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ny0095971 | [
"us"
] | 2015/01/06 | Sacvan Bercovitch, Scholar Who Traced America’s Self-Image, Dies at 81 | Sacvan Bercovitch, a distinguished literary scholar who traced America’s self-image of “exceptionalism” to the rhetoric of the colonial Puritans of New England, died on Dec. 9 at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 81. The cause was cancer, said his wife, Susan Mizruchi. In perhaps his most influential work, “The Puritan Origins of the American Self” (1975), Dr. Bercovitch argued that unlike colonists in New Spain, New France or New Amsterdam, who saw their outposts as an extension of European societies, the Puritans saw New England as something new — “a city upon the hill,” as John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, described it — which would be a shining example for the rest of the world. Both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan echoed the phrase in their speeches, and Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York, in his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, played off the reference, accusing Reagan of overlooking the hardships of the poor. “Mr. President,” he said, “you ought to know that this nation is more a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ than it is just a ‘Shining City on a Hill.’ ” Werner Sollors, a professor of English literature and African-American studies at Harvard, where Dr. Bercovitch taught from 1983 until he retired in 2001, called him “the last of the great American studies scholars.” “The rhetorical basis of so much American political rhetoric, religious rhetoric and also articulations in writing, he located very convincingly in the Puritan sermon tradition,” Dr. Sollors said. Dr. Bercovitch’s 1978 book, “The American Jeremiad,” expanded on his thesis. Here he discerned an American version of the jeremiad, a harangue about society’s declining morals named after the biblical prophet Jeremiah. In this version, however, after berating an audience for its failings, the speaker would end up extolling the country as the world’s best hope for redemption. “He thought there was something particular about the U.S. sense of its exceptionalism that had propelled the United States to become this hugely successful, powerful, dominant nation,” said Christopher Looby, an English professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “That’s the kind of thing I think you see carrying through even to the last presidential election. Mitt Romney was challenging Obama: ‘Do you or don’t you think America is an exceptional country?’ ” Dr. Bercovitch took a circuitous route to becoming an expert on Puritans and American literature. He was born on Oct. 4, 1933, into a Yiddish-speaking left-wing family in a Jewish ghetto in Montreal. His first name is a combination of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists who many thought had been wrongly executed in 1927 for murder and armed robbery. His unsettled childhood included stays in foster homes. He studied briefly at the New School for Social Research in New York and Reed College in Oregon, before moving to Israel to live as a dairy farmer on a kibbutz. After returning to Montreal, he worked at a grocery store and obtained a night-school education at Sir George Williams College, now Concordia University, graduating in 1961. He obtained master’s and doctoral degrees from Claremont Graduate School in California. In preparing for the oral examination for his Ph.D. in American studies, Dr. Bercovitch read the works of the Puritans, who were known for their unadorned way of life. “It came as a shock to find that Puritan literature was anything but plain,” Dr. Bercovitch wrote in the preface to the 2011 edition of “The Puritan Origins of the American Self.” “It abounded in images, analogies, symbols, tropes and allusions; it had recourse to every kind of rhetorical device.” After academic positions at Columbia, Brandeis and the University of California, San Diego, he returned to Columbia as a professor in 1970. He moved to Harvard in 1983. In addition to his wife, Dr. Bercovitch is survived by two sons, Eytan and Sascha, and two sisters, Sylvia Ary and Ninel Segal. He and his first wife, Hanna M. Bercovitch , were divorced. Dr. Sollors recalled Dr. Bercovitch as having a free-ranging mind and a somewhat bemused sensibility about American society. He noted that before his first meeting with Dr. Bercovitch, he prepared for the occasion by reading his colleague’s writings, expecting a serious discussion about them. “We did it for about five minutes, and then he started talking about the movie ‘The Stepford Wives,’ ” Dr. Sollors said, referring to the 1974 satire in which American suburban men replace their wives with robots. “One could have a wonderful argument over a weird movie.” He added: “He would put himself out there as an ordinary Canadian immigrant who was startled by things in America and tried to make sense of it. That’s how he looked at himself — as a hero in a Kafka story.” | Obituary;Sacvan Bercovitch;Harvard;US Politics |
ny0047107 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2014/11/27 | Allan Kornblum, Independent Publisher, Dies at 65; Sought the Undiscovered | Allan Kornblum, whose love for poetry and printing led him to start Coffee House Press, an independent publisher widely respected for finding and nurturing new authors, died on Nov. 23 at his home in St. Paul. He was 65. His wife of 42 years, Cinda, said the cause was complications of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. For three decades, Coffee House Press, a nonprofit based in Minneapolis, has been an advocate for poets, novelists and other writers who might have struggled to find another publisher. Many of its authors are women and members of minority groups, often Asian-American. Once obscure, Coffee House has published more than 400 books, and they are reaching increasingly larger audiences. Coffee House publishes Karen Tei Yamashita, whose 2010 novel, “I Hotel,” was a finalist for the National Book Award. It published “How Long,” a collection of poems by Ron Padgett that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, and “Blood Dazzler,” a book of poems by Patricia Smith that was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2008. Mr. Kornblum did not set out to be a leader in the small-press movement. He dropped out of New York University in the late 1960s and moved to Iowa because he admired the poets at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, including the Finnish immigrant Anselm Hollo. He enrolled at the university, but again he dropped out. He had spent most of his time there mimeographing a homespun magazine called Toothpaste, which featured the work of local poets. In the early 1970s, Toothpaste magazine became Toothpaste Press, publishing chapbooks of poetry and books printed by hand on a letterpress. Mr. Kornblum was the editor and publisher and did the printing, too, having learned the technique in a typography class. Toothpaste, which published about 100 titles, was among a growing number of independent publishers that emerged in the 1960s and ’70s as alternatives to the powerful New York houses. After more than 10 years in Iowa City, Mr. Kornblum and his family moved to Minneapolis, where early on he ran the company out of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. By 1984 he had changed the company’s name to Coffee House and turned it into a nonprofit. He also began publishing more trade editions, using more modern printing methods. Among the well-received novels it has released in recent years are “Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife,” by Sam Savage; “Leaving the Atocha Station,” by Ben Lerner; and “A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing,” by Eimear McBride. Several of Coffee House’s recent successes were acquired under Chris Fischbach, who began as an intern in 1994 and whom Mr. Kornblun groomed to succeed him as publisher, in 2011. Mr. Kornblum became senior editor. Mr. Fischbach said in an interview that the company’s care with book design and typography had been influential “because of Allan’s emphasis early on.” Allan Mark Kornblum was born on Feb. 16, 1949, in Manhattan. His father, Seymour, led several Jewish community centers in the Northeast. His mother, Anne, taught elementary school. Besides his wife, the former Cinda Wormley, his survivors include two daughters, Annabel and Gwendolyn, and three sisters, Rena, Phyllis and Freyda. Mr. Kornblum actively sought out new authors. Cinda Kornblum noted that many of the papers and manuscripts he collected were now in the archives of the University of Iowa. “He started accepting manuscripts and never stopped,” she said. Sometimes there was no manuscript. Bao Phi, a spoken-word artist who was born in Vietnam, grew up in Minneapolis reading Coffee House authors, but he did not expect to become one. “I figured I should just be happy with doing shows,” Mr. Phi wrote on his website. “Allan randomly comes up to me at some literary event, and says to me, ‘Why don’t you send me your manuscript?' ” Mr. Phi did not have one. “But because he asked, I put one together, and then suddenly my book was being published.” The book, “Sông I Sing,” was published in 2011. | Obituary;Allan Kornblum;Coffee House Press;Books;Writer;Poetry |
ny0202697 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/08/29 | New York Buildings Dept. to Track Inspectors Via Cellphones | Seeking to better manage its resources and increase the supervision of its inspectors, New York City’s Department of Buildings will begin tracking their whereabouts using GPS technology in their department-issued cellphones. The new tracking system, which has upset some inspectors, will begin monitoring the first group of 10 inspectors on Monday. By the end of next month, all of the agency’s 379 inspectors — including crane and elevator inspectors — will be tracked through their cellphones, agency officials announced Friday. The new tracking system is being put in place in part because of the case of Edward J. Marquette, an inspector who was charged last year with faking a report that he inspected a tower crane on the East Side of Manhattan in response to a complaint. He never visited the crane, the authorities said, and 11 days later, it toppled and killed seven people. Officials have said it was unlikely that the missed inspection had any relation to the accident. Prosecutors said that Mr. Marquette, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, also filed false inspection reports for cranes at two other sites. “This new GPS tracking system is a simple, innovative way to ensure inspectors reach their assigned locations and are held accountable for their important work,” Buildings Commissioner Robert D. LiMandri said in a statement. The management of the Buildings Department has long been criticized. The two tower-crane accidents last year in Manhattan that left a total of nine people dead led to the resignation of Patricia J. Lancaster, Mr. LiMandri’s predecessor as commissioner, and spurred several investigations that uncovered corruption within the agency’s Cranes and Derricks Division . A department official said the agency did not believe there was a widespread problem of inspectors misusing their time while on duty, and described the new system as one way to improve the accountability of the department and its inspectors. Supervisors will also be able to identify the closest inspector to a building-related emergency and pinpoint the location of inspectors who lose contact with their superiors while working in hazardous conditions. Joseph M. Corso, the president of Local 211 of the Allied Building Inspectors Union, which represents most Buildings Department inspectors, said the initial response from members employed by the agency was one of disappointment. “Just like the Justice Department monitors parolees and those under house arrest, they’ll have a tracking device,” he said of the inspectors. “We’re going to do all we can to ensure the rights of the membership are covered.” But one inspector who did not want to give his name said, “If you are where you’re supposed to be, you’ve got nothing to fear.” Department officials said the heads of inspection units would be able to monitor the movements of inspectors in real time from any computer, using a confidential log-in and password. The daily routes the inspectors travel will also be electronically recorded and stored. The union was given few details about how the system would work, Mr. Corso said, but one concern is that inspectors usually have their department-issued cellphones with them even when off duty. The Buildings Department’s chief spokesman, Tony Sclafani, said the agency would monitor the inspectors only while on duty. “The software enables the tracking system to be fixed to the work schedule of each inspector,” Mr. Sclafani said. “When the shift ends, the tracking system will turn off.” | Building (Construction);Accidents and Safety;Global Positioning System;Marquette Edward J;LiMandri Robert D;Lancaster Patricia J;New York City |
ny0243396 | [
"us"
] | 2011/03/06 | Lawmakers Consider Plan to Make Counties Pay for Jail Inspections | Texas counties could soon have to pay for state inspectors to assess their jails. The proposal is getting mixed reviews from local officials already struggling with budget problems, but it may be the only way to maintain the small agency responsible for overseeing the state’s 245 county jails. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards, with its 19 employees and an annual budget of about $1 million, inspects every county lockup each year, determining whether staff members and officials are complying with rules meant to keep the facilities safe and to keep counties out of court for violating inmates’ rights. Despite its relatively minuscule part of the state’s $182 billion budget, the commission is not exempt from the cutting bonanza that lawmakers are undertaking as they seek to trim $15 billion to $27 billion from the state’s two-year budget. Proposals now under consideration would slice about 30 percent from the commission’s budget. Adan Muñoz Jr., the commission’s executive director, said that with that kind of cut, the agency would not be able to accomplish its core function of inspecting jails. “I can tell you I’m optimistic they’ll find some money somewhere,” Mr. Muñoz said. The “somewhere” that lawmakers are looking to is the counties that operate the jails. Legislative budget writers have proposed creating a fee schedule that would charge counties for inspections and recoup about $280,000 of the money lawmakers are proposing to cut from the commission’s budget. Although sheriffs and other county officials contend that the jail commission and its inspections are vital to keeping their facilities operating safely, they do not all agree that collecting fees based on inspections is a good plan. Donald Lee, executive director of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, said the proposal to charge for inspections was not well thought-out. “It creates a perception that inspections are not being done for the right reasons but are being done for revenue reasons,” Mr. Lee said. Jail inspections and re-inspections, he said, should be performed based on regulatory needs, not on the agency’s budgetary needs. Lawmakers established the commission in 1975 to oversee county jails and set standards for them. Since then, federal intervention and lawsuits — many of which were a result of poor inmate conditions — have declined significantly. “We want active enforcement, and we want good enforcement of good regulation,” Mr. Lee said. “There’s got to be a better way than fees for inspections.” But Sheriff Gary Painter of Midland County, who serves as president of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas and as a member of the jail standards commission, said collecting fees for inspections was a reasonable idea. The challenge, Sheriff Painter said, will be ensuring that the fees are fair to the counties because their jail operations vary so vastly. Some jails, like Harris County’s, are the size of small towns and house thousands of inmates. Others take in only a handful of scofflaws. Sheriff Painter said charging counties for inspections would be an incentive for officials to keep their jails in “tiptop shape” at all times. Commission inspections are conducted without warning, and if jails do not meet the standards, they are often required to have a reinspection. If each inspection costs the county more money, Sheriff Painter said, officials will work hard to make sure they do not rack up additional fees. “I would rather pay the fee than lose” the commission, the sheriff said. “We’ll find the money one way or another.” At a House budget hearing last week, State Representative John Otto, Republican of Dayton, said legislators were still studying ways to find money to keep the jail commission operating. Mr. Otto said he worried that counties would be hesitant to pay the fee, which would leave the commission in a serious budgetary jam. “We’re still working our way through this to see if this is the best alternative,” he said. | Budgets and Budgeting;Prisons and Prisoners;Texas |
ny0077747 | [
"sports"
] | 2015/05/24 | Bull Riding Struggles to Combat Concussions | SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Kasey Hayes hopped on the bovine beast trapped in the narrow holding pen, as he had done hundreds of times. He signaled he was ready to dominate the bull for the next eight seconds — or, at least, hoped to. After 3.72 seconds on this March evening, Hayes lost control, hit the ground and got his head stomped on by the 1,600-pounder named Shaft. His hockey-like helmet split in two. The arena fell silent. It took about a minute or so before Hayes could be helped to his feet. He had a concussion — his third in 12 months. Doctors, riders and researchers say the most pervasive injuries for bull riders are concussions. The Professional Bull Riders’ circuit provides a stable of doctors, requires helmets for anyone born after 1994 and insists that concussed riders pass a test before competing again. Amid concern about head injuries in the N.F.L. and N.H.L., the circuit’s lead medical staff member said he had not seen a drop in the number of concussions despite the widespread use of helmets. There are no multimillion-dollar contracts or unions in professional bull riding; if you do not ride, you do not make money, which causes athletes to push themselves back into action. Few researchers have looked into the number of rodeo injuries, and very little data is available to detail the rate of concussions. The largest available set, collected from 1981 to 2005 at nearly 2,000 Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association-sanctioned events, shows that 859 concussions were registered during various competitions such as calf roping, bareback riding and bull riding. That amounted to 52.1 percent of all major injuries, and “anecdotally, the vast majority of them were bull riders,” according to Don Andrews, a retired athletic trainer who established the first sports medicine program in rodeo and assembled the data. More than a decade ago, a group of health care experts — including the Professional Bull Riders’ longtime medical team leader, Dr. Tandy Freeman — developed guidelines to prevent and manage concussions and encourage the use of protective head gear. Currently, all circuit riders must wear a protective vest, but only those born on or after Oct. 15, 1994, are required to wear a helmet. Freeman said that the Professional Bull Riders, much like the N.H.L. in the 1970s, decided to grandfather in helmet usage, though most riders wear them now. But helmets don’t prevent concussions, Freeman said. “What I can tell you is that there does not appear to be a statistically significant difference between riders with helmets versus without helmets in the number of concussions received yet,” Freeman said. Freeman and the athletic trainers who travel to the nearly two dozen events a year gather cognitive data at the beginning of the season, noting each rider’s memory, balance and reaction time. If a rider sustains a concussion, the medical team administers the tests again. Freeman can sideline the rider if he fails. “About 16 percent of the injuries we deal with are concussions; then, from there, everything is broken up pretty much into thirds,” Freeman said. The only visible sign of Hayes’s close encounter was a scratch extending from behind his left ear to his jaw. “It was my turn, I guess,” said Hayes, 29, who is from Liberal, Kan. Hayes was ordered to take at least a week off from competition, an order he said he would follow; he hopped on three bulls the following weekend. Hayes currently is sidelined after breaking three lumbar vertebrae in late April. The most serious consequence of repeated blows to the brain is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease. Symptoms include memory loss, anxiety and progressive dementia, and the disease can be diagnosed only after death. C.T.E. has been diagnosed in former N.F.L. players, N.H.L. players and boxers, but no research has shown whether former bull riders have been affected. Thad Bothwell, who retired in 2002 and wore a cowboy hat instead of a helmet, broke several body parts and has had about a half-dozen concussions. “My son competes now and he wears a helmet,” said Bothwell, 46, from Rapid City, S.D. “I recommend helmets. Now they are really trying to keep riders from really messing themselves up.” | Concussion;Bull riding |
ny0159749 | [
"us"
] | 2008/12/22 | Gold for Top Brass in St. Louis | ST. LOUIS (AP) — The city’s police department spent $1,987 each on gold-filled badges for the new chief and other top officers — about 100 times the price of a patrolman’s badge, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday. But even that price is a lot less than the $5,900 each the city spent on two solid-gold badges for Chief Daniel Isom’s predecessor, Joe Mokwa. Rank-and-file St. Louis officers wear badges that cost $19.75 each. The new badges were approved in a unanimous vote Wednesday by the Board of Police Commissioners. The department bought the ornate badges for the chief, two assistant chiefs and two lieutenant colonels. The vote came just hours before the department admitted that it had wrongly kept up to $6 million seized in arrests. Neither the badges nor the seized money came up for public discussion. Board approval of the badges was a formality because the department’s supply division made the no-bid purchase a month ago, according to department records. At a news conference Saturday, after The Post-Dispatch reported the purchase on its Web site, Chief Isom called the spending “outrageous” and said it would not happen anymore. “There are historical practices in this department that are broken,” he said. “The people of St. Louis are counting on me to fix them, and as I find them, I will.” Erica Van Ross, a department spokeswoman, said the new badges were needed to replace those kept by officers when they retired. She said Chief Isom had changed the policy, allowing retiring officers to get a replica, if they paid for it. | St Louis (Mo);Police;Badges;Gold |
ny0040672 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2014/04/15 | Israeli Officer Killed on Way to Seder in West Bank | JERUSALEM — An Israeli police officer was fatally shot and his wife and young son were wounded Monday evening as they drove to a Passover Seder near the West Bank city of Hebron, according to a spokeswoman for the Israeli military. Israeli troops combed several nearby Palestinian villages in search of the gunman or gunmen and imposed a curfew and checkpoints, but they had not made any arrests by midnight. It was the first killing of an Israeli civilian in the West Bank since last October, the army spokeswoman said, and it came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been trying to salvage peace talks that have been teetering on the brink of collapse for two weeks. Military and police officials did not identify the victims but said the dead man was 40 and lived in Modiin, a city about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. His wife, 28, and 9-year-old son were being treated at Jerusalem hospitals, local news media reported. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant Palestinian factions based in the Gaza Strip, praised the shooting, though they did not claim responsibility. “We see this action as a natural response to the crimes of the occupation against the rights of our people,” said Husam Badran, a Hamas spokesman. Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said in an interview that “the attack reflects the state of rage the Palestinian people feel.” Hebron, a large Palestinian city with a small population of Jewish settlers, has been the scene of much tension and violence. Israel’s defense minister on Sunday authorized several families to reoccupy a home there near the Cave of the Patriarchs , a holy site to both Jews and Muslims. The home had been claimed by both settlers and Palestinians. On Monday, the family was shot on Route 35, near the Palestinian village of Idna, outside Hebron, the army spokeswoman said. Israeli news organizations quoted witnesses as saying that they had seen a man in a helmet firing a Kalashnikov rifle at several passing cars. The witnesses said the victims were heading to Hebron for a Seder at the woman’s mother’s home. Though throwing stones along West Bank roads is relatively common, shootings have been rare since the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, more than a decade ago. One of the worst attacks during that period was the 2002 bombing of a Passover Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya, which left 29 Israelis dead. (A woman wounded in the attack died a year later, raising the official death toll to 30.) “Despite this terrible event, we need to try to welcome the holiday with joy,” Orit Struck, a right-wing member of Israel’s Parliament who lives among the settlers in Hebron, said on Army Radio. | Palestinians;Israel;West Bank;Murders |
ny0265851 | [
"us"
] | 2016/03/11 | Mourning Nancy Reagan, and Looking Back at the Class and Dignity of an Era | SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — In death, Nancy Reagan is drawing the kind of public warmth and adulation that her husband received for much of his life. “We love how much they loved each other,” Doris Baltgalvis, 69, said. She and her husband of 50 years, Marty, 70, traveled from Corona, Calif., on Wednesday to view Mrs. Reagan’s coffin at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library here. The couple keep a framed photograph of the Reagans in their study. Mr. Baltgalvis added, “The way they loved and respected and were loyal and faithful to each other projected into the way he ran the country.” Several thousand well-wishers who waited in a hot parking lot to board buses and pay their respects were not there just to celebrate the romance of Ron & Nancy. Republicans, especially older ones, also say they are in mourning for the dignity and class the Reagans brought to the White House, at least as it appears in memory and in comparison with a Republican primary campaign roiled by vulgarity, crudity and division. Politicians, former heads of state, celebrities and a dwindling circle of old friends will gather on Friday for Mrs. Reagan’s funeral at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a majestic send-off that Mrs. Reagan planned with her customary vigilance and concern for detail. Mrs. Reagan, who died Sunday at 94, was lucid until the end, according to friends. “She was very engaged in the funeral planning,” said John Heubusch, the executive director of the Reagan foundation and library. “She wanted it to reflect well on his legacy.” Mrs. Reagan was a behind-the-scenes operator, but her intense devotion to her husband was obvious and unwavering throughout his presidency and his long battle with Alzheimer’s. After he fell ill, Mrs. Reagan rarely left him to go out, but she proudly burnished their love story. (The Reagan Library website likens it to more ill-fated pairings, including Antony and Cleopatra and Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.) She published his charmingly and unapologetically mushy, over-the-top love letters, and a few are on permanent display at the library, as are Air Force One and their favorite table from Chasen’s restaurant. Mrs. Reagan’s taste — and stagecraft — was just as evident after she died. The coffin, burnished mahogany topped with a mass of yellow and white peonies, freesia and roses, was laid out in the main hall of the library, in the same place where her husband’s coffin was on display in 2004. Image Crowds waited for a shuttle bus ride to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Thursday. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times While waiting to pay his respects, Mr. Baltgalvis switched from the topic of the Reagans to relate how his family immigrated from Latvia via Morocco. His wife, Doris, listened to the familiar story with an amusing gaze, almost as adoring as the one Mrs. Reagan reserved for her husband. Mr. Baltgalvis wore a plaid shirt for the occasion, not unlike the shirts Mr. Reagan used to wear on his ranch. Mrs. Baltgalvis was more formally turned out in a navy and white zebra-print top, and she was not alone. Many other mourners dressed up a bit, at least by Southern California standards, perhaps in an unconscious homage to Mrs. Reagan’s sense of style and decorum. The former first lady did not approve of women in pants and banned clogs from the White House after seeing — and hearing — her husband’s star speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, wearing them in the West Wing. (Ms. Noonan, who later befriended Mrs. Reagan, is among the funeral guests.) Mourners were interested in which V.I.P.s would attend the funeral — few of the Reagans’ Hollywood friends are still alive. Some of their children will go in their stead, including Anjelica Huston, Tina Sinatra and Joan Rivers’s daughter, Melissa. (Wayne Newton, however, is expected to attend.) Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Caroline Kennedy and former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, are on a long list of political figures who are planning to attend. They also discussed who planned to stay away, notably President Obama, who on Friday will be in Austin, Tex., to speak at South by Southwest , an annual music, technology and film festival. “Maybe this is more of a woman’s event, but I do think it’s a little strange,” said Elizabeth White, 40, who was in the viewing line. “What he’s doing instead doesn’t seem that important.” A small memorial service was held Wednesday at a mortuary in Santa Monica where the Reagans’ daughter, Patti Davis, welcomed about 20 friends and family members, including Ronald Reagan’s son Michael, and Dennis Revell, the husband of Mr. Reagan’s daughter, Maureen. Ron Reagan Jr., who splits his time between Seattle and Italy, was not there but is expected to speak at the funeral. Around Los Angeles, friends of the Reagans talked about the former first lady they saw when the public was gone and the cameras turned off. That was when she unveiled her sly sense of humor and infectious giggle. The film producer Doug Wick, a longtime family friend whose father, Charles Z. Wick, was director of the United States Information Agency under Mr. Reagan, visited Mrs. Reagan at her Bel Air home a few days before she died. Mr. Wick encouraged her to reminisce and teasingly asked her if it was true her husband had once been a movie star. Mr. Wick said she answered in kind, joking, “He did O.K.” He asked her if Mr. Reagan also tried to get into politics. “Yes,” she replied, “he gave that a shot, too.” | Nancy Reagan;Funerals;California;Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum;First Ladies;Republicans |
ny0062217 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2014/01/17 | Under Gang’s Rule, a Mexican City Loses Hope in the State | APATZINGÁN, Mexico — Like the shutters closing in an old Western, the metal gates on storefronts in this town slammed shut and their owners fled as first a powerful drug gang took hold and then the federal police and soldiers arrived to restore order, stirring fears of a bloody showdown. There was good reason: Even as the federal forces massed in and around City Hall on Tuesday, a pharmacy was burned around the corner, which many took as a signal that the criminal gang with a lock grip here was still in control. On Wednesday night, somebody was shot yards from the regional offices of the federal prosecutor, where dozens of officers are now stationed. Last week, City Hall itself was firebombed, its lobby scarred with soot and still smelling of smoke. But instead of taking on the gang that had terrorized the town, the military ended up shooting three local residents protesting the government’s efforts to disarm a self-proclaimed self-defense force that had sprung up to fight the outlaws. The shootings set off widespread outrage. “The army and the government have been discredited because instead of pursuing criminals, they have attacked the people defending themselves against them,” the local Roman Catholic bishop, Miguel Patiño Velázquez, wrote Wednesday night in a letter to the community. “There is no authority stopping” the gang’s leaders, he wrote. The gang is called the Knights Templar, so named, scholars of the drug trade say, as a nod to its quasi-religious doctrine and its belief, like those of the Crusades, that it is valiant and noble. Like the self-defense groups, it, too, began with a stated aim to root out the feared Zetas gang but ended up a large criminal organization itself. The spawn of another powerful organized crime group called La Familia Michoacana, the Knights Templar have grown to sow terror and infiltrate Mexico’s vital Pacific port, extorting rich merchants and humble lime pickers alike. This city of 99,000 people, the capital of Mexico’s lime- and avocado-producing region, is widely described as the gang’s stronghold, an assertion that is easy to believe given the recent violence and the palpable climate of fear. “You have to pay them quotas or they burn your business down or kidnap you or your wife or girls,” said a street vendor selling pirated videos near the burned pharmacy. “I have paid, everybody pays. And all the police and politicians are in on it, too.” That is the widespread perception here, where the Catholic vicar general, Javier Cortes, said one organized group or another had kept the town under its thumb for close to a decade, with little interference from the state or federal authorities. The mayor, Uriel Chávez Mendoza, surrounded Thursday by well-armed municipal bodyguards, begged to differ. The rumors that he is a Knight Templar himself and that the group controls city hall are “just what they are saying on social media networks, but it’s not the truth.” He was careful not to take sides and declared the city now on the path to tranquillity. Image Truckloads of federal police officers and soldiers arrived recently to restore order, but the violence has continued. Credit Rodrigo Cruz for The New York Times Not many here have much hope that will happen, predicting that the surge of federal forces will soon abate and give way to the same complacency and neglect that allowed the Knights Templar to gain a foothold and prompted the rise of the vigilantes. President Enrique Peña Nieto, who had vowed to steer the conversation about Mexico to the economy rather than violence, appointed a special commissioner to oversee the federal response in the state, but has not commented publicly about the crisis, maintaining a normal schedule. While the self-defense groups no longer appear to be planning to take control of Apatzingán, promising in some cases to patrol side by side with the federal police, residents here still view them as a viable alternative. The Rev. Gerardo López, a local priest, said businessmen who had fled were financing the self-defense groups and still making plans to displace the Knights here and in the surrounding countryside. One businessman who fled to nearby Jalisco State about six years ago said in a telephone interview that he had provided about $20,000 to the self-defense groups in the past year, hoping they restore order. “I had the luck that many didn’t, the luck of fleeing,” he said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “Many of those who stayed are now dead.” Father Cortes said young people joined the gang because it paid more than working in a store or picking fruit in the fields. “It’s easier to sit around with a gun or cellphone than work the fields,” he said. Others have been forced to work for the gang under threat of death, he said. The Knights Templar’s main source of income has been trafficking methamphetamine to the United States, with the state of Michoacán a prime source of the drug. But as with many other drug gangs, it has branched out to other sources of revenue, including illegally mined iron ore. The military took control of Lázaro Cárdenas, the principal Pacific port city, from the gang in November. But its rackets are so extensive that few expect any serious takedown of the group to occur anytime soon, and most people here assume they are being watched by the gang. “Your neighbor could be one of them, and you won’t know until you cross them,” said a government official here who declined to be identified out of fear of death. As truckloads of federal police officers and soldiers cruised the streets, several people sought to keep up a sense of normalcy. A mariachi group came out to rehearse on the sidewalk the other night, some shopkeepers reopened their stores, children chased pigeons in the central square and the mayor promised a coming city festival would proceed. Carmen Enriquez, a secretary on a taco break, rolled her eyes at all the fuss. “One group comes, and then another, and then the police; this city has seen it all and we go on,” she said. “If you have the money to leave you do, but for those who stay we just have to go on.” | Gang;Drug Abuse;Military;Mexico;Apatzingan |
ny0015839 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/10/17 | Angels Hire Hitting Coach | The Los Angeles Angels hired Don Baylor to be their hitting coach. He replaces Jim Eppard, who was dismissed by Manager Mike Scioscia. | Baseball;Los Angeles Angels;Don Baylor |
ny0030831 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2013/06/07 | U.S. Households’ Finances Regain Lost Ground | Buoyed by a healthier housing sector and a soaring stock market, American households continue to regain ground lost during the financial crisis and the severe recession that followed. Without adjusting for inflation, the net worth of American households is now higher than before the recession struck five and a half years ago, the Federal Reserve said on Thursday. Household net worth jumped by just over $3 trillion, or 4.5 percent, to $70.3 trillion in the first quarter of 2013, surpassing the $68.1 trillion reached in 2007. After adjustment for inflation, total net worth still stands below the peak reached in mid-2007, said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. The encouraging report from the Fed comes amid other signs that Americans are feeling slightly better about the economy. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted May 31 to June 4, 39 percent of respondents said that the recent condition of the economy was very or fairly good, the highest share saying this not only since President Obama took office but also since the recession officially began in December 2007. About a third of respondents said that the economy was getting better, similar to what the trend had been in the previous six months. (Another 24 percent said that it was getting worse and 42 percent said the economy was staying about the same.) Nearly half of respondents — 46 percent — rated the job market in their areas as very good or fairly good, with a third saying that they thought their local job markets would improve over the next year. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Despite newfound optimism in some quarters, the economy continues to send mixed signals. Even as consumer spending remains healthy and the housing market rebounds, the labor market has been much slower to recover and many Americans at middle and lower income levels remain worse off than before the downturn. The latest report on jobs will come Friday morning, when the Labor Department reports employment data for May. Month-to-month numbers have been bumpy this year, with the economy adding a robust 332,000 jobs in February, then slowing to a pace of 138,000 new positions in March and 165,000 in April. Image Credit The New York Times Economists are looking for the report to estimate that the economy created roughly 165,000 jobs in May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 7.5 percent. On Thursday, the government reported that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 11,000, to 346,000, just under the four-week moving average of 352,500. Trading on financial markets was volatile as investors readied positions ahead of the Labor Department report. After spending much of the day in negative territory, the stock market staged a late-day rally. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 80.03 points to 15,040.62 and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index inched up 13.66, to 1,622.56. The Nasdaq composite index increased by 22.58, to 3,424.05. The bond market rose modestly, with the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds falling slightly to 2.08 percent. In the currency markets, the dollar fell sharply against the yen and the euro on Thursday, and continued to fall Friday morning. Currency traders will be watching the jobs data on Friday for signs about the economy’s underlying strength and the Fed’s next move on monetary policy. The lackluster gains in jobs and income for most Americans stand in contrast to the rally on Wall Street and increase in home prices so far this year. In the first quarter of 2013, real estate holdings accounted for a $784 billion gain in household net worth, while the value of corporate shares and mutual funds increased by nearly $1.5 trillion, the Fed said. The stock market gains primarily benefit a fairly narrow stratum of American society, Mr. Maki noted, with the top 20 percent of earners holding 80 percent of stocks. “That group always accrues the bulk of the benefits from a rising stock market,” he said. The Federal Reserve report also showed that Americans remained cautious, continuing to reduce debt levels and strengthen their personal balance sheets. Household borrowing sank at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in the first quarter, with mortgage debt declining by $53.2 billion. The implosion of the housing sector, and the stock market tumble in 2008 and early 2009 took a huge toll on the net worth of American families. Between 2007 and 2008, household net worth dropped by nearly $13 trillion, a decline of nearly 20 percent. While unemployment remains high by historical standards at 7.5 percent, the economy has shown signs of life lately. Consumer spending has held up this year, despite fears that an increase in payroll taxes and cutbacks in government spending might cool the economy. The stock market has surged in 2013 in anticipation of better economic growth and expectations that the Federal Reserve will not pull back on its efforts to stimulate the economy until evidence is much stronger that jobs are more plentiful and living standards are improving. But stocks have wavered in recent days on worries that the central bank will not keep pumping as much money into the financial system. | US Economy;Federal Reserve;Personal finance;Stocks,Bonds |
ny0203118 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2009/08/26 | Real Choice? It’s Off-Limits in Health Bills | Consider the following health insurance plan. It refuses to pay for certain medical care and then doesn’t offer a clear explanation. It does pay for unhelpful care that ends up raising premiums. Its customer service can be hard to reach or unhelpful. And the people who are covered by this insurer have no choice but to remain with it — or, at best, to choose from one or two other insurers that are about as bad. In all likelihood, I have just described your insurance plan. Health insurers often act like monopolies — like a cable company or the Department of Motor Vehicles — because they resemble monopolies. Consumers, instead of being able to choose freely among insurers, are restricted to the plans their employer offers. So insurers are spared the rigors of true competition, and they end up with high costs and spotty service. Americans give lower marks to their health insurer than they do to their life insurer, their auto insurer or their bank, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index . Even the Postal Service gets better marks. (Cable companies, however, get worse ones.) No wonder President Obama ’s favorite villain is health insurers. You might think, then, that a central goal of health reform would be to offer people more choice. But it isn’t. Real choice is not part of the bills moving through the Democratic-led Congress; even if the much-debated government-run insurance plan was created, it would not be available to most people who already have coverage. Republicans, meanwhile, have shown no interest in making insurance choice part of a compromise they could accept. Both parties are protecting the insurers. That’s a reflection of the thorny politics of health care. On one hand, big interest groups are lobbying hard to keep some form of the status quo. Insurers don’t want people to have more choice. Neither do employers and labor unions, which now control huge piles of money spent on health care. Nor do hospitals and drug makers, which benefit from all the waste now in the system. On the other hand, the people who stand to benefit most from having more choice — all of us — are not agitating for change, because the costs of the system are hidden from us. A typical household spends $15,000 each year on health care. But most of it comes in the form of taxes or employer deductions from paychecks, which means insurance can seem practically free. As a result, people may not like their insurer, but they don’t hate it, either. If anything, they are more anxious about losing their insurance than they are eager to be given more choice. And that anxiety has driven the White House’s decision to pursue a fairly conservative form of health reform. To be clear, the versions of reform now floating around Congress would do a lot of good. They would make it far easier for people without an employer plan to get health insurance and would make some modest attempts to nudge the health system away from its perverse fee-for-service model. Yet they would not improve most people’s health care anytime soon. Giving people more control over their own care would. White House advisers, however, decided against that option long ago. They worried that opening up the insurance market would destabilize employer-provided insurance and make Mr. Obama’s plan vulnerable to the same criticism that undid Bill Clinton ’s: that it was too radical. They may well have been right. Then again, given all the flak they have been taking anyway, they may have been wrong. The best-known proposal for giving people more choice is the Wyden-Bennett bill , named for Ron Wyden , an Oregon Democrat, and Robert Bennett , a Utah Republican, who introduced it in the Senate in 2007. There are other broadly similar versions of the idea, too. One comes from Victor Fuchs, a Stanford professor sometimes called the dean of health economists, and Ezekiel Emanuel , an oncologist and an Obama health-policy adviser. In the simplest version, families would receive a voucher worth as much as their employer spends on their health insurance. They would then buy an insurance plan on an “exchange” where insurers would compete for their business. The government would regulate this exchange. Insurers would be required to offer basic benefits, and insurers that attracted a sicker group of patients would be subsidized by those that attracted a healthier group. The immediate advantage would be that people could choose a plan that fit their own preferences, rather than having to accept a plan chosen by human resources. You would be able to carry your plan from one job to the next — or hold onto it if you found yourself unemployed. You would never have to switch doctors because your employer switched insurance plans. The longer-term advantage would be that health insurance would become fully subject to the brutal and wonderful forces of the market. Insurers that offered better plans — plans that drew on places like the Mayo Clinic to offer good, lower-cost care — would win more customers. “That’s the way the rest of the economy works,” says William Lewis, former director of the McKinsey Global Institute. Politically, though, the full voucher plan is still too radical, which is why the Wyden-Bennett bill has attracted support from only 13 other senators — four Republicans, eight Democrats and Joe Lieberman . So Mr. Wyden has come up with a narrower version . It expands the exchange that Democratic leaders are already planning to create for the uninsured so that many more people would be allowed to use it. (If the exchange were limited to the uninsured, any government-run insurance plan, a crucial part of reform for many liberals, would not be available to most people.) But Mr. Wyden isn’t having much luck with this idea, either. The support for the employer-based system is simply too strong. And the defenders of the employer system have some legitimate arguments. An insurance exchange may end up having some of the same pitfalls as 401(k) plans, in which some workers make poor choices. Having employers navigate the complex landscape of insurance, the defenders say, may be better for employees. Here’s what I would ask those defenders, however: Given all the problems with health care — the high costs and decidedly mixed results — how comfortable are you defending the status quo? Why force people into a system you think is better for them? If people were instead allowed to choose, all but a small percentage might indeed stick with their employer plan. In that case, a Wyden-like proposal wouldn’t amount to much. It certainly would not destabilize the employer-provided insurance system. Then again, if lots of families did switch to a plan on the exchange, the impact would be quite different. With fewer employees signing up for on-the-job insurance, companies might shrink their benefits departments. The number of companies offering insurance would keep dropping. The employer insurance system could begin to crumble. But wouldn’t that be precisely the fate that the system deserved? | Health Insurance;Reform;Legislation;Jobs |
ny0090963 | [
"sports",
"cycling"
] | 2015/09/14 | Fabio Aru Wins Vuelta a España | Fabio Aru rode safely in an uneventful final stage to win the Vuelta a España and clinch his first Grand Tour title. Aru, a 25-year-old Italian, crossed the line alongside his Astana teammates at the end of the 61.4-mile stage through the streets of Madrid, then gave a broad smile and lifted his right arm into the air in celebration. Joaquim Rodríguez of Spain, who recovered from a blown tire halfway through the final stage, finished second over all, 57 seconds behind Aru. John Degenkolb of Germany was perfect on the final sprint in Madrid to secure his first stage victory. | Biking;Fabio Aru;Joaquim Rodriguez;Road Cycling;Vuelta a Espana |
ny0211110 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2017/01/18 | China Cancels 103 Coal Plants, Mindful of Smog and Wasted Capacity | China is canceling plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants, seeking to rein in runaway, wasteful investment in the sector while moving the country away from one of the dirtiest forms of electricity generation, the government announced in a directive made public this week. The announcement, made by China’s National Energy Administration, cancels 103 projects that were planned or under construction, eliminating 120 gigawatts of future coal-fired capacity. That includes dozens of projects in 13 provinces, mostly in China’s coal-rich north and west, on which construction had already begun. Those projects alone would have had a combined output of 54 gigawatts, more than the entire coal-fired capacity of Germany , according to figures compiled by Greenpeace. The cancellations make it likelier that China will meet its goal of limiting its total coal-fired power generation capacity to 1,100 gigawatts by 2020. That huge figure, three times the total coal-fired capacity in the United States, is far more than China needs. Its coal plants now run at about half of capacity, and new sources of power, like wind, solar and nuclear, are coming online at a fast clip. Nevertheless, China’s capacity would have surged well past the 1,100-gigawatt mark by 2020 had it not begun canceling coal-fired plants in the works. The new announcements are in addition to cancellations detailed last year . “The key thing is that yes, China has a long way to go, but in the past few years China has come a very long way,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a researcher for Greenpeace in Beijing. Electricity generated from coal is the biggest source of the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, and pollution from such plants contributes to the miasma of smog that has blanketed much of China this winter. But despite the vast amount of capacity added in recent years, China’s coal use has been on the decline since 2013. Still, China’s state-owned power companies remain politically powerful. Grid operators often favor power generated from coal plants over that made by wind and solar, and despite the cuts, China is still building far more capacity than it needs. In contrast, utilities in the United States have only four coal-fired plants set to go online through 2020, with a combined capacity of less than 1 gigawatt , according to the Energy Information Administration. The United States retired more than 13 gigawatts of coal capacity in 2015 as the country shifted toward natural gas, wind and solar. Despite the government announcement, it is far from clear that the Chinese jurisdictions most affected by the directive, including Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Xinjiang, will actually take the politically costly move of halting construction, laying off workers and canceling contracts, said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University in southeastern China. “Some projects might have been ongoing for 10 years, and now there’s an order to stop them,” he said by telephone. “It’s difficult to persuade the local governments to give up on them.” But Mr. Lin and Mr. Myllyvirta said one factor that made the directive likelier to succeed was its specificity. It names each project set for cancellation, putting provincial and other local officials on the spot and making it harder to continue the projects. | Coal;China;National Energy Administration;Climate Change;Global Warming;Politics |
ny0289069 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/08/25 | After Earthquake in Italy, ‘Half the Town No Longer Exists’ | AMATRICE, Italy — The chaos came in the middle of the night. People were screaming and dying in the darkness across Amatrice, a summer getaway in central Italy famous as the birthplace of a pasta dish made with tomatoes and pork cheeks. It was 3:36 a.m. when the 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit, followed by a succession of strong aftershocks — including one nearly as strong an hour later — that flattened houses and buried residents in the rubble. Amatrice was the worst hit by the quake, which also damaged surrounding towns. As of Thursday morning, the deaths totaled 241, officials said. “Half the town no longer exists,” Mayor Sergio Pirozzi of Amatrice told reporters on Wednesday morning. He might have been too optimistic. By midday Amatrice, a quiet mountain town about 100 miles northeast of Rome, felt more like a ghost town. Video A young girl was pulled out from under the rubble in Amatrice, Italy, by rescue workers after being trapped for 15 hours following the earthquake there on Wednesday. Ambulances raced along windy roads clogged with traffic and rubble as rescue teams searched for survivors. Using picks, shovels and hands, they scrabbled through the dust and debris of crumbled homes. They brought in dogs to sniff for the dead and injured beneath collapsed concrete and stone. A soft white dust was still swirling about the rubble piled waist-high in Amatrice. Stunned survivors — some with tear-streaked cheeks, others still wearing pajamas — wandered through the streets, unsure what to do. A father, holding a small child, pushed a wobbly stroller piled with plastic bags of clothing over a rocky path. A young girl sobbed into her mobile phone. “It’s all gone, the bar, the house, everything,” she said. The initial quake was comparable in intensity to one in 2009 in the central Abruzzo region that killed more than 300 people. The quake and aftershocks were felt as far away as Bologna, Rome and Naples. Camps were set up to house hundreds of homeless, and the authorities were also trying to account for an unknown number of tourists. “The number of missing people is undefined at the moment,” Immacolata Postiglione, the head of the emergency unit at Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, said at a news conference in Rome. With a permanent population of about 2,000, Amatrice is a place where people know one another. Many had ties to Rome in one way or another, working there in the winter, running restaurants, bars and hotels, as food has always been part of the town’s culture. “If you closed the restaurants in Rome run by Amatriciani, you’d close half the restaurants,” said Maria Prassede Perilli, a resident who had been visiting her sister in Rome when the quake struck. Italy’s History of Deadly Earthquakes A look at earthquakes in Italy that have caused extensive damage over the last century. Ms. Perilli said she had rushed back after her husband, Giacomo, called in the middle of the night in a frightened voice, telling her, “There’s been a terrible earthquake, you can’t even imagine.” Her husband survived, she said, but his sisters and niece did not. The couple’s house was crushed. “It’s flat, like a book,” she said. For many residents who worked in Rome, August was the traditional month of rest and relaxation, enjoying Amatrice’s mild climate and fresh air after months of Roman smog. “You had dinners in the piazza, long tables with lots of people, someone would bring out a guitar to sing,” Ms. Perilli said. “It’s the mountain, it’s a good place to be.” Italian Towns Before and After the Earthquake Towns in a mountainous stretch of central Italy were severely damaged by an earthquake that killed hundreds of people and trapped scores under debris. It was especially wrenching for her to bump into shocked friends and acquaintances. “They can’t find Alessandra, they can’t find Alessandra,” one woman who approached said of her niece, buried under the rubble along with her mother. Ms. Perilli commiserated. “I don’t want to listen to anything any more. It’s all: ‘Did you hear that he died, did you know that that entire family was buried; wife, husband, child.’ I just can’t take it,” she said, eyes tearing. “I feel as though I am in a dream, and I’m hoping that one moment I’ll wake up.” Nearby, diggers were lifting rubble into trucks. “Will they ever be able to rebuild this?” Ms. Perilli said. “It seems like the end of an era.” Rescue teams representing a spectrum of police and armed forces, local civil protection agencies from around the country, as well as medical staff members worked through the day searching for survivors, but more often finding the dead. Scenes From the Devastation in Italy 15 Photos View Slide Show › Image Remo Casilli/Reuters “This is positive; as soon as the earthquake struck, people came from all over to help,” said Riza Sinani, a nurse from the nearby town of Rieti. “That doesn’t happen in every country, this outpouring of humanity and good will.” Several people in Amatrice said the town had been full of tourists who came for the coming weekend’s annual Sagra dell’Amatriciana festival, which celebrates Amatrice’s native pasta sauce, using cured pork cheek known as guanciale, and grated pecorino cheese. The festival has been canceled. As sympathy and offers of support poured in from around the world, Pope Francis led pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square in praying for the victims, clutching a rosary in his right hand, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi went to Rieti. Mr. Renzi praised rescue workers and volunteers and vowed to rebuild — a promise particularly important for Italians still furious about the long delays in reconstruction after the 2009 quake. Video A 6.2-magnitude earthquake nearly 100 miles northeast of Rome has left hundreds dead and many more injured. The mayor of one town, Amatrice, said at least half of his town was destroyed. Credit Credit Crocchioni/European Pressphoto Agency The area’s most significant monument, the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, was unharmed, as were monuments in the city of Perugia. “We were saved by a miracle,” said Stefania Proietti, the mayor of Assisi, where in 1997 a devastating earthquake caused casualties and extensive damage to the city, destroying frescoes by Giotto and Cimabue in the basilica. For those in Amatrice, the immediate focus was on essentials: who was alive, and who was dead, or missing. Among those awaiting information was Laura Besanzoni, who stood behind a ribbon that cordoned off the main street, the Corso Umberto. A few palazzos still stood along the street, but piles of rubble lined both sides, offering glimpses of bright blue sky. Image Residents amid the rubble of collapsed buildings in Amatrice on Wednesday. Scores of people were missing in the surrounding hilltop towns and villages. Credit Massimo Percossi/European Pressphoto Agency “It’s like being in one of those countries at war,” Ms. Besanzoni said, looking at the devastation. Her family’s palazzo was left standing, she said, but she had no news of an aunt and two cousins. “We don’t know if they are dead or alive,” she said. Makeshift human corridors were created to bring people out. Some were alive, others were not. As one body was passed, wrapped in a plastic cover, one woman wailed: “That looks like Manuela’s hand!” A three-story convent on the edge of town was virtually destroyed by the quake, the top two floors crushing the bottom. A young nun managed to escape, but said she feared that three nuns and four retirees had been buried. A high school teacher from Rome who vacations here every August said her home on the central Corso Umberto had been severely damaged but had not collapsed. The teacher, who identified herself only by her first name, Ilde, said the quake had struck with a loud bang. The buildings across the street from her and next door were destroyed. “Only the town tower was standing,” she said, describing scenes of panic, her neighbors screaming for help in the dark. “It was Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ it was apocalyptic, I don’t know,” she said. When rescuers came to escort her from her home, she said, she walked on rubble at least 10 to 13 feet high. In one square, families waited for news while diggers began tackling a pile of bricks and stones that had once been a home. One man had lost his father. Another, an uncle. “I can’t think of how many may still be in the rubble,” said one woman whose house withstood the quake while the neighboring ones did not. Amatrice is in an area prone to earthquakes, she said, “but we’ve never felt anything as violent as this.” In the nearby Marche region, the village of Arquata del Tronto and the hamlet of Pescara del Tronto, also suffered major destruction. “When I arrived at the break of day, I saw a destroyed village, screams, death,” Bishop Giovanni D’Ercole of Ascoli Piceno, who visited Pescara del Tronto, told Vatican Radio . “I went to bless the bodies of two children buried under the rubble.” | Amatrice;Earthquake;Fatalities,casualties;Rescue;Italy |
ny0264789 | [
"science"
] | 2011/12/13 | Anomalocaris Fossil Reveals Eyes with 16,000 Lenses | Anomalocaris was a squidlike predator with grasping claws that lived more than 500 million years ago. Now paleontologists from Australia have found a pair of fossilized eyes belonging to the creature. To say the least, the discovery supports the theory that it was a highly visual predator. The researchers report that anomalocaris had extraordinarily complex eyes, with 16,000 hexagonal lenses each. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Nature . “There wasn’t any direct evidence before, but now we see the lenses that prove it,” said the study’s lead author, John R. Paterson, a paleontologist at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. “As a general rule, you can kind of think of lenses as pixels on a computer screen,” he said. “If you have more pixels, you’re going to have a much clearer picture.” The only modern arthropod that may exceed anomalocaris is the dragonfly, which can have up to 28,000 lenses in each eye. The fossil, estimated to be 515 million years old, was found in the Emu Bay Shale of South Australia State. Although other fully intact fossils of anomalocaris have been found before, this is the first one to reveal the optical design of its eyes. “The significance of the eyes here is that we can see the lenses in all their glory,” Dr. Paterson said. | Eyes and Eyesight;Paleontology;Fossils;Science and Technology;Nature (Journal);Squid;Paterson John R;University of New England |
ny0034622 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/12/12 | U.S. Suspends Nonlethal Aid to Syria Rebels | WASHINGTON — Just a month before a peace conference that will seek an end to the grinding civil war in Syria, the Obama administration’s decision to suspend the delivery of nonlethal aid to the moderate opposition demonstrated again the frustrations of trying to cultivate a viable alternative to President Bashar al-Assad. The administration acted after warehouses of American-supplied equipment were seized Friday by the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist fighters who have broken with the moderate, American-backed opposition, but who also battle Al Qaeda. Administration officials said that the suspension, confirmed on Wednesday, was temporary and that the nonlethal aid, which is supplied by the State Department, could flow again. But with rebels feuding with one another instead of concentrating on fighting Mr. Assad, and with the United States still groping for a reliable partner in Syria, the odds of any peace conference breaking the cycle of bloodshed appeared to have dimmed. For the White House, which has pinned its hopes on a political solution, the fracturing of the opposition raises a number of thorny questions, including whether the United States should work more closely with Islamist forces. Some experts on Syria said the episode called into question not only the effectiveness of the moderate groups the United States has supported in Syria for the last two years but also the administration’s broader strategy for forcing Mr. Assad to yield power. “For all practical purposes, the moderate armed opposition that the administration really wanted to support — albeit in a hesitant and halfhearted way — is now on the sidelines,” said Frederic C. Hof, who as a State Department official worked on plans for a political transition in Syria and is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Under such circumstances, Mr. Hof said, the prospects for major progress at the peace conference were “pretty grim.” In the murky events of last Friday, American and opposition officials said, the Islamic Front also seized the northern Syrian headquarters of Gen. Salim Idris, the leader of the military wing of the moderate Syrian opposition, formally known as the Supreme Military Council. According to American officials, General Idris was in Turkey, where he has a house, when the headquarters was taken over and then left for Qatar, which has provided money and weapons to the resistance. He is now said to be back in Turkey. American officials are still struggling to assess what the internecine battle means. “If we’re able to understand that, we could revert to the provision of nonlethal assistance,” a senior administration official said. The official said that the United States would not rule out talks with the Islamic Front, but that it was too soon to determine whether the administration would abandon its insistence that all American and allied assistance be funneled through the Supreme Military Council. For months, Secretary of State John Kerry has argued that a political solution is the only answer for a civil war that has already led to the deaths of more than 100,000 Syrians. His goal is to encourage a handover of power from Mr. Assad to a transitional government. But Mr. Assad, who has received substantial military support from Iran and Russia, seems as entrenched as ever. At the same time, the opposition groups that the Obama administration has designated as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people appear to have grown weaker, in part because of their tenuous ties to many of the rebel fighters inside the country and because of the lukewarm support they have received from the West. The Syria peace conference, which Mr. Kerry originally thought would be held last May, is now scheduled for Jan. 22. It had been planned for Geneva but is to be shifted to the lakeside Swiss town of Montreux because Geneva hotel rooms have been booked for a luxury watch fair. Image A rebel fighter aimed his weapon during clashes with pro-government forces on Wednesday in Aleppo, Syria. Credit Medo Halab/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A major aim of the meeting is to begin the process of identifying Syrians who might serve in a transitional governing body that would run the country if Mr. Assad yielded power. But as the Islamic fighters have begun to play an increasingly important role in the fight against Mr. Assad, the administration is faced with the choice of whether to include their representatives in any transitional government and perhaps even give them military aid. “It puts the administration into a situation of having to choose between supporting moderate groups or effective ones,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The episode that prompted the aid suspension occurred last week when the Islamic Front seized control of warehouses in Atmeh, Syria, that contain the American-supplied aid. According to rebel commanders in Turkey and Syria, the incident unfolded with a confusing series of events that reflects the uncertainty on the front lines amid shifting rebel alliances. By one account, news spread that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda that has clashed with rival insurgents, was planning an attack on the military headquarters and warehouses controlled by General Idris’s Supreme Military Council, which are near the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Syria-Turkey border. The Supreme Military Council is the nominal leadership of the loose-knit Free Syrian Army, which the United States has promoted as a relatively moderate force and which the State Department has supported with nonlethal aid such as food rations, computers and vehicles. Fighters from the Islamic Front rushed to the area, they claimed, to protect the warehouses, but ended up seizing them and the American equipment and supplies inside. But other opposition officials say the report of an attack by Qaeda-affiliated extremists was merely a ruse. Maysara, an Free Syrian Army commander from Saraqeb in Idlib Province who maintains contacts in the Islamic Front, said that when fighters from three Islamic Front battalions reached the headquarters, they found it deserted and believed the commanders there had fled. The Islamic Front fighters, he said, told him that they then “took the opportunity and stole everything in the headquarters,” including about 40 pickup trucks and tanks. Under the administration’s division of labor, the State Department is in charge of supplying nonlethal aid while the C.I.A. runs a covert program to arm and train Syrian rebels. “We have seen reports that Islamic Front forces have seized the Atmeh headquarters and warehouses,” a State Department official said. “As a result of this situation, the United States has suspended all further deliveries of nonlethal assistance into northern Syria. The humanitarian aid to the Syrian people is not impacted by this suspension.” The impact of the aid suspension was hard to gauge, as rebels have routinely complained that aid from the United States, Britain and their allies is too little, too late and has had little influence on the conflict. Khatab, the commander of a small Free Syrian Army battalion, interviewed by phone in Turkey, said that the suspension would hamper fighters like his. But he added that it would ultimately harm the Islamic Front as well, suggesting that whatever the official policies, the Islamic Front had cooperated with the Supreme Military Council and received supplies through it. Many antigovernment activists reacted with scorn and bravado, saying they did not care about the suspension of aid that they believed had been mostly for show. “What nonlethal assistance?” said Moaz, an activist who recently fled Syria. “The U.S. is supporting us with expired tuna, and in this way they think they are supporting the revolution.” | Arab Spring;Syria;US Foreign Policy;Foreign Aid;Bashar al-Assad |
ny0034387 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2013/12/24 | Cowboys Dispute Reports That Romo Is Out Against Eagles | Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo limped so badly on one play against Washington, he barely made it to the spot where he had to hand off. The limp was gone by the time Romo moved forward in the pocket and threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to DeMarco Murray that gave Dallas a 24-23 win over the Redskins. The severity of Romo’s back injury is likely to remain a question all week as the Cowboys prepare for their third straight season finale for the N.F.C. East title and a playoff berth, this time against Philadelphia on Sunday night. ESPN reported Monday that Romo was done for the year. Responding to reports that Romo would not play against the Eagles, Cowboys Coach Jason Garrett said Monday that the team had “not made that determination at all at this point.” Garrett would not reveal the results of a magnetic resonance imaging test on the 33-year-old Romo, who had back surgery to remove a cyst in April and missed off-season workouts. “Obviously, he was able to play through it and played very well at the end of that ballgame,” Garrett said. “He’s getting treatment. The M.R.I. was part of the evaluation, and there’s going to be a series of different things that we do for his treatment over the next few days and see how he responds to it.” Romo came up limping after tripping over his foot while escaping pressure during the possession before the winning drive. He doubled over in apparent pain but did not leave the game. BRONCOS LOSE MILLER AGAIN The Denver Broncos began the season without strongside linebacker Von Miller, and they will end it without him, too. Miller is done for the year after tests revealed a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, which he injured in the first quarter of Denver’s 37-13 win at Houston on Sunday. “It’s definitely going to be a blow,” the Broncos’ executive vice president, John Elway, said on his weekly podcast on the team’s website. RODGERS’S STATUS UNCLEAR Green Bay Packers Coach Mike McCarthy said he was not sure if quarterback Aaron Rodgers would start the team’s winner-take-all N.F.C. North matchup with the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. McCarthy said that the team wanted to make a decision on Rodgers’ availability “sooner than later.” Rodgers has not played since fracturing his left collarbone against the Bears on Nov. 4 at Lambeau Field. SCHWARTZ SORRY Jim Schwartz’s emotions have gotten the best of him at least a few times publicly as the coach of the Detroit Lions. The latest example happened in what might be the final time he leads the Lions at home. When Detroit ran the ball instead of having turnover-prone Matthew Stafford throw late in regulation of a 23-20 overtime loss to the Giants, the crowd reacted with a loud chorus of boos. Schwartz responded by looking toward the stands and shouting something. “I probably should have done just what I did at the end of the second quarter and just kept it in my mind,” Schwartz said. MANUEL’S STATUS MURKY Buffalo Bills coach Doug Marrone is sounding a little less confident about the rookie quarterback E J Manuel’s chances of starting the season finale at New England. Marrone dodged questions about Manuel’s status after he missed Buffalo’s 19-0 win over Miami because of a swollen knee. “We’ll get him out there tomorrow and take a peek at him,” Marrone said. PRYOR GETS NOD Terrelle Pryor will start at quarterback for the Raiders on Sunday, replacing Matt McGloin for the final regular-season game against the Broncos. Coach Dennis Allen said it was “part of the plan” that apparently took shape when Pryor recovered from an injury to his right knee in late November. MATHEWS LIKELY TO PLAY The rookie coach Mike McCoy of the San Diego Chargers refused to divulge any information about Ryan Mathews’s injured left ankle but said he expected the running back to play in Sunday’s regular-season finale against Kansas City. | Dallas Cowboys;Tony Romo;Football |
ny0211182 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2017/01/27 | Toshiba, Desperate for Cash After Scandal, Will Sell Microchip Business | TOKYO — Ill-fated investments in nuclear power projects by Toshiba of Japan have already precipitated an embarrassing accounting scandal at the company. Now the company is selling its most valuable business to try to undo the damage. Toshiba, one of Japan’s oldest and proudest technology conglomerates, said on Friday it would spin off its microchip division. The business makes the information-storing “brains” inside millions of smartphones, digital cameras and other devices, and it has been the biggest contributor to Toshiba’s profits in recent years. The move is evidence of Toshiba’s desperation for cash after the punishing nuclear-related losses came to light last month. In another effort to put the costly chapter aside, Nikkei reported Saturday that the company’s chairman, Shigenori Shiga, was ready to resign to take responsibility for the losses. Mr. Shiga, who has been chairman since June, is in charge of Toshiba’s nuclear power division. In December, Toshiba warned it was preparing to write off “several billion U.S. dollars” because of ballooning expenses at its American nuclear subsidiary, Westinghouse. That followed Toshiba’s admission in 2015 that it had inflated its earnings by $1.2 billion over seven years — a scandal that company investigators attributed in part to nuclear-project managers, who they said had disguised faltering revenues and cost overruns. Toshiba is expected to detail the extent of its write-downs next month. Analysts have suggested they could amount to $4 billion to $7 billion, enough to put Toshiba’s future at risk. Banks have indicated they will keep lending money so the company can pay its bills, but without that lifeline, Toshiba, a 140-year-old business, could collapse. Toshiba said it had not yet decided what form the semiconductor spinoff would take, or how much of the business it would sell to outsiders. But there is not much time to figure it out; the company said it wanted to complete the process by March 31, the end of its fiscal year. Analysts estimate the semiconductor business could be worth between 1.5 trillion and 2 trillion yen, or $13 billion to $17 billion, if Toshiba sold all of it. One option would be to sell shares to the public, though a private sale to another technology company would be quicker and easier to arrange, particularly if Toshiba chose to keep part of the company. Damian Thong, an analyst at Macquarie Securities, said bringing in a minority investor was “clearly the default option” for Toshiba, which is eager to stay in the semiconductor business. “Undermining that core business would be anathema in Japan, not just for Toshiba, but for the government and the whole technology ecosystem,” he said. “It needs to sell just enough to give creditors peace of mind, but not enough that it loses control.” Some see broader national interests at stake. Getting out of semiconductors entirely would not just deprive Toshiba of a crucial future revenue stream. If a foreign buyer swooped in, it would also take one of Japan’s few remaining semiconductor producers out of domestic hands. The business’s most successful technology, NAND flash memory, was developed by Toshiba decades ago. One public declaration of interest in Toshiba has come from Canon, the Japanese camera company, which uses Toshiba’s chips in its products and bought a medical device producer Toshiba spun off in 2015. Canon’s chairman, Fujio Mitarai, is a former head of Keidanren, the lobbying group representing Japan’s largest corporations, including Toshiba. He said last week that the semiconductor business was a valuable asset for Japan and “must be protected” and that Canon “would positively consider” investing. Other potential buyers include Western Digital, the American semiconductor company, which works with Toshiba in some areas; Tokyo Electron, a Japanese company that produces equipment for semiconductor factories; and Foxconn of Taiwan, the contract manufacturer that recently took over Sharp, another ailing Japanese technology brand. Terry Gou, Foxconn’s billionaire founder, said in an interview with Toyo Keizai, a Japanese business weekly, that he was interested in purchasing assets sold off by Toshiba, potentially including the semiconductor operation. | TOSHIBA;Computer Chip;Japan;Companies |
ny0242373 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2011/03/17 | Greek Town Rises Up Against Planned Landfill | KERATEA, GREECE — For three months, the residents of this small town, 40 kilometers southeast of Athens, have been locked in a violent standoff with the police over the planned construction of a huge landfill that aims to solve the capital’s garbage problem. The scenes broadcast on Greek television and on amateur videos on the Internet have been stark: middle-aged protesters hurling firebombs at the police, overturned cars in flames, Orthodox priests in black robes wailing amid clouds of tear gas. Many residents and police officers have been hurt in the fighting. And though there have been dozens of arrests, the locals vow not to back down. The Keratea campaign has been compared by some commentators to milder forms of civil disobedience appearing in a debt-stricken Greece, including a small movement of citizens who refuse to pay higher road toll charges and more for tickets for public transportation. But fare-evasion is quite different than waging an armed standoff with the police, said Karolos Kavoulakos, a lecturer in social sciences at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. “This is about trash, and trash has been fueling violent protests for years,” he said. “The fact that this dispute coincides with the economic crisis makes it all the more explosive.“ Residents of Keratea say they will not become a dumping ground for the capital’s population, about four million, and argue that the chosen site — covering 50 hectares, or 125 acres, of hillside on the town’s outskirts — hides archaeological treasures. But the government says the facility must go forward since the capital’s existing landfill is full. The dispute originated last year when Greece faced millions of euros in fines after missing a July 2010 deadline for razing hundreds of illegal landfills around the country. In January, the European Union froze these fines on the condition that the government carried out a waste-management program that increased recycling and replaced the illegal dumps with “sanitary” landfills that met E.U. health and safety standards. But no town in Greece wants a landfill in its backyard, as is clear from the reaction in other communities over the years. In 2009, residents of Grammatiko, a town east of Athens, scuffled with the police for weeks over a landfill that is now under construction as locals fight the project in court. In 2008, a 43-year-old woman died when riots broke out on Corfu over the planned construction of a landfill there; the project has been held up as locals mount court challenges. In the northern port of Thessaloniki, residents have opposed landfill projects for years. In Keratea, however, protest has given way to systematic civil disobedience and violence involving a large section of the town, including the middle-aged and the elderly. The residents’ reactions appear to have taken the government by surprise and have provoked a political rift. The Citizen Protection Ministry says the heavy police presence in Keratea is a drain on resources, while the Interior Ministry insists that the authorities cannot back down. Meanwhile, residents say they are under attack. “It’s simple — we are being threatened, so we defend ourselves,” said Sotiris Iatrou, a municipal councilor. Asked about the involvement of anarchists in protests — frequently described in the Greek press and not denied on anarchist Web sites that proclaim support for Keratea residents — Mr. Iatrou responded, “We have solidarity from many sides.” He also referred to backing from leftist political groups and said locals had been instructed how to make firebombs. “We were taught,” Mr. Iatrou said, smiling. On most days, he joins fellow residents in a wooden hut set up alongside the road leading to the proposed site. Locals guard a plastic barricade on the road, so construction workers cannot enter the site. About a kilometer away, some 400 police officers guard three excavators that have been vandalized since their transfer there in December. On most nights, residents clash with police officers on the road and in the fields around the site. Residents also guard the barricade by day, playing resistance songs from the early 1970s, when the military ruled Greece, and drinking coffee around a wood-burning stove. The walls of the hut are covered with news articles about their efforts and children’s drawings, many depicting stickmen in opposite camps. “We are at war and this is our garrison,” said Nikos Filippou, 64. “People are ready to die. It’s a matter of honor.” Many hut regulars seem unlikely resistance fighters but defend locals wielding firebombs. “What can we do? No one listens to us,” said Eleni Giorda, 60. “We will use guns if we have to.” Ioannis Andrianopoulos, 40, a shopkeeper, and his wife Sofia, 39, often leave their children, 8 and 10, at home for guard duty. Mr. Andrianopoulos said, “If they start building, we’ll set fire to the garbage trucks.” His wife added, “We’re not crazy, and we’re not anarchists, but we are being provoked.” Concerned about Keratea’s defiance, the government has appealed for discussions. But the locals will not talk until the police withdraw and the government will not talk until the residents’ dismantle their barricade. “You can’t have dialogue in a hostile environment with firebombs’ being thrown,” said Theodora Tzakri, deputy interior minister, in a telephone interview. “We will not tolerate lawlessness.” The government has appealed a decision by a local court suspending work on the proposed landfill until environmental and archaeological assessments are carried out; residents have appealed a ruling by a higher court allowing construction to proceed. Ms. Tzakri insisted that the Keratea project was non-negotiable. “We won’t let Athens turn into Naples,” she said, referring to the Italian port that has been swamped in garbage in recent years as a result of strenuous opposition by residents to the creation of more landfills. But she said the government was willing to discuss making the Keratea landfill environmentally friendly by setting up a recycling plant and composting unit on the site. “If the mayor can guarantee us that police cars won’t be firebombed, and workers’ lives won’t be threatened, we’ll sit down and talk,” Ms. Tzakri said. Costas Levantis, the mayor of Lavreotiki, a municipality comprising Keratea and two other towns, said he could not guarantee anything. “People won’t back down,” he said. “If the machines start up, the whole town will come out and we’ll have casualties.” The mayor said tensions between locals and police are at fever pitch. “There’s trouble nearly every night.” And it is not only residents involved. Mr. Levantis said that last week 300 people from Exarchia, a central Athens hangout for anarchists who are often accused of violence,tried to torch the local police precinct. Residents played down the role of anarchists, noting that 37 people arrested since December are locals. Five residents, including the former mayor, last month were charged with possession of explosives and other offenses and released pending trial. Keratea’s ex-mayor Stavros Iatrou (no relation to the municipal councilor) said he has been falsely accused of plotting to blow up a gas station next to the police precinct. He said two policemen submitted fake testimonies. “Keratea used to be a conservative community where the policeman was the resident’s best friend,” the ex-mayor said. This changed when police were sent to the landfill site in December. When officers entered the town in early February and searched houses, huge clashes erupted. Locals said a plainclothes officer threatened protesters with a gun. “It was the final straw,” Mr. Iatrou said. “Attacks on police officers in the area — with firebombs, stones and other objects — occur almost every day,” said Lt. Col. Thanassis Kokkalakis, spokesman for the Greek Police. He said that police were in the area “to protect the public interest” but that this role had been “misunderstood by some residents.” The police say they are regularly pelted with firebombs and have been shot at by a sniper. They want to withdraw, said Christos Fotopoulos, who heads the police workers’ union. “Keratea doesn’t need policing,” he said. “It needs a political solution.” The impasse will be difficult to break, said Mr. Kavoulakos, the university lecturer. The landfill is perceived not only as an environmental scourge but also as a threat to subsistence at a time of rising unemployment. “All people have is their property, and the landfill will devalue this,” he said. “They are desperate.” | Greece;Athens (Greece);Waste Materials and Disposal;Environment |
ny0014003 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/11/23 | Japan: Governor of Tokyo Embroiled in Loan Scandal | Two months after winning the 2020 Olympics for his city, the governor of Tokyo has become embroiled in a scandal over a half-million dollars that he received from a hospital operator involved in an election-fraud case. The governor, Naoki Inose, has struggled to explain why he took the money from the Tokushukai hospital chain during his campaign to become governor in December. On Friday, he described the money as a personal loan that he hurriedly paid back in September, shortly after prosecutors raided the company in connection with the fraud case. Speculation has focused on whether the money was intended to facilitate the construction of a hospital in Tokyo; it appears to have no connection to the successful Olympic bid, which also took place in September. | Naoki Inose;Tokyo;Fraud;2020 Summer Olympics |
ny0123487 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2012/09/06 | U.S. Will Hold Part of Afghan Prison After Handover | WASHINGTON — The United States military will maintain control over dozens of foreign detainees in Afghanistan for the indefinite future, even as the two countries prepare to ceremonially mark the hand-over of detention operations to the Afghan government, officials from both countries say. Further, although thousands of Afghan detainees have already been turned over, the United States will continue to hold and screen newly captured Afghans for a time, ensuring continued American involvement in detention and interrogation activities. The hand-over deal, signed on March 9 at President Hamid Karzai’s demand, set a six-month transfer schedule and was a reflection of rising Afghan assertions of sovereignty at a time of extreme tensions over American troops’ burning of Korans . The persistence of American-operated prison buildings, in a section of the main Parwan complex at Bagram Air Base, underscores the complexity of relinquishing control over detainee operations while American troops are still in the field conducting raids and making arrests — including the risk that detainees could be freed only to come back and stage attacks. Some of the difficulties raised by the non-Afghan detainees, moreover, echo problems that have slowed the Obama administration’s efforts to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It is illegal to repatriate prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or killed, for example, and American officials have also wanted to ensure that other governments are willing and able to keep tabs on any released detainees. Still, Afghan guards now operate most of the cellblocks at Parwan, and they have taken custody of most of the roughly 3,000 Afghans who were already being held as suspects in the insurgency when the allies signed the transfer agreement . There are many fewer inmates — about 50, officials say — from Pakistan and other countries, while more than 600 Afghans have been taken into custody since the March 9 deal. A major unresolved issue is how quickly newly arrested Afghans should be turned over. William K. Lietzau, the Pentagon’s top detainee policy official, said in a recent interview that the United States was “on a trajectory to be able to comply” with the Sept. 9 “milestone” in the transfer agreement — he rejected the word deadline. Compliance, he said, meant having transferred all Afghan citizens who were already in custody when the agreement was signed. So far, Mr. Karzai, who early this year demanded the immediate transfer of prison operations, has not publicly objected to that narrow interpretation of the agreement. He has announced plans for a ceremony on Monday to mark the “full transfer” of the detention center. Some Afghan officials signaled that the continuing American role was understood and, to a degree, acceptable. “The priority for Afghanistan is Afghan citizens,” said Janan Mosazai, the Foreign Ministry spokesman. “When it comes to third-country nationals, that will be a matter we decide with our international partners at some point down the road.” In an interview last week, the Afghan official who runs the Afghan-controlled portions of Parwan, Gen. Ghulam Farouk, acknowledged that the Afghan guards were still “in the process of building our capacity.” Three American officials sat in on the interview at his office at Parwan, while in a dusty yard outside his window, a graduation ceremony for about 100 guards unfolded. Behind them, a bus delivered detainees’ families for visits. While General Farouk said the process of transferring the initial group of Afghan detainees was almost complete, because of delicate relations with a “neighboring country” — a reference to Pakistan — he said it would be best if the United States kept the foreign detainees for now. “If we keep these people with us in this current situation and deal with them, this will create more problems for us,” he said. “Therefore it is better for the Americans to keep them.” When transferred, prisoners leave their cells in one of the remaining American-controlled buildings and are taken to new cells in a building controlled by Afghans, but where American personnel will still be present in an advisory role until at least March, under the agreement. An Afghan committee sorts the detainees into two groups: so far, General Farouk said, 1,638 have been approved for criminal prosecution, and 963 have been referred to a review board, which evaluates them and recommends whether to keep holding them without trial as wartime detainees. The agreement calls on Afghanistan to consult the United States and “consider favorably” its assessment of whether a detainee poses a continuing security threat or should be released, but it is ambiguous about which country has final say. As a practical matter, the United States military still controls the perimeter of the base around the prison complex. To date, officials of both countries say, there have been no disagreements between General Farouk and his American counterpart, Lt. Gen. Keith M. Huber. There are early signs, however, that the Afghans may be more inclined to release detainees than not. General Farouk said that so far the review board had finished evaluating about 600 men and recommended that he release 374. None have yet been freed, and he was vague about how many might be, but suggested it could be a majority. A major task for American officials has been to declassify as much evidence as possible showing that each detainee may be an insurgent. The dossiers, given to the Afghans when each detainee is transferred, can be used by the Afghan court or its review boards. To protect intelligence sources, the United States has sometimes withheld information or allowed Afghan officials only to view documents but not take copies. Mr. Lietzau of the Pentagon said that if the United States objected to an Afghan recommendation to release a detainee, the Americans would re-examine the full, still-classified file to see whether there was a way to show the review board more information. “The bottom line is, we’re not in a war by ourselves against an enemy that is just our enemy,” he said. “We’re in a war where the only way to win is with our alliance.” Domestic politics are a factor as well. Congress has imposed steep restrictions on transfers from Guantánamo, and the military does not want its hands to be similarly tied in Afghanistan. Republican lawmakers have criticized a decision to turn over to Iraqi custody a detainee accused of helping to kill American troops in the Iraq war. After a report that Iraq may soon release him, they warned the administration “to extend all efforts to ensure that this tragic mistake is not repeated with terrorists currently in U.S. custody in Afghanistan.” But any sweeping declarations by the United States that it will not allow the release of anyone it deems too risky would undermine Mr. Karzai’s ability to show that Afghans now exercise sovereign control over prisons on their soil. The Obama administration also does not want to provoke American courts into revisiting a 2010 ruling declining to extend the same habeas corpus rights that Guantánamo detainees have to detainees in Afghanistan. The prisoner transfer policy could also face legal and political pressures inside Afghanistan. The United States insisted, when negotiating the agreement, that the Karzai administration embrace a system of no-trial detention for wartime prisoners deemed too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release. Afghan lawmakers, however, did not ratify the agreement. Gul Rahman Qazi, the chairman of the independent commission for overseeing the carrying out of the Afghan Constitution, which he helped write, contended that a no-trial detention system “is not acceptable to us” and is “in confrontation with the national Constitution.” But the Afghan government maintains that such detention is legal. And Mr. Lietzau said that while the war continues, it is lawful and necessary to detain people without trial, both to gain intelligence and to avoid creating any incentive for troops in combat to elect killing over capturing. “An administrative detention regime is necessary for any morally responsible country in an armed conflict,” he said. “In this case, it was a prerequisite for our agreement with the Afghan government, at least the way combat operations are going right now. That’s something we’re going to have to be watching very carefully as we go forward with this transition.” | Afghanistan;Bagram Air Base (Afghanistan);Afghanistan War (2001- );Detainees;United States Defense and Military Forces |
ny0277546 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2016/11/29 | U.S. Economy Grew at 3.2% Rate in 3rd Quarter | The United States economy in the third quarter grew at the fastest pace in two years, according to a revised report that showed stronger consumer spending than first estimated. The gross domestic product, the country’s total output of goods and services, expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the July-September period, the Commerce Department reported on Tuesday. That is up from a previous estimate of 2.9 percent. The revision was significantly better than the meager gains of 0.8 percent in the first quarter and 1.4 percent in the second, when the economy was being held back by a strong dollar and weak business investment. The 3.2 percent increase was expected to be the best showing for the year. Economists say they believe growth has slowed to around 2 percent in the current quarter. At the moment, they are forecasting growth of 2 to 2.5 percent for 2017. But analysts caution that the outlook for next year could shift significantly based on policy changes — like tax cuts and higher trade tariffs — that President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised. “Uncertainty regarding our forecasts is higher than usual, given expected fiscal and trade policy changes under the new administration,” said Blerina Uruci, a Barclays economist. The latest look at G.D.P., the second of three estimates from the government, showed that consumer spending grew at a rate of 2.8 percent in the third quarter, better than the 2.1 percent first estimated. The newfound strength reflected more spending than initially thought in such areas as auto purchases and utility bills. Still, consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, slowed from a gain of 4.3 percent in the second quarter. Other areas of strength were in export sales, which grew at a 10.1 percent rate. Although the figure partly reflected a temporary surge in exports of soybeans, economists are hopeful that exports will show further gains in the coming months. Earlier in the year, American manufacturers were battered by a strong dollar, which made their goods more expensive on overseas markets. For the year, the economy was expected to grow a modest 1.5 percent, down from 2.6 percent in 2015, which was the best performance in the seven years since the recession ended in mid-2009. While G.D.P. growth is expected to slow, analysts still expect the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate at its meeting in December. It would be the first rate increase since the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter-point a year ago. During the recent campaign, Mr. Trump deplored what he saw as a sluggish economic recovery under President Obama; economic growth has averaged around 2 percent since the end of the recession. Mr. Trump said he wanted to set a national goal of reaching 4 percent growth during his administration. Most economists think that may be overly optimistic, given tepid productivity growth and the mass retirement of baby boomers, which they say would weaken growth in the labor market. Some economists have said they will increase their economic growth forecasts if Mr. Trump is successful in getting Congress to pass his package of tax cuts and increased spending in such areas as military and infrastructure projects. But their current estimates put growth at around 2.5 percent over the next two years, an improvement from their current forecast of growth next year of around 2 percent, but well below Mr. Trump’s 4 percent target. | US Economy;GDP;Interest rate;Commerce Department |
ny0170707 | [
"us"
] | 2007/02/12 | Roger Bacon, 80, Researcher Known for Aerospace Innovation, Dies | Roger Bacon, a physicist and materials scientist whose enterprising studies of graphite and carbon fibers contributed to a revolution in the heat-resistant materials used in aircraft and satellites, died on Jan. 26 in Oberlin, Ohio. He was 80. The cause was leukemia, his family said. Dr. Bacon made his first significant discovery in the 1950s while working as a research scientist for the Union Carbide Corporation. He was experimenting with different materials, exposing them to high pressures and voltages, when he observed his first graphite “whiskers,” or fibers, with a diameter smaller than a tenth of a human hair. He tested and measured the fibers and noted their special properties, which included a tensile strength that was far stronger than steel. In later experiments, Dr. Bacon succeeded in manufacturing carbon fibers in quantity by stretching rayon and heating the material to roughly 3,000 degrees Celsius. He found that fibers derived from rayon conducted little heat and also resisted expanding under heat, displaying properties that he and others recognized would have applications in the aerospace and defense industries. Subsequently, in the 1960s, carbon fibers were mixed with other materials to protect the leading edges, noses and wingtips of aircraft, missiles and space vehicles. The result was a composite, reinforced with fibers, that had strength and retarded heat. Brian J. Sullivan, a mechanical and structural engineer and director of Materials Research and Design, a private engineering firm in Wayne, Pa., that develops fiber composites, said that “every aircraft made today is made with carbon fibers somewhere, and most notably in brakes for military and commercial aircraft.” Dr. Sullivan added that Dr. Bacon was “a leading researcher on the microstructure of carbon and graphite who really understood their important applications.” In the 1970s, Dr. Bacon helped Union Carbide develop the next generation of fibers, known as pitch-based and polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fibers. From 1986 to 1991, he supervised research conducted by the Amoco Corporation on carbon composite materials used on spacecraft and satellites for the Navy. Roger Bacon was born in Cleveland. He graduated from Haverford College before earning his doctorate in solid-state physics from the Case Institute of Technology in 1955. In 2004, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia awarded him a Benjamin Franklin Medal for Mechanical Engineering, citing his contributions to the study of carbon fibers and methods for their manufacture. Dr. Bacon is survived by his wife of 35 years, Agnes. The couple lived in Oberlin. A previous marriage ended in divorce. He is also survived by a son, Dr. William Bacon, a psychologist, of Mountain View, Calif.; a daughter, Elizabeth Fox of South Orange, N.J.; a brother, Allen, and a sister, Alice Long, both of Kennett Square, Pa.; and five grandchildren. Dr. Bacon’s early research continues to have an effect. In making fibers, it is thought possible that he also produced nanotubes, or similar super-small scrolls or cylinders of carbon, which have applications in electronics and engineering and are efficient conductors of heat. The discovery of nanotubes has been credited to a Japanese physicist, Sumio Iijima, who described them in 1991. | Deaths (Obituaries);Science and Technology;Physics |
ny0169195 | [
"business"
] | 2007/03/29 | Chief Warns Automakers That U.A.W. Won’t Budge on Health Care or Jobs Bank | DETROIT, March 28 — Months before contract talks with Detroit’s automakers are set to begin, the United Automobile Workers union has seemingly declared two crucial issues off-limits for bargaining. The union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, said on Wednesday that he saw no reason to accept any deal that requires workers to pay more of their health care costs or that eliminates the jobs bank, which allows laid-off workers to continue collecting most of their pay and benefits. Executives at General Motors, Ford Motor and the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler have complained that rising health care costs and the jobs bank hinder their ability to compete with foreign-based rivals like Toyota and Honda. But Mr. Gettelfinger said the union had already done its part to help curb health care costs when it struck deals to let G.M. and Ford charge hourly workers for a part of their benefits. (The union later refused to grant similar concessions to Chrysler, saying its finances were better.) “We addressed health care in ’05,” he told reporters at the end of the U.A.W.’s two-day collective bargaining convention. “You don’t get two bites at the apple, do you?” The jobs bank was a nonissue, Mr. Gettelfinger said, because most workers assigned to it left voluntarily during the recent buyout. Two years ago, analysts estimated there were about 12,000 people in the jobs bank, which was created in the 1980s to protect workers from being laid off as plants used more robotics in their assembly lines. In the last year, more than 70,000 workers at G.M. and Ford took advantage of incentives of up to $140,000 to retire or quit. Together, the two companies have announced plans to eliminate 61,000 hourly jobs through next year. David Gregory, a labor specialist at the St. John’s University School of Law in New York, said the mere existence of the jobs bank hurts the automakers. “As long as the jobs bank dynamic is there, it gives the perception” to Wall Street that Detroit’s business model is out of date, Mr. Gregory said. G.M.’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, has said he wants to re-examine the jobs bank during this summer’s contract talks — the current agreement expires in September — but has stopped short of saying the program should be eliminated. Mr. Wagoner and his counterparts at Ford and Chrysler could seek changes, like removing language barring the automakers from moving workers in the jobs bank to positions more than 50 miles away. A G.M. spokesman, Dan Flores, declined to comment on the automaker’s goals during the contract talks. He lauded union officials for working with G.M. to reduce expenses but said, “More change is required to structure G.M. for sustained profitability and growth.” Mr. Flores noted that G.M. spent $4.8 billion last year providing health care to 1.1 million employees, retirees and dependents. “Based on the magnitude of the cost, health care will continue to be a discussion issue for G.M. and the U.A.W.,” Mr. Flores said, adding that G.M. is willing to consider “a variety of alternatives to address the health care burden.” Some experts have suggested that retiree health care costs be paid for by a union trust fund rather than by the automakers. Mr. Gettelfinger and auto executives have said the best solution would be a national health care system; the chief executives of all three Detroit automakers raised that issue with President Bush last fall. U.A.W. officials also said Wednesday that they had rejected the latest proposal by the Delphi Corporation, the parts supplier seeking to reduce wages and benefits as it works to emerge from bankruptcy protection. | United Automobile Workers;Health Insurance and Managed Care;Gettelfinger Ron;Labor;Detroit (Mich) |
ny0222899 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/11/28 | Hindu Group Stirs Debate in Fight for Soul of Yoga | Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States , for reasons almost as numerous — from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it. But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas : Hinduism. The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation , suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions. That suggestion, modest though it may seem, has drawn a flurry of strong reactions from figures far apart on the religious spectrum. Dr. Deepak Chopra , the New Age writer, has dismissed the campaign as a jumble of faulty history and Hindu nationalism. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary , has said he agrees that yoga is Hindu — and cited that as evidence that the practice imperiled the souls of Christians who engage in it. The question at the core of the debate — who owns yoga? — has become an enduring topic of chatter in yoga Web forums, Hindu American newspapers and journals catering to the many consumers of what is now a multibillion-dollar yoga industry. In June, it even prompted the Indian government to begin making digital copies of ancient drawings showing the provenance of more than 4,000 yoga poses, to discourage further claims by entrepreneurs like Bikram Choudhury , an Indian-born yoga instructor to the stars who is based in Los Angeles . Mr. Choudhury nettled Indian officials in 2007 when he copyrighted his personal style of 26 yoga poses as “Bikram Yoga.” Organizers of the Take Back Yoga effort point out that the philosophy of yoga was first described in Hinduism’s seminal texts and remains at the core of Hindu teaching. Yet, because the religion has been stereotyped in the West as a polytheistic faith of “castes, cows and curry,” they say, most Americans prefer to see yoga as the legacy of a more timeless, spiritual “Indian wisdom.” “In a way,” said Dr. Aseem Shukla, the foundation’s co-founder, “our issue is that yoga has thrived, but Hinduism has lost control of the brand.” For many practitioners, including Debbie Desmond, 27, a yoga instructor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn , the talk of branding and ownership is bewildering. “Nobody owns yoga,” she said, sitting cross-legged in her studio, Namaste Yoga, and tilting her head as if the notion sketched an impossible yoga position she had never seen. “Yoga is not a religion. It is a way of life, a method of becoming. We were taught that the roots of yoga go back further than Hinduism itself.” Like Dr. Chopra and some religious historians, Ms. Desmond believes that yoga originated in the Vedic culture of Indo-Europeans who settled in India in the third millennium B.C., long before the tradition now called Hinduism emerged. Other historians trace the first written description of yoga to the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu scripture believed to have been written between the fifth and second centuries B.C. The effort to “take back” yoga began quietly enough, with a scholarly essay posted in January on the Web site of the Hindu American Foundation, a Minneapolis -based group that promotes human rights for Hindu minorities worldwide. The essay lamented a perceived snub in modern yoga culture, saying that yoga magazines and studios had assiduously decoupled the practice “from the Hinduism that gave forth this immense contribution to humanity.” Dr. Shukla put a sharper point on his case a few months later in a column on the On Faith blog of The Washington Post . Hinduism, he wrote, had become a victim of “overt intellectual property theft,” made possible by generations of Hindu yoga teachers who had “offered up a religion’s spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism.” That drew the attention of Dr. Chopra, an Indian-American who has done much to popularize Indian traditions like alternative medicine and yoga. He posted a reply saying that Hinduism was too “tribal” and “self-enclosed” to claim ownership of yoga. The fight went viral — or as viral as things can get in a narrow Web corridor frequented by yoga enthusiasts, Hindu Americans and religion scholars. Loriliai Biernacki, a professor of Indian religions at the University of Colorado , said the debate had raised important issues about a spectrum of Hindu concepts permeating American culture, including meditation, belief in karma and reincarnation, and even cremation. “All these ideas are Hindu in origin, and they are spreading,” she said. “But they are doing it in a way that leaves behind the proper name, the box that classifies them as ‘Hinduism.’ ” The debate has also secured the standing of the Hindu American Foundation as the pre-eminent voice for the country’s two million Hindus, said Diana L. Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard. Other groups represent Indian-Americans’ interests in business and politics, but the foundation has emerged as “the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity,” she said. Dr. Shukla said reaction to the yoga campaign had far exceeded his expectations. “We started this, really, for our kids,” said Dr. Shukla, a urologist and a second-generation Indian-American. “When our kids go to school and say they are Hindu, nobody says, ‘Oh, yeah, Hindus gave the world yoga.’ They say, ‘What caste are you?’ Or ‘Do you pray to a monkey god?’ Because that’s all Americans know about Hinduism.” With its tiny budget, the foundation has pressed its campaign largely by generating buzz through letters and Web postings to academic journals and yoga magazines. The September issue of Yoga Journal, which has the largest circulation in the field, alluded to the campaign, if fleetingly, in an article calling yoga’s “true history a mystery.” The effort has been received most favorably by Indian-American community leaders like Dr. Uma V. Mysorekar, the president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America , in Flushing, Queens , which helps groups across the country build temples. A naturalized immigrant, she said Take Back Yoga represented a coming-of-age for Indians in the United States. “My generation was too busy establishing itself in business and the professions,” she said. “Now, the second and third generation is looking around and finding its voice, saying, ‘Our civilization has made contributions to the world, and these should be acknowledged.’ ” In the basement of the society’s Ganesha Temple, an hourlong yoga class ended one recent Sunday morning with a long exhalation of the sacred syllable “om.” Via the lung power of 60 students, it sounded as deeply as a blast from the organ at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After the session, which began and concluded with Hindu prayers, many students said they were practicing Hindus and in complete sympathy with the yoga campaign. Not all were, though. Shweta Parmar, 35, a community organizer and project director for a health and meditation group, said she had grown up in a Hindu household. “Yoga is part of the tradition I come from,” she said. But is yoga specifically Hindu? She paused to ponder. “My parents are Hindu,” she said. But in matters of yoga, “I don’t use that term.” | Yoga;Hinduism;Indian American |
ny0199468 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/07/23 | Where Thin People Roam, and Sometimes Even Eat | For Brian Ermanski, a slender yet muscular painter who lives among the trendy boutiques and bars of SoHo, the news that Manhattan was the thinnest county in New York State was no surprise. What shocked him was that, even still, 42 percent of Manhattanites were overweight or obese — a figure he found vaguely disturbing, as if it gave his borough a bad name. “It’s probably more like 20 percent overweight down here,” said Mr. Ermanski, 28, sitting on a bench outside Balthazar, the brasserie that is a crossroads of the neighborhood, where he spends an hour a day watching the beautiful people go by. “It might even go down to zero percent during Fashion Week , when all the models are here,” added Mr. Ermanski, who attributed his slim frame (5-foot-11, 160 pounds) to a combination of healthy and unhealthy habits: daily two-mile walks, weekly soccer, and breakfasts of coffee and cigarettes. Manhattan is far thinner than the nation (with 67 percent of the population overweight), the state (nearly 60 percent) or the city’s other boroughs (58 to 62 percent), according to the study released Tuesday by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand that relied on federal data on body-mass index, a calculation based on height and weight. Manhattan’s wiry and willowy were eager on Wednesday to dissect how they brought home such an honor. First and foremost, they said, Manhattan is a place where people walk. Even subway riders need to climb stairs. Storefront yoga studios, parks and pedestrian-friendly streets make working out relatively easy. Beyond that, Manhattan is the national capital of disparate subcultures of the skinny: Aspiring models. Nightclubbing hipsters. Gay men with the time and money to chisel their physiques at the gym. Park Avenue society matrons who remain preternaturally slender into their 70s, the “social X-rays” satirized by Tom Wolfe. And, too, Manhattan is a borough of extreme inequality — in socioeconomic status and obesity rates, which generally correlate. The island’s poorest areas, like Harlem, have high rates of obesity and diabetes, and advocates are working for improved nutritional education and access to healthy foods there. Meanwhile, the borough’s richest swaths have the lowest obesity rates — and, some argue, an obsession with thinness. “My mom always says, ‘The smaller the dress size, the larger the apartment,’ ” said one lifelong Upper East Sider, who said she did not want to be named because she disapproves of the maxim. What better place to test that hypothesis than the Exhale gym and spa , looking out on Madison Avenue from the banklike Carlyle Gallery building. (As if to prove the point, the gym sits directly above the Douglas Elliman real estate office advertising a “Trophy Mansion Townhouse” for $22 million.) Behind a front desk that offered $1,600 Caribbean yoga weekends, a core fusion class huffed and puffed to an instructor’s stentorian count and a Corey Hart song . The gym’s director, Susan Tomback (5-foot- 7, 118), said that for women who can afford leisure and child care, exercise is “a lifestyle thing,” not a chore. “All the neighborhood women drop their kids off and come here,” said Ms. Tomback, 29. “It’s like a club. They go to brunch afterwards at Sant Ambroeus ,” the ladies-who-lunch mecca on the next block featuring $22 salads. For an even more rarefied crowd, there is Verve Private Training, sharing the fifth floor with the Gagosian Gallery , a temple of contemporary art. There, Mary Ann Browning gives $300 coaching sessions designed to produce the narrow hips required to wear, say, Carolina Herrera. Leaving with a bottle of spring water was Gail Zweigenthal, a former editor of Gourmet magazine, where she had to balance Manhattan’s twin obsessions — eating well and looking good. “I exercise so I can eat,” said Ms. Zweigenthal (5-foot-3 ½, 114; like many residents of the Upper East Side, she was quicker to give her weight than her age). “If I feel fat, I can’t enjoy eating,” she said. “This is unhealthy — that if I gain a few pounds, I’m not happy — but it’s the truth of me.” Now training to be a psychoanalyst — she wrote a master’s thesis called “Food Beyond Pleasure” — Ms. Zweigenthal lifts weights and walks three miles a day. “Look at my cute little triceps!” she exclaimed, pinching them. Fear can be a motivator, too. “Our closets are filled all these expensive clothes that are like swords of Damocles, because we may not fit into them anymore,” said Simon Doonan , (5-foot-4, 135), emerging from the Crunch gym on Lafayette Street, where men on treadmills could be seen through the windows. Mr. Doonan, 56, the creative director of Barney’s — the designer emporium where real estate brokers lunch on chopped salads — said he did not want to appear “fatist.” Yet, he admitted, he notices the weight of people in other states. “I’m appalled by people my age who can’t get through the airport without a wheelchair,” he said. Fashion, indeed, is merciless. Intermix, a designer boutique, doesn’t usually carry sizes larger than 8, said the manager of the Madison Avenue store, Lynn Bacci (5-foot-8 ½, 137), who works out to fit into skinny jeans and tank tops. Chuck Ortiz, 52, a plumber from the Bronx who was ordering $5 sandwich from a halal cart near Intermix — chicken, his version of a diet — scoffed at the way Upper East Siders spend money to get thin “when there’s a park right there.” A brawny 6 feet, 220 pounds, he said he stays fit by hiking and working hard renovating the Surrey Hotel. Nearby, in Central Park, New Yorkers’ willingness to exercise in public was on display — not only defined pectorals but also jiggling thighs. Meanwhile, Verve’s founder, Ms. Browning, supervised as Ilene Zatkin-Butler (5-foot-4, 118), a lawyer who has dropped three pants sizes under her tutelage, fast-walked on a treadmill. “Everything is in excess in Manhattan — whether it’s how beautiful you are, how thin you are, or how hard you work,” said Ms. Browning, (5-foot-8, 119, and healthy, she added with emphasis, “No eating disorders going on here!”) | Manhattan (NYC);Weight |
ny0294208 | [
"business"
] | 2016/06/24 | Dior Is Expected to Name Maria Grazia Chiuri as Artistic Director | Christian Dior has finally found its designer. In a move that will break up one of the most feted design teams in fashion, Maria Grazia Chiuri of Valentino is expected to be named artistic director of Dior, becoming the first woman to lead the brand in its 70-year history. The move, which is expected to be announced next month, has the potential to disrupt the luxury fashion landscape as Ms. Chiuri, now co-creative director at Valentino, parts ways with her longtime collaborator, Pierpaolo Piccioli. The news, reported earlier by Reuters , broke just a day after the Valentino men’s wear show in Paris and hours after Ms. Chiuri hosted a dinner in the city at Caviar Kaspia, on Place de la Madeleine, with Mr. Piccioli in celebration of the collection. Both Dior and Valentino declined to comment, but a person briefed on the negotiations confirmed the appointment. “I think it’s nothing short of a brilliant appointment,” said Robert Burke, founder of his own luxury consultancy . “It makes perfect sense from both an aesthetic standpoint and a consumer standpoint. There are few brands that compete with Dior, but Valentino is one.” Ms. Chiuri and Mr. Piccioli were appointed co-creative directors at Valentino in 2008, staying at the Italian fashion house when it was sold by the private equity group Permira to the Qatari-controlled Mayhoola for Investments in 2012. Together they brought Valentino to billion-dollar status, making it a darling of both the fashion and celebrity worlds in the process. Annual sales have more than quadrupled , to 987 million euros, since 2009 as Ms. Chiuri, Mr. Piccioli and Stefano Sassi, Valentino’s chief executive, led an expansion of the brand’s product range and distribution. And after it nearly doubled its profit on revenue of more than $1 billion in 2015, there has been growing speculation in the luxury industry about an initial public offering of stock. The fashion house said this year that it expected revenue to grow at a double-digit pace in 2016, and it has plans to open about 25 stores globally. The company now operates 130 shops directly and is aiming for about 200 in the next two to three years. Image Maria Grazia Chiuri, one of the designers for Valentino, has been chosen as the new designer for Dior’s women’s collections. Credit Chris Warde-Jones for The New York Times The Dior appointment will be Ms. Chiuri’s first solo design post and will leave Mr. Piccioli alone at the creative helm of Valentino. Ms. Chiuri originally hired Mr. Piccioli to work with her in the accessories department of Fendi in 1992, and the two have moved in tandem since then. They have been professionally so intertwined that they often finish each other’s sentences, co-sign handwritten letters, send emails from the same account and dress alike in matching black trouser suits. “I always thought of them as a team, not as individuals. The big question is whether they can do separately what they did together,” said Mr. Burke. “That’s the risk.” Scott Schuman, a photographer known as “The Sartorialist” who worked in a wholesale showroom that sold Valentino early in his career, said, “I am interested to see how they play on their own.” He continued: “A lot of the high-end couture labels seem like golden cages. The sensibility I understand for her, she’ll create clothes you can buy and wear — not just accessories.” Ms. Chiuri will be joining Dior at a delicate time. The luxury market is expected to grow only 2 percent this year, according to a study from Bain & Company and Altagamma, the Italian trade association. Dior has been designer-less since October, when its artistic director, Raf Simons, left the company after three years. Mr. Simons had been appointed after the firing of John Galliano , who had been accused of a drunken anti-Semitic rant. Mr. Simons was credited with not only modernizing the Dior aesthetic, but also restoring an internal calm to the fashion house. His departure threw it into limbo once again. Rumors that Ms. Chiuri was being considered for the artistic director position had been circulating in the fashion world since the beginning of the year. However, the job has traditionally involved only women’s wear and not men’s wear, designed by Kris Van Assche; jewelry, designed by Victoire de Castellane; or retail, designed by Peter Marino, and it was viewed as difficult to fill. This had to do with both its demands — six collections a year, including Cruise collections in exotic locations — and its limitations, including the involvement of celebrity ambassadors. Mr. Simons, for example, was said to be particularly upset to discover he had not been consulted on the signing of Rihanna as a Dior face, given the gulf between the aesthetic he had established for the brand and that of the pop star. The parent company of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Dior is the cornerstone of the luxury empire built by Bernard Arnault, its chairman and chief executive. Though it reported more than €5 billion in sales last year and has 195 stores worldwide, three-fifths of its revenue came from perfumes and cosmetics. Christian Dior Couture, which includes all the clothing lines, contributed €1.8 billion to sales in 2015. Recent shows created by the internal design team led by Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier have been met with tepid applause, and Dior’s fashion sales growth has fallen in the last 18 months, going from double-digit growth to flat in the first quarter of 2016. A dip in tourist numbers to Europe after terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and sales declines in several crucial Asian markets contributed to the losses. Ms. Chiuri will be charged with reversing that trend. Image Maria Grazia Chiuri, right, and Pierpaolo Piccioli, currently co-creative directors of Valentino, at the end of their fall 2016 runway show in March. Credit Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times In Paris, Pamela Golbin, chief curator of fashion and textiles at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, noted Ms. Chiuri’s long successful track record and willingness to grow. “She does have an incredible knowledge of haute couture, and that’s going to be a very important aspect of her job,” Ms. Golbin said. “There aren’t that many people who have shown over a long period of time that they could take it to the next level and have it evolve. She’s done that over the years at Valentino. What will happen at Dior is a big question.” The next couture season, scheduled for the week of July 4, will herald Ms. Chiuri’s final show with Mr. Piccioli. A new era for Dior, Valentino and their designers will begin in September with the women’s ready-to-wear shows. | Couture;Christian Dior;Maria Grazia Chiuri;Valentino;Appointments and Executive Changes |
ny0053727 | [
"sports",
"worldcup"
] | 2014/07/10 | U.S. Program Can Take Heart in Germany’s Win | The stunning performance by Germany on Tuesday was a long time coming. Fourteen years would be the best figure. This 7-1 demolition of Brazil in a World Cup semifinal shocked Brazilian fans to tears , demoralized Brazilian players on the field and amazed a worldwide audience with alert, precise and engaging team play. Did the Brazilian players quit? That is between them and the deity of jogo bonito. But clearly they were playing without the injured Neymar, without the suspended Thiago Silva and without heart to activate their legs. The score was stunning, but Germany was no surprise, having built toward this excellence since 2000, when it could not advance from the group stage in the European Championship. In some nations, this would cause mere futile angst, but in Germany it produced a development plan , identifying and training athletic youngsters in 366 districts — made easier in a relatively compact country. The program produced the wave of players in their mid-20s who could not help themselves from scoring goals Tuesday, tapering down to reserved celebrations as they realized what they were accomplishing. Image It's unclear whether the Brazilian players quit or whether they ran into an overwhelming team in the German tradition. Credit Pedro Ugarte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images For the growing swarm of American soccer fans, there are implications to this lambasting. On one level, this was one of those sporting events in which everything went right for one team and everything went wrong for another — comparable to the 73-0 victory by the Chicago Bears over Washington in the National Football League championship game in 1940. Early in that game, Chicago took a 7-0 lead and Sammy Baugh’s apparent touchdown pass was dropped by his receiver. When asked what the result might have been if Washington had scored then, Baugh replied: 73-7. He understood. It was the Bears’ afternoon. They were a great team, riding their explosive T-formation . They had a system. There is a direct line from the development system of the German federation, the D.F.B., to the celebrity coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, currently dashing up and down the sideline for the United States, smiling at opponents, exhorting his players. Germany rarely needs a renewal, not with three World Cups won (as West Germany) and four other times a finalist. That does not mean Germany will automatically win the final against Argentina on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro. It merely means Germany is almost always there. The most apt words ever spoken about the German team were uttered by Gary Lineker, the English striker and later the captain, after a shootout loss to West Germany in a 1990 semifinal : “Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.” Maybe not always. Maybe not in Estádio do Maracanã on Sunday. And not in Yokohama, Japan, in 2002, when Germany lost the final to Brazil, with all that talent. (American fans will recall that Germany beat the United States, 1-0, in the quarterfinals when a defender, Torsten Frings, just happened to have his left arm extended at a rakish angle on the goal line to deflect a rebound shot by the United States.) “Germany loses the final — and they double down on their development plan,” Sunil Gulati, the president of the United States Soccer Federation, recalled in a telephone interview from Brazil on Wednesday. He is impressed with Germany’s continuing development system. “They have academies funded in part by the Bundesliga,” he said, referring to the wealthy German professional system. Four years later as host in 2006, Germany was supposedly in a rebuilding phase, under the coaching of Klinsmann, the former striker, backed by his assistant, Joachim Löw, who was rumored to contain the big picture under his Ringo-esque mop. Klinsmann, who had settled in California, was thought to be somewhat of a Left Coast flake by old-guard German fans, at least before the surprising run to third place. This was a light, airy, positive time for Germany. The German people, still unsure how much to enjoy themselves in public, waved flags and chanted and packed public squares to cheer Die Mannschaft as it lost to Italy in the semifinals. Best of the World Cup In these interactive graphics, videos, slide shows and articles, The Times covered the action on the field and far from it. Dig in, but be sure to save time for Spot the Ball. This appealing and talented team continued to surge when Löw replaced his friend Klinsmann. In the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Germany ran into Spain in the middle of an unprecedented run of the 2008 Euros, the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 Euros. After Carles Puyol, the defender with the ringlets, leapt for the header that beat Germany, 1-0 , Löw praised Spain as the great team of its time. Now that Spain has apparently fallen apart from athletic old age, Germany is surging, taking its core from the D.F.B. program. The Bundesliga is challenging the Spanish, English and Italian leagues as the best in the world, using imports from Africa and Latin America and Europe, but good German players do not rust away at home. Many American players — Paul Caligiuri, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda, Kasey Keller, Tony Sanneh, Michael Bradley and Steve Cherundolo, just a partial list — have sought the income and challenge of Germany. In 1998, before the opening World Cup match with Germany in Paris, Reyna talked with pride about surviving harsh winters and impersonal coaches and midweek practices against teammates fighting to suit up on Saturday. In the first five minutes, Jens Jeremies of Germany hammered Reyna in the kidneys . Klinsmann, a star striker on that German team, acknowledges to this day that blasting Reyna was part of the game plan. The Brazilians knew all about Germany on Tuesday, and vice versa. The Brazilians had been leading the World Cup in fouls per match, the definition of a dog defending its manger. But once Germany scored, Brazil could hardly get close enough to foul. One goal begot six more. It was fascinating to watch — bringing home the reality of just how skillful world-level players are. If they are playing a squad having a horrible day, they can exploit and dominate. Be bold. Move forward. This is the urging of Klinsmann, who is regarded as an Old World cutthroat meanie by some American fans because he smilingly dispatched Landon Donovan from the squad while signing up five German players who held United States passports. Yes, the striker who benefited from Jeremies in 1998 sent broad-shouldered Jermaine Jones out to be his hard man in the 2014 World Cup. The United States, with its own federation, its own development plans, its own Major League Soccer, is doing fine, and it has maintained its longtime admiration of German soccer, Gulati noted. With the D.F.B. plan producing at full tilt , not everybody can make the German team. In the meantime, Klinsmann has a large supply of phone numbers and email addresses and passport statuses of German players with ties to the United States. And he has four more years on his contract. | 2014 World Cup;Soccer;German Bundesliga;US Men's Soccer Team;Jurgen Klinsmann;Joachim Low |
ny0096305 | [
"business"
] | 2015/01/15 | After Suspending Supplier, Chipotle Takes Pork Off Menu in 600 Stores | Signs have gone up in about 600 Chipotle Mexican Gril l restaurants, informing customers that no carnitas will be served. The fast-growing restaurant chain announced on Tuesday that it had suspended a major pork supplier after a routine audit found that it had failed to meet the company’s standards for animal welfare. “Without this pork, we cannot get enough pork that meets our Responsibly Raised standard for all our restaurants, and we will not be able to serve carnitas in some locations,” Chipotle said in a statement, referring to its standards for the humane treatment of livestock. It declined to identify the supplier but said it would work with the supplier, if asked, to help it bring its operations into compliance with Chipotle’s requirements. Carnitas, which means “little meats” in Spanish, are typically made from pork shoulder, braised in oil for several hours and then shredded. Chipotle, which has more than 1,700 stores around the country, offers carnitas in its burritos and on its burrito bowls and tacos. Chris Arnold, a company spokesman, said in an email that carnitas account for about 6 percent of the chain’s sales and that the company has begun testing pork loin to see if it might serve as a substitute for shoulder. The chain is popular with millennials, a coveted demographic group for food companies, as well as with consumers who like the option of ordering a meal with exactly the ingredients they want in it. Chipotle’s philosophy, which it calls Food With Integrity , encompasses issues that a growing number of consumers say they care about, such as the humane treatment of animals and labeling items on its menu that contain genetically engineered ingredients. This is not the first time Chipotle has run short on supplies. Last March, it was forced to respond to reports that it might have to suspend guacamole from its menu because of a possible shortage of avocados, and a year earlier, it informed diners in some restaurants that the beef they were eating was conventionally raised, rather than raised without antibiotics, because it could not obtain the needed quantities of antibiotic-free meat. That is not an option for pork, Mr. Arnold said, because the company’s animal welfare standards for pigs raised outdoors or with ample, clean bedding is so different from pigs raised in industrial settings. In comparison, beef cattle, whether raised conventionally or under humane standards, generally live outside and are allowed to roam. Image Chipotle said some of its restaurants would temporarily stop serving carnitas because of a shortage of humanely raised pork. Credit Joe Raedle/Getty Images “Conventionally raised pigs generally do not have access to the outdoors, spend their lives in densely crowded buildings, live on hard slatted floors with no bedding and no ability to root, and are given antibiotics to keep them from getting sick,” the company said in its statement. “We would rather not serve pork at all than serve pork from animals that are raised in this way.” The news caused the phones at Niman Ranch to ring all day long, as reporters sought to identify which supplier had been suspended. Niman, which is Chipotle’s largest supplier of pork, said it was not the supplier in question and instead had already increased its shipments to the restaurant chain by 15 to 20 percent to help make up for the shortfall. “They don’t use an entire animal,” said Jeff Tripician, executive vice president at Niman. “They use pieces and parts, and we’re working to determine whether there are other parts of the pig that would also work and thus give them even more supply.” He said Chipotle called Niman over the weekend to tell it about the problem. Demand for pork from pigs raised with access to the outdoors, enough bedding and no gestation crates is rising faster than farmers can keep up with it. “If I double the number of hog farms in our system tomorrow, I think we would be sold out pretty soon,” Mr. Tripician said. Niman is one of the largest suppliers of such pork, which it also sells, along with beef, to other fast-growing chains like Au Bon Pain, Panera Bread and Shake Shack. In the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Chipotle’s same-store sales rose 19.8 percent, compared with McDonald’s — which has 14,000 stores in the United States — whose global same-store sales declined 3.3 percent. “There aren’t very many of us who could come up with that kind of supply,” said Michael Yezzi, the proprietor of Flying Pigs Farm , in the Hudson Valley of New York, which sells about 1,000 outdoor-raised pigs a year and is not a Chipotle supplier. Mr. Yezzi said a typical whole shoulder of the sort Chipotle uses for its carnitas weighs about 50 pounds with the bone in, which would supply between 25 and 30 pounds of meat. “If you figure each serving is about two ounces, that means you’d get eight to 10 servings from a pound, or something like 300 servings” from one shoulder, he said. “Then think about how many servings Chipotle might have in a day.” Chipotle also buys from small and midsize suppliers like Polyface Farms in Virginia, but as the chain has grown, it has had to rely on larger businesses. DuBreton , a Canadian meat company, is a Chipotle supplier, but the Chipotle spokesman said that it was not the one that had been suspended. Premium Iowa Pork , another large supplier of antibiotic-free, humanely raised pork to Chipotle, did not return calls to its office, and its executives did not respond to emails. | Chipotle Mexican Grill;Pork;Animal Abuse;Restaurant |
ny0109126 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2012/05/10 | Syria Rebels, Though Disparate, Are Tenacious in Crackdown | BEIRUT, Lebanon — More than a year into the Syrian uprising, protesters and fighters say, disparate opposition cells inside the country still scramble on their own for money and weapons, creating a risk that different factions will form conflicting loyalties to whoever ends up financing or arming them. Those who have taken up arms, the fighters, acknowledge that they lack a workable chain of command to coordinate operations and channel arms supplies, even as they plead for international help. Somehow, this decentralized patchwork of opposition fighters and activists has displayed the tenacity to withstand a withering crackdown that has left thousands dead and neighborhoods reduced to rubble. But it has still not managed to coalesce into a unified force, or identify a national leader, a clear ideology or specific goals — beyond bringing down President Bashar al-Assad . That atomization, many fear, could turn the country into “divided emirates” rather than a viable new system, Abu Omar, an activist in a Damascus suburb, said in a recent interview, complaining that some groups hoard arms and the power they bring. “Deserving people are not being funded,” he said, “and all the money goes to people who do not deserve it.” An eclectic mix of fighters and unarmed protesters opposes Mr. Assad. There are pious clerics and people who admit they rarely pray, experienced soldiers and barely trained former conscripts, wealthy doctors and jobless youths. Some say they want Islamic law, while others insist that civil law alone should rule. Their goals are matters of intense curiosity as the United States and others debate whether and how to directly assist the opposition inside Syria . Ask their views, and the answers can be complex. Abu Fahad, 30, said the protesters he organizes in Saqba, a Damascus suburb, are “religious, secular, and people who drink wine and smoke opium” — though mostly from the majority Sunni Muslim sect. They are not seeking economic gain, sectarian revenge or an Islamic state, he said, just the dignity of choosing their own president, “not some idiot who took power from his father as a gift.” Exuding confidence as he sat openly talking politics in his prosperous furniture shop, Abu Fahad, using a nickname to protect against retribution, said protesters were unlikely to choose leaders from Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect after 40 years of his family’s rule, but do not hate all Alawites. The proof he offered seemed ominous in its own way: Saqba residents, he said, have killed 30 neighbors suspected of being informants — all Sunnis. As the exile opposition and a United Nations-sponsored peace plan fail to stem the violence, attention in Washington is increasingly focused on the opposition inside Syria, raising urgent questions about its motives, leaders and backers. But Syria remains something of a black box. Amid violence and government restrictions on journalists, fighters and protesters operate largely on their own and out of sight of independent observers. On social media, activists portray themselves as democratic, inclusive and from the grass roots, while the government depicts its opponents as foreign-financed Sunni extremists. The reality is more complicated, according to interviews with more than 20 activists and fighters, via phone, Skype and face-to-face interviews in Syria and neighboring countries, which offer a glimpse of the uprising’s anatomy. The picture that emerges — partial and anecdotal — is of a highly decentralized, proudly local movement, distrustful of the expatriate opposition. Many activists said they wanted both Sunni empowerment and equal rights for all. If there was unanimity, it was in the fierce conviction that future leaders should come from their own ranks — “exclusively from this popular movement,” Abu Omar said — not from exile groups, like the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and secular movements. The fighters and activists knew they were talking to journalists and have an interest in appearing neither sectarian nor extremist. But many spoke candidly of the uprising’s flaws and challenges, and one — a former interior decorator — volunteered that he had executed three men. The former decorator, Abu Moayed, also a nickname, said he left his job at a Beirut architecture firm last year, which his employer confirmed, and went home to northern Syria, near the city of Idlib. He said he joined army deserters in the Baba Amr Retribution Battalion, named for the rebellious Homs neighborhood devastated by shelling. Abu Moayed said the battalion had captured about 35 government soldiers and militiamen and executed 10 after the authorities refused a prisoner exchange. He said he shot three, two Sunnis and an Alawite, who were implicated in killing hundreds. “Don’t ask the reason,” he said. “It’s not vengeance — it’s our right.” But he admitted he acted from anger after the government killed two of his uncles, Khalid and Jamil al-Khatib. His father is missing and his wife and children are in hiding, he said, after a defecting soldier showed him a picture of his 5-year-old with words scrawled on the back: “To be executed.” Abu Moayad said the battalion bought weapons from the government’s own supply, stored in a dairy factory. Its owner, a government militiaman, sells Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers, eager for the money in case he needs to flee, he said. Recently, he said, he bought weapons on the Iraqi border with $35,000 from wealthy Syrians abroad — but does not take orders from anyone outside. “Usually, revolutions are planted by honorable people and harvested by cowards,” he said. “In Syria, we will prove the opposite.” Without known leaders, the opposition has failed to win major help from Western countries afraid to give aid without any accountability. But paradoxically, activists say, that weakness has kept the movement alive and autonomous, hard to decapitate or co-opt. And protesters say local donations provide what little they need — amplifiers, banners, cellphones. Sheik Ahmed, a Sunni imam in Damascus, said Muslim Brotherhood supporters tried to take credit for rallying thousands after Friday Prayer. But he said that mosques were the only places where people could routinely assemble, and that crowds there included non-Muslims and Muslims, from secularists to religious extremists. “Syria is not Egypt or Tunisia,” Sheik Ahmed said, evoking countries where Islamist groups dominate after broad-based revolts. “I call for a democratic, civil state — then every citizen gets his or her rights.” Amir, 25, an organizer in the Damascus suburb of Douma, expressed conflicting impulses about Islam — “I personally don’t pray, but I respect my religion” — and its role in politics. He said Islamic law should apply to Muslims — for instance, no wine shops in Muslim neighborhoods — and accused the government of “fighting Islamic morals.” But, he said as he hunched over a laptop uploading protest news, “we can’t impose Islamic law on all citizens.” Jeffrey White, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has tracked hundreds of videos and announcements from 68 self-described rebel battalions. While many invoke God, expected in a religious country, seven identify explicitly as Islamist, for instance waving black flags with Koranic script, said Mr. White, who advocates military aid to rebels. There have been separate reports of fundamentalist groups operating in the north. One fighter from Abu Omar’s group, the Golan Liberation Gathering, said he and friends sold their cars, rented an apartment, posed as laborers and staked out a government official. When they attacked, security forces overwhelmed them, killing his friends. “We knew we would die,” he said. “I’m not religious, I’m leftist — but all Syrians became suicidal.” | Syria;Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- );Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Assad Bashar al-;Damascus (Syria);Defense and Military Forces;Muslims and Islam |
ny0106317 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2012/04/16 | N.H.L. Suspends Rangers’ Hagelin Three Games for Elbowing Alfredsson | Carl Hagelin was late for the Rangers ’ practice Sunday afternoon, but he had an excuse. Hagelin, a rookie wing, spent about 15 minutes in a phone hearing with Brendan Shanahan, the N.H.L.’s vice president for hockey operations and player safety. Seven hours after the hearing, Hagelin was suspended for three games by the N.H.L. for elbowing Daniel Alfredsson in the head during the second period of the Ottawa Senators’ 3-2 overtime victory on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Hagelin received a five-minute penalty for elbowing ; his suspension will begin with Game 3 of the series Monday in Ottawa. In his statement on the suspension, Shanahan noted that Hagelin “finishes his check with his arms high, recklessly hitting Alfredsson high with his elbow.” Alfredsson did not return to Game 2. The Rangers said in a statement that they would not appeal Hagelin’s suspension but added, “We are thoroughly perplexed in the ruling’s inconsistency with other supplementary discipline decisions that have been made throughout this season and during the playoffs.” Ottawa Coach Paul MacLean said Alfredsson, the team captain, was feeling better and would be re-evaluated before his status for Game 3 could be determined. Hagelin seemed a bit shaken about injuring Alfredsson. Hagelin, 23, is a native of Sweden, where Alfredsson, 39 and in his 16th N.H.L. season, is idolized. “I tried to finish my check,” he said after practice and before the suspension was announced. “He chipped it out and kind of went back a bit. My elbow came up. His stick kind of came in front of my face. My head moved back a bit, and my elbow came back and hit him in the head.” Hagelin said he hoped Alfredsson could play. “I never want to hurt anyone on the ice,” he said. “That’s not the type of player I am,” noting that he had never had a major penalty before. “Obviously, I had no intention of being dirty with him,” Hagelin said. “I sent him a text yesterday saying I’m sorry and I’m pretty regretful for what happened.” Hagelin’s hit on Alfredsson was not the most violent moment in a brutally physical, scrum-filled game. Two minutes 15 seconds into the game, Matt Carkner of the Senators pounded Rangers center Brian Boyle with his fists, retribution for Boyle’s roughing up Erik Karlsson in Game 1. Boyle did not fight back, or was unable to. When Rangers wing Brandon Dubinsky stepped in to peel Carkner off Boyle, Dubinsky was given a game misconduct. Carkner was ejected, too. But while Carkner, a healthy scratch in Game 1, would probably not have played five minutes, Dubinsky takes a regular shift. Carkner drew a one-game suspension after a hearing with Shanahan. He cited Carkner for “continuing to inflict punishment upon an opponent who was an unwilling combatant.” Dubinsky was still frustrated Sunday but vowed to be ready for Game 3. He was asked if he would have joined the one-sided Carkner-Boyle fight if he had known he would be ejected. “I wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “I shouldn’t say I wouldn’t have done it. I would have done it, but differently.” The Rangers’ players and coaches did not complain about the Senators’ strategy of increased hitting and fighting. The Rangers led the league in fighting majors during the regular season, with 65 in 82 games, and take pride in team toughness. “I didn’t think it was too bad,” the Rangers’ Ryan Callahan said. “Both teams were hitting. That’s playoff hockey. It’s hockey that we’ve played all year. We don’t have a problem playing that way. “As the playoffs go on, that’s what you’re going to see. It doesn’t make a difference to us.” Coach John Tortorella said, “All the stuff that goes on as far as trying to change momentum, it’s going to go on throughout the series.” It sounded like a promise. | Hockey Ice;Playoff Games;New York Rangers;Hagelin Carl;Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations;Alfredsson Daniel |
ny0004710 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2013/04/07 | Kerry Moves to Help Turkey and Israel to Restore Ties | ISTANBUL — Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Istanbul early Sunday morning to encourage Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to move ahead with his commitment to normalize relations with Israel. President Obama brokered an agreement between Israel and Turkey to restore their ties during his visit to Jerusalem last month. Turkey and Israel’s diplomatic ties had been frozen since 2010 after eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent were killed when the Israeli military intercepted a Turkish ship that was trying to run the blockade on supplies to Gaza. But no sooner was the new agreement announced than Mr. Erodogan boasted that it underscored Turkey’s regional clout, and concerns emerged that there could be problems fulfilling the agreement. Mr. Kerry plans to meet with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Mr. Erdogan, who is scheduled to visit Washington next month for discussions with President Obama. A State Department official said Mr. Kerry planned to “encourage Turkey to expeditiously implement its agreement with Israel and fully normalize their relationship.” Among other steps, the agreement calls for an exchange of Turkish and Israeli ambassadors. Other issues on Mr. Kerry’s agenda in Istanbul concern Turkey’s role in continuing to accept Syrians who have fled the civil war in their own country. There are 180,000 Syrians in Turkey, but the United Nations’s refugee agency recently criticized Turkey for sending home at least 130 refugees after unrest at a refugee camp. And the United States wants Turkey to keep its borders open to Syrians who are trying to escape the fighting in their country. Mr. Kerry will also discuss support for the Syrian opposition. The secretary of state announced at a conference in Rome in late February that the United States would provide nonlethal assistance, specifically medical supplies and food rations, to the armed Syrian opposition. That assistance has not yet come through, though it is expected to arrived soon. Mr. Kerry also plans to take up Turkey’s fraught relations with Iraq. To the consternation of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad, Turkey has been discussing the establishment of a direct oil pipeline to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. After his meetings in Turkey, Mr. Kerry will head to Israel for talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials. | Turkey;US Foreign Policy;John Kerry;Recep Tayyip Erdogan;UN;Ahmet Davutoglu;Israel |
ny0293751 | [
"technology"
] | 2016/06/09 | Q. and A.: Secret’s Founder on the Problems With Anonymity | Secret, a social messaging start-up that let people post messages anonymously until it shut down, was the talk of the technology world . The start-up had raised more than $25 million in venture capital and was valued at $100 million in 2014, at less than a year old. For a while, Secret grew like a weed, as people swapped gossip and other tidbits on the service without revealing their identities. Yet secrecy, it turned out, was not enough to guarantee that the company would remain a hit. The anonymity that Secret afforded let the service be used as a playground for bullies. So 16 months after Secret opened for business, the founders shut down the company and returned the bulk of the money to investors. David Byttow, one of the founders and the former chief executive of Secret, discussed some of the lessons he learned in building the anonymous social service, how things went wrong and what he plans to do differently as he builds his next company. This interview has been edited and condensed. Why were you interested in anonymity in the first place? I had come out of working at Square and knew I wanted to build something but never really went off on my own. At first, it was anonymous, one-to-one messaging. I showed it to Chrys Bader (another Secret founder), and we built a prototype. Our first version was turned down by a venture capitalist who was afraid of bullying. We agreed to build the version that was eventually released. I wasn’t personally superpassionate about anonymity. But it was interesting — as is social in general. We half expected it to flop on the first day, but it took off very quickly, I think because it really just struck a nerve with people. When that happens — especially if it’s your first time — you don’t walk away from it. Why do you think it caught on, especially in Silicon Valley? The app became an echo chamber of Silicon Valley. There are a lot of things that go on in the Valley that people don’t talk about openly. Secret gave people a place to do it. It was both compelling and probably exceedingly frustrating for people, seeing posts about them or their company. Whether they were true or false, they couldn’t really do anything about it. Are entrepreneurs really able to harness anonymity? It seems like a problem no one has been able to solve. I fundamentally believe, both technologically and culturally, that we do not have the tools to manage anonymity online in a way that doesn’t end with people getting hurt. Identity or not, you’re going to get people who use the product to troll other people. Anonymity allows people to take it one step further, where they believe they have no repercussions. We wanted to go for it and try to make it work. You can do simple things like moderate words and partner with other security groups, but ultimately, when there is a group of friends, and they have context, you can’t moderate that. I don’t know how to do it. It’s a really hard problem. It seemed like it was a viable thing, or still does, even, for some sites. Investors were interested. It was definitely a thing. What was the personal toll of the rise and fall of Secret? It was as if there was a switch from excitement to just pure stress. Things became contentious between me and my co-founder. I reached the point where I wasn’t taking care of myself, so I took up boxing. That’s the one thing that has stuck, every day, to this day. My first fight is coming up soon. My point is, it gets tough. Secret was valued so high, so quickly. And certainly I wasn’t perfect by any means. I did some stupid stuff. I bought a Ferrari and I drove it to this thing, and people noticed. I asked myself, “What am I doing?” That was stupid. I emptied my 401(k) to start Secret. We got extremely lucky in many ways along that journey. But I did a lot of dumb stuff, too. What are the lessons learned? As I’m starting this new company — it’s called Bold , and it makes software aimed at corporations — I’m sure I’m still making mistakes, but I’m trying to make only new mistakes, not old ones. And it’s given me a new perspective on how I want to build a company, how I want to act as a founder. I’m trying to fly a bit more under the radar for this next thing, because I’m so afraid of having hype without having something to show for it. I also think social consumer products require a sense of community, and they require identity. Without both of those, these products become novelties. That’s why I’m working on enterprise software now. | David Byttow;Secret App;Instant messaging;Cyberharassment,Online harassment;Startup;Mobile Apps |
ny0220571 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2010/02/11 | For Slumping Rangers, 2 Deficits Are Too Much | Michael Del Zotto, the Rangers ’ 19-year-old defenseman, skated ever so slowly across the ice from the penalty box to the bench after the Nashville Predators scored a power-play goal Wednesday night. Perhaps Del Zotto thought wasting time might get Coach John Tortorella to forget his mistake. No such luck. Tortorella barked at Del Zotto, who glumly plopped down at the end of the bench, as if he had been grounded. He was back on the ice at the start of the third period, but the Rangers could not overcome their second deficit of the game and lost, 2-1, at Madison Square Garden . “He had every right there to put me in my place,” Del Zotto said of Tortorella. Del Zotto received a hooking penalty midway through the second period, then complained about the call and was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct. Nashville center Colin Wilson, recalled Tuesday from Milwaukee of the American Hockey League, scored the winning goal on the ensuing four-minute power play. Del Zotto called the second penalty “stupid,” meaning he was foolish, not the officials. He also said, “Maybe I just got to learn to keep my mouth shut.” The loss was the eighth in 10 games for the Rangers (26-27-7) , who played without the injured right wing Marian Gaborik. The outcome might have been lopsided had Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist not played another magnificent game, stopping 34 shots. “When you are trying to crawl out of a hole and trying to gain some consistency in your game, your structure of your team concept, and your discipline, at all times at this time of year, is so important,” Tortorella said. “We’re not good enough not to be dead-on with that stuff there.” Gaborik, who has 35 goals this season and has scored 6 of the Rangers’ 18 goals in the last 10 games, was hurt near the end of the Rangers’ practice Tuesday. He was working on a breakaway drill when he collided with Lundqvist. Gaborik’s right thigh was sliced by Lundqvist’s skate. “It’s a pretty nasty gash,” Tortorella said before the game. “We’re fortunate it’s not more serious than it was.” Tortorella said he hoped that Gaborik would be able to return when the Rangers play Friday at Pittsburgh, but that did not help them much Wednesday. After pushing into the Nashville zone early, the Rangers retreated, much to the displeasure of the fans. The biggest cheer, in fact, came seven minutes into the game, when the fans were told that all food and beverages were being sold at a 25 percent discount. Less than two minutes later, Chris Drury stuffed a breakaway shot into the pads of Nashville goaltender Dan Ellis. “We had a lot of chances,” Drury said of the Rangers, who had 38 shots on goal. “We certainly need to bury them.” The Rangers killed two penalties, but they gave up a goal when Predators forward Jordin Tootoo deflected a slap shot by Nashville defenseman Kevin Klein at 17 minutes 45 seconds of the first period. The Rangers are 2-14-2 in games in which they trail after one period. Lundqvist kept the deficit from getting any bigger in the opening minutes of the second period, as his teammates stumbled in their zone. Within a 90-second stretch, Nashville had three breakaways. Lundqvist made two saves, and Martin Erat’s shot clattered off the goalpost. “I knew going into the game I can’t afford any mistakes,” Lundqvist said. Lundqvist bought his teammates time until the Predators committed two penalties in 61 seconds, giving the Rangers a nearly minute-long two-man advantage. Drury screened Ellis as forward Vinny Prospal flipped in his 12th goal of the season at 9:48 after a ferocious scramble. Less than three minutes later, Del Zotto was penalized. The Rangers, especially Lundqvist, nearly burned off both penalties without giving up a goal. But they could not clear their zone, and Wilson caught up to a loose puck and slapped it into the net at 16:10 of the second to give the Predators the lead again. Wilson wore a big grin as he reached the bench. Not so for Del Zotto. “They way that goal looked — that’s how we’ve felt for the last couple of weeks,” Lundqvist said. | Hockey Ice;New York Rangers;Nashville Predators;Del Zotto Michael;Tortorella John;Lundqvist Henrik |
ny0014430 | [
"business"
] | 2013/11/14 | Concession in Airline Merger Is Criticized | WASHINGTON — When the Justice Department announced in August that it had filed suit to block the proposed merger of US Airways and American Airlines, it maintained that airline consolidation had gone too far and the proposed merger would lead to higher fares for consumers. But on Tuesday, in reaching a settlement with the airlines, the Justice Department had a far different view, saying that surrendering of takeoff and landing slots at airports would foster competition and lead to lower prices. Analysts and consumer advocates, though, questioned on Wednesday just how much consumers will benefit. Paul S. Hudson, the executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, said that the effects of consolidation would overwhelm any concessions won by the Justice Department. “It doesn’t begin to deal with the fact that the industry is now so concentrated that the big four airlines are going to have unprecedented pricing power,” he said, referring to United, Delta, Southwest and the new combined American. In striking the deal, the airlines agreed to sell 104 slots at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, and 34 slots at La Guardia Airport in New York. They also agreed to sell the rights to two slots at each of five other airports — Chicago O’Hare International, Los Angeles International, Boston Logan International, Dallas Love Field and Miami International. William J. Baer, assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, said on Tuesday that the settlement “opens up the marketplace as never before.” The arrival of lower-cost carriers, even at that level, would have the ripple effect not only on nonstop flights but also on connecting flights. But giving up the slots, Mr. Hudson said, is “a slight mitigation, certainly a mitigation of concentration, most particularly at Reagan National.” Kevin P. Mitchell, the chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, said that giving up the slots “will help somewhat, and it’s certainly better than allowing the merger just to go through.” Forcing the two airlines to sell landing slots, and give up gates at a variety of airports “will enable the JetBlues and the Virgin Americas of the world to expand service,” he said. Some Wall Street analysts said the concessions would have little effect on the combined airline. Helane Becker and Conor T. Cunningham at Cowen and Company wrote in a research note that the settlement was a positive for the merged airline because, despite being required to shed some slots, the divestitures “would have minimal impact on the merged company.” The merger, which could be completed next month, is supposed to cut the carrier’s costs. The same claim has been made in many previous mergers, including some involving American and US Airways, but merged airlines have had varied levels of success in meshing their operations and achieving the “synergies” they sought. From the consumer point of view, though, there is probably no way to preserve the level of competition in place before the latest hookup, advocates say. They note that it comes after the mergers of Delta with Northwest, United with Continental, Southwest with AirTran and even American with TWA. In an era when carriers seem to be either in bankruptcy or between bankruptcies, many aviation analysts saw the merger as inevitable, and the benefits are not just the “synergies,” they said. “Much of the whole point of this exercise has been to tighten pricing a little bit, so airlines could stay in business and not go bankrupt frequently,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group. And the alternative, he said, was two very strong carriers and two weak ones that could ride roughshod over the weak carriers’ markets. That would be bad for consumers too, he said. “You’ll never get to that consumer paradise, where you had multiple weak zombie carriers offering bankruptcy prices,” Mr. Aboulafia said An antitrust lawyer who specializes in airlines, Jonathan L. Lewis, said that it was far too early to predict the effect, and even in hindsight, it would be difficult to say how this would have worked without the concessions, or with American emerging from bankruptcy without a merger, but with a lower cost structure. The Justice Department, said Mr. Lewis, evidently thought that the settlement and divestiture of gates “was an opportunity that did not exist before, to open some of these hubs up and get some of these so called low-cost carriers in there.” | Airlines,airplanes;Mergers and Acquisitions;American Airlines;US Airways Group;Airport;Bankruptcy;Justice Department;Competition law |
ny0181684 | [
"technology"
] | 2007/12/03 | Facebook Founder Finds He Wants Some Privacy | Social networking Web sites can seem dedicated to the idea that nobody’s personal life is worth keeping private, but when it comes to Mark Zuckerberg — the founder of Facebook , one of the largest networks — Facebook disagrees. Facebook tried last week to force the magazine 02138 to remove some unflattering documents about Mr. Zuckerberg from its Web site. But a federal judge turned down the company’s request for a court order to take down the material, according to the magazine’s lawyers. The dispute stemmed from a lawsuit charging that in 2003 and 2004, as a student at Harvard, Mr. Zuckerberg stole the idea and some of the computer source code for Facebook from some fellow students. They were planning a networking site of their own and had hired Mr. Zuckerberg to help with the programming. Their project fizzled, while Facebook made Mr. Zuckerberg a billionaire — at least on paper — at the age of 23. 02138, which refers to Harvard College’s ZIP code in Cambridge, Mass., and consists primarily of articles about Harvard and Harvard alumni, published an article last week about the genesis of Facebook and the resulting lawsuit. The piece is sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ account and questions the validity of Mr. Zuckerberg’s claims. The article relied in part on documents submitted in the lawsuit, in Federal District Court in Boston, that were ordered sealed by the judge in the case, Douglas P. Woodlock. On its Web site, 02138 posted not only the article, but also the documents, which include Mr. Zuckerberg’s handwritten application for admission to Harvard and an excerpt from an online journal he kept as a student that contains biting comments about himself and others. Luke O’Brien, the freelance reporter who wrote the article, said that he had done nothing wrong in obtaining the documents and that neither side in the lawsuit had improperly leaked them to him. He said he had obtained the papers in mid-September from the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which considered a part of the case, where a clerk apparently made a mistake and let him read and copy sealed documents, along with those that were still supposed to be open to the public. “There were a whole bunch of manila envelopes taped shut, clearly sealed, and I did not open those,” he said. Some of the pages he copied were stamped “Confidential” or “Redacted.” Bom Kim, founder and editor of 02138, which is not affiliated with the university or its alumni association, said that gave him pause. “We cleared it with our lawyers,” he said, who said that any order sealing the documents would apply only to the parties to the lawsuit. “We did wonder if they were under seal. But since we had obtained them legally, we got clearance.” On Thursday, Facebook asked Judge Woodlock to order 02138 to strike the documents from its Web site. Lawyers for 02138 said that late Friday, the judge, in an oral ruling, turned down the request; Facebook and its lawyer refused to confirm or deny that account. Calls to the court went unanswered. “We filed the motions to let the court know that its orders were being violated,” Facebook said in a statement Friday. “One reason the court ordered certain documents’ protection was to prevent exactly what has happened: misusing documents and taking documents out of context to sling mud.” | Suits and Litigation;Facebook.com;Computers and the Internet;Federal District Courts;Zuckerberg Mark E;02138 |
ny0197212 | [
"technology",
"companies"
] | 2009/10/23 | AT&T Beats Profit Estimate, Lifted by IPhone and Tracphone | AT&T reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit on Thursday as the iPhone and the low-budget Tracfone service attracted a record number of wireless customers. While AT&T faces home phone disconnections and a decline in business spending that led it to forecast a small drop in 2009 revenue, strength in its mobile service is offsetting much of the pain. Shares climbed 0.6 percent. “This is becoming a grindingly familiar pattern with strength in wireless and weakness in wireline,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. Wireless service makes up about 44 percent of AT&T’s revenue. While Apple’s iPhone is paying big dividends, some investors worry about AT&T’s increasing dependence on it because its exclusive right to sell iPhones in the United States is expected to expire next year. But AT&T said that the iPhone accounted for only about a third of new customers paying monthly bills in the quarter. “We have a legacy of having a great portfolio of products. We know that’s going to continue after the iPhone is no longer exclusive to us,” AT&T’s mobile chief executive, Ralph de la Vega, said in a conference call with analysts. AT&T reported 3.2 million iPhone activations for the period, more than expected. That helped it attract two million net new customers, a third more than analysts had forecast, with a big portion being the valuable monthly bill payers. Aside from the iPhone surprise, Mr. Moffett said much of AT&T’s customer growth was from Tracfone, an América Móvil unit that uses AT&T’s network to sell prepaid services. Analysts were not impressed with AT&T’s landline business. The company’s enterprise revenue declined 10.4 percent, and overall landline revenue fell 7 percent, reflecting budget constraints and job cuts in the corporate world. The declines also pointed to the continued trend of households disconnecting their home phone lines in favor of wireless or cable services. Over all, earnings totaled $3.2 billion, or 54 cents a share, compared with $3.2 billion, or 55 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts expected a profit of 50 cents a share. Revenue fell 1.6 percent, to $30.86 billion from $31.34 billion. | AT&T Corp;Company Reports |
ny0288481 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/08/06 | Weighing the Strengths and Shortcomings of China’s Education System | Nothing stirs passions quite like the debate over the Chinese school system. Critics say it is a test-obsessed bureaucracy that produces students who excel at reciting facts but not much else. Others argue that it is equipping children with exceptionally strong skills , particularly in math and science. Scott Rozelle , a Stanford University economist who runs a rural education program in China, is an author of a new study that challenges popular conceptions of Chinese schools. In a recent conversation, he discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese education system, as well as the advice he would offer the country’s leaders. Your study finds that Chinese students begin college with some of the strongest critical thinking skills in the world, far outpacing their peers in the United States and Russia. But they lose that advantage after two years. What is going on? It’s a good news, bad news story. The good news: Whatever the heck they do in high school, whether you like it or not, they are teaching massive numbers of kids math, physics and some type of critical thinking skills. What drives me crazy is they’re not learning anything in college. There are no incentives for the kids to work hard. Everyone graduates. Why are high schools doing a better job than colleges? In high school, parents provide oversight. If they don’t think their kid’s being pushed hard, they’re the first ones on the phone, the first ones standing at the teacher’s desk. From the teacher’s view, they have a huge incentive to get their students through the curriculum and get through the tests. Say you are appointed to lead a university in China. What is the first thing you change? In the United States, we get rewarded for good teaching. Your promotions and salary raises depend on you getting good evaluations from students, on performing well in the classroom and winning awards. That’s every bit as important as publishing research. In China, that’s not happening. The professors we work with say, “Why should we push the kids if they’re going to graduate anyway?” Image Scott Rozelle A lot of criticism inside and outside of China focuses on the gaokao , the national exam that Chinese students spend years cramming for because it is the main criterion for getting into college. Some people say it is killing creativity. Is it time for change? We plan to study creativity in our next round of exams, and it will be very interesting to see how the Chinese and the other East Asian students perform. A lot of people would say the gaokao is a fair system. Some reforms are needed for the one-test-score-does-all model. We need to reduce the pressure somewhat and to focus teaching on producing better-rounded children. If you were in a room with China’s top leaders, what advice would you give them about the education system? I’d ask: “Why isn’t everybody going to high school? How do we get everybody to go to high school?” It’s a rural problem. Then you ask yourself, “Why aren’t these rural kids going to high school?” Well, it’s because 10, 15, 20 percent of them drop out of junior high school. They aren’t even finishing junior high. What is happening in middle school? This isn’t India, where half the teachers are absent, or Africa, where they haven’t been able to improve the quality of teaching. In China, you’ve got good facilities and good teachers. The curriculum in rural areas is the same as the best that’s taught to the city kids. So what is it? What our work shows very clearly is that it’s really the matter of the individual kids in rural areas. They’re sick. They’ve got uncorrected myopia, malnutrition, anemia and intestinal worms. Forty percent of children in our sample in Guizhou have worms in their stomach. How do you study in elementary school if you’ve got worms in your stomach? At the same time, prosperity is rising and China has become more urban. This is the irony. They have the fastest-growing economy in terms of wealth in Asia. But the kids are a victim of China’s own success. China really grew so fast, and they’ve invested in resources and teachers. But they’ve left behind the human element. | China;Tests;K-12 Education;College;Stanford;Scott Rozelle |
ny0218357 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2010/05/16 | Russia Defeats Germany | Alex Ovechkin scored his fourth goal in four games to lead Russia to a 3-2 victory against host Germany at the hockey world championship in Cologne. A two-time defending champion, Russia improved to 3-0 in the second round. In the relegation round, Matt Gilroy had three goals and the United States ended its scoring struggles with a 10-0 victory over Kazakhstan. The United States plays France on Sunday. | Hockey Ice;Ovechkin Alex;Gilroy Matt;Germany |
ny0028920 | [
"technology"
] | 2013/01/14 | Start-Up Investors Grow Wary of Tech Ventures After Facebook’s I.P.O. | SAN FRANCISCO — Call it the Facebook effect. Until recently, investors had been all too eager to pour millions into any Web start-up with rapid growth, regardless of whether it made money or even had plans to do so down the road. But after Facebook’s rocky initial public offering and flameouts at Zynga and Groupon, venture capitalists are entering a picky phase. “Earlier, entrepreneurs didn’t need a real monetization strategy,” said Brian O’Malley, an early investor at Battery Ventures. “They could punt on revenue indefinitely because their investment dollars were their revenue. They could fund their start-ups with funding versus customers.” No longer favored are e-commerce start-ups , which face logistical hurdles and require a lot of money. The celebrated shift to smartphones, once welcomed with an outpouring of investments, is now making some investors nervous as monetization proves harder for mobile devices than it did for the Web. Investors have also grown weary of start-ups and applications that rely entirely on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for customers, now that those companies are focused on their own bottom lines. And Silicon Valley is discovering that while it may be easier than ever to start a company, it is harder than ever to build an enduring business. Younger start-ups are beginning to feel the pinch. CB Insights, a research firm, analyzed 4,056 initial, or seed, investments made in tech start-ups in the United States since 2009. It found that more than 1,000 start-ups that attracted seed financing from angel investors — wealthy investors who put in money from their own pockets — will find themselves orphaned this year when venture capitalists reject their requests for more money. As a result, $1 billion in angel investments will evaporate. That carnage hardly compares to the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, when $3 trillion was lost on the Nasdaq, but it is enough to give Internet investors and entrepreneurs pause. CB Insights predicts that Internet start-ups will be the hardest hit, because they have attracted more seed money than enterprise and hardware companies but will most likely have a harder time securing follow-up investments. Part of the problem is simple math. Angel investors seed businesses with small sums, often less than $1.5 million. But to grow a business, entrepreneurs eventually have to solicit financing from the venture capitalists who invest on behalf of endowments, pension funds, foundations and the like. And while the number of angels eager to write checks has increased, the number of active venture capitalists has decreased. Image In Manhattan, workers at Omgpop, which offers an app that allows users to draw on a cellphone or iPad. It is owned by Zynga. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times But investors say it is not just the bottleneck that is to blame. The realities of building an enduring business are starting to sink in. “It has never been easier to start a company, and never harder to build one,” said David Lee, a venture capitalist at SV Angel, an early-stage investment firm. David O. Sacks, a Silicon Valley executive who sold Yammer to Microsoft for $1.2 billion last year, summed up the challenges in a bearish note on Facebook last August. “I think Silicon Valley as we know it may be coming to an end,” Mr. Sacks wrote. “To create a successful new company,” he said, entrepreneurs have to find an idea that “has escaped the attention of the major Internet companies, which are better run than before.” To attract follow-up money, new companies now have to prove themselves for less than $5 million. On top of that, they must be “protectable from the onslaught of those big companies once they figure out what you’re on to,” Mr. Sacks said. “How many ideas like that are left?” Mr. Sacks’s comments were widely debated within Silicon Valley. One of his most vocal critics was Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of Netscape and of Andreessen-Horowitz, a venture capital firm, who said on Facebook that the opportunities for start-ups were “unending.” But start-ups are finding that their supply of capital is not. “The valuations got ahead of themselves,” said Rich Wong, a venture investor at Accel Partners. “Where people only paid attention to multiple quarters, now they are looking more than a year ahead for projected results.” Mr. Wong said e-commerce companies in particular were drawing closer scrutiny. Investors who took note of Amazon’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Zappos and its $540 million purchase of Quidsi, the owner of Diapers.com, poured millions into e-commerce sites, only to discover that they are difficult to run. Gilt Groupe, a flash deal site for fashion, raised some $220 million in capital but is still not profitable. Last year, the company was forced to cut staff. It is scaling back on smaller brands like Gilt Taste and Park & Bond, and it has put Jetsetter, its popular online travel site, up for sale . Fab.com, a daily deal site for design, raised money at a lower valuation than it had planned because of Facebook’s troubled I.P.O. Investors also predict that Zulily, a flash deal site for mothers, will have a hard time justifying its recent $1 billion valuation. ShoeDazzle, Kim Kardashian’s shoe site, raised $66 million and Lot18, a flash deal site for wine, raised $45 million from investors impressed with their user growth. Both companies were forced to make staff cuts last year. “I am skeptical of ‘Commerce 2.0,’ which has come to mean daily deals and discounts,” said Peter Fenton, a venture partner at Benchmark Capital. Mr. Fenton said flash sites like Zulily and Gilt “are capital-intensive, face structural challenges to their margins, and if they do go public, they trade at low multiples. Plus, I seriously question their ability to compete with a juggernaut like Amazon.” Image Investors predict that Zulily, a flash deal site for mothers, will have a hard time justifying its recent $1 billion valuation. Likewise, investors are becoming skeptical of social games and applications that build on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These social networks are a shaky foundation for a business because they themselves are feeling pressure to monetize. For example, Facebook made tweaks to its newsfeed algorithm last fall that reduced the number of users who can view Facebook status updates. The company said it made the tweaks to serve its users more relevant content, but advertisers complained that the changes cut the audience for their posts in half. The real impetus for the change, advertisers say, was to force companies to use Facebook’s new promotion feature, which gives users the option to pay to ensure their updates reach a wider audience. BranchOut, a professional network that culled data from LinkedIn and Facebook, raised $49 million from venture investors but had to change its business model in 2011 after LinkedIn cut off access to its data. More recently, Tweetro, a Twitter application for Windows 8, was removed from the market in November after it outgrew Twitter’s new third-party user limits. “Investors are getting smarter about the sources of traffic,” said Mr. O’Malley of Battery Ventures. “Companies that rely heavily on Twitter and Facebook, or mobile, are having a tougher time.” Venture capital investments in mobile companies were up 75 percent in the first nine months of 2012 compared with the same period in 2011, according to CB Insights, but developers face different challenges on smartphones than they did on the Web. “There was so much hype around the transition to mobile, but people are realizing that mobile is challenging,” Mr. O’Malley said. Among the obstacles is the fact that developers are subject to Apple’s whims. Also, they must persuade people to download their apps, and advertising is more complicated on a smaller screen. So which consumer start-ups are likely to survive the chopping block? “People are looking more seriously at engagement metrics,” Mr. O’Malley said. “What percent of your users are coming back? How engaged are they? Are they a ‘sticky’ user?” That dose of reality may be healthy. Mr. Lee of SV Angel said that 18 months ago, every other business pitch he heard was social, local or mobile. Today, he sees more diverse company ideas and more durable, predictable business models. “Now companies that have a predictable business model, or a way of getting engaged users, and global, addressable markets are the companies getting the lofty valuations,” Mr. Lee said. But, he added, “that’s making me more cheap.” | Venture capital;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Startup;Facebook;Groupon;Entrepreneurship |
ny0007799 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/05/31 | Assad Warns Israel, Claiming Stockpile of Russian Arms | BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria displayed a new level of defiance on Thursday, warning Israel that he could permit attacks on the Golan Heights and suggesting that he had secured plenty of weapons from Russia — possibly including an advanced missile system — as his opponents faltered politically and Hezbollah fighters infused force into his military campaign to crush the Syrian insurgency. Mr. Assad spoke in an interview broadcast on Al-Manar television , which is owned by his ally Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite militant group, further punctuating his message of growing confidence that he could prevail over an insurgency that is now more than two years old and has claimed more than 80,000 lives. Asked about Russian weapons deliveries, Mr. Assad said: “Russia is committed with Syria in implementing these contracts. What we agreed upon with Russia will be implemented, and part of it has been implemented over the recent period, and we are continuing to implement it.” He was vague on whether Russia’s deliveries had included a sophisticated S-300 air missile system — of particular concern to Israel because it could compromise its ability to strike Syria from the air and because those missiles can hit deep inside Israeli territory. The Israelis have said they would not abide a Syrian deployment of S-300s, suggesting they would use force to destroy them. Before the broadcast, Al-Manar sent out text messages that paraphrased Mr. Assad as saying Syria had already received a first shipment of the S-300 missiles. It was unclear why Al-Manar said before the broadcast that Mr. Assad had spoken about the missile system when it was not directly mentioned in the televised interview. Al-Manar later said it mischaracterized what Mr. Assad had said. But American and Israeli officials have been pressing Russia to defer the S-300 system delivery to Syria, and there were other indications that the paraphrased comments may have been a premature boast or bluff. Israeli officials and Western diplomats in the region said they did not believe such a system had yet arrived in Syria, with some saying any delivery could be at least a few weeks away. Even so, the possibility presented a new risk that the Syrian war could expand into a broader conflict. “We’re in stormy waters indeed,” said Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. “Somebody or other has to not do what they have openly claimed they would do. Somebody has to lose serious face, and governments don’t like to lose face at the moment of serious confrontation.” Image President Bashar al-Assad was interviewed Thursday on Al-Manar television, owned by Hezbollah, in Damascus. Credit SANA, via Associated Press Mr. Assad spent considerable time in the interview to warn Israel, which attacked what it suspected were weapons caches in Syria this month that the Israelis suspected were bound for Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. “We will retaliate for any Israeli aggression next time,” Mr. Assad said. He also suggested the possibility of renewed fighting in the Golan Heights, the disputed border area occupied by Israel, which has been largely quiet for more than 40 years. “In fact, there is clear popular pressure to open the Golan front to resistance,” Mr. Assad said. The Syrian government, he said, had received “many Arab delegations wanting to know how young people might be enrolled to come and fight Israel.” Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Mr. Assad’s comments on the Golan were worrisome in the context of other recent statements from Syria, particularly its assertion that Israel had violated the 1974 agreement that has allowed for the calm along the cease-fire line. “It’s a very sensitive, explosive situation being created by the new level of rhetoric,” Mr. Yaari said. “You ask yourself whether the rhetoric is not going to lead to actions at some point.” Mr. Assad reiterated the Syrian government’s intention to attend a United Nations peace conference on Syria, which Russia and the United States have been seeking to convene in Geneva in coming weeks despite their own differences over the conflict. But he said any agreements that might result from such a conference would have to be approved by Syrians in a referendum. Even as Mr. Assad’s interview was broadcast, fissures within the Syrian opposition widened, with rebel military commanders demanding a significant new role in the main exile organization. The disparity underscored the fact that Mr. Assad appeared to be consolidating his position, buttressed on both military and political fronts by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, while the Western-backed opposition stumbled toward ever more serious disarray. All week, the 63-member Syrian Coalition, the main rebel group, has been entangled anew in petty disputes over how many seats to add. Its leadership announced Thursday that it would boycott the peace conference. It attributed the boycott to Iranian and Hezbollah interference in Syria, but analysts saw it as a position born of weakness and the inability to forge a strong, united bargaining front. Image A Free Syrian Army fighter kept watch in Aleppo for snipers. Credit Aref Hretani/Reuters “This is a low point,” said Amr al-Azm, a Syrian-born history professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio who tracks the opposition. “Unlike earlier screaming matches, you have a bad military situation on the ground and Geneva is looming and the opposition has nothing to play. This is as bad as it gets.” Both the United States and Russia face difficult prospects in getting the Geneva talks even to begin. Representatives of the organizers are expected to meet in Geneva on June 5 to discuss details, including a concrete date. Moscow faces the challenge of getting Mr. Assad to send a strong enough delegation to make real decisions about a cease-fire and a political transition — essentially a delegation that will agree to limit his power. The ministers he has named to the delegation so far are political appointees with no real power and no role in the inner circle. It will be tough to convince Mr. Assad because he feels that he is negotiating from a position of strength, analysts said. The thud of artillery has diminished around Damascus, and there are few checkpoints in the past couple of weeks, according to recent visitors. With a fresh infusion of Hezbollah fighters, government forces might soon expel the opposition from the important crossroads town of Qusayr, which they have held for months. That would mean Mr. Assad controls all the territory he cares about most, analysts said, namely the area around the capital and the key route to the coastal stronghold of his Alawite minority, which dominates the government. For the United States and its allies, the first challenge is creating a united delegation from an opposition that has always been anything but united. The Syrian Coalition has been plagued by internal turmoil since its inception in late 2011. The group has failed to deliver on most of its promises, ranging from distributing humanitarian aid to areas outside government control, to creating a unified military command, to becoming a serious government-in-exile. Instead the uneasy, distrustful members — dominated by long-exiled members of the Muslim Brotherhood, academics living abroad for decades and political activists fleeing Syria — have spent most of their time in luxury hotels arguing over which faction should claim what responsibility. The coalition’s problems have not been lost on Mr. Assad, who spoke contemptuously of his political adversaries in the Al-Manar television interview, describing them as exiles and paid stooges of hostile foreign governments — another indication that prospects for the Geneva conference are dim. “We will attend this conference as the official delegation and legitimate representatives of the Syrian people,” he said. “But, whom do they represent? When this conference is over, we return to Syria, we return home to our people. But when the conference is over, whom do they return to — five-star hotels?” | Syria;Bashar al-Assad;Israel;Russia;Hezbollah;Arab Spring |
ny0041993 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/05/29 | Other Lenders Sought for Trade Center Tower | The developer Larry A. Silverstein failed on Wednesday for the second time in two months to gain approval for additional government support for his long-stalled second office building at the World Trade Center. But the developer’s $2.3 billion, 80-story tower is not dead yet. Mr. Silverstein has told real estate executives in recent days that he is optimistic that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will eventually guarantee his construction loan, increasing the authority’s support to $1.2 billion, from $190 million. Knowing that the board of the Port Authority is sharply divided on the matter, however, Mr. Silverstein has been working on lining up money from possible backup lenders: a financial institution; an insurance company; a nontraditional lender such as SL Green Realty, a publicly traded real estate company; or Blackstone Group, a private equity firm. It remains to be seen whether he can strike a deal, but Mr. Silverstein has signed a lease with a major advertising media company, GroupM, for almost one-fifth of the tower. Construction on the building itself has been stuck at the eighth floor for more than a year. “We are committed to continuing the incredible momentum that has been realized in Lower Manhattan to date, and remain 100 percent focused on ensuring a fully rebuilt and revitalized World Trade in the heart of the world’s most dynamic urban neighborhood,” Mr. Silverstein said in a statement on Wednesday. The debate at the Port Authority has centered not on whether the tower should be built, but on whether the public sector or a private developer should shoulder the risk of financing the project. “They recognized the votes were not there,” said Kenneth Lipper, a board member and a critic of the deal. “The proposal to guarantee the $1.2 billion is D.O.A. We’ve gone back to the idea that we’ll limit our exposure to the $200 million that was part of our 2010 agreement.” Mr. Silverstein completed his first tower, 72 stories tall, late last year. The Port Authority and the city have committed to lease about half of that building, which is currently vacant. The developer is close to signing another tenant, MediaMath, a software developer. The Port Authority owns the trade center site. Its board was scheduled to vote on Wednesday on the Silverstein proposal for the second tower, but after a straw poll on Tuesday night revealed that the proposal would fail, the item was pulled from the agenda. Mr. Silverstein expressed surprise that “the discussions did not yield a successful resolution.” Proponents of restructuring the deal with Mr. Silverstein, led by Scott H. Rechler, the authority’s vice chairman, say that the completion of the tower would signal that the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site was complete. The authority, in turn, would get rent from Mr. Silverstein for the new tower, while the building’s construction would allow for the completion of a retail mall at the complex. (There are currently plans for two other nearby mall projects , one centered in the transportation hub; the other across West Street.) Critics such as Mr. Lipper, who, like Mr. Rechler, was appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said that it made no sense to subsidize Mr. Silverstein’s tower when there was so much vacant office space available downtown, including space at 1 World Trade Center. There are tenants for a little more than one-third of the three million square feet at 1 World Trade Center. The authority and its partner, the Durst Organization, have been unable to lure any major tenants since 2011, when they signed a deal with Condé Nast. The Durst Organization recently cut the rents for lower floors to $69 per square foot, down from $75. Mr. Lipper argues that guaranteeing the $1.2 billion construction loan could hurt the authority’s credit rating and divert from its core mission of building and maintaining transportation infrastructure in New York and New Jersey. Matt Fabian, an analyst with Municipal Market Advisors, agreed, saying, “This loan guarantee could, in theory, threaten the authority’s ratings, in particular if the occupancy does poorly, if the local economy turns sour, or if the developer’s finances worsen.” Mr. Silverstein signed a lease with GroupM last December for 516,000 square feet. But traditional lenders are reluctant to finance an office tower that does not have tenants for 40 percent to 50 percent of the space. The deal with GroupM commits 20 percent of the space. Some insurance companies and private equity firms could provide the financial backing, although they would almost certainly seek a higher interest rate and a stake in the building. Instead, Mr. Silverstein asked the authority for more help. Mr. Rechler said, “I have great confidence that we’re on the path to getting this done in a way that reduces our exposure and gets the tower built in time to meet GroupM’s time frame.” | Commercial Real Estate;Larry A Silverstein;World Trade Center;1 World Trade Center;Durst Organization;Port Authority;GroupM;NYC |
ny0142130 | [
"business"
] | 2008/11/26 | Texas Investment Firm Is Liquidating Hedge Fund | Parkcentral Capital Management, an investment firm that manages money for the family of Ross Perot , is liquidating a fixed-income hedge fund because it is “no longer viable.” This year through October, Parkcentral Global Hub’s assets fell as much as 40 percent, to $1.5 billion. The fund is selling its remaining holdings to pay creditors, Eddie Reeves, a spokesman, said Tuesday. Mr. Perot and members of his family were the fund’s biggest investors. “Parkcentral Global has been impacted dramatically by the unprecedented upheaval of the capital markets in general and the freezing of credit markets in particular,” Mr. Reeves said. ”The fund is no longer viable.” Parkcentral Capital is based in Plano, Tex. | Hedge Funds;Perot Ross;Parkcentral Capital Management |
ny0248782 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2011/05/06 | Turkey: Kurdish Rebels Claim Attack | Kurdish separatists claimed responsibility on Thursday for the attack on the prime minister’s campaign convoy the day before, the semi-official Anatolian News Agency reported. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not travelling with the convoy when it was attacked by a group of five or six gunmen, reported to be members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, near Kastamonu, a Black Sea port. One policeman was killed. The governor of Kastamonu, Erdogan Bektas, said the attack was not an attempt on the prime minister’s life but simply aimed at stirring chaos. | Turkey;Erdogan Recep Tayyip;Kurds |
ny0199438 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2009/07/24 | A.P. Cracks Down on Unpaid Use of Articles on Web | Taking a new hard line that news articles should not turn up on search engines and Web sites without permission, The Associated Press said Thursday that it would add software to each article that shows what limits apply to the rights to use it, and that notifies The A.P. about how the article is used. Tom Curley, The A.P.’s president and chief executive, said the company’s position was that even minimal use of a news article online required a licensing agreement with the news organization that produced it. In an interview, he specifically cited references that include a headline and a link to an article, a standard practice of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, news aggregators and blogs. Asked if that stance went further than The A.P. had gone before, he said, “That’s right.” The company envisions a campaign that goes far beyond The A.P., a nonprofit corporation. It wants the 1,400 American newspapers that own the company to join the effort and use its software. “If someone can build multibillion-dollar businesses out of keywords, we can build multihundred-million businesses out of headlines, and we’re going to do that,” Mr. Curley said. The goal, he said, was not to have less use of the news articles, but to be paid for any use. Search engines and news aggregators contend that their brief article citations fall under the legal principle of fair use. Executives at some news organizations have said they are reluctant to test the Internet boundaries of fair use, for fear that the courts would rule against them. Mr. Curley declined to address the fair use question, or to say what action The A.P. would take against sites that use articles without licensing. “We’re not picking the legal remedy today,” he said. “Let’s define the scope of the problem.” News organizations already have the ability to prevent their work from turning up in search engines — but doing so would shrink their Web audience, and with it, their advertising revenues. What The A.P. seeks is not that articles should appear less often in search results, but that such use would become a new source of revenue. Gabriel Stricker, a spokesman for Google, said, “We believe search engines are of real benefit to news publishers, driving valuable traffic to their Web sites and connecting them with readers around the world.” Some news executives agree and contend that a confrontation with search engines is misguided. The new program, approved Thursday by The A.P. board, is being introduced in stages that reach into next year. It follows through on a statement the company made in April vowing to take on digital piracy not only on its own behalf, but also as the agent for the embattled newspaper industry. Each article — and, in the future, each picture and video — would go out with what The A.P. called a digital “wrapper,” data invisible to the ordinary consumer that is intended, among other things, to maximize its ranking in Internet searches. The software would also send signals back to The A.P., letting it track use of the article across the Web. Newspaper executives have said that by taking the lead, The A.P. ensures a unified approach, saves publishers from having to design their own software and circumvents possible charges of collusion against the papers. Some popular news aggregators like The Huffington Post and Google News have licensing agreements, paying The A.P. for the use of its material. But no comparable agreements cover general Internet searches that turn up news articles with a variety of other results. Executives at newspapers and other traditional news organizations have long complained about how some sites make money from their work, putting ads on pages with excerpts from articles and links to the sources of the articles. Another complaint is that a link to an article sometimes leads to another secondhand user, not the original source, which can deprive the creator of some of the audience for its own site and the ads on it. Some less-well-known sites reprint articles outright, or large parts of them, without permission, a clearer copyright violation. But there is little consensus on how extensive that problem is for news organizations. | Associated Press;Search Engines;News and News Media;Computers and the Internet;Copyrights |
ny0048113 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2014/11/07 | Sierra Leone Detains Journalist for Criticism of Ebola Response | In what reporters in Sierra Leone denounced as an abuse of the government’s emergency powers to deal with the spread of Ebola, one of the country’s most prominent broadcast journalists was detained this week after he devoted a segment of his popular radio program to a critical discussion of President Ernest Bai Koroma’s handling of the outbreak. The radio host, David Tam-Baryoh, was arrested on Monday following a broadcast of his weekly program “Monologue” on the independent station Citizen FM. Listeners in Freetown told the Committee to Protect Journalists that Saturday’s episode was interrupted after Mr. Tam-Baryoh interviewed an opposition spokesman who criticized the president’s response to the Ebola crisis and his supposed interest in seeking a third term in office. According to Umaru Fofana, who reports for the BBC and the Freetown news site Politico, a senior police official said that Mr. Tam-Baryoh was arrested as a result of “an executive order signed by his excellency the president.” The same officer said that the detention would last “until it pleases his excellency” to release the reporter. On Thursday, Mr. Fofana reported that Mr. Tam-Baryoh’s wife had been denied access to him, and that the police raided his office and confiscated equipment. Mohamed Massaquoi, a local newspaper editor who is the president of the Sierra Leone Reporters Union, denounced the arrest as an abuse of the president’s powers. In an interview with Daniel Finnan of Radio France International, he said, “We are under health emergency, we are not under public emergency.” “If you are going to arrest journalists simply because of saying the facts,” he added, “then it’s a shame to the government, it’s a shame to the people of Sierra Leone.” Freetown’s Global Times reported that there were concerns over the detained reporter’s health after he “complained of chest pain” in custody at a maximum-security prison. Image The journalists' detention was front-page news in Sierra Leone. Credit Sierra Network Salone, via Facebook The arrest was front-page news in Sierra Leone, although one newspaper, The Awareness Times, featured an editorial by its publisher, Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, who asserted that Mr. Tam-Baryoh had been arrested not for criticism of the Ebola response, but for sectarian “incitement.” Ms. Blyden, a former close adviser to the president who resigned last month , has also criticized the health ministry, saying it underreported cases of Ebola. Before she left the government, she was involved in a bitter dispute with Mr. Tam-Baryoh . Previously, however, she had been full of praise for his work. In 2012, she wrote: “Sierra Leone’s leading good governance and social activism radio program is the weekly ‘Monologue’ program hosted by seasoned journalist David Tam-Baryoh. The program is famous for spurring various governments and officials into doing the right thing for citizens, as it is known to have a huge listenership.” In response to criticism of her editorial, Ms. Blyden wrote Thursday on Facebook that emergency measures were justified, since “we are AT WAR with a virus that has KILLED thousands of our compatriots so far.” Peter Nkanga of the Committee to Protect Journalists said: “Sierra Leone’s genuine state of emergency means that critical thinking and public debate are more important than ever. Locking away journalists without charge helps nobody. We call on President Ernest Bai Koroma to ensure that David Tam-Baryoh is released immediately and that journalists are allowed to do their jobs freely.” | Sierra Leone;Ernest Bai Koroma;Committee to Protect Journalists;Freedom of the press;Ebola |
ny0026574 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/01/02 | In Hong Kong, Rival Protests Are Divided Over Leader | HONG KONG — Thousands of demonstrators in rival marches crowded through Hong Kong’s main shopping district on Tuesday to praise or condemn the city’s chief executive, who appears to retain the confidence of leaders in Beijing despite facing criticism here over a series of actions. The New Year’s Day marches underlined deep political divisions in Hong Kong , a semiautonomous territory that Britain returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Critics of the chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, accuse him of misleading the public on a controversial real estate issue, and of being a puppet installed by Beijing. Many of his critics also favor greater democracy for Hong Kong, where the chief executive is now chosen by a 1,200-member panel packed with Beijing loyalists; the general public elects half the legislature, while the other half is chosen by business leaders and other groups that also tend to follow Beijing’s wishes. Mr. Leung’s backers, mainly organized by groups with lavish financial support from Beijing, contend that he is beginning to address deep-seated social issues here. They also tend to suggest that democracy is a Western concept that may not be compatible with local culture or with rapid economic development. Supporters of Mr. Leung roughed up two local journalists at a separate rally on Sunday; many Beijing loyalists accuse Hong Kong journalists of being biased in favor of democracy. But the events on Tuesday were largely peaceful. Organizers of two follow-up rallies in favor of Mr. Leung gave crowd estimates totaling 62,500, while a police spokeswoman put the figure at 8,560. Demonstrators seeking Mr. Leung’s resignation were more numerous, with rival groups of organizers providing estimates for a march and a separate rally totaling 142,000 people, while police estimates totaled 28,500. The police announced on Wednesday morning than nine protesters against Mr. Leung had been arrested for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly the previous night after they tried to cross police lines to protest at the front gate of Mr. Leung’s official residence. Mr. Leung, who took office as chief executive on July 1, has faced heavy criticism for concealing during last winter’s election campaign that he had secretly expanded his $64 million home without receiving government planning permission or paying real estate fees due on the expansion. Mr. Leung has been widely accused of hypocrisy because he won the election partly by criticizing his opponent, Henry Tang, for the unauthorized construction of a huge basement under a villa owned by Mr. Tang’s wife. That construction was also done without government planning permission, which is difficult to obtain, and without making a large payment to the government, which owns virtually all the land in Hong Kong and collects hefty lease payments based mainly on the square footage of developments. Mr. Leung apologized this autumn for concealing his construction — he even built a false wall to hide his extension right before running for the territory’s top office. But he pointed out that he had not addressed his own compliance with Hong Kong real estate laws during the campaign. “In fact, in my memory, I did not say I had no illegal structure,” he told the legislature. Many Hong Kong residents blame growing immigration and tourism from mainland China for driving housing prices to unaffordable levels, for causing overcrowding in local schools and for making it harder for young people to find jobs. Mr. Leung has addressed these issues in his first six months in office by imposing steep taxes this autumn on short-term real estate investments by anyone who is not a permanent resident. He has also banned local hospitals, starting on New Year’s Day, from scheduling any more births for mainland mothers . Continued support for Mr. Leung from Beijing makes it likely that he will remain in office. When the legislature took up a no-confidence measure three weeks ago, a majority of the lawmakers elected by the general public voted against Mr. Leung, but a majority of lawmakers representing business leaders and other social groups supported him. To pass, a majority of both groups was required. In separate meetings with Mr. Leung nearly two weeks ago in Beijing, President Hu Jintao of China and Xi Jinping , who became the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party in November and is slated to become China’s next president in March, each said separately that they support Mr. Leung and his administration. “You have a heavy workload and it is exhausting,” Mr. Xi said. “The central government affirms your work.” Sprinkled among the protesters against Mr. Leung were a few people carrying the colonial Hong Kong flag that flew over the city during British rule. Beijing officials have asked Hong Kong residents not to display the flag, which they regard as a symbol of past foreign domination and humiliation of China. Steveny Chan, a young woman who identified herself only as an office worker and carried a roughly 3-foot-by-2-foot colonial flag, said that she did not favor the return of Hong Kong to British rule. She said that she was displaying the flag as a nostalgic symbol of a time when the Hong Kong economy seemed to offer more opportunities for young people, and when Britain, before the return to China, was granting the people of Hong Kong growing autonomy. “We’re missing the golden old days of Hong Kong,” she said. | Hong Kong;Leung Chun-ying;C.Y. Leung |
ny0076494 | [
"us"
] | 2015/05/17 | Death Sentence for Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Unsettles City He Tore Apart | BOSTON — The finish line of the Boston Marathon is a landmark here, a blue and yellow slash across Boylston Street that has represented pride and achievement for those who stagger across it in one of the great races of the running world. Since bombs went off here two years ago, all of Boston has claimed the line as a symbol of how this city came together in the smoky, sulfurous aftermath to tend to the dead and the maimed; it came to represent the city’s resilience. But since a federal jury on Friday sentenced the convicted bomber to death , the finish line suddenly seems to be a place of ambivalence. Fresh flowers are accumulating. A sense of sorrow lingers in the air. Sightseers who come to snap a photo feel a little self-conscious. Residents train their gaze on the line, and the conversations turn to death — and disappointment. “I was shocked,” said Scott Larson, 47, a records manager who works near the finish line. “The death penalty — for Boston.” To many, the death sentence almost feels like a blot on the city’s collective consciousness. To the amazement of people elsewhere, Bostonians overwhelmingly opposed condemning the bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to death. The most recent poll , conducted last month for The Boston Globe, found that just 15 percent of city residents wanted him executed. Statewide, 19 percent did. By contrast, 60 percent of Americans wanted Mr. Tsarnaev to get the death penalty, according to a CBS News poll last month. No one here felt sympathy for him. Rather, many thought life in prison would be a fate worse than death, especially for someone as young as Mr. Tsarnaev, who is 21. Others feared that putting him to death would make him a martyr. Still others, interviewed around the city Friday night and Saturday, reflected the region’s historical aversion to the death penalty. Neil Maher, who spent his teenage years in Boston and returned this weekend for his class reunion at Boston College High School, said the verdict had surprised and disappointed him. “They ought to demonstrate a little humanity,” said Mr. Maher, 66, who lives in Frederick, Md. “Killing a teenager’s not going to do anything. I think it’s just a kind of visceral revenge. I think that in three years, the people of Boston and the people on the jury will feel bad about this decision.” Like many others, he could not square the death sentence with the sense of Massachusetts exceptionalism that has pervaded Boston since 1630, when the Puritan John Winthrop said this spot in the New World would be “as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.” Video U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would pay for his crimes with his life. Mr. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Credit Credit Cj Gunther/European Pressphoto Agency Mr. Maher, walking in South Boston on the waterfront, lamented that Massachusetts seemed to be losing its lofty goals and a piece of its unique identity. “The Chinese put a lot of people to death, and we put a lot of people to death, and almost nobody else in the world does,” he said. “It’s kind of a brutal thing. And for this to happen in Massachusetts ...” His voice trailed off. At the site of the bombing, Jessica Brown, an editor for a technology company, stared at the finish line while a companion from out of state took a photograph. The sentence had taken her, too, by surprise. “I really thought they were going to do life in prison,” said Ms. Brown, who expressed some philosophical doubt about the death penalty. “It raises the question of, should we react to murder with murder?” she said. For her, the question hit close to home because she lives in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, near Bill and Denise Richard. The couple’s 8-year-old son, Martin, was killed by one of the bombs — but they nonetheless made an open plea to the government to drop its pursuit of the death penalty and send Mr. Tsarnaev to prison instead. Some of the survivors of the bombings and their relatives felt very differently. Many supported the death penalty and expressed relief on Friday when word emanated from the courtroom that the jury had chosen it. Most were solemn, not triumphant. “I feel justice for my family,” said Liz Norden, who went to court almost every day during the trial and whose sons, Paul and J. P., lost legs in the blasts. “I have to watch my two sons put a leg on every day, so, I mean, I don’t know — closure? But I can tell you, it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.” Most public officials were noncommittal, if they made statements at all. Mayor Martin J. Walsh said he hoped the verdict would bring closure to the survivors, telling reporters later on Saturday: “I don’t think there’s any punishment too great for him.” The jurors themselves — the ones who sat in court day in and day out and heard the wrenching testimony of survivors, saw all the gruesome evidence and watched Mr. Tsarnaev slouch in his chair — were unflinching. They found him guilty last month of all 30 counts against him and then, on Friday, rejected the defense’s case wholesale and sentenced him to death after deliberating for 14 hours. The jury was “death qualified” — each juror had to be open to the death penalty; anyone who opposed it could not serve. In that sense, the federal jury did not reflect the general population of the region. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty for state crimes in 1984 and has not carried out an execution since 1947. Still, some people outside the courtroom did favor death for Mr. Tsarnaev. Peggy Fahey, a lifelong Bostonian who was sipping coffee on a park bench in South Boston early Saturday, said she believed that Mr. Tsarnaev had been treated too gently since his arrest and that death was what he irrefutably deserved. Reconstructing the Scene of the Boston Marathon Bombing An examination of the injuries and damage in the blast areas. “Oh, please, let him die. Enough is enough,” said Ms. Fahey, 78, her blue eyes blazing. “Why send him to a fancy prison out there in Colorado and let him be coddled again and let him be interviewed by Diane Sawyer — you know what I mean? Just be done with it.” But many more seemed to share the view of Priscilla Winter, 56, an elementary school teacher from Dorchester who was strolling along the South Boston waterfront. To her, the verdict felt morally wrong. “Martin Richard’s parents didn’t believe it was right, so how is anyone else supposed to?” Ms. Winter asked, her voice rising. “It didn’t happen to me,” she said. “I didn’t lose anybody. I didn’t lose a leg. I wasn’t there. But to hear somebody who was affected that much — they lost a son — for them to be that way?” Ms. Winter’s walking companion, Liam Larkin, 57, said he lived around the corner from the Richards. Like them, he said, he wanted the closure that a life sentence would have brought. “I think the best way of punishing him would be to send him to the Supermax,” said Mr. Larkin, who works removing lead from old buildings. “It was horrendous what he did; it really was,” Mr. Larkin said. “But I don’t agree with the death penalty. Even if his brother was alive, and he was the one who instigated the whole thing, I’d say send him to Supermax, too. I think it’s a fit punishment for him, to be honest. More fitting than this.” Milton and Dania Pouncy, chasing their toddler along the waterfront as planes roared overhead, said they preferred life in prison for Mr. Tsarnaev because he deserved to suffer. “I think that was too simple, to put him to death,” said Ms. Pouncy, 39, who works in accounts receivable at a hospital. “I think he needs to suffer some. Death is too easy. Once it’s over, it’s over.” Mr. Pouncy, 47, agreed, adding that he wondered how much solace the death penalty could provide for survivors. “The families who lost people are still going to be numb. Maybe they’ll feel like a little bit of justice has been done, but all in all, it’s not going to bring their loved ones back.” | Boston Marathon Bombings;Dzhokhar A Tsarnaev;Capital punishment;Murders and Homicides;Boston |
ny0042310 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2014/05/28 | Countdown to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil: Day 16 | The 2014 World Cup begins on June 12, when Brazil plays Croatia in the opening match. The Times is counting down to the start of the tournament each day with a short capsule of news and interesting tidbits. First he named 30 players. Then, after about 10 days of workouts, he sent seven of them packing. (You may have heard about at least one of these cuts .) Now Jurgen Klinsmann will take the 23-member United States national team out for a test drive on Tuesday night with an exhibition game against Azerbaijan in San Francisco. What will he be looking for? Klinsmann gave some hints about what he wants to see when he met with reporters on Monday. First among them is a win. “ There’s a purpose behind choosing Azerbaijan ,” Klinsmann said. “It’s a team that’s not in the top category of opponents. We wanted to kind of not hit a Top 10 team right away in the first match after a very strong preparation where we did a lot of physical work so the legs might be here and there a bit heavier. It’s important to start the send-off series with a win and build confidence.” Other things fans should be on the lookout for: Substitutions . Klinsmann says he expects to use all six at his disposal. “We’ll definitely experiment here and there ,” he said. So if you have a favorite player who’s not a goalkeeper, you’ll probably get a look at him. Tinkering . Klinsmann has hinted the lineup that takes the field on Tuesday night will be close to the one he’ll run out against Ghana in the Americans’ first World Cup game, but he also said he would try some different combinations — especially on the back line — to try to get a feel for who and what works best defensively. Various reports have suggested a variety of combinations , with a center-back pairing of Matt Besler and Geoff Cameron emerging as a strong possibility with Omar Gonzalez recovering from a knee injury . It’s on the outside where things are less settled. Fabian Johnson, Timothy Chandler, DaMarcus Beasley, Cameron (who plays on the right for Stoke City in England, and only if he’s not in the center) and others all could get a look. Because what’s more fun than tinkering with your defense two weeks before the World Cup? A New No. 10 . With Landon Donovan back in training with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the No. 10 jersey he has worn for the United States for years is on the market. Klinsmann wouldn’t say who would wear it in Brazil — “I’m going to ask the equipment manager,” Klinsmann said , smiling. “That’s his job.” — but whoever gets it will have more than performance fabric on his shoulders. He will also carry have Donovan’s considerable legacy, and the outrage of many fans who think only one man should be wearing it. Someone on the team is getting it — FIFA rules require jerseys numbered 1 to 23 at the World Cup — but so far no one is stepping up. Clint Dempsey has made it clear he doesn’t want it — he’s gone so far as to describe it as unlucky — and no one on the team even wears it at the club level. Update [9:30 p.m.]. Klinsmann’s lineup against Azerbaijan is a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield: Tim Howard; Fabian Johnson, Geoff Cameron, Matt Besler, DaMarcus Beasley; Jermaine Jones, Graham Zusi, Alejandro Bedoya, Michael Bradley; Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore. The back four is not a surprise, as word of it had begun to filter out, but both Cameron and Johnson will be playing positions that are in some ways unfamiliar to them. Deploying Jones in the holding/distribution role and Bradley in a more attacking spot will be interesting though, since each has the skill and the tendency to do the job assigned to the other. Watch their positional discipline tonight, or at least their communication if they decide to swap roles at all. | 2014 World Cup;Soccer;Jurgen Klinsmann;US Men's Soccer Team |
ny0189288 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2009/05/20 | Mets Drop Another Ball and Another Game | LOS ANGELES — The Mets showed up for work at Dodger Stadium early Tuesday afternoon, eager to give this baseball thing another try. They hit. They caught. They fielded. And they threw a little, too. It all may have helped, as they committed one error instead of five, and managed to touch third base every time on their journeys home. What they could not do Tuesday night was pitch, and John Maine teetered all game before finally toppling in the sixth inning. Casey Blake crushed a go-ahead three-run homer to propel the Dodgers to a 5-3 victory, sending the Mets to their third consecutive loss and knocking them out of first place in the National League East. “Just the way things are going, it’s tough to make a mistake at this point,” said Manager Jerry Manuel, “and it cost us.” To clarify, that mistake was Blake’s home run. He was not referring to the Mets’ mini-meltdown in the first inning. Although it was nowhere near as heinous as their 11th-inning implosion Monday, Manuel was not so pleased that Daniel Murphy got picked off first in the top of the inning, then botched Juan Pierre’s leadoff liner for a two-base error. It led to an unearned run, the Mets’ 20th allowed this season. “I made a good read, I just didn’t make the play,” Murphy said. Added Manuel: “As much as we’ve struggled defensively, we’re going to have to make some decisions one way or the other as to what type of team we are. Are we going to start kicking it around and hit it or are we going to hit it and try to catch it?” So far, it is tough to tell. Not even the return of Jose Reyes could spark an offense that has scored five runs over the last 29 innings and, after taking a 3-1 lead in the third, had only three hits the rest of the night. With Carlos Delgado out for at least the next 10 weeks following arthroscopic hip surgery, and Gary Sheffield not feeling well, the lineup Tuesday was as punchless as it has been all season. The No. 6 to No. 8 hitters — Ramon Martinez, Jeremy Reed and Omir Santos — went 0 for 9 with four strikeouts, and Maine, of all people, drove in the Mets’ first two runs with a second-inning single. Much as the Mets missed openings to add on, squandering a two-on, two-out chance in the seventh and a two-on, no-out opportunity in the eighth, Maine struggled to preserve their lead. He had his first poor start in nearly a month as the Dodgers threatened all night, chipping away with runners in the first and fourth before unloading off him in the sixth. After James Loney and Matt Kemp hit one-out singles, Blake, the No. 8 hitter, mashed a 1-0 slider into the left-field bleachers for his ninth homer of the season. “It’s always one bad pitch,” Maine said. But he threw more than just one, and how he handled Blake’s previous at-bat, with two outs in the fourth, was just as dispiriting, Manuel said. Maine fired two quick strikes to Blake, then threw three straight balls out of the strike zone. Blake, after fouling off a pitch, lined a single to right. Up stepped the pitcher, Chad Billingsley, who lined the first pitch into the left-center field gap for a double, scoring Blake to draw the Dodgers within 3-2. “I’ve got to do a better job concentrating in situations like that,” Maine said. In Billingsley, the Mets for the second time in three games faced a 24-year-old right-hander widely considered one of baseball’s top young starters. Unable to solve San Francisco’s Matt Cain on Sunday, they had only slightly better luck Tuesday, benefiting from Billingsley’s second-inning wildness to score their first two runs. Wright led off with a walk, moved to second on a wild pitch and, with two outs, wound up at third after Billingsley walked Jeremy Reed (intentionally) and Omir Santos (unintentionally) to bring up Maine. Among the starting pitchers, particularly Maine and Mike Pelfrey, there is an ongoing friendly competition to have the highest batting average. So far, Maine leads that contest with a .188 average, and he improved his standing by shooting a broken-bat single up the middle to score two runs and put the Mets ahead, 2-1. Wright added on another run with a third-inning single, but he got hung up between first and second and was tagged out in a rundown. That base-running blunder was not on par with Ryan Church’s gaffe in the 11th inning Monday, when he missed tagging third, but it still dampened the mood. Before the game, the Mets refrained from holding tutorials on touching third base, perhaps because the clip of Church stepping over it in the 11th inning Monday night was broadcast roughly 412 times. The MLB Network, playing on a clubhouse television, devoted a segment to “breaking down” the Mets’ five errors in their 3-2 loss to the Dodgers. Church said he flipped on the ESPN program “Around the Horn” just in time to see his gaffe being debated. “Every time I run around the bases, I’ll point and then I’ll touch,” Church said. “When I cross home plate I’ll hop on it.” One of the more preposterous innings in the Mets’ 47-year history, an inning that echoed Marv Throneberry and their very beginnings as a team, capped a defeat that was nearly too absurd to believe. After their go-ahead run was canceled when Church did not tag third base as he “scored” on Angel Pagan’s single, the Mets committed two errors to gift the victory to the Dodgers. “You don’t know what loss will send you spiraling in the other direction,” said Manuel, who was set to send closer Francisco Rodriguez into the game had the Mets gone ahead. “For the most part, over the years, we’ve taken those types of losses, forgotten about them and played good baseball the next day. The question becomes now, are we going to play good baseball tonight?” A few hours later, Manuel had the answer: no. | Baseball;New York Mets;Los Angeles Dodgers;Maine John |
ny0017266 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/10/12 | Israeli Man Fatally Bludgeoned in West Bank | JERUSALEM — An Israeli man who was a colonel in the reserves was fatally bludgeoned in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank on Friday, according to the Israeli military, and security forces detained five Palestinians in connection with the attack. The man, Sariya Ofer, 61, was attacked around 1 a.m. by at least two people in the yard of his house at Brosh Habika, an isolated resort village that he ran and that was empty of visitors at the time. His wife, Monique, who escaped and called for help after reaching a highway, said Mr. Ofer had gone outside after hearing noises. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said it was not immediately clear if the killing was a politically motivated act of terrorism or a criminal attack. He said Mr. Ofer was attacked with iron bars and a knife or an ax. “We are being cautious about determining the motive too early, as there are question marks over the case,” he said. Still, some right-wing politicians were quick to attribute the attack to terrorism, and they called on Israel’s leaders to refuse to release any more Palestinian security prisoners, which Israel has been doing as part of an American-brokered deal for the resumption of peace talks. The first group of 26 long-serving prisoners was freed in August ; three more groups are expected to be released in the coming months. Zeev Elkin, the deputy foreign minister, said the Palestinians interpreted Israel’s peaceful gestures as weakness, and he called for a halt in prisoner releases and a strengthening of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, according to Israel Radio. The death of the colonel comes after three other violent attacks on Israelis in recent weeks. Last weekend, an assailant shot and wounded a 9-year-old girl in the yard of her home in the Jewish settlement of Psagot, near Ramallah. Last month, an Israeli soldier was fatally shot in the West Bank city of Hebron, apparently by a Palestinian sniper, two days after an off-duty soldier was killed by a Palestinian acquaintance who had lured him to the West Bank. “Since the release of convicted terrorists last month, three innocent Israelis have lost their lives and a 9-years-old girl was wounded,” said Dani Dayan, the chief foreign envoy of the Judea and Samaria Council, which represents the settlers. “This cannot be and is not a statistical coincidence,” he added in a statement. “It is clear now that the process of releasing terrorists should be halted immediately.” The Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations are being held in secrecy, and few details have leaked out. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not responded publicly to the calls from the right to suspend prisoner releases. But President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said in a television interview on Friday that if Israel did not go through with the planned prisoner release he would no longer keep his commitment to suspend Palestinian efforts to join international agencies during the nine-month period allotted to this round of peace talks. | West Bank;Murders;Palestinians;Israeli settlement;Israel |
ny0047774 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/11/19 | Romania: Foreign Minister Resigns | Romania’s foreign minister, Teodor Melescanu, resigned Tuesday, barely a week after taking office, after thousands of citizens living outside the country were unable to vote in last weekend’s presidential runoff election. His predecessor resigned last week after similar problems with the first-round vote. Anger across Europe at long lines is believed to have contributed to the surprise victory of Klaus Iohannis over Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Mr. Ponta said the government was working on legislation to allow voting by mail. | Teodor Melescanu;Romania |
ny0152450 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2008/08/24 | Maine Has a Rough Outing Against Houston | Eventually, something had to come along to throw the Mets off stride. Saturday night’s 8-3 loss to the Houston Astros at Shea Stadium included more bad news beyond one game’s result and the end of a four-game winning streak. John Maine, the starting pitcher, whose record fell to 10-8, revealed afterward that he was pitching with a bone spur in his right shoulder. It was his third appearance since coming off the disabled list with a strained rotator cuff. Maine’s velocity improved over his previous two appearances and, by pitching for five and two-thirds innings, he went two outs longer than in either of those outings: one a victory, the other a no-decision. But those two were scoreless outings. In this one, Maine allowed 8 runs and 10 hits, 2 of them home runs, and he left after throwing 105 pitches. The total runs allowed tied his career worst. Maine and Manager Jerry Manuel said Maine could continue pitching in the five-man rotation and probably sustain no long-term damage. But they made clear that Maine would have to tolerate the pain for the rest of the season. “I still don’t feel I have a good fastball,” Maine said. “I was throwing the ball down the middle of the plate.” Regarding the pain, Maine said he was “learning to deal with it.” “It won’t cause any serious structural damage,” he said. The first home run Maine allowed was a three-run shot by Lance Berkman in the third when the Astros scored four runs to pull ahead, 5-0. Manuel was asked if Maine would be compromised for the rest of the season. “Probably so,” Manuel said. “Is John Maine 100 percent right now? No. Is he going to hurt himself? Probably not. Does he want to pitch? Yes. He wants to gut it out.” Manuel quickly added: “If that is not enough for us to win, then I have to make some decisions.” The loss reduced the Mets’ lead over second-place Philadelphia to one and a half games in the National League East as the Phillies defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-2. Despite losing before 51,766 fans on a cool and breezy evening, the Mets have won 10 of their last 12 games. The starting pitching was not the only problem. So was the fielding, which had been good in recent games. All three starting outfielders — Carlos Beltrán in center, Ryan Church in right and Daniel Murphy in left — extended damaging innings by failing to reach fly balls. And then there was the hitting. Houston’s starter, Brandon Backe (8-12), retired the first 14 Mets. On Friday, during the Mets’ 3-0 victory over the Astros, Houston’s starter Roy Oswalt retired the final 20 Mets. The string of outs extended to 34 until Murphy broke it with a two-out walk in the fifth and scored when the next batter, Church, doubled to right to cut the Houston lead to 5-1. Brian Schneider, the Mets’ catcher, hit a two-run homer in the eighth, his second in two games, his fourth in six games and sixth of the season. Regarding Maine’s outing, Schneider said: “Early in the game, he was throwing O.K. I don’t know if his arm angle dropped.” INSIDE PITCH The Mets reversed course again in the curious case of Luis Castillo, the injured second baseman. Instead of being reactivated and starting, as Jerry Manuel had said Friday, Castillo stayed on the disabled list. But he will remain with the Mets to work out as he recovers from a strained hip flexor, which has kept him on the disabled list since July 3. “We brought him in, had a conversation,” Manuel said. “He felt that if given a few more days, he would be better prepared.” | New York Mets;Maine John;Baseball;Houston Astros |
ny0230689 | [
"us"
] | 2010/09/26 | Skeptics Challenge Conventional Wisdom of Emanuel as No. 1 in Mayoral Race | Chicago is abuzz with talk about Rahm Emanuel ’s expected entrance into the wide-open mayor’s race, with rumors swirling about when he might head back to town to formally open a campaign. Not everyone likes the idea of Mayor Emanuel. Leaders of the Service Employees International Union, which has spent millions of dollars supporting candidates in recent elections, have been telling reporters and elected officials that Mr. Emanuel, the current White House chief of staff, is several notches below the bottom of their list of mayoral contenders. Some Chicago politicians have also been quietly kvetching about Mr. Emanuel. A common complaint is that the former North Side congressman has not spent enough time in the city to understand neighborhood issues, from potholes to policing. Several aldermen privately accuse Mr. Emanuel of arrogantly thinking he can just show up for his anointment as mayor — but they do not say it too loudly, just in case he ends up running the city. Bernard Stone, alderman of the far North Side 50th Ward for 37 years, has no such qualms. Earlier this week, Mr. Stone announced that, at 82, he is “full of pee and vinegar” and will run for his 11th term next year, in part because he wants to help whoever becomes the new mayor. Mr. Stone is skeptical of the conventional wisdom that Mr. Emanuel is the candidate to beat. “Rahm has a lot of money, and that will buy him media, but his personality works against him,” Mr. Stone said, referring to Mr. Emanuel’s well-known intensity and cutthroat political style. “Unless he’s going to be able to buy himself a new image, he’s going to run into problems.” Mr. Stone also predicted that Mr. Emanuel would have trouble in his ward, which has a large Jewish population, even though Mr. Emanuel is Jewish. President Obama is widely considered unsupportive of Israel, Mr. Stone said, and as the chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel is viewed as the president’s accessory. “Being with the Obama administration, and the fact that he hasn’t been pro-Israel, isn’t going to help him,” he said. Mr. Emanuel has yet to announce whether he is running for mayor. Other candidates, however, are not waiting for him to act. Alderman Robert Fioretti, who is contemplating a mayoral bid, gave a speech on Tuesday in which he proposed bringing a casino to Chicago to help the city cope with its budget deficit, estimated to be $650 million in 2011 and perhaps greater in 2012. On Thursday, Miguel del Valle, the city clerk, began running the first television advertisement of the race, a minimalist production in which he speaks into the camera about his love of the city. Mr. del Valle had less than $2,000 in his campaign account at the end of June, the most recent reporting date, but so far he is the only candidate with television ads, a campaign office, a Web site and a Facebook page. “This is not the type of campaign where we’re going to have millions of dollars,” said Alejandra Moran, a spokeswoman for Mr. del Valle. “But the clerk, he is a guy who’s focused.” | Chicago (Ill);Elections;Mayors;Emanuel Rahm |
ny0018347 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/07/27 | President-Elect Stirs Optimism in Iran and West | TEHRAN — Bogged down in faltering nuclear talks with the European powers nearly 10 years ago, Hassan Rouhani did something that no Iranian diplomat before or since has managed to do. He took out his cellphone, say Western diplomats who were there, dialed up his longtime friend and associate, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and convinced him that Iran needed to suspend nuclear enrichment. The call by Mr. Rouhani, who was elected president in June and will take office next week, resulted in an agreement in October 2003, the only nuclear deal between Iran and the West in the past 11 years. “Rouhani showed that he is a central player in Iran’s political establishment,” said Stanislas de Laboulaye, a retired director general of the French Foreign Ministry, who was a member of the European delegation during the talks between 2003 and 2005. “He was the only one able to sell something deeply unpopular to the other leaders.” There is growing optimism in Iran and in the West that Mr. Rouhani, 64, is ready to restart serious talks on the nuclear issue; Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq told the United States this month that Mr. Rouhani was ready to start direct talks , and the Obama administration has indicated a willingness to engage in head-to-head dialogue after years of inclusive multiparty negotiations. In his campaign for president and again in recent weeks, Mr. Rouhani has made it clear that he is deeply concerned about his country’s growing economic troubles and is determined to soften the harsh tone and intransigent tactics of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which have stalled nuclear negotiations and cut off relations with most of the developed world. But the question, as always in Iran, is the extent to which a President Rouhani can accomplish these goals. “It is clear that numerous challenges await him,” said Mirza Agha Motaharinejad, a communications professor who campaigned for Mr. Rouhani in his home province of Semnan. “His political survival starts with who he will pick as cabinet members. The more representatives from different factions, the more support he will have.” Mr. Rouhani rarely gives one-on-one interviews to reporters. Any Iranian president has to answer to the supreme leader. But that is not the only limitation on his power in the treacherous and complex politics of the Islamic republic. The rise and precipitous fall of Mr. Ahmadinejad stands as a warning of the fleeting nature of a president’s power in Iran. Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power and was re-elected — fraudulently, most observers said — as the candidate of the traditionalist faction of ultraconservative clerics and Revolutionary Guards commanders. For years he rode high, taking particular pleasure in sticking the West in the eye, denying the Holocaust and challenging Israel. But by the end of his tenure he was locked in bitter infighting with his former patrons and widely unpopular with the public, which blamed him for the country’s economic woes. Mr. Rouhani was defeated by the traditionalists after the nuclear deal fell apart in 2005 and left, politically speaking, for dead. He was a “sellout” in his critics’ eyes who had committed the unpardonable sin of showing weakness — though his supporters would call it reasonableness — in the negotiations with the Europeans. In one of the most startling turnarounds in the history of the Islamic republic, he has managed to resurrect his career from that low point, drawing on connections that trace back to the earliest days of the clerical resistance to the shah. If he is to realize his ambitions of redirecting the country to the moderate course he has laid out — stressing greater individual rights, a relaxation of tensions with the West and the repair of Iran’s flagging economy — he will have to contend with precisely those forces that defeated him and Mr. Ahmadinejad. Mr. Rouhani was born Hassan Fereydoon during the reign of the pro-Western shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, into a family of bazaar businessmen and clerics in a small desert town. A precocious boy, he was only 13 when he began studies at a seminary in the theological center of Qum, where he would befriend many of the men who would later become central figures in the Islamic republic. “From an early age I would overhear my father telling family members that I would become a cleric,” Mr. Rouhani writes in his memoir, one of six books he has published. “It was my destiny.” Qum was a hotbed of resistance against the shah, and young Hassan fit right in. “We, the students, were ready to be killed, imprisoned or tortured,” Mr. Rouhani wrote in that same memoir, of the 1963 arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who would later lead the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “We had sticks in our room, and when we heard a car pull up in our alley we were sure we would be arrested.” He was all of 14 at the time. He later studied law at Tehran University and performed his compulsory military service in Mashhad, where he struck up a friendship with Mr. Khamenei. In 1978 Mr. Rouhani moved to Britain, taught Islamic jurisprudence at Lancaster University and was set to attend Harvard as a graduate student when the revolution broke out. Instead of Cambridge, Mass., he headed off to Paris to join the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. Long known as fiercely intelligent, he became renowned after the revolution for his ability to navigate a system dominated by ideologues, building consensus among many opposing forces. Those close to him describe Mr. Rouhani as the golden boy of the Islamic republic’s close-knit group of leaders and a deal maker who has had a direct hand in most of Iran’s major foreign policy decisions over the past three decades. He was one of three Iranian officials to meet with the former national security adviser Robert McFarlane when he secretly visited Tehran in 1986 to arrange the arms-for-hostages deal that would later erupt into the Iran-contra scandal, according to Iranian insiders who would not speak publicly, but that account could not be confirmed independently. Those who know Mr. Rouhani caution that he is, above all, a Shiite Muslim cleric who has dedicated his life to the Islamic Revolution, which he will never betray. “Our opponents are wrong to expect compromises from Rouhani; the sanctions and other pressures will not make us change our stances,” said one of his former closest associates during an interview in Tehran. He requested anonymity because Mr. Rouhani has asked that no one speak in his name. “Rouhani is interested in a dialogue, not a monologue, with the West. He is prepared to reach common ground, but only if the other side is ready to reach common ground.” In his books on foreign policy, Mr. Rouhani writes that modernity has failed, and that Christians in the West gave in to secularism without a fight. According to him, the United States and the Islamic republic are in permanent conflict. Israel, he writes, is the “axis of all anti-Iranian activities.” Yet he also raises issues like Iran’s massive brain drain and high unemployment figures in a book on the economy, and proposes membership in the World Trade Organization. “We need to keep a good relation with the people; only with them we can continue to resist and confront the U.S.A.,” he wrote in one of his two books on “foreign policy and Islamic thought.” Nevertheless, diplomats who have faced him in negotiations praised his skills and flexibility. “He is perfectly placed in Iran’s system of power,” said Paul von Maltzahn, a former German ambassador to Iran who met Mr. Rouhani several times. “He is not easily manipulated and assertive.” The last time they met was during a private visit by the former German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer. Mr. von Maltzahn recalled: “We all had dinner. Mr. Rouhani spoke about Glasgow, where he had studied in the 1990s. He cracked jokes. He’s straightforward, no double dealer.” During his 16 years as the secretary of Iran’s most important decision organ, the National Security Council, Mr. Rouhani prevented hard-liners from forming an alliance with Saddam Hussein after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, his associates said. Instead, Iran remained neutral. He directed Iran’s unexpectedly respectful reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and he was instrumental in helping the United States coordinate with opposition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq when the United States invaded those countries. It was his toughest negotiation — the one that led to the 2003 agreement — that led to his public fall from grace. Is he willing to try again? Analysts say he might well be. “He is a proactive soldier of this system since his youth,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a columnist for reformist papers. “It’s his brainchild, and he feels responsible. Any solutions he will come up with will be within the limits of the system of the Islamic republic.” Some European diplomats say they fear that Mr. Rouhani was too optimistic in 2003, perhaps getting ahead of most of the leadership. “After a while we started to worry whether he or his team had fully briefed the other leaders,” said one European negotiator, who requested anonymity, not wanting to hurt the chances of success for any coming talks. But Mr. Rouhani’s associate, who has full knowledge of the talks, disagreed. “Our mistake was that we gave the Europeans too much credit, but they were on the phone with the Americans all the time,” he said. “What matters now is that with Mr. Rouhani’s election a new window of opportunity has opened up for the West. I suggest they seize the moment.” | Hassan Rouhani;International relations;Iran;Ruhollah Khomeini;US Foreign Policy |
ny0147051 | [
"business"
] | 2008/07/09 | Wholesale Inventories Rise, Led by Computers, Metals and Farm Goods | Inventories at United States wholesalers increased more than forecast in May, led by rising supplies of computer equipment, metals and farm products. But the 0.8 percent gain in the value of stockpiles was lower than the gain in April, which was revised to 1.4 percent, the Commerce Department said Tuesday in Washington. Sales jumped 1.6 percent in May, the same increase as a month earlier. Distributors had enough goods on hand to last 1.08 months at the current sales pace, down from 1.09 the previous month. The decline indicates that companies may be in a good position to withstand a sluggish economy, and may cut back production gradually rather than sharply after the effect of the federal stimulus checks fades. “There isn’t an excess supply condition that would be worrisome for the outlook,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse in New York, whose firm accurately forecast the gain. “It looks like the wholesale sector is bearing pretty well.” Separately, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that consumer borrowing increased more than forecast in May, rising $7.78 billion, to $2.57 trillion. In April, credit rose by $7.76 billion, previously reported as an increase of $8.9 billion. The Fed’s report does not cover borrowing secured by real estate. Consumers turned to credit cards to cover their expenses as banks restricted access to home equity lines of credit and other loans. “Consumer spending was so large in May that consumers used their income tax rebate checks and brought out the plastic as well,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York. “This double-dipping approach cannot keep the consumer afloat forever.” Economists forecast wholesale inventories would rise 0.6 percent, according to the median of 35 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Projections ranged from gains of 0.1 percent to 1.1 percent. Wholesalers account for about a quarter of all business stockpiles. Factory inventories, which make up about a third of the total, rose 0.6 percent in May, the government said on July 2. Retail stockpiles, which make up the rest, will be included in the business inventories report on Tuesday. The seventh consecutive monthly increase in wholesale stockpiles was led by a 1.1 percent rise in the value of farm products and a 2.7 percent gain in metals. Computer equipment gained 3.5 percent in May, after a 0.7 percent increase a month earlier, the report showed. One area of concern remained auto dealers, where inventories increased as demand slumped. Auto stockpiles rose 0.1 percent as sales declined 0.1 percent. Inventories of durable goods increased 0.8 percent and those of nondurable products climbed 0.7 percent. Petroleum inventories fell 1 percent. The decrease in petroleum stockpiles came as sales increased 7.5 percent. The average price of a barrel of crude oil in May rose to $124.91, up from an average of $111.99 in April. | United States Economy;Economic Conditions and Trends;Economic Stimulus Act of 2008;Consumer Behavior;Commerce Department |
ny0167594 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2006/01/31 | A Test at 25 Stations: Subway Riding Without the Swiping | It is too early to predict the demise of the MetroCard, but yesterday the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced what could be a step in that direction: an experiment letting riders enter the subway by tapping or waving a credit card or payment tag. The six-month trial, scheduled to start this spring, could lend momentum to efforts toward a "smart card" valid on subways, buses and commuter trains throughout the region. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has championed that concept, but the transportation authority has been reluctant to embrace it. The experiment will involve a commercially available technology, the MasterCard PayPass, which can already be used at parking lots, fast-food restaurants, drug stores, gas stations and movie theaters. The PayPass comes in two forms -- a standard-size card or a tag that can be hung on a keychain -- and has an embedded microchip and radio antenna. The Citibank MasterCard PayPass will be accepted at 25 stations where turnstiles will have specially equipped readers. The PayPass functions like a normal credit or debit card, and the turnstile will be activated instantly, as with a MetroCard. Citigroup, the country's largest financial services company, and MasterCard International, which first tested the PayPass in 2003, are paying for the experiment, with no cost to the authority. MasterCard has also issued PayPass credit cards with J. P. Morgan Chase and with MBNA America, but only the Citibank cards can be used in this experiment. Citibank began issuing the payment devices to New York City customers last fall and plans to start making them -- and the card readers that go with them -- available across the country this spring. Katherine N. Lapp, the executive director of the transportation authority, said that "contactless payments" -- waving or tapping a card instead of swiping or inserting it -- "hold the promise of simplifying fare payment for customers who travel throughout the M.T.A. network, while also providing for operating efficiencies and cost savings." It took nearly nine years for the MetroCard, unveiled in 1994, to completely replace the token, which had been in use since 1953. Riders have not been clamoring for more technological innovation in fare payment. The MetroCard is flexible and has been partly credited for record-high ridership. Riders get a 20 percent bonus for purchases of $10 or more and can also buy unlimited-ride cards good for 1, 7 or 30 days. On the other hand, subway riders are often frustrated by the "Please Swipe Again" message that appears when a card has not been swiped properly or the machine malfunctions. The PayPass will be accepted at the 23 stations from 125th Street to Bowling Green on the Nos. 4, 5 or 6 lines in Manhattan; the 23rd Street-Ely Avenue station on the E and V lines in Queens; and the Jay Street-Borough Hall station on the A, C and F lines in Brooklyn. Riders who use the PayPass will get every sixth ride free, the equivalent of the MetroCard bonus, but will not have the unlimited-ride options. | NEW YORK CITY;CITIGROUP INC;METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY;MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL INC;SUBWAYS;FINANCES;CREDIT AND MONEY CARDS;TRANSIT SYSTEMS |
ny0212093 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2017/01/30 | Myanmar Says Gunman Killed Rights Lawyer to Undermine Stability | YANGON, Myanmar — A day after a prominent human rights lawyer was fatally shot in Yangon , Myanmar’s government said on Monday that the gunman had been trying to undermine stability in the country. The lawyer, U Ko Ni, 65, an adviser to Myanmar’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was shot in the head at close range as he was leaving Yangon International Airport on Sunday. The police arrested a suspect, identified as U Kyi Lin, and seized two handguns. “According to an earlier interrogation, the motivation of the incident is to undermine the country’s stability,” the president’s office said in a statement. Mr. Ko Ni, a Muslim and a member of the governing National League for Democracy, was returning from Indonesia with other government officials and civic leaders who had traveled there to discuss democracy and conflict resolution. He wrote six books on human rights issues and democratic elections, and he was actively involved in the interfaith peace movement. Myanmar has experienced sectarian violence between the majority Buddhist population and minority Muslims. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has faced international criticism for military operations against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, in Rakhine State that has led to a humanitarian crisis. The president’s office said it would increase security around the country, and it urged the public to remain “aware about instigation over religion and racial issues.” U Thein Than Oo, a prominent lawyer and a colleague of Mr. Ko Ni’s, said in a telephone interview, “This time I agree with the government’s statement” about the killing. “The political assassination is absolutely threatening stability here,” he said. “The motive of killing the lawyer at a public area, the Yangon airport,” he added, “would be targeting firstly the N.L.D. leadership, secondly political and civic leaders who want to amend the military drafted constitution, and thirdly the peace process.” At Mr. Ko Ni’s funeral on Monday afternoon, tens of thousands paid their respects to him as a hero of the nation. A leader of the National League for Democracy, U Tin Oo, and the mayor of Yangon, U Maung Maung Soe, attended the funeral; Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi did not. “It was so crowded,” said Daw Wai Wai Nu, a Rohingya Muslim activist who was invited to the White House by President Barack Obama in 2015. “I couldn’t even get into the area where his body was kept at the cemetery hall,” she said. Myanmar’s armed forces announced on Monday that they would cooperate with all security units to find any other suspects involved in the shooting. Maj. Gen. Myo Zaw Thein, the commander of the Yangon region, visited the bodies of Mr. Ko Ni and a taxi driver who was also killed in the shooting. The military is still the most powerful institution in Myanmar, even though Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party handily won in a national election in 2015. Human rights advocates have called for an independent investigation into Mr. Ko Ni’s killing. | Myanmar,Burma;Ko Ni;Murders and Homicides;Human Rights |
ny0269302 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/04/17 | A New Alternate-Side Trick | Dear Diary: As a longtime alternate-side parker, I thought I had seen every trick imaginable. Here’s a new one: A man drives up close to a motorcycle, which is taking up an unnecessarily big parking space. He gets out of the car, which he leaves idling. The man approaches the motorcycle, turns it on — but just enough to engage the wheels. It is obviously HIS motorcycle and HIS car! Once he wheels the motorcycle forward about five feet, he effortlessly parks his car — behind the motorcycle. Note to self: Buy a motorcycle! It may cost less than a parking garage! | Motorcycles; electric bikes; electric scooters;Parking;NYC |
ny0223338 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2010/11/26 | Push to Simplify Spanish Gets Complicated | MEXICO CITY — The Royal Spanish Academy is lopping two letters off the Spanish alphabet, reducing it to 27. Out go “ch” and “ll,” along with lots of annoying accents and hyphens. The simplified spelling from the academy, a musty Madrid institution that is the chief arbiter of all things grammatical, should be welcome news to the world’s 450 million Spanish-speakers, not to mention anybody struggling to learn the language. But no. Everyone, it seems, has a bone to pick with the academy — starting with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. If the academy no longer considers “ch” a separate letter, Mr. Chávez chortled to his cabinet, then he would henceforth be known simply as “Ávez.” (In fact, his name will stay the same, though his place in the alphabetic order will change, because “ch” used to be the letter after “c.”) An editorial in the Mexican daily El Universal declared the new rules to be an affront to the national identity: “Spelling is not just an imposition; it serves to maintain a minimum of coherence and sense to what is written and said. Can this be dictated from a conference room abroad? A country that is proudly independent would not accept this.” The editorial went on to ask, “Would the United States accept dictates from England over the use of English?” They are just as upset on the European side of the Atlantic. Comments have poured forth on the Web — 1,450 of them as of Thursday night — after the first article on the changes appeared in the Spanish newspaper El País at the beginning of the month. The word “absurdo” pops up a lot. “It’s kind of a magic realist moment. They decide that 2 of 29 letters will disappear,” said Ilan Stavans, a Mexican who is a professor of Latin American and Latino culture at Amherst College. “All the dictionaries will have to be remade, which is good for selling the Royal Academy’s dictionary, which they keep producing as though it’s the Bible.” Professor Stavans compared it to the authority that English-speakers turn to, the Oxford English Dictionary, which stresses common usage rather than imposing it from above. The Spanish academy needed 800 pages to explain the new simplified rules. Among other changes: letters with different names in different countries get just one name (which is rather like telling Americans that the last letter of the alphabet should be called “zed”). Iraq becomes Irak and quásar is now written as cuásar. The spelling rules will go on sale by Christmas in Spain. Latin Americans will have to wait a bit longer. There have long been complaints about Spanish spelling. At the first international congress of the Spanish language in Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1997, the Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez declared, “Let’s retire spelling, the terror of all beings from the cradle.” But he admitted that his pleas were little more than “bottles flung to the sea in the hope that they would one day come to the god of all words.” That god remaining silent, the Royal Spanish Academy has been filling the void since it was founded in 1713. “They have an oracular way of presenting things, like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai,” Professor Stavans said. “In my mind, it’s a relic of the 18th century,” he added. “We have to wait for Spain to say how we speak.” For those who live and breathe Spanish, the academy’s priorities seem a little off. “We are a language in debate,” said the Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II. “Unfortunately, the academy isn’t ahead of the debate, it’s behind.” To its credit, the academy takes pains to emphasize that it works collaboratively with its associated academies in 21 other Spanish-speaking countries, including in the United States. Early meetings on the new spelling rules were held in Chile; the text was completed this month in Spain; and it will be ratified by the academy and its sister branches at the Guadalajara Book Fair in Mexico on Sunday. In an e-mail, Juan Villoro, a Mexican writer living in Barcelona, was philosophical about one change that seemed to strike at the core of Spanish speakers’ poetic souls on both sides of the Atlantic. Under the old rules, the word “solo” takes an accent when it means “only” and has no accent when it means “alone.” The academy rubbed out the accent, arguing that the meaning would be clear from the context. “Sometimes, the law has nothing to do with justice,” Mr. Villoro wrote. Luis Fernando Lara, a scholar at the Colegio de México who coordinates the preparation of a Spanish dictionary used in Mexico, waved off the academy’s new rules: “We’re free in this world not to listen to them.” As for the changes in the names of letters, Mr. Lara resorted to a line from a classic American song to describe the spat: “I like tomato, you like tomahto,” he said. Although he did not say it, the title of that tune, written by George and Ira Gershwin, was understood: “Let’s call the whole thing off.” | Spanish Language;Spelling;Dictionaries;Royal Spanish Academy;Spain |
ny0061749 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/01/27 | This Time, Anthony Has Just Enough to Carry the Shaky Knicks | Carmelo Anthony got an early indication that Sunday’s game was not going to be like his last one. He was trying to work his way to the basket late in the second quarter when the Los Angeles Lakers’ Ryan Kelly used his 6-foot-11, 230-pound frame to impede Anthony’s progress like a cement-filled traffic barrier. Anthony fell to the court. He rested his hands against his head. Reassured that everything was still intact, he returned to his feet and sank both free throws. Two days after he set the Knicks’ single-game scoring record , nothing came easily for Anthony. He absorbed contact. He shed defenders. He even missed some shots. Yet the Knicks escaped with a 110-103 victory at Madison Square Garden that was more about masking tape than confetti. This was the type of nip-and-tuck affair that the Knicks (17-27) had lost consistently this season, and perhaps that was what made it all the more satisfying for them. Sure, the Lakers (16-29) were once again missing the injured Kobe Bryant. Sure, the Lakers resembled a glorified Development League team without him. And sure, the Lakers still managed to shoot 52 percent from the field against a defense that provided as much resistance as a shower drain. Forget all that, though, because the Knicks won their second straight. “We have to continue to build,” Coach Mike Woodson said. Anthony collected 35 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds. He had set an impossible standard for himself Friday against the Charlotte Bobcats, scoring 62 points and somehow making it look simple. Against the Lakers, he was 14 of 31 from the field — decent, if not spectacular, numbers — but asserted himself when the Knicks needed him most, drilling a 14-foot jumper and then breezing past Pau Gasol to give the Knicks a 7-point lead with less than three minutes remaining. “It’s funny when a guy puts up the type of numbers he did tonight,” the Knicks’ Tyson Chandler said, “and you hear the crowd gasp when he misses a shot.” Offense was not the problem for the Knicks. The real issue was that they were incapable of slowing the Lakers for long stretches. Jodie Meeks scored 24 points in the loss, and Manny Harris — a recent call-up from the team’s D-League affiliate, playing on a 10-day contract — added 18 points in 19 minutes. Woodson said he was pleased with his team’s late-game effort. The Knicks limited the Lakers to 43.8 percent shooting in the fourth quarter. “If you’re going to make a push to win games, that’s when your defense has got to pick up and carry you home,” Woodson said. The schedule makers had pegged the game as a marquee matchup, worthy of a weekend matinee and a national television audience. That decision, though, was made before the season, and the teams’ injury-ravaged remnants were on full display. Jordan Hill, Wesley Johnson and Harris got significant minutes for the Lakers. The lineup did not exactly stir memories of the Showtime era. The Knicks countered with hodgepodge groupings that included Jeremy Tyler and Cole Aldrich, both pressed into duty because of injuries to Amar’e Stoudemire (ankle), Kenyon Martin (ankle) and Andrea Bargnani (elbow). In addition, Metta World Peace did not dress because of an illness. Against the Lakers, the result was ample effort that was offset by bouts with inexperience. Early in the second quarter, Tyler posted up against a smaller defender and tried to spin to the basket without dribbling. He was whistled for traveling. Soon afterward, Meeks buried a 3-pointer to give the Lakers a 30-25 lead. Bryant, sidelined with a fracture in his left knee, watched from the end of the Lakers’ bench. He was relegated to the role of spectator, but not before offering his take on Anthony’s evening against the Bobcats. Bryant had held the single-game scoring record at the current Garden, with 61 points against the Knicks in 2009. “If I was a competitor, I’d say that Melo has more opportunities to set a Garden record than I did,” Bryant said. “But I’m not a competitor, so I won’t say that.” Anthony got a big ovation from the crowd before the game. A montage of Friday’s game played on the scoreboard after he drained three of his first four field-goal attempts against the Lakers, and he even showcased some defense by sprinting across the lane to bat away a fast-break layup attempt from Meeks. Anthony had scored 20 points by halftime, and Bryant stopped him on the way to the locker room for a brief chat. Anthony declined to reveal the nature of their conversation. “I mean, I can’t give y’all everything we talk about,” he said. “It’s not always business we’re talking about. It’s just having fun, laughing, catching up.” The Knicks got major contributions from Raymond Felton (20 points), Tim Hardaway Jr. (18 points), J. R. Smith (16 points) and Chandler (13 points, 14 rebounds). Anthony said the Knicks had a meeting before the game, during which he reminded his teammates that they needed to assert themselves on offense. “Don’t try to rely on me scoring 62 points because it’s not going to happen today,” he recalled saying. On Sunday, he merely did what he needed to do for a win. | Basketball;Knicks;Lakers;Carmelo Anthony |
ny0049900 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/10/20 | Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party Gains Seats in Key State Votes | NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s party won the largest number of seats in two important state elections where votes were counted on Sunday, substantially expanding the Bharatiya Janata Party’s territory and opening the door to future control of the upper house of Parliament. The strong showing could largely be attributed to Mr. Modi himself, who served as the face of the party’s campaign — a departure from tradition in state campaigns, which usually center on local issues and the personality of the candidate for chief minister. The Indian National Congress, still staggering from its crushing loss in the general election in May, placed a distant third in Maharashtra and Haryana, both states it has controlled for at least a decade. Amit Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s president and Mr. Modi’s main electoral strategist, was exultant on Sunday, telling reporters at a news conference that the results were “two more steps forward in our campaign to achieve a Congress-free India .” The final counts showed that the B.J.P. had secured 47 of 90 seats in the northern state of Haryana, allowing the party to form a state government without building a coalition. This is remarkable because it has traditionally had little support in the heavily agricultural state, having secured only four seats in Haryana’s previous state assembly. The party’s victory on Sunday was not complete: Its leaders had hoped for a majority in Maharashtra, too, but fell short of that, with 122 of the state’s 288 assembly seats. On Sunday the party made overtures toward its traditional partner, the Shiv Sena, which had split forces ahead of the election. Constrained in his ability to push through legislation, Mr. Modi has been intensely focused on gaining a foothold in the upper house of Parliament, which will see substantial turnover in 2016. Together, Maharashtra and Haryana send 24 representatives to the upper house. The B.J.P. holds just two seats from Maharashtra and none from Haryana. The party has saturated Maharashtra with a glossy campaign of print, television and social media advertisements, most of them focusing on Mr. Modi. Gayatri Balani, a jewelry designer, said her whole family backed Mr. Modi because they see him as capable of reining in the country’s bureaucrats, who are widely viewed as corrupt and indolent. “Fear is the only thing that can bring discipline to people in government who have never ever heard of discipline,” she said. “I hear officials in Delhi are actually showing up to their offices on time, which is unheard-of.” She said she voted for the B.J.P. because she was “sick of things not working.” But some expressed frustration with the focus on Mr. Modi. Mohammad Rafi Elahi, a Mumbai tailor, said the issues that mattered to him were close to home, like the efficient supply of power and water. He said that in his neighborhood, “there are no toilets here for poor people,” forcing local residents to send workers to urinate and defecate on the rocks by the sea. “This election is about local issues,” he said, ones decided by local officials, not the prime minister. “Modi, Modi, Modi. Especially on TV, that’s all you hear. What’s wrong with you media people that you keep going on about this man? Tell me one thing he has done.” | Narendra Modi;India;Election;Indian National Congress;Bharatiya Janata Party |
ny0233119 | [
"us"
] | 2010/08/31 | Hurricane Earl Batters Caribbean and Heads North | CAROLINA, P.R. — Hurricane Earl tore through the northern Caribbean on Monday, escalating to Category Four status with winds up to 135 miles an hour that downed power lines, damaged homes and sent hundreds of people fleeing to emergency shelters. The hurricane hit the smallest of the Leeward Islands — Antigua, Barbuda, St. Maarten and St. Martin — on Sunday, before veering toward the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the mainland United States, The National Weather Service said Monday afternoon that the governments of Antigua and Barbuda had discontinued a tropical storm warning for both islands, and the warning was also lifted for Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis. Though the weather service also lifted the hurricane watch for Puerto Rico and its two island municipalities, Vieques and Culebra, heavy winds and rains were expected to hit the islands around 8 p.m., local weather officials said. Gov. Luis G. Fortuño announced the closing of all public schools and sent all public workers home. The early releases, however, caused major traffic snarls in the San Juan metropolitan area. Most flights from the Luis Muñoz Marín Airport in San Juan to the Leeward islands were canceled Monday, leaving about 550 people stranded at the airport. The authorities said there were about 10,000 people without electricity and another 3,100 without running water. “This is not so much a hurricane situation over Puerto Rico, but we do expect a lot of rain and tropical storm-force winds on the eastern side of the island,” Governor Fortuño said at a news conference. “The best place to be right now is home.” The government was planning to distribute food and water to residents affected by the storm, Mr. Fortuño said, adding that it was also ready to submit its request for a state of emergency declaration by the federal government, if necessary. Forecasters said some areas along the Eastern seaboard of the United States might feel the effects of the storm within a few days, but whether it was on track to hit land was unclear. | Hurricanes and Tropical Storms;Puerto Rico;Weather;Caribbean Area |
ny0014025 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2013/11/23 | Gal Holds Steady in Wind at Titleholders | Sandra Gal shot a three-under-par 69 in windy conditions for a three-shot lead in the L.P.G.A. Titleholders in Naples, Fla. Lydia Ko, the 16-year-old from New Zealand making her professional debut, played her final 10 holes without a birdie and finished at 71, leaving her nine shots behind. ■ Thomas Bjorn of Denmark tamed Royal Melbourne with a three-under 68 to take a one-shot lead after the second round of the World Cup of Golf in Australia. The United States team of Matt Kuchar and Kevin Streelman led Denmark by three strokes. (REUTERS) | Golf;Sandra Gal;Thomas Bjorn;Charl Schwartzel |
ny0146218 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2008/07/20 | Needing a Star, CNBC Made One | ONLY days into a new job at CNBC two and a half years ago, Erin Burnett was settling into orientation when the network decided to put her on camera. Viewers and executives of the cable business channel took note, and within weeks, Ms. Burnett started her first big assignment, contributing to “Squawk on the Street,” a new morning program. Just weeks later she was a co-anchor of the program with Mark Haines, a veteran anchor who had been at CNBC since its founding in 1989. A series of other high-profile assignments followed, including a 2 p.m. solo hour, appearances on NBC’s news programs and the expansion of her morning program to a second hour. Today, at 32, Ms. Burnett is the youngest person on television to anchor three hours of business news every weekday. “She’s the ultimate growth stock,” said Jonathan Wald, CNBC’s senior vice president for business news. Ms. Burnett’s meteoric rise is the most recent example of how television networks try to transform fresh-faced hosts into household names with all the perks — and hazards — that sudden celebrity entails. And Ms. Burnett’s “overnight success” isn’t an accident. Competing with the Internet and the fledgling Fox Business Network, CNBC has been trolling for new stars, and the network has meticulously managed and promoted Ms. Burnett’s ascent. Because of the seismic changes roiling the media business and the huge number of choices that business news devotees now have when searching for information, anchors are no longer only news readers. Their bosses and handlers emphasize their personalities as much as their acumen in an effort to carve out niche followings. Aware that producers sometimes push young anchors too hard, too fast — leading to notable flameouts like those of Deborah Norville, who became a “Today” co-anchor in 1990, and Ashleigh Banfield, who joined MSNBC in 2000 — CNBC says it has been careful not to give Ms. Burnett more than she could handle at each juncture. “She is a work in progress,” Mr. Wald said. “She did not come to CNBC a fully formed business news star. And she’s evolving into a notable TV personality.” Last week, she signed a three-year contract that will cement her status as a CNBC star and raise her profile by giving her more airtime on NBC. She also knows that no anchor has ever managed to translate a business news background into mainstream recognition. But she is determined to try. “Money’s what makes the world go round,” she said. “Having a business niche is who I am, and it’s crucial.” But, she says, she wants to prove that she can handle “business and beyond.” However long in the tooth — or even tired — the strategy may be, every major television network and cable channel is known for its stars. On cable, Bill O’Reilly and Shepard Smith have come to personify the Fox News Channel’s blend of rhetoric and reporting. NBC has its own bench of on-the-air talent. On “Today,” Katie Couric came to define a generation of morning television. In the evenings, Tom Brokaw guided “NBC Nightly News” for two decades. More recently, Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer have kept “Today” in first place, and Brian Williams has stabilized the ratings for the “Nightly News.” Because they represent programs that make hundreds of millions in revenue for their networks, the anchors usually become emblematic of a program’s success or failure. (Ms. Couric, now with CBS, has been on both sides of this particular coin.) “Stars are not born, but people with the potential to become stars are born,” said Steve Ridge, president of television for Frank N. Magid Associates. “The key is identifying the potential early on and cultivating it by putting them in an environment to be successful.” CNBC’s only true breakout stars thus far have been Maria Bartiromo and the “Mad Money” host, Jim Cramer. Since being tagged the “Money Honey” in the late ’90s, Ms. Bartiromo has come to define the network. But over the last three years, under the new president Mark Hoffman, CNBC has groomed a new bench of youthful correspondents and hosts, and by the barometers of television fame — airtime and promotion — Ms. Burnett has become a pivotal personality at the network. Asked to name the network’s star, Mr. Hoffman was diplomatic. “The ensemble is the star,” he replied. With 16 hours of live programming a day, he is technically right. But Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Burnett are the only two who anchor solo hours while the stock market is open. Their faces define CNBC. Every rising star needs a narrative, and Ms. Burnett believes hers is about taking risks. After graduating from Williams College in 1998, she says, she spent a forgettable year as an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs. Unhappy in banking, she wrote a letter to Willow Bay, a former morning show correspondent and weekend host who had just become a co-anchor of the business news program “Moneyline” on CNN. It was a “stalker letter,” Ms. Burnett joked, but it worked: before long, she was Ms. Bay’s assistant and then a writer at CNN. But at first she didn’t want to stay in television. “For some people, it’s love at first sight, but it wasn’t for me,” she said. Her high school classmates at St. Andrew's, a boarding school in Delaware, seemed to know her better than she knew herself: they voted her most likely to host a TV talk show in 20 years, because they thought she talked a lot. “It’s true,” she said. “I’m kind of a motor mouth.” Ms. Burnett quit CNN and wound up writing the business plan for an Internet media start-up at Citigroup, the banking giant. When it came time to find an on-camera host, she decided to try it herself. From there she moved to Bloomberg, the news and data company that has become something of a farm team for CNBC. She started as a producer there before quickly snaring an anchor job. As with any anchor role, looks play their part and Ms. Burnett’s striking features have complemented her hard work, smoothing her ascent. “There is an element of TV that is visual. You can’t deny that,” she says. “But you’re not going to be able to move to the next level without the passion, the contacts, the journalistic drive.” A competitive streak also helps. A few days before Halloween in 2005, Ms. Burnett saw that Bob Wright, then NBC’s chief executive, was at Bloomberg’s studios for an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS. Ms. Burnett persuaded him to stick around for another interview. “I was thinking: ‘I’m going to stick it to CNBC. They’re going to see their boss on our air,’ ” she recalled. In the resulting interview, Mr. Wright made news by calling NBC a “desperate network.” According to Ms. Burnett, Mr. Wright sent the tape of the interview to Mr. Hoffman, the CNBC president, and suggested hiring Ms. Burnett. But by then, David Friend, a CNBC vice president, had already called. On Dec. 1, 2005, she arrived for work in CNBC’s headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. SHE arrived just as a new administration was remaking CNBC. Mr. Hoffman, the newly installed president, wanted the network to look livelier. The CNBC brand was a “bit beat up,” he recalled. Because the channel earns north of $300 million in operating profit for NBC Universal each year, and because the News Corporation was putting together a rival network, reviving CNBC was a priority. Wrinkles were out, and a band of correspondents, anchors and producers in their 40s and 50s gradually departed the network. Some of those who stayed — like Mr. Haines — were paired with fresh faces like Ms. Burnett. Ms. Burnett’s rapid-fire delivery, conversational manner and laserlike blue eyes appealed to viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. In the 25-to-54-year-old demographic favored by advertisers, ratings for the 9 a.m. hour are up 113 percent since her first full month on the air. CNBC’s total day ratings are up 74 percent over the same period. Although everyone in the business knows that the rise (and fall) of anchors is rarely a random process, Mr. Wald dismisses the idea that he and other CNBC executives consciously groomed Ms. Burnett by giving her so much airtime. “We’re not that smart,” he said. In early 2007, Ms. Burnett and Ms. Bartiromo started taking turns appearing on “Today,” giving Ms. Burnett a new prominence within NBC Universal. She was noticed outside NBC as well: when she came to CNBC she didn’t have an agent, but last summer she signed the high-powered Creative Artists Agency agent Alan Berger — who represents Ms. Couric and Simon Cowell, among others — to guide her career. By the time the Fox Business Network made its debut last October, CNBC was a network transformed, largely thanks to new personalities like Ms. Burnett and Mr. Cramer. Ms. Burnett has made appearances as a panelist on “Meet the Press” and as a guest on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” and is often mentioned in Page Six of The New York Post, but she rebuffs the idea that she’s a star. “I think a star is like a movie star,” she said. “I’m in the news business. We’re trying to drive conversation and dialogue.” She has made a few missteps. On the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC last November, as a clip showed President Bush with two other world leaders, she referred to him as “monkey in the middle.” She now calls it a “stupid thing to say,” and says it was meant to be harmless. Some media outlets, meanwhile, have described a rivalry between Ms. Burnett and Ms. Bartiromo, with one labeling Ms. Burnett as “Maria 2.0.” “I think it doesn’t help either one of us, to be honest, because it imagines a conflict,” Ms. Burnett said. She described a “great deal of mutual respect” between the two, and said their different styles are complementary. For her part, Ms. Bartiromo called Ms. Burnett a great addition to CNBC. “She is smart, beautiful and hard-working,” Ms. Bartiromo said in an e-mail message. Next up: whether Ms. Burnett and her handlers can broaden her appeal. Other cable anchors have been unable to make the transition. Ms. Banfield was a prominent presence on MSNBC between the 2000 election and the war in Afghanistan, but when she tried to transfer that success to NBC, her star abruptly burned out. Alexis Glick was a high-profile host on CNBC in 2004 and 2005, but when she tried moving to “Today” as a co-host, her career skidded. She now is an anchor on Fox Business. (Ms. Glick declined to comment; Ms. Banfield couldn’t be reached for comment.) Similarly, Ms. Burnett is popular among business news aficionados but not with a broader audience. Marketing Evaluations, the company behind the “Q scores” that measure consumer perception, started including Ms. Burnett in its twice-a-year surveys two years ago. Ms. Burnett’s “viewer familiarity” score has hovered around 6 percent. Mr. Cramer and Ms. Bartiromo, by contrast, register at 20 percent. Mainstream news stars have much higher profiles: Bill O’Reilly was familiar to 62 percent of those surveyed. So Ms. Burnett’s backers, both inside and outside NBC, have set out to showcase her as a more mainstream news personality. Apparently seeking to forestall any competitors, CNBC decided to renew her contract six months before it was to expire. At least one broadcast network showed interest in hiring her, she said. Ms. Burnett decided that NBC Universal remained the best fit. Her new contract makes her a fill-in co-anchor on “Weekend Today,” an assignment commonly seen as a first step in the grooming of new personalities at NBC. Ms. Burnett says she would prefer to evolve, rather than reinvent, her television persona. MR. RIDGE, the media consultant, says TV personalities have to be careful not to force themselves into the wrong format. “It’s like an actor, really, looking for the right role,” he said. “They’re very discerning, and news anchors have to be, too.” Asked about whether Ms. Burnett could become an evening news anchor, Mr. Wald, formerly an executive producer of “NBC Nightly News,” brushed aside the question. “I’m not sure that’s something people aspire to anymore,” he said, matter-of-factly. Ms. Burnett concurs. “There used to be a ‘way’ to TV success,” she said. “You’d spend time being a war correspondent and then you’d be on the fast track for the evening news. I think the new paradigm is that there is no ‘way.’ ” | Television;News and News Media;Hiring and Promotion;Bartiromo Maria;Burnett Erin |
ny0257936 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2011/01/28 | Religion’s Role in Egyptian Protests May Grow | ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — Demonstrators in Egypt have protested against rising prices and stagnant incomes, for greater freedom and against police brutality. But religion, so often a powerful mobilizing force here, has so far played little role. That may be about to change. With organizers calling for demonstrations after Friday prayer, the political movement will literally be taken to the doorsteps of the nation’s mosques. And as the Egyptian government and security services brace for the expected wave of mass demonstrations, Islamic groups seem poised to emerge as wildcards in the growing political movement. Reporters in Egypt said on Friday that, after rumors swept Cairo late Thursday that the authorities planned to throttle the protesters' communications among themselves, access to the Internet, text messaging services and Twitter was not possible on Friday morning in Cairo, Alexandria and possibly other cities. Heightening the tension, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest organized opposition group in the country, announced Thursday that it would take part in the protest. The support of the Brotherhood could well change the calculus on the streets, tipping the numbers in favor of the protesters and away from the police, lending new strength to the demonstrations and further imperiling President Hosni Mubarak’s reign of nearly three decades. “Tomorrow is going to be the day of the intifada,” said a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood here in Egypt’s second largest city, who declined to give his name because he said he would be arrested if he did. The spokesman said that the group was encouraging members of its youth organization — roughly those 15 to 30 years old — to take part in protests. But Islam is hardly homogeneous, and many religious leaders here said Thursday that they would not support the protests, for reasons including scriptural prohibitions on defying rulers and a belief that democratic change would not benefit them. “We Salafists are not going to participate in any of the demonstrations tomorrow,” said Sheik Yasir Burhami, a leading figure among the fundamentalist Salafists in Alexandria. While the largest demonstrations have taken place in the capital, Cairo, and the most chaos Thursday was to be found in Suez, Alexandria has been a focal point for past protests. The beating death of a young businessman named Khaled Said last year led to weeks of demonstrations against police brutality and calls to overhaul the security services. The city on the Mediterranean, long Egypt’s gateway to the outside world, has mirrored the country’s steady erosion over decades of authoritarian rule. It has gone from being a cosmopolitan showcase to a poor, struggling city that evokes barely a vestige of its former grandeur. The New Year’s bombing of a Coptic church here was a reminder of the direction of the city, identified by European intelligence services as a hub for radicalizing students who come to study Arabic. Many of the most radical Salafists — those who would support the use of violence — were arrested by the government after the bombing. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sheik Gaber Kassem, leader of the mystic Sufi community here, said the Sufis were discouraging their followers from taking part in the demonstrations, which the government has deemed illegal. “We are going to be in the mosque and we’re going to be in front of the mosque, but we are not going to march in the streets,” said Mr. Kassem, adding that they were in favor of freedom of expression and had taken part in legal protests Tuesday, but that they were against the violence and chaos that were likely on Friday. Relative calm prevailed here on Thursday, as activists said they were preparing for Friday’s demonstrations. With riot police and plainclothes security personnel watching, dozens of lawyers protested in front of the courthouse, calling for two of their colleagues who had been arrested at Tuesday’s demonstration to be set free and shouting, “People, people, take to the streets.” Hamid Said, 29, who founded the Nasar Center for Human Rights in Alexandria, said that to date the protests here had not been led by Muslim groups, as the government claimed. “You did not have the Muslim Brotherhood protesting here, you had normal people protesting against their problems,” said Mr. Said, a lawyer who said he had been arrested five times since 2008, but never detained for more than a few days. Mr. Said cited political oppression and police brutality as the leading causes of frustration among the people. He said that he had once applied for a position for which he was well qualified, but that he lost out to the son of a government minister. Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a Muslim cleric known as Abu Omar, said that many conservative Muslims would not support a secular politician like Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize winner and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “ElBaradei and the others, they have no connection to religion. If Hosni Mubarak goes, they will replace him with someone else like him,” said Abu Omar, who came to prominence after it was disclosed that he had been kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency from Milan in 2003. Religious leaders like Mr. Kassem said they could not rule out that many of their followers would join the protests. The spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria said that efforts by the government to hinder groups from gathering, like blocking access to social networking sites, would no longer be effective. “It’s already clear that we will go out tomorrow. The message is already out,” he said. “Tomorrow all the Egyptians are going to be on the streets.” | Egypt;Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Islam;Muslim Brotherhood;Alexandria (Egypt) |
ny0235718 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/01/24 | Jack T. Litman, Lawyer for ‘Preppy Killer,’ Dies at 66 | Jack T. Litman, a lawyer known for his cerebral, cool and aggressive defense of notorious murder defendants and his uncanny ability to persuade juries to sympathize with crimes of passion over four decades, died at a Manhattan hospital on Saturday morning. He was 66. The cause was lymphoma, according to his sons, Benjamin and Sacha. Mr. Litman’s most famous murder cases involved young men from humble origins who were charged with killing young women from more privileged backgrounds. Robert E. Chambers Jr. , a former altar boy who attended preparatory schools on scholarship, was charged with strangling Jennifer Levin in Central Park in 1986. Richard Herrin, who went to Yale on scholarship after growing up in a Los Angeles barrio, was accused of beating to death Bonnie Joan Garland, a fellow Yale student, in 1977 after she broke up with him. After highly publicized trials and lurid headlines, Mr. Litman pulled off the unlikely feat of winning sympathy from the juries for both defendants. The jury deadlocked in the Levin case, and Mr. Chambers, whom the tabloids called the “Preppy Killer,” pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of first-degree manslaughter. Mr. Herrin was convicted of manslaughter. While many lawyers defend unpopular clients and are perceived as just doing their jobs, Mr. Litman became synonymous with a so-called blame-the-victim defense and was a lightning rod for criticism from feminists, the relatives of the victims in his cases and large swaths of the public. He argued, for instance, that Ms. Levin had died during rough sex, implying that her killer was provoked. And he asserted that Mr. Herrin was crazed by rejection when he attacked Ms. Garland with a hammer in her parents’ Westchester home while she slept. Her mother, Joan Garland, said bitterly that with the right defense, “you’re entitled to one free hammer murder.” In an interview after the Garland trial, Mr. Litman acknowledged that he had found it necessary “to taint her a little bit” so that the jury would understand the nature of her relationship with Mr. Herrin. Mr. Litman often said that he could not condemn those accused of crimes because he thought that anyone at some time was capable of murder. Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law, said, “Jack knew that it was his job to do whatever he could legally and ethically to get the best result for Chambers, and he did that at great cost to himself emotionally and in popular perception.” Jack Theodore Litman was born in New York on July 26, 1943. He was the youngest child of Sarah and Charles Litman, who fled Liège, Belgium, a day ahead of the Nazi invasion in 1940. His father, who was in the haberdashery business in Belgium, invested in real estate in New York, and the family moved back and forth between the Upper West Side of Manhattan and Flatbush, Brooklyn. Mr. Litman attended Stuyvesant High School and graduated first in his class from Cornell in 1964 as a mathematics and French literature major. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1967. He then went to Paris on a Fulbright scholarship to study the French penal code and relished being part of the student uprisings in 1968. While his cerebral approach to his cases seemed almost mathematical, Mr. Litman insisted that it was his love of literature, psychoanalysis and French film that taught him to appeal to the psychology of the jury and put cases in narrative form. He was admired by defense lawyers and prosecutors alike for aggressive cross-examinations and closing arguments that often had an almost novelistic sweep. His talent as an amateur actor — his favorite film was “Twelve Angry Men” and he acted in an all-lawyer stage production based on it — served him well in the courtroom. Mr. Litman began his legal career in the Manhattan district attorney’s office under Frank Hogan, and rose to deputy chief of the homicide bureau. Besides his sons, Sacha, of Washington, and Benjamin, of Jersey City, he is survived by his brother, John Litman, of Queens; a sister, Denise Gold, of Glen Cove, N.Y.; his former wife, Helena, of Manhattan; and his companion, Ronny Berlin, of Queens. Mr. Litman had been ill with lymphoma for more than a decade at the time of his last high-profile trial, in 2007. He interrupted treatments to defend a wealthy landlord, Ben Odierno, accused of fatally stabbing his wife, Christine, in the kitchen of their Upper East Side townhouse. Though gaunt and wearing a wig because of chemotherapy treatments and plagued by fits of coughing, Mr. Litman argued that his client had been verbally abused by his wife for years, and that when an argument in the kitchen exploded into deadly violence, she attacked him first, with a boning knife. The jury acquitted Mr. Odierno. | Litman Jack T;Jury System;Crime and Criminals;Deaths (Obituaries);Chambers Robert E Jr |
ny0023699 | [
"us"
] | 2013/08/05 | Demonstration at Arizona Border Divides Supporters of Immigration Overhaul | A protest by nine Mexican immigrants in which they tried to enter the country through a border station in Arizona even though they had no valid documents has provoked an unusual public argument among groups pushing Congress to overhaul the immigration laws. Most of the nine are young people who grew up in the United States without legal status. On July 22, they approached the border crossing in Nogales and asked to be admitted on a special parole. Border officers detained them for deportation, and they are being held in a detention center in Eloy, Ariz. The most heated part of the debate centers on the high-risk move by three undocumented youths in the group, who left the United States shortly before the protest, knowing they had no legal visas to return. The six others had been deported or had left the country on their own some time ago. Some advocates and lawmakers praised the immigrants, who are calling themselves the Dream 9, for their bold civil disobedience in the tradition of the civil rights era. Others said their tactics were reckless and distracted from the fight in Washington to win a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants living illegally in the country. Representative Michael M. Honda, Democrat of California, sent a letter signed by 32 other House members calling on President Obama to allow the immigrants to stay, saying they had taken a “courageous step because they are fighting to reunite families separated by the border and mass deportation policies.” Mr. Honda said the nine were “victims of our broken immigration policies, and they deserve to come home to the United States.” There have been small rallies and vigils in support of the immigrants in at least half a dozen places. But DeeDee Garcia Blase, a leader in Arizona of the Tequila Party, an organization of Latinas working for the immigration overhaul, said the protesters should keep their focus on passing legislation that would allow unauthorized immigrants to stay on this side of the border. “It’s counterproductive to be defiant and leave our nation and put themselves at risk,” Ms. Garcia Blase said. “It’s our position,” said Mohammad Abdollahi, a leader of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance , which organized the protest, “that all these folks should be allowed to come home.” He said the three young people who recently went to Mexico had gone to accompany the other six as they tried to get back into the United States. “It was purely civil disobedience,” Mr. Abdollahi said. “We wanted everybody to be treated the same.” A lawyer representing the nine immigrants, Margo Cowan, said they had asked to enter on a humanitarian parole , a special permission generally granted in short-term personal emergencies. To reinforce their case, they also requested asylum. Immigration officials and lawyers said it would be difficult under current law for the Obama administration to give them a break. One of the protesters, Claudia Amaro, is 37, too old to be eligible even for the deportation reprieves that the administration has offered since last year. Ms. Amaro had been living here illegally since 1988, and her teenage son is an American citizen. She was arrested in 2005 at her home in Wichita, Kan., with her husband, who was under police investigation, immigration officials said. She was released and left for Mexico, but a court order for her deportation was filed in her absence. Another Mexican, Luis León, who is 20, grew up in North Carolina but left in 2011 to go to college in Mexico. In a phone call on Thursday from the detention center, Mr. León said he soon began to miss his family. He was caught and deported four times trying to cross the border illegally. In most cases, foreigners who are deported cannot return to the United States for at least 10 years. Mr. León said that the Nogales attempt was his last resort, and that he had told the protest’s organizers, “I would do whatever it takes to get back to my family.” Mr. León said he did not mind being detained because he was holding out hope that he might be released. “I’m really looking forward to having all my friends over, like I used to back when I was in high school,” Mr. León said. “I hope everything goes back the way it used to be, being with my family and being able to talk to my community again.” Among the three who left the United States shortly before the protest, Lulu Martínez, 23, had applied for a deportation reprieve. By leaving the United States, officials said, she became ineligible for it. Lizbeth Mateo, 29, was due to start law school in California in mid-August, organizers said. The third protester was Marco Saavedra, 23. Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Friday that the immigrants were interviewed last week and officials expected to decide their cases in coming days. Ms. Cowan, a lawyer in the Pima County Public Defender’s Office, said she argued that they should be allowed to stay “in the public interest.” “These are not deportees,” she said. “They are persons who find themselves outside the United States but belong here.” Other lawyers questioned that argument. “Once you depart the U.S., all bets are off,” said David Leopold, a lawyer and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “To suggest that anyone should be able to walk out of the U.S. and turn around and knock on the door and come back in, I don’t know anybody who thinks that we ought to have an open border,” Mr. Leopold said. The immigrants take their name from the Dream Act, legislation that would open a special path to citizenship for young people here illegally. A version of it was included in a bill that the Senate passed in June, and House Republicans are also weighing a measure to help young immigrants. Stephen A. Nuño, a professor of political science at Northern Arizona University, was blunt. “You’re making it much harder for Congress to give you a pathway to citizenship when you gamble,” he said. | Dream Act;Illegal Immigration;National Immigrant Youth Alliance;Nogales AZ;Deportation;Immigration |
ny0066077 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2014/06/06 | War’s Elite Tough Guys, Hesitant to Seek Healing | After his fourth combat tour, to Afghanistan in 2011, Sgt. First Class Michael B. Lube, a proud member of the Army Special Forces, came home alienated and angry. Once a rock-solid sergeant and devoted husband, he became sullen, took to drinking, got in trouble with his commanders and started beating his wife. “He would put this mask on, but behind it was a shattered version of the man I knew,” said his wife, Susan Ullman. She begged him to get help, but he refused, telling her: “I’ll lose my security clearance. I’ll get thrown out.” When she quietly reached out to his superior officers for guidance, she said, she was told: “Keep it in the family. Deal with it.” And so he did. Last summer, just days after his 36th birthday, Sergeant Lube put on his Green Beret uniform and scribbled a note, saying, “I’m so goddamn tired of holding it together.” Then he placed a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. To a growing number of medical experts and the Special Operations Command itself, suicides by soldiers like Sergeant Lube tell a troubling story about the toll of war on the nation’s elite troops. For 12 long years, those forces, working mostly in secret, carried the burden of much front-line combat, deploying time and again to the most violent sectors of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet for all their well-known resilience, an emerging body of research suggests that Special Operations forces have experienced, often in silence, significant traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Both conditions have been linked in research to depression and, sometimes, suicidal behavior. Absent other data, suicide has emerged as the clearest indicator of the problem: In the past two and a half years, 49 Special Operations members have killed themselves, more than in the preceding five years. While suicides for the rest of the active-duty military have started to decline, after years of steady increases, they have risen for the nation’s commandos. Image Sergeant Lube Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times “The numbers are shocking,” said Dr. Geoffrey Ling , a leading brain-trauma expert and director of biological technologies at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency . He believes Special Operations forces are at higher risk of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress because of their high-stress work, he said. “To us, it is a canary telling us there are bigger problems at hand.” The highest levels of the command have taken notice. With Special Operations forces expected to continue deploying not only to Afghanistan, but also to hot spots like North Africa and Southeast Asia for years to come, senior commanders are openly pushing their troops to seek help, and worrying that the struggle to heal the force has only begun. Adm. William H. McRaven , who oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden and who now heads the Special Operations Command, has created a task force, Preservation of the Force and Family , to address the mental, emotional and physical needs of his troops. In a 12-page internal document disseminated in late March, he ordered new procedures and training to “help leaders at all levels do everything we can to prevent a suicide.” “My soldiers have been fighting now for 12, 13 years in hard combat — hard combat, and anybody that has spent any time in this war has been changed by it,” Admiral McRaven said in a recent speech. “I don’t think we’ll see that begin to manifest itself for another year or so. Maybe two, three years.” Congress has also gotten involved. The House Armed Services Committee, noting the suicide rate, recently voted to shift $23 million to therapies for brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide prevention for Special Operations forces. Despite the growing problem, a serious obstacle remains to fixing it: the culture of Special Operations itself. Even more than conventional forces, commandos have been taught to fight through injury and remain stoic about pain, whether physical or psychological. Breaking through that resistance to seek help may prove to be among the greatest challenges facing the commanders. Image THE FACES OF INNER PAIN At the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, one wall contains masks painted by patients asked to depict their inner turmoil. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times “We obviously have a peer-to-peer stigma, the machismo that ‘I can’t admit that I have to see a counselor or psychiatrist, that makes me weak and we’re at war, and there can’t be any chinks in the armor,' ” said Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Faris, an 18-year veteran of Delta Force, the top-secret Army counterterrorism unit. But as commandos retire, their struggles are likely to become more visible. Capt. Tom Chaby, a former SEAL Team Five commander who heads the new task force, said he had not met a retired Special Operations veteran who was not at least partly disabled. “We physically crush special operators during their careers, and when they retire they are broken,” Captain Chaby said. “We broke these guys. We need to do our best to send them back into the civilian sector as whole as possible.” Arduous Deployments The military’s Special Operations forces — which include Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, Rangers, Delta Force, Special Operations pilots, and units from the Air Force and Marine Corps — are older than most troops: 29 on average among enlisted troops, 34 among officers. They endure more rigorous selection, and the training is far more like combat than it is for most conventional troops. Over the past 12 years, they have experienced shorter but more frequent, and often more violent, deployments. Of the command’s 66,000 troops, just 18,600 are members of the elite, direct-combat teams that deploy to front-line zones and conduct secret missions. Many went to Iraq or Afghanistan twice a year for three- to four-month tours, carrying out numerous “kill or capture” raids, then being spelled for several months between deployments. For Sergeant Major Faris, now the Special Operations Command’s senior enlisted adviser, several years passed before he realized how war had scarred him on the inside. Early in his long Special Operations career, he was part of the task force that tried to wrest Somalia from warlords in 1993; he was wounded and saw numerous colleagues killed during the calamitous battle made famous by the film “Black Hawk Down.” When he moved with Admiral McRaven in 2011 to the command’s headquarters in Tampa, Fla., alarm about the condition of their battered force was already rising. Image Most of the patients have frontal lobe injuries from concussions or other brain injuries. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times On their desks was a sobering new report commissioned by the departing commander, Adm. Eric T. Olson, which described a fraying force and troubling rates of broken marriages, alcoholism and other concerns. As they began mapping out policies, Admiral McRaven realized that his longtime aide was suffering from some of the same problems. Sergeant Major Faris agreed that he was in a “dark place” and went to the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in suburban Washington, a premier military center for rehabilitating amputees and treating traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. What doctors learned surprised him. To his recollection, he had been wounded only once by an explosion: two decades earlier, in Mogadishu, Somalia, possibly by a rocket-propelled grenade. Doctors, however, told him that he had four spots on his brain and that he had traumatic brain injury. Sergeant Major Faris said there was no scientific way to know how his brain injury had occurred, but he theorized that it stemmed from years of training with explosive charges to blow down doors and walls, a tactic known as breaching. He estimated he had been exposed to thousands of breaching charges. A growing number of longtime commandos and researchers have reached similar conclusions. While far smaller than roadside bombs, the low-level blasts used in breaching — which troops endure many times over years of deployments and training, often with little time to recover — may cause cumulative and significant damage to the brain, experts say. Other tactics common among some Special Operations forces — including the firing of recoilless rifles and other heavy weapons — may have similar long-term effects. In 2008, military researchers from the United States, New Zealand and Canada independently reported accounts of a collection of symptoms from people routinely exposed to low-level blasts that included fatigue, memory difficulties, headaches and slowed thought processes. “Breacher’s brain,” it was called. And last year, the findings of a study of New Zealand soldiers suggested “a measurable degree of brain perturbation” from exposure to breaching blasts in training. At the National Intrepid Center at Walter Reed, where Sergeant Major Faris was treated, one wall is lined with ghoulish masks painted by patients asked to depict their inner turmoil. Most of the patients have frontal lobe injuries from concussions or more serious brain injuries, as well as a second syndrome, usually post-traumatic stress, said Capt. Robert L. Koffman, a Navy doctor who is senior consultant for integrative medicine and behavioral health at the center. Of the 600 service members who have received treatment there, nearly a third are from Special Operations units, even though commandos constitute only 2 percent of Department of Defense personnel. Image ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Faris, who got a surprising report on previous injuries. Credit Brian Blanco for The New York Times Research increasingly points to links between the two conditions. A study last year of 22,000 soldiers at the Army Special Operations Command found that of those who reported clinical levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, 28 percent had received a diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury at least once. The study, by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Fort Bragg, also found that soldiers with diagnosed traumatic brain injury caused by blast exposure were more than four times as likely to have clinical post-traumatic stress symptoms than those with no traumatic brain injury. For Sergeant Major Faris, the treatment included acupuncture, meditation and physical therapy. It proved so helpful that he decided to make his story public, to encourage other Special Operations members to seek help if they are struggling — and to make clear that no one who does should be ostracized or penalized by commanders or peers. In his town-hall-style meetings with Special Operations troops, Sergeant Major Faris reveals how “psychologically abusive” he was to his wife and children during his battle with post-traumatic stress, and describes the ways in which treatment helped him to “make peace” with his demons. “The point of all this therapy is, now you see your demon coming and you say, ‘Good morning. How you doing?' ” he said in an interview. “Your demons will be on the street. You don’t have to embrace them. But you have to be able to say, ‘Good morning,’ and let them go.” ‘Nothing Left’ For Sergeant Lube, the demons were just taking hold after he returned from Afghanistan three years ago, when these initiatives to destigmatize mental health care were not widespread across Special Operations, his widow, Ms. Ullman, said. She struggles to pinpoint specific events that contributed to his downward spiral; she has concluded it was the accumulation of a career of hard combat. “Michael lost friends. Michael saw tragic happenings,” she said. “For almost 18 years, half his life, he was prepping for or engaged in war.” Image Capt. Tom Chaby leads a new task force to address the mental, emotional and physical needs of troops. Credit Brian Blanco for The New York Times The problems piled up. The military police detained him after a soldier saw him take a pistol to Fort Bliss, Tex., in his backpack — an oversight, according to Ms. Ullman. Another time, he was arrested when someone called the police after seeing him strike his wife. He told her that he had even dreamed about hurting her. Seeking help from her husband’s superiors, “I phoned. I sent emails. I sent text messages,” Ms. Ullman recalled. “I never had anybody say, ‘Let us help you find counseling.' ” She persuaded her husband to visit a private psychiatrist, paying cash so there would be no record the military could find. The doctor diagnosed post-traumatic stress, but Sergeant Lube refused to attend therapy or take medications, fearing the military would find out or the treatments would dull his edge. Last summer, he called her with bad news. The infractions had mounted, bringing the ultimate professional indignity: He was to be dishonorably discharged. “He said: ‘I can’t struggle anymore. I have nothing left,' ” Ms. Ullman recalled. Then he told her: “You know, baby, this is a lot harder to do than it looks like on TV. I’ll always love you.” And, she said, “that was it.” Ms. Ullman buried him at Arlington National Cemetery. Then, without thinking through what she wanted to accomplish, she just started calling members of Congress. “I would say: ‘Here is Michael’s story. I know he’s not the only one. Perhaps members of your constituency have gone through it, too,' ” she said. Lawmakers including Representative Doug Lamborn, a Republican whose district includes Fort Carson, Colo., home to Sergeant Lube’s unit, the 10th Special Forces Group , embraced her efforts. Mr. Lamborn said he hoped that Admiral McRaven’s program had “potential that, unfortunately, Susan Ullman’s husband didn’t have access to.” Ms. Ullman has also organized an informal counseling and support group for military personnel, veterans and their families, called Warrior2Warrior . After Sergeant Lube’s death, military investigators took his computer and smartphone — a standard practice as part of the service’s official inquiry. But when they were returned to Ms. Ullman, they had been wiped clean to remove any sensitive military information. That meant all their personal photos were lost, except the few on her cellphone. She did receive his dog tags, which she wears today. Ms. Ullman also received the Army’s official 100-page inquiry report, which included the grim police photographs of the suicide. Since his death, she had often caught herself daydreaming that he was simply away on another overseas mission. The photographs, though horrific, made her confront the reality. “Michael is not on deployment,” she said. “He is never coming home.” | US Military;Traumatic brain injury;PTSD;US Special Operations Command;Depression;Afghanistan War;Iraq War;Navy Seals;Suicide |
ny0121236 | [
"us"
] | 2012/07/14 | Judge Partly Unblocks Mississippi Abortion Law | A federal judge in Mississippi partly lifted a barrier on a law on Friday that would put new restrictions on the state’s sole abortion clinic. But he blocked parts of the law that could expose the clinic to criminal or civil penalties while it tried to come into compliance with the new restrictions. The law, which the State Legislature passed in the spring, requires physicians performing abortions at a clinic to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The two doctors who perform abortions at the state’s only clinic, in Jackson, do not have such privileges. Although they have applied to seven hospitals in the area, they have yet to hear a response. The clinic sued the state, and on July 1, the day the law was to take effect, Judge Daniel P. Jordan III of United States District Court temporarily blocked the measure. The judge held a hearing on Wednesday to decide whether to keep the law blocked. The state argued that the hold should be lifted because the administrative process for carrying out a new law can take up to six months, during which the clinic would be allowed to operate as it tried to come into compliance. Lawyers for the clinic responded that during that administrative process the doctors would still be breaking the law by performing abortions and could possibly face criminal prosecution, even if they later met the law’s obligations. Judge Jordan’s decision, which addressed both concerns, did not address the fundamental constitutional dispute: whether the law is, as the clinic argues, simply a pretext to stop abortions in the state altogether. Allowing the law to take effect, the judge said on Wednesday, would allow him to see whether or not the doctors would be able to comply with its new regulations. The outcome of that process would have an impact on determining the law’s constitutionality, he said. | Abortion;Mississippi;Jordan Daniel Porter III;Doctors |
ny0269804 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/04/07 | Marginal Role for de Blasio as New York’s Primary Nears | It appeared as if Mayor Bill de Blasio would finally get his moment: “Rally for Hillary in Manhattan,” the mayor’s announcement said. But the event on Wednesday evening was a bit less than it seemed: Hillary Clinton was not there. About 300 people, mostly union members and employees, attended the event, held in a meeting room at the Lower Manhattan offices of the United Federation of Teachers. It featured the mayor; Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook; Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas; Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president; and the federation’s president, Michael Mulgrew. High praise was everywhere. Mr. Mook said Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, was the “greatest mayor in the history of New York.” The mayor praised the toughness of Mrs. Clinton, who spent the day in Pennsylvania. Despite the exchange of compliments, the event showed what has become obvious in recent months: Mr. de Blasio’s fence-sitting before finally endorsing Mrs. Clinton, rather than Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in the Democratic presidential race has stranded him on the fringe of the action. As attention turns increasingly to New York State’s primary on April 19, Mr. de Blasio has yet to appear in public this month with the candidate he endorsed. “The mayor is still overcoming his early reluctance to endorse Hillary,” said George Arzt, a veteran Democratic political consultant. “And in the hottest Democratic presidential primary in years here, this is proving to be a little awkward.” The primary campaign is hitting its stride at an awkward time for the mayor, as some recent stumbles could make him slightly less desirable as a campaigner. City officials recently lifted property restrictions on a nursing home that was then acquired by a developer that plans to build luxury apartments — an embarrassing gaffe for a mayor who has made affordable housing a cornerstone policy. And this week it was revealed that the mayor had cut money for work on a major water tunnel considered an essential infrastructure improvement for the city’s future. (He said on Wednesday that he now planned to speed up the work.) On Monday, Mrs. Clinton attended a rally in Manhattan with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to celebrate the signing of a law that will gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 in parts of the state. But Mr. de Blasio, who has an uneasy relationship with the governor, also a Democrat, was not there. Image Mayor Bill de Blasio greeting attendees of a Hillary Clinton event on Wednesday at the Lower Manhattan offices of the United Federation of Teachers. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton held a rally in Brooklyn with the mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray, which was aimed at bringing women to her cause. Mr. de Blasio did not appear at the rally on Tuesday, although a spokesman for the mayor sent out an email saying he met with Mrs. Clinton privately afterward. While the mayor may well come to take a more prominent role as the primary date draws near, some political consultants have said that the awkward dance so far is of Mr. de Blasio’s own making. Even though he helped manage Mrs. Clinton’s first campaign for the Senate in 2000, he withheld his endorsement for months during this campaign, suggesting that he wanted her to articulate an updated vision for 2016. An early endorsement could have been a boon to Mrs. Clinton, giving her cover from the left as she came under increasing pressure from that direction from Mr. Sanders. When Mr. de Blasio finally came out for her, his endorsement had little impact . An offer to help Mrs. Clinton in Iowa seemed to be lukewarmly received; the mayor wound up knocking on doors as he canvassed for her. He did attend a rally at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan with Mrs. Clinton early last month. But even there he seemed to be upstaged by the governor. Mr. de Blasio has consistently brushed aside speculation that there is a freeze between him and the Clinton campaign. “I find this whole attempt to create drama always very interesting,” he said in a recent interview. “Because I’m talking to the people who run her campaign. We talk all the time — a perfectly good working relationship.” And he defended his efforts, while postponing his endorsement of Mrs. Clinton, to prod the candidate toward the left. “This is not about personalities,” Mr. de Blasio said in the interview. “This is about changing the debate and changing fundamental policies in this country, and I believe it was the right thing to do to ask of Hillary and all the candidates that they lay out a vision for addressing income inequality. And I think the way this year has progressed, it’s abundantly clear the public was demanding that.” | 2016 Presidential Election;Hillary Clinton;Bill de Blasio;NYC;Political endorsement;Democrats |
ny0126471 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2012/08/23 | Labor Unrest Spreads to More Mines in South Africa | Labor unrest in South Africa ’s platinum belt spread on Wednesday, raising concerns that anger over low wages and poor living conditions could generate fresh violence just days after 34 striking miners, many wielding machetes, were shot dead by the police. The world’s top platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum, said Wednesday that it had received a demand for a pay increase from its South African workers, while Royal Bafokeng Platinum said a labor action by about 500 miners interrupted work at a shaft at its Rasimone mine. At Marikana, where the miners were killed, a somber-looking President Jacob Zuma, at right, visited Wednesday, standing under a parasol held by an aide to address around 2,000 subdued miners. “This is painful to all of us,” he said. “It is not acceptable for people to die where talks can be held. But I do feel your pain.” The Marikana strike has stoked worries about investing in Africa’s biggest economy, where chronic unemployment and income disparities threaten stability. | South Africa;Labor and Jobs;Mines and Mining;Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Organized Labor |
ny0235013 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2010/01/19 | U.S. Soccer Team Awaits Word on Dempsey’s Knee Injury | Barely two weeks after scoring a dazzling goal for his club team, Fulham , Clint Dempsey is playing a waiting game. His immediate future and the United States’ hopes at this summer’s World Cup in South Africa hinge on the words of doctors who are evaluating Dempsey’s right knee after he was injured Sunday in an English Premier League match at Blackburn Rovers . Dempsey , a native of Nacogdoches, Tex., is a striker-midfielder for Fulham, a London-based club. His steady play earned him a contract extension through 2013, and he has scored six goals in 22 league appearances for the Cottagers this season. He and striker Bobby Zamora, who is also injured, gave Fulham a dangerous partnership up front. On Monday, Fulham club officials confirmed that Dempsey had a magnetic resonance imaging test on a posterior cruciate ligament injury, but added that team doctors were still evaluating the test results. “There’s nothing to say about Clint currently,” the Fulham spokeswoman Sarah Brookes told the Yanks Abroad Web site. “He’s undergoing medical assessment, and until we have any prognosis that comes from our medical experts, we will not be making any comment. I would imagine that we will know more Tuesday, but as I said, the results from the scan will be looked at by a number of experts to make sure that Clint undergoes the correct treatment and to get him back as soon as possible.” A ruptured ligament could keep Dempsey out for the remainder of the Premier League season and the World Cup, in which the United States was drawn into a first-round group with England, Algeria and Slovenia. “This wasn’t like an A.C.L., which is usually fairly obvious, but in Clint’s case, it’s unclear and there’s no way for us to talk about it until the Fulham doctors go public with the results,” Michael Kammarman, a spokesman for the United States national team, said in a telephone interview Monday from Carson, Calif., where the Americans are holding a training camp in advance of Saturday’s friendly against Honduras . “This is Fulham’s news to announce.” Dempsey, 26, has played 44 times for the United States national team and scored some important goals in big competitions. Those include one against Ghana in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and goals against Egypt, Spain and Brazil as the American team advanced to the final of last summer’s FIFA Confederations Cup . All too often, however, Dempsey has seemed to melt into the background playing for the national team, which raised questions about how he could be such an integral player for his club team but not the national team. Even with his occasional lack of interest, Dempsey remains one of Coach Bob Bradley’s key players, in the recent past and in the run-up to the World Cup. Although the roster of players available to Bradley gives the United States more depth than it has had at perhaps any other time in its soccer history, does Bradley have a player available who could replace Dempsey’s guile, skill and experience? “That’s a good question,” Kammarman said. “You’re talking about one of our most important players. You can make adjustments, but he won’t be easy to replace.” Dempsey is the third front-line United States player to sustain an injury that could keep him out of the World Cup. It is only the latest injury worry for Bradley, who has been without the first-team central defender Oguchi Onyewu (knee) and the emerging striker Charlie Davies ( a broken leg sustained in an auto accident ) since late 2009. Onyewu is in his first season with A.C. Milan in Italy, and Davies is in his first with Sochaux in France. If Dempsey is unavailable for the World Cup, it could reopen a door for DaMarcus Beasley. Beasley, who has been playing an increasingly important role for Glasgow Rangers in Scotland, fell out of favor at the Confederations Cup but offers Bradley speed and experience on the left flank. Other possibilities include Robbie Rogers, a naturally right-footed player who has played on the left side for the Columbus Crew, and Alejandro Bedoya, 22, who plays in Sweden. Notes ¶Hosts Angola and Algeria, one of the United States’ first-round opponents at the World Cup, advanced Monday to the quarterfinals of the African Cup of Nations . Ivory Coast and Egypt, the defending champion, have also qualified for the next round. ¶Two Atlantic Coast Conference teams — Wake Forest and North Carolina — sent an outsize number of players to the top men’s and women’s professional leagues in last week’s draft. The Tar Heels had four players taken in the first eight picks (including the No. 1 overall pick, Tobin Heath) and 6 of the first 19 picks in the Women’s Professional Soccer draft . In the Major League Soccer draft , four Demon Deacons went in the first round. ¶Preki Radosavljevic and Thomas Dooley have been elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame ’s class of 2010 and will be inducted at a ceremony this summer in Oneonta, N.Y. | Soccer;Dempsey Clint;Knees;World Cup (Soccer);Bradley Bob;Onyewu Oguchi;Davies Charlie |
ny0233147 | [
"science"
] | 2010/08/31 | Of Time and Tide | Q. Living near the seashore, I find that tables of tide times and heights are quite accurate. How are these predictions made? A. The timing of high and low tides depends not just on the known gravitational forces of the moon and sun, but also on factors including the configuration of the coastline, water depth, ocean floor topography and meteorological conditions, according to the National Ocean Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For a given location, observations from a tide gauge are typically analyzed along with the response of the observed water levels to the movements of the Earth, moon and sun. The results of the analysis and the known future positions of the Earth, moon and sun are then combined to make predictions. The actual tides may differ significantly from predictions based solely on astronomical forces used in this analysis, so tide tables must consider seasonal weather effects as well. For maximum accuracy, a series of tidal observations ranging from at least a full year up to an 18.6-year tidal cycle may be used, the Ocean Service says. In the United States and its possessions and territories, the service maintains a network of about 156 gauges to monitor tides continuously, as well as shorter-term temporary stations. In many areas (like the upper Chesapeake Bay), weather effects are more significant than astronomical effects on daily water-level variations, making it more difficult to produce accurate tide predictions. C. CLAIBORNE RAY | Oceans;National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration;Science and Technology |
ny0282397 | [
"technology"
] | 2016/07/16 | Nintendo to Re-Release NES Games, No Blowing Necessary | Nostalgic gaming fans can stop digging through their attics. Nintendo surprised traditionalists on Thursday with a new way to defeat Dr. Wily , Mother Brain and Bowser . The company announced that a mini-replica of its original NES console, first released in 1985, will be available on Nov. 11, preloaded with 30 of its most recognizable games and priced at $59.99. Called the NES Classic Edition, it will fit in a single hand and come with an HDMI cable and AC adapter to plug into modern TVs, plus one classic controller. Extra controllers will cost $9.99 apiece. The list of games features several of Nintendo’s biggest hits, including the first three Super Mario Bros. games, the first two Zelda games, Mega Man 2, Metroid and Excitebike. “We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo’s original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place,” Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said in a statement. Nintendo is hoping to tap into the nostalgia that helped propel the Pokémon Go app into a gaming behemoth in just days, even surpassing usage numbers for Twitter , according to SimilarWeb, a tracking firm. Though Nintendo didn’t create the mobile game — it’s the work of Niantic Inc., a start-up spun out of Google last year — the Pokémon franchise is partly owned by Nintendo and appeals to roughly the same generation that grew up playing the NES. While the proliferation of smartphones has made gaming explode on mobile devices, Nintendo steadfastly stuck to its focus on hardware until last year, when it announced a partnership with the Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA. The two companies released Miitomo in March, and plan to release two more this year: “Animal Crossing” and “Fire Emblem.” Its consoles have not fared so well recently. The most recent one, Wii U, has had disappointing sales , lagging behind its rivals, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. Nintendo plans to unveil its next console, code-named NX, in 2017. Oh, and that habit you had of blowing on the NES cartridges to make them work? That never actually helped . Sorry. Here’s a full list of games on the upcoming NES Classic Edition. Balloon Fight Bubble Bobble Castlevania Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Jr. Double Dragon II: The Revenge Dr. Mario Excitebike Final Fantasy Galaga Ghosts ‘N Goblins Gradius Ice Climber Kid Icarus Kirby’s Adventure Mario Bros. Mega Man 2 Metroid Ninja Gaiden Pac-Man Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream StarTropics Super C Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. 2 Super Mario Bros. 3 Tecmo Bowl The Legend of Zelda Zelda II: The Adventure of Link | Computer and Video Games;Nintendo |
ny0199829 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2009/07/14 | N. Korea’s Leader May Have Cancer, Report Says | SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader Kim Jong-il , who suffered a stroke last August, was also found to have “life-threatening” pancreatic cancer around the same time, a South Korean cable television network reported on Monday. The network, YTN, a cable news station, quoted unidentified Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources for the report, which was made by YTN’s correspondent in Beijing. The station did not explain how the sources obtained the sensitive medical information from North Korea , an isolated, nuclear-armed state that has kept details of its leader’s health a closely guarded secret. South Korean officials said Monday that they could not confirm the report, but added that they were studying possible causes of Mr. Kim’s recent loss of weight. If the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer were true, Mr. Kim might not have much longer to live. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to detect early. It spreads rapidly, and the fatality rate is high. The World Health Organization says fewer than 5 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer live longer than five years. Although Mr. Kim began making occasional public appearances a few months after he mysteriously disappeared last August, photographs of him and television images recently carried by the North Korean media showed him limping and frail. Mr. Kim’s loss of weight, in particular, has elevated speculation about the severity and nature of what is wrong with him. The Unification Ministry, a South Korean government agency in charge of relations with North Korea, “has no information” on Mr. Kim’s reported cancer, said Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman. The National Intelligence Service and other government agencies also said they could not confirm it, repeating their standard answer to a recent flurry of thinly sourced and often speculative reports about Mr. Kim’s health. Mr. Kim’s health is a topic of intense international interest, in large part because world leaders and governments are unclear about who would succeed him. North Korea is one of the world’s most unpredictable nations, and any transfer of power will focus new attention on the security of its nuclear arsenal. South Korean news media scrutinized every still photo and segment of television footage of Mr. Kim released by North Korea. In his latest public appearance last Wednesday at a memorial for his father, the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, Mr. Kim looked thinner and appeared to have less hair than before. His mouth looked lopsided. That led to a slew of speculative reports, though Mr. Kim walked on his own into last week’s ceremony. “When I saw his loss of weight, I thought of diabetes or cancer,” said Hyun Jong-jin, a gastroenterologist at Korea University Anam Hospital in Seoul. “But by just looking at him in those pictures, you can not say he has a pancreatic cancer.” Doctors say that a person with chronic diabetes, a smoking habit and obesity is more likely to get pancreatic cancer. Mr. Kim before his reported stroke fits the description. The Seoul government has long suspected Mr. Kim of having diabetes. “We are looking into what his loss of weight means,” said a senior government official in Seoul who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing his department policy. “But if he is a pancreatic cancer patient, he is remarkably doing well because he is making quite a few public appearances.” Mr. Kim has made dozens of visits to military units, farms and factories this year, the Unification Ministry said, citing North Korean news reports. Mr. Kim inherited power after his father died in 1994 at the age of 82. American intelligence officials said last fall that Mr. Kim was seriously ill, although the exact nature of his illness has been a matter of speculation. A French neurosurgeon who has treated Mr. Kim said the North Korean leader did have a stroke last August. In December, the doctor, Francois-Xavier Roux, told Le Figaro, the French daily newspaper: “Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke but did not undergo an operation. He is now better.” In May, North Korea tested its second nuclear device in a move that shocked and angered the international community. Even China, the North’s closest ally, condemned the test. Mr. Kim has three known sons, and in recent months there have been widespread reports — many of them thinly sourced — that the youngest son, Kim Jong-un, has been designated the heir apparent. | North Korea;Kim Jong Il;Medicine and Health |
ny0084273 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2015/10/06 | Iraq: Car Bombings Kill Scores Across the Country | A series of car bombings across Iraq killed at least 56 people on Monday and wounded dozens. The worst took place in the Shiite-majority town of Khalistimes past in Diyala Province, in the east. At least 32 people were killed there and 58 were wounded when the car bomb tore through a commercial street, a police official said. Another attack, Basra Province in the south, also targeted a busy commercial district, killing 10 people and wounding at least 25, a senior security official said. In Baghdad, the police said at least 14 people were killed and 25 wounded in an explosion in the northeastern neighborhood of Husseiniya. | Iraq;Bombs;Fatalities,casualties;Terrorism;Baghdad |
ny0180308 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/08/01 | Taking the Guesswork Out of Which Subway Escalators Are Broken | For many straphangers, encountering a broken elevator or escalator can be one of the more unpleasant surprises of travel in the subway system, requiring a long trek up a hot flight of stairs. For riders in wheelchairs, it can be far more than an inconvenience, requiring a lengthy detour to get out of the subway system. Starting today, New York City Transit will try to eliminate at least some of the surprise — if not the aggravation — by posting a list of elevators and escalators that are out of service, on its Web site, mta.info. The information that will be available on the Internet will be similar to information already provided by the transit agency on a special telephone hotline, (800) 734-6772. Michael Harris, who leads an advocacy group called the Disabled Riders Coalition, applauded the move and suggested that the transit agency go a step further and make announcements on trains pulling into stations where elevators are not working. That way, he said, riders who use wheelchairs would know not to get off at a station where they might be stuck on a platform with no way out. “It will help,” Mr. Harris said of the online information. “Will it solve the problem? No. We do recognize that elevators are technical equipment and they do break down from time to time. The important thing is to let riders know when those elevators are not working so they can make alternate plans.” Since he took over the transit system in April, Howard Roberts, the president of New York City Transit, has twice gone on subway rides with advocates for disabled riders, including Mr. Harris. He has also voiced frustration at encountering broken elevators and escalators. “My personal goal is to get to the point that most days we have zero elevators out of service,” Mr. Roberts said. “One of the things I have learned on the trips around, if we have a single elevator out of service, then that is an absolute bar to a person in a wheelchair using that station.” If the online list had been available yesterday it would have shown, for instance, that the down escalator to the uptown platform serving the B, D, F and V trains at 34th Street was not working. What the Web site could not have shown was the frustration that the breakdown caused many subway riders. “It’s been broken since it’s been fixed,” said Binnie Aquilino, 58, a customer service representative for an apparel company who was on her way home to Flushing, Queens. “They put in a new escalator a year ago, and it’s never worked properly. It’s out more than it works.” Ms. Aquilino said she probably would not check the authority’s Web site to find out if the escalator was working. “I’m going to go the same way no matter what,” she said. Hestert Deas, 67, who walks with a cane, was on her way home to Harlem when she approached the escalator. She saw that it was not working and turned away with a look of exasperation. “It’s frustrating,” Ms. Deas said. She said that instead of walking down the stairs, she would go to the other end of the station, where there is an elevator (it was working yesterday). But that would put her at the wrong end of the train, so that when she got to her destination she would have to walk back the other way. Altogether, the broken escalator forced her to add about two blocks to her walk at the end of the day. “I need them to get these fixed,” she said. Officials said that the information on the Web site would be updated three times a day. Later this year, the agency will revise the Web site so that information can be updated around the clock. It also plans to introduce a program allowing riders to get e-mail alerts about particular elevators or escalators . There are 158 passenger elevators in the subway system, including 138 in 61 stations that are fully accessible to the handicapped, according to the transit agency. The agency said that 48 elevators are connected to an automated monitoring system that signals maintenance workers when they stop working; plans call for equipping 31 more elevators with automated monitors. The subway system, which has 468 stations, also has 169 escalators. | New York City Transit;Elevators and Escalators;Transit Systems |
ny0158851 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/12/09 | Attack on Ecuadorean Brothers Investigated as Hate Crime | The two brothers from Ecuador had attended a church party and had stopped at a bar afterward. They may have been a bit tipsy as they walked home in the dead of night, arm-in-arm, leaning close to each other, a common tableau of men in Latino cultures, but one easily misinterpreted by the biased mind. Suddenly a car drew up. It was 3:30 a.m. Sunday, and the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a half-block from the brothers’ apartment, was nearly deserted — but not quite. Witnesses, the police said, heard some of what happened next. Three men came out of the car shouting at the brothers, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay — something ugly, anti-gay and anti-Latino. Vulgarisms against Hispanics and gay men were heard by witnesses, the police said. One man approached Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, the owner of a real estate agency who has been in New York a decade, and broke a beer bottle over the back of his head. He went down hard. Romel Sucuzhanay, 38, who is visiting from Ecuador on a two-month visa, bounded over a parked car and ran as the man with the broken bottle came at him. A distance away, he looked back and saw a second assailant beating his prone brother with an aluminum baseball bat, striking him repeatedly on the head and body. The man with the broken bottle turned back and joined the beating and kicking. “They used a baseball bat,” said Diego Sucuzhanay, another brother. “I guess the goal was to kill him.” At least five calls were made to 911. As police sirens wailed in the distance, the assailants, described only as black men by the police, jumped into their maroon or red-orange Honda sport utility vehicle and sped away. Jose Sucuzhanay was listed on Monday in very critical condition at Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was on life support systems and in a coma after an operation for skull fractures and extensive brain damage. As word of the ferocious attack spread on Monday, an outpouring of anger and protest swept the city, from members of the City Council, the State Legislature and Congress; from religious, labor and civil rights organizations; from Latino and gay groups; and from the Ecuadorean and Hispanic communities. “This won’t be tolerated,” Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, said at a news conference on the steps of City Hall that drew dozens of public officials and leaders of civil rights groups. “We cannot and we will not let hate go unchecked in our city.” The condemnations were amplified by Council members Diana Reyna, Rosie Mendez, Melissa Mark-Viverito, G. Oliver Koppell, David Yassky, Miguel Martinez, Gale A. Brewer, Daniel R. Garodnick, David I. Weprin and Letitia James; by Representative Nydia M. Valazquez, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblywoman Carmen E. Arroyo, officials of the New York City Central Labor Council, the NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, and by Jewish, Catholic and Protestant leaders. A spokesman for Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, said the prosecutor was “shocked and appalled by this senseless, bigoted, brutal act,” and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Because of the antigay and anti-Latino epithets shouted by the assailants, the police said they were investigating the case as a hate crime. “Once more, we hear hate crimes,” said Carlos Zamora, president of the Ecuadorean Civil Center of New York. He recalled the fatal stabbing of Marcelo Lucero, a 37-year-old Ecuadorean, in Patchogue, N.Y., on Nov. 8, in an attack by seven teenage boys who said they had driven around looking for Latinos to beat up. Seven youths have been arrested in that case and have pleaded not guilty to various charges. The victim, Jose Osvaldo Sucuzhanay, the co-owner of Open Realty International, a real estate agency in Bushwick, was described by family members as a gentle, generous man, a father of two children who live with his parents in Azogues, Ecuador, his native town. He lives on Kossuth Place, in a building that is also home to his brother Diego and a sister, Blanca Naranjo. The victim’s girlfriend, Amada, arrived about six months ago and has been staying with Mr. Sucuzhanay. Diego Sucuzhanay said that his brother, one of 12 siblings, came to New York 10 years ago “because there were job opportunities.” He said Jose worked as a restaurant waiter for seven years, and founded his real estate agency several years ago. “He helped this community,” he said. “He loved Bushwick.” On Saturday night, Diego Sucuzhanay said, Jose and Romel, who had been staying with Jose, went to a party at St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church on Linden Street at St. Nicholas Avenue in Bushwick, a neighborhood with a large Ecuadorean community, and later had dinner at a restaurant and then drinks at La Vega, a bar at 1260 Myrtle Avenue, near Cedar Street, five blocks from the victim’s home. They left the bar before 3:30 a.m., said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, and were walking arm-in-arm. Despite the cold, the men were dressed lightly: Romel wore a tank top and Jose was wearing a T-shirt. One or both may have had a jacket slung over their shoulders, officials said. They reached the intersection of Bushwick and Kossuth as the assailant’s car drew up at a stoplight. As the driver and two other men got out, Romel Sucuzhanay and another witness heard the shouted slurs. Romel Sucuzhanay, who was not seriously injured, had a cellphone but did not know the number for calling the police. He shouted to the attackers that he was calling the police. One of those who called 911, Hiram Nieves, a retired store owner, said that he and his wife heard loud noises in the street. “We heard bang, bang, bang,” as Mr. Sucuzhanay was being pounded with the bat, “and people were running from one side to the other,” he said. After the attack, he said, he saw one of the men throw something into the S.U.V. and get in with the others. The victim, he said, “was laying there, he wasn’t moving.” Then a lot of people emerged from their homes on Kossuth Place, Mr. Nieves said, moving around the man lying in the street. | Hate Crimes;Hispanic-Americans;Civil Rights and Liberties;Bushwick (NYC);Sucuzhanay Romel;Sucuzhanay Jose |
ny0279904 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2016/10/11 | Indians Sweep Aside Ortiz’s Last Bit of Magic | BOSTON — Each time David Ortiz walked to the batter’s box, the fans at Fenway Park stood and cheered, a gesture that was partly a salute to his remarkable career and partly an entreaty to save the day once again. After 14 years in Boston that helped to redefine the culture of a team and a city, Ortiz had conditioned the fans to expect the dramatic. They had come to believe that he could conjure more magic from his bat than anyone who had ever played for the Red Sox . They were desperate for him to prolong the season and his career for one more day, one more game, one more chance to wear the hero’s crown. But Ortiz’s magic finally ran out. In a result that served as a bit of a shock to those who envisioned Ortiz sipping Champagne after his final game, the Cleveland Indians beat the Red Sox, 4-3, on Monday to complete a three-game sweep in the teams’ best-of-five division series and advance to the American League Championship Series, where they will play the Toronto Blue Jays. The decisive home run this time did not come from Ortiz, but from Coco Crisp, a former teammate of Ortiz’s in Boston, who whacked a two-run homer for Cleveland in the sixth inning, and the Indians’ relief corps pitched around several tense situations to secure the win. “What they did to us, we expected to do to them,” Ortiz said, “because we feel like we have a better ball club.” When the final out came and the Indians celebrated on the field, onlookers fell into an instant silence. Then, within seconds, they began to chant, “Thank you, Papi!” While the Red Sox held a team meeting in the clubhouse, with speeches from Manager John Farrell and Ortiz, most of the fans remained in the stands for several more minutes, chanting, “We’re not leaving,” in hope that Ortiz would emerge from the dugout again for one final goodbye. Image Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz after grounding out in the fourth inning. His career ended alongside Boston’s postseason hopes. Credit Charles Krupa/Associated Press Finally, Ortiz appeared. Surrounded by photographers, he walked to the mound, removed his cap and waved in every direction around the stadium. There was no smile. He wore a solemn expression, nodded and patted his chest. Then he walked off the field, wiping a tear from his cheek. “I was trying to hold in my emotions,” he said, “but it hit me at that last second. I couldn’t hold it in no more.” Ortiz had provided Boston’s fans with so many memorable moments and so many postseason victories throughout the years, but there would not be another. He had said before the season began that he would retire when it concluded, and ended he his career — barring an unexpected change of heart — by going 0 for 1 with two walks and an R.B.I. In the eighth inning, he drew a four-pitch walk in his final plate appearance and then went to second on a run-scoring single by Hanley Ramirez that drew Boston to within a run, 4-3. After Ortiz settled onto second base, he was removed for pinch-runner Marco Hernandez, most likely his final mention in a box score, and trotted off the field to chants of “Papi!” Once in the dugout, Ortiz raised his arms aloft repeatedly, urging the crowd to make noise and rattle the opposition. His final moments as a player were spent as a cheerleader. “I was cheering so bad,” he said. “Once I got out of the game, I was screaming at my team to put me back in it. Make me wear this uniform one more day, because I wasn’t ready to be over with the playoffs.” Dustin Pedroia, the Boston second baseman and a teammate of Ortiz’s for two of Big Papi’s three championships, said the Red Sox had hoped to prolong his career, but the Indians were too good. “They played great,” Pedroia said. “There wasn’t one part of their game that was off. They were on, and that’s why they won.” Ortiz had played in 17 elimination games for the Red Sox, and hit six homers and knocked in 22 runs in them, burnishing a reputation as a postseason player for the ages. Indians Manager Terry Francona was in the Red Sox’ dugout a dozen years ago when the legend of Big Papi was first born. As the Red Sox’ manager at the time, he witnessed many of Ortiz’s historic moments. He had cheered Ortiz’s game-winning home run in the 10th inning of Game 3 of an A.L. division series against the Angels in 2004, his 12th-inning home run in Game 4 of the A.L.C.S. that same year against the Yankees, and his game-winning single in the 14th inning of Game 5 of that series. “That was an honor, to be on the field for his last game,” Francona said. “I think you can see by the way the fans reacted, their outpouring of affection for him, that was an honor.” Ortiz had chances to add to his list of magical moments on Monday. In the sixth inning, the Red Sox trailed by three runs and had two runners on base. Ortiz came to the plate with a chance to tie the game against Andrew Miller, the Indians’ top left-handed relief pitcher. With the fans standing and chanting, “Papi! Papi!” Ortiz hit the ball sharply on a line to center. But it was caught, resulting in a sacrifice fly as Boston cut Cleveland’s lead to 4-2. The Red Sox came close to preserving their season, and Ortiz’s career, in the ninth inning. With two outs, Jackie Bradley Jr. roped a single to right field, and Pedroia walked on a full-count pitch. Travis Shaw worked the count full, but his fly ball to right changed the scene from electric to funereal in an instant. All that was left were the chants for Big Papi and the memories. “The memories and other things I can share, you already know most of them,” Ortiz said. “I’m happy and proud I am going home the way I am right now.” | Baseball;Playoffs;Red Sox;Cleveland Indians;David Ortiz |
ny0041326 | [
"us"
] | 2014/05/04 | For Florida Grapefruit, One Blow After Another | VERO BEACH, Fla. — In the nearly 100 years that Rusty Banack’s family has been growing Florida’s world-famous grapefruit, the industry has lurched from years of bumper crops to the devastation of tree-toppling hurricanes. But nothing compares to the current steep decline of the business, despite the state’s standing as the world’s biggest grapefruit producer. Florida produced nearly 41 million boxes of grapefruit a decade ago; this year it is expected to produce 16 million. Some growers have shut down, but the long-timers who remain, like Mr. Banack, have dug in, plunging millions of dollars into the land in an all-out bid to save one of the state’s emblematic citrus crops. The past decade has been particularly treacherous as the salt-kissed soil of the Indian River Citrus District, known for its succulent grapefruit, has absorbed one wallop after another. First there was the relentless spread of canker, which badly damages grapefruit, and back-to-back powerful hurricanes. Next were studies highlighting the problematic effects of grapefruit on certain medicines and the maw of urban development, which gobbled up countless groves. Now, grapefruit trees are facing another formidable foe: citrus greening , a bacterial disease with no cure that is devastating trees across the state. “I was surprised by how fast the disease moved through the industry,” Mr. Banack said. Driving his pickup recently through acres of trees — some with branches bearing clusters of grapefruit, others showing signs of ill health — Mr. Banack also spoke of another, more mundane problem: In today’s frenetic world, eating grapefruit can take too much time. Image Rusty Banack's family has grown grapefruit for nearly 100 years. Credit Aldrin Capulong for The New York Times “It’s not convenient fruit,” Mr. Banack said, because it requires slicing and napkins to soak up the spurts of juice. “Nowadays people want to grab a banana, an apple, and head out the door.” The most recent set of challenges — less land, more disease, higher costs and decreased consumption — has brought grapefruit production to its lowest point in 75 years, with the exception of the 2004 season, when two hurricanes barreled through the state. Orange trees, the mainstay of the citrus industry, are also being badly hurt by the Asian citrus psyllid, the tiny insect that causes greening of citrus trees. Infected fruit withers and drops before it ripens and cannot be sold. While growers have been able to slow greening through fertilizer use and temperature regulation, they are paying three times more in production costs than they did in 1998, which has culled the number who can afford to stay in the industry. Greening, which began in Florida in 2005, has spread to California and Texas. Scientists are seeking ways to conquer the voracious insect: In February, Congress authorized $125 million over five years for research. The Florida Legislature is expected to allocate several more million on top of the $70 million raised by growers over the last six years. “Mother Nature has not been nice to Florida citrus in the last 15 years,” said Michael W. Sparks, executive vice president and chief executive of Florida Citrus Mutual , the state’s largest citrus grower organization. The reduction in grapefruit tree acreage over the last decade has been especially disheartening to growers. In 1996, the state was carpeted with about 139,000 acres of grapefruit trees; by the end of last year, it had 38,000. On the east coast of Florida, where a majority of grapefruit are grown, the industry provides an annual economic benefit of more than $500 million. “We employ a lot of people, and then there are the old guard, who have lived in Florida for generations — people you want to help,” said Doug C. Bournique, executive vice president and general manager of the Indian River Citrus League , which oversees the narrow, grapefruit-rich district stretching 200 miles from Daytona Beach to West Palm Beach. “For a while we were screaming and screaming and got no love, and now everybody wants to help.” Image Lucy Tucker bought fresh juice at Countryside Citrus Packing House. Credit Aldrin Capulong for The New York Times For that reason, he and the growers say, they are hopeful the industry will recover. Mr. Bournique emphasized that the March bloom pointed to a crop that could be the best in years as long as hurricanes stay away. The grapefruit here on the Treasure Coast, a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, are sweeter and more succulent than those grown in other states and countries. About half of the region’s grapefruit are destined for processed juice. The rest are shipped out fresh, the vast majority exported to Canada, Europe, Japan and, increasingly, South Korea, where people love premium grapefruit. The standards for shipments are exacting and increasingly expensive. Greening and canker have reduced the number of grapefruit that meet the blemish-free specifications and large size required to sell abroad and in stores in the United States. This has cut into business, as has the price of grapefruit, which has risen because of scarcity and the cost of shipping. Grapefruit exports to Japan, traditionally the top market, dropped by one-third last year to their lowest point in 28 years, partly because of Japan’s own market disruptions. Tending to their groves up and down this section of coast, the citrus growers who remain are hardy survivalists. Many are from families that have been in the business for generations, and most carry a Florida Southern twang to prove it. “This is not a hobby,” said Mike Garavaglia, whose family has been in the business for generations, as he recounted the monumental efforts that he and other growers had made to beat back disaster, including propping up warming tents around trees to stave off greening. “When you make a decision to plant a tree in the ground, it’s a 30- to 40-year decision.” Canker, which hit Florida especially hard in the 1990s, flew in most recently in a suitcase from Asia, Mr. Bournique said. A passenger brought a wood cutting from her homeland and grafted it onto her Florida grapefruit tree. Made airborne by the wind, the bacteria skittered up the state, damaging hundreds of millions of grapefruit. In 2004, two hurricanes spread the disease to uncontrollable levels, and canker remains today. Image Florida may produce 16 million boxes of grapefruit this year, down from 41 million a decade ago. Credit Aldrin Capulong for The New York Times At the same time, a previously published medical study that concluded grapefruit could cause side effects in combination with certain medicines, including blood pressure drugs and some statins for high cholesterol, gained traction among doctors, pharmacists and grapefruit lovers. Suddenly, doctors and pharmacists were telling many alarmed older people, who tend to eat grapefruit most frequently, to stop eating it. The industry battled back by publishing lists of the specific medications involved, but with more people taking statins, grapefruit sales to older people sagged. “It’s a real phenomenon,” said Dan King, director of scientific research at the Florida Department of Citrus. “We’ve been very careful, but we have tried to reduce the horror stories and the alarm. There were these reports out there about people dying and being at high risk of tremendous harm, and nobody was able to establish evidence.” Just the other week at Mr. Banack’s roadside shop, a 70-year-old snowbird from Cape Cod said that as much as he loved grapefruit, he had stopped eating them several years ago under doctor’s orders. “We used to go home with two cartons,” the retiree, Kevan Sullivan, said. Lucy Tucker, who stood nearby, said her husband had also been told to stop eating grapefruit after being prescribed a blood thinner medication. “But he has it once or twice a week,” she said, “because it’s so delicious.” At the moment, the medicine interaction problem is low on growers’ list of worries. Finding a cure for greening, a goal grapefruit growers share with orange growers, remains their top priority. | Grapefruit;Agriculture;Florida |
ny0107934 | [
"science",
"earth"
] | 2012/05/03 | Report Points to Decline in Ability to Monitor the Earth | Earth-observing systems operated by the United States have entered a steep decline, imperiling the nation’s monitoring of weather, natural disasters and climate change , a report from the National Research Council warned Wednesday. Long-running and new missions are frequently delayed, lost or canceled because of budget cuts, launching failures, disorganization and changes in mission design and scope, the report said. “It’s likely our capabilities will decline fairly precipitously at just the time they’re most needed,” said Dennis Hartmann , a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and the chairman of the committee that produced the report. He mentioned the continuing federal budget crisis, the aging of equipment, a severe shortage of medium-size satellite launchers, and some initiatives that cost billions of dollars without producing results. | United States National Research Council;Weather;Satellites;Global Warming |
ny0113472 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2012/11/20 | Georgetown Spoils Debut of U.C.L.A.’s Shabazz Muhammad | The sky-high promise and harsh reality of Shabazz Muhammad were nicely illustrated on one play late in the second half Monday night. Muhammad, a U.C.L.A. freshman, tried to soar over Georgetown center Nate Lubick for an impressive one-handed dunk. He landed face-first. Muhammad, the top recruit in the country, made his collegiate debut, and that was enough to draw national interest to the second semifinal game of the Legends Classic at Barclays Center. It was not, however, enough to win. Georgetown knocked off No. 11 U.C.L.A., 78-70, with a near-perfect second-half shooting performance. The Hoyas (3-0) will meet No. 1 Indiana in the final Tuesday night, after the Hoosiers staged a second-half comeback of their own to defeat an overmatched Georgia team, 66-53. The Hoosiers may have their hands full with a sophomore-laden Georgetown team that put on an offensive clinic against U.C.L.A. “I think this team trusts each other and they trust what they’re doing,” Hoyas Coach John Thompson III said. “This is an unselfish group.” Certainly none of the Georgetown players entered with nearly the hype and attention around Muhammad, the top recruit in the country. Whether they used that as motivation was evidenced by their play. Georgetown, which returned four key players from a 24-9 team a year ago, displayed an impressive inside-out game, ran the floor, crashed the boards and altogether taught the young Bruins a lesson in disciplined offense. They shot 60 percent from the field, committed only four turnovers, and assisted on 9 of their 18 field goals in the second half. “Their offense really, really cut us up,” U.C.L.A. Coach Ben Howland said. “We’re a team that’s obviously very young. We really got hurt defensively.” Georgetown raced out of halftime with a 12-0 run, including two 3-pointers by the sophomore forward Greg Whittington, to take a 43-29 lead. The Bruins (3-1) crept back, but the Hoyas’ skill and depth were enough in the second half. Point guard Markel Starks scored 23 points, and the versatile forward Otto Porter, a sophomore, had 18 points to go with 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 blocks and 3 steals. U.C.L.A. looks like a revived team from a year ago, when it missed the N.C.A.A. tournament for a second time in three seasons. An investigative report by Sports Illustrated in February examined the downfall of a program that had advanced to three consecutive Final Fours early in Howland’s tenure. It seemed as though that tenure might have reached its ultimate conclusion. With U.C.L.A.’s four-man recruiting class considering at the top in the nation, though, fresh life has been pumped back into Howland’s program. The centerpiece was Muhammad, a thick, athletic, 6-foot-6 guard out of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas who was considered the top high school player in the country. Muhammad missed the first three games of the season and was forced to repay about $1,600 in impermissible benefits stemming from expenses paid on unofficial visits during his recruitment. He was declared eligible by the N.C.A.A. on Friday. Though Muhammad had been practicing and working out with the team, he said he still felt he missed a lot. “I’m just trying to get used to the system and getting used to playing with all these players,” said Muhammad, who scored 15 points in 25 minutes off the bench. “I’m looking forward to getting better as a team and myself as a player.” Jordan Adams, a less heralded U.C.L.A. freshman, scored 22 points. But a less heralded team came away with the victory. | University of California Los Angeles;Georgetown University;Basketball;College Athletics;Basketball (College);University of Georgia;Indiana University;Muhammad Shabazz |
ny0264212 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2011/12/08 | Mine Attack Kills 19 Civilians in Afghanistan | KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Nineteen civilians, some of them women and children, were killed on Wednesday by a mine planted on a highway in southwestern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said. Dawoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province, said the victims were among 24 people crammed aboard a minibus traveling from Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, to the Sangin District, a dangerous part of the province where Taliban insurgents have been active. The minibus drove over the mine. In addition to the 19 dead, which included five children, five people were wounded, Mr. Ahmadi said. Some of the wounded were taken to NATO medical facilities for treatment. “The enemy of the country has always been planting mines on civilian routes, which are causing civilian casualties, and we seriously condemn this action,” Mr. Ahmadi said. In an unrelated episode in northern Badakhshan Province, the authorities on Wednesday were still searching the rugged territory in the Wardoj District for six policemen abducted by Taliban insurgents after an abortive community meeting, according to Shah Waliullah Adbib, the provincial governor. Mr. Adbib said that locals from the Basheen village had reported to provincial authorities that Taliban had become active in the area; Badakhshan has generally been free of Taliban activity, but insurgents often enter the area from Nuristan Province to the south. On Sunday, the police sent 50 officers to meet with the villagers, and they sat down in the mosque with them. During the meeting, 10 to 15 Taliban insurgents burst in and opened fire on the police, killing two officers and wounding two others, the governor said. The insurgents were able to escape, destroying three police trucks on the way and taking six police with them as hostages, he said. A Taliban spokesman claimed the insurgents had captured 30 police officers and destroyed 20 trucks. | Afghanistan War (2001- );Kandahar (Afghanistan);Civilian Casualties;Terrorism;Police;Kidnapping |
ny0135681 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2008/04/08 | Times Reporter Is Released on Bail in Zimbabwe | A reporter for The New York Times who was jailed for covering the elections in Zimbabwe without government permission was arraigned and released on bail on Monday, according to Harrison Nkomo, one of his lawyers. The reporter, Barry Bearak , was swept up during a raid on a small hotel frequented by foreign journalists in the suburbs of Harare, the capital, on Thursday afternoon. The action seemed to be part of a crackdown by government forces after an election that was turning against President Robert Mugabe and his 28-year grip on the country. That same day, at least one American democracy advocate was also detained, and security agents raided offices of the main political opposition. Mr. Bearak and a British citizen — who was also granted bail on Monday — had been held in custody since the raids, accused of violating the country’s strict journalism laws. Three judges have refused to hear Mr. Bearak’s case so far, Beatrice Mtetwa, another of his lawyers, told reporters outside a courthouse in Harare on Monday. But Mr. Bearak was granted a court date for Thursday, Mr. Nkomo said later. Under the terms of his bail, Mr. Bearak was released to a clinic; he suffered some injuries to his back as the result of a fall from the concrete bunk in his dark, crowded cell to the floor, seven feet below, Mr. Nkomo said. Mr. Bearak’s passport was confiscated, and he was required to put up 300 million Zimbabwe dollars as bail, about $10,000 at official exchange rates but only about $7 at black market rates. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Zimbabwe has long used accreditation laws to keep foreign journalists from covering the turbulent nation. “It is a back-door form of censorship,” said Joel Simon, the committee’s executive director. Very few foreign journalists have received accreditation, despite some 300 requests to cover the elections late last month, a government spokesman told the pro-government newspaper The Sunday Mail, according to the committee. Even journalists who carried proper accreditation have faced arrest. Two technicians working for the South African subsidiary of GlobeCast, a company that provides satellite uplinks for news programs, were arrested March 27 after working on a live interview for CNN with a government official, according to Melanie Gibb, a company spokesman. The two had been accredited but had not yet picked up their paperwork, Ms. Gibb said. At the end of the interview, the official told them to go to the police station, and both were arrested. They were later released on bail, only to be rearrested after a court hearing at which the charges against them were dropped. They were granted bail again on Monday, according to Mr. Nkomo, whose partner is representing them, but it was unclear whether they had been released. Dileepan Sivapathasundaram, the American democracy advocate detained last week, has still not been charged with a crime, according to the National Democratic Institute, the Washington-based organization he works for. Even so, Mr. Sivapathasundaram, who was released to American diplomatic custody last week, has not been allowed to leave the country and has been ordered to report to the police each day, often for many hours at a time. The State Department said last week that at least two other Americans had been detained, but that they were later released and that they had left the country. | Zimbabwe;Bearak Barry;New York Times |
ny0244536 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2011/04/02 | Terry Jones Demands Retribution for U.N. Deaths | GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Before a Koran was burned at his modest church here on March 20, the pastor Terry Jones held a self-styled mock trial of the holy book in which he presided from the pulpit as judge. The prosecutor was a Christian who had converted from Islam. An imam from Dallas defended the Koran . Sitting in judgment was a jury of 12 members of Mr. Jones’s church, the Dove World Outreach Center . After listening to arguments from both sides, the jury pronounced the Koran guilty of five “crimes against humanity,” including the promotion of terrorist acts and “the death, rape and torture of people worldwide whose only crime is not being of the Islamic faith.” Punishment was determined by the results of an online poll. Besides burning, the options included shredding, drowning and facing a firing squad. Mr. Jones, a nondenominational evangelical pastor, said voters had chosen to set fire to the book, according to a video of the proceedings. Mr. Jones said in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday that he was “devastated” by the killings of 12 people in a violent protest in Afghanistan when a mob, enraged by the burning of a Koran by Mr. Jones’s church, attacked the United Nations compound in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. “We don’t feel responsible for that,” he told the news service. Unlike the worldwide outcry that greeted the pastor’s plan to burn 200 copies of the Koran on Sept. 11 — which he ultimately abandoned — the event last week at the 50-member church was largely ignored by the news media. As of 2 p.m. on Friday, the video of the Koran’s burning on the church Web site had been viewed only 1,500 times. “The local strategy of everybody was to ignore this,” said the Rev. Lawrence D. Reimer, pastor of the United Church of Gainesville. “It’s just a horrible tragedy that this act triggered the deaths of more innocent people.” Some church members were surprised by the violent reaction in Afghanistan on Friday, said Fran Ingram, an assistant at the church. She explained that it was decided in the weeks leading up to the burning that a jury of churchgoers and volunteers would hear both sides before deciding what to do. In a statement, Mr. Jones demanded that the United States and United Nations take “immediate action” against Muslim nations in retaliation for the deaths. “The time has come to hold Islam accountable,” he said. He also called on the United Nations to act against “Muslim-dominated countries,” which he said “must alter the laws that govern their countries to allow for individual freedoms and rights, such as the right to worship, free speech and to move freely without fear of being attacked or killed.” Some members of the Dove World Outreach Center said they feared they would be attacked. “We have a huge stack of death threats,” Ms. Ingram said. “We take precautions. I have a handgun. A lot of us have concealed weapons permits. We’re a small church, and we don’t have money to hire security.” Before the March 20 service, Mr. Jones asked if the church’s Web site was streaming the event, according to the video. He was assured that it was. Mr. Jones then gave the “defense attorney” the opportunity to leave. “It is not that we burn the Koran with some type of vindictive motive,” Mr. Jones said. “We do not even burn it with great pleasure or any pleasure at all. We burn it because we feel a deep obligation to stay with the court system of America. The court system of America does not allow convicted criminals to go free. And that is why we feel obligated to do this.” On the video, a pastor named Wayne Sapp is seen igniting a kerosene-drenched copy of the Koran with a plastic lighter. Members of the church watch the book burn for several minutes while several photographers snap pictures. Finally, Mr. Jones says, “That actually burned quite well.” | Koran;Dove World Outreach Center;Muslims and Islam;United Nations;Muslim-Americans;International Relations;Jones Terry (Pastor);Afghanistan |
ny0028976 | [
"sports",
"cycling"
] | 2013/01/14 | How Armstrong’s Foundation Benefited Him | After Lance Armstrong was successfully treated for testicular cancer more than 15 years ago, his sports agent predicted that the rising cycling star, then in his 20s, would be more marketable than ever. “Lance isn’t just a cyclist anymore,” the agent, Bill Stapleton, told The Austin American-Statesman in 1997 . “Because of the cancer, the Lance Armstrong brand has a much broader appeal. Our challenge is to leverage that now. He’s on the verge of being a crossover-type spokesman.” That year, Mr. Stapleton helped Mr. Armstrong form his foundation to assist cancer patients. Alongside Mr. Armstrong’s fame, the foundation, now known as Livestrong , grew into one of the nation’s largest cancer charities, the nonprofit arm of a multimillion-dollar conglomerate that the two men would cultivate over the next 15 years. Now, the fates of Mr. Armstrong and the foundation are again linked as both try to rebound from a doping scandal that led to Mr. Armstrong’s ignominious fall. Friends and associates have said that Mr. Armstrong will admit to using performance-enhancing drugs when he sits down Monday for a taped interview with Oprah Winfrey. The confession, they said, is part of a bid by Mr. Armstrong to resume his athletic career and rehabilitate the reputation that helped build the charity and the rest of his financial empire. An examination of Livestrong shows the degree to which the charity, Mr. Armstrong’s business interests and those of his associates have long been intertwined. While Mr. Armstrong’s celebrity fed the charity, the charity also enhanced his marketability. Livestrong also engaged in some deals that appeared to have benefited him and his associates, according to interviews and financial records. In one case, the charity sold the rights to its iconic Livestrong name to a commercial media company that also hired Mr. Armstrong as a spokesman. “There was a conflict. I felt there was,” said Doug Kingsriter, a former Livestrong development officer. “And of course we run into this with nonprofits. Personal interests, personal agendas, should not be greater than the interest of the mission of the organization.” As Mr. Stapleton predicted, Mr. Armstrong became a crossover celebrity, gaining endorsement deals with a variety of companies. Many of those companies donated to the foundation, burnishing their images through association with a good cause. Mr. Stapleton’s company, Capital Sports & Entertainment , of which Mr. Armstrong was the key client and a minority shareholder, earned fees from the foundation, beginning in 2010, based on the partnerships it generated. In three years, those fees amounted to $423,000. On his company’s Web site, Mr. Stapleton is identified as the chief management officer of the Livestrong brand at the foundation. The foundation distinguished itself by emphasizing survivorship, providing programs and services aimed at easing the personal and practical hardships that come with cancer. Millions of people wore the yellow Livestrong wristbands that became the organization’s trademark and a rallying point for cancer awareness. As the doping allegations mounted, the foundation’s popularity became part of Mr. Armstrong’s defense. His lawyers invoked his charity as he fought the United States Anti-Doping Agency , known as Usada, whose October report disclosed overwhelming evidence that Mr. Armstrong had doped during most of his career and had supplied performance-enhancing drugs to his teammates. Usada also accused both Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Stapleton of lying under oath in an effort to cover up Mr. Armstrong’s use of the drugs. Last summer, the charity also ran interference when its executive director, Doug Ulman, issued statements raising questions about the integrity of Usada’s investigation. Livestrong also hired Washington lobbyists from Patton Boggs, the firm representing Mr. Armstrong in the doping case. Image Doug Ulman, the executive director of Livestrong, contended that the foundation's lobbying efforts were related to cancer and that any mention of the antidoping agency's investigation was incidental. Credit Ben Sklar for The New York Times Livestrong’s stated purpose in visiting Capitol Hill lawmakers, according to lobbying records , included “issues related to support for the foundation’s activities.” But a spokesman for Representative José E. Serrano later said that the Usada investigation was the primary focus of the discussions. Mr. Ulman said that the lobbying was related to issues linked to cancer and that any discussion of the antidoping agency came up only in passing. To avoid conflicts of interest in the foundation’s overall business, he said, its executive committee screened all of its partnerships, and a top lawyer who specializes in nonprofits monitored the integrity of its deals. In an interview at Livestrong’s headquarters in Austin, Tex., Mr. Ulman, himself a cancer survivor, said that the last few months “felt like years,” but that the foundation would endure. It has reduced its budget by 11 percent for this year but expected many of its donors would remain loyal, he added. “In the long run, I think the organization is going to be incredibly strong because the cause is so important,” he said. Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Stapleton, who are not accused of any wrongdoing related to the foundation, did not respond to requests for comment. Stripped of his seven Tour de France titles , barred from all Olympic sports, including triathlons, and dropped by his former sponsors, Mr. Armstrong may face civil litigation seeking millions. John Korioth, one of Mr. Armstrong’s oldest friends and a co-founder of the foundation, said he believed that the interview with Ms. Winfrey would begin to mend the damage. “I think, I hope, that Lance will talk to the media in addressing those things that happened and the public moves on, moves on in a sense that there’s still this organization down in Austin that helps people fight and survive cancer,” Mr. Korioth said. He predicted that Mr. Armstrong would confess to using some performance-enhancing drugs but deny that he was a ringleader. For Livestrong, much hangs in the balance. Records and interviews show that the foundation has already lost financial support as corporations scale back or end their donations, even though Mr. Armstrong resigned as Livestrong’s chairman in an effort to contain the damage. Trek, the bicycle maker, has not renewed its pledge to Livestrong — worth at least $1,050,000 over the last three years. RadioShack, which had guaranteed $4 million a year, has extended its agreement with the foundation through June but with no guarantee, the foundation said. The sunglasses company Oakley, which had guaranteed at least $500,000 a year, said it continued to support the organization but had guaranteed no minimum for 2013. “What typically happens is that a sponsor doesn’t want to pull out when the spotlight is shining on the controversy and look like bad guys for not supporting a cancer awareness charity,” said Daniel Borochoff, president of CharityWatch . “They typically wait until it dies down.” The Wristbands In a recent episode of “South Park,” the town’s residents lined up at a pharmacy to have their yellow Livestrong wristbands safely removed. The wristbands are “out,” except at Livestrong’s headquarters, where all of the nearly 100 employees wear them. The foundation spared no expense on its offices, which resemble a gigantic Manhattan loft plunked down in a trendy section of East Austin. The same goes for its staff, which earns among the top nonprofit salaries in Austin. Initially called the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the organization had grand plans almost from the beginning. After Mr. Armstrong won his first Tour de France, in 1999, the group hired a professional nonprofit executive, Howard Chalmers, as its president. Mr. Chalmers decided to establish a “founders circle” of donors who would each pledge $500,000. The foundation offered a glamorous incentive: finish line tickets at the Tour de France and dinner afterward at the Four Seasons George V in Paris. “That took us from off the map entirely to on the map,” said Mr. Chalmers, who said he believed that Mr. Armstrong’s good works through the foundation outweighed any misdeeds. “He’s popular as a symbol of hope to many people,” Mr. Chalmers said. Image Lance Armstrong in 2010. He is expected to admit to doping to Oprah Winfrey. Credit Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In 2004, the foundation’s fortunes increased drastically, and almost overnight, with the introduction of the yellow wristbands emblazoned with the word Livestrong, an idea developed by Nike. As Armstrong won his sixth Tour that July, nearly every rider wore the yellow wristband. The next month at the Olympics in Athens, the American sprinter Justin Gatlin won a gold medal wearing one. By 9 a.m. the next day, more than 300,000 wristbands were sold on the foundation’s Web site. By the end of the year, the foundation had earned $26 million from wristband sales. “What people connect with is Lance’s story,” Mr. Kingsriter said. “Get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. Take charge of your life. Live your life and don’t let cancer live it for you. Those messages resonated with a lot of people.” The foundation saw its mission as “survivorship” — addressing the problems of people after their diagnoses. Among Livestrong’s top initiatives are survivorship centers at eight major cancer institutions. Other initiatives include a cancer “navigation” program that gives clients help finding government programs and fighting for insurance reimbursement. As the foundation grew, some supporters felt it had become too glamorous, overly focused on branding, image and public relations. The 2011 marketing budget, for example, reveals a $964,000 payment to one vendor for “digital marketing and strategy.” Among the projects undertaken by the vendor, Bully Pulpit, was an “open letter campaign” to generate more than 100,000 signatures delivered to world leaders asking them to make cancer a global priority. Livestrong placed a video billboard in Times Square featuring photographs of those who had signed. “They just seem to be running around and doing all these different events,” said Michael Birdsong, a donor and fund-raiser who has been critical of the foundation. Among examples of what Mr. Birdsong viewed as unnecessary expenditures: the foundation’s plans in 2009 to send five of its employees to post on Twitter from the Tour de France. Misgivings Over Deals The potential conflicts between the foundation and Mr. Armstrong’s business interests became apparent early, according to Mr. Chalmers. Mr. Chalmers became concerned that one company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, was using the foundation to promote its brand. The company, which had hired Mr. Armstrong as a spokesman, created a “Cycle of Hope” campaign in 2000 that included an information kit on cancer risk factors and symptoms, with advice from Mr. Armstrong. “It was presented to us: here’s your cancer kit and we’re providing this as part of our relationship with the foundation,” Chalmers said. “It could have looked to an outsider, Wait a minute, Lance is using his foundation as leverage to get sponsors.” Mr. Chalmers added that the organization took pains to avoid such conflicts. In a statement, Bristol-Myers said it had sponsored the Cycle of Hope to promote early diagnosis and support cancer patients. Mr. Armstrong’s empire expanded with lucrative endorsement deals and investments, including Honey Stinger food bars, FRS sports drinks, real estate, the Internet company Demand Media and an Austin bike shop. At the same time, Mr. Armstrong accounted for 20 percent to 30 percent of the business for Mr. Stapleton’s company, Capital Sports & Entertainment, according to testimony in a lawsuit. Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Stapleton and the company made substantial donations to Livestrong over the years. Mr. Armstrong gave a total of $7 million, making him the largest noncorporate donor. Mr. Stapleton, who also served as an executive of some of Mr. Armstrong’s cycling teams, gave up his role as foundation president early on, but employees said he remained a behind-the-scenes presence. The organization’s governing board also had several members with close ties to Mr. Armstrong, including business partners. The foundation hired top lawyers with nonprofit expertise to make sure its deals were in its best interests and complied with I.R.S. rules. Still, some people within the organization said they felt uneasy over the ties between Mr. Armstrong’s private business deals and partnerships with the foundation. Image Memorabilia and elaborate decor hang throughout the Livestrong headquarters in Austin, Texas. Credit Ben Sklar for The New York Times In 2008, Demand Media hired Mr. Armstrong as a spokesman and reached an agreement with the foundation to develop a commercial health and fitness Web site called livestrong.com., which would be supported by advertisers. That meant there would be two Livestrongs — livestrong.com, the health and fitness Web site, and livestrong.org, the foundation. Mark Zimbelman , a Brigham Young University professor who specializes in accounting fraud, and an amateur cyclist who has followed Mr. Armstrong’s career, called the agreement “unprecedented” in the world of nonprofit organizations. “Imagine if the American Red Cross decided to create a new Web site called ‘AmericanRedCross.com’ and sold the Web site,” Mr. Zimbelman wrote on his blog . “On the Web site they sold vitamins and other health products and used the same logos that the nonprofit organization uses.” In 2011, as a result of the deal, the foundation ended up with 184,000 shares of Demand Media at an offering price of $17, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Shares soared as high as $25 on the first day of the company’s trading. Mr. Armstrong received 156,000 shares, valued at about $2 million, which he donated to the foundation. Capital Sports & Entertainment received 28,000 shares. Mr. Kingsriter, who by then had left the foundation, questioned the propriety of the agreement. “It was pretty clear from what I understand that the Livestrong brand was there for the foundation, and livestrong.com, a for-profit that benefited Lance’s agent, in my opinion was wrong,” he said. Denis Prager, a nonprofit expert who formerly served as a consultant for Livestrong, also said the arrangement “crossed a red line.” Mr. Kingsriter said he also had questions about a deal involving the upstart sports drink company FRS. In March 2007, the maker of FRS announced that it would help sponsor the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, which was managed by Capital Sports and owned by Tailwind Sports. Capital Sports and Mr. Armstrong were also part owners of Tailwind, according to court testimony. The sports drink company appointed Mr. Armstrong to its board of directors and gave him a financial stake. The company agreed to give the foundation a percentage of its profits, which amounted to $250,000 in 2012. In return, the foundation promised to make FRS the official sports drink at its events, including Livestrong bicycle races, marathons and triathlons. Mr. Kingsriter said the foundation should have pursued a deal with a widely distributed drink that would have made more money for the foundation. Under I.R.S. rules, charities may be asked to demonstrate whether agreements are in their best interest, particularly when there is an appearance of a conflict of interest, according to Mr. Borochoff of Charity Watch. “Hopefully, they would have gone to Gatorade and other sports drinks and said, ‘Hey, what would you give us for that right to be the official drink?’ ” he said. FRS has ended its partnership with Mr. Armstrong and the foundation. For now, one of the foundation’s most generous donors, Nike, is continuing to support the charity, pledging at least $7.5 million for 2013 and 2014. To much public attention, Nike ended its contract with Mr. Armstrong himself in October, saying he had misled the company about his doping for 10 years. A 2001 Nike television ad , in fact, featured Mr. Armstrong disputing the doping allegations against him. | Lance Armstrong;Livestrong Foundation;Doping;Biking |
ny0284501 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2016/09/05 | A Publisher Joins an Industry It Covers, Blurring Lines | When Judy Balint, the chief marketing officer at SmartBiz Loans, read a freelance article that her company’s president contributed to Entrepreneur.com last month, she was startled to see that a promotion for a rival lender had been added to the beginning — a lender with a partnership with Entrepreneur. “Get the working capital your business needs from Entrepreneur Lending, powered by CAN Capital,” it read, with a link to more information. To Ms. Balint, it looked as though SmartBiz was endorsing Entrepreneur Lending in the article, which was titled “How Silicon Valley Is Changing the Fintech Space.” “It looks like it’s part of our content,” Ms. Balint said in an interview. “It’s not disclosed to the reader that it’s an advertisement, either, and that’s a real concern.” Image A promotional message that was added to the top of a post written by the president of SmartBiz Loans for Entrepreneur.com. Late last week, after The New York Times contacted Entrepreneur about the tagline, it was removed. When she complained, she said, she received an apology but was told the lines could not be removed or altered because of the way the post was tagged in the publishing system. The same promotional message was added to a slew of articles by journalists and contributors, some dating back as far as 2001, in a bid to draw readers to Entrepreneur’s new lending venture. Late last week, after The New York Times contacted Entrepreneur about the promotion, the tagline was removed, and in some cases replaced with a more recognizable ad for Entrepreneur Lending at the bottom of the articles. Publishers, under growing financial pressures in recent years, have increasingly blurred the lines between their organizations’ editorial and business sides to generate more money, whether through sponsored content that mimics the look and feel of reported work or by supporting conferences that feature leaders of businesses that their journalists cover. Entrepreneur Media, which owns Entrepreneur.com and Entrepreneur magazine, has entered new territory by joining the lending business, which it reports on, and using its editorial coverage to subtly promote its lending group. Entrepreneur Media, which started in the 1970s and is based in Irvine, Calif., has always targeted people who own, or aspire to own, a small business, mostly with “how to” information through its monthly magazine, books, website and events. The company, which is known for suing or threatening to sue anyone who infringes on its United States trademark for the word “entrepreneur,” says its flagship magazine has an advertising rate base of 600,000, compared with 700,000 at Inc.com and 900,000 at Forbes. Online, Entrepreneur.com had 5.7 million unique visitors in July, a 10 percent decline from the same month last year, compared with 74 million at Yahoo Finance and 9.7 million at Inc.com, according to comScore. Last month, Entrepreneur Media introduced Entrepreneur Lending, which allows it to profit as it directs readers to short-term, high-rate loans from CAN Capital. It added taglines promoting the business at the start of a wide range of stories related to raising capital, which are either edited contributions from freelancers or produced by its own writers. Ryan Shea, head of Entrepreneur Media, assured readers in an Aug. 16 post announcing the partnership that its publications would continue to provide “unbiased insights about loans from other banks, crowdfunding, personal assets and more.” “Covering the spectrum of accurate and relevant information is an important part of our mission to support the small-business community and integral to the integrity of our brand,” wrote Mr. Shea, whose father was one of three men who took control of the company in 1987. Mark Vamos, a professor of business journalism at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, and a former editor of Fast Company magazine, said the potential for conflicts of interest was obvious. “How can you continue to be neutral when you’ve got skin in the game?” he said. Before the original text was deleted from the stories, he said its placement was troubling for readers because it was not clearly distinguishable from the editorial content. “It’s positioned at the top of the article in a way that makes it look very important and integral to the article in some way,” he said. “There are certainly visual things they could do to make it clearer that this is an e-commerce link.” Bill Shaw, the chief revenue officer of Entrepreneur Media, declined to discuss the ads or terms of the company’s deal with CAN Capital. He pointed to Mr. Shea’s post from Aug. 16 as an example of the company’s “continued transparency” and said a similar note would be shared in the October issue of Entrepreneur magazine. Those at Entrepreneur Media take “the separation of editorial and commerce very seriously and hold the trust of our audience in the highest regard,” he wrote in an email. He said Entrepreneur Lending “is an alternative financing option for small-business owners, not an editorial product; therefore, our editorial staff is not affiliated with the service.’’ Mr. Shaw did not return messages seeking comment on why Entrepreneur removed the promotional tagline from the top of the stories. Ms. Balint of SmartBiz said the promotion crossed a line. “If they put it in a box and said ‘sponsored’ or ‘ad’ or something, it would certainly help, and then simply allowing the contributors to not have that right in front of their article,” she said. Mr. Vamos said the company was taking the risk of losing contributors and eroding the value of its core business, which is ultimately the editorial product. “People do try to blur the lines between editorial and advertising, because editorial has more credibility,” he said. “But if a publication starts going too far and blurring those lines and damages its credibility with readers, it also in the long term damages its value for advertisers.” | Entrepreneur Media;News media,journalism;advertising,marketing;Online advertising;Small business;SmartBiz Loans |
ny0158368 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/12/28 | Dogfighting Making a Comeback in Afghanistan | KABUL, Afghanistan — In a dingy butcher’s shop reeking of slaughter, a half-dozen sheep’s carcasses dangled from hooks, and two men spoke of dogs. “My dog is younger than his dog, I have the advantage,” said one of the men, known as Abdul Sabour, 49. “And my dog is more energetic than his dog.” “He’s lying,” grumbled the other man, Kefayatullah, 50. “His dog is old. He’s just here wasting his time. How many dogs has my dog beaten? Sixty! My dog has been a champion for three years!” The men were arranging a dogfight, largely in the international language of trash-talking. They represented two groups of bettors. The purse, they said, was $50,000, a fortune in this impoverished country and one of the biggest prizes here in recent memory. Afghans like to fight. They will boast about this. They will say that fighting is in their blood. And for all the horrors of three decades of war, they still find room to fight for fun, most often through proxies: cocks, rams, goats, camels, kites. And dogs. Dogfighting was banned under the Taliban, who considered it un-Islamic. But since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001, the sport has regained its earlier popularity, with dogfighters entering their charges in informal weekly tournaments on dusty lots in the country’s major cities. The sport has even experienced a resurgence in the south, where the influence of the Taliban is strongest, though the crowds have thinned somewhat since February, when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a dogfighting match. About 80 people were killed and more were wounded. Here in the capital, there are two tournaments every week, both on Friday, the day of prayer. The bigger one unfolds in the morning in a natural dirt amphitheater at the bottom of a craggy slope on the city’s outskirts. It draws thousands of men and boys as spectators — like most sports and sporting events in Afghanistan, it is almost exclusively a male pursuit. “It’s something from our ancestors,” said Ghulam Yahya Amirzadah, 21, whose family owns 17 dogs in Kabul and in their hometown in the northwest province of Badghis. Mr. Amirzadah, who is known in dogfighting circles as Lala Herati, said he inherited the pastime from his father, who ran fighting dogs in his youth. “It’s not about money,” Mr. Amirzadah said. “If my dog beats another dog, it makes me feel like I’ve won $100,000. I can survive just from the happiness.” On a recent Friday, Mr. Amirzadah was at the dogfighting amphitheater, though without his dogs. He was watching the fights and arranging future matches for his stable. More than 2,000 people were there — poor men who had arrived on foot as well as former warlords in sport utility vehicles accompanied by Kalashnikov-toting guards. And there were dozens of dogs — hulking, big-headed mastiff breeds that, in the right light and the wrong setting, might be mistaken for small bears. Some were so big that they had to be restrained by two men. A few owners, their arms tired, had lashed their dogs to the wheels of cars. An informal committee of arbiters, including Mr. Kefayatullah and Abdul Sabour, was selecting the fights and matching up the dogs. Some fights had been organized days in advance, with hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands, riding on each. A ringmaster, a toothless old man with a turban and a limp, presided over the event. He carried a wooden staff that he used to beat spectators who crowded the dirt arena and members of the dogfighters’ entourages who blocked the view. Though dogfighting is again popular here, it is far from universally embraced. The country’s elite disparage it as the domain of the uncultured and the criminal. “In my personal view, it’s not a good thing,” said Ghulam Nabi Farahi, deputy minister of information and culture. “In today’s world, these animals should be treated well. But unfortunately, there’s a lot of fighting.” But dogfighters generally shrug at these sorts of remarks. In modern Afghan society, there are not many sources of entertainment, they argue. In addition, they say, the dogs are well fed and well treated. “The interest of the people is increasing day by day,” said Sher Mohammad Sheywaki, 50, who was standing on the edge of the fighting pitch. “Even if people are starving, they’ll still keep dogfighting.” A fight was about to begin. Two dogs were brought close by their owners, then released. They lunged at each other, thrusting upward on hind legs and clamping their jaws onto each other’s face. They tugged and twisted each other, looking for leverage, each trying to knock the other off balance. Their handlers pressed in, shouting encouragement and slapping the dogs on their haunches, as a jockey would a racehorse. A cameraman crouched nearby, recording the fight for collectors’ DVDs. A large cloud of dust enveloped the scrum. This fight, like most others, was over in a few minutes when one dog had pinned the other to the ground and held him there. They were pulled apart and hauled out of the ring. In some countries, dogfighters will fight their dogs to the death. But Afghan dogfighting is more akin to Greco-Roman wrestling. A dog is declared the victor when he clearly establishes his dominance over the other, or when the weaker dog displays one of the telltale signs of submission, including backing off from the fight or putting its tail between its legs. They are usually pulled apart before they can inflict serious damage on each other. The stakes for dogfighters are too high to risk their charges any further. Dogs may be a costly investment for the average Afghan, but they can also make their owners money. On the eve of the fight between Mr. Kefayatullah’s dog, Palang (meaning tiger), and Abdul Sabour’s dog, Zambur (bee), the planned $50,000 purse dropped to $10,000, according to Mr. Kefayatullah. The fight took place on a sunny and chilly Friday morning this month. It was heavily anticipated, and the crowd was large. For more than 10 minutes, Palang and Zambur tore against each other, drawing blood. Mr. Kefayatullah, Abdul Sabour and others with money riding on the fight stayed close and yelled encouragement, according to Mr. Amirzadah, who attended. Eventually, Zambur, Abdul Sabour’s dog, ran out of steam and Palang overwhelmed him, prompting the men to call a halt to the fight. In celebration, friends of Mr. Kefayatullah swarmed Palang, whose fur was wet with blood, and showered him with Afghani bills. Except for deep wounds on a leg and an ear, Palang was O.K. But his owner was not. Minutes after the fight, Mr. Kefayatullah collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. He had a heart attack. “It was a stroke of joy and happiness!” he joked a week later, as he lay in a ward in the Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul. His wife and daughter sat at his bedside. “I’ll be up in no time,” he said, “and everything will be back to normal, like before.” His wife’s face visibly tensed. “No you won’t!” she said, glaring. She was serious. He was smiling. The daughter looked embarrassed. “It’s over,” Mr. Kefayatullah’s wife continued. “I will kill the dogs! I will give them some pills.” Mr. Kefayatullah shrugged and smiled again, trying to defuse the situation. “She says a lot, but I don’t listen,” he said, and he vowed to be back at the Friday dogfights — with his champion dogs — soon enough. | Afghanistan;Dogfighting |
ny0254774 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/07/14 | Sporting-Goods Vendors to Ease Yankee Fan’s Debts | A week ago, Christian Lopez was living an unremarkable life. He had a job, a girlfriend, a significant student loan debt. Then fate (he retrieved Derek Jeter ’s 3,000th hit) and choice (he simply returned the ball to the Yankees shortstop) changed all that. Mr. Lopez, 23, was lauded for his honor and ridiculed for his refusal to consider selling the ball. He met Jeter on Saturday, was the Yankees’ guest on Sunday and was back at work in a Verizon store in Middletown, N.Y., on Monday. On Wednesday afternoon, the story took a new turn at a crowded Times Square sports store, where two of Mr. Lopez’s admirers pledged him at least $50,000 in financial support — donations that came amid revelations of Mr. Lopez’s financial challenges. Mr. Lopez said he owed more than $100,000 in student loan debt; he could also face a significant tax burden after receiving season tickets and autographed memorabilia from the Yankees in exchange for the ball, which may have been worth $100,000 or more. Surrounded by Yankees T-shirts, hats and other merchandise, Mitchell Modell, chief executive of Modell’s Sporting Goods, and Brandon Steiner, chief of the memorabilia company Steiner Sports, pledged Mr. Lopez $25,000 each at a Modell’s shop off Times Square. Mr. Modell will also donate 5 percent of the earnings from Yankees merchandise sold at his shops over the next week to Mr. Lopez. At the news conference, Mr. Lopez appeared stunned. “I don’t know if there’s a cloud name for where I am right now,” he said. Moments before, Mr. Modell had given Mr. Lopez two other gifts: a lifetime discount card to his stores and his personal 2009 Yankees World Series ring, which Mr. Modell said he had because his company was a major sponsor. Mr. Steiner estimated the ring to be worth more than $40,000. Mr. Modell said he had been on vacation in Turkey during Saturday’s game. Upon returning to New York, he read news accounts of Mr. Lopez and of his financial woes and wanted to help. “When you hear about what Christian did, it wasn’t about Christian,” he said. “It was about his love for the Yankees, his love for Derek Jeter, his love for the history of the Yankees franchise.” Since Saturday, Mr. Lopez’s story has played out across the local and national news media and transformed him into a kind of baseball-fan superstar. He is asked for autographs; he has received hundreds of Facebook friend requests. At the news conference, Mr. Lopez said his finances were the last thing on his mind. “Right now I’m living in the moment,” he said. “I’m not going to let taxes ruin my experience.” | Lopez Christian;Jeter Derek;Memorabilia and Souvenirs;Modell's Sporting Goods;Steiner Sports;Baseball |
ny0042279 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/05/28 | Anger Over Coup Trumps Payouts to Thai Farmers | CHIANG YUEN, Thailand — They emerged flush with cash, the rice farmers who traveled to a state-owned bank here to retrieve the money that Thailand’s military junta had ordered they be paid. But if the country’s ruling generals expected gratitude, it was not on display on Tuesday in this northeastern town, a bastion of the former governing party, which the military overthrew in a coup last Thursday. “I still have anger in my heart,” said Maitree Vichapa, a farmer and part-time carpenter who arrived with his wife and child to receive 27,000 baht, or around $850. “We should have had this money a long time ago.” In what it described as one of its first priorities, Thailand’s military ordered that 92 billion baht ($2.8 billion) be disbursed to rice farmers, a huge sum that is more than the entire annual budget for the national police force. The payouts, meant to lift rural incomes, were twice the market price for the farmers’ rice. Image Farmers near Chiang Yuen received cash Tuesday that had been withheld by the previous government. The money was meant to lift incomes in rural provinces. Credit Adam Ferguson for The New York Times The previous government tried but was unable to pay farmers in the face of debilitating protests. The Bangkok establishment called the subsidies a wasteful and corrupt scheme. But the new military rulers ordered that the payments be made, and that the country’s banks lend the government the necessary cash. The military also cranked up its propaganda machine, aided by the Thai news media, which has been largely subservient since the coup. “Farmers Receive Money With Tears of Joy,” ran the headline in a national newspaper, Ban Muang. Other reports showed farmers marching to army bases to hand over red roses and holding up banners proclaiming appreciation for the general who led the coup, Prayuth Chan-ocha. Identical banners, featuring rice stalks and the same image of General Prayuth raising his hand in the air, were paraded by farmers in Phuket, Lopburi and Ubon Ratchathani, provinces that are separated by hundreds of miles. Thai newspapers quoted farmers praising the military in highly formal language. “We, on behalf of all farmers, would like to thank you for your true kindness and understanding of the hardship of the people,” a man who was described as a farmer was quoted by the ASTV Manager news website as saying. “We are here to offer moral support and flowers to thank you, the military of the entire people.” In Chiang Yuen, though, where there was no visible military presence nearby, farmers chuckled over the reports. “Real farmers wouldn’t come out and do those things,” said Duen Douangchansi, a farmer who received 280,000 baht (about $8,580) on Tuesday. “Real farmers would be too busy working.” David Streckfuss, an expert in Thai politics who is based in the northeast, where the former government was popular, said the army was unlikely to win over many people in the region by handing out the rice money. “Simply paying people for what they are owed is not going to buy the military any popularity, or somehow legitimize it,” Mr. Streckfuss said. Image People collect rice money on Tuesday at the state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives in Chiang Yuen, Thailand. Credit Adam Ferguson for The New York Times Mr. Streckfuss said that the army must address the fundamental issue of trust in democracy among the Thai citizenry. The farmers in Chiang Yuen did not criticize the military on Tuesday, and some said they saw the army as a neutral force in the country. Even so, they said that a return to elections was imperative, and that they were confident that the ousted Pheu Thai party would win again. The party was founded by Thaksin Shinawatra, a former business tycoon and prime minister who is widely admired here for backing populist policies including universal health care, and his sister, Yingluck, was prime minister at the time of the coup. In the months before the military stepped in, protesters backed by the Bangkok establishment blocked elections, which they saw as a threat to their traditional hegemony in Thai politics. “The Bangkok establishment sees democracy as an unfair use of their tax money,” Mr. Streckfuss said. “They don’t see policies pursued by elected governments as benefiting them.” By contrast, he said, voters in the poorer northern provinces benefited from those policies, and “people in the northeast think democracy works for them.” General Prayuth has said the country will return to democracy, but has not offered a timetable. The rice payments were an apparent attempt by the ruling generals to show a compassionate side toward poorer provincial voters disenfranchised by the coup. But the junta also flashed its hard-line tactics on Tuesday when the country’s former education minister, Chaturon Chaisang, was arrested by soldiers at Bangkok’s foreign correspondents’ club soon after addressing journalists. Thai media reported he would be court-martialed for failing to surrender to the junta. And two Thai reporters who had asked General Prayuth about elections at a news conference were summoned to a meeting of junta leaders. “Being insistent with questioning is considered inappropriate,” said Maj. Gen. Pollapat Wannapaktr, a military spokesman. In Chiang Yuen, Boonsri Pukongchana, 65, a former village headman, said that he was disappointed that the local talk radio station had stopped taking calls from people because of the coup, and that his neighbors were annoyed at having to seek permission to stay at a party later than the nationwide 10 p.m. curfew. | Thailand;Agriculture;Rice;Coups D'Etat;Prayuth Chan-ocha;Thaksin Shinawatra;Military |
ny0101393 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2015/12/21 | Yemen Peace Talks End With No End to Conflict | CAIRO — Days of negotiations in Switzerland to halt the war in Yemen ended on Sunday with no sign of a resolution to the conflict and with the combatants engaged in some of their fiercest fighting in months, according to negotiators and diplomats. The United Nations-brokered talks , which began on Tuesday, were aimed at ending the nine-month war between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. As the talks began, there were reasons for optimism: After several previous attempts to hold negotiations failed, the combatants sat down together for the first time during the conflict, and even agreed publicly to a cease-fire . At the same time, international pressure has been mounting for a resolution to the war, which has left nearly 6,000 people dead and the country crippled by a severe humanitarian crisis. But despite making what the United Nations called “serious progress” in the discussions, repeated violations of the cease-fire appeared to have doomed the current round, according to a statement issued by Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the United Nations special envoy to Yemen. He said that the negotiations would resume in mid-January. But as a new deadline approached, the hostilities appeared to be accelerating. Political leaders have appeared unwilling to stop the fighting — perhaps hoping to tip the negotiations in their favor — or lacking any influence over the multitude of armed groups that have sprung up during the war. In recent days, anti-Houthi fighters have mounted a broad offensive across several northern provinces, and captured new territory, including a provincial capital. The anti-Houthi forces are backed by a Saudi-led military coalition that has been conducting an aerial campaign against the rebels since March. Human rights groups say that bombing by the coalition is responsible for the majority of civilian deaths during the war. The Saudi-led coalition carried out airstrikes in Sana and other areas on Saturday and Sunday. And the Houthis, who have been making increasingly bold military incursions across the border into Saudi Arabia, have fired ballistic missiles at the Saudi-backed forces in the past few days, according to Yemeni military officials. Despite the continuing fighting, one diplomat said there had been a “palpable warming on a personal level between the two delegations over the course of the week.” The diplomat, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks, said that the issue of prisoner releases appeared to be one of the most difficult to resolve. Abdul Wahab al-Humigani, a government negotiator writing on Facebook, blamed the collapse of the talks on the Houthis’ “intransigence,” including on the issue of releasing prisoners. Nasser Bagazgooz, who was part of the Houthi delegation, asserted that his side had made “big” concessions, including agreeing to withdraw Houthi forces from cities and from government institutions, and to hand over weapons. The Houthis had asked for the formation of a new government “from across the political spectrum,” and elections within a year, he added. | Yemen;Houthis;UN;Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed;Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi;Human Rights |
ny0202927 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2009/08/17 | North Korea to Reopen Its Border to the South | HONG KONG — North Korea said Monday that it would open its highly militarized border with South Korea to allow periodic family reunions and group visits by tourists from the South. The conciliatory move, coming just after the high-profile releases of two American journalists and a South Korean worker detained by the North, seemed likely to ease the growing anxiety on the Korean peninsula. Tensions had escalated since spring, beginning with the imprisonment of the Americans, the North’s second nuclear test in May , a series of missile tests and North Korea’s refusal to re-engage in six-nation talks over its nuclear weapons . But the North, in the announcement Monday by its official news agency, also warned the United States and South Korea about their joint military exercises, which the North said were “obviously maneuvers for a war of aggression.” It said an “annihilating” retaliation could be one consequence. Still, that kind of bellicose language is almost standard from the North and was eclipsed by its outreach about the border and tourism. Analysts have said North Korea is eager to re-establish contacts with Washington and Seoul in hopes of undermining the United Nations’ sanctions over its nuclear program. The North said it would allow reunions of Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, with visits taking place at Mount Kumgang, or Diamond Mountain, during the three-day Harvest Moon Festival, when Koreans traditionally visit their hometowns. This year the festival begins Oct. 3. Regular visits to Mount Kumgang on North Korea’s eastern coast will start “as soon as possible,” the official North Korean news agency reported, as well as visits to the ancient border town of Kaesong. Programs allowing tour groups — predominantly South Koreans — to visit the North were expanded in October 2007 but were stopped last year when a South Korean tourist at Kumgang who apparently entered a restricted zone was fatally shot by a North Korean guard. The announcement on Monday followed a meeting Sunday between the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, and the chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, the South Korean conglomerate, which is the biggest investor in the North. The chairwoman, Hyun Jung-eun, had successfully negotiated the release of a Hyundai worker whom the North held for several months on charges of denouncing the government and encouraging defections. | North Korea;South Korea;International Relations |
ny0077480 | [
"us"
] | 2015/05/01 | Change to a Segregated Monument Is Stymied by a Law Protecting It | GREENWOOD, S.C. — The bronze plaques on Main Street silently tell the toll of the two world wars on this small county: 197 men, listed by name but uncategorized by rank or age or branch of service. Nonetheless, each is identified as “white” or “colored,” lingering evidence of Greenwood County’s segregated past that Greenwood city officials and leaders of the local American Legion post now want to banish from the city’s memorial to the war dead. But they cannot, at least for now, without defying the South Carolina Legislature and a law born of a compromise so uneasy that even 15 years after it was reached, people fear that any changes to Greenwood’s tribute would spawn another tortured clash about how this state marks its racial history. Such a reckoning might be inevitable, though, as people here consider what could be the first lawsuit challenging the law, South Carolina’s Heritage Act, after years of interpretations by state attorneys general. “It’s our monument,” said Charles Schulze, an accountant and a member of American Legion Post No. 20, the owner of the memorial, which sits on a city sidewalk. “We want to change it.” The plaques the Legion post wants to install — after officials raised $15,000 in private funds — are already made. And the group has the support of Greenwood’s mayor, D. Welborn Adams, who suggested years ago that the “white” and “colored” labels be stripped from the memorial. (Race is not mentioned on a plaque memorializing the troops who died in Korea or Vietnam.) They have been stymied, though, by the Heritage Act, which prohibits certain memorials on public property from being “relocated, removed, disturbed or altered” without the explicit backing of the Legislature. The provision stems from when South Carolina was knotted in a debate about where, or if, a Confederate battle flag should be flown at the State House. Image The names of 197 men killed in World Wars I and II are categorized by "white" and "colored" on the memorial. Credit Susannah Kay for The New York Times When lawmakers approved a measure to remove the flag from the building’s dome, they included the requirement that now stands to thwart the plans in Greenwood, a city of about 23,000 known for a barbecue festival. “Anytime you have symbolic issues like the Heritage Act and the flag and monuments,” said Jim Hodges, who signed the Heritage Act while he was governor, “it’s always going to be emotional, and you’re going to continue to debate those things this year, next year and for years to come.” And so this year a bipartisan group of 23 state senators sponsored a resolution “to list individuals whose names are memorialized on the monuments in a manner that is not based on race.” But lawmakers said the proposal would not move forward because local legislators were not unanimous in their support. “I just don’t think you need to alter history like that,” Senator William H. O’Dell of Greenwood told Senator Larry A. Martin, the Judiciary Committee chairman, Mr. Martin recalled in an interview. Mr. O’Dell did not respond to a message seeking comment, but his position is a familiar one in a region that often struggles with how to recognize its past. In a period of less than a month, the editorial board of The Index-Journal, the local newspaper, went from resisting the proposed changes to supporting the new plaques. But the Legislature has remained skeptical, and political observers like Mr. Martin and Mr. Adams said lawmakers were reluctant to engage in a debate that would reopen the dispute that left a chasm in state government after the Heritage Act became law. “It was a truce: Neither side was particularly happy, but one side felt like they were making progress, and the other side felt like they hadn’t given up everything,” said C. Danielle Vinson, a political scientist at Furman University in Greenville. “It does mean, then, that every time an issue related to that comes up, you’ve got one side going, ‘O.K., is this the next step toward obliterating history?’ and the other side saying, ‘Is this the next step toward progress?’ That’s where it becomes a little uneasy.” For people like Mr. Schulze, a Republican, the political drama is rife with contradiction: How, he asks, can a state government that so prizes local control on many issues of public policy resist the proposal by his city? Image Mayor D. Welborn Adams is in favor of changing the plaques on the memorial. “To me, when you memorialize it on the Main Street of town, you’re taking pride in the fact that there was segregation,” he said. Credit Susannah Kay for The New York Times Mr. Schulze criticized lawmakers for employing a “very disgusting” and hypocritical strategy to block changes to the memorial. Mr. Martin said that the Legislature’s reluctance to intervene was well intentioned, and he added that legislative opposition to the Greenwood plan was not racially motivated. “We’re very much living in the 21st century and are very much a part of the progressive South,” he said. But Mr. Schulze and the mayor are among those here who contend that the memorial is an anachronism, particularly in a municipality that is 45 percent black. Their proposal calls for the existing plaques to be moved to a museum elsewhere in Greenwood, and for the new display to list the dead without mention of race. “To me, when you memorialize it on the main street of town, you’re taking pride in the fact that there was segregation,” Mr. Adams said. “Our town theater used to have segregated entrances, and we got rid of those.” Despite the mayor’s zeal — he said he wept when he learned that a law could prevent the installation of the new plaques — many people here appear ambivalent about the debate. In interviews in Greenwood’s Uptown neighborhood, where the memorial sits next to a popular delicatessen, as well as elsewhere in the city, many residents said they were unfamiliar with the controversy and, occasionally, the monument itself. Even some people who said they supported changing the memorial said they were not necessarily bothered by the existing display. “I grew up during the era when we were considered ‘colored,’” said Joseph D. Patton III, a black Army veteran. “It doesn’t bother me to see a plaque up there that says ‘colored’ and ‘white’ soldiers because that’s the way it was.” But the city is considering how to proceed as the legislative session draws closer to an end. Mr. Adams, a lawyer, has resisted suggestions from people like Mr. Schulze that the memorial be changed whether or not the Legislature approves. But he has grown frustrated with the Legislature’s unwillingness to vote on the matter. “You get really angry with the state,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of discussions about race since this monument issue came up, and I’m thinking I’ve had a lot more than they’ve had in the State Legislature. Let’s have a conversation.” | Greenwood;Monuments and Memorials;Race and Ethnicity;South Carolina;State legislature;D. Welborn Adams |
ny0182894 | [
"business"
] | 2007/12/26 | In Providence, a Waterfront Promoter Finds Opponents | PROVIDENCE, R.I. — From his fourth-floor conference center overlooking the Providence River, the developer Patrick T. Conley can see where a gang of irate colonists set out one night 235 years ago to burn the British schooner Gaspee, helping to ignite the Revolutionary War. This is an apt sight for the 69-year-old Mr. Conley; in addition to being a developer, he is a retired history professor with a particular passion for Rhode Island ’s incendiary past. But these days, it is the future that has captured Mr. Conley’s imagination, particularly the future of Providence’s old industrial waterfront. Convinced that the waterfront is an underused asset in need of a serious face-lift, Mr. Conley is planning a $300 million mixed-use development on seven acres just south of the city’s downtown. Before the project can proceed, Mr. Conley would need a change in zoning and financing. Plans for Providence Piers include a hotel, marina, 240 condominiums or rental apartments, a parking garage for 890 cars, a floating restaurant, retail and office space, and green space for festivals, concerts and other outdoor events. Already, Mr. Conley says he has spent $6.8 million to rehabilitate an old four-story brick warehouse into artists’ studios and a conference center. He has also spent $1.5 million to rebuild a sagging dock, which is now used by cruise ships and a high-speed ferry that runs between Providence and Newport. Mr. Conley characterizes the section of waterfront he wants to transform, a one-mile stretch that begins at the city’s inner harbor and ends at ProvPort, the privately owned cargo facility most people think of when they think of the Port of Providence, as toxic and tired. But Mr. Conley’s waterfront activities have not gone unchallenged. In fact, passions are running high along Allens Avenue, where Mr. Conley’s Providence Piers is planned. A band of business owners, who feel threatened by the mixed-use vision that Mr. Conley espouses, have come together to fight the developer. Their position is that Providence needs a traditional working waterfront — not more condominiums. “We’re absolutely opposed to it,” said Julie Gill, executive director of the Oil Heat Institute of Rhode Island, a trade organization with 60 members representing the state’s heating oil suppliers, wholesalers and other businesses associated with the fuel industry. Ms. Gill and the other opponents, who call themselves the Providence Working Waterfront Alliance, say that it is not practical to add residences and shops to an industrial zone, and complain of incompatibility. Who wants to live next to a shipyard? they ask. They predict it will only be a matter of time before they are driven out of business on Allens Avenue, a situation they believe will have disastrous economic implications for Providence — though city officials don’t seem to agree — and for the entire region . “Providence is just thinking of Providence,” said David A. Cohen, president of the Promet Marine Services Corporation, a shipyard located on eight acres next to Mr. Conley’s renovated conference center. Noting that home heating oil shipped into Providence’s deep water port is sent as far away as Worcester and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Mr. Cohen said the waterfront’s traditional industrial base is more important economically than new commercial and residential uses. “Allens Avenue is important to the whole region,” Mr. Cohen said. Providence city officials, including Mayor David N. Cicilline, have placed themselves squarely in Mr. Conley’s camp, however. A new master plan developed for the city, called Providence Tomorrow, recommends rezoning Allens Avenue from industrial to mixed use, though actual changes in the zoning will not be proposed until after opponents and other interested parties have their say at a public forum scheduled for late February. The time has come to open up the Allens Avenue waterfront for the potential benefit of more Rhode Islanders and visitors to the city, Mr. Cicilline wrote in a recent commentary in The Providence Journal. As for the concerns raised by the Providence Working Waterfront Alliance, the mayor suggested that “environmental advancements and new attitudes about urban living” would make co-existence between residents and businesses possible. That is not realistic, members of the Working Waterfront Alliance said. “I think we’d be out of business in five years,” Mr. Cohen said. Promet employs about 100 people and last year did about $10 million in business, he said. To the north of Promet — on the other side of where Mr. Conley wants to build Providence Piers — is a fuel terminal operated by the Sprague Energy Corporation, based in New Hampshire. About 70 barges and tankers unload fuel at the Sprague terminal every year — enough to heat 10,000 homes, according to James Therriault, vice president for marketing and materials handling for Sprague. “Right now we’re able to operate 24/7,” Mr. Therriault said. But if the city changes the area’s zoning to allow people to live near the terminal, Sprague’s round-the-clock operation will probably have to be curtailed, which in turn will result in greater costs, which would be passed on to consumers, he said. In all, about eight businesses along Allens Avenue would be affected by the proposed rezoning, alliance members said, though others say that number is smaller. That may not sound like a lot, Ms. Gill of the Oil Heat Institute of Rhode Island said, but the state cannot afford to lose one fuel provider. “If we lose even one terminal, there’s no guarantee we’re going to get product from other states,” she said. “What good is it to put condos on the water if you can’t put heat in them?” Mr. Cicilline is not the first Providence mayor to propose changes to Allens Avenue. A longtime former mayor, Vincent A. Cianci Jr., unveiled a sweeping revitalization plan for the area south of downtown Providence that also called for opening up the industrial waterfront — indeed, much more of the waterfront than is currently at stake — for commercial and residential use. Mr. Cianci’s plan never proceeded, but it did plant the seed of change for Allens Avenue, which Mr. Conley has been watering with an aggressive public relations campaign. Mr. Conley, a lawyer and author, said he was determined to get the zoning he needed to build the rest of Providence Piers. Since 2002, when he bought the warehouse at a tax sale for $106,000, he says has spent about $13.5 million on the project, though tax credits for restoring an historic property have since reduced his personal cost to about $8 million. Mr. Conley grew up in South Providence, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. With his wife and business partner, Gail, he sees refurbishing the waterfront as a personal quest, one he is confident he will achieve. But as they prepare for the forum, members of the Providence Working Waterfront Alliance expressed equal determination. Given the waterfront’s strengths, including a recently dredged deep-water channel, and the potential for more industrial development, they say they believe they have a better economic argument than do Mr. Conley and the city. | Area Planning and Renewal;Providence (RI);Rhode Island;Zoning |
ny0191753 | [
"us"
] | 2009/02/11 | Tennessee House Member Wins Top Job, but Loses Party | NASHVILLE — In November, the Tennessee Republican Party won a historic victory: its first majority in the state House of Representatives since 1869. But on Monday morning, just as the legislative session was about to begin, the party voluntarily gave it up. In the latest flourish of a twisty melodrama that has consumed the General Assembly for weeks, the party chairwoman stripped the speaker of the House, Kent Williams, of his Republican Party membership, citing “dishonor, deception and betrayal.” Because Mr. Williams represented the party’s one-vote edge in the House, Republicans no longer control the chamber. The bizarre sequence of events began on Jan. 13, the day the Republicans were preparing to elect their choice for speaker, Representative Jason E. Mumpower. Though the Republican majority was slim — 50 to 49 — Mr. Mumpower was so certain of victory that he had worked up his committee assignments and ordered 65 state flags, each of which was to be run up the Capitol flagpole that day and later distributed as souvenirs. But Mr. Williams, a little-known legislator from East Tennessee, had made a secret deal with House Democrats. All 49 voted for him and, with Republican dignitaries from across the state looking on, he voted for himself. When the audience erupted in cries of “Judas” and worse, Mr. Williams, 59, remained composed. “I understand the boos; I’ve been booed before,” he said, before going on to describe his plans for bipartisan power-sharing. “Today is about change, a change not only that we need here in the state of Tennessee but a change we need throughout our country,” he said. “We need to utilize the talents of all the members of this General Assembly, not just the Democratic Party and not just the Republican Party.” He went on to demonstrate his bipartisanship by helping to re-elect a Democrat, Lois M. DeBerry, as speaker pro tempore, in violation of a pledge he signed saying he would vote Republican for both speaker and speaker pro tempore. Since then, he has split power on the House’s standing committees, giving seven chairmanships to Republicans and six to Democrats. Republicans reacted with the fury of the spurned. They accused Mr. Williams of putting naked self-interest above the will of the voters, pointing out that he had tripled his salary and received, among other perks, a car and driver in the bargain. Mr. Mumpower said, “To have the House Democrats, who in a desperate grasp for power and nothing more, collude with one Republican to elect the speaker — it flies in the face of what the people of Tennessee asked for.” Mr. Williams dismissed that argument, saying he had done what was best for his district and the state. Republicans did not complain, he said, when a Democratic state senator helped elect a Republican Senate speaker in 2007, and then, in what was widely viewed as a quid pro quo, became the speaker pro tempore. When the Democrat, Rosalind Kurita, later narrowly won her primary, Democrats stripped her of the nomination based on charges of polling improprieties. What galled Republicans the most about Mr. Williams’s maneuver, perhaps, was his repeated assurance, in the weeks leading up to the vote, that he would support Mr. Mumpower. He even caucused with the Republicans on the morning of the vote. “What’s kind of the big insult around here, he had prayer with these guys,” said Robin Smith, the Republican Party chairwoman. Mr. Williams, the owner of an Italian restaurant in Elizabethton, Tenn., began his legislative career in 2007 with a popularity deficit in the House because he had defeated an incumbent Republican. His first move, a vote for the longtime Democratic speaker, Jimmy Naifeh, did not help matters. Though Mr. Naifeh would have been elected without Mr. Williams’s vote, and the vote opened doors for Mr. Williams, it was still viewed by colleagues as evidence of party disloyalty. After Mr. Williams’s election to speaker, a memorandum written by Mr. Mumpower surfaced detailing a 2007 complaint by Representative Susan Lynn, a Republican, who said that Mr. Williams had complimented her beauty and added, “I will give a week’s pay just to see you naked.” Mr. Williams apologized after being confronted by Mr. Mumpower, according to the memorandum, but a week later, Ms. Lynn said Mr. Williams came up behind her and embraced her tightly. Again, the memorandum said, he apologized. Mr. Williams though, denied the account, prompting an ethics complaint late last month. The Ethics Committee declined to hear the complaint, but not before an anxiety attack sent Ms. Lynn, who was preparing to testify, to the hospital. Despite the drama, Mr. Williams maintains that he is still a Republican, though he is technically not a member of either party now, and thus neither party controls the chamber. “I have hoped for some time that my party would work to build a bigger tent, a more inclusive tent,” he said in a statement after he was booted from the party. “My hopes may have been in vain.” In the meantime, even some Republicans have questioned the wisdom of ejecting Mr. Williams, and the party’s majority with it. But Ms. Smith said it would be “intellectually dishonest” to claim any majority that included Mr. Williams, and that it would not be fair to the donors and volunteers who worked so hard on the Republican campaign to win the House. “The politically expedient thing to do would be to overlook whatever he’s done,” she said, adding, “We’re either going to stand for something or we’re no different from Kent Williams.” | Tennessee;Legislatures and Parliaments;Republican Party;Williams Kent;Mumpower James E |
ny0154975 | [
"business"
] | 2008/01/23 | Origins of ‘The Great Moderation’ | James Stock, a Harvard economist, coined the phrase “the great moderation” while writing a research paper with Mark Watson of Princeton earlier in this decade. You can read the paper — “Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why” — here . Ben S. Bernanke gave the phrase a much wider audience in 2004, when he gave a speech titled “The Great Moderation.” At the time, he was a Federal Reserve governor, and Alan Greenspan was the chairman. The speech is available here . | Stock James;Bernanke Ben S;Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0077073 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/05/09 | Jurors in Etan Patz Case Fall One Vote Shy of a Conviction | A judge declared a mistrial in the Etan Patz case on Friday after jurors said for a third time that they could not reach a verdict despite three weeks of deliberation, leaving unresolved a missing-child case that vexed New York City for decades and led to a sea change in the way Americans view the security of their children. After a four-month trial and 18 days of deliberation, the jury of seven men and five women said they were firmly deadlocked, 11 to 1, with a single holdout saying that he could not vote to convict Pedro Hernandez, 54, a disabled factory worker from New Jersey, of murder and kidnapping. “Ultimately I couldn’t find enough evidence that was not circumstantial to convict,” the juror, Adam C. Sirois, told reporters during a news conference. “I couldn’t get there.” The trial, in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, turned on confessions Mr. Hernandez gave 33 years after Etan, who was 6, vanished while walking to a school bus stop in SoHo in 1979. The prosecution said his admission to the police — a story he repeated later to a prosecutor and to several psychiatrists — proved his guilt; the defense called it a fiction invented under pressure from the police by a man with a weak and troubled mind. The hung jury left unsolved a crime that bedeviled the New York police for decades and led to major reforms in the way the authorities around the country track child abduction. It also extended the agonizing ordeal that has tortured the Patz family since May 25, 1979, when their son, wearing a pilot’s cap and carrying a small bag full of toy cars, disappeared on the way to school . It was the first day his mother had allowed him to walk to the bus stop alone, and in no small measure, his nightmarish story came to embody the worst fears of American parents. Image Harvey Fishbein, the lead defense lawyer for Mr. Hernandez, spoke to reporters Friday, before a mistrial was declared. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times In many ways, Etan’s case changed how parents across the country thought about their children’s safety and how to protect them when they traveled the streets. Etan’s picture was one of the first to appear on a milk carton, and the date of his disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day. His parents spearheaded a political movement that raised awareness about missing children and lobbied for laws that created a national framework for tracking such cases. After the mistrial was announced, Etan’s father, Stanley Patz, told reporters that he firmly believed that Mr. Hernandez had killed his son and that he wanted prosecutors to try him again. “I don’t understand why the jurors couldn’t come to a verdict, but I am convinced,” Mr. Patz said. “This man did it. He said it. How many times does a man have to confess before someone believes him? It’s not a hallucination.” Justice Maxwell Wiley called a mistrial after jurors sent a note at 2:50 p.m. on Friday saying they were still deadlocked. It was the third time the panel had reported that it could not reach a verdict, despite two orders from the judge to keep talking. “I think at this point I would have to call the deliberations at an end and dismiss them,” he said. The mistrial leaves District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. with a hard decision: Either pursue another costly trial with the same evidence that failed to convince the first jury or allow a man who confessed to murdering a child to go free. After the mistrial, Mr. Vance issued a statement saying he believed Mr. Hernandez was guilty, but did not indicate whether he intended to retry him. That only one juror voted to acquit Mr. Hernandez will be a major factor in Mr. Vance’s decision to seek another trial, legal experts said. An aide to Mr. Vance said privately that another trial was likely but that no decision had been made. Because Etan’s body was never found, the prosecution’s case rested almost entirely on Mr. Hernandez’s own words in videotaped confessions he gave to the police, a prosecutor and several psychiatrists who examined him while he was in state custody. Prosecutors, led by Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, had no scientific evidence from a crime scene or an autopsy to buttress Mr. Hernandez’s account. Investigators never found the boy’s clothes or the pilot’s hat he was wearing, nor a small tote bag crammed with toy cars and pencils that he carried. Image Etan Patz Credit NYPD, via Associated Press Muddying the picture, the defense team, led by Harvey Fishbein, also introduced evidence pointing to another possible culprit: Jose A. Ramos , a convicted child molester who knew an employee of the Patz family and was for years the prime suspect in the case. More than 50 witnesses testified during the trial, including people who said that Mr. Hernandez had talked to them in the past about having killed a child and mental health experts who examined Mr. Hernandez to determine if he had given a false confession. The deliberations were unusually protracted and complex, though jurors said they were civil. The panel asked to rehear days of testimony from eight witnesses and even had the closing arguments read back to them. Early on, they requested permission to use a spreadsheet program and a printer to organize their thoughts. They created seven spreadsheets, including a timeline of the day Etan vanished and a history of Mr. Hernandez’s mental health. Etan went missing while walking from his parents’ loft on Prince Street to a school bus stop two blocks away. His mother, Julie Patz, testified she last saw her blond boy headed for a bodega at Prince Street and West Broadway. He had a dollar in his hand to buy a soda, she said. That year, Mr. Hernandez, then an 18-year-old high school dropout, worked as a stock clerk at the store, where his brother-in-law was a cashier. In videotaped statements, he told the police and a prosecutor that he lured Etan into the bodega’s basement with the promise of a soda and strangled him there. Mr. Hernandez gave no reason for his act, other than his fear Etan would tell the authorities that Mr. Hernandez had tried to hurt him. “I did it and I’m sorry I did it,” he said. “I tried to let go but my body was shaking and jumping,” he added. “Something took over me and I squeezed him more and more.” Then, he said, he wrapped the boy’s diminutive body in a plastic garbage bag and a box. He carried the box out of the basement and walked a block and a half, leaving it in a subterranean passageway between two buildings on Thompson Street, he said. Image Becky Hernandez, left, and Rosemary Hernandez, the daughter and wife of Mr. Hernandez, left court in Manhattan on Friday during a break in the deliberations. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times The police did not arrest Mr. Hernandez until May 2012, when one of his brothers-in-law informed detectives that Mr. Hernandez had spoken to a prayer group and to his former wife of killing a child. After a six-and-a-half-hour interrogation by three New York detectives, Mr. Hernandez broke down in tears and said he had killed Etan. The confession, made in a cramped room at the Camden County prosecutor’s office in New Jersey, was not recorded. A few hours later, Mr. Hernandez led investigators to a spot in SoHo where he said he had left the body — a passageway near a fruit stand. Several jurors said Mr. Hernandez’s confessions rang true to them and contained details that they found hard to believe that he had could have made up, like his guttural description of the boy’s last gasps for air. “That didn’t seem to go along with someone just making up a story to be able to go home,” Jennifer O’Connor, an event manager, said. Others said they were persuaded to vote guilty because Mr. Hernandez had confessed repeatedly since being arrested and because his first admissions had been in 1979 to a church group. “The quality and the quantity of the confessions over time is what sort of swayed me to finally go guilty,” said Douglas Hitchner, a financier on the jury who switched his vote on the final day of deliberations. Jurors said the panel spent hours talking over the evidence against Mr. Ramos — Mr. Ramos had told a federal prosecutor in 1988 that he might have been with Etan the day he disappeared — but in the end, they found it unconvincing. The panel also delved into Mr. Hernandez’s mental health history and weighed a defense expert’s testimony that he had a personality disorder that caused him to confuse fantasy and reality. Ms. O’Connor, for instance, said she thought Mr. Hernandez’s behavior was consistent with a guilty conscience. For Mr. Sirois, the holdout, however, questions about the veracity of Mr. Hernandez’s statements persisted. “For me his confession was very bizarre, no matter how many times it happened — it got more and more bizarre,” he said. “I could not get beyond reasonable doubt.” | Etan Patz;Pedro Hernandez;Murders and Homicides;Missing person;Jose Antonio Ramos;Maxwell Wiley;SoHo Manhattan |
ny0006423 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/05/20 | Launchings by North Korea Raise Tensions | SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a short-range projectile into waters off its east coast on Sunday, as South Korea condemned the North’s provocations and urged it to accept a proposal for dialogue. North Korea conducted three similar launchings in the same area on Saturday, rattling the region after governments had hoped for an easing of tensions after months of bellicose pronouncements from the North. South Korean officials had called the weapons tested on Saturday “short-range guided missiles.” On Sunday, they began referring to the “projectiles” that had been launched over the weekend, saying that they may have included not only the modified KN-02 short-range guided missile but also rockets from its new multiple launcher. South Korea fears North Korea’s artillery and multiple-rocket launchers, which are massed along the border with the South and capable of delivering a barrage on the South’s densely populated capital, Seoul. The United States and South Korea have been increasing their abilities to counter that part of the North Korean arsenal in recent years, especially after the North’s artillery attack on a South Korean border island in 2010 that killed four people. On Sunday, South Korea confirmed its deployment of dozens of Israeli Spike missiles and their mobile launchers on its western border islands. Those precision-guided missiles, with a range of 12 miles, would target North Korean coastal guns and rocket batteries. North Korea has also been expanding the capabilities of its rockets and missiles. Its newest multiple launcher can fire rockets more than 62 miles. Earlier Sunday, Kim Hyung-suk, a spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry, called the North’s weapons tests a “deplorable” provocation. He also reiterated a call for dialogue with the North to resolve a standoff over the inter-Korean industrial zone in the North Korean town of Kaesong. Operations there have been suspended since early last month, when North Korea withdrew its 53,000 workers. | North Korea;Missiles and Missile Defense;South Korea;International relations |
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