share many similarities, suggesting an easy familiarity. They were both born and raised in Omaha, Neb., and still reside there. Each man credits their early jobs as newspaper delivery boys and grocery store clerks, with instilling a strong work ethic. Their business writings are filled with homespun aphorisms. But there are marked differences as well. Mr. Buffett, one of America’s richest men according to Forbes magazine, owns one home, which he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Mr. Sokol collects houses, including one near Jackson Hole, Wyo., the upscale ski resort town, and a waterfront home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he docks his yacht. While Mr. Buffett is a homebody whose favorite leisure pursuit is playing bridge on his computer, Mr. Sokol’s passion is hunting. Last month he went on a hunting trip to New Zealand. They also have different views of investment bankers. Mr. Buffett takes frequent potshots at them and boasts about striking multibillion-dollar deals without using advisers. While at Berkshire, Mr. Sokol relished his dealings with Wall Street. He flew frequently to New York for rounds of meetings with bankers pitching deals. Late last year, one of those discussions bore fruit. A meeting with Citigroup bankers led to Berkshire’s $9 billion acquisition of Lubrizol , a chemicals company. But that very meeting also led to Mr. Sokol’s eventual departure. Days after initiating merger discussions with Lubrizol on Berkshire’s behalf, Mr. Sokol bought $10 million worth of Lubrizol stock, a position that increased by $3 million when the deal was announced last month. Berkshire’s insider trading policy says that executives “who have access to confidential information are not permitted to use or share that information for stock trading purposes or for any other purpose except the conduct of the company’s business.” Securities lawyers say that regulators could argue that Mr. Sokol’s knowledge about Lubrizol was confidential information not only under Berkshire’s policy, but also under federal law. Mr. Sokol has several potential defenses. Even though he bought Lubrizol stock, the possibility of a Berkshire acquisition was remote, it could be argued. “Dave’s purchases were made before he had discussed Lubrizol with me and with no knowledge of how I might react to his idea,” Mr. Buffett said in his statement last month about Mr. Sokol’s departure. Mr. Buffett and Berkshire have not commented about Mr. Sokol since the statement and could not be reached on Tuesday. Mr. Buffett also said that Mr. Sokol made a “passing remark” about his Lubrizol stake, though it led to no follow-up. It was his Omaha connections that helped Mr. Sokol pierce the Berkshire inner circle. After earning an engineering degree in 1978 from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and working at a small firm, Mr. Sokol moved to a conglomerate called the Ogden Corporation. He took charge of a unit that developed waste-to-energy technology. At 32, he was chief executive of public company after a stock offering. While at Ogden, he caught the eye of Walter Scott Jr., a man who would change his life. Mr. Scott was a childhood friend of Mr. Buffett, a member of the Berkshire board and chief executive of Peter Kiewit Sons, a construction company in Omaha. In 1991, Mr. Sokol moved to Kiewit to acquire energy businesses. Mr. Sokol rapidly built the unit into MidAmerican Energy Holdings, and Berkshire in turn bought the company for about $9 billion in October 1999. It became one of Berkshire’s fastest growing and most profitable units, earning $1.2 billion in 2010. Mr. Sokol’s personal wealth grew quickly, too. In his last three years as chief executive, a job he relinquished around 2007, his cash compensation topped $21 million. In 2009, he cashed in options on MidAmerican stock worth $96 million. But many workers at Berkshire units were rankled by his actions. At Johns Manville, a building supplies subsidiary, he told a group of managers that people who were dealing with personal problems like divorce or with an illness could be a danger to themselves and to the company. According to two former Manville executives who would speak only anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the company’s matters in public, Mr. Sokol said those people have to be pushed to the side. In August 2007, several months after arriving at Johns Manville Mr. Sokol abruptly dismissed the company’s chief executive, Steven Hochhauser, during an early morning meeting and locked him out of the building, according to one of the former executives. He then offered Mr. Hochhauser at least $1 million to sign a one-way disparagement clause — the company could disparage Mr. Hochhauser but he could not speak poorly of it, according to two former employees who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Hochhauser declined, they said. Neither Mr. Hochhauser nor a spokeswoman for Manville would comment on the dismissal. Several Manville executives say they are bewildered by Mr. Buffett’s recent praise of Mr. Sokol for installing new management and overseeing an enormous change at the company. “We had record income from operations in 2005 of $333 million and again in 2006 of $345 million,” said a third former executive, who would also only speak anonymously, about the years before Mr. Sokol arrived. Profits plummeted the next three years amid a collapse in the housing market and a brutal recession. Last year, according to one of the former executives, Manville earned $10 million to $30 million. Mr. Sokol’s largest fix-it job became NetJets, which he took over in August 2009. Mr. Buffett praised Mr. Sokol’s restructuring and cost-cutting at NetJets in his annual letter in February. “I can’t overstate the breadth and importance of Dave Sokol’s achievements,” he wrote, explaining that NetJets earned $207 million in 2010, a swing of $918 million from a big loss the previous year. Mr. Sokol’s former employees say they are befuddled that someone who extolled the importance of ethics and integrity would find himself in such controversy. In his self-published book, “Pleased, But Not Satisfied,” Mr. Sokol includes integrity as one of his business commandments. “If you are uncertain about an issue,” wrote Mr. Sokol, quoting Mr. Buffett, “it’s useful to ask yourself, ‘Would I be absolutely comfortable for my actions to be disclosed on the front page of my hometown newspaper?’ ” | Sokol David L;Berkshire Hathaway Inc;Buffett Warren E;Lubrizol Corp |
ny0069229 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2014/12/06 | Buccaneers Release Offensive Coordinator | Health issues forced the offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to part ways. The team released him from his contract. Tedford had not worked since the third preseason game, then dealt with an undisclosed illness. In his place, the quarterbacks coach Marcus Arroyo called plays for Tampa Bay. Tedford said that he was “now healthy and stronger for having gone through this temporary setback” and that he would pursue other opportunities. Tedford was the head coach at the University of California from 2002 to 2012. This was his first year with the Buccaneers. RAMS SIGN PUNTER St. Louis signed punter John Hekker to a six-year contract extension, keeping him with the team through the 2020 season. Hekker, 24, was scheduled to become a restricted free agent at the end of the season. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Image Bears receiver Brandon Marshall leaving the field against Dallas. He sustained two broken ribs and an injured lung. Credit David Banks/Getty Images Signed by the Rams as an undrafted free agent in 2012, Hekker was ranked sixth in the league this season with a net average of 41.4 yards. STORM RELIEF The Bills and their partners are donating $137,000 to the American Red Cross after the recent snowstorm that paralyzed much of western New York. The team said that the owners Terry and Kim Pegula pledged $50,000. The NFL Foundation also pledged $50,000, plus another $12,000 it generated in a fund-raiser during the Bills’ game against the Jets on Nov. 24. The game was moved to Detroit after more than six feet of snow fell on parts of the Buffalo area. MARSHALL OUT Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall was ruled out for the team’s Dec. 15 home game against the Saints because of two fractured ribs and a lung injury sustained in Thursday night’s loss to the Cowboys. Marshall was hit in the ribs by Dallas defensive back Barry Church in the second quarter. Marshall was taken to a hospital by ambulance. A team spokesman said Marshall’s status for the rest of the season would be determined after there was a better understanding of his injuries. CHARLES EXPECTED TO PLAY Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles was expected to be available for their game at Arizona despite bruising his knee in last weekend’s loss to the Broncos. Coach Andy Reid said Charles did not miss a snap all week in practice and would start. INJURY LIST Seahawks center Max Unger was ruled out for the third straight week, with a high ankle sprain, against the Eagles. ... Cardinals running back Andre Ellington will not play against the Chiefs because of a hip pointer. ... Vikings running back Jerick McKinnon will miss his second straight game, this one against the Jets, with a lower-back problem. Jets defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson (turf toe) and tight end Jace Amaro (concussion) are out as well. ... Titans receiver Kendall Wright said his injured right hand was broken, and it appeared unlikely he would play against the Giants. ... The Bills backup receiver Mike Williams will not play against the Broncos because of a calf injury. | Football;Jeff Tedford;Bills;Rams;Brandon Marshall;Buccaneers |
ny0254851 | [
"sports"
] | 2011/07/25 | China Sweeps Gold Medals | Qiu Bo won the men’s 10-meter platform title, helping China complete a gold medal sweep in diving at the world championships in Shanghai. David Boudia of the United States earned the silver, the Americans’ only medal. Sascha Klein of Germany took the bronze. | Diving (Sports Event);Boudia David;Bo Qiu |
ny0241246 | [
"business"
] | 2011/03/03 | Refined Algorithms and Legal Defense - Reuters Breakingviews | Google ’s plans to tweak its search algorithms to reduce low-quality links, announced last week, will make the site’s users happier. That should help maximize the company’s long-term value. But the technology update may also bring an added, less obvious, benefit. It should shore up Google’s legal defenses against antitrust regulators. Efforts to game search engines range from benign, like emphasizing certain words, to malign, like paying for links to other sites. And the payoff for those who can make the most of Google’s system is large because of how much traffic the site generates. Appearing on the first page of results rather than the 15th is valuable to retailers and Viagra peddlers alike. Google admits the quality of its search results suffered a drop last year. Moreover, there has been a rise in content farms like Demand Media and Yahoo’s Associated Content, producing many mediocre articles optimized for search engines. So Google has intensified its weeding efforts. Last week’s adjustments significantly affected about 12 percent of queries. This reduction in search pollution may appease watchdogs. The European Commission is now investigating whether the company has violated competition rules by lowering the ranking of rival services in areas like price comparison to favor its own offerings. A group of travel-related sites is seeking to block Google’s acquisition of ITA Software on similar grounds. One suggested remedy is “search neutrality,” or forcing Google to present search results impartially. This may sound good in theory. Google’s proprietary algorithms enable it to rig the system in its favor. But how neutrality can be ensured remains unclear. Prying open Google’s black box would allow search spammers free rein to run amok. How to treat those who game the system without running afoul of neutrality presents a quandary. The best defense against government intrusion is to give Google users the best experience possible. Antitrust watchdogs on both sides of the Atlantic carefully weigh harm to consumers. The less manipulated and more useful Google’s results are, the harder it will be for regulators to make a case to intervene. The Asian Premium Inequality rankles. HSBC has courted controversy by releasing figures that appear to show that its non-British bankers, most of whom are in Asia, were paid twice as much as their British counterparts in 2010. The reality may not be so stark, but bankers in the East do seem to be pocketing more. There is a case for arguing that they should. HSBC’s disclosures for 280 of its highest-paid staff members show that average total pay for British-based bankers last year was $1.2 million. But their international colleagues took home an average of $2.6 million. The small sample may distort the picture, but the gap still exists: HSBC’s Asian bankers probably receive 25 percent more than their London counterparts. Factor in different tax rates, and take-home pay in Asia is nearly double what it is in London. Some premium makes sense. Although Asia accounts for just a fifth of the total investment banking fee pool, according to Thomson Reuters data, it is growing fast. Fees in Asia excluding Japan last year were 77 percent ahead of 2008’s trough. That is significantly better than the Americas, where the fee pool grew just 22 percent, and Europe, where it shrank by 15 percent. This growth means the net present value to a bank of a trader in Asia is higher than in more mature markets. An industrywide hiring binge and uneven regulations pump things up further. Citi wants to more than double its Chinese headcount in three years. Nomura and Barclays Capital are jostling with newcomers like Samsung Securities, while big banks like UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citi may have trimmed too much. Moreover, Asian regulators have set no limits on pay practices. Multiyear guarantees, banned in London, are still prevalent. In a world where bankers are mobile, supply should rise to meet demand. But this market won’t clear for some time. The top-paying jobs demand special skills. Bilingual English-Mandarin speakers are growing in number, but don’t always have expertise in, say, mining or equities trading. Until talent catches up — or growth slows — the Asia premium might be something bankers in other regions have to take on the chin. ROBERT CYRAN and JOHN FOLEY | Google Inc;HSBC Holdings PLC;Search Engines;Computers and the Internet;Antitrust Laws and Competition Issues;Banking and Financial Institutions |
ny0140863 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2008/02/13 | Making a Case for a Pause in Troop Cutbacks in Iraq | WASHINGTON — There is an overarching reason American commanders in Iraq want a pause in American troop reductions this summer: The United States has learned through painful experience that security can rapidly deteriorate if it overestimates the ability of Iraq’s forces to keep the peace. The case for temporarily halting the reductions was endorsed Monday by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who had previously voiced hope for greater reductions to ease the enormous strain on the military. But the die was cast last month when President Bush said during a visit to Kuwait that he was prepared to give his Iraq commander whatever forces he needed. With Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, advocating that the United States “let things settle a bit” after the current round of troop reductions, and with Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, warning, by contrast, that the Army is “stretched and stressed” by its constant deployments, some sort of trade-off had to be made. For now, at least, securing Iraq has won. Mr. Gates has not said how long the pause should last before troop withdrawals resume, adding that Mr. Bush must decide the matter. But one senior American officer estimated that a pause of three to four months would be needed after the American force shrinks to 15 combat brigades in July from 20 brigades at the height of the “surge” last year. “We have momentum, and we must maintain this momentum,” said the officer, who asked not to be identified because final decisions on troop levels for 2008 have yet to be made at the White House. “Without a pause to assess trends, we could make a serious mistake.” In recommending a pause, American commanders in Iraq are partly guided by the past. When General Casey commanded American forces in Iraq — he was General Petraeus’s predecessor and served there from mid-2004 until early 2007 — the United States put a premium on transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqis. But insurgents stepped up their attacks. Some Iraqi forces engaged in wantonly sectarian operations. Violence steadily increased. With the addition of some 30,000 American troops and guidance from a new counterinsurgency strategy, the American military has reduced violence to 2005 levels. The military gains have yet to be followed by the sort of major progress toward Iraq political reconciliation that Bush administration officials had hoped for. But the gains have had the unintended effect of encouraging an increase in the Sunni volunteers who have aligned themselves with the Americans. And Bush administration officials are still trying to make political headway in Iraq this year by pressing for a law defining the powers of provincial authorities and for provincial elections. In the United States, politicians tend to speak as if the war is lost or all but won. In Iraq, American commanders suggest that the war still hangs in the balance and worry about preserving tangible, but fragile, security gains. Military officials and experts outside government who favor a pause make several arguments. First, the military is cutting the number of American combat brigades by a quarter. By July, the reduction will have only brought the number of United States troops down to 130,000 or so from the current level of about 160,000, restoring troop levels to those in place at the beginning of 2007, or perhaps even slightly higher. Many American forces will remain involved in logistics, training Iraqi forces and other support missions. But the troop cutbacks are a substantial diminution in combat power, one that will make it more difficult to mobilize forces for major operations. Second, Iraq’s political course is still highly uncertain, and some political steps could add to the demands on American forces there. If provincial elections are held this year, American and Iraqi forces would need to safeguard the voting, as in past elections. Another variable is that the United States wants to reduce the number of Iraqis in detention centers, partly to encourage efforts at political reconciliation. Along with the potential return of additional refugees to Iraq, that may introduce another complication. There are also some 70,000 mostly Sunni volunteers who have aligned themselves with the American military. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government remains suspicious of the volunteers, who American commanders say need to be enlisted in Iraq’s security forces and given jobs to discourage many of them from returning to their insurgent ways. The duration of the cease-fire declared by Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric, and the extent of Iraq’s support for Shiite militants is another wild card. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi group that American intelligence says has foreign leadership, has been pushed north toward Mosul but is still active. Lastly, the Iraqi Army and the police are expanding. But American officers want to carefully monitor their progress and try to improve their abilities. That involves not only training the forces and supporting them with aircraft and logistics but also working with them on operations. American officials favor a gradual process of putting Iraqi forces in the lead and backing them up when necessary, not a wholesale transfer of responsibilities. When the United States ceded authority to the Iraqis prematurely in Diyala Province in 2006, the Iraqis engaged in sectarian attacks, Qaeda militants presented themselves as the defenders of the Sunnis and, a year later, American forces had to mount a major operation to reclaim Baquba, the provincial capital. A delay in making reductions would increase the strain on American troops. The Army is facing a serious shortfall in captains. And the number of new recruits who have not graduated from high school is growing. That means, one American officer said, that enlistment standards are being lowered at a time when the military faces counterinsurgency and nation-building tasks that are more complex than the traditional missions during the cold war. For all this, there is no guarantee that the strategy of bringing political stability to Iraq will succeed. But there is also little prospect that there will ever be enough political support in the United States for another surge. For the American commanders, that is an unstated but additional reason to be cautious about cutting back. | Iraq;United States Armament and Defense;Armament Defense and Military Forces;Security and Warning Systems;Washington (DC) |
ny0050147 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2014/10/11 | Libya: Fighting Displaces Thousands | About 100,000 people have fled fighting near the capital, Tripoli, in the past three weeks, adding to a growing problem of internal displacement, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday. “With fighting among rival armed groups intensifying in a number of areas of Libya, we are seeing growing displacement, now estimated at 287,000 people in 29 cities and towns countrywide,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement. The main area of recent displacement is around Warshefana, a suburb of Tripoli, and about 15,000 have fled from fighting around the Benina area outside Benghazi, it said. Most displaced people are living with local families but others are sleeping in schools, parks and nonresidential buildings converted into emergency shelters. | Libya;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Tripoli;United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |
ny0295517 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/12/28 | Religious Police Officers in New York Will Be Able to Wear Beards and Turbans | In a nod to the growing number of South Asian Sikhs in New York City, the Police Department said on Wednesday that it would allow officers who belong to the religion to wear beards and turbans while in uniform — as long as the turbans are blue. The decision puts the nation’s largest police force among a small group of law enforcement agencies like those of Washington, D.C., and Riverside, Calif., as well as the United States Army , that allow members to have facial hair and wear turbans, often as a religious exception. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has allowed turbans and beards since the 1990s, and began permitting hijabs this year. According to the patrol guide of the New York Police Department, officers are prohibited from having beards and nonuniform headdresses, but exceptions can be made for officers who receive a medical or religious accommodation to wear facial hair up to one millimeter in length, essentially stubble. While the department has become more diverse, many activists say the policies have hurt the agency’s goal of being more inclusive. And the department agreed to review its beard guidelines after a Muslim officer filed a federal class-action lawsuit in June. That case is pending. Image New recruits of the New York Police Department on Wednesday celebrated their graduation from the Police Academy. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press Under the revised policy, Commissioner James P. O’Neill said on Wednesday, officers who are granted a religious accommodation from the department’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office will be allowed to have beards that extend up to one-half inch from the face. The officers may also wear turbans — with a hat shield it affixed to it — in place of the traditional police cap. “We’re making this change to make sure that we allow everybody in New York City that wants to apply and have the opportunity to work in the greatest police department in the nation, to make sure we give them that opportunity,” the commissioner said. Groups representing Sikh and Muslim officers within the department said members who were previously granted religious accommodations are already allowed to take advantage of the revised policies, which are expected to be finalized next month. The Muslim Officers Society and the newer Sikh Officers Association, which have more than 1,100 members combined, had been pushing for the changes. The accommodations are expected to provide relief for officers whose religious expressions clashed with those from the Police Department. . For Sikhs, abiding by the standards in the patrol guide has meant shaving the beards their faith requires to keep uncut, and stuffing their unshorn hair into turbans that fit under department-issued caps. Officer Gurvinder Singh, the president of the Sikh Officers Association, which has about 150 members, said the change would help the department’s efforts to recruit a more diverse force. He predicted that more Sikh candidates would sign up to take the police exam in January, citing phone calls he had received from religious and community leaders after the announcement. “A lot of their kids wanted to join, but they couldn’t,” he said. “And now they can. This country has given us a lot, and now we want to pay it back.” Image Jagjeet Singh, with his son Prabhden, 6, said that the Police Department’s policy change on beards and turbans will encourage people to ask Sikh officers about their heritage. Credit Dave Sanders for The New York Times Mr. O’Neill announced the revised policies on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, where 557 recruits graduated from the Police Academy. Thirty-three of those graduates are Muslims and two are Sikhs, according to the Police Department. In the fall, the Police Department granted two Sikh recruits religious accommodations that allowed them to grow beards extending up to half an inch from their faces while at the academy, according to the Sikh Coalition, a Sikh civil rights organization which represents one of the officers. Their client did not request or receive an accommodation for the turban, according to the coalition’s legal director, Harsimran Kaur, who applauded the revisions. “The N.Y.P.D.’s refusal to hire turbaned and bearded Sikhs allows other employers to justify refusing to hire Sikhs,” she said. “If the N.Y.P.D.’s new policy indeed allows for Sikhs to maintain unshorn beards and turbans, that sends a strong message that Sikhs are part of the mainstream fabric of America.” On Wednesday afternoon, Prabhden Singh, 6, his hair wrapped in an indigo turban, skipped around outside the Gurdwara Sikh Cultural Society building in Richmond Hill, Queens. His father, Jagjeet Singh, 32, a black turban over his hair and thick beard covering his chin, said the department’s policy change was “a great thing” for the Sikh community. Mr. Singh, who drives a taxi, said people often asked about his turban and his heritage — many asked if he was Muslim. “I like to explain who I am, and where we are from,” he said, adding that he enjoyed explaining the history of the turban to those unfamiliar with the culture. And the policy change, Mr. Singh said, will create an opportunity for people to ask police officers about their Sikh heritage as well. Most people, he added, simply do not know much about the Sikh culture. | Police;Sikh;Beards and Mustaches;NYPD;James P O'Neill;NYC;Gurvinder Singh;Turban |
ny0010682 | [
"us"
] | 2013/02/08 | Texas Lawmakers Blur the Advocacy Line as Lobbyists | Ten years ago, the Texas Legislature passed laws to restrict the lobbying of state agencies by lawmakers on behalf of private clients. Despite the reforms, some elected officials continue to lobby. In some cases, legislators have worked to help clients gain favorable outcomes from elected bodies in their legislative districts. In others, an elected official’s work as a lawyer has blurred the line between lobbying and legal advocacy. Critics see those cases as symptomatic of bigger problems in Texas, where the part-time citizen Legislature faces criticism over weak disclosure rules, conflicts of interest and special-interest donations. “When you’re a member of the Legislature that holds policy decisions, budgeting decisions or other decisions over local governments, you should not be able to represent parties before those governments,” said Craig McDonald, director of the liberal watchdog group Texans for Public Justice . For companies or private citizens hoping to influence decision-makers at state agencies, hiring a well-connected elected official was a common practice until the efforts of two Republican lawmakers on behalf of an herbal supplement firm came to light in 2002. The lawmakers, Senator Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio and Representative Rick Green of Dripping Springs, worked to persuade the state health department not to require prescriptions for Texans taking Metabolife International’s weight loss products that included ephedrine, a stimulant linked to various adverse reactions. Mr. Wentworth also visited state staff and board members involved in the decision. Amid the ensuing scandal, Gov. Rick Perry signed an ethics overhaul package that barred lawmakers from representing private interests before agencies, except for a few situations like submitting paperwork. Former Representative Steve Wolens, Democrat of Dallas, who has helped pass several ethics bills in the Legislature, said the Perry bill did not go far enough. Mr. Wolens said that it failed to prevent lawmakers from being paid to influence the outcomes of measures before city councils, school boards or other local entities. “It’s still problematic, since the state decides the fate of counties and cities for all kinds of things,” he said. “That should equally be prohibited. It’s like, ‘What are we thinking allowing that still?’ ” Representative Senfronia Thompson, Democrat of Houston, recently registered as a lobbyist in her home city on behalf of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, an Austin law firm. The firm has debt collection contracts with public entities around Texas and has been tied to scandals involving the bribery of public officials. Ms. Thompson, a lawyer who has done work for the firm for years, said a confidentiality agreement barred her from discussing that work. She and the firm did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Representative Garnet F. Coleman, Democrat of Houston, who has held his seat since 1991, registered as a lobbyist in Houston in 2000 for several companies, including Enron and the Greater Houston Transportation Company, a cab provider. Two years earlier, he lobbied the City Council for Sprint PCS regarding regulation of cellular towers. Mr. Coleman said he saw no conflict between his public service and his work as a private citizen. “Clearly, this had nothing to do with state government,” he said. Image Bill Siebert lobbied for a private firm while serving in the Texas House. Credit Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune Over the last decade, Mr. Coleman has not registered as a lobbyist, but he has worked as a consultant for companies hoping to gain a favorable vote from the City Council, including Southwest Airlines and Cigna. He said he stopped registering as a lobbyist because he no longer tries to directly influence council members. “I don’t lobby the council,” Mr. Coleman said. “I advise clients.” He said he had turned down clients he suspected wanted him to use his clout for private matters. “It’s not me that’s valuable,” Mr. Coleman said. “It’s my skills.” Even when lawmakers are not lobbying in the traditional sense, their private-sector work can dovetail with their jobs as elected officials in a way that can raise conflict-of-interest questions. Representative Harold Dutton Jr., Democrat of Houston, is a lawyer who has worked on behalf of charter schools that faced being closed by the Texas Education Agency over academic or financial issues. Mr. Dutton has been critical of the agency’s handling of charter schools, including ones he has represented. During a House debate on the budget during the 2011 session, he proposed an amendment to pull the agency’s financing. Mr. Dutton did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. McDonald, of Texans for Public Justice, said state officials might respond to a lawyer’s public remarks differently and even handle a case differently if they know that lawyer will later help shape and vote on the agency’s next budget. “There’s a lot of policy work that can happen behind the scenes or even in public that doesn’t meet the strict definition of lobbying, if you will, but that doesn’t mean it’s not lobbying,” Mr. McDonald said. Some kinds of lobbying remain legal for state lawmakers, but then voters have an opportunity to weigh in. Former Representative Bill Siebert, Republican of San Antonio, had been in office for six years when news reports revealed that he had lobbied the San Antonio City Council for a private firm without having registered as a lobbyist. Mr. Siebert blamed the oversight on a miscommunication between his office and City Hall. But the issue dominated his 2000 re-election bid, which he lost “I felt it was a little bit unjust at the time,” Mr. Siebert said. “The issue of my being a conservative legislator in the district played no role. It was all based on my lobbying of City Hall.” Mr. Siebert, who still works as a lobbyist, maintains that his work on behalf of private clients never conflicted with his work as a legislator. “My job was to educate the couple of City Council people that I talked to,” he said. “These elected officials at the county and the city are very strong people. They represent their constituents, and I don’t think that a state legislator can apply undue pressure on them to do something they don’t want to do.” Voters do not always view experience as a lobbyist as a strike against a candidate. Thomas Ratliff had worked as a lobbyist for more than a decade when he won a spot on the State Board of Education in 2010. Mr. Ratliff, a Republican, said that none of his clients had ever hired him to lobby the board and that he continues to avoid such work. Mr. Ratliff said his openness about his lobbying work has protected him from criticism. On his campaign Web site, he links to the site for his lobbying business, which lists his clients. “The vast majority of people in my district that I hear from think it’s an asset that I’m doing what I’m doing,” Mr. Ratliff said, “because I know how the process works.” | Rick Perry;House of Representatives;Congress;Lobbying;Campaign finance;Legislation |
ny0081201 | [
"science"
] | 2015/11/03 | The Pacific Ocean Becomes a Caldron | Hurricane Patricia was a surprise. The eastern Pacific hurricane strengthened explosively before hitting the coast of Mexico, far exceeding projections of scientists who study such storms. And while the storm’s strength dissipated quickly when it struck land , a question remained. What made it such a monster? Explanations were all over the map, with theories that included climate change (or not), and El Niño . But the answer is more complicated. The interplay of all the different kinds of warming going on in the Pacific at the moment can be difficult to sort out and, as with the recent hurricane, attributing a weather event to a single cause is unrealistic. Gabriel Vecchi, head of the climate variations and predictability group at the geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, N.J., likened the challenge to the board game Clue. “There’s all these suspects, and we have them all in the room right now,” he said. “The key is to go and systematically figure out who was where and when, so we can exclude people or phenomena.” Extending the metaphor, he noted that criminal suspects could work together as accomplices, and there could be a character not yet known. And, as in all mysteries, “You can have a twist ending.” At the moment, the world’s largest ocean is a troublesome place, creating storms and causing problems for people and marine life across the Pacific Rim and beyond. A partial list includes the strong El Niño system that has formed along the Equator, and another unusually persistent zone of warm water that has been sitting off the North American coast, wryly called “ the Blob .” And a longer-term cycle of heating and cooling known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation may be switching from a cooling phase to a warming phase. On top of all that is the grinding progress of climate change , caused by accumulation of greenhouse gases generated by human activity. Each of these phenomena operates on a different time scale, but for now they appear to be synchronized, a little like the way the second hand, minute hand and hour hand line up at the stroke of midnight. And the collective effects could be very powerful. Although they interact with one another, each of these warming events is being blamed for specific problems. “The Blob” has been associated, among other effects, with the unusually dry and warm weather in the western United States. Out in the ocean, the nutrient-poor warmer waters of the Blob — about four degrees Fahrenheit higher than average — are disrupting the food web of marine life. Some species of fish are showing up where they are not expected, including tropical sunfish off the Alaska coast, and an unusual number of emaciated sea lion pups and Guadalupe fur seals are being found stranded on California shores. The warm water has also been linked to unprecedented harmful algal blooms along the coasts that have rendered shellfish toxic and shut down shellfish fisheries in Washington, Oregon and California. “A single clam can have enough toxins to kill a person,” said Vera L. Trainer, the manager of the marine biotoxin program at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. Officials also ordered the largest closure of the state’s Dungeness crab fishing. “It’s really worrisome,” Dr. Trainer added. “If this is a single event that then goes away and we can forget about it down the road, it’s O.K. If it’s a window into the future, it’s not a good future.” Image Bulldozers stacked boulders in front of a restaurant on the beach in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles in preparation for the arrival of El Nino on Dec. 5, 1998. Credit Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press The unusually strong El Niño weather pattern, in which the ocean’s surface warms and releases immense amounts of heat into the atmosphere, has drawn more attention — in part because it tends to bring heavy rain to Southern California, which is amid an intense drought, and cooler temperatures and rain across the southern United States during the winter and potentially into the spring. (The northern band of the country tends to have somewhat warmer and drier conditions.) But El Niño’s effects are felt across the planet, and this one has been linked to drought in Australia and enormous peat fires in Indonesia. The other large force at work, the Pacific decadal oscillation, is a long period — sometimes, as the name implies, spanning decades — of relatively cooler or warmer water. Since about the year 2000, the oscillation has been in a cool state, which many climate scientists say has allowed the ocean to soak up a great deal of the heat generated by greenhouse gases as part of climate change. This, in turn, may have kept global average surface temperatures from rising. Climate scientists have called that condition the warming hiatus, and those who deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on warming have used the hiatus to raise doubts about whether climate change exists. Now, however, the oscillation appears to be entering a warming phase, said Gerald A. Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and strong El Niños tend to nudge the cycle into a new phase. So the oscillation and El Niño “can all add together to give you a really big shift” toward warming over all. “That’s going to provide a bigger boost to a global warming system,” he said. “These things will add together.” Already, 2015 is on track to be the hottest year in the historical record . Climate change could nudge all of the interacting cycles of ocean heat and cold. Scientists are still trying to determine its effect on hurricanes, though it is widely believed that because warm ocean water provides the energy for hurricanes, the more powerful storms will grow even more potent over time . Whether there is a clear and detectable human-caused component to today’s cyclone activity is harder to prove, said Thomas R. Knutson, a research meteorologist with NOAA’s geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory at Princeton. “We don’t expect to necessarily be able to detect these changes at this time,” he said. While no individual weather event can be linked to climate change, the continued warming already appears to be increasing the potential strength of storms , said Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Whether the storms reach their full potential depends on other factors, he said. Statistically, however, there are too few storms to show that the stronger hurricanes are being caused by climate change yet. One phenomenon appears to be the result of a combination of El Niño, the Blob and climate change. NOAA this year announced that the world was in the midst of only the third global coral bleaching event ever recorded. Severe bleaching can lead to the death of reefs, and the loss of habitat for marine life and shoreline protection from storms. The current event began in 2014 in the Pacific and has persisted into this year, with the Blob’s effects being felt most keenly near Hawaii, where the western tail of that large patch of warmed water extends. “This is absolutely the worst that they have ever seen,” said C. Mark Eakin, the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch. “It’s only the third time they’ve seen mass coral bleaching in Hawaii; the last time was last year.” And because El Niño events stretch from one year’s winter into the next spring, “we’re very likely to see the bleaching that’s going on this year go on into 2016 and even be worse in 2016,” he said. A warmer Pacific also means higher seas at the United States coastline, because warm water expands and the general winds that flow from west to east will push water against the shore. That can add to an increase in what William Sweet, a NOAA oceanographer based in Maryland, calls nuisance flooding in low-lying coastal areas. Even a general increase of a half a foot from El Niño can, when combined with storms, cause a pronounced increase in such flooding, he said, adding that San Francisco could go from an average 12 days of nuisance flooding to 21 this year, and La Jolla, Calif., from six to 10. Nicholas A. Bond, a research meteorologist at NOAA’s cooperative institute at the University of Washington who gave the Blob its name , said that climate change could make El Niño conditions more common. “That would just have monstrous implications,” he said. And though developed-world nations like the United States could take measures to adapt to the changing conditions, “It is going to be a different place,” he said. Despite all the current dark clouds over the Pacific, literal and metaphorical, Dr. Bond managed to spot a silver lining. The confluence of problems can serve as a “wake-up call,” and a harbinger of climate change, he said. “We have a real chance with this kind of event to see what’s going to happen, and show folks, ‘Hey, this is the consequence of messing around with the climate.’ ” | Climate Change;Global Warming;Pacific Ocean;Fish;Hurricanes;El Nino;Oceans and Seas;Weather;Coral |
ny0104527 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2012/03/30 | In Canada, the Penny’s Time to Shine Is Over | OTTAWA — Jim Flaherty, the finance minister of Canada, pronounced a death sentence on the country’s penny during his budget speech on Thursday. “Pennies take up too much space on our dressers at home,” Mr. Flaherty told the House of Commons. “They take up far too much time for small businesses trying to grow and create jobs.” The government estimated that every penny costs it about 1.6 cents to produce. Eliminating the penny’s production will reduce the government’s costs by about 11 million Canadian dollars a year. The Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing pennies to banks and businesses this fall. While Canadians will be allowed to continue to use pennies indefinitely, the government is hoping that they will turn in the coins for recycling as scrap metal. As pennies disappear, cash transactions will be rounded to the nearest nickel after federal and provincial sales taxes have been added. All other transactions, including payments by check, credit and debit cards, will still be calculated to the cent. Britain, Australia and Norway are among the countries that preceded Canada in abandoning their smallest-denomination coins. A study by the Bank of Canada concluded that the move has no significant impact on inflation. Pennies are not the only form of payment disappearing in Canada. The country recently began phasing in bank notes printed on plastic , starting with high-denomination bills. Unlike other measures in the budget, the demise of the penny appeared to receive unqualified support from the opposition parties. Several members of Canada’s Parliament have campaigned for the penny’s abolition for some time. As Mr. Flaherty spoke, Pat Martin, a member of the opposition New Democratic Party and prominent antipenny crusader, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he was heading to a fountain outside of the Parliament buildings to dump his pennies. “Nobody likes them,” Mr. Martin said. Mr. Flaherty, a Conservative, said that his budget measures would reduce the government’s spending by 5.2 billion Canadian dollars over three years. The cuts include eliminating 19,200 government jobs, less than the government’s critics had anticipated but not as great as many conservatives wanted to see. The budget also provides for the retirement age to rise to 67 from 65, in 2023. | Budgets and Budgeting;Currency;Canada;Economic Conditions and Trends;Banking and Financial Institutions |
ny0179137 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/08/29 | A New Role, but for Her, Familiar Turf | Marcia V. Lyles, New York City’s new deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, knows intimately just how students can get lost in the shuffle. In her sophomore year in high school in Harlem, Ms. Lyles was caught skipping class almost daily. “I knew how to cut, who to cut, where to cut,” Ms. Lyles, 58, said in a recent interview, her embarrassment with her conduct so long ago still showing in her reluctance to talk about her own school days. “I would do it all the time, but I was still passing. My aunt found out with one little mistake I made and that was it.” Convinced that the school was too easy, her aunt, who was raising her, forced her to transfer from Benjamin Franklin High School to Jamaica High School, making an hourlong trip to and from Queens near the end of her sophomore year. There, Ms. Lyles was shocked to learn that after being in the top of her class at Franklin, which was largely black and Hispanic, and finding school so easy that she could skip out, she was struggling to keep up at what was then a largely white Jamaica High. It was her first lesson in the problem that still preoccupies the nation’s largest school system — the racial achievement gap. And her memories are telling, because perhaps more than anyone else in the upper echelons of the city’s Department of Education, Ms. Lyles has known the city schools as both a student and a lifelong educator in the system. She graduated from Jamaica High School in 1965 and went on to Hunter College. She became an English teacher at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan, but like other young teachers in the mid 1970s, she was laid off during the city’s fiscal crisis. She later returned to system and taught at Curtis High School on Staten Island. She has lived or worked in every borough as she has moved up the ladder for nearly four decades from teacher to assistant principal, from program administrator to superintendent. The way she puts it, each job came at the prodding of someone else. “It was always someone saying, ‘You know, you ought to ...,’ ” Ms. Lyles said. “So when I tell people all of the jobs I had and then say, ‘You know, I am really not the ambitious type,’ people kind of laugh. But it’s true.” In June, after Andrés Alonso stepped down to lead the Baltimore public school system, Chancellor Joel I. Klein plucked Ms. Lyles from her post as a superintendent in Brooklyn to become the chief official in charge of curriculum and teaching policies this summer. He said that her experience would make her an “extraordinary asset” to his senior leadership team. Ms. Lyles has been met with skepticism from other administrators in part because while she was the superintendent of Region 8 in Brooklyn since 2004, her region’s gains in test scores in reading and math, while solid, ran behind those in many other regions. While some teachers and principals say the Klein administration desperately needs an educator’s voice in a headquarters packed with lawyers and consultants who have little patience for the city’s education establishment, they question whether Ms. Lyles is aggressive enough to be heard. Certainly, while being interviewed in a barren office across the street from the Education Department headquarters, she was cautious about making any definitive criticisms about changes that have come and gone across her four decades. “Every time we have had a change, there is a portion that is viable and helpful,” she said. Recalling an African proverb she has repeated to dozens of other educators, Ms. Lyles summed up her philosophy: “When the music changes, so does the dance.” “I learned all the new steps,” she said. “I just moved with the changes, that’s what you have to do.” In the late 1990s, she was appointed the superintendent of District 16 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which had a reputation for turmoil and failing schools. There had been three superintendents in five years. Several district staff members had a pool to bet on how long Ms. Lyles would last — one senior adviser put her money on six months. “So I lasted five years,” Ms. Lyles said with a broad smile. “It was just a truly wonderful experience of starting to turn around a district and really turning around the perception of a district. And just as soon as we started to really figure it out, we reorganized,” she said referring to the advent of mayoral control under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2002. Ms. Lyles said her most pressing concern about the school system is the continued gap between the performance of white students in the system and minority students. She thought back to her own high school days, after she transferred from Benjamin Franklin High. “I just thought, wow, what’s the difference?” she recalled of Jamaica High. “What’s going on, now I have to play catch up? That’s when I saw about inequity, that’s when I saw about low expectations.” “I knew that there was a difference, because at Benjamin Franklin all of the students were black and Hispanic, and at Jamaica High School in all the academic classes I was usually the only one,” she continued. “And so I saw that there was a real difference.” Benjamin Franklin High School was closed in 1982. “I used to tell my students that I wanted them to do what I did,” Ms. Lyles said. “I defied the demographics.” | Education and Schools;Teachers and School Employees;New York City |
ny0266188 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/03/28 | Ted Cruz Names Friends, but Silence From G.O.P. Brass Deafens | Ted Cruz was naming friends. Seated for an interview inside a stately Midtown Manhattan library, just south of Trump Tower, the Texas senator leaned forward in his chair, ticking off the unlikely coalition drifting his way. There was Jeb Bush , who announced his endorsement in a terse predawn news release, and Mitt Romney, who initially said his support applied only to his voting preference in Utah. Mr. Cruz had swung Mike Lee, his greatest ally in the Senate, nearly a year after his campaign began, and Mark Levin, a conservative radio host who recently made his longstanding admiration on the airwaves official. “They are coming to us,” Mr. Cruz said. “We welcome their support with open arms, but my positions, my policies have not changed.” Nor has Mr. Cruz’s reputation, particularly. As Mr. Cruz seeks to unite the disparate factions of the Republican Party that are bonded only by their dead-set opposition to Donald J. Trump, a high-wire act is required: welcoming the top ranks of the same establishment he has spent years excoriating while not abandoning the hard-line conservatives who like him in part because of his attacks on party leaders. Image Nearly two weeks after Senator Marco Rubio dropped out of the race, there has been no mass rush to Mr. Cruz. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times While the Romney and Bush endorsements drew headlines, what has been just as striking is the sound of silence from the vast majority of Republican elected officials and leading donors. Nearly two weeks after Senator Marco Rubio dropped out of the race, there has been no mass rush to Mr. Cruz, even as he appears to be the last line of defense against a Trump nomination. The decision by so many leading Republicans to remain on the sidelines is all the more notable because it appears inversely proportional to the scale of concern about Mr. Trump. His recent attacks on Mr. Cruz’s wife and soaring unpopularity among women, minorities and college-educated voters have left many in the party more convinced than ever that, with Mr. Trump as their standard-bearer, they are churning toward a political iceberg this fall. But this fear has not been enough to coax them in Mr. Cruz’s direction. “They’re afraid of Trump’s voters and they hate Cruz,” explained Senator Lindsey Graham , who has tried to rally his colleagues behind Mr. Cruz. “But if I can swallow my pride, they can, too.” Part of Mr. Cruz’s challenge is that Gov. John Kasich of Ohio remains in the race, providing cover for some Republicans who cannot abide Mr. Trump but cannot bring themselves to support Mr. Cruz. Mr. Graham said he intended to sound out Mr. Kasich’s supporters about whether the governor may be willing to join forces with Mr. Cruz. Rubio’s Exit Leaves Trump With an Open Path to 1,237 Delegates An interactive delegate calculator that lets you simulate how the 2016 Republican nomination could unfold. “A Cruz-Kasich ticket is the best way we can stop Trump,” he said. “It’s time to think big here.” If they will not run together, said Mr. Graham, they at least need to form “an alliance” in which they divvy up states to not drain votes from each other — something neither seems willing to do. “The main thing is we’ve got to get into the convention with Trump under 1,237 delegates.” Yet other top Republican officials are not nearly as dedicated to plotting this or any strategy to deny Mr. Trump a majority before the party gathers in July in Cleveland. Even those who have signaled they are likely to support Mr. Cruz are dragging their feet. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who has spoken favorably of Mr. Cruz, said he would not announce his choice until closer to his state’s April 5 primary — for “maximum impact.” Mr. Rubio, who praised Mr. Cruz as “the only conservative left in the race” after his exit, has been perhaps the most conspicuous holdout. He is one of the few Republican senators who gets along well with Mr. Cruz, and the two have been in touch since Mr. Rubio withdrew from the race. But Mr. Rubio is likely to run again for president in 2020 should Republicans lose the White House this year, and, in making scores of thank-you calls to donors in recent days, he has been discouraged by some party financiers from supporting Mr. Cruz, according to a Republican strategist briefed on the calls. Image Gov. John Kasich during a campaign event last week in Wauwatosa, Wis. Credit Morry Gash/Associated Press Without Mr. Rubio’s imprimatur, many of his backers seem disinclined to back Mr. Cruz. Compounding the problem is Mr. Cruz himself. He often portrays this election as akin to 1980, when Ronald Reagan won in a landslide. But he appears to be privately grappling with whether he would be better off playing the 1976 version of Reagan, who carried the banner of unadulterated conservatism against the eventual Republican nominee all the way to the convention, fell short and won four years later. Though Mr. Cruz has adjusted his public tone, calling for party harmony and appealing to “our better angels” in a moment of political discord, senior Republican officials say Mr. Cruz has made little effort to repair relationships, particularly in the Senate. Senator John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican senator and Mr. Cruz’s fellow Texan, privately lobbied Mr. Cruz to attend a Senate Republican luncheon in the Capitol and soothe feelings, according to a Republican strategist briefed on the request. But after a CNN report in which some Republican senators suggested that Mr. Cruz apologize to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, whom Mr. Cruz called a liar on the Senate floor, Mr. Cruz’s campaign became irritated and backed off a peacemaking lunch. Mr. Cruz and Mr. McConnell have still not spoken, according to an aide to Mr. McConnell. “I’m not sure there’s anything to apologize for,” Jason Johnson, Mr. Cruz’s chief strategist, told reporters recently. Mr. Cruz’s allies argue his reticence to publicly embrace the establishment is understandable given the success of Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz and the fact that Mr. Cruz’s political brand is premised on anti-Washington fervor and conservative purity. But even Republican senators in states that have yet to vote and should favor Mr. Cruz — such as Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska — have not received overtures, according to aides. When party leaders, including Mr. Lee, the Utah senator, lobbied for a so-called “unity ticket” that would make Mr. Rubio the presumptive running mate for Mr. Cruz, the Cruz campaign demurred. “We don’t really talk to that many Beltway people,” said Jeff Roe, Mr. Cruz’s Houston-based campaign manager, when told the idea of a Cruz-Rubio ticket was setting “the Beltway” ablaze. What could rouse the establishment, and convince leaders that Mr. Trump can be stopped at a convention, is a strong Cruz victory next week in Wisconsin. “If he can pull out Wisconsin, I think Cruz draws more interest,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a longtime Republican strategist. For now, though, Mr. Cole said most in the establishment wing of the party saw little upside in boosting someone they have little regard for, do not think can win a general election and whose prospects they think will be helped little by their endorsement. “Why stick your name and your neck out there when you don’t think it will make much of a difference?” Mr. Cole said. In the interview, Mr. Cruz noted he has been nothing if not consistent. “With me,” he said, “you know what you’re going to get.” | 2016 Presidential Election;Ted Cruz;Political endorsement;Republicans;Jeb Bush;Lindsey Graham;John R Kasich;Wisconsin |
ny0228157 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2010/07/29 | Dartmouth Coach Competes at U.S. Senior Open | On the tee sheets for the United States Senior Open, he is listed as Richard Parker Jr., Lebanon, N.H., but around Dartmouth College, he is just “Coach” or “Rich.” That is also how he is mostly known by the listeners of his Saturday morning radio show on WTSL-AM (1400), and by the folks who see him behind the counter at the nine-hole Carter Golf Club in Lebanon, where he is both the golf director and general manager. When play gets under way Thursday in the first round of the Senior Open — the first United States Golf Association championship to be conducted at the Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Wash. — Parker will be just plain Rich to his playing partners. He said he would be content being anonymous compared with the threesome of Jay Haas, Nick Price and Hale Irwin, which tees off at 12:50 p.m., two groups after his 12:30 tee time. After all, it has been 20 years since Parker teed up in the 1990 United States Open , the first and only U.S.G.A. championship he had played until this week. “I don’t feel like I’m out here playing in the U.S. Open like I did last time,” he said. “I feel like I’m just out here playing in a golf tournament. I couldn’t care less who’s out here. I’m playing with guys I don’t know. They’re like kind of nobodies like I am, so it’ll be fun, you know.” That Parker was able to shoot a round of 65 in qualifying to earn a spot in the field is one of the many charms of an Open championship. It is a window into how small the golf world is and how minute the differences are between players at the highest levels of a game, with few degrees of separation between a 50-year-old college golf coach and Irwin, a three-time United States Open champion. Even so, Parker is plotting no competitive comeback, and he labors under no misapprehensions about his game. “When I’m out here, I feel like I belong here,” he said in a phone interview. “When I’m at home, I feel like I belong at home. The difference is, when I’m at home, I have three kids and a wife, so I know I belong at home.” Back when he was trying to play golf for a living, Parker’s United States Open experience was at Medinah Country Club, where Irwin won the last of his three Opens. At the time, he was playing on the Hogan Tour (now the Nationwide Tour), teeing it up each week against eventual PGA Tour winners like Tom Lehman and Olin Browne, with whom he played a practice round this week. After missing the cut at the 1990 Open, and after one final run at the touring pro life in 1994, Parker settled down in Lebanon. He kept his game sharp, winning PGA player of the year honors in Vermont (1997) and New Hampshire (1999) and building the program at Dartmouth into a winner since taking it over in 2006. But like all athletes who once competed against the best, Parker never lost the desire to test his game again. This time, though, he prepared differently. He was often accompanied at evening practice sessions by his daughters — Virginia, 15, a member of the Lebanon High School golf team, and Anna, 12 — and his son Trey, 9, a Little League player who shagged practice shots with a baseball glove. And now that he will be breaking out his game on the big stage, he wants to enjoy the experience more than he did in 1990, when he wore himself out before the event began. His attitude is relaxed. Browne said in a text message that his old friend was still “Jack Benny in a crew cut.” “I know there’s a ton of people in New England who are following this, and this whole thing is awesome,” Parker said. “If I play good, awesome. If I don’t, hey, I’m not trying to go to the moon or something. This is golf. It won’t be the last time I play.” AN APPEALING PITCH Although this will be something of a home game for the Seattle-born Fred Couples in the Senior Open, there is nothing regional about Couples’s appeal as a pitchman. The makers of Ecco shoes have found out that Couples appeals to shoe buyers of all ages and will be using this week’s Open to build on the success they had with him wearing their “Golf Street” sneakers at the Masters . Before the Masters, the company had forecast selling 2,000 pairs of the style for the entirety of 2010. The company increased production of the shoes afterward and said that it would deliver close to 100,000 pairs this year in the United States and that it had increased its international projections by “tens of thousands of pairs.” WOODS TO PLAY IN OHIO Tiger Woods will play at the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, a tournament he has won three of the four times since Bridgestone assumed sponsorship and four of the previous seven times, played in 1999-2005, when N.E.C. was the sponsor. The tournament runs Aug. 3-8. Woods, who said he was pleased with most aspects of his play at the British Open at St. Andrews two weeks ago, will try to rediscover his putting touch on the fast greens of the South Course at Firestone. TEENAGER SHOOTS 57 Bobby Wyatt shot a 57 at the Alabama Boys State Junior Championship. Wyatt, who is bound for the University of Alabama, turns 18 this weekend. Wyatt had 12 birdies, an eagle and five pars on the par-71, 6,628-yard course at the Country Club of Mobile. His birdie putt hung on the lip on the 18th green, and he had to settle for par. Wyatt needed 23 putts total and shot a nine-under-par 26 on the front nine. Wyatt has won the state’s junior championship the past three years. Ryo Ishikawa’s 58 in the final round of the The Crowns tournament on the Japan Tour on May 2 is the lowest score on a major tour. (AP) | Parker Richard;Golf;United States Open (Golf) |
ny0240636 | [
"us"
] | 2010/12/23 | Georgia: Immigrants Found in Truck | Six illegal immigrants were discovered in a truck headed for a cargo facility near the Atlanta airport Tuesday night, but they are not suspected of plotting to do any harm, federal authorities said. The men, who were hired to lay carpet at the facility, could not provide proof of legal residency during a routine inspection. They may face deportation, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department. They did not have access to secure areas of the airport, authorities said. | Georgia;Immigration and Emigration;Illegal Immigrants |
ny0093477 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/08/12 | Tracy Morgan Crash Largely Result of Truck Driver’s Fatigue, Regulators Say | Federal transportation regulators on Tuesday cited a Walmart truck driver’s fatigue as the chief cause of a crash last year that killed the comedian James McNair and critically injured Tracy Morgan, a star of the television series “30 Rock.” National Transportation Safety Board investigators, presenting their findings at a public hearing in Washington about the June 2014 crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, said unused seatbelts exacerbated the injuries, and criticized the training of emergency medical workers who struggled to remove Mr. Morgan and some of the other six people who were trapped inside an overturned limousine van. In addition, the limousine had been customized, officials said, leaving the passengers without any available exits until emergency responders cut out part of a plywood panel that had been installed between the passenger compartment and the cab. “Their single means of exiting had become inoperable in the crash,” the board chairman, Christopher Hart, said. Even if that sliding door had worked, it was above passengers’ heads, because the van had flipped onto its side. The officials said they shuddered at what might have happened had the vehicle caught fire. Image T. Bella Dinh-Zarr and Christopher Hart at a meeting of the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday. Credit Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press The crash left Mr. Morgan with a severe brain injury and killed Mr. McNair, 62, who was known as Jimmy Mack. Eight other people were injured when the Walmart truck — traveling 65 miles per hour in a 45 m.p.h. zone as it approached a construction area where traffic was backed up — rear-ended the van and set off a chain-reaction collision . The truck driver, Kevin Roper, is awaiting trial in New Jersey on charges of vehicular homicide and assault by auto. Mr. Morgan settled a lawsuit against Walmart in May for an undisclosed amount. In an interview on NBC in June , Mr. Morgan said that he was not ready to return to his comedy career, and was still experiencing forgetfulness, headaches and nosebleeds. Federal officials cast blame for the damage on a wide range of lax training and safety programs, as well as lapses in the emergency medical response. It took around 40 minutes for responders to extricate the passengers. Medical workers initially “failed to recognize how serious the situation was and how many severely injured occupants” were in the van, Thomas Barth, a safety board investigator, said. By the time more highly trained medical workers arrived, “they were overwhelmed,” because “they didn’t have enough resources on hand,” Dr. Barth said. Investigators suggested that communication problems could have been compounded because medical teams came from different jurisdictions and had different levels of experience. They suggested that New Jersey set uniform training standards for groups that provide emergency medical service on the turnpike. Mr. Roper had been awake for more than 28 hours at the time of the crash. He had driven 800 miles overnight from his home in Georgia to a Walmart distribution center in Delaware, where he began his delivery. Image The Walmart truck involved in the crash with Mr. Morgan&aposs limousine in June 2014. The truck was taken to an auto body shop in Cranbury, N.J. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times Investigators questioned Mr. Roper’s decision to take on the load despite having only about an hour remaining in the period he could be on duty according to federal regulations. He did not apply the brakes until he was within 200 feet of the van. His fatigue, the board determined, made him “slow to react.” The board recommended that companies like Walmart develop more robust fatigue management programs to educate dispatchers, drivers and their families on the risks of sleeplessness. Drowsy driving has plagued truck drivers for decades , but the Senate passed a bill last month that exempted some truck drivers from rules limiting their hours of service. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who has opposed efforts to loosen such restrictions, said the safety board’s findings affirmed the need for stronger regulations. In a statement on Tuesday, he criticized the Senate for passing “a transportation bill full of special interest gifts to the trucking industry.” Mr. Blumenthal added, “Allowing more tired truckers on our roads will only lead to more accidents like the horrific accident that injured Tracy Morgan last year.” Wearing seatbelts and properly adjusting head restraints could have kept the passengers from flailing about, investigators said. Acknowledging that passengers tend to overlook available safety equipment when they are in a social setting, the board recommended making safety briefings mandatory on such limousine vans. The truck was equipped with a collision awareness system to alert drivers to dangers ahead, but the data did not indicate that any alerts were made. | Car Crash;Distracted Driving;Tracy Morgan;James McNair;Kevin Roper;NTSB;Walmart Stores;New Jersey Turnpike |
ny0032133 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2013/06/25 | For Blackhawks and Bruins, Salary Cap Will Be Next Test | BOSTON — It is often called the salary cap world, and the Chicago Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins have learned to live in it. Before the cap, which began with the 2005-6 season, teams could spend as much as they wanted on payroll, and they would thrive, as the Detroit Red Wings did, or founder, as the Rangers did. But since then, as general managers have been forced to jettison players every year to get under the cap, no team has been able to win the Stanley Cup twice. That changes this season, when the Blackhawks (who won in 2010) or the Bruins (who won in 2011) will be the first to win two Cups in the salary-cap era. Chicago held a 3-2 series lead heading into Monday night’s Game 6 here. However, the teams’ general managers, Stan Bowman of Chicago and Peter Chiarelli of Boston, took vastly different paths to this year’s championship series — and both will face huge salary-cap quandaries once it ends. After the Bruins won the Cup in 2011, Chiarelli was able to keep much of the team together. After the Blackhawks won the Cup in 2010, Bowman traded or elected not to re-sign nine players from the championship roster, as well as others in the organization, to stay under the cap. “For us to be in this situation again three years down the road,” Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane said, “especially after the breakup we had from that 2010 team, losing 10, 11 guys, whatever it is, I think it’s a great success.” The Blackhawks parted ways with Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg, Andrew Ladd and goalie Antti Niemi. Even so, Bowman was able to keep the team’s core intact. Eight players from the 2010 team skated for Chicago in Game 5: forwards Kane, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa and Dave Bolland, and defensemen Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson. “You have to have some continuity to your team,” Bowman said when the finals started, referring to 2010 and to the salary-cap challenges coming after this season. “Obviously, there are some changes from year to year. We want to keep these guys together as much as we can and to keep developing as a group.” Chicago’s Bryan Bickell, Michal Handzus, Viktor Stalberg, Michal Rozsival and the backup goalie Ray Emery become unrestricted free agents July 5. Game 6: Blackhawks vs. Bruins 12 Photos View Slide Show › Image Charles Krupa/Associated Press Bickell, a 27-year-old bruising winger, is the biggest question mark: he had 8 goals and 16 points in the postseason entering Monday’s game. He was at his best when on a line with Kane and Toews, with a plus-5 goal differential in the first five games of the finals. Bickell’s $540,000-a-year contract is up, and he can expect a raise to three or even five times that. Bowman said “we’re going to do our best” to re-sign Bickell. But that may mean that Handzus, the 36-year-old second-line center; Emery, whose regular-season record was a remarkable 17-1; and some others may have to go to get the Blackhawks under the salary cap, which drops to $64.3 million next season from $70.2 million. Chiarelli had an easier time after the Bruins’ 2011 title. Through judicious contract structuring, the Bruins’ roster remained basically intact; 17 players from the championship team were still on the roster for Monday’s Game 6. Chiarelli has tended to be a stand-pat general manager — he has called his approach “a fine line” between “unfettered loyalty to the players and building a good team” — but this summer, the falling salary cap will test his approach. The Bruins are just $5 million under the 2013-14 cap, and they have not signed either of their goalies — the invaluable Tuukka Rask or his backup, Anton Khudobin — who become unrestricted free agents July 5. Rask has established himself as one of the N.H.L.’s top goalies, so his contract is likely to jump from $3.5 million a year to somewhere in the neighborhood of the $7 million that another Finnish goalie, Pekka Rinne, makes with the Nashville Predators. That kind of money would put the Bruins pretty much at the limit, with Chiarelli still wanting to re-sign unrestricted free agents like Khudobin and the first-line forward Nathan Horton. Others, like the longtime defensive anchor Andrew Ference and the venerable hockey nomad Jaromir Jagr, are all but certain to be gone. Chiarelli may even be forced to trade the expensive 21-year-old forward Tyler Seguin, who has had a poor season and postseason (just one goal in 21 playoff games before Monday) but whose cap hit will be $5.75 million annually through 2018-19. Before 2005-6, chances were that only a couple of these Blackhawks or Bruins would be headed out the door. But in the N.H.L.’s salary-cap world, it is a safe bet that some players who lift the Stanley Cup will be gone a few days later. | Ice hockey;Wages and salaries;Bruins;Chicago Blackhawks;Stanley Cup;Peter Chiarelli;Stan Bowman |
ny0193831 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2009/11/18 | Decision to Restore Ousted Honduran Leader Is Delayed Until After Vote | TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduran lawmakers will not decide whether to restore the ousted president until after the Nov. 29 presidential election, the congressional leader said Tuesday, a decision that could undermine international support for the vote. Congress will meet Dec. 2 to decide whether Manuel Zelaya should be returned to the presidency to finish his constitutional term, the congressional president, José Alfredo Saavedra, told HRN, a local radio station. Several Latin American countries have warned they will not recognize the outcome of the election unless Mr. Zelaya is restored beforehand. But the United States has said it would recognize the results of the election even if Mr. Zelaya remained out of power through the vote. Mr. Zelaya warned over the weekend that he would not return to the presidency if Congress voted to restore him after the elections, saying doing so would legitimize the June 28 coup. The term he was elected to serve ends in January. The Obama administration has repeatedly said that recognition of the election is not linked to any one action. But the administration is still hoping that the Honduran Congress will enact an accord brokered by the United States. “Congress deciding on the issue of restitution of President Zelaya is one of those things we’ve urged them to act with expedience on, and we welcome all actions that could move forward toward resolution,” a State Department spokesman, Charles Luoma-Overstreet, said Tuesday. Mr. Zelaya and the acting president, Roberto Micheletti, signed the American-brokered agreement last month. However, the two sides are at odds over whether the pact is being fulfilled. The accord calls for the formation of a national unity government, but it does not require Mr. Zelaya’s restoration to office, leaving that decision up to Congress. It set no deadline for lawmakers to vote. Mr. Zelaya, who has been in the Brazilian Embassy since sneaking back into the country from his forced exile, declared the pact a failure two weeks ago when Mr. Micheletti announced the formation of a unity government before Congress had voted. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly arrived in Honduras on Tuesday to meet with the feuding sides, said Ledy Pacheco, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Tegucigalpa. It is Mr. Kelly’s second trip in less than a week to try to revive the accord. The Honduran crisis has been one of the biggest diplomatic challenges in Latin America for the Obama administration. Washington joined other governments in the hemisphere in suspending diplomatic ties with Honduras after soldiers flew Mr. Zelaya into exile at gunpoint. Now, Washington could find itself at odds with many Latin American countries if it decides to recognize the election, undermining its efforts to improve relations with the region. | Honduras;Coups D'Etat and Attempted Coups D'Etat;Politics and Government;Elections;Latin America;Zelaya Rosales Jose Manuel |
ny0158291 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2008/12/16 | A Portuguese Tradition Faces a Frozen Future | ÍLHAVO, Portugal — Cod, the salted, cured, dried, smelly kind, may be the closest thing this country has to a national symbol. Bacalhau, as the fish is called here, is to Christmas Eve in Portugal what turkey is to Thanksgiving in America. Treasured since the 16th century, when Portuguese fishermen first brought it back from Newfoundland, it bore the nickname fiel amigo — faithful friend. Its correct preparation is a source of pride, a sign of respect for family values. Every Portuguese, it seems, likes to boast that there are 1,000 recipes for bacalhau and that the people here eat more of it than do those anywhere else in the world. “The greatest friend of Portugal is bacalhau,” said Fernando Santos, an officer of the Friends of Bacalhau, a club that has 46 chapters around the world, hosts salt cod lunches and distributes cod-decorated neckties, pins, baseball caps, T-shirts and flags. “It has always come from afar, but it is part of our identity.” So as Christmas approaches, the rush is on to find the best-quality salt cod at the best price before supplies dwindle and prices inevitably soar. But the preparation — a ritual of soaking stiff, smelly slabs of fish in cold water that must be changed every few hours for two to three days before cooking — is less romantic than it once was. These days, more and more Portuguese are opting for frozen bacalhau. “Frozen is the best! Frozen is the future!” said Gonçalo Guedes Vaz, managing director of Rui Costa e Sousa, a major producer of both frozen and traditional bacalhau, at the company’s state-of-the-art processing plant in this northwestern port city. “Women have no time to stay home and soak. So we do the job for them. Traditional cod soon will be a thing of the past.” Frozen, ready-to-cook bacalhau — fish that has been salted and dried, then soaked and prepared like traditional bacalhau and then frozen — accounts for as much as 25 percent of the bacalhau sold in Portugal. In the year and a half since Rui Costa e Sousa has been freezing part of its catch, frozen cod has grown to about 2,000 tons, or 17 percent of its production. Within five years, the company says, it wants that figure to hit 50 percent. While one part of the plant is devoted to processing traditional salt cod, Mr. Guedes Vaz revels in showing visitors the operations of the frozen food side of the business. Computers keep records on every fish that passes through. In one vast hall, an army of women in hairnets and rubber gloves furiously sort, grade, wash, gut and scan mountains of cod. In another, shovel-wielding women cover the cod with salt. The cod sits in salt brine for at least 21 days, then is put through a sophisticated drying process. In a bathing room, 90 tons of cod can be soaked simultaneously in eight vast bins of water that are monitored by computers for temperature and salt content. In other rooms, lasers help workers cut the soaked and desalted fish into finished products, from precision-weighed steaks for grilling to shredded pieces to cook with onions and potatoes. The hardiest workers don thermal vests for the tough assignment in the finishing rooms, where frozen cod moves on conveyor belts to be glazed, labeled and packaged in plastic. “Look at those loins!” Mr. Guedes Vaz said. “We do this much better than you can do it at home. We have total control.” To prove it, Mr. Guedes Vaz has set up a small corporate dining room, where Isabel Santos, a chef with no formal training but a lot of loyalty, prepares the company’s premier frozen brand, Sr. Bacalhau (Mr. Cod), in half a dozen different ways. “I used to make bacalhau the old-fashioned way, but since I discovered Senhor Bacalhau here, I am faithful only to him,” she said. The divide is on display in the retail markets in Lisbon, the capital. In the city’s main supermarket, hundreds of salt-encrusted bacalhau piled high in one section compete with vast frozen cases of bacalhau in another. They receive equal praise. “I really don’t see much difference in the quality,” said Ana Dinis, the fish department saleswoman. “Frozen is more expensive, but frankly, less salty, more reliable.” Indeed, it is easy to work hard on bacalhau and still get it wrong. If the soaking temperature is too cold, the fibers of the fish’s flesh do not open up properly and the finished product will be too salty. If the cod is soaked too long, it will turn spongy. Every family has a horror story of the relative who spent days preparing bacalhau only to serve it too dry or too salty. In other words, inedible. The changing culinary habits of the Portuguese are mourned as a loss of a part of the country’s culture. “Frozen tastes nothing like real bacalhau, properly prepared,” said José Bento dos Santos, a winemaker and the host of a television cooking show. “I doubt the next generation will know it, just as it will not know the taste of real strawberries or melons.” That view is shared on Rua do Arsenal, the old working-class shopping street for traditional bacalhau in the Baixa section of Lisbon. Although many of the shops have shut in the past 25 years, there is still so much salt cod here that the street greets passers-by with the smell of salt brine and pungent old fish, sort of like the smell of old socks. “I never ate the frozen stuff but I hear from people who have that it’s disgusting,” said Fernando Pereira, who sells nine grades of the stiff, salt-caked whole fish in his shop, King of Bacalhau, alongside dusty bottles of port, absinthe, whiskey and olive oil, open sacks of beans and grains and packages of cod cheeks, face and tongue. During the four decades of António de Oliveira Salazar’s dictatorship, cod was the country’s cheapest source of protein. Cod fishing was subsidized by the state. Cod fishermen were revered as national heroes; cod was the staple for good Catholics on Fridays and holy days. In the past 15 years, strict quotas limiting cod fishing have driven up prices and made cod a luxury for the working class. Many upscale customers, meanwhile, have turned to supermarkets. Mr. Pereira’s business has declined by 50 percent. The move to frozen cod has only made things worse. “I am suffering, but I cannot sell the business,” he said. “It’s a family tradition.” | Portugal;Cod (Fish);Food;Seafood;Christmas |
ny0197411 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/10/13 | Union Ties Raise Questions for a Bloomberg Aide | When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tapped Maura Keaney this year to run field operations for his re-election bid, the choice seemed reasonable. She had campaigned for him in 2005, then spent three years as a senior aide to City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn , supervising legislation, policy and communications. Ms. Keaney had access to organized labor, a key constituency for any mayoral contender. She had been a political director for a large union, Unite Here, and in recent months has worked to garner labor support for Mr. Bloomberg, just as she did for Ms. Quinn. A review of her role in Ms. Quinn’s office, though, shows that in one significant episode, Ms. Keaney may have drifted too close to labor, raising money from unions on the speaker’s behalf even as she worked on legislation that affected them: a potential violation of the city’s conflicts of interest law. The legislation was a 2007 bill to overhaul the city’s campaign finance law, a measure that Ms. Quinn has embraced as one of the Council’s signature accomplishments. In its final form, the bill excluded New York’s powerful unions from new strictures on the amount of money that companies and individuals doing business with the city can provide to candidates. But interviews and records show that even as the legislation was being crafted, Ms. Keaney helped set up a May 14 labor fund-raiser for Ms. Quinn at Unite Here and asked unions to attend and contribute. Three officials from unions that were solicited said Ms. Keaney was involved in the fund-raiser, for which tickets cost $250 and $500 a person. On the date of the event, and in the weeks before and after, 19 labor organizations contributed a total of close to $40,000 to Ms. Quinn, who at the time was considering a run for mayor. During the same period, one of the union officials said, Ms. Keaney held a meeting at City Hall at which she told labor leaders that unions, as they had sought, would not be covered by the bill’s “pay to play” restrictions, and that they should refrain from trumpeting that. None of the three union officials agreed to be identified for this article because they said they were concerned about alienating Ms. Quinn, who has had a long and close relationship with labor. Interviewed separately, however, they gave the same account: a Quinn fund-raiser held on the 10th floor of Unite Here’s Manhattan executive offices and Ms. Keaney encouraging unions to participate, all within weeks of the City Council passing the campaign finance legislation. “We felt a little strange about giving her the contributions because Chris had portrayed herself as someone who was transparent and a reformer,” said one labor representative who was contacted by Ms. Keaney. “But here she was, along with Maura, seeking money that was obviously tied to the unions being left out of the bill,” the official said. Over a period of recent days, Ms. Keaney declined to respond to questions about her role in the fund-raiser. In an e-mail response, she wrote, “This event was two and a half years ago, and I just don’t remember that much about it.” Ms. Quinn did not respond to several questions about the matter, but her spokesman, Jamie McShane, said, “The speaker’s legislative efforts are separate from her political activities.” The city’s conflicts of interest law forbids policymakers, as Ms. Keaney was, from raising money, either “directly or indirectly,” in city races so as to avoid what the Conflicts of Interest Board describes as “situations where high-level public servants coerce or appear to coerce the general public to make political contributions.” Violators face possible misdemeanor criminal charges and dismissal from their jobs, though there has been no finding that Ms. Keaney has engaged in any wrongdoing. Ms. Quinn, and one of her campaign aides, also are said to have solicited contributions from unions during this period, but the city law does not prohibit candidates or campaign staff from such activity. Ms. Keaney, on the other hand, was included at that time on a list of officials — submitted to the Conflicts of Interest Board by the Council and mayoral agencies — who are barred from soliciting political contributions because of their role in policy matters. Since joining the Bloomberg campaign, Ms. Keaney, 34, has put her ties with organized labor to use, reaching out to several union leaders to help persuade them to endorse Mr. Bloomberg or help in the get-out-the-vote effort, according to people involved in the process. Ms. Keaney was involved in New York City politics as a Barnard College student, interning for Thomas K. Duane, then a City Council member from Manhattan and now a state senator and someone for whom Ms. Quinn also worked, according to Ms. Keaney’s former Council biography. She became a full-time staff member for Mr. Duane after graduation. She ran Ms. Quinn’s special election campaign in 1999, and then served as her chief of staff for two years. During this period, Ms. Keaney took leaves of absence to work on several political campaigns, including Ruth W. Messinger’s bid for mayor in 1997 and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. According to her biography, Ms. Keaney ran the field operation for the 2001 mayoral campaign of the Bloomberg rival Alan G. Hevesi before becoming a political director at the union. (Unite Here was formed in 2004 when Unite, representing apparel and laundry workers, merged with the larger Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. The two have since split.) She briefly campaigned on Mr. Bloomberg’s behalf during his 2005 re-election bid when her union endorsed him. Ms. Keaney was named City Council deputy chief of staff in 2006. Ms. Keaney strengthened her relationship with labor by helping Ms. Quinn draft the campaign finance reform law that exempted unions from the new limits on political donations — as labor leaders had sought. The legislation that was signed into law by Mayor Bloomberg sets fresh limits for contributions by certain parties, such as lobbyists and developers who do business with the city. Labor groups successfully pushed to be excluded. “We thought the initial bill was unfair and political,” said Wanda Williams, director of political action for District Council 37 , which represents municipal employees. “We all knew this was an effort to limit our democratic rights because some people thought we were too powerful.” The bill passed the Council on June 27, 2007, about six weeks after the fund-raiser at Unite Here. “We are creating the strongest campaign finance system in the nation,” Ms. Quinn said at the time. “The more we eliminate the perception of undue influence, the more we encourage people to participate in the democratic process.” Among the labor organizations that donated to Ms. Quinn around the time of the fund-raiser were the New York City Central Labor Council, the Communication Workers of America, the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, the United Auto Workers, the New York City District Council of Carpenters and the New York State Laborers union, according to campaign finance records. The space at Unite Here for the fund-raiser was listed as a $350 in-kind contribution to Ms. Quinn from the union. Some good-government groups had advocated limiting contributions from unions as well, suggesting the donations create access and leverage with political leaders who decide public employee salaries and benefit structures. But union leaders argued, among other things, that such curbs represented an illegal infringement on labor’s First Amendment right to make its voice heard through the medium of political donations. The union officials said that as that debate unfolded, Ms. Keaney invited them by phone to attend the fund-raiser event and gave a briefing at City Hall on the legislation. At that briefing, one labor representative said, she told them that labor had not been included in the bill but suggested it was best for them to remain quiet on the matter. | Bloomberg Michael R;Elections;Keaney Maura;Mayors;Organized Labor;New York City;Quinn Christine C |
ny0252209 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2011/11/29 | Enthusiasm for Return of These Knicks and Nets Fades Fast - George Vecsey | How are people reacting to the end of the N.B.A. lockout ? Tepidly, I would say, judging from a quick swath of television interviews over the weekend. Even men in the playground, shooting hoops, professed ambiguity over the return of the rich guys. Then again, maybe it was the warm weather in the Northeast. People were outdoors, feeling good, not thinking ahead to being cooped up inside and needing diversions on the tube when winter finally arrives. Or maybe it is hard to be worked up over yet another sport when there is such a creepy pall spreading from Penn State football and Syracuse men’s basketball . The depravity oozing out from those two Northeastern hotbeds — you should pardon the expression — is not going away any time soon. Meantime, we have our diversions, as the N.B.A. prepares to certify a shortened season starting on Christmas Day and lasting into June. That leaves plenty of time for all right-thinking fans to unite in true continental sporting teamwork, anticipating LeBron James’s tossing up bricks in the final month of spring. Every franchise in the N.B.A. will have its own reaction to the end of the lockout. In the New York region, we have two teams, but so much else going on that it’s hard to get worked up over a revival of pro basketball. My first flittering reaction was what scientists might call a false positive. I couldn’t remember why, but I found myself harboring a vague fondness for the Knicks . I had an impression of alert young players moving the ball, setting up Amar’e Stoudemire, playing the heady basketball we claim we like in New York. But then I remembered I was wasting nostalgia on a team that was blown up last Feb. 21. That team does not exist anymore, since the big trade of four rotation players, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and Timofey Mozgov; a first-round pick in 2014; and second-round picks in 2012 and 2013 to Denver, in return for Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups. The Knicks had a 28-26 record when, as far as I can reason, the Madison Square Garden chairman, James L. Dolan, engineered the trade, ignoring the builder instincts of his president, Donnie Walsh , who has since been relegated to consultancy . Now it all comes back to me. Billups, a wise old head, was in charge of getting the ball to Anthony, who could not waste his time playing defense because he needed to shoot every time down the court. Stoudemire’s body pretty much wore down by springtime. The Knicks had a 14-14 record after the trade, then lost four straight to the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. We are told that the Knicks’ moves cannot be judged until next season, when the team might afford the salary-cap maneuvers and sign a younger star point guard. So much for this season, now looming over us. My euphoria faded fast. I had a vague recollection that I also liked the Nets , the other team in the New York metropolitan region. But the more I thought about it, my momentary reaction was based upon their brief era of glory, when they reached the finals two years in a row in the springs of 2002 and 2003. They were really fun to watch, with Jason Kidd making everybody better, but that team has not existed for many years. My flicker of enthusiasm for the Nets included their move from that dismal spot in the swamps into that struggling, but recognizable, urban center, Newark. Next year they will move into a much more vibrant place — the land grab near downtown Brooklyn being a separate issue. Just the mention of Brooklyn evokes the scent of restaurants and walks in cool neighborhoods. Then reality struck. Quick, I said to myself, name one player on the Nets . There’s the guy whose marriage to one of the Kardashians was shorter than the lockout itself. Hey, Kris, what did you do during the off-season? That guy. And didn’t they make a trade for Deron Williams, who has been keeping his shooting arm warm by playing in Turkey? And Brook Lopez. I envisioned him, too. But just like the Knicks, the Nets seem to be a year away from anything. Do we really need the N.B.A. to come back this soon? The N.F.L. will dominate the tube until the end of January. If we can get Penn State and Syracuse out of our nostrils — no sure thing — then we have college football into January and college basketball for four more months. The best soccer in the world has become a multiple-network reality in this region. We still have three hockey teams in our area. And call it habit, but on these long, dark evenings, I feel the urge to hit the clicker just to get the Yankees and Mets scores. Won’t be long now. The N.B.A. players and owners may have demonstrated their irrelevancy. In the first days since the tentative labor agreement, vox populi seems to be reacting to the 66-game schedule by asking: That long, huh? | New York Knicks;New Jersey Nets;Basketball;Stoudemire Amare;Billups Chauncey;Mozgov Timofey;Walsh Donnie;Lockouts;Trades (Sports);Anthony Carmelo |
ny0168343 | [
"business"
] | 2006/01/25 | Economy in China Is No. 5 in World | HONG KONG, Jan. 25 - The Chinese economy grew at an annual pace of 9.9 percent last year, the third consecutive year of roughly 10 percent growth, government statisticians in Beijing said on Wednesday morning. The statistics, showing a national economic output of $2.26 trillion, sent China soaring past France, with which it was roughly tied in 2004, to become the world's fourth-largest economy, after the United States, Japan and Germany. Some economists say the actual value of China's output has surpassed Germany's as well, after adjusting for the low value of China's currency and its low domestic prices. Rising exports have helped lift China to an average annual growth rate of 9.6 percent over the last quarter century. But economists said that Wednesday's figures showed that domestic demand -- particularly investment but also consumer spending -- was becoming increasingly important as well. Liang Hong, a Goldman Sachs economist, noted that retail sales in China climbed 12.5 percent last year. "We believe domestic demand will increasingly become a much more important driver for growth, and China will become a more positive force for global demand in the coming years," she wrote in a report. | CHINA;ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT;ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND TRENDS |
ny0294892 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/12/04 | The One That Waddled Away: Retracing a Weighty Gold Theft | They lie below and out of sight of the bright, shiny rings and necklaces in the storefront windows — on work tables, on the floor. Humble, but no less valuable. Flakes, fragments and particles are shed as jewelers and others work with gold, and these fallen scraps are meticulously collected. Its least pure form, a blend of dusts of various metals, is known in the industry as bench sweeps. Larger scraps, like flakes, are more pure and more valuable. They are weighed with precision and stored in buckets. These buckets are transported in the backs of armored cars. The diamond district, the block of West 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, is a hub for the scrap market and the buying and selling of sweeps and flakes. A block north, on Sept. 29, a man cased the Loomis International armored car and, seeing his opportunity when a guard moved from the rear to the front of the cab, snatched an 5-gallon bucket weighing 86 pounds from the back and ran-walked-waddled away. He remains at large. Last week the police released a surveillance video of the theft. Its length and breadth are practically cinematic, showing the thief walking with his heavy prize through several busy New York City blocks like a character in a sitcom. In the two months since the theft, the police and the armored-car company have gone to great lengths to find the thief and the contents of the bucket: misshapen bars of melted, scrap gold worth $1.6 million. The buckets were first described as containing gold flakes, but actually, they held rough-edged bars, a mixture of scrap gold and impurities, from several locations. The bars, about the size of an ice-cube tray with identifying numbers scrawled across them with a Sharpie, are easier to transport than loose flakes. Interviews with investigators last week brought new information. The police believe the man has entered the country illegally from Ecuador several times, said Kevin P. Harrington, a former deputy chief in the New York Police Department who represents a security company working on the case with detectives and Loomis. Detective Martin Pastor with the department’s Major Case Squad said the man was believed to have been casing the diamond district area looking for a truck to steal from, and had not simply happened upon a momentarily empty truck. “He was observing the vehicle, pacing back and forth,” Detective Pastor said. He is believed to have since fled to Orlando, Fla., Detective Pastor said. The unusual theft raises many questions. For one: Was it an inside job? “Absolutely not,” Mr. Harrington said. The two Loomis guards working that day, who have since been fired, “cooperated 100 percent” with investigators and have no links to the suspect, he said. “They’re not associated geographically or socially with these people,” Mr. Harrington said. (In an interview with The Daily News in October, the guard who left the rear unattended said he had gone to the front to turn off the ignition.) Loomis has announced a reward of $100,000 for information leading to the gold. The gold was being transported from Abington Reldan Metals, a refinery in Fairless Hills, Pa., to Asahi Refining in Ontario, Canada. Representatives at Abington Reldan declined to comment, and those at Asahi did not respond to several messages. The truck had stopped in Manhattan to pick up other buckets of scrap, Detective Pastor said. The area is on alert for armed robbers and fraud — with many security guards and cameras, buzz-in doors and a phone app that verifies whether an ingot is real — but less so for simple low-tech larceny. After grabbing the bucket from the truck on West 48th Street, the suspect is seen on video running east. At one point, he put it down to rest a moment, hands on knees and seemingly winded. It is unclear if he knew what he stole. “You know it’s an armored car,” Mr. Harrington said. “You can do the math. It’s going to be a significant value.” The suspect continued east, crossing the wide Fifth Avenue near its tourist heart, with Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in sight. He passed the InterContinental New York Barclay hotel and its doormen opening cab doors for guests. (“Not here he didn’t,” a doorman said on Thursday, as if a man with a bucket would not have been allowed to pass on his watch.) The suspect turned north on Third Avenue for one block, then east on 49th Street, outside the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. A white van picked him up, Detective Pastor said. Now what? One does not walk to a pawnshop or a jeweler with a Sharpie-scrawled hunk of metal as if it were a ring or a Rolex. On the other hand, an unscrupulous refinery or dealer could see an opportunity to buy the gold for a fraction of its worth from a seller eager to part with it. The thief’s long journey across town was over, but another may have just begun. | Robbery;Gold;Armored cars;Manhattan;Diamond District Manhattan;Loomis International;NYC |
ny0144012 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/10/29 | Former SUNY Basketball Player Is Arrested in Serbia | BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A Serbian basketball player who fled the United States after a bar brawl in upstate New York that left a fellow student, from Brooklyn, in a coma, was arrested on Tuesday in Belgrade, the police said. The Serbian student, Miladin Kovacevic, 21, was detained on suspicion that he had “inflicted severe bodily harm” on the other student, Bryan Steinhauer, 22, during the fight, which occurred in May. Both students attended the State University of New York in Binghamton. The arrest followed a decision this month by United States authorities to hand over an investigating file on Mr. Kovacevic’s case to the Serbian judiciary, Tomo Zoric, a spokesman for Serbia’s prosecution office told The Associated Press. Serbia has refused to extradite Mr. Kovacevic to the United States, saying its laws do not allow it. The case has strained relations between the two countries. The United States Embassy in Belgrade welcomed the detention of Mr. Kovacevic. “The Embassy is cooperating with Serbia’s request to investigate this case,” it said in a statement. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Kovacevic would be formally charged in Serbia. He is to be questioned by an investigative judge who will decide whether to keep him in prison and open a formal investigation. Mr. Kovacevic’s lawyer, Borivoje Borovic, said his client had been detained for questioning. Mr. Kovacevic’s father, Petar, told The A. P. that his son “voluntarily went to a police station for questioning.” Serbia’s police media office said that a former Serbian consul in New York also was arrested on Tuesday. United States officials said the former consul had helped Mr. Kovacevic by providing emergency travel documents that helped him flee in June. Both the ex-consul and Mr. Kovacevic are suspected of forging the travel documents, Mr. Zoric said. Mr. Steinhauer, of Prospect Heights, recently emerged from the coma. | Police;Basketball;Serbia;New York State |
ny0073252 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/04/03 | Texas-Born Man, Flown Back From Pakistan, Is Held on Terror Charge | A Texas-born man who had apparently joined Al Qaeda in Pakistan has been flown back to the United States, where he was arraigned in Brooklyn on Thursday on a charge of providing material support to terrorists. The man, Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, developed extremist views while a student at the University of Manitoba, according to the criminal complaint in United States District Court, and often watched online videos about jihad, including some from Anwar al-Awlaki, a onetime leader of Al Qaeda. In 2006, he, a classmate, Ferid Imam, and another person talked about leaving Canada for Pakistan. There, the authorities say, they planned to train in order to commit jihad against American soldiers in Afghanistan. The men sold their belongings, the complaint says, disconnected their cellphones and purchased mountain boots. Mr. Al Farekh told an acquaintance that he was going on a business trip to Pakistan in March 2007. “They disappeared from Canada without further warning,” the complaint says, and records showed that the group flew to Karachi, Pakistan. The acquaintance testified that the men called him after leaving Canada. When he asked where they had gone, he said, Mr. Imam replied that they were on their way to be martyrs. In Pakistan, Mr. Imam offered training to would-be terrorists, according to testimony from earlier terror trials in the courthouse. That included training with weapons, which Mr. Imam provided to three men who were convicted of plotting to bomb the New York City subway system. The complaint did not offer much further elaboration on Mr. Al Farekh’s role. | Al Qaeda;Pakistan;Terrorism;Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh |
ny0286961 | [
"science"
] | 2016/08/05 | Finding Degas’s Lost Portrait With a Particle Accelerator | For decades, a mysterious black stain has been spreading across the face of an anonymous woman in Australia. She is the subject of a painting by Edgar Degas, the French Impressionist painter, and since the 1920s, the oil paints in her portrait have gradually faded, revealing the hints of another, hidden portrait underneath. Until recently, attempts to capture the image underlying “ Portrait of a Woman ” with conventional X-ray and infrared techniques have only yielded the shadowy outline of another woman. In a study published on Thursday, however, a team of researchers reports that they have revealed the hidden layer underneath the painting, which hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, at a very high resolution. It seems to be a portrait of Emma Dobigny, a model who was a favored subject of Degas. “The fact that you get to see the lower image in such incredible detail is really exciting,” said Joris Dik , a professor of materials in art and archaeology at Delft University of Technology, who was not involved in the research. To get their high-resolution image, the research team used a type of particle accelerator called a synchrotron. Synchrotrons are sources of extremely high-energy light. They work by directing that light, which is a million times brighter than the sun, into an X-ray beam that’s one tenth the diameter of a human hair. Image The newly uncovered portrait, thought to be of Emma Dobigny, was hidden upside down underneath this painting, “Portrait of a Woman.” Credit National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1937 Working at the Australian Synchrotron , the researchers used this intense X-ray beam to scan Degas’s painting with a method called X-ray fluorescence, or XRF. A special detector analyzed the painting point by point, to pick up the unique chemical signatures of different paint elements on a fine scale. Over the course of about 30 hours, the researchers watched an elemental map of the hidden portrait emerge on a computer monitor. “You’d never think a group of people would get so excited watching dots appear on a screen, but we were glued to the appearance of a face that nobody had seen for over 100 years,” said David Thurrowgood, who was a senior conservator at the National Gallery of Victoria at the time and an author of the new paper. After the synchrotron scan, the researchers were left with a terabyte of X-ray data and a black-and-white map of Ms. Dobigny’s portrait. Then came months of data interpretation. The researchers wrote software that was able to convert different metal elements known to be found in different paint colors into a plausible color reconstruction of the painting. Mercury was assigned red, chromium green, cobalt blue, and so forth. Because previous attempts at capturing the underpainting only produced vague traces, the researchers didn’t know what to expect. “I wouldn’t have in 100 years been able to make the connection that it was Emma,” said Daryl Howard , a scientist at the Australian Synchrotron and an author of the paper. Image The researchers created their color reconstruction from X-ray fluorescence scans produced at a synchrotron, a type of particle accelerator. Credit David Thurrowgood The underpainting resembled other portraits that Degas painted of Ms. Dobigny, particularly one from 1869 in which the model sports a similar hairstyle. Painting over old canvasses was a common practice for artists at the time, but letters from Degas suggest he had a special fondness for Ms. Dobigny, which might explain why he kept the otherwise unfinished or unsatisfactory painting for a decade or so before painting “Portrait of a Woman.” Aside from revealing a lost painting, the project also reveals information about Degas’s painting techniques, which could help with identifying forgeries. “We now have a whole new level of information about how Degas actually worked,” Mr. Thurrowgood said. Before this project, researchers had scanned several other paintings as proof of concept, but this was the first time the technique was used on a major painting with a high-resolution result. The technique works better on some paintings than others, Dr. Dik said. But in this case he called the results remarkable. “You get to see the personal characteristics — the painting style of Degas himself,” he said. “It gives you the feeling that you’re looking over his shoulders and watching him make the painting, which is of course long gone for the human eye. But thanks to this XRF work, it’s there again.” | X-ray;Particle accelerator;National Gallery of Victoria;Edgar Degas;Emma Dobigny;Daryl Howard;David Thurrowgood;Art |
ny0000828 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/03/16 | Quinn Leads Democrats in Fund-Raising for Mayoral Race | Even though she has already raised more than she needs for her mayoral primary campaign, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, continued to distance herself financially from her main Democratic rivals, according to financial-disclosure reports released on Friday. In an intriguing twist revealed by the reports, a former presumed mayoral contender, Anthony D. Weiner, the former United States representative whose career was derailed by a scandal involving lewd photographs, reported spending more than $106,000 on polling and research, suggesting he was contemplating a run for an unspecified office. The reports to the city’s Campaign Finance Board, covering a two-month period, were the first in an accelerated schedule for filings in this election year. All three citywide offices, four of five borough presidencies and more than a third of the City Council seats are open. Ms. Quinn received $487,000 in contributions, padding her war chest to almost $5.6 million. Under the city’s relatively generous matching program, she has already reached the maximum amounts for both the primary and a possible runoff; that means she is now raising money for the general election. William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller who lost to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2009, took in an estimated $340,000, and now has more than $2 million in his coffers. But he still has to raise money at a robust rate to reach the maximum. Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, collected $267,000, and now has roughly $2.65 million. His campaign said that he was close to reaching the maximum for the primary. John C. Liu, the comptroller, who is expected to formally kick off his mayoral bid on Sunday, received $106,000. Mr. Liu now has about $2 million. His campaign did not spend any money on legal expenses, even though two of his associates, including his former campaign treasurer, are scheduled to stand trial starting on April 15 in Federal District Court on fraud charges related to his fund-raising . Mr. Liu has not been accused of wrongdoing. Another Democrat, Sal F. Albanese, raised $51,000, and now has $141,000 on hand. Among City Council candidates, Assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner of the Upper East Side reported donations of $124,000. As for Mr. Weiner, who was once viewed as the favorite for mayor, he paid David Binder Research, a San Francisco firm, $52,500 for research and $54,000 for polling. News accounts have indicated that Mr. Weiner, who still has $4.3 million left in his account, is exploring a bid for mayor or comptroller. But the fact that he did not spend anything else on the familiar trappings of a campaign, like a campaign staff, suggest that he is either waiting until the last minute to decide or dropping the idea. Asked via text message about his expenses, Mr. Weiner said: “I have nothing to report beyond what I have reported.” | Mayoral races;Campaign finance;Christine C Quinn;NYC;John C Liu;Sal F Albanese;Anthony Weiner;Bill de Blasio;William C Thompson Jr |
ny0060066 | [
"us"
] | 2014/08/30 | As Virginia Trial Ends, Jury Is Asked to Decide if Ex-Governor Was Corrupt, or Hapless Husband | RICHMOND, Va. — Ending a five-week trial that pulled back the curtain on a Virginia governor’s acceptance of a Rolex, a borrowed Ferrari and sweetheart loans, jurors hearing the case against former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were asked on Friday to decide if Mr. McDonnell was a corrupt politician who traded his office for luxury goods or a hapless husband caught up in a mess created by his wife’s greed. The prosecutor David Harbach, in closing arguments portrayed Mr. McDonnell as being “on the gravy train” provided by a wealthy businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., who sought the governor’s aid for his nutritional supplement company, Star Scientific. “This is bribery. This is corruption,” Mr. Harbach said. “The real thing. Don’t let it stand.” The defense argued that nothing Mr. McDonnell did for Mr. Williams was beyond a routine political courtesy. Lawyers said the government’s case was built almost entirely on the word of Mr. Williams, testifying with a promise he would not be prosecuted. “Bribery requires both a quid and a quo,” said Henry Asbill, Mr. McDonnell’s lawyer. “Bob never gave Jonnie anything special. This case is all quid, no quo.” There was no legal limit in Virginia at the time on gifts an official could accept. Mr. Asbill told jurors to ignore prosecutors’ “attempts to assassinate Bob’s character” by focusing on the luxury gifts. The trial was the first time a Virginia governor faced corruption charges. The case drew national attention because of the McDonnells’ decision to air sordid and intimate details of their marriage, suggesting they were too estranged to plan a criminal conspiracy. Jurors heard about Ms. McDonnell’s temper tantrums, about her husband’s frustration that their marriage was a sham, and about her crush on Mr. Williams, who filled an emotional void in her life. The charges “tragically forced my client and his wife to reveal the humiliating details of their marriage,” Mr. Asbill said, adding: “He was a strong governor. He was a weak husband at this time.” But prosecutors dismissed the claim that a broken marriage was relevant. “It just doesn’t matter,” said Michael S. Dry, an assistant United States attorney who offered a rebuttal argument to the defense. “What makes more sense is that Mr. McDonnell is willing to throw his wife under the bus, and she’s willing to let him.” The defense presented family members and staff workers of the former first lady who testified that she was obsessed with him, even if the relationship was never physical. As unflattering as the portrayal was, its legal purpose was deeply serious: to give an alternative reason for why Ms. McDonnell took Mr. Williams’s largess. Her lead lawyer, William A. Burck, said the former first lady accepted a $20,000 shopping spree in New York and a $50,000 check from Mr. Williams because she was “ga-ga” for him — not because they had struck a corrupt bargain. “To Maureen, this was about getting away from Bob,” he said. “There were things Bob could not afford and even if he could, he wouldn’t.” “You might think that is tacky,” he told jurors. “But it is not a crime.” Prosecutors told jurors that overwhelming circumstantial evidence connected the luxury gifts and loans the McDonnells took from Mr. Williams with favors Mr. McDonnell did on his behalf. In two and a half hours, Mr. Harbach tried to connect 23 days of detailed, sometimes confusing testimony to narrate the government’s case for the seven men and five women of the jury, who are scheduled to begin deliberations on Tuesday, after the holiday weekend. The McDonnells face 14 counts of working together and separately to sell the governor’s office in exchange for $177,000 in luxury gifts, cash and low-interest loans from the businessman, Mr. Williams. Acknowledging that there was no smoking-gun memo laying out a deal, Mr. Harbach meticulously presented a timeline in which gifts from Mr. Williams were closely followed by the governor’s actions on his behalf. In one case, a ride home in Mr. Williams’s Ferrari was followed an hour later by Mr. McDonnell requesting his health secretary meet the executive. Another time Mr. McDonnell emailed an aide to discuss Mr. Williams’s supplement pills, Anatabloc, six minutes after discussing a $50,000 loan with Mr. Williams. “See me about Anatabloc issues,” the email said. “In the real world these things aren’t explicit,” Mr. Harbach said, urging jurors to use their common sense. “Bob McDonnell knew exactly why Jonnie Williams was showering him and his family with gifts, and so do you.” Mr. McDonnell’s lawyers argued that actions he took for Mr. Williams — including allowing him to invite people he was trying to impress to two events at the Executive Mansion — were no more than the governor would have done to promote any Virginia business. “Prosecutors are trying to turn a party invitation into a federal crime,” Mr. Asbill said. But to prove corruption, the prosecution said, Mr. Williams and his company did not have to have received special attention or materially benefited. “The question isn’t whether Jonnie Williams had to pay to have Bob McDonnell do something,” Mr. Harbach said. “It’s whether Jonnie Williams did pay.” To show that the governor knew the arrangement was wrong, the government pointed to evidence that he concealed the gifts and loans, including not telling a senior staff member who emailed him, “we need to be careful with this issue,” after Mr. McDonnell asked him to arrange a meeting for Mr. Williams with a state official. The government argued that the McDonnells were guilty of falsifying bank loan applications on which they failed to disclose $120,000 in loans from Mr. Williams. The defense has argued that paperwork signed by the McDonnells was a preliminary draft before the loan closed, and therefore not relevant. The prosecutor again asked jurors to apply common sense. “Folks, I don’t recommend you try that on your own mortgage,” he said. The two sides tangled over the importance of Mr. Williams’s testimony, with the defense arguing that Mr. Williams was a lifelong super-salesman who had traded untruthful testimony for protection from prosecution for tax and securities fraud at his company. “Jonnie’s been selling things to people all his life,” Mr. Asbill said. “He’s really good at it. But this is his greatest con.” In response, Mr. Dry denied the case rose or fell with Mr. Williams’s credibility, and directed jurors to consider the trail of emails and phone calls in proximity to the gifts the McDonnells accepted and their efforts to help Mr. Williams. Mr. Dry admitted that Mr. Williams was, in fact, a criminal. “You don’t have to like Mr. Williams,” he said. “You should not like Mr. Williams. He bribed the governor of Virginia.” | Robert F McDonnell;Maureen Patricia Gardner McDonnell;Virginia;Gifts to Public Officials;Jonnie R Williams Sr |
ny0279088 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/11/22 | How to Spot a New Yorker When You Need Directions | Dear Diary: While waiting for a downtown No. 1 at Times Square on a brutally hot summer day, I overheard a man and a woman, clearly tourists, arguing about which train to take. “We have to ask someone who lives in New York,” the woman finally said and pointed toward another woman standing a few feet away. “I’m asking her.” “How do you know she’s from New York?” the man asked. “It’s 95 degrees, and she’s dressed in black from head to toe,” his companion answered. “She’s from New York!” | Times Square and 42nd Street Manhattan;Subway |
ny0066416 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/06/15 | Separatists Down Military Transport Jet, Killing 49 in Eastern Ukraine | LUHANSK, Ukraine — Separatists in Ukraine used a shoulder-fired missile to shoot down a large Ukrainian military transport jet as it was trying to land at an airport in this eastern city on Saturday, killing all 49 people on board, the military said. The attack was the deadliest episode for the Ukrainian military since the unrest began in the country’s east. “On approach to the Luhansk airport a Ukrainian armed forces military transport Il-76 airplane was shot down with an antiaircraft rocket system,” the military wing of the prosecutor general’s office said in a statement. “In addition to the nine crew members, 40 paratroopers were on board. All of them died.” The statement said the office had opened an investigation into what it called a terrorist act. Separatists from the self-declared People’s Republic of Luhansk confirmed that they had shot down the jet and said that all military airplanes in the area, which is near the border with Russia, were targets. A surveillance video that captured the plane’s destruction showed a streak of light rising from the ground, then an explosion near the airport where the plane was making its final approach to Luhansk. The plane crashed into a barley field about 12 miles from the airport. Parts of the four-engine jet plane were mangled beyond recognition, other items were oddly intact, and all lay scattered about, wholly unguarded by either side. Wind blew over the site, fluttering torn pages from a flight manual and patches of torn, bloody clothing. The plane had been packed with ammunition and as it came down or when it hit, some exploded, leaving empty shells amid the rubble, along with intact rounds and unexploded grenades. By late afternoon, scavengers from a nearby village were walking gingerly through the site. “Brother kills brother. When will this end?” said one man, who offered only his first name, Taras. “I heard the plane when it exploded last night. How many mothers won’t see their sons again? And for what?” Ukraine’s new president, Petro O. Poroshenko, called an emergency session of the country’s security council and declared Sunday a day of mourning. In Washington, a White House spokeswoman, Laura Lucas Magnuson, said American officials “condemn the shooting down of the Ukrainian military plane and continue to be deeply concerned about the situation in eastern Ukraine, including by the fact that militant and separatists groups have received heavy weapons from Russia, including tanks, which is a significant escalation.” Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France called President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to convey what a German government spokesman called “dismay” over the downing of the plane. In Kiev, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Russian Embassy on Saturday, hurling eggs at the building, tearing down the flag and overturning diplomatic cars. That provoked a response from Moscow, with the foreign ministry issuing a statement accusing the Kiev government of “conniving” with the assailants in the attack on the building. An online post by a group called Information Resistance, which often conveys news from Ukraine’s armed forces in more detail than official statements do, said Ukrainian soldiers at the scene had found empty firing tubes for two shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and a third missile that failed to fire. The post said the missiles were Iglas, or “needles,” Russian-made antiaircraft rockets of a type that separatists have shown to journalists in recent weeks. Pro-Russian groups say they obtained them from Ukrainian military bases. The jet was making its approach into a contested area. The Ukrainian Army controls the airport, but separatists hold Luhansk, which is important for patrolling the border with Russia. The State Department said Friday that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists across that border, supporting accusations made by the Ukrainian government. A convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said. The Ukrainian Army reported Friday that it had destroyed two of the tanks and several other vehicles in the convoy. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Saturday to complain about Russia’s arms shipments to separatists and to express concern about the downing of the transport plane, the State Department said. Mr. Kerry also called Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, and assured him that the United States and its European allies were prepared “to raise the costs for Russia if it does not end the flow of weapons across the border and break with separatists,” the State Department official said, a reference to the additional sanctions President Obama has said would be imposed if Russia keeps up its support to the Ukrainian separatists. Buttressing the State Department’s assertions about Russian arms shipments, NATO’s military command on Saturday released photographs of the three Russian tanks the State Department said were sent from southwest Russia to Ukraine. In the photographs, the tanks do not have the typical camouflage paint of T-64 tanks that belong to the Ukrainian military and have been stripped of any markings, much like the military vehicles Russia sent to Crimea. Since the unrest in the east began, separatists have claimed that they have shot down several Ukrainian helicopters, first saying they used rocket-propelled grenades but later admitting to possessing guided missiles. A general was among 14 people killed when rebels hit a Mi-8 transport helicopter on May 29. Rebels also claim to have shot down a Ukrainian AN-30 surveillance plane near Slovyansk on June 6, killing three people. The June 6 episode was of particular concern because it involved the destruction of one of the two planes that Ukraine used to monitor the “ Open Skies ” treaty. That accord allows the countries that have signed it, including Ukraine and Russia, to conduct observation flights to ensure participants are not conducting destabilizing troop movements. But Western officials say that the AN-30 aircraft was not on an “Open Skies” mission when it crashed. Elsewhere in Ukraine on Saturday, the Ukrainian news media reported that security officers found and defused a bomb in Kiev near the building housing the offices of the presidential administration, along a route traveled by Mr. Poroshenko. In the port town of Mariupol, where the Ukrainian military seized control of administrative buildings on Friday, two border guards were killed and an unspecified number of others were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. And in Horlivka, east of Donetsk, the Ukrainian Army carried out an airstrike on a police building occupied by separatists. | Luhansk;Military;Fatalities,casualties;Ukraine;Russia;Military aircraft;Missiles and Missile Defense |
ny0154955 | [
"us"
] | 2008/01/23 | Man Imprisoned for 9 Years for Murder Is Released in Wake of DNA Evidence | FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A judge on Tuesday threw out the murder conviction and life sentence of a Fort Collins man who said for years that he was innocent of one of this city’s most sensational killings, the stabbing and mutilation of a woman whose body was found in February 1987 in a vacant field near the man’s home. A special prosecutor appointed to re-examine the case had already concluded after weeks of hearings last year that potentially helpful evidence had been withheld from the defense by prosecutors in the 1999 trial of the man, Timothy Masters. On Tuesday, the special prosecutor, Don Quick, filed a motion asking that the charges against Mr. Masters be thrown out. Mr. Quick said a recently completed DNA analysis, unavailable at the time of the crime or the trial, now pointed entirely to another man who had been considered a suspect in the early investigation of the killing of the woman, Peggy Hettrick. “The presence of DNA on the clothing of Ms. Hettrick at the time of her murder was consistent with the alternative suspect and inconsistent with Mr. Masters,” Mr. Quick said in the filing. Judge Joseph Weatherby, who took two minutes to grant the request, opened the doors of his courtroom to everyone who could squeeze in to witness the moment, including about 40 members of Mr. Masters’s extended family who were allowed to cluster around him in the well of the court. Mr. Masters, who is 35 and has been imprisoned for more than nine years, was then freed on a $200,000 bond pending a hearing next month, when local prosecutors will announce whether they will seek a new trial or dismiss the case. “I want to go see my family,” Mr. Masters said at a brief news conference after the hearing, wearing a suit he said his lawyers had bought for him. “I’m a little overwhelmed here, so bear with me.” For two decades, the Hettrick case has hung like a dark cloud over this city, first from the brutal crime itself and later from the questions that persisted about the conviction of Mr. Masters. The new twist of DNA analysis leaves many of those questions unresolved. In seeking a new trial, for example, lawyers for Mr. Masters suggested that the police had overlooked evidence that might have led them to a local eye surgeon, Richard Hammond, who also lived near the murder scene. Dr. Hammond committed suicide in 1995 after his arrest as a sexual voyeur with an elaborate hidden photography system in his bathroom. Evidence that might have raised suspicions about Dr. Hammond was known to the police but was not given to the defense team in 1999, according to documents and testimony in the hearings. But Mr. Quick’s filing on Tuesday said that a DNA profile, based on the clothing analysis, did not point to Dr. Hammond either, thus putting the Hettrick case on a new path. Legal experts, including a minority of members on the Colorado Supreme Court, which divided sharply in 2002 in upholding the conviction of Mr. Masters, have long been troubled by how prosecutors built their case against him, and those questions are unlikely to go away, either. No physical evidence or murder weapon were produced linking Mr. Masters to the crime. Prosecutors relied instead on the fact that Mr. Masters, who was 15 at the time of Ms. Hettrick’s murder, had a knife collection and on the gory drawings of blood and mayhem that he kept in his room in a trailer where he lived with his father, and the testimony of a psychiatrist who said the drawings had revealed the mind of a killer. It took prosecutors nine years to build their case against him. Ms. Hettrick, a 37-year-old single woman who was last seen leaving a bar alone, was stabbed in the back and sexually mutilated with a precision that a medical consultant to the prosecution said would require a high level of surgical skill. But that expert opinion was among the potentially helpful evidence that was never given to the defense team in 1999, according to documents from the recent hearings. After the release of Mr. Masters, one of his lawyers, David Wymore, thanked the many people who had volunteered to help in the hearings that led to the release, including doctors in Fort Collins who had assisted in analyzing the old evidence. Mr. Wymore said he would urge prosecutors to dismiss all charges as soon as possible. “It’s an opportunity to do the right thing,” Mr. Wymore said, “and to release him for good and forever from this taint.” | Timothy Masters;Extradition;DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid);Murders and Attempted Murders |
ny0172832 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2007/11/15 | Battling Ghost Calls, That Telemarketing Annoyance | The phone rings. But no one is there. Ghost calls have long been a staple of horror movies and urban legends about frightened baby sitters. Ray Bradbury wrote a teleplay about a telephone switch that reached sentience only to start stalking a person. But the culprit behind what is becoming a common occurrence in some households may have a less than otherworldly explanation. More often than not it is a telemarketer — and one that complies with federal regulation. Indeed, adherence to the rules may be one reason for the ghost calls. Most fingers point at telemarketers who use a predictive dialer, a device that makes hundreds of calls a minute and uses artificial intelligence to detect when a person actually answers. These are then connected directly to a telemarketer waiting to promote a new low mortgage rate, a political candidate or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If no one in the cubicle farm is ready to start pitching, the predictive dialer just hangs up. Rick Morris, the chief operating officer of the predictive dialer company TouchStar, said that dialers are forced to hang up so abruptly by various regulations. He said that if no agent is available within two seconds, the predictive dialer must hang up because the Federal Communications Commission says the dialers cannot monopolize a line. “We didn’t want to tie up their line in case of an emergency,” he said. Mr. Morris said that its new dialers are smart enough to hang up on less than 2 percent of the calls, a percentage mandated by some state regulations. This number, however, can still be quite high in absolute terms when the call center makes thousands of calls an hour. Some consumers are trying to find out what is behind ghost calls by collecting data. When Michael Hirsch, a Webmaster for a local government Web site in Salisbury, Md., gets ghost calls, he logs his experiences on whocalled.us, one of a number of Web sites devoted to unraveling the mystery of the calls. “I’ve had my phone number 20 years, and I’m very seriously thinking of changing it,” he said with the frustration of a man who has been interrupted too often. Whocalled and similar sites like 800notes.com or numberzoom.com collect notes from anyone who received a phone call and wants to know a bit more about the number on the caller ID screen. Whocalled has logged almost 400,000 calls and identified about 92,000 numbers. Mr. Hirsch said he is planning on hooking up the Web site to his computer to filter out the worst offenders. The postings about one of the top offenders at whocalled.us, 859-212-1501, show that hundreds of people have received a confusing message in Spanish from that number. The caller hangs up on the people who respond in English. Numbers that begin with 859-212 are normally located in Boone County, Ky., but the callers could be located anywhere in the world thanks to modern phone switches. Several calls to the number showed that it had been disconnected. Julia Karelina and Mike Bravo started 800notes.com, a site that tracks ghost calls as well as known swindles and unsolicited faxes. Ms. Karelina said she is proud that the site recently persuaded a nonprofit group to fire a telemarketer after the organization noticed all the complaints on the site. Because the predictive dialers try to identify answering machines by measuring the amount of time that someone or something speaks, one way to defeat them is to give a long greeting, as an answering machine does, rather than a simple hello followed by a pause. Mr. Hirsch follows up his posts to whocalled.us with complaints to the local Better Business Bureau and state regulators. He includes the phone numbers and addresses of these groups in his posts to the site so that others who visit can file their complaints with ease. He remains optimistic about his chances, saying, “It’s so new that people don’t know that they can go there and put in their experiences and find out that others are having the same problems. If we don’t nip it in the bud, it will escalate just like e-mail spam has.” No one knows how the battle between the humans and technology will play out. In Mr. Bradbury’s story, the man tracking the ghost calls traces them to a box on a telephone pole. It electrocutes him. | Telemarketers;Federal Communications Commission;Computers and the Internet |
ny0110385 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/05/12 | For Victim in Queens Hotel Shooting, Many Detractors | There was no shortage of people who had a problem with Brian J. Weiss. A top official of a company based in southern Florida that marketed dietary and health supplements over the Internet, Mr. Weiss reeled in a fortune billing people for what had been promised as free samples of colon cleansers, red-wine extracts and anti-wrinkle creams, among other items. In 2009, the Better Business Bureau in Florida logged more than 4,000 complaints against the company, FWM Laboratories , and Florida’s attorney general forced it to return more than $34 million to people, “for products they neither ordered nor wanted,” according to a statement from the attorney general’s office. Even Dr. Mehmet Oz, the physician who has become a television personality, once sought redress against Mr. Weiss, contending that images of Dr. Oz and Oprah Winfrey had been wrongly inserted into the company’s online advertisements, portraying them as backers, according to a federal lawsuit filed in 2009. None of that trail of disgruntlement, however, offered an immediate answer to why Mr. Weiss was shot to death Thursday afternoon during a meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn near Kennedy International Airport in Queens. The man who shot him, Gary L. Zalevsky, then killed himself. Video surveillance footage obtained by detectives shows Mr. Zalevsky, 47, calmly standing up, a stolen .380-caliber Beretta pistol in his hand, walking over to Mr. Weiss, 31, and shooting him five times in the head in a room off the hotel lobby, the police said. Four other men in the meeting literally fell out of their chairs, the police said, and ran for the door. Officers from the 106th Precinct rounded those men up, though three of them immediately obtained lawyers, “and are not speaking to us,” said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who added that a lawyer for Mr. Zalevsky did contact the police. “The story is, supposedly, there was some discussion about establishing some sort of vitamin or food supplement business,” Mr. Kelly said Friday, adding, “We’re trying to determine, precisely, what the nature of the dispute was and what the business relationship was.” Each of the dead men lived in southern Florida, but Mr. Zalevsky also had a home in Brooklyn. Investigators were trying to determine if they were affiliated with Russian organized crime, officials said. “We’re not ruling anything out, but right now we simply don’t know,” Mr. Kelly said. Two lawyers who represented Mr. Weiss in lawsuits involving his business did not return calls on Friday. On Dover Street in Manhattan Beach, an upscale section of Brooklyn next to Brighton Beach, neighbors described Mr. Zalevsky as a well-to-do family man. He had put his three-story brick home up for sale at summer’s end, when he moved with his family to the Miami area, but seemed in no hurry to sell the home, which he had listed for sale for $2 million, some neighbors said a real estate agent had told them. A friend of Mr. Zalevsky, who declined to provide his name, said he had spoken on Friday with two of the men who were at Mr. Zalevsky’s side when he shot himself. The men, who knew Mr. Zalevsky through the Russian community, said they believed they were going to sit in on a business meeting between him and Mr. Weiss, who they understood knew Mr. Zalevsky from Miami, said the friend. The topic of conversation was supposed to be Internet marketing. But investigators had questions about why the men did not call 911 or stay around the shooting scene to talk to investigators . “The behavior of the survivors raised skepticism among investigators that this was a simple business transaction,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. | Murders and Attempted Murders;Computers and the Internet;Police Department (NYC);Florida;Queens (NYC);New York City;Weiss Brian J;Zalevsky Gary L |
ny0152383 | [
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] | 2008/08/24 | Blowin’ in the Forgotten Wind | THE windows of Le Figaro Cafe at Bleecker and Macdougal Streets were whited over last week. Except for the workers stepping past boxes of new floor tiles and appliances, the inside was as quiet as it has been since June, when the old place closed its doors. Plans to install signs for the new tenant, a branch of the Qdoba burrito chain, were still awaiting city approval. One recent afternoon on Bleecker, returning college students lugged bags from the Container Store into a stairway, and a display of obscene T-shirts met shoppers at a store called Modern Village. The Figaro, two doors down, might have been called Ancient Village by comparison. This holdover from the neighborhood’s beatnik and folkie days outlived the scenes that passed through it, disappeared for a while, returned for a 33-year encore and finally expired, mostly unlamented. Alexandra McGrath, a 21-year-old student and restaurant hostess, stopped to look at a building permit posted in the window. Ms. McGrath grew up on Long Island, but from the time she was 11 or 12, her father used to take her to the Figaro on visits to the city. He had lived in Greenwich Village when he was younger, she said, and always recalled the cafe as a hip place to go. Ms. McGrath lives in Queens and works on the Upper East Side, and until walking past, she had not realized that the place was closed. Still, a few minutes earlier, she had consulted a tourist map of the neighborhood in her search for a friend’s apartment, and saw that the Figaro was literally on the map, marked prominently. “So,” she said, “that means it was a big deal.” Suze Rotolo started hanging around Washington Square Park as a Queens teenager in the late 1950s, around the time the Figaro opened and moved to the Village a few years later. She remembers the old French newspapers plastered on the walls and the management’s willingness to let patrons linger without buying much. “Writers, poets, visual artists, actors, anybody could go and nurse a cup of coffee and not have to worry about spending too much money,” she recalled a few days ago. Ms. Rotolo — an artist who hung around with Macdougal Street luminaries like Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan, dated Mr. Dylan and recently wrote a memoir, “A Freewheelin’ Time,” about the era — remembered the Figaro as a place to go before or after a performance at a nearby club. It seemed to be aiming for the mood of a Paris cafe in the 1930s, she said, and for some customers, emulating that earlier, more romantic time was part of the appeal. The Figaro went out of business for the first time in 1969, a victim of rising rents, to be replaced by a Blimpie sandwich shop and, later, an ice cream parlor. The cafe reopened in 1975 with a new owner, Ben Fishbein, who ran it until 2004, when he sold it to the corporation that owns the space today. Ms. Rotolo still lives in the Village, but she had not been by the cafe in a long time. “The Figaro really became, for want of a term, plastic,” she said. “You know what I mean? Some things go from wood to plastic.” The writer André Aciman, who used to spend time at the Figaro in the 1970s, said he was not surprised by its quiet passing. “Nothing is mourned in New York,” he said. “We miss it as an idea, but in point of fact, if it’s gone it’s because nobody was going there.” Over the years the Figaro had its moments. Despite what Mr. Aciman recalled as nondescript sandwiches and limited pastries, it was a good place for an afternoon glass of wine, a late-night cup of coffee and maybe an impromptu conversation with a stranger at the next table. Mr. Aciman remembered seeing Fellini’s 1963 film “8 1/2” for the first time at the now-defunct Bleecker Street Cinema, down the street, then heading to the Figaro to talk it over with friends. “You can’t do that in a burrito place,” Mr. Aciman said. “But on the other hand, if you don’t have a movie house that will show Fellini, then the Cafe Figaro becomes sort of unnecessary, too.” | Retail Stores and Trade;Cafe Figaro;Greenwich Village (NYC) |
ny0231206 | [
"business"
] | 2010/09/01 | Ghost of Ken Lewis Still Haunts Bank of America | The ghost of the former chief executive Ken Lewis keeps haunting Bank of America. Since he resigned almost a year ago, the Charlotte-based bank has made progress. Yet its stock has fallen 37 percent from this year’s high, more than rivals, and now trades at a whopping 42 percent discount to last quarter’s book value. It’s the pall of Mr. Lewis’s expansionism that lingers. In early August, the bank revealed it may be on the hook to buy back up to $11.1 billion of mortgages made by the bank or by Countrywide, which it acquired in 2008. That’s up 45 percent from the end of 2009 and almost four times JPMorgan’s load. Low interest rates and slow lending are also hurting. The bank’s net interest income fell 0.16 percentage points in the second quarter while that of rivals, on average, hardly budged. That’s helping to make the bank’s top line look anemic. Meanwhile, the bank is releasing loan loss reserves more slowly than peers. The new regime under Brian Moynihan spooked investors too. On July’s second-quarter earnings call, executives announced they expected annual revenue to be hit by as much as $2.3 billion from changes to the credit card business wrought by new regulations. It’s not all scary though. Bank of America might be slower than others, but releasing reserves is still a plus. What’s more, the bank reckons it will have to buy back only about half the mortgage repurchase requests and has almost $4 billion stashed away to help. And while regulatory reform may be costly, the bank should be able to cut costs to offset some of the pain. It’s easy to understand investors’ caution. Many regulatory reform details have yet to be worked out, it’s unclear which party will win a majority in Congress in the midterm elections in November and there’s still a chance of a double-dip recession. That’s why rivals have lost ground too, though the likes of Wells Fargo and JPMorgan trade just above or below book value. In bolting from Bank of America, investors may have given more power to Mr. Lewis’s phantom than it deserves. Buy the Book Ron Burkle, the activist investor, has articulated what Barnes & Noble should not do — but not what it should. He owns nearly 20 percent of the book retailer and merits board representation. But his lack of a blueprint for growth undermines his demand for three of the company’s nine board seats. Mr. Burkle, a Los Angeles grocery billionaire, makes a good case to “throw the bums out.” Barnes & Noble’s governance has left it exposed. Conflicts abound with the company’s architect, chairman and biggest shareholder, Leonard S. Riggio, and his relatives. The bookseller leases space, buys textbooks and uses freight services from entities in which the family has an interest. And Mr. Riggio’s brother, Stephen, remains on the payroll after stepping down as chief executive to baby-sit for his replacement. Mr. Burkle’s needling has prompted change. Barnes & Noble installed a new chief executive and has put the company up for sale. What’s more, Barnes & Noble responded to Mr. Burkle’s proxy fight by replacing two long-term incumbents with close ties to Leonard Riggio seeking board re-election with nominees who don’t appear to have such conflicts. Yet more needs to be done. The shares have fallen a quarter over the last year, badly underperforming fellow specialty retailers and the S.& P. 500. The trouble is that Mr. Burkle’s retail experience has not inspired him to lay out a coherent vision for Barnes & Noble. And if his fellow board candidates have any bright ideas for a business facing structural decline, they are not apparent. Absent a strategy, even simple steps like halting the dividend and closing more stores, Mr. Burkle does not deserve a third of the board’s seats. Yet supporting him but not his other nominees would have the perverse effect of improving chances for his whole slate. That’s because splitting the vote requires doing so in person at the annual shareholders’ meeting. Using the proxy card to pick one of Mr. Burkle’s candidates would divert all support from the company’s. So unless he comes up with a plan, better to let Mr. Burkle keep railing from the sidelines against Barnes & Noble or force him to pay a premium for control and let him figure it out from there. | Bank of America Corp;Lewis Kenneth D;Burkle Ronald W;Barnes & Noble Incorporated |
ny0131226 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2012/12/27 | October Home Prices Rose In Positive Sign for Markets | WASHINGTON (AP) — Home prices were up in most major metropolitan areas in October from a year earlier, pushed up by rising sales and a decline in the supply of available homes. Higher prices show the housing market is improving as it moves into the slow fall and winter sales period. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller national home price index released Wednesday showed that prices increased 4.3 percent from October 2011, the largest year-over-year increase in two and a half years, when a home buyer tax credit temporarily increased sales. Prices rose in October 2012 from a year earlier in 18 of 20 cities. Phoenix led all cities with a 21.7 percent gain, followed by Detroit, where prices increased 10 percent. Prices declined in Chicago and New York. Home prices fell in 12 of 20 cities in October compared with September. Monthly prices are not seasonally adjusted, so the decreases reflect the end of the peak buying season. Still, the broader trend is encouraging. October was the fifth straight month of year-over-year gains, after nearly two years of declines. Prices rose in mid-2010 in the final months before the tax credit expired. They had fallen sharply in 2008 and 2009. “It is clear that the housing recovery is gaining strength,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indexes. The improvement in housing is adding to economic growth and most analysts expect that to continue in 2013, assuming that the White House and Congress can reach a deal to avert economic damage from sharp tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect on Jan. 1. “We expect home price appreciation to continue for the foreseeable future, because inventories are lean amid rising sales,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief United States economist at Deutsche Bank. “This assumes that a resolution to the fiscal cliff is found,” he said. “Otherwise, the recent positive trend in housing would most certainly be in jeopardy along with the rest of the current economic expansion.” Prices nationwide have recovered to about the same level as in the fall of 2003, according to the Case-Shiller index. They remain about 30 percent below the peak reached in the summer of 2006. The pace of home construction slipped in November but was still nearly 22 percent higher than a year earlier. Builders are on track this year to start work on the largest number of homes in four years. Builder confidence rose in December for a seventh straight month to the highest level in more than 6 1/2 years, according to a survey released last week by the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo. | Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Real Estate and Housing (Residential) |
ny0288049 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/08/07 | Normandy Bar Fire Kills at Least 13 at Birthday Party | PARIS — A fast-moving fire that appeared to be accidental swept through a birthday party in a basement bar in the northern French city of Rouen, killing at least 13 people and injuring six others, the authorities said Saturday. More than 80 firefighters battled the blaze early Saturday at the bar, Cuba Libre, and it was unclear how many people were inside at the time, the mayor of Rouen, Yvon Robert, said. He described the fire — the deadliest in France since 2005 — as “very brief.” The birthday party began as “a moment of joy for those involved,” but it “ended tragically,” Mr. Robert said. A local prosecutor, Laurent Labadie, said the first accounts from survivors and the early police investigation indicated that the “fire was completely accidental.” “There was no explosion,” Mr. Labadie said. “Candles on a birthday cake started the fire after the person who carried it tripped on the stairs leading to the basement.” Sound-insulating material on the basement’s walls quickly ignited, Mr. Labadie said, and party guests had no time to escape from the basement. The bodies were still being identified, he said. Residents paid tribute to the victims by laying flowers at the scene. Images on French television from outside the bar showed a large window broken open, burned red bar chairs and a tattered awning. France is on a high terrorism alert after two deadly attacks last month, one of them outside Rouen, which is in the Normandy region. On July 26 there, two men killed a priest in a church in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. The funeral was held Tuesday in Rouen Cathedral. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve gave an initial count of 13 dead and six injured in the fire. The prefecture, which runs the region, said one of the six was in a life-threatening condition. | Fires;Rouen France;bars,nightclubs;France;Cuba Libre |
ny0248647 | [
"us"
] | 2011/05/01 | Senators Ensnared in Budget Politics | Ross Ramsey, managing editor of The Texas Tribune, writes a column for the Tribune. It might not matter, in the end, whether the Senate wants to use some of the Rainy Day Fund to balance the budget. The House isn’t likely to go along unless the proposition is delivered on a tea cart pushed by Gov. Rick Perry and an entourage that includes the leaders of the third-party conservative groups who have been hounding lawmakers via e-mail, phone banking and television advertising to hold the line. It’s even harder to go on that sort of suicide mission behind a lieutenant governor who tells senators one day that he supports using the fund — on a convoluted contingency basis — then tells the news media that his preference is to use “non-tax revenues,” and then tells the senators, in a public letter also distributed to the news media, that he’s behind the budget as prepared by the Senate Finance Committee, complete with the Rainy Day thing. And, as that’s going out, says he’s behind them, but would prefer those other alternatives. It made the senators skittish, to put it lightly. The Senate Finance Committee approved the bill on April 21 with only two Democrats on board and with one Republican among the nays — saying the budget was fine but the financing was troublesome. That vote was effective backlash bait. The Texas branch of Americans for Prosperity and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, among others, immediately began rallying conservative voters against the Senate proposal. While the bill cuts 5.9 percent from current spending, and allots nothing for population and inflation increases, the Senate managed to position itself as a profligate spender. The House budget is lower still and doesn’t rely on the state’s savings account. Mr. Perry chimed in with the outside groups, restating his lack of support for anything that uses the Rainy Day Fund. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst fell off the wagon and then jumped back on. Former Senator Phil Gramm lent his voice to automated phone calls to conservatives, urging them to call on lawmakers to hold the line. Senators freaked out. Here’s what that actually means, when you’re talking about the Texas Senate: They went into private meeting rooms and caucused, sometimes with Republicans in the room, sometimes with Democrats, sometimes with bipartisan blends. Senator Steve Ogden, Republican of Bryan and chairman of the Finance Committee, was trying to pull together the 21 votes needed to bring up the budget for consideration by the full Senate, and all indications were that he’d been making headway. But in the face of the backlash and of Mr. Dewhurst’s public unease, Mr. Ogden’s band of reluctant lawmakers broke into pieces. Even without the noise, it would be difficult to get this particular Humpty Dumpty back on the wall. With all of the Republicans on board, Mr. Ogden would still need two Democrats. And he doesn’t have all of the Republicans. On the right, a half-dozen senators ran for cover, worried on the one hand that the fiscal hard-liners would come with pitchforks, and on the other that the cuts in the budget would incite suburban and exurban Republicans to come hunting for the rascals who cut public education. The Democrats are getting hit from the left, from other senators who say the Senate budget doesn’t meet the state’s needs and doesn’t deserve Democratic endorsements, and from groups like the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which is telling them that a budget without Rainy Day money is too skinny to support, and from Mr. Dewhurst himself, who suggested that Senate Democrats are making this a partisan fight. Mr. Ogden likened it to a baseball diamond, with the outside groups as the foul lines on the left and the right, and with his job as just trying to get a fair hit. A safe hit is the only way to get the bill out of the Senate and on its way to the House and Senate committee that will reconcile the differences. That’s where the real problem is. Mr. Ogden’s counterpart, Representative Jim Pitts, Republican of Waxahachie and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has made it clear he can’t get the 100 votes needed in the House to tap the Rainy Day Fund. He’s not sure the conservative House wants to spend the money even if it comes with no political strings. That uncertainty is keeping senators awake at night. | Budgets and Budgeting;Democratic Party;Republican Party;Perry Rick;United States Politics and Government;Senate;Gramm Phil |
ny0289997 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/01/16 | German Town Bars Male Asylum Seekers From Its Public Pool | BORNHEIM, Germany — A western German town has barred adult male asylum seekers from its public indoor swimming pool after receiving complaints that some women were sexually harassed there. It was the latest sign of social tensions related to the arrival last year of 1.1 million migrants in Germany, and followed reports of sexual assaults on women by young foreigners during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Cologne. The deputy mayor of Bornheim, a town of 48,000 about 18 miles south of Cologne, said Friday that a difficult decision was taken to send a clear message that breaching German cultural norms was a red line that should not be crossed. “There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool by groups of young men,” said the deputy mayor, Markus Schnapka, “and this has prompted some women to leave.” “This led to my decision that adult males from our asylum shelters may not enter the swimming pool until further notice,” he added. He did not say how the ban would be enforced. German news media outlets reported that asylum seekers, who get no funds from the state, must present an identification document to be admitted to pools at a discounted rate. Mr. Schnapka said his town had begun a campaign to teach asylum seekers about gender equality and respect for women. The gang attacks on women outside Cologne’s cathedral deepened public doubts about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy toward refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and about Germany’s ability to integrate the mainly Muslim and Arab newcomers. Police investigations into the episodes of sexual molestation are focusing on 19 suspects, including 10 asylum seekers and nine illegal migrants thought to be from North Africa. The police said the suspects came from outside Cologne. | Middle East and Africa Migrant Crisis,European Migrant Crisis;Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Sexual harassment;Swimming pool;Cologne;Bornheim |
ny0190848 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2009/05/15 | Julio Mazzei, 78; Coached Cosmos to N.A.S.L. Title in 1982 | SÃO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — Julio Mazzei, who helped persuade Pelé to play in the United States and coached the New York Cosmos to a North American Soccer League title in 1982, died Sunday in the coastal city of Santos, Brazil. He was 78. His death, after a nine-year fight with Alzheimer’s disease, was confirmed Tuesday by Pelé’s sports marketing office in São Paulo. Pelé was a longtime friend, and Mazzei worked in Pelé’s sports marketing office in New York. Pelé has always said that Mazzei was influential in his decision to join the Cosmos in 1975. Mazzei, a renowned physical trainer in Brazil, was the Cosmos’ coach in 1979-80 and again in 1982-83, leading the 1982 team, which featured Giorgio Chinaglia, to its fourth N.A.S.L. title in six years. The team played its last games in the 1984-85 season, as part of the Major Indoor Soccer League after the N.A.S.L. ceased operations. | Soccer;Deaths (Obituaries);Coaches and Managers |
ny0110811 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2012/05/25 | The Netherlands: Mladic Trial Reset | The trial of a former Bosnian Serb general, Ratko Mladic , that opened in The Hague on May 16 will now resume on June 25 instead of next Tuesday as originally planned, the United Nations tribunal announced on Wednesday. Judges granted the extra month to the defense because the prosecution had been late in delivering a portion of the evidence — about 3 percent of the total, according to the prosecution — that must be shared with the defense team. But the judges turned down the request from the defense for six extra months of preparation time. The long-awaited trial is one of the most important to deal with the Bosnian war, from 1992 to 1995, in which Mr. Mladic was the overall commander on the Serbian side. He faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. | Mladic Ratko;War Crimes Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity;United Nations;Netherlands;Bosnia and Herzegovina;Serbia |
ny0231894 | [
"sports"
] | 2010/09/25 | Leonel Manzano Is Small Runner With Capacity for Big Things | The most dangerous runner in the elite men’s field of the Fifth Avenue Mile on Sunday may well be the smallest. Leonel Manzano, 5 feet 5 inches and 122 pounds, spent the summer slaying giants on the European track circuit with his devastating finishing kick. In his next-to-last outing, a 1,500-meter race in Brussels, Manzano not only made up time in the final lap, but he also ran the last 100 meters in about 12 seconds. “That’s typical Leo,” one of his coaches, Ryan Ponsonby, said. Equally riveting is the way Manzano pops out of traffic in the home stretch. “He’s like the point guard; he navigates through the pack and finds his way through at the end,” said Shannon Rowbury, the winner of last year’s women’s mile on Fifth Avenue and, like Manzano, a United States Olympian in the 1,500 at the 2008 Beijing Games. In just his second year on the professional circuit, Manzano has used raw speed and intuitive tactics for five podium finishes in nine major international races. In August, he set personal bests at three distances, including the mile, which he ran in 3 minutes 50.64 seconds in London. But the season did not always look so bright for Manzano, 26. He had been successful since he began racing in middle school, and heavy expectations led to inconsistency. The turning point came in July, after one of Manzano’s worst performances. In Monaco, he placed last in the 1,500, the race in which Andrew Wheating ran the sixth-fastest time by an American. “He was ecstatic, like a little kid,” Manzano said of Wheating. “It reminded me: I used to be like him, not really caring, just going out and having fun. That was the start of my loving the sport again.” Had Manzano not regained his passion, track and field might have lost one of its biggest engines. Tests have shown that Manzano has a higher aerobic capacity than Lance Armstrong and the heart size of a man over 6 feet tall. Manzano, said Ed Coyle, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Texas, can consume 82.2 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute — a capacity that, Coyle estimates, only 10 runners and 10 cyclists in the world can match. His large heart (revealed in an echocardiogram) means that Manzano can pump more blood and oxygen to his muscles than most men his size. “They said I have the engine of a Ferrari in the body of a Pinto,” Manzano said, laughing. Manzano’s hardscrabble roots might have contributed to his unusual toughness. He was born in the central Mexican town of Mojoneras, where education ceased by fourth grade, running water did not exist and electricity was practically unheard of — even in 1989 when his parents, Jesus and Maria Lourdes, moved 4-year-old Leo and his younger sister, Laura, to Texas’ Hill Country. His father took a job crushing boulders at a quarry; Leonel was left to make sense of school. In the seventh grade, a friend persuaded Manzano to try cross-country, but at home, sports were viewed as a waste of time. But he had talent. In the eighth grade, Manzano ran 800 meters in an astounding 1:55. As a freshman, he won the first of his nine Texas high school track and cross-country titles while training only 25 to 30 miles a week. “My most important role with him was to make sure I had the entry fee paid and the bus gassed up,” Kyle Futrell, Manzano’s coach at Marble Falls High School, said, half-joking. All the while, Manzano needed to help his family financially. He got his first job at 11. Later, his father would drop him off at school at 5 a.m. and Manzano would juggle practice at 6:15 a.m., his schoolwork and late shifts at an Italian restaurant until he became, in 2004, the first in his family to earn a high school diploma. Then he became a student at the University of Texas, which confused everyone. “My parents never had any experience with college kids, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do because I didn’t know anyone else who had been to college,” Manzano said. One day he packed his gear and said to his mother, “O.K., I’m out of here.” “She didn’t know I was going away for a while,” Manzano said. Running eased his transition because, he said, “I was always included in a group.” As a college freshman in 2005, Manzano doubled his weekly mileage and won the N.C.A.A. 1,500 final in 3:37.13, roughly the equivalent of a 3:55 mile. “That wasn’t my X’s and O’s,” said Jason Vigilante, the coach of the Longhorns. “In Leo’s world, those don’t mean much.” Manzano said: “When you start talking plans and strategy, then you have a lump of information in your mind that you’re trying to process when you’re trying to race. Sometimes it’s better to let go.” As a sophomore, Manzano placed third in the 1,500 at the United States nationals, behind the Olympians Bernard Lagat and Gabe Jennings. In defeat, Vigilante said: “I’d try to find silver linings. ‘You lost, but you lost to Bernard Lagat’ or ‘You didn’t win, but you ran a great time.’ ” “He’s incredibly gracious of his opportunities,” Vigilante added, but internally, “these consolations are meaningless.” Lagat recalled: “Woo, this kid from Texas is really good. I told him, ‘Next year, you’re going to do very well.’ ” At the 2007 nationals, Manzano outkicked Lagat, an Olympic silver and bronze medalist in the 1,500, finishing second to Alan Webb. All three are to compete Sunday. Manzano and Lagat met again at the 2008 United States Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. This time, the Kenyan-born Lagat prevailed, with both men making the Olympic team along with Lopez Lomong, a native of Sudan. Financial help from Jesus Manzano’s employer and thousands of dollars in local donations enabled Manzano’s parents to take their first airplane ride — 7,000 miles to Beijing. Jesus Manzano walked up to the Bird’s Nest stadium wearing a cowboy hat and said it felt as if “it wasn’t really us there.” Leonel made it through the heats but was eliminated in the semifinals. It was only his third international meet. “I gave it a shot,” he said. “I just wasn’t ready.” As he prepares to end his best season on Fifth Avenue, and as he looks toward the 2012 London Olympics, Manzano said, “I feel I’m ready now.” | Manzano Leonel;Fifth Avenue Mile;Track and Field;Europe |
ny0015271 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/10/27 | 3 Dead in Reported Brooklyn Stabbing | Three people were killed and three others were wounded in a reported stabbing in Brooklyn on Saturday night, officials said. Image Investigators at the scene of a stabbing in Brooklyn. Credit CS Muncy for The New York Times The killings took place around 11 p.m. on 57th Street near Ninth Avenue, in Sunset Park, the police said. A suspect was in custody late Saturday. Three victims were found dead at the scene when emergency personnel arrived, and three others were taken to a hospital in critical condition, fire officials said. More details about the stabbings were not available late Saturday. | Murders;NYPD;NYC |
ny0016531 | [
"technology"
] | 2013/10/30 | Ahead of I.P.O., Twitter Alters Feed to Add Images | SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter has gone visual. The social network, which has been built around 140-character snippets of text since its founding in 2006, has added photo and video previews to the feed of items that users see when they log onto the service from the Web or mobile applications. In the past, Twitter users had to click on a link to see a photo or video. The change, which helps Twitter catch up to recent moves by rivals like Facebook to showcase photos and videos more prominently, could help increase the use of Twitter as the company prepares to sell stock to the public for the first time in an offering expected to occur next week. The addition could also help the company sell more ads with visual elements. Robert Peck, an Internet analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, said that the adjustment to Twitter’s look addressed a concern he had heard from potential buyers of Twitter’s stock. “It was all text, for the most part. There was no multimedia,” he said. “People thought Twitter was behind.” Twitter has traditionally resisted tinkering with its message feed, which it calls the timeline, because it has wanted to keep its display of tweets as streamlined as possible. The turn toward the visual is the biggest change to Twitter’s interface since it was overhauled in 2011, although the company has recently introduced other changes, including a blue line that groups related messages so that users can more easily follow a conversation. With Tuesday’s change, tweets will still show up in chronological order, with the most recent first. But the tweets that contain photos uploaded to Twitter or six-second videos from Vine, a video-creation service owned by Twitter, will automatically preview those images. “Starting today, timelines on Twitter will be more visual and more engaging: previews of Twitter photos and videos from Vine will be front and center in tweets,” Michael Sippey, Twitter’s vice president for product, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday . “To see more of the photo or play the video, just tap.” If users embrace the change, Twitter could also add automatic previews of other types of links, like articles and web pages or images and videos from outside sites like Google’s YouTube. That technology is already used to preview a variety of sites on Twitter’s Discover tab, a little-used feature of the service that is meant to help users find new content they might like based on the users they follow and topics in which they have expressed interest. The company is also experimenting with ways to highlight other types of messages, like those about television shows, although no other changes have yet been released to all users. Although a more visual feed does not directly affect advertisers on Twitter, it does improve the company’s position in the battle for mobile ad dollars. Instagram, the photo-sharing service owned by Facebook, just began selling visual ads on its service from brands like Adidas and Lexus that are sprinkled into the flow of messages that users see. Twitter’s principal form of advertising, known as a sponsored tweet, also appears in the stream of messages from users, and advertisers can post sponsored tweets with images in them. Industry research shows that users are far more likely to click on an ad with a photo in it. Since Twitter is paid by the advertiser only when a user interacts with an ad, more responses to or sharing of image-based ads would most likely lead to an increase in revenue. Some on Wall Street have expressed worries about the company’s slowing growth ahead of its initial public offering of stock. In the third quarter, Twitter had 232 million users who checked the service at least once a month, up just 6.4 percent from the previous quarter and an increase of 39 percent from the previous year. That is far less than the double-digit quarterly growth rates that Facebook posted when it was the same size as Twitter. Clark Fredricksen, a vice president at the digital research firm eMarketer, said that Twitter’s decision to make its feed more visually attractive makes sense on multiple levels and helps it compete with the image and video-friendly services of competitors like Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. “This move may help Twitter more deeply engage users, which is vital for its long-term growth,” he said in an email. “At the very least it allows users to perform some of the same actions that helped Twitter’s competitors grow quickly.” | Social Media;advertising,marketing |
ny0157276 | [
"science",
"space"
] | 2008/06/12 | Discovery Heads Back to Earth | The space shuttle Discovery pulled away from the International Space Station early Wednesday as the 123rd mission of the shuttle fleet headed toward a close. Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly of the Navy, the shuttle commander, radioed to the ground that he and the crew hoped they had left behind “a better, more capable space station than when we arrived.” Members of the shuttle crew conducted a final inspection of the spacecraft’s heat shield before it takes on the punishing heat of re-entry. Mission managers said informally that they had seen nothing of concern during the mission, but that the analysis would not be complete until Thursday evening. The shuttle is scheduled to land as early as Saturday at 11:15 a.m. Eastern time, though problems like rain, low clouds over the landing strip or high winds can cause mission managers to delay landing or put it off to a second day. The mission has been devoted to further construction of the $100 billion space station. Discovery delivered the $1 billion main module of the Japanese laboratory known as Kibo, or Hope. The lab — a cylinder about the size of a tour bus — is the second component of the three-part lab to arrive at the station; a smaller storage module containing equipment for the lab came up on the previous shuttle mission in March. Another section that will expose experiments to space will be delivered on a future mission. The construction work was overshadowed by a more urgent problem aboard the station: the need to repair the single toilet, which had been malfunctioning for a week before the shuttle arrived. The replacement parts carried by the shuttle did the trick, however, and the construction work took center stage. Three spacewalks and extensive use of the station and shuttle’s robotic arms got the new Kibo module out of the shuttle’s payload bay and attached to the station. The first part of the module was also moved from its temporary storage position to the top of the main Kibo module. The mission also introduced a new mystery to the space station team: a buildup of grease and what looked like dust on one of the two large rotary joints that keep the station’s solar arrays facing the sun. Col. Michael E. Fossum of the Air Force Reserve made the discovery on the left-side joint during a spacewalk. In a news conference from the station on Tuesday, Colonel Fossum said that the grease was not entirely unexpected, and that the particles did not appear to be a problem — “just a little bit of dust, maybe kind of like the dust you have on your brakes,” he said. The joint on the right side of the station has been stilled for the most part since last year, when damage and metal shavings were detected in its works. Mission managers said on Wednesday that they still did not know what caused the damage, but hoped to replace the large bearings that allow the joint to roll, clean up the shavings and lubricate the joint in a flight scheduled to begin in November. During the mission, Colonel Fossum tested methods for cleaning and lubricating the damaged right-side rotary joint. His tests showed that cleaning the 10-foot-diameter ring was feasible, but “that’s going to be a big job,” he said. | Discovery (Space Shuttle);International Space Cooperation and Ventures;Space Stations;Space;National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
ny0142778 | [
"sports",
"olympics"
] | 2008/11/06 | Chicago’s Bid for 2016 Games Seeks Lift From Obama | As the world’s spotlight fell on President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday, officials from Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics knew exactly what was at hand: the best free advertisement they could dream of. Not only does Obama call Chicago his hometown, but he also gave his acceptance speech for the presidency Tuesday in Grant Park, a swath of land within walking distance of 19 proposed Olympic competition sites. More than 100,000 people flooded onto that lawn to see Obama, with the city’s skyline a backdrop. “It really gave people the chance to see the center city of Chicago and how the Games would be,” Patrick G. Ryan, chairman and chief executive of Chicago’s bid, said Wednesday in phone interview. “Now Chicago is going to become a much more relevant place, and people are going to become more informed about it. That’s very advantageous for the bid.” Chicago is competing against three cites — Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo — to host the Summer Olympics eight years from now. The winner will be chosen by the International Olympic Committee on Oct. 2, 2009, in Denmark. Ryan said he hoped Obama would attend that meeting to give Chicago’s bid a final push. Obama could also meet I.O.C. members this spring, when an evaluation committee examines Chicago’s layout and plans for the Olympics. “I think clearly he’ll be very important,” Ryan said of Obama’s effect on the bid. “He’s a sportsman. He plays lots of basketball. He’s physically fit and is interested in youth in sport. All of those things help our bid.” Officials from at least one other candidate city shuddered after Obama’s victory. Several executives from Tokyo’s bid are worried that the charismatic Obama may give Chicago an advantage. “Mr. Obama is popular and good at speeches, so things could get tough for Japan,” said the senior Japanese Olympic Committee board member Tomiaki Fukuda, according to The Associated Press. “I have a sense of crisis.” Other bid cities were less anxious. Malcolm Munro, spokesman for the Madrid bid, congratulated Obama for his victory, but said all four cities had strengths that would make them attractive to I.O.C. voters. “Whilst things like political support are obviously important, we hope at the end of the day that the decision is made simply on which is the best city to host the Olympics,” he said. History has shown, though, that an Olympic bid benefits when its country’s leader participates in the process. Tony Blair, the British prime minister at the time, traveled to Singapore in 2005 to lobby I.O.C. members before the final vote for the 2012 Games. He persuaded them to pick London, and the city edged Paris by four votes. As president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin went to Guatemala in 2007 and spoke to I.O.C. members in both English and French in support of Sochi, Russia, to host the 2014 Winter Games. Sochi beat Pyeongchang, South Korea, by four votes. “I think when any head of state shows his support in any manner, it enhances the bid, especially when the votes are so close,” said Peter Ueberroth, the former United States Olympic Committee chairman who is working with Chicago’s bid. “But I think that it’s not going to be won from the position of who is the best orator. I think it’s going to be won on the fact that the country has a new leader and on the fact that his roots are in the actual city of the bid, like Chicago is for Obama.” Obama supported the bid when Chicago was still vying to be the United States’ candidate city, long before he became a presidential candidate. He taped a video message shown to a U.S.O.C. evaluation committee. Last June, he spoke at a rally in Chicago after the city was named a finalist for the 2016 Games. He told the crowd that he lived two blocks from Washington Park, the proposed site for the Olympic Stadium. “I have to let you know that in 2016, I’ll be wrapping up my second term as president,” he said to cheers. He added that he could not think of a better way to wrap up that second term than by marching into Washington Park “as president of the United States and announcing to the world, ‘Let the Games begin!’ ” | Olympic Games (2016);Chicago (Ill);Obama Barack;Presidential Election of 2008 |
ny0084429 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/10/23 | Fatal Brooklyn Apartment Fire Was Arson, Police Say | The woman called frantically to her uncle, Tyrone Corley, who was trapped in the top-floor apartment where he lived alone. His Brooklyn brownstone was billowing with smoke. “Uncle T., Uncle T., you have to jump!” the woman shouted. Mr. Corley finally leapt from a fourth-floor window. It made no difference: He died in the ambulance on the way to Kings County Hospital Center, said his sister, Winona Corley, 67. Mr. Corley, 56, was one of two men who died on Tuesday night in a blaze at the Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone, which the police said on Thursday was set on fire with an accelerant around 9:40 p.m. The other victim was Stanley Wilkie, 47. Though the Fire Department is still investigating the cause, the police said they were treating the fire as suspicious and the deaths as homicides. No one had been arrested as of Thursday evening, and the police said they were still trying to determine a motive for the arson. Investigators working through the charred remains of 103 Hancock Street discovered that an accelerant had been poured on the brownstone’s interior stairs, fueling the flames. By early Wednesday, fire marshals had also determined that the fire was intentionally set, James Long, a Fire Department spokesman, said. Officials said at least five people were inside when the fire started. Some of them escaped on their own. In one bedroom, firefighters found Mr. Wilkie, who sustained smoke inhalation and was pronounced dead at 10:01 p.m. on Tuesday. In another, they found Jenny Alexander, 56, who was being treated for smoke inhalation at the hospital. The police said she was in stable condition on Thursday. Image Tyrone Corley, who died after leaping from his fourth-floor window. Credit Christopher Lee for The New York Times Another resident, Debra Blue, 56, jumped from a third-floor window and was also in stable condition on Thursday. An 85-year-old woman who lived in the basement, Molly Droue, had left the building to see why the lights in her apartment had gone out. She found the brownstone in flames, said a neighbor, Willie Sue Hall, 78, who gave Ms. Droue a place to stay the night. “She’s still very, very upset because she doesn’t know how it started,” Ms. Hall said. “Those were her friends that lived in the house.” The building had working smoke detectors, officials said. But the fire seemed to erupt suddenly, catching its victims by surprise. First, there was a boom, startling the residents along the tree-lined block. Then the sounds of people yelling for help. A flurry of calls came in to 911. The fire appeared to spread from the building’s front door, neighbors said. A “ball of fire,” Deborah Chapman said. A “big circle of fire,” another neighbor said. It looked like it was “a firebomb,” Paul Carruthers, 71, added. On Thursday morning, the blackened front doors stood at the bottom of the stoop, like charred firewood. Mangled and burnt rubbish was piled in the front yard. A small bouquet of flowers leaned on the stoop. Ms. Corley said her brother had hesitated before jumping from the building. When firefighters brought him out on a gurney, she said, he managed to “wave to us to let us know that he was alive.” Image Debris from the fire. Credit Christopher Lee for The New York Times “I’m devastated,” she said, standing outside the brownstone on Thursday. “In that building there is nothing to be salvaged. I couldn’t get a pair of socks for my brother.” Talkative and sociable, Mr. Corley was a social worker at the Puerto Rican Family Institute, a nonprofit social services agency. He also moonlighted as a D.J., making mix tapes and CDs for his neighbors, friends and relatives on the block, neighbors and friends said. He was a fixture at the annual block party, playing his favorite house music. He also played a three-hour set every Monday night on Fat Traxx Radio, an online radio station, that he called “Keeping It Soulful.” “He was like my black Ruben Toro ,” said Ms. Chapman, a friend, likening him to another D.J. who favored house music. “He was the most sweetest person you could ever meet,” Ms. Corley said. “He’s going to be greatly, greatly missed.” Mr. Wilkie, who went by the nickname Curtis, loved music and lived up the block from his two children. “Curtis was a hell of a guy,” Reginald Swiney, a neighbor, said. The medical examiner’s office examined the bodies of Mr. Wilkie and Mr. Corley on Thursday, and their cause of death had not been determined, a spokeswoman said. At the brownstone, a neighbor helped the building’s owner board up windows. Outside, someone had put a handwritten sign in the window of Ms. Alexander’s red car before street sweeping on Thursday morning, hoping to prevent parking tickets. “Please excuse this vehicle,” the note read, “because the owner is in the hospital due to the fire at 103 Hancock.” | Arson;Murders and Homicides;Fires;Tyrone Corley;Stanley Wilkie;Bed-Stuy;NYC |
ny0009725 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/02/11 | In Driveways and Streets, Long Island Struggles With Snow | Snow continued bedeviling eastern Long Island on Sunday, with major highways still closed and local streets snarled with traffic or simply buried. Shovels and snowplows alike struggled against the sheer volume of snow, which had fallen more than two feet deep during the storm. “There’s a lot out there and there’s nowhere to put it,” said Paul Pecorino, 50, a snowplow driver for the town of Brookhaven. “It’s rough.” Suffolk County officials closed a portion of the Long Island Expressway most of the day to clear snow. That forced huge semi trucks onto local roads, where many became stuck, blocking plows and causing cars behind them to stall in a replay of Friday night’s mayhem. “I tried to take the busiest roads I could, and it was like they were all unplowed. It was absolutely horrible,” said Beth Lentelman, 34, a homemaker from Centereach who came to pick up a nephew from the Ronkonkoma train station. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said state officials worked through the night Saturday to deploy hundreds of snowplows and hundreds of extra workers to Suffolk County, in the hopes of clearing the roads by the Monday morning rush. Northeast Digs Out After Winter Storm 15 Photos View Slide Show › Image Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times “The state will continue to do everything possible to augment existing recovery work, and will ensure that residents of Suffolk County can go back to life as normal as quickly as possible,” Mr. Cuomo said. But on Sunday afternoon, life was anything but normal as residents struggled to clear snow mounds from streets, driveways and sidewalks. The sun had started to melt the snow, but that created other problems. Dozens of vehicles stalled in nearly a foot of slushy snow at Johnson and Ocean Avenues in Ronkonkoma. “The rule is you can’t stop,” Tom Lisner said, after other drivers helped push his car to the side of the road. “If you stop, you’re stuck. I broke the rule on a service road, on a bridge, on a side road, I got stuck.” Ashley Solop was trying to find firewood for her mother’s house, where she was staying with her young daughter and niece, and the heating oil had nearly run out. She got stuck three times in a one-block radius, requiring seven people to push her out — and she found no wood in the two stores that she tried. Pickup truck drivers filled their beds with snow to add weight for better traction, and the air sizzled with the sounds of tires spinning, usually in vain. In the parking lot of the Ronkonkoma station, commuters who had been stranded in New York City since the storm returned to find their cars marooned in an unplowed lot. Video New York City Department of Parks and Recreation held a Snow Day in parks throughout the city, a day after a snowstorm swept through the Northeast. “I just want to go home,” Chris Marchewka said, returning after three nights to find his minivan snowed in. “I should have stayed in the city.” Carmine Trotta, 55, had lost his home in Patchogue when Hurricane Sandy flooded it to the rafters. After staying with a friend, he had been scheduled to move into a new apartment over the weekend. The rental company where he had reserved a truck canceled after its plowing contractor did not show up. So he brought two day laborers he picked up in Farmingville to Brinkmann Hardware in Holbrook, where he begged the manager to rent him a U-Haul — and to allow the workers to dig it out of the parking lot. Others, too, had plans that went undeterred by the storm. In Selden, Nicole Perretta, 28, had woken up at 5:30 Saturday morning with contractions strong enough that she woke her husband, Scott Perretta, and told him to get her to the hospital. Mr. Perretta opened their door to find nearly three feet of snow on the doorstep, enough to break the snow blower within minutes. After one and a half hours of frantic shoveling by Mr. Perretta, the couple called 911, but both an ambulance and a Fire Department vehicle got stuck trying to get to them. Local officials rerouted the early plows to the Perrettas’ block. After navigating a police roadblock, stranded cars and the storm itself, Ms. Perretta arrived at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, where Harper, a girl, emerged about the same time as the doctor — himself trapped for a time in his driveway. “But she’s a very good baby,” Ms. Perretta said. “That was her only cry for attention, so far.” | Snow Snowstorms;Roads and Traffic;Cars;Long Island |
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