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ny0123159 | [
"us"
] | 2012/09/30 | Texas Heart Institute Honors Dr. Denton Cooley | Every once in a while, there are moments in Houston that provide a vivid glimpse of the city that was — that aggressively entrepreneurial, insanely individualistic and relentlessly optimistic place of lore. Such a moment was visible the night of Sept. 18, when the Texas Heart Institute celebrated its 50th anniversary by honoring its founder, Denton A. Cooley, whose name is almost always accompanied by the description “world-famous heart surgeon.” Much time has passed since Dr. Cooley performed America’s first successful heart transplant in 1968 and since that period in the early ’70s when Tommy Thompson wrote “Hearts,” his best-selling book about the well-publicized feud that stemmed from an accusation that Dr. Cooley had stolen the artificial heart from Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, a fellow world-renowned surgeon. But in Houston, within the two segments of the populace that know 93-year-old Dr. Cooley best — the medical community and old-line Houston society — he remains a towering hero, not just because of what he accomplished but because of what he did for the city’s image as a global medical mecca. Hence this valedictory lap — one that also included the publication of Dr. Cooley’s book “100,000 Hearts: A Surgeon’s Memoir” earlier this year — held in a Galleria hotel ballroom that was barely big enough for the crowd of nearly 800 well-wishers. Lyle Lovett was the musical guest, and there were videotaped tributes from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But the evening really belonged to the kind of Houstonian rapidly disappearing from the scene, local members of the greatest generation who put the nation’s fourth largest city on the map with their smarts and the kind of outsize personalities that could have thrived only in a place where people have always been allowed to make their own rules. Even as a nonagenarian, Dr. Cooley remains a poster boy for this cohort, possessing all the qualities essential for membership: a distaste for conventional wisdom, a disregard of limits, a lack of pretension commensurate with a lack of fear. This was, after all, a man who fashioned an early version of the heart-lung machine from pieces cobbled together from a coffeepot. This same man once thought it was a great idea to take his colleague Christiaan Barnard — the South African surgeon who completed the world’s first heart transplant — water-skiing on the San Jacinto River. And more recently, when two of his Texas Heart Institute protégés, Bud Frazier and Billy Cohn, implanted the first continuous-flow artificial heart in 2011, Dr. Cooley made a cameo in the patient’s room, on his scooter. The crowd at the 50th-anniversary celebration reflected that old-line Houston ethos more than a stuffy Royal College of Surgeons confab or a more aggressively glitzy local event like the Houston Grand Opera ball. There were more pearls than diamonds and men who wore cowboy boots with their tuxedos more as a sign of rebellion than of irony. The M.C. was Donald L. Evans, the former commerce secretary, and one of the tributes came from former Secretary of State James A. Baker III — Jimmy to this crowd — who, while praising Dr. Cooley’s many firsts, also noted that he, Mr. Baker, had “run presidential campaigns against Democrats, negotiated with the Soviets and the Chinese during the cold war, and helped force Saddam Hussein to remove his troops from Kuwait. But none of this compares with having a $1 golf bet with Denton.” Not only does Dr. Cooley hate to lose, Mr. Baker said, but he also hates to lose a dollar. Charles Fraser, Dr. Cooley’s son-in-law, described meeting Dr. Cooley in 1982, as a second-year medical student and as a suitor of Helen, Dr. Cooley’s daughter: “I entered the Cooley family library to find perhaps the most famous surgeon in the world sitting in a worn-out easy chair, eating his supper on a TV tray after a grueling day in the operating rooms. In another awesome display of surgical dexterity, he had in one hand the TV remote control as he shuttled between various sporting events and in the other he wielded his fork, which he used to alternately feed himself and his close pal the family dog, Atticus Finch — from the same plate, I might add.” Dr. Cooley took it all in with the modesty of a benevolent pasha. Though he is frail, his charm is still effortless and his smile — the one that enchanted admirers from scrub nurses to Princess Grace of Monaco — is still brilliant. His voice was soft with gratitude as he began his own speech but took on strength as he reflected on some of his more fantastic accomplishments including the fact that he has operated on roughly 100,000 people. That is about the same number, he noted, that it takes to fill the football stadium of the University of Texas, his alma mater. Finally, Dr. Cooley displayed that forgive-and-remember streak so common to Houston’s most successful. After a few minor digs at Dr. DeBakey, he celebrated their famous rapprochement of 2007, which drew thunderous applause. It was an evening of nostalgia for a younger, brasher Houston. Later, in a telephone interview, Dr. Cooley said of his earliest days: “We were in exploration mode. We didn’t have that much restriction on what we were able to do. That’s the natural process of advances, to have critics and skeptics, and they all have to be addressed.” Yes, but on some other night. | Texas Heart Institute;Cooley Denton A;Houston (Tex);Heart;Transplants |
ny0141309 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2008/11/05 | Gas Furor Tips Guinea Further Off Balance | DAKAR, Senegal — Frustrated youths took to the crumbling streets of Guinea ’s capital, Conakry, for the third day in a row on Tuesday, throwing stones and setting tires on fire in escalating protests over high gas prices. The demonstrations, and the violent reaction they have provoked from the country’s security forces, have heightened tensions in a country that has been teetering on the brink of mass unrest for two years. Witnesses said that at least one person was killed Monday when government troops shot at demonstrators, according to Reuters. But movement has been severely restricted in Conakry, and human rights advocates and aid groups fear that the toll is considerably higher. “What is clear is there is a tremendous amount of frustration and anger in Guinea,” said Corinne Dufka, West Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch. “People protest to express that anger, and security forces respond with excessive force.” On the surface the protests are about fuel prices, which have remained forbiddingly high despite slumping crude oil prices. The government announced on Saturday that it would reduce gas prices by 20 percent, to the equivalent of about $4.15 a gallon from more than $5, to quell simmering anger over the high cost of living, but Guineans had been expecting a deeper cut because crude oil prices had fallen more than 50 percent. But Guinea’s problems go much deeper than expensive gas. The country, a former French colony, is one of West Africa’s longest festering sores, a holdover from a recent era when autocrats ruled the region and civil wars raged over the spoils of diamonds, gold and other riches. It is the world’s top exporter of bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is made, but it is also one of the world’s poorest nations. Its president, Lansana Conté, has ruled Guinea since 1984. Now in his 70s, he is in poor health and has made frequent trips abroad in recent years for medical treatment. As his health has declined, so have his country’s fortunes. The government brutally suppressed a general strike early last year led by the country’s trade unions. As many as 200 people were killed, and human rights groups documented dozens of cases of beatings, torture and unlawful imprisonment in the crackdown. Mr. Conté agreed to some changes, bringing in a reform-minded prime minister with wider powers. But the reforms did not take. Little more than a year later, Mr. Conté fired the prime minister and appointed a close ally in his place. In May, frustrated soldiers mutinied over back pay and miserable living conditions, taking the army’s second in command as a hostage until their demands were met. Frustrated police officers later stopped working as well. The unrest within the security apparatus, which Mr. Conté had controlled firmly, raised fears of a possible coup. Legislative elections that were supposed to open up the country’s political system have repeatedly been postponed. “The mutiny by soldiers, unrest within the national police and strike action by customs officials are symptoms of the disintegration of the state and its incapacity to provide security,” said an analysis by the International Crisis Group published in June. | Guinea;Conte Lansana;Demonstrations and Riots;Prices (Fares Fees and Rates);Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline |
ny0036465 | [
"us"
] | 2014/03/26 | Michigan: Court Halts Same-Sex Marriages | A federal appeals court on Tuesday put an indefinite halt to same-sex marriage in Michigan while it takes a longer look at a judge’s decision overturning a 2004 ban. The appeals court voted 2 to 1 to grant the state’s request to suspend a ruling by Judge Bernard A. Friedman of Federal District Court, who declared the voter-approved ban unconstitutional on Friday. Judge Friedman said conservative social scientists and economists who testified at the trial were “unbelievable” and “clearly represent a fringe viewpoint” about households run by same-sex parents. Some counties began issuing marriage licenses on Saturday before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stepped in with a temporary halt. | Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Michigan;Decisions and Verdicts |
ny0032476 | [
"business"
] | 2013/12/02 | Insurers Claim Health Website Is Still Flawed | Weeks of frantic technical work appear to have made the government’s health care website easier for consumers to use. But that does not mean everyone who signs up for insurance can enroll in a health plan. The problem is that the systems that are supposed to deliver consumer information to insurers still have not been fixed. And with coverage for many people scheduled to begin in just 30 days, insurers are worried the repairs may not be completed in time. “Until the enrollment process is working from end to end, many consumers will not be able to enroll in coverage,” said Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group. The issues are vexing and complex. Some insurers say they have been deluged with phone calls from people who believe they have signed up for a particular health plan, only to find that the company has no record of the enrollment. Others say information they received about new enrollees was inaccurate or incomplete, so they had to track down additional data — a laborious task that will not be feasible if data is missing for tens of thousands of consumers. In still other cases, insurers said, they have not been told how much of a customer’s premium will be subsidized by the government, so they do not know how much to charge the policyholder. In trying to fix HealthCare.gov, President Obama has given top priority to the needs of consumers, assuming that arrangements with insurers can be worked out later. The White House announced on Sunday that it had met its goal for improving HealthCare.gov so the website “will work smoothly for the vast majority of users.” In effect, the administration gave itself a passing grade. Because of hundreds of software fixes and hardware upgrades in the last month, it said, the website — the main channel for people to buy insurance under the 2010 health care law — is now working more than 90 percent of the time, up from 40 percent during some weeks in October. Jeffrey D. Zients, the presidential adviser leading the repair effort, said he had shaken up management of the website so the team was now “working with the velocity and discipline of a high-performing private sector company.” Mr. Zients said 50,000 people could use the website at the same time and that the error rate, reflecting the failure of web pages to load properly, was consistently less than 1 percent, down from 6 percent before the overhaul. Image President Obama earlier this month met with navigators in Dallas hired to help people enroll through HealthCare.gov. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Pages on the site generally load faster, in less than a second, compared with an average of eight seconds in late October, Mr. Zients said. Whether Mr. Obama can fix his job approval ratings as well as the website is unclear. Public opinion polls suggest he may have done more political damage to himself in the last two months than Republican attacks on the health care law did in three years. People who have tried to use the website in the last few days report a mixed experience, with some definitely noticing improvements. “Every week, it’s been getting better,” said Lynne M. Thorp, who leads a team of counselors, or navigators, in southwestern Florida. “It’s getting faster, and nobody’s getting kicked out.” But neither Mr. Zients nor the Department of Health and Human Services indicated how many people were completing all the steps required to enroll in a health plan through the federal site, which serves residents of 36 states. And unless enrollments are completed correctly, coverage may be in doubt. For insurers the process is maddeningly inconsistent. Some people clearly are being enrolled. But insurers say they are still getting duplicate files and, more worrisome, sometimes not receiving information on every enrollment taking place. “Health plans can’t process enrollments they don’t receive,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans. Despite talk from time to time of finding some sort of workaround, experts say insurers have little choice but to wait for the government to fix these problems. The insurers are in “an unenviable position,” said Brett Graham, a managing director at Leavitt Partners, which has been advising states and others on the exchanges. “Although they don’t have the responsibility or the capability to fix the system, they’re reliant on it.” Insurers said they were alarmed when Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the federal website, estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the federal insurance marketplace was still being built. He told Congress on Nov. 19 that the government was still developing “the back-office systems, the accounting systems, the payment systems” needed to pay insurers in January. While insurers will start covering people who pay their share of the premium, many insurers worry that the government will be late on the payments they were expecting in mid-January for the first people covered. “We want to be paid,” said one executive, speaking frankly on the condition of anonymity. “If we want to pay claims, we need to get paid.” Image Jeffrey D. Zients has been President Obama’s point man in leading the repair effort on the HealthCare.gov site. Credit T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images Insurers said they had received calls from consumers requesting insurance cards because they thought they had enrolled in a health plan through the federal website, but the insurers said they had not been notified. “Somehow people are getting lost in the process,” the insurance executive said. “If they go to a doctor or a hospital and we have no record of them, that will be very upsetting to consumers.” Thomas W. Rubino, a spokesman for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, which says it has about 70 percent of the individual insurance market in the state, said the company had received “some but not a lot” of enrollments from the federal exchange. Federal officials are encouraging insurers to let consumers sign up directly with them. But in the middle of this online enrollment process, consumers must be transferred to the federal website if they want to obtain tax credit subsidies to pay some or all of their premiums in 2014. In a document describing problems with the federal website in late November, the administration said some consumers were “incorrectly determined to be ineligible for” tax credits. In some cases, it said, enrollment notices sent to insurers were missing the amount of the premium to be paid by a consumer, the amount of subsidies to be paid by the government and even the identification number for a subscriber. In some cases, according to the document, government computers blocked the enrollment of people found eligible for subsidies that would pay the entire amount of their premiums. In other cases, the government system failed to retrieve information on a consumer’s eligibility for financial assistance. Mr. Zients said that software fixes installed on Saturday night should improve not only the consumer experience, but also the “the back end of the system,” which consumers rarely see. Ben Jumper, 29, of Dallas, said he had repeatedly been thwarted trying to use HealthCare.gov, most recently on Wednesday. “I would get one or two steps further along, and then something else would be broken,” Mr. Jumper said. “It is not very user-friendly. It is not very intuitive. Eventually, we just gave up.” But Urian Diaz Franco, a navigator with VNA Health Care in Aurora, Ill., said on Saturday, “We’ve seen nothing but improvements.” A week ago, he said, it often took 10 to 15 seconds for a page to load, but “now it’s just boom, boom, boom — it comes up as soon as you click the button.” | HealthCare.gov;Health Insurance;Obamacare,Affordable Care Act;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Jeffrey D Zients;Barack Obama |
ny0272142 | [
"us"
] | 2016/05/28 | Lawmakers Fail to Clear To-Do Lists Before Leaving for Break | The black sedans and sport utility vehicles lined up outside the Capitol early on Thursday afternoon, ready to rush lawmakers to airports so they could proceed with scattering across the nation, leaving behind citizens’ pending business. Even as reports of Zika cases in the United States increased this week, Congress did not come up with a final plan to help pay to fight the virus. The Senate has passed a bill providing $1.1 billion for mosquito eradication and the like, but the House version gives only $622 million and directs Congress to pay for it. The two sides will try to find a compromise after the Memorial Day recess. A far less urgent bill, a bipartisan measure that would change how chemicals are regulated, was left for a later date after Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, asked for more time to read it . A need to read also caused Senate Democrats to slow down a broad defense policy bill, pushing that measure into the post-recess Congress. An energy and water spending bill, about as contentious as vanilla low-fat yogurt, went down on the House floor on Thursday because conservative Republicans disliked an attached amendment banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Spam lovers, rejoice: A resolution recognizing the contributions of Hawaii to the United States’ culinary heritage was approved without debate. The inability to pass even routine bills raises serious questions about what Congress can hope to accomplish, if anything, this election year. “Obviously, we want to pass individual bills,” said the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, who spent most of the week repeatedly facing questions of when he might throw his support behind Donald J. Trump. (Answer: When I feel like it. If I feel like it.) He added that when lawmakers return, they would “have a family discussion about how best to proceed.” With all quiet, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, took to an empty Senate chamber to ponder the future of Social Security. | Legislation;US Politics;House of Representatives;Congress;Senate;Congress;US |
ny0026466 | [
"us"
] | 2013/01/05 | Missouri: Army Corps Is Optimistic on River’s Depth | Efforts to keep a crucial stretch of the drought-starved Mississippi River open to barge traffic should be sufficient to avert a shipping shutdown, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard said Friday. The corps said crews had made “fantastic” progress recently in clearing bedrock from a channel about 100 miles south of St. Louis. Shipping groups warned this week that the water level there could drop to three feet deep, a point at which weight restrictions for barges would have to be tightened further, effectively halting traffic. | Ships and Shipping;Mississippi River;Drought;US Coast Guard;Army Corps of Engineers |
ny0084880 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2015/10/14 | Treasury Wine Estates to Buy U.S. and British Brands From Diageo | SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian winemaker Treasury Wine Estates said on Wednesday it would buy the majority of the United States- and Britain-based wine assets of the alcoholic beverage company Diageo for $552 million in cash to bolster its sales in the world’s biggest wine markets. Treasury Wine will acquire brands such as Sterling Vineyards and Blossom Hill through a $306 million debt sale and a share sale worth 486 Australian dollars, or $351 million. The deal also includes the assumption of leases worth $48 million. “We remain committed to our strategic road map of transitioning our business from an order-taking agricultural company to a brand-led and capital-light marketing organization,” said Michael Clark, chief executive of Treasury Wine, in a statement. Diageo’s American-based wine business produces about four million cases of wine a year, and its sales in Britain include about five million cases of wine sold in the British Isles and 28 other markets. Treasury Wine said the planned acquisition would double its sales of luxury wine in the United States and allow it to avoid an $80 million investment in its American bottling facility. Treasury Wine, based in Melbourne, fought off a $3.2 billion takeover offer from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company in 2014 after Mr. Clark said he would turn around the business by spending more money on marketing and selling off wineries and packaging plants. Diageo said the sale of its wine business would give the company about $489 million in net proceeds, which will be used to pay back debt. “Wine is no longer core to Diageo, and this sale gives us greater focus,” said Ivan Menezes, Diageo’s chief executive, in a statement. | Mergers and Acquisitions;Wine;Treasury Wine Estates;Diageo |
ny0246493 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2011/04/14 | Woman Finds Boy After Mother Drives Van Into Hudson | Meave Ryan saw the boy waving his arms as she braked to a stop behind a string of cars. The other cars went on through the intersection, but she rolled down the window. “He was screaming for help,” she said. “He said, ‘My mommy just drove the car in the water.’ ” Ms. Ryan, 31, told the boy — La’Shaun Armstrong, 10 — to hop in. She drove the short distance to the boat ramp where he said his mother had driven into the Hudson River in Newburgh, N.Y. “I got out of the car and went halfway in the water to see if I could see their car,” Ms. Ryan said. The vehicle, a black minivan, was already submerged. Ms. Ryan told La’Shaun to get back in her car, and they drove to Fire Department headquarters a few blocks away. It was all but empty; the fire trucks were out on a call. “We knocked on the dispatcher’s door,” Ms. Ryan said. It was 7:50 p.m. on Tuesday. It did not take long for the horrifying meaning of the boy’s story to register: His mother, Lashanda Armstrong, 25, had done what La’Shaun had said — she had, in fact, driven the minivan into the river. La’Shaun had escaped, swimming through 45-degree water. The minivan was in eight feet of water. La’Shaun’s mother was still inside, as were her three other children, identified by the police as Landen Pierre, 5; Lance Pierre, 2; and Lainaina Pierre, 11 months. Ms. Ryan said that La’Shaun had told her why his mother was so upset. “There was an argument about cheating, that his stepfather was cheating on his mother,” Ms. Ryan said. On the short ride from their apartment in Newburgh to the boat ramp, La’Shaun told Ms. Ryan, his mother had called an older relative and said, “I’m sorry, I’m going to do something crazy, you have to forgive me.” Ms. Ryan said La’Shaun had told her that the call had ended with the older relative saying she was going to dial 911. The police sent officers to the apartment, but it was too late. Ms. Armstrong had already piled the children into the middle row and was on the way to what the mayor, Nicholas Valentine, called “a tragedy in this city that I would say is second to none.” Ms. Ryan, who described herself as a “stay-at-home mom” who was on the way to see relatives in Fishkill, N.Y., said La’Shaun was clear about what had happened. She said he told her that Ms. Armstrong had grabbed the children as the minivan rolled into the water and said, “If I’m going to die, you’re going to die with me.” She said that La’Shaun broke free, rolled down the window and swam out. He also told her that his mother tried to stop the tragedy that was playing out, but it was too late. He said that as the minivan began sinking Ms. Armstrong said, “Oh, my God, I made a mistake, I made a mistake.” He said she tried to shift into reverse. But the minivan was too far into the water to go back. Ms. Armstrong’s neighbors said she had loaded the children into the minivan after a vicious argument with the father of the three youngest children, identified by the police as Jean Pierre, 26. He had been her high school prom date and had worked in a fast-food restaurant, neighbors said. Mr. Pierre, by some accounts, had helped Ms. Armstrong with the responsibilities of caring for four children on limited means. But there were tensions between the two: Mr. Pierre did not live with Ms. Armstrong. “From the outside, it looked perfect,” said Sharon Ramirez, 22, a neighbor and friend of Ms. Armstrong. “But there were a lot of things going on. They had a rocky relationship.” Ms. Ramirez was certain of that because, she said, she had carried on a three-month relationship with Mr. Pierre last year, when Ms. Armstrong was pregnant with Lainaina. The first sign of the tragedy involved the argument at Ms. Armstrong’s apartment on a hardscrabble block in the center of Newburgh, about 60 miles north of Manhattan. The police chief, Michael Ferrara, said that a relative of Ms. Armstrong’s had called 911 around 7:30 p.m., saying that Ms. Armstrong was “involved in a domestic dispute.” Chief Ferrara said the caller described hearing “tussling in the background” during a call from Ms. Armstrong. An aunt of Ms. Armstrong, Angie Gilliam, said she had called 911 after Ms. Armstrong phoned her father, who was at Ms. Gilliam’s house. Ms. Gilliam said she could hear “the kids screaming.” Ms. Armstrong, according to Ms. Gilliam, said there was a dispute with Mr. Pierre. “Things didn’t sound good,” Ms. Gilliam said. She and Ms. Armstrong’s father were so concerned that they drove to the apartment, arriving there to find the police officers who had been sent in response to her call, but no one else. “It was too late,” she said. The police said it was the first time they had been sent to the apartment since Ms. Armstrong moved there last year. The police also said Mr. Pierre had no criminal history of domestic violence. Chief Ferrara said that the police had questioned Mr. Pierre but that no charges had been filed. Ms. Ramirez, who said she had had the relationship with Mr. Pierre, said she had met him when Mr. Pierre’s sister lived in Ms. Armstrong’s apartment before Ms. Armstrong and the children moved there a year ago. Ms. Ramirez said that Mr. Pierre told her he had children but denied that he still had a relationship with their mother. One neighbor, Steve Sheehan, said Mr. Pierre and Ms. Armstrong did things as a couple, recalling how, in the warm-weather months, they would barbecue on a grill set up on the sidewalk. But her landlord, John Boubaris, said that twice in the last year she had asked him to change the locks to keep Mr. Pierre out. The last time was two months ago, he said. “She said she doesn’t want him here,” Mr. Boubaris recalled, adding, “He was here all the time.” Still, the day that ended in death at the bottom of the river started with no sign of trouble. Mr. Sheehan said Ms. Armstrong and Mr. Pierre had loaded the children into the minivan in the morning. They would often go out to buy groceries or to do laundry. “It was a normal day,” Mr. Sheehan said. Mr. Boubaris said he stopped by the apartment in the early afternoon. Ms. Armstrong was home with her son Landen, he said. He said Ms. Armstrong had been looking for a job and complained that it was hard to find baby sitters so she could work. As for La’Shaun, the county agency responsible for child welfare issued a statement that said he was safe. Ms. Gilliam, Ms. Armstrong’s aunt, said he was “fine.” “He’ll be staying with me,” she said. Later, Ms. Gilliam and four family members went to the river, next to the ramp that Ms. Armstrong drove down. The relatives placed three stuffed animals and three white balloons on the concrete seawall. Then they sat down. Ms. Gilliam wept, and the others huddled around her. “She’s a good mother,” Ms. Gilliam said. “Just because she drove a car...” Her voice trailed off. Then she said, “Nobody knows what my niece went through.” | Drownings;Newburgh (NY);Armstrong Lashanda;Armstrong LaShaun;Suicides and Suicide Attempts;Murders and Attempted Murders |
ny0074591 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2015/04/30 | Volkswagen’s Net Profit Rises 19% Amid Recovery in Western Europe’s Car Market | FRANKFURT — Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, said on Wednesday that net profit rose 19 percent in the first quarter as the auto market in Western Europe recovered. But earnings at the company , the world’s second-largest automaker after Toyota, remained dependent on the high-end Audi and Porsche brands. Cars with the Volkswagen insignia were only marginally profitable, even though they account for most of sales volume. The figures underline the challenges that Volkswagen faces after the departure of Ferdinand Piëch, a scion of the Porsche family who dominated the company for more than two decades but resigned as chairman of the Volkswagen supervisory board on Saturday after losing a power struggle . While Volkswagen remains profitable and dominates the European market, it has fought in the United States and is suffering from economic slumps in Russia and Brazil, which are important markets. Growth in China has slowed markedly. Volkswagen said that net profit for the group rose to 2.9 billion euros, or about $3.2 billion, in the first three months of 2015, from €2.5 billion a year earlier. Sales rose 10 percent to €52.7 billion. Operating profit improved at the division that produces Volkswagen-brand cars, rising 17 percent to €514 million, from €440 million a year earlier. The unit benefited from cost-cutting as well as growth in European markets like Spain that are recovering from a deep economic crisis. Despite the improved earnings, Volkswagen-brand cars made an operating profit equal to 2 percent of sales in the quarter, up from 1.8 percent a year earlier, the company said. Together, Audi and Porsche vehicles accounted for four times as much profit as the Volkswagen-brand unit even though they produce less than one-third as many cars. “We have always emphasized that 2015 will be a challenging year for the automotive industry as a whole, and also for us,” Martin Winterkorn, the Volkswagen chief executive, said in a statement. “Nevertheless, our key figures for the first quarter show that the Volkswagen Group remains on course, despite the headwinds.” Mr. Winterkorn emerged the victor on Saturday from a power struggle that broke into the open this month. Mr. Piëch, who had been either chief executive or chairman of the company since the early 1990s, had indicated in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel that he was disenchanted with the performance of his onetime protégé. But Mr. Winterkorn refused to leave voluntarily. And he won the support of labor representatives, who under German law have half of the seats on the supervisory board, as well as the state of Lower Saxony, which owns 20 percent of Volkswagen’s voting shares. The Porsche family, descendants of Ferdinand Porsche, designer of the car that later became known as the Beetle, also sided with Mr. Winterkorn. The Porsche family owns a majority of the voting shares. Mr. Piëch is a grandson of Mr. Porsche, but he has long had tense relations with his cousins. Volkswagen benefited from the recovery of the European automobile market from lows, the figures released on Wednesday showed. The company’s unit sales in Western Europe rose 6.5 percent to 780,000 cars, including a 25 percent increase in Spain, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by the eurozone economic crisis. In the United States, though, sales slipped 1.4 percent to about 132,000 cars during the quarter, including Audi and Porsche. Volkswagen-brand cars have only 2 percent of the market so far this year, according to Kelley Blue Book, down from 3 percent in 2012. “VW is struggling because they don’t have the S.U.V. products they need right now,” said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “That’s the hot segment right now.” Mr. Brauer said that VW sales in the United States could improve as the company rolled out the latest version of its Golf, which has received favorable reviews. Worldwide, profit on Volkswagen cars could begin to improve, Mr. Brauer said, as the company intensifies efforts to share components among many different vehicles, a strategy that reduces costs. Worldwide, sales of Volkswagen brand cars fell 1.3 percent, to 1.5 million vehicles, during the first three months of the year. The company recorded big declines in Brazil, where unit sales fell 17 percent for all its brands because of a slumping economy, and Russia, where sales plunged 35 percent as the ruble weakened and the country sunk into recession . Sales in China, Volkswagen’s largest market, rose 1.9 percent to 897,000 vehicles. Cooling growth in the country is another worry for Volkswagen, analysts say. Volkswagen also produces Skoda and Seat economy cars, Lamborghini and Bugatti sports cars, and Bentley luxury cars. Sales of all those car brands rose in the quarter except Bentley, which sold 2,232 vehicles, compared with 2,579 a year earlier. Sales of Scania and MAN trucks also declined in the quarter because of problems in Brazil and Russia, Volkswagen said. | Volkswagen;Earnings Reports;Western Europe |
ny0035691 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/03/27 | Facing a War Crimes Inquiry, Sri Lanka Continues to Vex the U.N. | UNITED NATIONS — What to do with Sri Lanka? The island nation, triumphant after nearly three decades of war against ethnic separatists, has vexed the United Nations. Five years after the war’s brutal ending, the world body has been unable to address grave human rights violations committed by the warring parties, making Sri Lanka something of an object lesson in the difficulties of pursuing accountability. The United Nations’ own conduct during the war led to a change in doctrine: The secretary general late last year ordered United Nations officials not to stay silent in the face of rights violations, as they had in Sri Lanka in 2009. Special envoys were appointed, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Sri Lanka to seek accountability; both gestures were rebuffed. Now comes the sharpest measure yet: The United Nations Human Rights Council is due to vote Thursday morning in Geneva on whether to order an independent international investigation into possible war crimes, including executions, rape and torture. The draft resolution calls for the United Nations human rights office to monitor Sri Lanka and “undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations of human rights and related crimes by both parties.” The high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, supports an investigation. She has said Sri Lanka’s own inquiries have “consistently failed to establish the truth and achieve justice.” The vote by the 47-member council will most likely be close. Iran and Zimbabwe praised Sri Lanka’s postwar reconciliation efforts, while China commended its “promotion and protection of human rights.” The United States, which co-sponsored the resolution, pointed to continued harassment of journalists and members of civil society, “including reprisals against those who meet with visiting diplomats and U.N. officials.” India, whose vote will be closely watched, chose not to address the council on Wednesday. A defeat of the resolution would be “devastating,” said Julie de Rivero, the Geneva-based advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “It would really call into question the council’s effectiveness.” The effect of the vote on the ground remains unclear — the government is unlikely to cooperate with monitors. President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka made his displeasure clear this week while campaigning for provincial elections that are due to be held this weekend. “I don’t care if we win or lose in Geneva,” he said. “I don’t give a pittance. I know the people here will ensure our victory.” Indeed, the government enjoys enormous public support among the majority ethnic Sinhalese for its May 2009 military victory against the rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Mr. Rajapaksa is likely to use any international investigation to his advantage. One reason the United Nations has found it difficult to bring about accountability, even long after the end of a gruesome war, is that the rebels were members of a widely despised, brutal insurgency that was deemed a terrorist organization by many countries in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11. The Sri Lankan government deftly leveraged international support to crush the rebels. The difficulty equally reflects political pressures that have nothing to do with Sri Lanka. India, for instance, has a large and influential ethnic Tamil population, and its leaders can hardly afford to alienate them ahead of India’s parliamentary elections, due to start next month. Nor can it ignore Sri Lanka’s ever-growing ties with China. The war in Sri Lanka has roiled the United Nations. It had a large presence in the country during the last few months of the war, when up to 40,000 people are believed to have been killed, but was notably silent about the scale of killings. In an internal review , the United Nations described its silence as “a grave failure,” taking to task officials who “did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility.” That internal review led to a stark shift in policy, called “rights up front.” United Nations officials in the field are now under orders to report rights violations, and senior officials here are to engage in what Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson called “quiet diplomacy” or, if necessary, raise the violations with the Security Council. The Security Council also did not pay close attention to rights abuses in a conflict that sought to stamp out the Tamil Tigers. “It was clear member states didn’t want to be told,” said Ian Martin, a former senior United Nations official. He added that there was slim chance of punishing perpetrators now, without the government’s cooperation. “It’s one step further to a definitive account,” he said. “Truth is, there’s not going to be accountability.” Ms. Pillay, in a report published in late February, pointed to abiding problems, including “continued militarization and compulsory land acquisition,” along with “shrinking space for civil society and the media, rising religious intolerance and the undermining of independent institutions, including the judiciary.” Mr. Rajapaksa sacked the country’s chief justice in January of last year. Previous investigations have found that tens of thousands were killed in the final months of the war and that hospitals were bombed, in violation of international law. The latest international report, issued last week by a South African human rights lawyer, documented 40 cases in which suspected Tamil Tigers supporters were abducted, tortured and sexually abused by members of the Sri Lankan military. Mr. Rajapaksa’s administration has consistently denounced international human rights inquiries as a breach of the country’s sovereignty and an unfair targeting of his country. In the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, Buddhist monks and Hindu priests held all-night prayers on Monday, while on Wednesday about 2,000 pro-government Muslim protesters marched to the United States Embassy. In the days leading up to the Geneva vote, Sri Lanka’s actions have drawn new outside scrutiny. It briefly detained two human rights advocates for questioning last week. Over the weekend, the police rounded up 300 Tamil youths for questioning in the still heavily militarized Jaffna peninsula in the country’s north. Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera, a northern area commander, said the heightened security checks were a “precaution” as the police stepped up the search for a rebel operative. The chief minister from Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, C. V. Wigneswaran, an ethnic Tamil, has said he fears that the resolution, if passed, could spark a fiercer military crackdown. “We are worried the army might go berserk once the decision is made in Geneva,” he said. A former Sri Lankan diplomat, Dayan Jayatilleka, described the country’s predicament as being caught between the United Nations campaign for accountability and Indian political imperatives. Mr. Jayatilleka wrote in an opinion article for The Colombo Telegraph that “the Rajapaksa administration will owe a significant slice of its election victory this time around to the ill-targeted Geneva resolution.” | Sri Lanka;War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity;UNCHR;Navi Pillay;Tamil Tigers;Mahinda Rajapaksa;US;US Foreign Policy;UN |
ny0182811 | [
"business"
] | 2007/12/19 | Disappointing Earnings Send Darden Lower | Darden Restaurants , the parent of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains, reported a nearly 30 percent drop in its quarterly net earnings on Tuesday because of soft sales and higher food and acquisition costs. The company said that its financial results did not meet its expectations, and its shares fell more than 7 percent in after-hours trading. In the regular session, the stock was up 45 cents, to $36.34. “We did see some sales softness because of what continued to be a difficult consumer environment,” the chief executive, Clarence Otis Jr., said in a statement. “As a result of this softness and a tougher than anticipated cost environment, we were unable to meet our expectations for earnings growth.” Net income slid to $43.5 million, or 30 cents a share, in the second fiscal quarter ended Nov. 25, from $61.7 million, or 41 cents a share, in the period a year earlier. The company said costs from its acquisition of LongHorn Steakhouse’s parent, Rare Hospitality, and a legal settlement reduced earnings by 12 cents a share. Revenue at restaurants open at least 16 months rose 3.2 percent at Olive Garden and 0.1 percent at Red Lobster. LongHorn sales were down 2.5 percent in the period. Operating profit fell at both Olive Garden and Red Lobster, in part because of higher food, beverage and labor costs, the company, based in Orlando, Fla., said. | Company Reports;Darden Restaurants Inc;Red Lobster |
ny0081532 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2015/11/02 | Mark Bittman to Join the Meal Kit Firm Purple Carrot | Mark Bittman, cookbook author and former New York Times columnist, is joining the Purple Carrot, one of the many new meal kit delivery services that have sprung up over the last several years. “We’ll be presenting a new website, incorporating Mark and a new image and language he’s helped develop,” said Andrew Levitt, founder and chief executive of the Purple Carrot. “We’ll also be starting a subscription-based business, where we currently are pay as you go.” The company, which was started in October 2014, will also begin offering meal kits to make dinner for two, in addition to the four-person kits it currently makes. And it will begin delivering meal kits on the West Coast. Until now, it has been primarily focused in the Northeast. The Purple Carrot is a vegan version of subscription meal kit services like Plated, Blue Apron, Green Chef and HelloFresh. Mr. Bittman will be involved in helping the company develop menus, as well as writing for its website, doing online chats on Twitter and other social media sites, and taking on other roles as the “face” of the business. Mr. Bittman announced in September that he would be leaving The New York Times to join a start-up with the goal of helping people eat more plants. Foodies have been speculating ever since about where he was going. Many thought he was joining Impossible Foods, which is working to find plant-based alternatives to meat; others thought he might join a venture capital firm. Mr. Levitt said he first met Mr. Bittman in mid-May in Washington after an introduction was made by a friend in the venture capital business. At that time, the Purple Carrot had been delivering its products for about seven months, establishing what Mr. Levitt called a “proof of concept.” “We really hit it off,” Mr. Levitt recalled. “The next day, he texted and said let’s talk, which we did for two hours on a Saturday.” Neither Mr. Levitt nor Mr. Bittman is a vegan or vegetarian. Rather, they are what Mr. Bittman has termed “flexitarians,” meaning they eat mostly plant-based diets with occasional meals with meat. “We’re not preaching veganism at all,” Mr. Levitt said. “I look at it as a great opportunity to make a real difference in the world by teaching people how to eat a plant-based diet that is good for health, good for the environment and good for animal welfare.” Mr. Levitt previously worked in the biotech business, as director of marketing for Genzyme and then as founder of HealthTalker, a health care marketing business, which he sold in 2012. The Purple Carrot was started with $125,000 and credit card debt, Mr. Levitt said. He then raised about $1 million from friends and family and is currently about two-thirds of the way through another effort to raise $3 million to support the company’s West Coast expansion. The company does not disclose how many people use its service, but Mr. Levitt said it had shipped about 100,000 meal kits by its first anniversary on Oct. 1. Customers pick two of four dinner options for the week ahead, and for $59, the Purple Carrot ships recipes and premeasured ingredients to make two meals for four people. | Mark Bittman;Purple Carrot;Cooking;Vegan |
ny0258953 | [
"science",
"earth"
] | 2011/01/06 | Gulf Spill Was Caused by Series of Errors, Panel Says | WASHINGTON — The Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an avoidable accident caused by a series of failures and blunders by the companies involved in drilling the well and the government regulators assigned to police them, the presidential panel named to study the accident has concluded. The companies — BP , Transocean and Halliburton , and several subcontractors working for them — took a series of hazardous and time-saving steps without adequate consideration of the risks involved, the commission reports in a chapter of its final findings, released on Wednesday in advance of the full report, to be published early next week. The panel also found that company officials had failed to consult with one another on critical decisions and that senior management had paid insufficient attention to the troubled well, which was being drilled a mile under the gulf’s surface. The commission warned that without major changes, another such accident was likely. “The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again,” it concluded. “Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.” BP’s Macondo well erupted on April 20, causing an explosion aboard the drilling rig that killed 11 men and led to the spill of nearly five million barrels of oil , some of which still befouls the gulf shoreline. In a statement on Wednesday, BP noted that the commission had found fault with a number of companies, not only BP, the main owner of the well. BP added that it was taking steps to deal with problems identified by the panel. “Even prior to the conclusion of the commission’s investigation, BP instituted significant changes designed to further strengthen safety and risk management,” the statement said. Halliburton said in a statement that it had acted at BP’s direction in preparing and injecting cement into the well. It said tests the panel identified as indicating problems with its cement formula were preliminary and did not contribute to the disaster. Halliburton also criticized the commission for what it called selective omissions of exculpatory material it gave to the panel’s staff. A spokesman for Transocean said that BP, not Transocean, made the major decisions in the hours before the blowout. “Based on the limited information made available to them, the Transocean crew took appropriate actions to gain control of the well,” the spokesman said. “They were well trained and considered to be among the best in the business.” The seven-member presidential commission, led by Bob Graham, a former Florida senator, and William K. Reilly, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency , was charged by President Obama last May with finding the root causes of the accident. It is one of several bodies investigating the blowout. The Justice Department is conducting civil and criminal investigations and has sued BP and others, and there is extensive private litigation against the companies as well. The findings will come as no surprise to the companies or to federal regulators, who say they have already taken steps to address the problems identified by the commission. “The report released today reflects areas the Interior Department has already identified, acknowledged and spent months working aggressively to reform ,” said Kendra Barkoff, the department’s press secretary. The presidential panel did not try to assign specific blame for a catalog of mistakes and shortcuts taken by the companies and their employees, but it is clear from the report that the major players engaged in highly risky behavior that neither senior management nor government regulators properly oversaw. The chapter released on Wednesday includes a chart listing nine actions taken by the companies that saved time and money when less risky alternatives were available. These included not installing enough devices to stabilize the well, not waiting for the results of tests on the foam used to seal the well, removing drilling fluid from the riser before a cement plug had been set and ignoring the results of a failed pressure test shortly before the well blew out. The report did not pin the accident on any one of these mistakes, but rather attributed it to a broader breakdown of communication and a lack of a culture of safety at the companies involved. “The most significant failure at Macondo — and the clear root cause of the blowout — was a failure of industry management,” the study concluded. “Better management of decision-making processes within BP and other companies, better communication within and between BP and its contractors and effective training of key engineering and rig personnel would have prevented the Macondo incident.” The panel referred to “compartmentalization” of information within and between companies, like the failure of onshore BP and Halliburton officials to report to rig workers known problems with the cement to be used to seal the well. A similar tendency to hoard critical information was a crucial shortcoming identified by the commission named to look into the causes of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which found that federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies failed to share data that might have identified the attackers. The panel also took federal offshore drilling regulators to task, for rubber-stamping permits and proposed changes in well design, and for failing to adequately oversee operations on the rig. It said the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement ) lacked the personnel, training and muscle to do its job and had essentially been captured by the industry it was meant to police. Offshore oil exploration is by nature risky, the commission concluded. “Notwithstanding these inherent risks, the accident of April 20 was avoidable,” the panel wrote. “It resulted from clear mistakes made in the first instance by BP, Halliburton and Transocean, and by government officials who, relying too much on industry’s assertions of the safety of their operations, failed to create and apply a program of regulatory oversight that would have properly minimized the risk of deepwater drilling.” | Offshore drilling;Accidents and Safety;BP;Gulf of Mexico;Barack Obama;Explosion;Oil and Gasoline;Halliburton;Transocean;Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement |
ny0239696 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2010/12/19 | Magic Trades for Arenas and Turkoglu | Two seasons ago, the Orlando Magic surprised and flourished throughout the playoffs. A loss to the Lakers in the N.B.A. finals proved how close the team was to a championship, but dissatisfied with the runner-up result, Otis Smith, Orlando’s general manager, initiated a major shake-up. On Saturday, he made another that shook the N.B.A. in an admission that the past overhaul did not work. It was another indication of the team’s directive to win and win immediately. In separate trades that involved eight players and some of the N.B.A.’s largest salaries, the Magic further overturned the roster that battled the Lakers and brought back one of the players who helped Orlando do so, forward Hedo Turkoglu. The Magic also added Gilbert Arenas and, in what will probably be the most overlooked acquisition, imported the quality veteran sharpshooter Jason Richardson. The Magic dealt guards Vince Carter and Mickael Pietrus, the backup center Marcin Gortat and a 2011 first-round selection to Phoenix for Turkoglu, Richardson and forward Earl Clark. Orlando traded forward Rashard Lewis to Washington for Arenas. Lewis, Gortat and Pietrus all went to the finals. Once that season ended, Smith scoffed at retaining Turkoglu at the $53 million contract he received in a sign-and-trade with Toronto. Instead, Smith traded for Carter, the former high-flying superstar, and forward Ryan Anderson from the Nets, while also sending the promising guard Courtney Lee and the expiring contracts of Rafer Alston and Tony Battie. That roster exited the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics last spring, losing the first three games of the series, in a giant step backward. Saturday’s trades are a giant roll of the dice by Smith, especially because he assumes the long-term contracts of Arenas and Turkoglu without knowing how the salaries will be affected after the current labor agreement expires. They also reflect the Magic’s commitment. There was a growing gap between the Magic and the developing behemoth in Miami. Orlando entered Saturday with a 16-9 record, but with losses in five of its last six games. The Orlando owner Richard DeVos is 84 and intent on seeing the franchise win its first championship, and the Magic is showcasing a new arena. The moves are also aimed at pacifying Dwight Howard, who can become a free agent after the 2011-12 season. By engineering the overhaul in December rather than at February’s trade deadline, the Magic has two extra months to watch the additions work together. If they do not, there is always the option of another major trade, and the Magic has been linked to Carmelo Anthony as an outside candidate throughout the year. On the scale of untradeable contracts, those of Turkoglu and Arenas seemed unmovable. Arenas’s contract has three years and $62.4 million left; Turkoglu’s, three years and $35 million. Along with the heavy contracts, they carry possibly heavier question marks. Both performed well under Smith in the past. Smith is Arenas’s mentor and confidant, and they grew close when Arenas entered the league with Golden State and Smith served as the team’s executive director of basketball operations. “He comes off as crazy, but he’s crazy like a fox,” Smith said of Arenas last year. “He knows exactly what he’s doing all the time. Exactly.” The new Wizards owner Ted Leonsis basically provided Arenas with a clean slate. But in recent weeks, Arenas said he believed his days in Washington were numbered as the team had been turned over to the rookie point guard John Wall. Despite an electric beginning in Washington that earned him his large contracts, Arenas’s tenure there will forever be linked with his knee injuries, a gun incident at the Verizon Center and his subsequent suspension for the remainder of the N.B.A. season. Arenas helped dispel some concerns about his surgically repaired knee this season by playing in 21 games and averaging 17.3 points and 5.6 assists. Turkoglu fueled the Magic run as a dynamite pick-and-roll partner with Howard. Since leaving Orlando, Turkoglu has been one of the league’s larger disappointments. He backed off a commitment to Portland before signing with Toronto, where he drew a team-invoked suspension toward the end of last season and asked to be traded over the summer. The Phoenix deal gives the Suns financial relief. Carter’s contract contains a $4 million buyout next year. In an awkward situation, Lon Babby, the Suns’ president, is a former agent who engineered the current contract Turkoglu is playing under. After losing Amar’e Stoudemire in free agency over the summer, Phoenix is in the midst of its own major overhaul. “I felt the success last year was something we could’ve built on and could’ve made a run for a potential championship this year if this thing would’ve worked out,” Stoudemire said. “But it didn’t work out that way.” Washington inherits Lewis, whom Smith once prioritized for his versatility as a big man who could shoot from the outside. It was another sign, in a day full of them, that Orlando was moving in a new direction. | Arenas Gilbert;Turkoglu Hedo;Basketball;Trades (Sports);Orlando Magic |
ny0007197 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2013/05/10 | Efraín Ríos Montt Denies Role in Guatemalan Massacres | GUATEMALA CITY — Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, the former dictator who ruled Guatemala during one of the bloodiest periods of its long civil war, faced the court trying him for genocide on Thursday and denied any role in the horrors narrated by Mayan survivors of massacres committed in the remote highlands three decades ago. In a rambling statement lasting almost an hour, the 86-year-old retired general addressed a panel of three judges who will determine his guilt. “I never authorized, I never signed, I never proposed, I never ordered an attack against any race, against any ethnic group,” he said, slipping into the cadence of his later years as a civilian politician. “I never did it, and of everything that has been said here, there has never been any evidence of my participation,” he said, his voice rising. The speech was an emotional coda to a trial that has reopened the wounds of Guatemala’s civil war and pulled old tensions tighter in one of the world’s most unequal societies. The defendant’s words served as a cornerstone of his defense, which has called a handful of witnesses. His lawyers began their closing arguments on Thursday. Prosecutors and lawyers for the victims laid out a vivid case during a month of testimony that began March 19. Almost 100 witnesses, many of them speaking Maya-Ixil, described the brutality they had endured, many of them as children or teenagers . During General Ríos Montt’s 17-month rule in 1982 and 1983, the army swept through the Mayan highlands to flush out leftist guerrillas, slaughtering villagers, laying waste to their hamlets and crops, and killing livestock. Image “I never did it, and of everything that has been said here, there has never been any evidence of my participation,” General Ríos Montt said. Credit Moises Castillo/Associated Press After the testimony from survivors, the prosecution called forensic experts who described mass graves. Military experts explained Guatemala’s rigid chain of command and deciphered army planning documents from the time. They testified that the high command considered the Ixil to be subversives, believing that they fed and supported guerrillas who had set up operations high in the mountains. At the end of the prosecution’s case, the proceedings were suddenly suspended last month when another judge tried to annul the trial. The tortured legal wrangling raised concerns that supporters of General Ríos Montt, who is being tried with a co-defendant, his former intelligence chief, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, had found a way to influence the courts. Since then, Guatemala’s highest court has handed down rulings that the lead trial judge, Yasmín Barrios, has interpreted to allow testimony to continue. In its closing arguments on Wednesday, the prosecution asked the court to sentence both men to 75 years for genocide and crimes against humanity. When he asked to speak on Thursday, General Ríos Montt made use of a right under Guatemalan law to address the court without being called as a witness, so he was not cross-examined. It was the first time he had spoken out about the charges against him, filed in January 2012 after he lost immunity from prosecution when he retired as a legislator. “I presented myself voluntarily to the public prosecutor,” he said. “I didn’t want to be called somebody who committed genocide because I have never been that. I have never ordered that.” As he spoke, the packed courtroom listened intently as he argued that local commanders were in charge, and that he, as commander in chief, did not know of their actions. Instead, he sought to redeem his reputation by portraying himself as a statesman concerned with rescuing the country from a guerrilla threat that had reached “the doors of the National Palace,” and he argued that tons of needed food reached the Ixil villages. “Subversion isn’t a question of gunshots,” he said. “ It’s a question of underdevelopment, it’s a question of illness, it’s a question of hunger, it’s a question of poverty.” | Guatemala;Efrain Rios Montt;War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity;Mayans |
ny0103786 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2012/03/16 | In Chelsea Comeback, Stars Shine | LONDON — Just when it seemed the English bulldog spirit had been eliminated from the Champions League this season, Chelsea bounced back. Chelsea’s presence among the final eight clubs going into the quarterfinal draw on Friday in Switzerland is down to physical power, mental fortitude, and something that appeared lost in this club — an unshakable unity within the team. To come from 3-1 behind after the first leg in Naples, to go through a locker room breakup that forced out the coach, and then to claw back and erase the deficit, overcoming a decent Napoli in extra time, made Wednesday a very special night in west London. It is not often these days that fans stay up so late into the night, not knowing which of two teams will best the other over two matches. The final score, 4-1 to Chelsea, and 5-4 on aggregate, was like a throwback to the time when the old European Cup was always a two-leg knockout affair. On English television, Gianfranco Zola, a once-irrepressible player of both these teams, summed up: “In Italy,” he said, “we talk about the character of the player, the man who can show up when it is really needed. Chelsea had those men tonight.” One such player, Frank Lampard, is still showing up in his 11th season in Chelsea blue. Lampard scored his 183rd goal and made his 116th assist in a 545-game Chelsea career thus far. He plays in the midfield, where the running is hardest, and, after Zola, he came closest to defining Chelsea’s spirit. “Our desire shone through,” Lampard said. “It was not always beautiful football, but we played the way we had to against a very good team, and our energy and will to win in the second half and extra time deserved to get us over the line.” Lampard had been omitted from the first leg in Naples. It had seemed for some while that he was not André Villas-Boas’s cup of tea. And whether the English players in particular — the captain John Terry, vice captain Lampard, and left back Ashley Cole — were the cause or the victims of it all, Villas-Boas was fired by the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, between the two Napoli matches. Villas-Boas, wherever he was, saw a very different, collected Chelsea approach Tuesday. Abramovich, wrapped up against the cold night air, sat motionless, seemingly joyless, throughout his team’s resurrection. The rest of the audience, Neapolitans as well as Chelsea fans, gave almost as much as the players on the field. For long spells, Napoli defied the convention of modern European soccer that suggests that a visiting team defends oppressively to protect a lead. With Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik in your attack, why would you rely on defense? They have been three of the Champions League’s finest strikers this season, and the Napoli defense is less than secure at the best of times, so the coach, Walter Mazzarri, was almost certainly right to give the team its head and let it seek to score more goals. “We made some mistakes on set pieces,” Mazzarri acknowledged after the defeat. “We lacked the experience to control a game like this and put it to bed. Our players are very young and have never played at this level before, but we are satisfied and should be proud of what we did.” There, without recrimination or excuse, is a decent coach’s summary of the contest. Chelsea, indeed, exploited the set pieces. Its first two goals were powerful, opportunist headers, from the old stagers Didier Drogba and Terry. Napoli then scored a much more flowing goal, finished off by a silken expression of chest control and seamless low half-volley from the Swiss-Turkish midfielder Gokhan Inler. But that goal, giving the advantage back to Napoli, was the draw to yet more effort, more desire, more power from Chelsea. The penalty at 75 minutes, conceded by an obvious handball from Andrea Dossena, was converted with bludgeoning certainty by Lampard. That squared the two-leg contest, and gave the excellent German referee Felix Brych no option other than to play extra time. The 30 minutes weighed Chelsea’s experience against Napoli’s comparative youth. Napoli went forward first and was repelled. Chelsea’s winner, on the stroke of halftime in extra time, came when Drogba, still athletic, still running on desire despite his 34 years, got behind the defense, turned and passed the ball. On to Bransilav Ivanovic it went. The Serb, a defender, was an unlikely match winner. But with his anticipation and, again, his desire, he moved toward the ball and from 11 meters, or 36 feet, gave Morgan De Sanctis not a ghost of a chance of preventing the final, conclusive score. Chelsea, with Villas-Boas’s deputy, Roberto Di Matteo, in charge, had wrung victory out of despair. It was the fourth time in the 20 years since Europe’s top competition became the Champions League that a team had overhauled a two-goal deficit and won in the knockout phase. The final eight now reads: A.C. Milan, Apoel Nicosia, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Marseille, Chelsea and Real Madrid. They will know Friday not only who their opponents are for the quarterfinals, but also the permutations for the semifinals. For the first time in quite a while, there are seven nations involved at this stage — and Chelsea players, while fearing no one after Tuesday, will be happy to miss the Spanish giants, and the potential host to the final, Bayern Munich. What everyone would like to ask, but no one will expect an answer, is how much Roman Abramovich feels he contributed to this Chelsea revival by his change of coach. | Chelsea (Soccer Team);UEFA Champions League (Soccer);Soccer |
ny0262576 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2011/12/03 | Jackie Selebi, Ex-Police Official, Loses Court Appeal in South Africa | JOHANNESBURG — An appeals court on Friday upheld the corruption conviction and 15-year sentence against South Africa ’s former national police commissioner, making him the most senior public official forced to serve jail time since this country became a democracy 17 years ago. The former commissioner, Jackie Selebi, 61, collapsed at his home upon hearing the news and had to be taken to a hospital, his lawyer told the local news media. Mr. Selebi, who has been free on bail pending the appeal, will have until Sunday to report to jail. “He is not doing well,” Wynanda Coetzee, his lawyer, told reporters. “We are very worried. He can’t walk.” A judge last year convicted Mr. Selebi of providing favors to a drug trafficker in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts that included designer clothing . When he handed down the conviction, Judge Meyer Joffe called Mr. Selebi, the police commissioner from 2000 through 2008, someone of “low moral fiber” who showed “complete contempt for the truth.” A five-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Appeal said that prosecutors had proven two crucial elements beyond a reasonable doubt: that Mr. Selebi took money from the drug trafficker, Glenn Agliotti, and that he provided a benefit in return. Mr. Selebi tipped Mr. Agliotti to secret information, including that the British police were investigating him, the initial trial judge had found. “The high court was correct in finding that the applicant did receive payment from Agliotti and that he did provide quid pro quo,” Judge Kenneth Mthiyane, one of the appeals judges, said at the courthouse in Bloemfontein. It is unlikely that Mr. Selebi will be able to appeal this decision. It marks the bottom of a precipitous fall for a man who once was the president of Interpol. Mr. Selebi emerged from the apartheid era as one of South Africa’s liberation heroes and a leader of the governing party, the African National Congress . He was a member of Parliament and an envoy to the United Nations in Geneva. “Given that this is a new democracy, given our history, it’s not realistic to expect that we’re not going to have corruption,” said Steven Friedman, director of The Center for the Study of Democracy in South Africa and a professor at Rhodes University in South Africa. Mr. Friedman called the case against Mr. Selebi “a very important step forward” because there were “a lot of societies where the police commissioner would not be prosecuted” if he faced evidence of corruption. He said that Mr. Selebi was the highest-ranking official to be jailed for corruption since the beginning of democracy here. During his eight-month trial, Mr. Selebi vigorously claimed his innocence and said he was being set up by enemies unhappy that he had criticized an investigative police unit that was eventually disbanded. Mr. Agliotti was the prosecution’s chief witness against him, though the trial judge found that Mr. Agliotti had lied about many things. Mr. Selebi testified in his own defense, saying that his relationship with Mr. Agliotti was an effort to siphon information “from him for the greater good.” But the judge at the trial also found that Mr. Selebi had lied on numerous points. Mr. Selebi was a close ally of the man who appointed him, the former president Thabo Mbeki. Mr. Mbeki tried to stop the prosecution of Mr. Selebi, going so far as to suspend the former national prosecutor who had been investigating the police commissioner. Another justice official at the time, Menzi Simelane, had written a letter to the prosecutor asking him to abandon the case against Mr. Selebi. Mr. Simelane would eventually become the nation’s top prosecutor, but the appeals court ruled Thursday that his appointment was invalid because of questions surrounding his experience and integrity . Corruption has been a problem long plaguing this young democracy, and it seems that Mr. Selebi’s example has not served as much of a deterrent. Mr. Selebi’s successor, Bheki Cele, is on suspension over allegations that he leased a new police headquarters at inflated prices. | Selebi Jackie;Decisions and Verdicts;Corruption (Institutional);South Africa;Police Brutality and Misconduct |
ny0207396 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2009/06/19 | Big Order Lifts Outlook at Airbus | LE BOURGET, FRANCE — His mood was by no means as triumphant as it had been in 2007 when the previous Paris Air Show was held, but the chief Airbus salesman, John Leahy, said he was leaving the show this year more encouraged about the outlook for the industry than he had been before. “Considering the predictions of single-digit orders by most of the industry forecasters, I’d say we’re pleased,” Mr. Leahy said Thursday during an interview. Sipping a glass of pink Champagne to celebrate the announcement of a $3.5 billion order from the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air, Mr. Leahy acknowledged that most of his customers had yet to see any firm signs of recovery from the sharp downturn that began with the collapse of global financial markets last autumn. But the sense of panic that gripped airline executives then has subsided, he said. “In the fourth quarter of last year, everybody was in a state of shock,” Mr. Leahy said. “It looked like a situation of free fall.” “Nobody then was thinking about anything but survival,” he said, “and in many cases that meant survival for the next two weeks, not survival for the next 20 years.” The debate in the corporate chalets in the past week, he said, centered more on the pace of the next upturn. “I didn’t see too many people predicting that further dramatic declines were in store,” he said. Airbus was expected to walk away from Le Bourget, where the air show was held, with about 110 new orders and commitments worth about $6.5 billion. In addition to the purchase of 50 new A320 single-aisle planes by Wizz Air, Airbus won deals from three Southeast Asian carriers: Vietnam Airlines, Cebu Pacific of the Philippines and AirAsia X of Malaysia, which ordered 10 of Airbus’s next-generation wide-body airliner, the A350-XWB. Boeing, meanwhile, logged just one order at the show, a $153 million deal with MC Aviation Partners, a leasing subsidiary of Mitsubishi of Japan, for two 737-800s. The U.S. plane maker said it did not traditionally save up new jet deals for announcement at air shows. The airlines that ordered planes this year are smaller carriers with plans to expand regionally. Mr. Leahy said that he expected older, more established carriers to re-enter the market as more evidence of renewed economic activity emerged. “You can certainly delay in bad times the introduction of new capital costs, but you can’t postpone them indefinitely,” he said. “To be a player in the industry you have to have efficient fleets, or your competitor will eat your lunch.” This month, United Airlines announced that it had asked Airbus and Boeing to submit bids on an order to replace as many as 150 of its aging wide-body fleet — its first major order since 1998. Mr. Leahy said this was evidence of additional signs of recovery in the industry. “The fact that some airlines are starting to do some forward planning, I think, is indicative of the fact that people aren’t in a panic mode anymore,” Mr. Leahy said. “They are saying, ‘O.K., this isn’t a good situation, but let’s start looking to the future and how do we get out of this situation.’ And I’m very pleased to report that at least what I’m hearing here is new equipment is a key tool in positioning yourself properly for the future.” | Airbus Industrie;Airlines and Airplanes;Paris Air Show |
ny0245641 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2011/04/07 | With Title, Texas A&M Coach Has Another Story to Tell | INDIANAPOLIS Gary Blair’s coaching career began when women were still playing six-on-six basketball, their opportunities across gender barriers as restricted as their movements across midcourt. At South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, Blair won three Texas state championships, coaching Debra and Kim Rodman when their brother Dennis “used to play Ping-Pong with me because he was only 5-11 and couldn’t play a lick” of basketball. Three decades later, Dennis Rodman has just been voted into the Hall of Fame and Blair, 65 and gray, has won an N.C.A.A. championship at Texas A&M , guiding its women’s team to a gripping 76-70 victory over Notre Dame on Tuesday. Funny how lives crisscross likes strands of a net. “He’s come full circle; to start where he started and have the stops he’s had along the way, I venture to say there’s not anybody else in the game that’s made that trip,” Vic Schaefer, the associate head coach at Texas A&M and mastermind of the Aggies’ relentless defense, said of Blair. The arc of Blair’s career is the arc of women’s basketball, from grudging tolerance to defiant outsider resolve to belated acceptance by the N.C.A.A. And the evolution of women’s basketball at Texas A&M is the remarkable transformation of a university that once prohibited women as students, much less athletes. No one immersed himself more in the women’s Final Four or had more fun or told more stories than Blair. He is a Rotarian and former Marine for whom sentences are mere tributaries for paragraphs that run on like great rivers, meandering and eddying, and finally depositing luxuriant and unhurried tales. “He doesn’t say anything quickly,” Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw said with amusement. After confetti had rained in star shapes Tuesday night and the nets had been scissored at Conseco Fieldhouse, Blair shouted, “Howdy!” at his postgame news conference and playfully demanded that reporters shout “Howdy!” in reply. Among other things, he studied journalism at Texas Tech in an undergraduate career as protracted as some of his stories. (“I had a couple of junior years,” he said.) He reads through five newspapers a day, he said, and deconstructs sports columns and articles as if he were an editor instead of a coach. He promised not to ramble on Tuesday night, but he did anyway. And who could blame him? Asked what this title meant, Blair recounted his entire career: His high school days in Dallas. His days as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech, which won a national title in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women in 1981 and the first N.C.A.A. title for women in 1982. His days as a head coach at Stephen F. Austin in Texas, before big-time football schools decided they could succeed in women’s basketball . His days at Arkansas, which he coached to the Final Four in 1998. And finally his days at Texas A&M, which was founded as an all-male military school in 1876 and did not admit women as full students until 1963 or band members until 1985. He talked about how much this championship meant to his family, to the families of his assistant coaches, to the pets of another assistant who has no family but does have dogs. He promised to take his wife, Nan Smith-Blair, the director of nursing at Arkansas, on a vacation. They live apart much of the year, their careers rooted in different states. He has been promising this vacation for 11 years. This time he means it. “That’s the life of a coach, because you do not get those little things,” Blair said. When he arrived at Texas A&M eight seasons ago, the Aggies drew about 300 fans a game. (“Usually family members,” he said.) So Blair has done whatever he can to attract crowds. He calls in to radio talk shows and offers tickets. He tosses candy into the stands before home games. He speaks annually to sales reps at The Eagle newspaper in Bryan-College Station, Tex., exhorting them to sell ads for the preview section on women’s basketball as if they were headed to the Final Four. “Not only does he have my cellphone number, he has my wife’s cellphone number,” said Robert Cessna, who has covered sports at The Eagle for 35 years. “If Blair needs to get ahold of me, he will.” So much has changed for women, and women’s sports, at Texas A&M. The basketball team once dressed in a men’s locker room where artificial flowers were brought in to camouflage the urinal. Now the practice facility has a hair salon and each player has a computer in her locker. Blair makes $800,000 a year. On Tuesday night the university president cheered in the stands and linked his arms with the players in swaying celebration. This university, which built its athletic reputation on football, now has national women’s titles in basketball and track and field. Soccer and softball are powers. Equestrian is ranked No. 1. “Those are big sports, but a lot of people have been waiting for women’s basketball to do something big,” said Sydney Colson, a rapacious senior guard. Forward Danielle Adams, who scored 30 points Tuesday, is departing along with Colson, but the Aggies will have the 6-foot-4 center Kelsey Bone, a transfer from South Carolina, eligible next season. Another championship run is possible. Blair is not going anywhere. Before each game, he will scrawl a plus sign on his hand, reminding himself to be as positive with his players as he is with the public. “I’m not looking to retire,” Blair said. “I’m not looking to be as old as Joe Paterno and keep coaching, but I’ll give it a hell of a ride until then.” | Blair Gary;Basketball (College);Texas A&M University;NCAA Basketball Championships (Women);NCAA Basketball Tournament (Women);Basketball;Coaches and Managers;College Athletics |
ny0095033 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/01/10 | 11 Are Injured, Two Critically, in Bronx Fire | A two-alarm fire in a Bronx apartment building on Friday injured 11 people, two of them critically, and left dozens of families seeking shelter, the authorities said. The fire broke out just before 5 p.m. on the third floor of a six-story building at 3971 Gouverneur Avenue, near the south side of Van Cortlandt Park, according to the Fire Department. A total of 105 firefighters worked for 90 minutes to bring the fire under control after flames spread to the building’s fourth floor and a second alarm was sounded, fire officials said. The victims, who suffered burns and smoke inhalation, were taken to Jacobi Medical Center and other hospitals, according to the Fire Department. As of Friday night, two people were in critical condition, three were in serious condition with injuries that were not life threatening and six had been treated for minor injuries, officials said. The Fire Department said Friday that the cause of the fire was still being investigated. The building was constructed in 1928 and has more than 60 apartments, from studios to three-bedroom units, according to city records. Calls to the company listed as the current owner, HDS Funding, went unanswered on Friday. | Fires;Bronx;NYC |
ny0191617 | [
"business"
] | 2009/02/18 | Wal-Mart Outpaces Weak Economy With Profit | After posting results that showed it was benefiting more than any American retailer from the recession, Wal-Mart Stores proffered some new year’s resolutions: hang on to its millions of new customers for the long haul, and widen its influence on national issues like the environment, energy and health care. On the surface, Wal-Mart’s profits were hardly spectacular, falling 7.7 percent for the three months that ended Jan. 31. But that was mainly because of one-time factors and currency fluctuations. The company’s sales for the quarter set a record and beat Wall Street expectations, sending shares up sharply on Tuesday to close at $48.24. The nation’s largest retailer is gaining market share at a time when most chains are foundering. The Wal-Mart maxim — “save money, live better” — “has galvanized the entire organization around a common purpose,” Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart, said in a recorded call for investors on Tuesday. The company’s new president and chief executive, Michael T. Duke , in some of his most extensive public remarks since taking over the retailer three weeks ago, emphasized that Wal-Mart would continue several initiatives begun by his predecessor, H. Lee Scott Jr., including a focus on environmental issues. “We will accelerate and broaden our commitment to sustainability,” Mr. Duke said on Tuesday. “It is a permanent part of our culture. We will continue to work with our suppliers, merchants and customers to remove waste and make a difference in the world.” Without giving specifics, Mr. Duke added that Wal-Mart “made a commitment to work with President Barack Obama’s administration, and with the Democrat and Republican leadership in Congress,” to help solve health care and energy issues. For the three months that ended Jan. 31, Wal-Mart’s profit was $3.8 billion, or 96 cents a share, compared with $4.1 billion, or $1.02 share, a year ago. That included a charge from settling dozens of class-action lawsuits in which the company was accused of systematically cheating workers out of wages. Wal-Mart’s results were also hurt by the performance of its international and Sam’s Club divisions. Still, sales at United States stores open at least a year, a barometer of retail health known as same-store sales, increased 2.8 percent (not including fuel) for the three months that ended Jan. 31, compared with 1.7 percent for the period a year ago. Over all, for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, the company said its profit increased 3 percent to $13.3 billion, or $3.35 a share, compared with $12.9 billion, or $3.16 a share, a year earlier. Same-store sales for the year were up 3.3 percent, not including fuel, compared with 1.4 percent the previous year. “The business model that Sam Walton created is perfectly positioned for the environment we live in now,” said Mr. Duke, harking back to something Mr. Scott said last year. “I do believe this is Wal-Mart’s time.” Wal-Mart said it is benefiting from its low prices, particularly on necessities like groceries, as more consumers shun restaurants. “Nowhere has price leadership been more important to our customers than in grocery,” Mr. Castro-Wright said, adding, “we continue to increase the price gaps between our competitors and Wal-Mart in food and consumables.” He noted that the company has been able to do that without hurting its profit margins. With more consumers trading down to Wal-Mart, Mr. Castro-Wright said, “We intend to keep them.” Wal-Mart has already taken market share from consumer electronics retailers by stocking its shelves with popular brands and products, like Apple’s iPhone . Even in this economy, it has enjoyed double-digit sales growth from big-ticket items like flat panel televisions and game systems. “Wealthier customers are rediscovering Wal-Mart,” said Bill Dreher, senior retailing analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities. “No one is feeling as rich as they used to. All of a sudden, Wal-Mart looks a lot better.” The retailer has spent the last few years cleaning up its stores and speeding up the once-laborious checkout process, which Wal-Mart executives say has helped win over customers. Wal-Mart’s weakest divisions for the period that ended Jan. 31 were Sam’s Club, which caters to small business owners, and Wal-Mart International. At Sam’s Club, holiday sales, as well as sales of discretionary items like furniture, exercise equipment and fine jewelry, suffered. The club’s restaurant supplies category was also soft, indicating that small restaurant and food service companies were ailing. There was essentially no sales growth for the three months that ended Jan. 31. Sales for that period fell 8.4 percent at Wal-Mart International, which was hurt by currency fluctuations. “The global economic slowdown is affecting all our markets,” said Doug McMillon, president and chief executive of Wal-Mart International. Wal-Mart’s apparel sales were also weak, though the same could be said of nearly every retailer. Clothing sales throughout the industry have been abysmal, with many consumers making do with their old garb. Wal-Mart estimated earnings will be 72 to 77 cents a share for the reporting period from Jan. 31 through May 1, and $3.45 to $3.60 for the full year. It expects same-store sales for Jan. 31 through May 1 to increase 1 to 3 percent, not including fuel. The company — which had suspended its stock repurchase program, citing the uncertain economy — said it would resume buying back stock. Also this week, Wal-Mart said it was cutting the price of its refillable, prepaid Visa debit card to $3 from $8.94. Jane J . Thompson, president of financial services at Wal-Mart, said customers who live paycheck to paycheck use the card as an alternative to bank accounts because they can avoid paying high overdraft fees. | Wal-Mart Stores Inc;Retail Stores and Trade;Duke Michael T;United States Economy;Company Reports;Environment;Health Insurance and Managed Care;Energy and Power |
ny0062478 | [
"us"
] | 2014/01/26 | Family Sues in Protracted Ohio Execution | COLUMBUS, Ohio — The prolonged execution of an Ohio inmate during which he repeatedly gasped and snorted amounted to cruel and unusual punishment that should not be allowed to happen again, the inmate’s family said in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed late Friday, also alleges that the drug maker that produced the medications illegally allowed them to be used for an execution and should be prohibited from making them available for capital punishment. The inmate, Dennis B. McGuire, was executed on Jan. 16 for the 1989 rape and murder of Joy Stewart. His execution lasted 26 minutes, the longest since Ohio resumed the death penalty in 1999, according to an Associated Press analysis of all 53 execution logs maintained by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Mr. McGuire experienced “repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling and arching his back, appearing to writhe in pain,” the lawsuit said. “It looked and sounded as though he was suffocating.” Mr. McGuire’s execution, during which his adult children sobbed in dismay, has led to several calls for a moratorium on capital punishment in the state. A separate federal lawsuit, filed Thursday, seeks to stop the scheduled March execution of a northeast Ohio killer on the ground that condemned inmates could be clinically alive for as long as 45 minutes after a time of death is announced. Lawyers for the plaintiff in that case, Gregory Lott, who is scheduled to die March 19 for setting an East Cleveland man on fire in 1986 and leaving him to die, also say Ohio is breaking state and federal law by using the drugs without a prescription. The lawsuit by Mr. McGuire’s family targets Hospira Inc., the Lake Forest, Ill.-based manufacturer of the drugs used in his execution. Image Dennis B. McGuire Credit Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, via Associated Press The company knew its drugs were being used for executions but continued to sell them to Ohio, according to the lawsuit, which seeks damages above $75,000. Hospira should have known that the drugs “would cause unnecessary and extreme pain and suffering during the execution process,” the lawsuit said. In 2011, Hospira ended production of sodium thiopental, a drug used by Ohio and many other states for executions, after it could not guarantee to the authorities in Italy, where its factory was situated, that the drug would not be used for capital punishment. The company also has prohibited other drugs from being used in executions, and will take the same steps for midazolam and hydromorphone, the drugs used in Mr. McGuire’s execution, according to a company statement. Medical experts would not comment on Mr. McGuire’s execution or speculate about what he experienced. They agreed that used for surgery, the two drugs would not cause pain. The first drug, midazolam, sometimes known by its trade name, Versed, is administered in surgery to help calm patients, said Dr. Howard Nearman, professor of anesthesiology at Case Western Reserve University. The second, hydromorphone, known by the trade name, Dilaudid, is a narcotic meant to reduce pain. “By virtue of what they do, they cause unconsciousness, and they inhibit pain,” Dr. Nearman said. An anesthesiologist hired by the lawyers for the McGuire family before the execution predicted the inmate would suffer “agony and terror” as he experienced a phenomenon known as air hunger, or the desperate attempt to catch his breath as he suffocated. An anesthesiologist hired by the state disputed that theory. That doctor, Mark Dershwitz of the University of Massachusetts, also said that Mr. McGuire’s airways could become obstructed and that he might snore as a result, though he would not suffer. | Capital punishment;Lawsuits;Choking;Dennis B McGuire;Ohio |
ny0215979 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/04/28 | China Moves to Tighten Data Controls | BEIJING — China is on the verge of requiring telecommunications companies and Internet service providers to halt and report leaks of what the government deems to be state secrets, the latest in a series of moves intended to strengthen the government’s control over private communications. The proposed amendment to the state secrets law, reported Tuesday by the state news media, defines a state secret broadly and loosely as information that, if disclosed, would damage China’s security or interests in political, economic, defense and other realms. The amendment was submitted Monday to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, for a third reading, the final step before being signed into law. Few measures reach that point in China without being adopted. The wording of the amendment, as cited by the state-controlled newspaper China Daily , suggested that Internet and telecommunications companies would have to take a more proactive stance in identifying leaks of state secrets and their sources. The paper said companies must detect, report and delete unauthorized disclosures. But reports by the state-run news agency Xinhua seemed less definitive about whether the companies must independently scour online transmissions for forbidden information or simply cooperate with the authorities if they suspect transgressions. According to Xinhua, when companies discover leaks, “information transmissions should be immediately stopped” and the authorities alerted. It did not say how active companies must be in uncovering unauthorized disclosures. Reports in the state-controlled media did not say what penalties, if any, would be imposed if companies failed to comply. In a related move, the Chinese government on Monday posted on a government Web site a broad definition of what constituted a commercial secret, covering information related to strategic plans, management, mergers, equity trades, stock market listings, reserves, production, procurement and sales strategy, financing and finances, negotiations, joint venture investments and technology transfers. Four employees of the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto were recently convicted in China of bribery and stealing commercial secrets from a state-owned company. Their prosecution inspired widespread concern in the international business community, partly because of the lack of clarity about what was considered to be a state or commercial secret in China. Several analysts suggested that the amendment to the state secrets law would have limited impact. Internet service providers and telecommunications companies are already expected to fully cooperate with state security investigations. In one well-known case, in 2005 a Chinese journalist was sentenced to 10 years in prison for violating the state secrecy law after the authorities obtained information from Yahoo about an e-mail message he sent regarding a confidential government document. Yahoo was later severely criticized in the United States for its role in the case, and one of its founders, Jerry Yang , eventually apologized to the journalist’s family. “Obviously, it adds another tool that authorities would have to snoop on people,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, publisher of Danwei.org , a Web site about Chinese media and the Internet. “But I don’t think anybody thinks that their communications are safe from the prying eyes of the government, whether it is text messages or any other form of communications.” Some Chinese legal experts have questioned whether the draft amendment contradicts the government’s pledge to be more open and violates China’s constitutional guarantees of privacy and freedom of communication. But one legal scholar cautioned against judging the amendment before the exact wording was made public. China’s determination to control cellphone and Internet communications more closely has been increasingly obvious in recent months. | China;Classified Information;Computer security;Computers and the Internet |
ny0006220 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/05/05 | Life in North Korean Complex: A Glimmer of Hope | SEOUL, South Korea — When the order came last weekend to evacuate an industrial park in North Korea, Kwak Kyung-dock, a South Korean factory manager, said he was forced to flee with the suit on his back — and his car filled with so many boxes of the plastic machinery parts made at his factory that he had to tie several on the roof. “I had to leave like a refugee,” he said. The flight of South Korean managers like Mr. Kwak, crossing the border in cars overburdened with gear from factories they may never see again, has become the enduring image of a standoff that began when the North successfully launched a long-range rocket in December . The exodus was all the more alarming because for the nine years that North Koreans had worked in South Korean-owned factories at the Kaesong complex, it had seemed reassuring proof that no matter how heated the back-and-forth got, the two nations were unwilling to let things go too far. Now that all of the managers have returned to South Korea, they are shedding light on the sprawling outpost of capitalism in the impoverished Communist state. Though it sometimes felt like a prison, to many it represented the only tangible hope that the two Koreas might one day be able to find common ground. “Kaesong was like a mini reunification, the first time in 60 years of division where we ate out of the same rice pot,” said Park Nam-seo, president of Combase, a toy manufacturer who left Kaesong in March. Since its creation during a thaw in inter-Korean relations nine years ago, the Kaesong park had grown from a small collection of buildings into a vast complex that became one of the world’s most unusual investment enclaves. With its 123 South Korean-built factories powered with electricity from the South, and surrounded by tall fences guarded by North Korean soldiers, the park was a bright light in the darkness caused by electrical shortages in the North’s failed command economy. But last month, as tensions rose on the peninsula after North Korea was sanctioned for conducting a nuclear test , North Korea suspended operations at the complex, saying a final decision would depend on South Korea’s attitude. The North withdrew its 54,000 workers, then cut off shipments of food and other supplies from the South. By Friday, the South had withdrawn all of its citizens, who had worked mainly as managers and overseers at the park. Some of the South Korean managers expressed anger, saying that the park was being held hostage by politics. “Just because the father and mother fight doesn’t mean their 10-year-old child should be sent to an orphanage,” said Yoo Chang-geun, president of SJTech, an auto parts maker with a factory in Kaesong. “It will be very sad if Kaesong closes, because it planted a dream of peace.” In interviews, more than a half-dozen of the South Korean managers said they had been reluctant to leave, and hoped to return as soon as possible. Image A map showing the Kaesong industrial park in the North. Credit Woohae Cho for The New York Times They said their companies had become dependent on the North Korean plants, whose workers, ill trained at first, quickly rivaled South Korean factory workers in skill, and for much lower wages. But just as important, the managers displayed an almost missionary-like zeal to use the park as a living laboratory of whether combining South Korean money and know-how with North Korean workers hungry for better lives could somehow provide a formula for peace and perhaps even reunification of the peninsula. The South Korean managers said that after nine years, a yawning gulf still divided the managers, whose housing and restaurants were in the complex, from the North Korean workers, who commuted in every day. The South Koreans, as many as 1,000, were carefully checked every time they entered the North to ensure they were not carrying newspapers or other politically charged information. Even factory manuals were censored for mentions of capitalism or other banned ideas. Lee Kyu-yong, a manager at SJTech’s Kaesong factory, recalls how at first even basic communication was difficult because of huge differences in living standards. Once he meant to praise a North Korean by remarking that she had lost weight, but instead ended up offending her. Mr. Lee said he realized that in a society with famines, being plump was seen as more desirable. Over time, he said, he was able to close that gap, at least a bit, and grew close enough with his company’s 430 North Korean employees to talk about personal matters like families, though politics remained a forbidden topic. “The human relations that we built have a value that go beyond calculation,” Mr. Lee said. Mr. Kwak said that while workers were careful what they talked about, customs agents and other North Korean government officials were less reticent in asking about South Korean politics, which is often negatively portrayed in the North’s state-run news media. He recalled one time when North Korean officials grew wide-eyed on hearing that the South Korean presidential election was a real contest in which the leader was chosen by votes, and not behind closed doors. They were even more fascinated to learn that the government cannot just tell the South’s news media what to say, Mr. Kwak said. “I told them, it doesn’t work that way in South Korea,” he said. At the same time, being too open in conversation could cause problems for North Koreans, said the manager of a jewelry factory who asked not to be identified. He said that some of the North Korean workers also appeared to be informers, and if one appeared to grow too friendly with his South Korean supervisor, he would suddenly be transferred the next day to a different part of the factory. The manager said he also heard of meetings that appeared to be self-criticism sessions, in which a North Korean worker was forced to stand before his peers and explain his behavior. At the same time, the South Koreans said that working at the park appeared to slowly improve its workers’ living standards. According to the Unification Ministry, South Korean companies paid $87 million in wages last year to North Korea, though it was unclear how much of that went to the workers, and how much the government kept. Still, Lee Jong-mahn, who heads the Kaesong factory of Hosan Ace, a maker of laboratory equipment, said that while workers at first brought lunches that used corn meal, they later brought white rice, the more expensive grain of choice for Korean cuisine, and sometimes a side dish of fish, a source of protein that they did not bring before. Others said they noticed that the North Koreans also dressed better than they once had, with women wearing fashionable bluejeans instead of the old, dour-looking skirts of nine years ago. Some even had cellphones, which were introduced in the North only recently. “Kaesong has been good for business, but it has also been good for the two Koreas,” said Mr. Lee, of Hosan Ace. “When people spend that much time together, they start to realize that even North Koreans aren’t that different.” | Kaesong;South Korea;Manufacturing;International relations |
ny0165416 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2006/07/14 | Questions Over Van Operator and How It Vetted Its Driver | Officials at the medical transportation company whose van slammed into a tree in Queens on Wednesday, killing five residents of an adult group home and injuring four others, never checked the driver’s record before hiring him, a state-certified driving examiner said yesterday. They also failed to verify that he had the proper license, he said. As a result, officials at the company, Altima Transportation, had no idea that the driver, Guy Thelemaque, had a suspended license, and that he was not certified to drive the 15-passenger van that crashed and burst into flames on Cross Bay Boulevard, said the examiner, who was granted anonymity to speak because he did not want to jeopardize his relationship with Altima, a client. “They figured they could cut costs, but look at what happens when you cut costs,” said the examiner, speaking outside Altima’s office in Inwood on Long Island after being called in by Altima after the accident. His company and others like it charge fees to conduct road tests for drivers and teach them basic maintenance. The State Department of Transportation listed Eliyahu Rubin and Elizabeth Davidowitz, both residents of Brooklyn, as the owners of the company. Neither answered the door at their homes or responded to several phone messages left for them yesterday. A man who answered the phone at Altima’s office declined to comment. Meanwhile, Mr. Thelemaque, 55, described to relatives yesterday his version of what happened just before the crash. “He remembers things,” said Mr. Thelemaque’s wife, Myrtha, 38, in a telephone interview from her husband’s hospital room. “There was another car coming to him, so he made a turn, to not hit the other car, and that’s when he got into the tree. “He was looking for the brakes, and he couldn’t find them,” she said. But a woman driving next to the van seconds before the accident has told investigators that Mr. Thelemaque’s vehicle began drifting into her lane, suddenly sped up and then veered into the tree, a law enforcement official said. No criminal charges have been filed in the case, but the police said the investigation was continuing. The National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that it had sent a team to look into the accident. A spokeswoman for NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in Manhattan said that Mr. Thelemaque, of Brooklyn, was in stable condition last night. Two other survivors, Jean Hastik, 60, and Carl Harkins, 44, were in critical condition, the spokeswoman said. A third survivor, Jose Prieto, 56, transferred to Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn with a spinal injury, was in stable condition, a spokesman said. Sheldon Wilson, 41, the fourth injured resident of the group home, the Brooklyn Manor Home for Adults, was released from Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens and returned to the group home. The van had been returning from Peninsula Hospital Center in Far Rockaway, where the residents had attended a day treatment program, to Brooklyn Manor, which has been called one of the state’s most troubled group homes. Much attention after the accident centered on the home, which the State Department of Health has tried repeatedly to shut down or take over because of abuses there. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that Altima Transportation, which does business under the name Instant Ambulette, failed to meet guidelines set up by the state to ensure that the drivers of ambulettes are qualified to operate them, state officials say. Peninsula Hospital officials hired the van service six years ago to transport patients to and from Brooklyn Manor, said Liz Sulick, a spokeswoman for the hospital. Ken Brown, a spokesman for the State Department of Motor Vehicles, confirmed yesterday that Mr. Thelemaque’s license had been suspended and that even if it had been valid, he was certified to drive only a seven-passenger van. Mr. Thelemaque’s license was suspended on June 26 for failure to appear in court to answer a summons, according to motor vehicle records. The company would have been notified of his suspension immediately if it had filed the proper paperwork for him, Mr. Brown said. All drivers for medical transportation companies are subject to a provision of the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law known in the industry as Article 19-A. Companies must file paperwork that includes a summary of the employee’s driving history and proof that the driver has undergone a medical exam and has the correct licenses for the vehicles he will be driving, Mr. Brown said. But Mr. Thelemaque’s name did not appear on a list of drivers the company submitted late last month, Mr. Brown said. His relatives said that Mr. Thelemaque began working for Altima a few months ago. The company has about 20 vehicles and had $2.3 million in Medicaid billings last year. After the accident, Altima officials called 19-A Certified Examiners Transportation Safety and Vocational Institute, in Brooklyn, to ask someone to help them get their paperwork in order, the examiner from the school said yesterday. The examiner, who normally helps companies by conducting driving and written evaluations of their drivers as required by law every two years, arrived, expecting a large file with all of Mr. Thelemaque’s information. He said he found only a copy of the employee’s medical checkup and none of the other required forms. On a computer, he checked Mr. Thelemaque’s driving history, which showed his recent license suspension, as well as 22 other suspensions or citations over the past three years and an accident involving an injury last year, the examiner said. Company officials were shocked, he added. The examiner said he advised the company’s owners to call a lawyer. “I would have never recommended that this person be driving,” he said. “Would you want someone like that driving your grandparent or loved one around?” In March, the State Department of Transportation cited the company for failing to maintain its vehicles and establish an effective maintenance program, said Jennifer Post, a spokeswoman for the department. The department inspects medical transport vans twice a year, checking things like brakes and seat belts, and requires companies to maintain a passing rate for its vehicles of at least 75 percent. But Altima’s passing rate for the period from April 1, 2004, to March 31, 2005, was just 51.4 percent, Ms. Post said. The state had ordered the company to appear for an administrative hearing that was scheduled for next week, she said. The company faced a potential fine of $2,500. The van involved in the accident passed its inspection in May, Ms. Post said. Residents of Brooklyn Manor said yesterday they had observed problems with the van service and complained about it to administrators. Mary Lagrasta, 44, a resident, said she often felt unsafe in the vans. Drivers would often speed and seat belts were often broken, she said. Ms. Sulick, the spokeswoman for Peninsula Hospital, said it had worked with the van company for six years and had had “no documented incidents or formal complaints.” She said the hospital would re-examine its contract with the company. Stephen N. Solarsh, executive director of the New York Ambulette Coalition, an industry group, defended the van services yesterday. “We transport as an industry tens of thousands of people every day with little or no problems,” he said. Multiple state agencies regulate the industry, which can be problematic, said Dr. Antonia C. Novello, the commissioner of the state department of health, one of the entities that has oversight over it. “Somewhere along the way, we need to connect the dots among all of us,” she said. “This case brings it to the forefront.” | Accidents and Safety;Roads and Traffic;Queens (NYC) |
ny0198821 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2009/07/21 | Khamenei Warns Political Leaders Critical of Iran Election | BEIRUT, Lebanon — Iran ’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , warned political leaders on Monday to be cautious in addressing the country’s recent unrest, in an apparent rebuke to two former presidents who have openly criticized the government’s handling of the disputed June 12 presidential election. Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with government officials that was broadcast by state television, kept his remarks vague, warning darkly against “a hand that wishes to strike at the system,” and saying the political elite could “collapse” if it does not adequately meet the challenge it faces. But his comments made clear that the governing elite was not backing down in the face of an emboldened opposition that rejected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election as fraudulent and mounted renewed street protests in recent days. Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks appeared to be aimed at two former presidents who had taken up the mantle of Iran’s opposition in recent days: Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami . Mr. Rafsanjani, the cleric who leads two important state institutions, said Friday that the government had lost the trust of many Iranians, and he urged the release of the protesters arrested in the recent street protests. Mr. Khatami expanded on those comments on Sunday, calling for a referendum on the government’s legitimacy . Those remarks posed a clear challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei, who hailed Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory as fair last month and blamed foreign agitators and journalists for the unrest — Iran’s worst in decades. Ayatollah Khamenei spoke contemptuously of the protesters on Monday, saying: “It is a mistake to believe that a limited group of people, in Tehran only — setting fire to rubbish bins, to public property, to motorbikes, to their cars, to their banks — are people. These are not people.” Another comment seemed aimed at Mr. Rafsanjani, who declined to say in his speech on Friday that the coming government would be legitimate, as hard-liners had urged him to do. “Everyone should proceed with extreme vigilance with respect to their stance, both in what they say and in what they do not say,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “Not speaking is the same as not fulfilling our responsibilities.” The Guardian Council issued its own response on Monday to Mr. Rafsanjani, who had accused it of not properly reviewing concerns about election irregularities. Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, the council’s spokesman, said it had done everything possible to investigate the election results and dispel any public distrust, Iran’s Press TV reported. He said Mr. Rafsanjani had done nothing to ease the situation, despite efforts to seek his advice. Also on Monday, Mir Hussein Moussavi , the leading challenger to Mr. Ahmadinejad, visited the families of people arrested in the recent crackdown, telling them they were “not alone” and lashing out at the state news media for maligning them, reformist Web sites reported. “A government that comes into power in an environment of mistrust and tricks will be a weak one,” Mr. Moussavi said, according to the Web sites. “This is the kind of government that gives concessions to foreigners because it doesn’t have popular support.” He spoke a day after several hundred antigovernment protesters took to the streets in the southern city of Shiraz, reformist Web sites reported. More opposition protests are expected across Iran on Tuesday, the anniversary of demonstrations in 1952 in support of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, widely viewed as a national hero. Mr. Mossadegh was removed the following year in a coup backed by the Central Intelligence Agency. In a break from the past, opposition Web sites were calling Monday for the protests on Tuesday to take place in southern Tehran, which is mostly working class. The opposition has often been caricatured as elitist, with support only in the more affluent northern part of the capital. | Iran;Elections;Khamenei Ali;Rafsanjani Ali Akbar Hashemi;Khatami Mohammad;Guardian Council (Iran);Moussavi Mir Hussein |
ny0113127 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/11/04 | A Guide for Summits and Lox | WHEN Hurricane Sandy threatened to cut power to Russ & Daughters, the popular lox purveyor on Houston Street, Chhapte Sherpa, an assistant manager there, was a first responder in saving the salmon. Each day he found ways to make it to work from his apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens. When the power went down, he helped pack caviar to be stored in backup refrigerators in Brooklyn. He helped move the lox with ice into crates, and helped set up a generator to keep the refrigerators running. And as the days wore on, he remained unfazed by the power failure. “I never even know what electricity was, never saw it, until I was in my 20s,” said Mr. Sherpa, 39, who grew up in a tiny village in the eastern Himalayas. “I never saw a car or a television growing up.” Mr. Sherpa, who has worked the past decade at the store and has become known as Sherpa Lox and as something of an attraction at the shop, is not your stereotypical Lower East Side lox-slicer. “He’s the Sherpa who speaks Yiddish,” said Niki Russ Federman, who along with Joshua Russ Tupper is one of the store’s fourth-generation proprietors. “If he’s serving a young man, he might say, ‘Boychik what do you want?’ ” Mr. Sherpa, as his last name implies, belongs to the renowned tribe of mountain people known for helping adventurers up Mount Everest, and this is exactly what Mr. Sherpa did in his youth. “The two jobs are not really different,” he said of climbing versus fish-slicing. “Both involve helping people.” Working at the store, which reopened on Thursday, is “not as dangerous as climbing in the Himalayas, of course, but it still requires endurance,” he said. This was evident that afternoon, when the store had two large bags of food and water — a care package — to be delivered to an ill staff member laid-up in his blacked-out apartment where the elevators were not working. Of course, Mr. Sherpa was tapped to haul the bags up the 24 floors. “We asked him if we made the bags too heavy,” said Ms. Russ Federman. “He said, ‘Niki, I’ve carried 90 pounds up Mount Everest.’ ” Mr. Sherpa, whose full name is Chhapte Sherpa Pinasha, said he grew up the youngest of four children in a wooden shack that was a seven-hour walk from the nearest food market. Through his teens he went barefoot, even in freezing temperatures, he said, but at age 15 he got a pair of flip-flops to take foreigners on treks, and to join his father in carrying sacks of salt over his shoulder on long walks to base-camps for Everest climbers. A couple from California who were trekking clients financed his study of English in Katmandu. Mr. Sherpa got married there and then in 1996 immigrated to California to work on the couple’s vineyard in the Napa Valley, crushing grapes with his bare feet. He became known as the man who always went barefoot. He worked as a line chef in Alabama and returned at times to Katmandu, where he and his wife had two children. She is currently raising them there, and Mr. Sherpa hopes to reunite with them one day. A dozen years ago, he moved to New York. A Chinatown employment agency found him a job at Sable’s smoked fish shop on the Upper East Side. After 18 months he was hired by Russ & Daughters, where he learned how to work quickly during the High Holy Days rush, and picked up some Yiddish from Jose and Herman, two Dominican immigrants who have each worked in the shop for more than 30 years. They taught him, for example, that a “bissel” of cream cheese was just a light “schmear,” and that all the staff members are “mishpukah” — part of the Russ family. Most important, they taught him how to cut lox “thin enough to read a newspaper through it,” Mr. Sherpa said. Now, he has his own following of customers, including the film producer Robert Evans, he said. Mr. Evans likes his Nova lox so thin that, as the employees at the shop say, it only has one side. After growing up on a diet of flour paste, cheese soup and butter tea, Mr. Sherpa now subsists on caviar and pickled herring and wild Baltic salmon. Instead of trekking in flip-flops, he hops the F train to work (when it’s running), and he prefers coffee to butter tea. “Forget about it,” he said. “You have to start your day with coffee in this city.” | Restaurants;Hurricane Sandy (2012);Sherpas (Himalayan People);Russ & Daughters;Lower East Side (NYC);Sherpa Pinasha Chhapte |
ny0167274 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2006/01/10 | Taylor Re-establishes Himself by Taking Nicks Here and There | Maurice Taylor did not so much leap back into the Knicks' season as he did crash face-first into it. There was blood on his left temple, blood over his right eye and blood streaming across his nose. The cuts came one by one, in that order, over three games from Dec. 30 to Jan. 6. It was not the most glamorous of reintroductions for a nearly forgotten role player. It was fitting, however. As Taylor -- long known as a scorer, never as an enforcer -- tussled for loose balls and emptied the bandage supply, something else happened: The softish Knicks got a tough new look to go with their newly tougher play. Along the way, Taylor regained the offensive aggressiveness that had long defined his career. Over the last four games -- starting with his bloodied head in Milwaukee -- Taylor has averaged 15 points and 4.3 rebounds in 25 minutes a game. The Knicks have won the last three, with Taylor scoring a season-high 23 points Sunday against Seattle. For once, he reached the final buzzer with no new wounds. "None today; I didn't lose any blood," Taylor joked Sunday afternoon. Until scoring 18 points in Milwaukee two weeks ago, Taylor had not hit double digits all season. Like most of the Knicks, Taylor spent the early months recovering from injuries, falling in and out of the rotation and wondering where he fit in Coach Larry Brown's curious universe. There is little question about his role now. In Brown's newly shortened rotation, Taylor and Channing Frye are the top big men off the bench, behind Eddy Curry and Antonio Davis. The Knicks' best post-up scorer after Curry, Taylor has attempted 10 shots or more in each of the last four games, going 28 for 47 (60 percent) from the field. "I always knew what I could do," Taylor said. "I think Coach always knew what I could do. I just think right now he's trusting me in a lot more serious situations." There has never been much doubt about Taylor's scoring. Drafted 14th over all in 1997, by the Clippers, Taylor averaged 14.8 points a game over his first three N.B.A. seasons. A coveted free agent in 2000, he signed a seven-year, $49 million deal with the Houston Rockets. But Taylor, 29, has never put a lot of energy into rebounding or defending and never became the complete player that scouts felt he could be in his younger years. He has also been known to hold onto the ball when he gets it; Taylor has averaged only 1.2 assists in his career. He has 14 assists in 25 games this season. But there is no denying Taylor's gift for scoring, both in the post and as a face-up shooter. The Knicks acquired him -- and his hefty contract -- last February, in a trade for Vin Baker and Moochie Norris. "I've always liked Mo," said Brown, who received good references on Taylor from Rudy Tomjanovich, the former Rockets coach, and from his friend David Falk, who is Taylor's agent. "Rudy thought the world of him. He really played well for him. I told him in my first talk that I had heard people didn't think he guarded or rebounded effectively, and I said that would be important for us here. He's really tried." An Achilles' tendon injury slowed Taylor in training camp, and he is still working his way into shape. The rapid emergence of Frye and the Knicks' surplus of veteran forwards made it hard for Taylor to make a mark. In his brief playing time, Taylor said he had tried to focus on defense and rebounding. "With a lot of people saying that was one of my weaker points, I tend to kind of pay more attention to that than scoring," he said. REBOUNDS Jamal Crawford, out the last two games because of a sprained left foot, remains questionable for tonight's game in Cleveland. Channing Frye is listed as probable after spraining his left ankle in Sunday's victory. | NEW YORK KNICKS;NEW YORK KNICKERBOCKERS;TAYLOR MAURICE;BASKETBALL |
ny0244067 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2011/03/22 | Campaign to Fight Air Pollution in Hong Kong Gets Visual | HONG KONG — A leading anti-pollution campaign group in Hong Kong is deploying a new weapon in the fight for clean air in this Asian financial hub: art. Enlisting the support of 40 artists and the auction house Sotheby’s , the Clean Air Network has organized an auction of 51 environment-inspired works of modern art in what it says is the first awareness and fund-raising event of its kind. Most of the pieces went on display Monday in the upscale International Finance Center shopping mall in Hong Kong’s financial district, where they will remain until March 27. They will go under the Sotheby’s hammer April 4, where they will form part of the auction house’s twice-yearly sale of contemporary Asian art . Many of the artists, who include well-known names from Hong Kong and elsewhere, created works especially for the event, donating them to the Clean Air Network’s fight against pollution. BSI Investment Advisors, which is part of the Italian insurance giant Generali, donated two more works by the photographer and video artist Jiang Zhi, each estimated by Sotheby’s to be worth as much as 70,000 Hong Kong dollars, or nearly $9,000. The artworks include sculptures, paintings and photographs. But all illustrate environmental issues and problems, like smog, waste, climate change and the destruction of natural habitats. Perhaps the most striking work is a pair of gray lungs standing 83 centimeters, or 32 inches, tall, crafted by the Chinese artist Ma Han. Made of fiberglass, rice and car paint, illuminated and covered with tiny human figures, the piece could fetch as much as 150,000 dollars, Sotheby’s estimates. If Sotheby’s estimates are realized, the 51 works could raise more than 1.9 million dollars in total. All this, and the fact that Sotheby’s is offering its auction expertise free, highlights the serious support that the campaign for clean air is getting from increasingly high-profile names in the city. The Clean Air Network has tried imaginative approaches to campaigning before, including a spoof infomercial featuring the heartthrob Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu selling canisters of “fresh air,” which became an instant hit among YouTube users in Hong Kong. Now, the group is roping modern art into its cause. “The auction is not just an elite exercise for opinion leaders but a new way to approach the general public,” said Joanne Ooi, chief executive of the Clean Air Network. “Art is undoubtedly less daunting and more appealing than activism. On top of that, such a public show of support by well-known corporate partners Sotheby’s and BSI will definitely mainstream the clean air issue.” Kevin Ching, chief executive of Sotheby’s Asia, said the auction house had decided to support the event because of the deteriorating air quality Hong Kong has seen over the past few decades. Pollution levels in some mainland Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, are thought to be even worse than in this city of seven million. But the air in Hong Kong is bad enough now to persuade some people to leave for cleaner places and to risk hurting Hong Kong’s reputation as one of Asia’s most advanced cities. The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has cautioned for years that the poor air quality is making it hard to persuade some expatriates, especially those with children, to move to or stay in Hong Kong. A series of surveys by recruitment and relocation advisers has backed up this point. Last July, Hong Kong’s medical profession added its voice with an urgent appeal to the government to do more about the poor air quality. The “Clean Air Auction” display at the International Finance Center mall comes exactly a year after pollution levels in Hong Kong went off the scale, streaking past the upper end of a 500-point government air pollution index. A sandstorm sweeping in from mainland China was largely responsible for the heavy pollution last spring, and smog blowing in from the industrial zone in the nearby Pearl River Delta is blamed for much of Hong Kong’s pollution. But campaigners, scientists and many ordinary residents argue that the authorities could — and should — do more to contain air pollution generated within Hong Kong itself. On Monday afternoon, roadside measuring stations in the central financial district showed a reading of 64. That may seem low compared with the 500-plus levels last March — but even 64 is defined as “high” by the city’s environment department. Outdated trucks and buses generate as much as 90 percent of roadside pollution and help make Hong Kong’s air three times as bad as that of New York and twice as bad as that of London, the Clean Air Network contends. And a recent study by the University of Hong Kong linked the city’s poor air quality to hundreds of deaths a year. William Furniss, a photographer from London who has lived in Hong Kong since 1993, said Monday that there were only a few days in the year now when the air in Hong Kong is clear enough for professional photography. His flame-and-skyline image, created especially for the auction, could raise 25,000 dollars, according to Sotheby’s estimates. “We have to make people much more aware of this problem,” said Lam Tung Pang, a Hong Kong artist whose paint-and-fabric image of a sad-looking polar bear was estimated to fetch as much as 75,000 dollars at the auction. | Hong Kong;Air Pollution;Art;Sotheby's |
ny0031499 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/06/23 | Flood Toll Reaches 1,000 in India as Thousands More Await Rescue | NEW DELHI — Flash floods and landslides in northern India have killed at least 1,000 people in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in the past week, an official said Saturday, and with thousands missing or stranded the toll was expected to rise. The official, Vijay Bahuguna, the chief minister of Uttarakhand, confirmed the latest toll in a meeting with reporters. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told the Indian news media on Saturday that 40,000 people were still stranded, and he described the floods as a “national crisis.” Most of the stranded were people on a pilgrimage known as Char Dham Yatra, which takes Hindus to four of the holiest shrines in Uttarakhand between May and November. To aid rescue efforts in narrow mountainous valleys at altitudes as high as 11,000 feet above sea level, members of the Indian military have been pressed into service. By Saturday, the rivers and streams that run through the state had receded, but the floods had destroyed roads, bridges, electrical poles and communication networks. More than 40 helicopters were being used to rescue pilgrims from remote mountainous areas, according to Indian officials, but the terrain hampered the operations. A rescue helicopter crashed Friday while trying to evacuate pilgrims trapped in a village near Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. The pilot was injured and was being treated at a hospital, police officials told the news agency Press Trust of India. Families throughout India were frantically trying to track down their missing relatives. “Four of my friends, who are priests, are missing,” said Naresh Kukreti, 34, a priest at the Kedarnath temple, one of the holiest shrines of Hinduism. “We don’t know whether they are alive or dead.” Mr. Kukreti said Saturday that after the ritual evening prayer last Sunday, he had been filled with unease. “It had been raining for two days, and fewer pilgrims were visiting the temple,” he said. “I had a strange feeling something terrible was about to happen.” After prayers, Mr. Kukreti retired to his modest quarters. “Suddenly a deafening noise shook everything,” he said. “It felt like an earthquake.” Mr. Kukreti and about 800 pilgrims sought refuge in the stone temple, which was built in the eighth century 11,759 feet above sea level and dedicated to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Image Soldiers helped people evacuate on Saturday in Govindghat, India. Credit Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press “Within minutes, a river of black water and big stones followed us into the temple,” he said by phone after returning to his home village, Tailagram, in the Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand. The temple survived the assault, but when the water receded after a cold night of prayer, Mr. Kukreti found himself standing among piles of dead pilgrims. “Everywhere I looked I saw dead men, women and children,” he said. Most of the buildings around the temple were destroyed, and the town of Kedarnath, which has grown around the temple, was submerged. After braving cold, hunger and grief for three days inside the temple, Mr. Kukreti and about 400 pilgrims hiked a few miles to an emergency landing pad, and rescue helicopters flew them to a relief camp. Google has developed a Person Finder application for the Uttarakhand area, and the state government has created a message board on its Web site, where relatives of missing pilgrims are posting their phone numbers and names, and the last locations and pictures of their missing relatives. In a message on the Uttarakhand government bulletin board, Rajneesh, an anxious relative, who uses only one name, said he was looking for his missing brother and sister-in-law and their two children named Honey and Money. The Himalayan pilgrimage centers have been straining to cope with the disaster. In the past two decades, religious expression has increased in India along with economic growth, and the number of pilgrims visiting religious sites has greatly increased. According to official statistics, 30 million tourists visited Uttarakhand in 2010, up from 10 million in 2001, according to official statistics. “It is an ecologically fragile region and the Himalayas are young mountains, but there is haphazard construction to serve increasing numbers of tourists and pilgrims,” said Ashish Kothari, an Indian environmentalist and a co-author of “Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India.” “All sorts of hydroelectric projects are coming up in these areas, and anything goes in the name of environment assessment.” The rescuers are racing against time; the Indian Meteorological Department predicted more rain in northern India starting Monday. Around 73,000 pilgrims have been evacuated, according to Indian officials. In an interview with a television network, Mr. Bahuguna, the chief minister of Uttarakhand, said it might take about two weeks to evacuate all stranded pilgrims and find the missing. Mr. Kukreti, the priest, said many people “were so scared” that they “ran into forests to save themselves.” “I worry how any helicopters can reach those who are in narrow valleys or jungles,” he said. “They might die of hunger before the government reaches them.” | India;Flood;Monsoon;Ganges;Landslides,Mudslides |
ny0057147 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/09/09 | Councilman to Propose Bill to Regulate Costumed Characters Soliciting in Times Square | Over the vocal objections of several Elmos, a few Mickey Mouses and a Buzz Lightyear, a member of the City Council announced legislation on Monday to regulate Times Square’s ubiquitous costumed characters and their occasionally aggressive solicitations. A few rogues have been giving the characters a bad name lately, among them a Spider-Man caught on camera fighting with the police in broad daylight on West 42nd Street as a stunned Elmo looked on in horror. Not far from the scene of that spectacle, Councilman Andy King of the Bronx said at a news conference on Monday that he wanted characters to be licensed by the city and to submit to background checks and that he would introduce a bill this week to institute those requirements. Any effort to regulate the characters, though, is almost certain to raise issues of free speech, not to mention questions about just what sort of place Times Square should be, a generation after it began to shed some of its sketchy sensibility and morph into a more benign urban fun house. At the news conference, Mr. King said the Spider-Man incident, which began when the character rejected a tourist’s tip as too small, had made clear to him and others that the characters had to be regulated, for their own sakes and for the protection of the public. “Most of the people out here are hard-working, law-abiding men and women, but there have been a couple of bad actors, like the Elmo that kind of lost his mind,” he said, referring to a performer who was taken into police custody after shouting obscenities in 2012, “and we need to make sure that nobody in Times Square feels violated and that everyone is protected.” But some of the people who play the characters said on Monday that they had not been consulted and were troubled by the proposal, and its implications for the people, mostly low-income, and mostly Latino, who work the jobs. Mr. King was joined by several council members, officials from the Police Department and the president of the Times Square Alliance, a coalition of city government and local businesses concerned with improving the area. The bill, if passed, would require all performers who cover or paint their faces to have a license, and to pay a $175 fee every two years. Characters would also have to wear their licenses outside their costumes, and would not be allowed to stand in the street, solicit within five feet of a subway entrance or aggressively ask for donations. Violations of any of the bills’ rules could result in fines and civil action. Mr. King said that this legislation would also protect the performers from hostile police action and that everybody would be safer “if we’re all using the same playbook.” A spokesman for Melissa Mark-Viverito, the speaker of the Council, said she would be reviewing the legislation, but had not yet taken a position. Last month, police officers in Times Square handed out fliers informing tourists that they did not have to pay the characters to take a picture. Mr. King said that the proposed legislation would not violate anyone’s First Amendment right to free speech. Jesse Choper, a professor of public law at the University of California at Berkeley, said that it was possible to regulate this sort of activity, but that it had to be done carefully. “People do have a right to talk to people,” Mr. Choper said, “and you do have a right, if you aren’t blocking anyone’s path, to say, ‘Would you consider giving me some money?’ ” But, he said, speech can be regulated by time and place and manner. “If you carefully draft something to be specific, you can prohibit people from aggressively soliciting.” Mr. King also said that this was not an immigration issue, or one targeted at Latino workers. But an organization representing the characters, New York Artists United for a Smile, objected to the bill. They said they had not been asked to weigh in on the proposed bill, a contention disputed by Mr. King. Alex Gomez, a spokesman for the organization, said that this bill would place a lot of burdens on the performers, and none on the Police Department. He also said that the $175 licensing fee was too expensive for the performers, who usually make about $60 to $80 per day. Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, said he hoped the issues could be worked out, and that his organization and Mr. King had no desire to banish the characters. “It’s Times Square,” he said, “We like quirky, we just don’t like creepy.” | Times Square and 42nd Street Manhattan;Street Performers;Andy King Jr;Freedom of speech;Tips;Regulation and Deregulation;New York Artists United for a Smile;NYPD |
ny0095874 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2015/01/08 | Carmelo Anthony Signed On for Knicks’ Overhaul, but Says It Has Been Hard | WASHINGTON — Carmelo Anthony said his decision to sign a new, five-year deal with the Knicks last summer was based partly on his trust that Phil Jackson, the team’s new president, would know how to turn the club’s fortunes around. “Here’s an opportunity, with the trust,” Anthony said Wednesday. “Everything starts now.” The leap of faith continued for Anthony this week when the Knicks gave up two key rotation players, J. R. Smith and Iman Shumpert, in a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers and waived Samuel Dalembert. The moves signaled an earnest start to the franchise’s rebuilding project under Jackson. The Knicks were in Memphis preparing to play the Grizzlies on Monday when details of the three-way trade with the Cavaliers and Oklahoma City (the Thunder got Dion Waiters from the Cavaliers) began to emerge. Anthony recalled being called to the locker room from the gym at FedEx Forum and finding a “state of confusion, not really knowing what was going on, what was going to happen.” “Shock,” Anthony said. Acknowledging multiple times that trades were commonplace in professional sports, Anthony said it was nevertheless difficult for him to part with Smith, whom he called “my brother,” and Shumpert, whom he referred to as “my rookie when he came into this league, a guy that I kind of put under my wing.” Anthony said the two players had difficulty processing the trade at first, too. “I had to really try to calm them down and just kind of let them know that everything was going to be all right: ‘You have to move on, you have to get past this,’ ” Anthony said. “It was more upsetting from a friendship standpoint for both of those guys than it was a basketball standpoint. They understood the business of basketball.” With their 101-91 loss to the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, the Knicks have dropped 13 straight games and 23 of 24. Coach Derek Fisher did not shy away from the concept that the team was in a state of changeover. “We have to be honest with our guys about what just happened and what it symbolized and what it means for us,” he said. Fisher hoped the players understood that management was not giving up on them, despite the recent transactions. Still, he said, it was obvious that the moves had a long-term scope. Image Anthony, right, conferred with teammate Quincy Acy during a recent game. He was unsure of when his sore left knee would allow him to play again. Credit Kathy Willens/Associated Press “It almost solidifies the fact that we’re trying to build something that’s going to last and not just squeeze out a win here or there,” Fisher said. “Hopefully our guys can continue to focus on that message and bring the right mind-set to the game.” The Knicks on Wednesday waived forwards Lou Amundson and Lance Thomas and center Alex Kirk — the three players they acquired in the three-team trade. And as expected, they signed guard Langston Galloway, of the Westchester Knicks in the Development League, to a 10-day contract. “A lot of these guys now have an opportunity that they wished for and wanted,” Fisher said. “It’s here now. You have to make the most of it and own it.” Fisher said other 10-day contract additions were possible. On a basic level, the Knicks need bodies: They are moving forward for now without Anthony, who missed his fourth consecutive game with a sore left knee, as well as Amar’e Stoudemire (knee) and Andrea Bargnani (calf). The team has not revealed the diagnosis of Anthony’s injury, and he evaded a request for specifics about the injury. He said only that he had undergone multiple scans and that the team’s medical staff was still trying to figure out the best approach to rehabilitation. “It’s kind of like having a little rock or pebble in your shoe,” he said. “Some days it comes around.” Anthony said he was not sure when he would play again, but he expected he would be ready at least by Jan. 15, when the Knicks are scheduled to play the Milwaukee Bucks in London. Anthony and the Knicks would presumably like for him to still be playing when the All-Star Game takes place Feb. 15 at Madison Square Garden. The confluence of injuries, trades and generally poor play has left the team in a bad state. And although Anthony knew last summer that the current season would be a transitional one, he said he was still surprised at how much things had crumbled. “I kind of knew that it was going to be kind of a rebuilding kind of situation,” Anthony said. “But to be in a situation we’re in, from a record situation, I couldn’t imagine this in a long time, a lot of years.” | Basketball;Carmelo Anthony;Phil Jackson;J R Smith;Iman Shumpert;Derek Fisher;Knicks |
ny0224829 | [
"sports"
] | 2010/10/04 | Upset in Arc De Triomphe | The Epsom Derby winner Workforce upset favored Behkabad to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s richest horse race (a $5.5 million purse). Workforce, a 3-year-old colt ridden by Ryan Moore, held off Nakayama Festa’s challenge in the homestretch of the mile-and-a-half turf race in Paris. | Horse Racing;Workforce (Race Horse);Behkabad (Race Horse) |
ny0206527 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2009/06/04 | Putting Words to Pictures | Putting Words To Pictures Q. I have a long spoken-word audio clip that’d I’d like to put online, with a series of images to go along with it. What’s the best way to do this? A. Just about any major photo-management program these days — Windows Movie Maker, iPhoto, Picasa, Photoshop Elements — lets you create a slide show of photos set to music. While many people may use this feature to, say, arrange their beach vacation photos to popular songs about piña coladas, you can use the slide show feature to map images to your audio clip. The specific steps for making a slide show depend on the software you’re using, but usually you import the images into the program, arrange them and import the audio track (or tracks) you’d like to hear playing behind the pictures. Once you get everything arranged to your liking, you can export the slide show as a video file or embed it on a Web page (as you can do with Picasa to a Picasa Web album). Once you have the slide show as a video clip, you can upload it to a Web page or to a video-sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo. Just be sure to check your video-sharing site’s requirements for file size and format ahead of time. Cracking Open XML Files Q. I personally have no reason to upgrade to Excel 2007, but I’ve started receiving files in the newer document format and have problems opening them with my older version of the program. Is there any way to open these files? A. If you’re still running along just fine on versions of Excel from Office 2000, Office XP or Office 2003, you can update your software just enough to enable it to open Excel 2007 files. A 28-megabyte Microsoft file called the Office Compatibility Pack lets people with older versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint open files created in Office 2007’s newer Open XML file format. The software is free at bit.ly/10IhvN , but read the overview carefully. Microsoft recommends having certain high-priority updates installed on the computer before installing the Compatibility Pack. You can find detailed instructions for installing and using the software at support.microsoft.com/kb/924074 . People using older Mac versions of Microsoft Office can find a free Open XML converter at www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx . TIP OF THE WEEK The transition to digital television was postponed last February, but the rescheduled date June 12, little more than a week away. Most people with analog sets who get their TV broadcasts over the air already know they need to get a converter box to see the new signals. But you also need to scan for new digital channels to make sure you’re pulling in all the stations in your area. Some converter boxes may scan for channels automatically when you set them up, but you can also scan manually by using the scan feature on the converter box’s menus or remote. Digital television sets usually keep the channel-scan controls in the settings or set-up menus, where the function is sometimes described as auto-tune. The Federal Communications Commission recommends scanning (or rescanning) for digital channels on June 13. And you may want to scan for new channels on a regular basis, just to make sure you’re getting all the TV that’s out there. You can find troubleshooting advice, antenna tips and even channel coverage maps at dtv.gov . J. D. BIERSDORFER | Computers and the Internet;Software;Digital and High-Definition Television;Digital Television Transition;Photography;Recordings and Downloads (Video);YouTube.com;Microsoft Corp |
ny0028489 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/01/23 | Misinformation Behind Brooklyn Honey’s Absence at Inaugural Luncheon | After getting sworn in for his second term, President Obama joined his wife and 220 others for the traditional Inaugural Luncheon , held in the Capitol’s grand Statuary Hall . Senator Charles E. Schumer served as master of ceremonies for the luncheon, which featured an array of edible goodies from New York State. Notably absent, though, was a sweet treat: Brooklyn honey. “The honey was originally going to come from Red Hook in Brooklyn,” Mr. Schumer told a reporter before the event. “They were wiped out in Sandy, the bees and the hive.” This perplexed several beekeepers in Red Hook. One, Yeshwant Chitalkar , a community psychiatrist and purveyor of Red Hook Honey, said his bees and hives weathered the storm just fine. Mr. Chitalkar keeps two hives on the rooftop of his home and sells his wares at neighborhood shops. As the winds were picking up in Hurricane Sandy’s approach, he strapped down the hives to guard against the boxes’ flying apart and killing the queen bees. While the hurricane’s surging waters wiped out the entire garden-floor level of Mr. Chitalkar’s home, the hives were barely touched, save for one of them, which traveled a few inches in the wind, but otherwise stayed upright. “With the bees, everything is fine,” Mr. Chitalkar said. “They’re in there right now.” Another local beekeeper, Ian Curry, said that while many of his bees were lost, a number survived by crowding to the top of the hive, which he keeps in his backyard. “They’re hanging in there as of last time I checked,” he wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday. A member of Mr. Schumer’s staff said the honey information had been supplied by the caterer for the luncheon, Design Cuisine . But Rickie Niceta, the company’s account executive, said the honey was never to have come from Red Hook, but rather the Brooklyn Grange , which runs rooftop gardens and indeed lost more than a dozen hives to the storm. Yet those hives were kept at the Brooklyn Navy Yard — several neighborhoods and miles north of Red Hook. Anastasia Plakias, one of Brooklyn Grange’s partners, said the loss of hives to the storm had nothing to do with why they could not supply the honey (for security reasons, Ms. Niceta did not disclose that the event was the Inaugural Luncheon); rather it was because of the seasonal run on honey: the request came during holiday season, and at that time they had just nine jars left. In any event, it is unclear where Mr. Schumer, who has fought so-called honey laundering (contaminated honey smuggled from China), got the idea that the honey was to have come from Red Hook. A spokesman said in an e-mail that he was “not sure where the wires were crossed.” Nevertheless, in the end, the celebrants were still able to eat honey. It came from Seaway Trail Honey in Rochester, and was served with sour cream ice cream and apple pie. | Honey;Hurricane Sandy;Red Hook Brooklyn;Inauguration;Chuck Schumer;Brooklyn Grange |
ny0196971 | [
"us"
] | 2009/10/01 | Rare Source of Attack on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ | WASHINGTON — In an unusual show of support for allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces, an article in an official military journal argues forcefully for repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which requires homosexuals in the services to keep their sexual orientation secret. The article , which appears in Joint Force Quarterly and was reviewed before publication by the office of Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , says that “after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.” Although the article, by an Air Force colonel, Om Prakash, carries no weight as a matter of policy, it may well signal a shift in the official winds. It won the 2009 Secretary of Defense National Security Essay competition. Colonel Prakash, who researched the issue while a student at the National Defense University, in Washington, and who now works in the Pentagon, concludes that “it is not time for the administration to re-examine the issue.” Instead, he writes, “it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.” The article, which was first reported Wednesday by The Boston Globe , also says the law has been costly — about 12,500 gay men and lesbians have been discharged from the service as a result of “don’t ask, don’t tell” since it took effect in 1993 — and argues that it undermines the unit cohesion it has sought to protect. “In an attempt to allow homosexual service members to serve quietly, a law was created that forces a compromise in integrity, conflicts with the American creed of ‘equality for all,’ places commanders in difficult moral dilemmas and is ultimately more damaging to the unit cohesion its stated purpose is to preserve,” Colonel Prakash writes. The article says that in countries where bans on homosexuals’ serving openly in the military were lifted, including Australia , Canada and Britain , there was no “mass exodus” of heterosexual service members and no impact on military performance. The article does not necessarily reflect the views of Admiral Mullen or Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates , who have publicly said only that they are assessing the issue and that any change in the law is up to Congress. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Colonel Prakash worked in the Office of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and was “an individual writing in a personal capacity for an academic journal.” Still, the article may put more political pressure on President Obama , who promised during the 2008 campaign to overturn the ban but has so far moved slowly, much to the dismay of gay rights groups. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which represents some of those discharged from the military because of the ban, hailed the article as a “breakthrough development.” In a statement, the group said it was time “to move out on the specifics of when and how to implement a new policy of nondiscrimination.” But an opponent of changing the law condemned the article. Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, called the essay “one-sided” and said allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be similar to having women in the service cohabit with men. “We don’t have policies that require women in the military to live in close quarters with men, for good reason,” said Ms. Donnelly, who was an organizer behind a letter, sent by more than 1,000 retired officers to Mr. Obama this year, saying they were “greatly concerned” about the effect that changing the law would have on recruitment, morale and unit cohesion. Joint Force Quarterly is the official publication of Admiral Mullen and carries a column by him in each issue, but he had no comment on the article. “We did not encourage or discourage this story in any way,” said his spokesman, Capt. John Kirby. “The chairman wants this magazine to be a place where officers of all ranks and services can discuss the key issues of the day.” | US Military;Homosexuality;Legislation |
ny0160419 | [
"politics"
] | 2006/03/09 | Justice Dept. Report Cites F.B.I. Violations | WASHINGTON, March 8 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation found apparent violations of its own wiretapping and other intelligence-gathering procedures more than 100 times in the last two years, and problems appear to have grown more frequent in some crucial respects, a Justice Department report released Wednesday said. While some of these instances were considered technical glitches, the report, from the department's inspector general, characterized others as "significant," including wiretaps that were much broader in scope than approved by a court and others that were allowed to continue for weeks or sometimes months longer than was authorized. In one instance, the F.B.I. received the full content of 181 telephone calls as part of an intelligence investigation, instead of merely the billing and toll records as authorized, the report found. In a handful of cases, it said, the bureau conducted physical searches that had not been properly authorized. The inspector general's findings come at a time of fierce Congressional debate over the program of wiretapping without warrants that the National Security Agency has conducted. That program, approved by President Bush, is separate from the F.B.I. wiretaps reviewed in the report, and the inspector general's office concluded that it did not have the jurisdiction to review the legality or operations of the N.S.A. effort. But, the report disclosed, the Justice Department has opened reviews into two other controversial counterterrorism tactics that the department has widely employed since the Sept. 11 attacks. In one, the inspector general has begun looking into the F.B.I.'s use of administrative subpoenas, known as national security letters, to demand records and documents without warrants in terror investigations. Some critics maintain that the bureau has abused its subpoena powers to demand records in thousands of cases. In the other, the Office of Professional Responsibility, a Justice Department unit that reviews ethics charges against department lawyers, has opened inquiries related to the detention of 21 people held as material witnesses in terror investigations. As with the F.B.I.'s use of administrative subpoenas, civil rights advocates assert that the Justice Department has abused the material witness statute by holding suspects whom it may not have enough evidence to charge. The new ethics inquiries are reviewing accusations that department officials did not take some material witnesses to court within the required time, failed to tell them the basis for the arrest or held them without any attempt to obtain their testimony as supposed witnesses in terror investigations, the inspector general said Wednesday. Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, characterized the report as "yet another vindication for those of us who have raised concerns about the administration's policies in the war on terror." Mr. Conyers said that "despite the Bush administration's attempt to demonize critics of its antiterrorism policies as advancing phantom or trivial concerns, the report demonstrates that the independent Office of Inspector General has found that many of these policies indeed warrant full investigations." For its part, the F.B.I. said in a statement that it had been quick to correct errors in intelligence-gathering procedures when they were discovered and that "there have been no examples by the F.B.I. of willful disregard for the law or of court orders." The inspector general's review grew out of documents, dealing with intelligence violations, that were released last year under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a private group in Washington. The inspector general then obtained more documents on violations and included an 11-page analysis of the problem as part of a broader report Wednesday on counterterrorism measures. The inspector general reviewed 108 instances in which the F.B.I. reported violations to an oversight board in the 2004 and 2005 fiscal years. "We're always looking to bring the number of violations down," John Miller, chief spokesman for the bureau, said in an interview, "but given the scope and complexity of national security investigations, that's a relatively small number." The inspector general's review found that reported violations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs some federal wiretaps, accounted for a growing share of the total, having risen to 69 percent last year from 48 percent in 2004. The duration of the violations also grew in some crucial areas, the review found. Two of those areas were the "overcollection" of intelligence -- going beyond the scope approved by the court in authorizing a wiretap -- and "overruns," in which a wiretap or other intelligence-gathering method was allowed to continue beyond the approved time period without an extension. The review found that the average amount of time that overcollections and overruns were allowed before they were discovered and corrected rose to 32 days last year from 22 in 2004. In most cases, the F.B.I. was found to be at fault, while about a quarter of the time a "third party," usually a telecommunications company, was to blame, the data showed. In taking issue with some of the findings, F.B.I. officials said the data were skewed by a number of exceptionally long violations; one wiretap lasted 373 days. | FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION;JUSTICE DEPARTMENT;WIRETAPPING AND OTHER EAVESDROPPING DEVICES AND METHODS |
ny0184487 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2009/03/02 | UBS Is Said to Raise Base Pay After Cutting Bonuses | LONDON — A pay raise may be the last thing a bank is expected to offer these days. But UBS , the Swiss bank, is doing exactly that as it looks for new ways to compensate its investment bankers, two people who have been briefed on the changes said Sunday. UBS is increasing the base salary of senior investment bankers after reducing many bonuses sharply and to align overall compensation more closely with other financial services jobs, like consulting, said these people, who spoke anonymously because the bank has not decided to publicly disclose the changes. The step is part of a bigger overhaul of UBS’s compensation system, they said. Banks and regulators around the world have been rethinking the pay structure at banks as they suffer huge losses. UBS cut its bonus pool for 2008 more than 80 percent, while another Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, scaled back its bonuses 44 percent over all, with even sharper cuts for senior managers. Credit Suisse, UBS and Morgan Stanley have also added so-called clawback provisions to bankers’ pay, allowing the banks to take back some pay from employees who fail to meet certain performance goals. Any increase in base salary available to a managing director at UBS still depends on a performance review. But some salaries for senior bankers are being raised to about £300,000 from about £120,000, or to $429,000 from $172,000, still less than they earned when they received bonuses. A spokesman for UBS declined to comment. UBS, a bank that received state aid, said in November that its chairman, its chief executive and other members of the executive board would receive only salaries for 2008 and that all other employees would get lower bonuses. Any increase in base salary would probably be the first for many UBS senior bankers. Until now, banks have tended to keep base salaries flat and use bonuses to increase pay. As a result, the annual bonus made up the bulk of a typical banker’s total compensation. | UBS AG;Wages and Salaries;Executive Compensation;Bonuses |
ny0030515 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/06/19 | Taliban Step Toward Afghan Peace Talks Is Hailed by U.S. | WASHINGTON — The Taliban signaled a breakthrough in efforts to start Afghan peace negotiations on Tuesday, announcing the opening of a political office in Qatar and a new readiness to talk with American and Afghan officials, who said in turn that they would travel to meet insurgent negotiators there within days. If the talks begin, they will be a significant step in peace efforts that have been locked in an impasse for nearly 18 months, after the Taliban walked out and accused the United States of negotiating in bad faith. American officials have long pushed for such talks, believing them crucial to stabilizing Afghanistan after the 2014 Western military withdrawal. But the Taliban may have other goals in moving ahead. Their language made clear that they sought to be dealt with as a legitimate political force with a long-term role to play beyond the insurgency. In that sense, in addition to aiding in talks, the actual opening of their office in Qatar — nearly a year and a half after initial plans to open it were announced and then soon after suspended — could be seen as a signal that the Taliban’s ultimate aim is recognition as an alternative to the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. By agreeing to negotiations, the Taliban can “come out in the open, engage the rest of the region as legitimate actors, and it will be very difficult to prevent that when we recognize the office and are talking to the office,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department official who is the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The United States, already heading toward its military exit, has little to offer beyond prisoner exchanges, and the Taliban are “not trying to help our strategy,” Mr. Nasr warned. “They’re basically trying to put in place their own strategy.” The Taliban overture coincided with an important symbolic moment in the American withdrawal: the formal announcement on Tuesday of a complete security handover from American troops to Afghan forces across the country. That shift had already become obvious in recent months as the Afghan forces had tangibly taken the lead — and as the Taliban had responded by increasing the tempo of attacks against them. Yet since at least 2009, even top American generals maintained that a permanent peace could not be won on the battlefield, and American diplomats have engaged in nearly three years of holding secret meetings and working through diplomatic back channels to lay the groundwork for talks to begin. The opening for Tuesday’s developments appeared to come in the third week of May, when the Qataris told the United States that the Taliban might be ready to start talking again, according to an American official with knowledge of the talks. To that point, diplomats and intermediaries from Germany, Norway and Britain also played crucial roles, administration officials said Tuesday, and some said they believed Pakistan had played a more active role in recent months to urge the exiled Taliban leadership to move toward talks. President Obama called the Taliban’s announcement “an important first step toward reconciliation,” but cautioned that it was only “a very early step.” “We anticipate there will be a lot of bumps in the road,” Mr. Obama said at a meeting with President François Hollande of France at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Northern Ireland. There have been plenty of bumps already. Over the last 18 months, the peace effort has encountered pressure from nearly every quarter at one time or another: Mr. Karzai, the exiled Taliban leadership, the Taliban’s patrons in Pakistan and critics in the United States who have reacted coolly to what they perceive as talking to terrorists. A pair of Afghan mullahs made the Taliban announcement in a televised address from Doha, the capital of Qatar, cutting a red ribbon at the villa that will serve as the office. The Taliban’s political and military goals “are limited to Afghanistan,” said Muhammad Naim, the Taliban spokesman who read the statement. The Taliban “would not allow anyone to threaten the security of other countries from the soil of Afghanistan,” Mr. Naim added, and they seek “a political and peaceful solution” to the conflict. The appearance seemed to answer one immediate question hanging over the peace efforts: who was empowered to speak for the Taliban’s secretive leader in exile, Mullah Muhammad Omar. American officials said recent signals had made them sure that the Qatar office was being opened by Mullah Omar’s true intermediaries. As well, the Taliban’s wording on Tuesday adhered to previous requirements by American officials, officials said. Video Footage from President Obama’s meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday evening. In particular, the statement represented the beginning of what is hoped will become a public break with Al Qaeda, which the Taliban sheltered before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the officials said. Along with getting the Taliban to disown international terrorist groups, the ultimate goal of the talks, from a Western and Afghan government point of view, is to persuade the Taliban to disarm and accept the Afghan Constitution. While Western officials have in the past suggested that the Constitution can be changed, the Obama administration stressed Tuesday that accepting the charter’s “protections for women and minorities” was considered a condition of any eventual peace deal. In the shorter term, American officials said, envoys were to meet this week with Taliban representatives in Qatar, and then members of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is to represent the government in talks, were to travel to the Persian Gulf emirate to sit down with the insurgents. But the first meetings will probably feature little more than an exchange of agendas, another senior administration official said, cautioning against expectations that the talks might yield substantive results any time soon. “There is no guarantee that this will happen quickly, if at all,” the official said. Talks between the United States and the Taliban “can help advance the process, but the core of it is going to be negotiations among Afghans, and the level of trust on both sides is extremely low, as one would expect,” the official said. “So it is going to be a long, hard process if indeed it advances significantly at all.” Mr. Karzai signaled his acceptance of the office’s opening at a ceremony on Tuesday celebrating the transfer of all security responsibilities across Afghanistan to Afghan forces. But he made it clear that he wanted any talks moved to Afghanistan as soon as possible, and his support for the process getting under way in Qatar seemed tepid. “The reason we are worried is the hands of the outsiders,” he said, focusing his comments on his government’s concerns. “We will go forward cautiously.” Among Mr. Karzai’s concerns is that the Taliban will use the Doha office as a forum to try to re-establish their political legitimacy, especially in international circles, rather than confining the office to peace talks. American officials said they, too, wanted the talks to move to Afghanistan eventually. But with the Taliban insistent that the talks be held on neutral ground, “it’s not going to be possible in the near future,” one administration official said. Mr. Karzai’s concerns, moreover, did not appear unfounded. The Taliban, in their statement on Tuesday, offered an expansive view of the role to be played by the Qatar office. The office would allow the Taliban “to improve its relations with countries around the world through understanding and talks,” as well as help them establish contact with the United Nations and aid groups, and to talk to the news media. The statement allowed for potential meetings with Afghan officials, but that was qualified with a terse addition: “if needed.” The insurgents offered little clarity on why they were now willing to open the office and begin talks with the United States and the government of Mr. Karzai, whom they have derided as an American puppet for years. American officials said there was no agreement on what was once a central enticement offered by the United States: a swap of five Taliban prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for the sole American soldier known to be held by the Taliban, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The failure of the proposed exchange was the main reason the Taliban offered for suspending preliminary talks early in 2012. “Of course we expect the Taliban to raise this issue,” said Jennifer R. Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department. She added that Ambassador James F. Dobbins, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will lead the team headed to Doha, would also raise the prospect of Sergeant Bergdahl’s return. Without the prisoner swap, it was hard to discern what, if anything, the Taliban’s leadership could show the rank-and-file to keep them fighting while talks moved forward. Western diplomats in Kabul and officials in Washington said they believed the Taliban had grown weary of their international isolation and wanted to shed their outcast status. And in the end, the group’s announcement on Tuesday came at little evident cost: the insurgents do not need to make realistic proposals or strike an actual deal, some diplomats and officials warned. “If they have any long-term plan to be involved in running Afghanistan, international recognition is an important part even if they aren’t going to come to the table with real offers of peace at this point,” one Western diplomat in Kabul said. | Afghanistan;Taliban;Doha;Qatar;Afghanistan War;US Military |
ny0228239 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2010/07/16 | Lead Owner of the San Francisco Giants Relishes His Seat | SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Neukom sat in the front row of AT&T Park on a cool Friday night earlier this season making eye contact with his San Francisco Giants players and urging them on as they came and went from the dugout. At the age of 68, Neukom relishes his status as the lead owner of one of the more prestigious teams in baseball, which also happens to play in one of the most attractive settings in the sport and happens to be just miles from where he grew up. He almost always wears a bow tie and looks as if he could have been one of the country’s founding fathers, with his chiseled face and head full of white hair. And indeed, he has a background in politics, having once run in the Democratic primary for attorney general in Washington State. But Neukom, who became the Giants’ managing general partner in 2008, says a great deal of luck put him where he is now — watching games while also happily giving away some of his fortune. Thirty-two years ago, he was a lawyer in Seattle who in the decade after graduating from Stanford Law School had worked as a clerk for a judge and as a lawyer for a small firm that supported liberal causes. Now he was working for a new firm and his boss approached him with an assignment. He wanted Neukom to serve as the lawyer for his son’s company, which had only a dozen employees and had recently relocated to the Seattle area from Albuquerque. The company specialized in computer programming — something Neukom knew little about. But his boss thought Neukom could relate to his son. The boss was Bill Gates ’s father and the company he wanted Neukom to advise was Microsoft . Neukom accepted the assignment, beginning an improbable journey in which he became enormously wealthy, fought a 15-year battle with the federal government over Microsoft’s business practices and eventually ascended to the top of the Giants’ front office. “I recall the conversation,” the senior Bill Gates said in a telephone interview when asked about the assignment he handed Neukom. “Nothing memorable about it. But it turns out to be a memorable event in Bill’s life, the life of the company and the law firm.” “It was a smart, young aggressive company and he fit in nicely,” Gates added. “The company was in a charging mode, it was growing like a weed and great things were happening.” Neukom became Microsoft’s first general counsel in 1985 and spent the next decade and a half as the equivalent of a baseball team’s general manager, overseeing a team of lawyers in the company’s bitter antitrust battle, in which it tried to fend off attempts by the Department of Justice to break it up. Microsoft survived in one piece, but bruised. As for Neukom, he is now two years into his tenure as the leader of the Giants and perhaps on the brink of another legal fight, this one with Commissioner Bud Selig and the Oakland Athletics owner Lewis N. Wolff. Wolff is trying to relocate the Athletics, who play in an uninspiring stadium that struggles to attract fans. He wants to move them 40 miles south to San Jose, which sits in the heart of Silicon Valley and has one of the wealthiest populations in the country. But the Giants hold territorial rights for San Jose, which means another team cannot play there without their consent. Neukom, fearing that a move could eat away at the Giants’ fan base, has taken a hard line on the issue and is prepared to take legal action against Major League Baseball and the Athletics to prevent a move, several people in baseball said. Neukom is happy to talk about how he sneaks away from work when the Giants are at home to watch batting practice and how he often brings a glove to a game to try to catch foul balls. But when the Athletics come up, conversation quickly comes to a halt. “I am steadfast in protecting our rights because they are fundamentally important to the health of this enterprise,” he said in the tone of an angry politician. “I have nothing more to say beyond that.” In 2009, Selig appointed a committee to study the Athletics’ options for a new ballpark. In a recent telephone conversation, Selig said that the committee had not completed its study. Gabriel Feldman, the head of the sports law department at Tulane University , said territorial rights are vitally important to a team because they essentially give the team a geographic monopoly. He said any legal action by Neukom would create a huge headache for baseball. When Neukom replaced Peter Magowan as managing general partner of the Giants at the end of the 2008 season, the franchise was on a downward cycle. The team had not had a winning record for four years. Barry Bonds was no longer in uniform but the franchise was still suffering from the fallout attached to accusations that he had used steroids. “The organization did not have a plan after Bonds ,” Neukom said. He attempted to supply one. In 2009, the Giants won 16 more games than they had the year before and finished at 88-74. This year, they began the second half of the season, against the Mets on Thursday, with a 47-41 record, four games back in the National League West. Neukom’s wealth grew exponentially after Microsoft went public in 1986 and by the time he first invested in the Giants in 1993, he was one of the wealthiest people in the country. In 1995, he and his four children created a foundation to give some of his money away and in 2006 he formed the World Justice Project , an organization that rates the rule of law in various countries. “I believe I was overcompensated for my work,” said Neukom, whose political outlook puts him somewhat at odds with many of his fellow owners, several of whom are Republicans. “I was in a fortunate position, but my worth to the company is not equal to the amount of money I received. I don’t see it as money I earned. I see myself as the steward of the money, and that is why I give much of it away. “Some people who worked for Microsoft don’t see it the way I do,” he added. “But I believe it’s my job to give the money back and to other causes. But I’m no saint and I have guilty pleasures, and the Giants are one of them.” Sure enough, you can catch him this weekend against the Mets. He’s in the seat closest to home plate. | Neukom William H;Microsoft Corp;Baseball;San Francisco Giants;Major League Baseball;Gates Bill;Oakland Athletics;Legal Profession |
ny0227658 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2010/07/04 | Mohammed Oudeh, Who Planned ’72 Olympic Attack, Is Dead at 73 | TEL AVIV — Mohammed Oudeh, a former math teacher who became the mastermind of the deadly attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, died Friday in Damascus. He died of kidney failure, his daughter, Hana Oudeh, told The Associated Press. He was 73. In later years, as a graying member of the Palestinian old guard, Mr. Oudeh, most commonly known by his guerrilla name, Abu Daoud, showed no remorse for the botched hostage taking and killings of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team that shook the world. He saw the attack as instrumental in putting the Palestinian cause on the map. “Would you believe me if I tell you that if I had to do it all over, I would?” he said in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press. “But maybe, just maybe, we should have shown some flexibility. Back in our days, it was the whole of Palestine or nothing, but we should have accepted a Palestinian state next to Israel.” Mr. Oudeh oversaw the plans of the raid, in which eight Palestinian militants belonging to the Black September group broke into a dormitory at the Olympic village where Israeli athletes were sleeping and took them hostage in the early morning of Sept. 5, 1972. Two of the athletes, a weightlifter and a wrestling coach, tried to overpower the militants, and were shot and killed. The militants ended up with nine hostages, whom they said they would release in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. Israel refused to negotiate and a standoff ensued for 20 hours, while static television images of an empty balcony on a gray , modern dormitory transfixed the world. The Israeli hostages and their Palestinian captors were eventually transported by helicopters to a military airfield, where they had been promised to be flown to Cairo. Instead, West German sharpshooters tried to rescue the Israelis, setting off a gun battle in which five Palestinians, a German police officer and the nine hostages were killed. “I am proud of my father,” Mr. Oudeh’s daughter, Wafa Oudeh, said in a phone interview from Damascus, shortly after his burial in the section of a cemetery reserved for martyrs to the Palestinian cause. “As a father he was a special person. He was emotional and generous. He was devoted to his family and to Palestine. His death is like a mountain collapsing.” In addition to Ms. Oudeh, he is survived by his wife, four other daughters, and a son. Amin Maqboul, secretary general of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, the Palestine Liberation Organization faction to which Mr. Oudeh belonged, praised him as “a fighter of the highest order.” Hamas, Fatah’s rival, released a statement mourning Mr. Oudeh. Mr. Oudeh was born in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan in 1937. In his younger years he taught Palestinian schoolchildren math and physics, and later became a lawyer. He lived in East Jerusalem until the 1967 Mideast War, when Israel captured it from Jordan. He then moved to Jordan, where he joined the P.L.O. In the 1970s, he was a leader of the Black September group, an offshoot of Fatah. After the Munich attack, he lived in Lebanon, Jordan and several Eastern European countries, where he had close ties to Communist bloc intelligence agencies. For years he was cagey about his involvement in Munich. “Perhaps I was very close to the people involved and they told me some details afterwards,” he said in a 1997 interview. Although he defended the hostage-taking, he said there was no plan to kill the athletes. But his role was well-known to American and Israeli intelligence officials. In 1981, he was shot several times in a hotel cafe in Warsaw in what was presumed to have been an assassination attempt by the Mossad. He survived, but for decades he lived in exile and on the run. In 1996, his exile appeared to be over when he and several other former guerrillas were allowed back by to Israel in order to attend an assembly amending the Palestinian national charter. He joined those voting to remove the charter’s call for an armed struggle to destroy the Jewish state. He settled in the West Bank town of Ramallah, but in 1999, after a trip to Jordan, he was barred by Israel from returning. Earlier that year he had published a memoir, “Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich,” in which he acknowledged his role in the Munich attack. | Oudeh Mohammed;Terrorism;Palestinians;Deaths (Obituaries);Olympic Games |
ny0063393 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2014/01/15 | Aide to Late Lawmaker Wins a House Primary in Florida | MIAMI — The first race in the 2014 battle for Congress took shape on Tuesday in one of the country’s quintessential swing districts as David Jolly, a former general counsel to the district’s longtime Republican representative, the late C. W. Bill Young, defeated two opponents to win the Republican primary. Mr. Jolly captured 45 percent of the vote. In a March 11 special election, he will face Alex Sink, a well-known Democrat who narrowly lost to Gov. Rick Scott and is considered the front-runner. In his victory speech, Mr. Jolly made a pledge. “I will work to repeal Obamacare right away,” he said, zeroing-in on the election’s hot-button issue. “I will work to replace it with a private-sector solution that actually does fulfill that now famous promise.” The seat in the Pinellas County district, which includes Clearwater and large parts of St. Petersburg, came open in October after Mr. Young’s death. A third candidate, Lucas Overby, a Libertarian, will also be on the ballot in March. Viewed from afar, the race is largely seen as a barometer of President Obama’s popularity and of his signature health care law, which faced a torrent of dissatisfaction in the months after it was rolled it out. Democrats are looking to pick up a seat in a district that now has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and a large share of independents. But on the local level, enthusiasm was muted Tuesday, with only 5 percent of the voters showing up across Pinellas County as voters dodged rain to cast ballots for candidates who were mostly unfamiliar to them. Absentee and early votes lifted overall turnout to 26.8 percent. In securing his victory, Mr. Jolly beat State Representative Kathleen M. Peters, a former mayor of South Pasadena in Pinellas who is serving her first term in the Legislature, and Mark Bircher, a retired Marine Reserve brigadier general with no political experience. Mr. Jolly, 41, was born in Pinellas County and worked for Mr. Young for more than a decade. He later became a lobbyist and a consultant, jobs that his opponents used to try to tarnish him as a Washington insider. But Mr. Jolly, a lawyer, portrayed his years inside the Beltway as a benefit, an experience that will make it easier for him to navigate the complexities of Congress. All three candidates faced a truncated campaign schedule that ran into the holiday season, making it difficult to get the attention of voters. As the campaign turned increasingly negative, Ms. Peters and Mr. Jolly traded their own barbs over the health law, with each seeking to paint the other as a supporter. Under light but steady rain Tuesday morning, Robert Bennett, 73, walked out of a polling station at the Barrington Retirement Community in Largo. Mr. Bennett said he knew Mr. Young, the former lawmaker, from church. Whoever wins will “have big shoes to fill,” Mr. Bennett said of Mr. Young, who had been the longest-serving Republican in Congress. With that in mind, he chose Mr. Jolly, the candidate closest to Mr. Young. He said his vote for Mr. Jolly had much to do with the candidate’s opposition to abortion. Mr. Jolly won the endorsement of National Right to Life, an anti-abortion group. With the primary over, Mr. Jolly must now turn his attention to a formidable Democratic opponent. Ms. Sink, 65, a former bank executive who once served as Florida’s chief financial officer, has had the luxury of stockpiling her money as Republicans spent it against one another. She has amassed $1 million for her campaign and will benefit greatly from the largess of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and women’s groups. Pragmatic and flashing her bona fides as a businesswoman, Ms. Sink has so far run a relatively low-profile campaign as she waited for the Republican field to clear. But with only two months to go before the general election, she is expected to quickly raise her presence on the trail and spend her cash on advertisements and direct mail. | House races;Congressional elections;Primaries;David Jolly;Adelaide Alexander Sink;Florida;US Politics;Republicans |
ny0142213 | [
"business"
] | 2008/11/21 | Gap Profit Rises 3.4% | Gap, the apparel chain, said Thursday that its third-quarter profit rose 3.4 percent as cost-cutting efforts offset a sales slump. The retailer said the tough times would last at least another six months. The company, which is based in San Francisco, said it earned $246 million, or 35 cents a share, in the three months ended Nov. 1, compared with $238 million, or 30 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Sales dropped 7.6 percent to $3.56 billion from $3.85 billion a year ago. Gap said sales at stores opened at least a year, dropped 12 percent in the quarter, compared with a 5 percent drop previously. | Gap Inc;Company Reports;Sales;Retail Stores and Trade |
ny0031901 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2013/06/14 | Freshpet Dog Food Promotes Products Sourced in the U.S. | IN 2006, when Freshpet introduced dog food that required refrigeration, a novelty in the pet food aisle, retailers were skeptical that they should remodel to accommodate the free refrigerators the brand offered. But after widespread pet food recalls in 2007 linked to contaminated wheat gluten from China, consumers and retailers both warmed to the brand’s promise of fresh ingredients without preservatives, and distribution today has grown to about 9,200 stores, including Walmart, Target, Whole Foods and Petco. Commercials for Freshpet over the last three years have featured dogs with placards hanging from their necks, the messages occasionally relating to their breeds, like “Pug off, preservatives” and “Propylene Glycol is Shih Tzu.” A new Freshpet commercial takes a patriotic turn, with an American flag backdrop and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” playing. It opens with a Portuguese water dog (the same breed as Bo, the first family’s dog) wearing a placard that says, “I want veggies from Virginia.” Other alliterative signs also highlight that the brand uses domestic ingredients, including a beagle who wants chicken from Charleston and a Weimaraner who wants beef from Boise. “Do you know where the ingredients in your dog food come from?” asks a voice-over. “We make Freshpet from fresh meats and fresh veggies farmed right here in the U.S.A.” The spot closes with the slogan: “Freshpet, fresh food for Fido.” The commercial will be introduced Monday and will run widely, including during the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks broadcast on NBC. The campaign, which also includes online and print advertising, is by the Terri & Sandy Solution in New York. Guerrilla marketing posters feature figures from American history, including a painting of Abraham Lincoln and his dog, with the text, “If you said Honest Abe fed his pooch processed foreign ingredients, he would call you a liar.” Freshpet will spend an estimated $10 million on the campaign. While the brand and the agency dismissed the device of talking dogs as gimmicky, ascribing thoughts to them with the placards was a way “of letting dogs speak out,” said Sandy Greenberg, a founder of the Terri & Sandy Solution. With no people in the commercial and only dogs looking into the camera, added Terri Meyer, the other agency founder, the perspective of the viewer mirrors that of dog owners accustomed to intent canine gazes. “If you don’t show an owner with the pet, you can be the owner of the pet,” Ms. Meyer said. “You can put yourself in that situation with the dog.” Cameron Woo, publisher of The Bark, a quarterly dog magazine, said that having only dogs in the commercial also underscored that it was advertising a pet product, which is not always obvious nowadays. Image The campaign also includes posters that feature figures from American history, like Lincoln, with their pets. “It’s a creative distinction, because there are so many products that don’t have anything to do with dogs but have dogs in their commercials to sell cars, beer, anything,” Mr. Woo said. The pet food maker Merrick also promotes American ingredients, including a 2012 online video, “ Tails From the Revolution ,” in which a talking dog wearing a beret sits in front of an American flag. “The new goal of the bowl is that it should runneth over with real, wholesome food,” says the dog, adding that it should be “locally sourced.” The video is by Carmichael Lynch Spong, a public relations firm in Minneapolis. Merrick also held a mock protest demanding “better food for the 99 percent” in Union Square Park in Manhattan in October, calling it a “Doggupy movement,” a reference to Occupy Wall Street protests. Even after the 2007 recalls, dog and cat food imports from China have grown every year since , from 58.8 million pounds in 2008 to 85.8 million pounds in 2011, an increase of 46 percent, according to the Food and Drug Administration. An article in the current issue of The Bark about pet food safety emphasizes that ingredients from the United States are far from immune, noting numerous recalls in 2012 of domestically sourced dog treats based on evidence of salmonella contamination. In supermarkets, mass-market department stores and club stores, Freshpet sold $48.1 million in dog food and $3.5 million in cat food in the 52 weeks ending April 21, an increase of more than 44 percent over the previous year, according to data from SymphonyIRI Group, a market research firm whose data does not include pet stores. Pet stores account for as much as 25 percent of Freshpet revenue, according to the brand. Scott Morris, the president and a founder of Freshpet, which is based in Secaucus, N.J., said that although the company used no ingredients from China, it did occasionally buy carrots from Canada. The brand has had to convince retailers not just to let it install branded refrigerators in the pet aisles, which tend to be far from electrical outlets in the center of stores, but also to accept deliveries via meat distribution systems, meaning “either the meat or dairy guy has to put it in the pet aisle,” said Mr. Morris. What has convinced supermarkets, along with earning higher margins than on lower-priced food, is that Freshpet is sold in smaller quantities and that most products must be used within seven days of opening. That means it can more often be the reason for the trip to the supermarket, and shoppers buying other items. “You buy 40 pounds of kibble and you don’t come back for a month or two,” Mr. Morris said of large packages of dry food. “But we’re like milk and eggs.” With so many over-the-top pet products and services like doggy day spas today, television advertising helps promote Freshpet as a mainstream product rather than a laughable luxury. “TV is the main way to show that Freshpet is here to stay,” said Mr. Morris, “and not some weird thing the neighbor down the street who’s a dog kook is buying.” | Freshpet;Pet food;Dog;advertising,marketing |
ny0154840 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2008/01/06 | Web Site Brings Vox Populi to College Football Polling | The final college football polls will be released Tuesday. One will be posted at fanspoll.com , a Web site where fans, not sportswriters or coaches, choose their national champion. “The fans are the ones who are buying the expensive tickets and the caps and the sweatshirts and the hot dogs and helping to pay the huge salaries that some of the big-time college coaches are earning,” George Brown, a 20-year-old junior at Auburn University, said. “So if anyone should have a say in who No. 1 is, it should be us.” Brown was a senior at Opelika High School in Alabama in late 2004 when he and his father, Randy, created fanspoll.com, college football’s Web version of the People’s Choice Awards. The Auburn Tigers, their favorite team, had a 12-0 record, but Southern California and Oklahoma did, too, and they went on to meet in the title game. “Being from a small town in Alabama, I was raised on Auburn football and grew to love the team,” Brown said. “Auburn is the kind of place where a perfect season doesn’t come around very often, so I really felt cheated that year. We were the little guy that nobody wanted to see in the big game, and when we got left out, my dad and I, like most Auburn fans, got very angry, and we were determined to do something about it.” He and his father founded the Web site before the 2004-5 bowl season, when five teams were unbeaten. Fans cast their votes only for the national champion; Auburn, which defeated Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl, came out on top. U.S.C. was No. 1 in the Associated Press poll, with Auburn No. 2. Fanspoll.com ’s road to choosing a national champion has remained the same since 2005, the site’s second year. The free Web site, which lists 120 teams eligible for championship consideration, has a weekly top 25 poll that Brown said “works like the electoral college.” This season, 6,100 fans registered, and each selected a favorite team. (Randy Brown said last week that the site was experiencing technical problems in some areas.) In addition to voting on the top teams each week, fans predict the winners of 10 specified games. The 120 fans who compile the best records, one representing each of the eligible teams, are named to a selection committee. They vote for the national champion, as well as 19 other national awards, including quarterback of the year and coach of the year. For the past two years, fanspoll.com and the A.P. poll have chosen the same No. 1 team. “The fans who finished with the best records are likely to be the most qualified committee members,” Randy Brown said. “The coaches love it because they know that the voting is being done by a very intelligent group of football fans. To me, this is the same concept that has made ‘American Idol’ a great television show. On ‘Idol,’ it’s the fans who vote for the best singer, not the judges or anyone else in the music industry. It’s the same here; just substitute football for music.” Ed Manetta, a former athletic director at St. John’s who is now a partner in MSL Sports, an intellectual-property-development company in New York that is helping to expand fanspoll.com’s user base, said, “This poll is something that colleges and universities can really run with.” “For a college football team to say that it was chosen No. 1 by fans is a huge thing,” he added. “It’s an extremely positive statement, one made on a national level, and a school can really get a lot of mileage out of it.” No one has gotten more mileage out of it than George Brown, who handed the fanspoll.com National Championship trophy to Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville for 2004 and to Florida Coach Urban Meyer for 2006. A scheduling conflict forced him to send the 2005 trophy to Mack Brown at Texas. “Coach Tuberville was very flattered and very accepting when I handed him the trophy,” George Brown said. “Auburn fans know that it should not have been the only championship trophy he received that year.” | Football;College Athletics;Computers and the Internet;Athletics and Sports |
ny0150007 | [
"business",
"worldbusiness"
] | 2008/09/23 | How Sweden Solved Its Bank Crisis | A banking system in crisis after the collapse of a housing bubble. An economy hemorrhaging jobs. A market-oriented government struggling to stem the panic. Sound familiar? It does to Sweden. The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent. But Sweden took a different course than the one now being proposed by the United States Treasury . And Swedish officials say there are lessons from their own nightmare that Washington may be missing. Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government. That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well. “If I go into a bank,” said Bo Lundgren, who was Sweden’s minister for fiscal and financial affairs at the time, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.” Sweden spent 4 percent of its gross domestic product , or 65 billion kronor, the equivalent of $11.7 billion at the time, or $18.3 billion in today’s dollars, to rescue ailing banks. That is slightly less, proportionate to the national economy, than the $700 billion, or roughly 5 percent of gross domestic product, that the Bush administration estimates its own move will cost in the United States. But the final cost to Sweden ended up being less than 2 percent of its G.D.P. Some officials say they believe it was closer to zero, depending on how certain rates of return are calculated. The tumultuous events of the last few weeks have produced a lot of tight-lipped nods in Stockholm. Mr. Lundgren even made the rounds in New York in early September, explaining what the country did in the early 1990s. A few American commentators have proposed that the United States government extract equity from banks as a price for their rescue. But it does not seem to be under serious consideration yet in the Bush administration or Congress. The reason is not quite clear. The government has already swapped its sovereign guarantee for equity in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the mortgage finance institutions, and the American International Group , the global insurance giant. Putting taxpayers on the hook without anything in return could be a mistake, said Urban Backstrom, a senior Swedish finance ministry official at the time. “The public will not support a plan if you leave the former shareholders with anything,” he said. The Swedish crisis had strikingly similar origins to the American one, and its neighbors, Norway and Finland, were hobbled to the point of needing a government bailout to escape the morass as well. Financial deregulation in the 1980s fed a frenzy of real estate lending by Sweden’s banks, which did not worry enough about whether the value of their collateral might evaporate in tougher times. Property prices imploded. The bubble deflated fast in 1991 and 1992. A vain effort to defend Sweden’s currency, the krona, caused overnight interest rates to spike at one point to 500 percent. The Swedish economy contracted for two consecutive years after a long expansion, and unemployment, at 3 percent in 1990, quadrupled in three years. After a series of bank failures and ad hoc solutions, the moment of truth arrived in September 1992, when the government of Prime Minister Carl Bildt decided it was time to clear the decks. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the opposition center-left, Mr. Bildt’s conservative government announced that the Swedish state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks. Sweden formed a new agency to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization, and another that sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral. Sweden told its banks to write down their losses promptly before coming to the state for recapitalization. Facing its own problem later in the decade, Japan made the mistake of dragging this process out, delaying a solution for years. Then came the imperative to bleed shareholders first. Mr. Lundgren recalls a conversation with Peter Wallenberg, at the time chairman of SEB, Sweden’s largest bank. Mr. Wallenberg, the scion of the country’s most famous family and steward of large chunks of its economy, heard that there would be no sacred cows. The Wallenbergs turned around and arranged a recapitalization on their own, obviating the need for a bailout. SEB turned a profit the following year, 1993. “For every krona we put into the bank, we wanted the same influence,” Mr. Lundgren said. “That ensured that we did not have to go into certain banks at all.” By the end of the crisis, the Swedish government had seized a vast portion of the banking sector, and the agency had mostly fulfilled its hard-nosed mandate to drain share capital before injecting cash. When markets stabilized, the Swedish state then reaped the benefits by taking the banks public again. More money may yet come into official coffers. The government still owns 19.9 percent of Nordea, a Stockholm bank that was fully nationalized and is now a highly regarded giant in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea region. The politics of Sweden’s crisis management were similarly tough-minded, though much quieter. Soon after the plan was announced, the Swedish government found that international confidence returned more quickly than expected, easing pressure on its currency and bringing money back into the country. The center-left opposition, while wary that the government might yet let the banks off the hook, made its points about penalizing shareholders privately. “The only thing that held back an avalanche was the hope that the system was holding,” said Leif Pagrotzky, a senior member of the opposition at the time. “In public we stuck together 100 percent, but we fought behind the scenes.” | Sweden;Banks and Banking;Bo Lundgren;Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae);Freddie Mac;American International Group;United States Economy;Treasury Department |
ny0289764 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2016/01/11 | Starving Syrians in Madaya Are Denied Aid Amid Political Jockeying | BEIRUT, Lebanon — In the hills near the Lebanese border, an hour’s drive from downtown Damascus, much of a Syrian town is starving, according to residents and international humanitarian workers. The town, Madaya , is controlled by rebels and encircled by pro-government forces with barbed wire, land mines and snipers. People there make soups of grass, spices and olive leaves. They eat donkeys and cats. They arrive, collapsing, at a clinic that offers little but rehydration salts. Neighbors fail to recognize neighbors in the streets because their faces are so sunken. Syria , once classified as a middle-income country, now reports periodic malnutrition deaths. At least 28 people, including six babies, have died from hunger-related causes at a clinic in Madaya aided by Doctors Without Borders , medics there say. And the 42,000 people that the United Nations counts as trapped in Madaya are about a tenth of those stranded in besieged or hard-to-reach areas as conditions grow steadily worse. Their plight represents a stark failure of international powers that has worsened even as they intensify military and diplomatic activities, all in the name of resolving the conflict. This is happening as the United Nations plans a new round of peace talks for Jan. 25. It is happening amid escalating military interventions by Russia and the United States. And in some ways, according to diplomats and humanitarian workers, it is happening not just despite those efforts, but also because of them, as the warring parties flout international law while being courted for negotiations. Yet in Madaya and neighboring Zabadani, once popular mountain resorts, thoughts of political change have receded in the face of hunger. Hamoudi, 27, a business-school graduate who took up arms after the government’s crackdown on protests in 2011, said many people would surrender in order to eat, even though they expected arrests and retribution to follow. “In the revolution I was dreaming of democracy, freedom,” Hamoudi said slowly in an interview via Skype, exhaustion evident in his voice. “Today all my dreams are food. I want to eat. I don’t want to die from starvation.” Five more people, a 9-year-old boy and four men older than 45, died on Sunday of suspected malnutrition, according to the medics working with Doctors Without Borders, who said that 10 more people needed immediate hospitalization to survive, and that 200 more could reach that state in a week. “Madaya is now effectively an open-air prison,” the medical charity’s operations director, Brice de le Vingne, said in a statement. About 400,000 Syrians are trapped behind front lines, denied access to food and medicine. That United Nations count has risen from 240,000 since 2014, when the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a binding resolution ordering the warring parties to allow aid delivery. Both Russia, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, and the United States have been carrying out airstrikes that they say are aimed at Islamic State militants. But the airstrikes have complicated the relief efforts. Since last fall, when Russia joined the fray, at least 16 health centers have been hit, and six aid groups have pulled out of Idlib Province, where the Islamic State has little presence but Syrian and Russian forces regularly bomb other groups that oppose President Bashar al-Assad. As they seek to maximize gains before the talks, all sides are inflicting new pain on civilians. Even now, as the Syrian government promises to allow United Nations aid into Madaya as soon as Monday — as international outrage over reports of starvation mounts — government forces are tightening a new siege on another rebel-held town, Moadhamiyeh, a suburb of Damascus. “Surrender or you will be annihilated,” was the message residents say Mr. Assad’s negotiators delivered to Moadhamiyeh — which endured a chemical weapons attack in 2013 and a two-year siege that ended with a deal favoring the government. Using hunger as a weapon flies in the face of international law. Yet global and regional powers — like Russia, Iran, the United States and Saudi Arabia — are unable or unwilling to pressure their battlefield allies. The United Nations says that just 10 percent of its requests last year to deliver aid to besieged and hard to reach areas in Syria were approved. The Security Council resolutions have made “little difference to the Syrian civilians,” said Andy Baker, of the aid group Oxfam. That puts the United Nations in an awkward position: helping to carry out local cease-fires that may permit aid for a time but also reward commanders’ siege tactics. The United Nations has repeatedly found itself in the middle of deals that made bargaining chips of access to food and medicine that should be unconditional. Some deals have required civilians to leave their homes for aid and protection, going against basic principles of humanitarian relief. While the United Nations emphasizes that it is not a party to the agreements, its officials are intimately involved in carrying them out — aid delivery and evacuations cannot take place without them. In several cases, they have helped facilitate the talks as go-betweens. And with the United Nations special envoy, Staffan de Mistura, pressing for a national cease-fire, the local truces are often perceived and portrayed as United Nations-approved and as steps toward a broader accord. Many diplomats and aid workers — who requested anonymity in order to continue working on or in Syria — say that Mr. Assad has played on the divide between the United Nations’ political and humanitarian branches. Political officials can deplore terms of starve-or-surrender, but once a deal like that is struck, humanitarian agencies can hardly refuse to deliver aid, especially if the alternative is zero relief for trapped civilians. Critics say the United Nations, eager to keep the Syrian government on board for peace talks with opposition groups, is either selling out or getting played. “The regime will continue to use its submit or starve policy because it’s working,” Bissan Fakih of the Syria Campaign , a group pushing for a no-fly zone over Syria, declared on Facebook, “with a big happy stamp of approval by the United Nations” and global powers. Video An amateur video showed a boy from rebel-held Madaya who said he hadn’t eaten in a week. In Saraqeb, people demonstrated in solidarity with those in Madaya. Officials like Mr. de Mistura, who visited Damascus over the weekend, should be pressing loudly and publicly for unconditional aid access, said Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat. Instead, he said, they privately tell opposition groups that they do not want Syrian officials “to be upset and spoil the political process.” (Mr. de Mistura, visiting Iran, said in a statement issued Sunday that Saudi Arabia and Iran had pledged to participate in the Geneva talks despite their entanglement in a tense standoff after Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric this month.) Sieges are nothing new in Syria. Nearly half of the 400,000 Syrians the United Nations counts as besieged are surrounded by government forces, who have used the tactic systematically around Damascus and Homs. The largest group is encircled by the Islamic State, which is blockading 200,000 people in Deir al-Zour, in the east. Other insurgents, mainly the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, have also encircled more than 12,000 people in isolated pro-government towns in northern Syria, like Fouaa and Kfarya. But things were supposed to change in Madaya. It was part of a pact that was hailed last month as the most complex local cease-fire yet, involving Fouaa and Kfarya on one hand, and Madaya and neighboring Zabadani on the other. Wounded fighters and their families were evacuated simultaneously on both sides, and plans were made for more aid and evacuations. But those plans have stalled as people continue to become sick and die in Madaya — subject to one of the tightest sieges of the war, including what the United Nations calls “credible reports” of people being shot as they try to escape. Civilians also suffer in rebel-encircled northern towns, though government helicopters make occasional airdrops. The talks are complex and sensitive, involving discussions between Iran and rebel groups because Zabadani and Madaya are encircled mainly by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that supports Mr. Assad. There are divisions within the towns, too, with some accusing fighters of hoarding food and many debating what terms to accept. In the meantime, dozens of people come daily to the Doctors Without Borders-affiliated clinic, said Khaled Mohammad, a nurse anesthetist there who shared photographs of a skeletal man, Suleiman Fares, 63, who was found dead by activists who brought food to his house. Such images have galvanized alarm about the siege. Some of the photographs circulating are from other places in Syria and elsewhere. But the ones shared by Mr. Mohammad were new and corresponded with other witnesses’ accounts. Samar Hussein, a nurse, was one of a dozen residents interviewed. She said she had spent $40 last month for a few spoonfuls of sugar for her 19-year-old daughter, who had passed out, and the baby her daughter was trying to breast-feed. She and several families recently shared a soup made with one cup of bulgur wheat, gathering together to cook it because there was little wood. On the street, she said, she saw a woman picking grass to eat and did not realize at first that it was her neighbor. “She looks so different,” she said. “So skinny.” | Syria;Malnutrition;Fatalities,casualties;Humanitarian aid;Military;International relations;UN;Doctors Without Borders |
ny0081772 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/11/06 | As Refugees Flee, Thousands of Children Have No Country to Call Their Own | UNITED NATIONS — Two years old, Yazan al-Najjar is a boy without a country. He is neither a citizen of Syria , where his parents were born, nor of Lebanon, where he was born. He has no papers to prove his nationality, nothing except a card that labels him a refugee. Tens of thousands of children like him are born on the run from war, persecution and poverty — some in cities swelling with exiles, like Yazan’s Beirut, others in forlorn refugee camps from Kenya to Thailand, and still others in transit, as their parents cross the Mediterranean for a new life in Europe. They belong to no nation. Precise figures are impossible to ascertain. But a report issued by the United Nations this week estimates that 70,000 stateless children are born annually, in regions as disparate as Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and even the heart of Europe. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that there are three million stateless children worldwide. That figure excludes Palestinians , who have been stateless for generations. The consequences can be dire. In some countries, the United Nations report concludes, stateless children are not entitled to government-run immunization programs. In many, they cannot attend school — or take end-of-school exams. In others, when reaching adulthood they are barred from employment. The realities defy international law. The Convention on the Rights of the Child , ratified by nearly every country, states that all children are entitled to citizenship. But parents fleeing home face numerous barriers to conveying citizenship to their children. Marriage papers might be lost. Or parents may avoid government authorities for fear of persecution. Or they may lack the money for proper documents, which could mean that a child’s birth goes unregistered. Moreover, like Yazan, many Syrian children are stateless because of discriminatory laws, including in Syria, that prohibit mothers from passing their nationality to their children. Only fathers have that right, and in one out of four Syrian families, the United Nations says, fathers are dead or missing. As Doors Close, Syrian Refugees Despair Propelled by fear and desperation, Syrian refugees have faced one hurdle after another. Yazan’s mother, Bayan Mohamed, 20, says her husband disappeared when she was three months pregnant with Yazan, their child. As fighting between the forces of the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic State surged in her hometown, Dana, she fled, first to Turkey and then to Lebanon. She bore Yazan alone at a hospital in the Bekaa Valley. Without a man declaring his paternity, Ms. Mohamed could not register the birth. Mother and son live in Beirut now. She has just lost her off-again-on-again job at a neighborhood bakery. Her food aid from the United Nations is about to run out. She described her predicament: “No aid. No husband. Can’t go to Syria. Can’t prove my son is my son.” In 27 countries, including in the Middle East, the law allows only men to pass their nationality to children. Babies born to refugees and migrants in Europe can end up stateless, as well. Unlike the United States, which grants citizenship by birth, most European countries do not automatically grant citizenship to children born in their territory, though many have provisions for those children to eventually obtain citizenship. That is not always easy, especially for parents who are living underground, without valid immigration papers themselves. The war in Syria, now in its fifth year, has drawn sharp attention to stateless children. At least 142,000 children have been born in exile to Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations, but the real number is most likely far higher because not all Syrians are registered. Many children end up in the ranks of the stateless because their parents lack documents to prove they are Syrian. In Turkey, home to the largest number of Syrian refugees, the rupture of diplomatic relations with Syria means that no Syrian consular office is available to issue papers to newborns of Syrians. In Lebanon, politics have created an additional complication: The most powerful faction is Hezbollah, a vital ally of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose repression of dissent is a major reason that many Syrian refugees are reluctant to visit the embassy. A Family Swept Up in the Migrant Tide This summer, as the Majid family left Syria for Europe, The New York Times followed the group through weeks of defeat and triumph, disillusionment and determination. Hassan Badawi is among those who fled Syria for the town of Saadnayel in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon more than two years ago. He married a Syrian woman he had met there, and she bore a boy, now 8 months old. But Mr. Badawi never registered his marriage with the Syrian consular authorities in Lebanon, which makes it impossible to obtain citizenship for their son. Mr. Badawi’s two brothers, also refugees in Lebanon, face the same predicament. Their wives bore children in Lebanon who are stateless. The price for the requisite paperwork is high, the equivalent of several hundred dollars in fees and bribes, Mr. Badawi said. But the lack of documents for his son, he knows, is also costly. “I know it will be hard for my son to go to school if he has no ID or document,” he said. “I will try my best to solve this problem.” Syrian refugees have fallen into such deep poverty in recent months that they are increasingly unable to renew even their own identity papers with the Lebanese government. More and more, they must survive without them. A baby boom among Syrian refugees is also a source of tension. Saadnayel’s deputy mayor, Riad Sawan, said many Syrian children had been attending school on the basis of their parents’ identity documents — and he emphasized that issuing citizenship papers was the responsibility of Syrian authorities, not his. “The Lebanese authorities have nothing to do with this,” he said. “Lebanon cannot hold the responsibility.” Single mothers are the worst off. Ms. Mohamed said she had been told that she must return to Syria for any hope of obtaining citizenship papers for her boy. She said she had no idea of her husband’s whereabouts. Her sole document is a card from the United Nations, certifying that she is a legitimate refugee and entitled to protection under international law. That is small comfort now. This week came a text message on her phone. Funding cuts to United Nations agencies meant that the food aid she and her son were receiving would be discontinued, starting this month. | Refugees,Internally Displaced People;Children;Citizenship;Syria;Middle East and Africa Migrant Crisis,European Migrant Crisis;UN;Europe;Lebanon |
ny0087634 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2015/07/15 | Deal Reached on Iran Nuclear Program; Limits on Fuel Would Lessen With Time | VIENNA — Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States reached a historic accord on Tuesday to significantly limit Tehran’s nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions. The deal culminates 20 months of negotiations on an agreement that President Obama had long sought as the biggest diplomatic achievement of his presidency. Whether it portends a new relationship between the United States and Iran — after decades of coups, hostage-taking, terrorism and sanctions — remains a bigger question. Mr. Obama, in an early morning appearance at the White House that was broadcast live in Iran, began what promised to be an arduous effort to sell the deal to Congress and the American public, saying the agreement is “not built on trust — it is built on verification.” The Iran Nuclear Deal – A Simple Guide A guide to help you navigate the deal between global powers and Tehran. He made it abundantly clear he would fight to preserve the deal from critics in Congress who are beginning a 60-day review, declaring, “I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal.” Almost as soon as the agreement was announced, to cheers in Vienna and on the streets of Tehran, its harshest critics said it would ultimately empower Iran rather than limit its capability. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called it a “historic mistake” that would create a “terrorist nuclear superpower.” A review of the 109-page text of the agreement, which includes five annexes, showed that the United States preserved — and in some cases extended — the nuclear restrictions it sketched out with Iran in early April in Lausanne, Switzerland. Yet, it left open areas that are sure to raise fierce objections in Congress. It preserves Iran’s ability to produce as much nuclear fuel as it wishes after year 15 of the agreement, and allows it to conduct research on advanced centrifuges after the eighth year. Moreover, the Iranians won the eventual lifting of an embargo on the import and export of conventional arms and ballistic missiles — a step the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, warned about just last week. Image Secretary of State John Kerry after a news conference on Iran nuclear talks in Vienna. Credit Carlos Barria/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images American officials said the core of the agreement, secured in 18 consecutive days of talks here, lies in the restrictions on the amount of nuclear fuel that Iran can keep for the next 15 years. The current stockpile of low enriched uranium will be reduced by 98 percent, most likely by shipping much of it to Russia. That limit, combined with a two-thirds reduction in the number of its centrifuges, would extend to a year the amount of time it would take Iran to make enough material for a single bomb should it abandon the accord and race for a weapon — what officials call “breakout time.” By comparison, analysts say Iran now has a breakout time of two to three months. But American officials also acknowledged that after the first decade, the breakout time would begin to shrink. It was unclear how rapidly, because Iran’s longer-term plans to expand its enrichment capability will be kept confidential. The concern that Iran’s breakout time could shrink sharply in the waning years of the restrictions has already been a contentious issue in Congress. Mr. Obama contributed to that in an interview with National Public Radio in April, when he said that in “year 13, 14, 15” of the agreement, the breakout time might shrink “almost down to zero,” as Iran is expected to develop and use advanced centrifuges then. Who Got What They Wanted in the Iran Nuclear Deal Here is a look at what Iran and the United States wanted, and what they got. Pressed on that point, an American official who briefed reporters on Tuesday said that Iran’s long-term plans to expand its enrichment capability would be shared with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other parties to the accord. “It is going to be a gradual decline,” the official said. “At the end of, say, 15 years, we are not going to know what that is.” But clearly there are intelligence agency estimates, and one diplomat involved in the talks said that internal estimates suggested Iran’s breakout time could shrink to about five months in year 14 of the plan. Secretary of State John Kerry , who led the negotiations for the United States in the final rounds, sought in his remarks Tuesday to blunt criticism on this point. “Iran will not produce or acquire highly enriched uranium” or plutonium for at least 15 years, he said. Verification measures, he added, will “stay in place permanently.” He stressed that Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency had “entered into an agreement to address all questions” about Iran’s past actions within three months, and that completing this task was “fundamental for sanctions relief.” What Key Players Are Saying About the Iran Nuclear Deal A guide to international reaction to the historic accord. Compared with many past efforts to slow a nation’s nuclear program — including a deal struck with North Korea 20 years ago — this agreement is remarkably specific. Nevertheless, some mysteries remain. For example, it is not clear whether the inspectors would be able to interview the scientists and engineers who were believed to have been at the center of an effort by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to design a weapon that Iran could manufacture in short order. In building his argument for the deal, Mr. Obama stressed that the accord was vastly preferable to the alternate scenario: no agreement and an unbridled nuclear arms race in the Middle East. “Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East,” he said. He said his successors in the White House “will be in a far stronger position” to restrain Iran for decades to come than they would be without the pact. In an interview Tuesday with Thomas L. Friedman, an Op-Ed columnist with The New York Times, Mr. Obama also answered Mr. Netanyahu and other critics who, he said, would prefer that the Iranians “don’t even have any nuclear capacity.” Mr. Obama said, “But really, what that involves is eliminating the presence of knowledge inside of Iran.” Since that is not realistic, the president added, “The question is, Do we have the kind of inspection regime and safeguards and international consensus whereby it’s not worth it for them to do it? We have accomplished that.” As news of a nuclear deal spread, Iranians reacted with a mix of jubilation, cautious optimism and disbelief that decades of a seemingly intractable conflict could be coming to an end. Video President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, Secretary of State John Kerry and other world leaders spoke on Tuesday after an agreement was reached with Iran on its nuclear program. Credit Credit Newsha Tavakolian for The New York Times “Have they really reached a deal?” asked Masoud Derakhshani, a 93-year-old widower who had come down to the lobby of his apartment building for his daily newspaper. Mr. Derakhshani remained cautious, even incredulous. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “They will most probably hit some last-minute snag.” Across Tehran, many Iranians expressed hope for better economic times after years in which crippling sanctions have severely depressed the value of the national currency, the rial. That in turn caused inflation and shortages of goods, including vital medicines, and forced Iranians to carry fat wads of bank notes to pay for everyday items such as meat, rice and beans. “I am desperate to feed my three sons,” said Ali, 53, a cleaner. “This deal should bring investment for jobs so they can start working for a living.” National dignity, a major demand of Iran’s leader, did not matter to him, he said. “I really do not care if this is a victory for us or not,” he said. “I want relations with the West. If we compromised, so be it.” Image Delegates from Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States in Vienna on Tuesday after agreeing to an accord to significantly limit Tehran’s nuclear ability. Credit Pool photo by Carlos Barria Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who was elected in 2013 on a platform of ridding the country of the sanctions, said that the Iranian people’s “prayers have come true.” One of the last, and most contentious, issues was the question of whether and how fast an arms embargo on conventional weapons and missiles, imposed starting in 2006, would be lifted. After days of haggling, Secretary of State Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, agreed that the missile restrictions would remain for eight years and that a similar ban on the purchase and sale of conventional weapons would be removed in five years. Those bans would be removed even sooner if the International Atomic Energy Agency reached a definitive conclusion that the Iranian nuclear program is entirely peaceful, and that there was no evidence of cheating on the accord or any activity to obtain weapons covertly. The provisions on the arms embargo are expected to dominate the coming debate in Congress on the accord. Even before the deal was announced, critics expressed fears that Iran would use some of the billions of dollars it will receive after sanctions relief to build up its military power. Iranian officials, however, have said that Iran should be treated like any other nation, and not be subjected to an arms embargo if it meets the terms of a nuclear deal. Defending the outcome, Mr. Kerry told reporters here that China and Russia had favored lifting the entire arms embargo immediately, suggesting he had no choice but to try to strike a middle ground. Mr. Kerry appeared to secure another commitment that was not part of a preliminary agreement negotiated in Lausanne. Iranian officials agreed here on a multiyear ban on designing warheads and conducting tests, including with detonators and nuclear triggers, that would contribute to the design and manufacture of a nuclear weapon. Accusations that Tehran conducted that kind of research in the past led to a standoff with inspectors. Diplomats also came up with unusual procedure to “snap back” the sanctions against Iran if an eight-member panel determines that Tehran is violating the nuclear provisions. The members of the panel are Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, the European Union and Iran itself. A majority vote is required, meaning that Russia, China and Iran could not collectively block action. With the announcement of the accord, Mr. Obama has now made major strides toward fundamentally changing the American diplomatic relationships with three nations: Cuba , Iran and Myanmar . Of the three, Iran is the most strategically important, the only one with a nuclear program, and it is still on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism . While the agreement faces heavy opposition from Republicans in Congress, and even some Democrats, Mr. Obama’s chances of prevailing are considered high. Even if the accord is voted down by one or both houses, he could veto that action, and he is likely to have the votes he would need to override the veto. But he has told aides that for an accord as important as this one — which he hopes will usher in a virtual truce with a country that has been a major American adversary for 35 years — he wants a congressional endorsement. Mr. Obama will also have to manage the breach with Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states who have warned against the deal, saying the relief of sanctions will ultimately empower the Iranians throughout the Middle East. | Iran;Nuclear weapon;Barack Obama;John Kerry;Mohammad Javad Zarif;US Foreign Policy |
ny0223426 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2010/11/21 | In Rare Cases, Pope Justifies Use of Condoms | ROME — Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS , the Vatican ’s first exception to a long-held policy banning contraceptives. The pope made the statement in interviews on a host of contentious issues with a German journalist, part of an unusual effort to address some of the harshest criticisms of his turbulent papacy. The pope’s statement on condoms was extremely limited: he did not approve their use or suggest that the Roman Catholic Church was beginning to back away from its prohibition of birth control . In fact, the one example he cited as a possibly appropriate use was by male prostitutes. Still, the statement was something of a milestone for the church and a significant change for Benedict, who faced intense criticism last year when, en route to AIDS-plagued Africa, he said condom use did not help prevent the spread of AIDS, only abstinence and fidelity did. The interviews are to be published this week in a book, and excerpts were posted online by the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on Saturday afternoon. In the book, Benedict said condoms were not “a real or moral solution” to the AIDS epidemic, adding, “that can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.” But he also said that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.” The decision to grant the interviews was a rare effort to humanize a pope often seen as a distant intellectual whose papacy has lurched from crisis to crisis, including revelations worldwide last spring that called into question the Vatican’s handling of cases of child abuse by priests. Although Benedict, 83, took pains to explain his most controversial decisions, he did not veer from them. That included his defense of Pope Pius XII, whose tenure during World War II has been criticized by Jewish groups who say he could have done more to help Jews escape the Nazis. Benedict also suggested several times that he was a victim of overly zealous critics, including those who criticized him for revoking the excommunication of a bishop who denied the scope of the Holocaust. The pope did, however, acknowledge the church’s failings during the years that children were being abused. “The deeds themselves were hushed up and kept secret for decades,” he said. “That is a declaration of bankruptcy for an institution that has love written on its banner.” The book, “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times,” comes from a series of interviews conducted in July by Peter Seewald, a German journalist and the author of two previous books of interviews with Benedict when he was still a cardinal. The New York Times saw an early copy of the English version of the book. Benedict’s concession on condoms, however slight, may have left room for debate on the issue of whether they may be used as part of campaigns against AIDS. The use of condoms has been a contentious issue ever since Pope Paul VI denounced birth control in his famous 1968 encyclical, “Humanae Vitae.” In recent years, bishops in Africa and elsewhere have been calling on the Vatican to allow for condom use as part of a broader approach to fight the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. At a news conference at the Vatican last year, Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson of Ghana suggested, for instance, that condom use was worth considering for married couples in which one partner is H.I.V.-positive. The Vatican has also faced pushback at some church-run health clinics in Africa, according to experts who say health care workers often ignore the teachings and distribute condoms. Although the pope’s statements did not go nearly as far as some church leaders in Africa might like, the Rev. James Martin, who has written about the Vatican’s stance on the issue in “America,” a Jesuit publication in New York, said even a slight shift by the pope was noteworthy. “What’s significant is that this is an exception that’s being voiced by the pope, whereas previously there were no exceptions,” he said. The Rev. Joseph Fessio, a former student of Benedict and the editor in chief of Ignatius Press, which is publishing the English-language edition of the book, said the pope’s new remarks on condoms were among the most surprising in the volume. But he also stressed that they were “very carefully qualified.” “It would be wrong to say, ‘Pope Approves Condoms,’ ” Father Fessio said. “He’s saying it’s immoral but in an individual case, the use of a condom could be an awakening to someone that he’s got to be more conscious of his actions.” The book devotes an entire chapter to the sexual abuse crisis that roared back in the spring, likening it to a natural disaster that marred a year Benedict had intended to celebrate priests. “One might think that the Devil could not stand the Year for Priests and therefore threw this filth in our faces,” he said. He did, however, acknowledge that the scandal had undermined the moral authority of the Catholic Church. “It is not only the abuse that is upsetting, it is also the way of dealing with it,” he said. Benedict also defended his decision to revoke the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, including one, Richard Williamson, who turned out to have denied the scope of the Holocaust, provoking international outrage that took the Vatican months to subdue. The pope reiterated that he did not know about Bishop Williamson’s statements. Benedict’s statements in the book defending Pius XII, who he said “saved more Jews than anyone else” by opening up Italian convents, were already drawing an angry reaction Saturday from Holocaust victims groups. In March, Benedict moved Pius one step closer to sainthood. Although Benedict mostly defended traditional Vatican policy, he did challenge one that affected him personally and appeared to show that the pontiff was contemplating his own age. He said that if a pope “clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.” George Weigel, a biographer of John Paul II, said that canon law is very clear that the papacy becomes vacant only when the pope dies. “Benedict seems to be putting on the table something that is generally spoken about behind closed doors,” Mr. Weigel said. | Benedict XVI;Condoms;Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome;Roman Catholic Church |
ny0141773 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2008/11/29 | Harris Leads Nets Past Jazz | Filed at 11:44 p.m. ET SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Devin Harris scored 34 points, and Vince Carter added 22 points to help the New Jersey Nets beat the Utah Jazz 105-88 on Saturday night. The Nets shot 52 percent (40-for-77) and forced the Jazz into 19 turnovers while improving to 2-1 on a four-game trip. Yi Jianlian added 11 points, and Bobby Simmons had 10 for New Jersey. Mehmet Okur had 10 points and 11 rebounds, and Paul Millsap added 10 points and 10 rebounds for the Jazz. Deron Williams had 10 points and 13 assists, but Utah couldn't overcome poor shooting in the second half and fell to 8-2 at home. Harris was four points off his career scoring high. Utah was without All-Star forward Carlos Boozer (thigh) for the sixth straight game and lost Andrei Kirilenko to an ankle injury in the second quarter. Without the pesky Kirilenko disrupting the Nets' offense, New Jersey moved the ball around enough to get easy shots and outplayed the Jazz. The Jazz were booed at the end of the the third quarter, trailing 83-67 on Carter's 3-pointer with 22 seconds left. The Jazz were sloppy all period and shot 6-for-21 and were outrebounded 17-11 as the Nets outscored the Jazz 24-16. C.J. Miles hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 67-60 with 7:49 left in the third, but Yi answered with a 3 and Simmons followed with a jumper to start a 16-5 run that just about put the game away for the Nets. | New Jersey Nets;Utah Jazz;Basketball |
ny0068364 | [
"us"
] | 2014/12/19 | How the Poll Was Conducted | The latest New York Times/CBS News Poll is based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 4 through 7 with 1,006 adults throughout the United States. SSRS of Media, Pa., conducted sampling, interviewing and tabulation for the survey. Interviews were in English or Spanish. The sample of landline telephone exchanges called was randomly selected by a computer from a complete list of more than 81,000 active residential exchanges across the country. The exchanges were chosen so as to ensure that each region of the country was represented in its proper proportion. Within each exchange, random digits were added to form a complete telephone number, thus permitting access to listed and unlisted numbers alike. Within each landline household, one adult was designated by a random procedure to be the respondent for the survey. Paying Till It Hurts A series of articles by the New York Times correspondent Elisabeth Rosenthal examines the price of medical care in the United States. In each installment, readers were invited to share their perspectives on managing costs and treatment. Cellphone numbers were generated by a similar random process. The two samples were then combined and adjusted to assure the proper ratio of landline-only, cellphone-only and dual phone users. Interviewers made multiple attempts to reach every phone number in the survey, calling back unanswered numbers on different days at different times of both day and evening. The combined results have been weighted to adjust for variation in the sample relating to geographic region, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, age, education and (for landline households) the number of adults and number of phone lines. In addition the sample was adjusted to reflect the percentage of the population residing in mostly Democratic counties, mostly Republican counties and counties more closely balanced politically. In theory, in 19 cases out of 20, overall results based on such samples will differ by no more than 4 percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking to interview all American adults. For smaller subgroups, the margin of sampling error is larger. Shifts in results between polls over time also have a larger sampling error. In addition to sampling error, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey of public opinion may introduce other sources of error into the poll. Variation in the wording, order and translation of questions, for example, may lead to somewhat different results. Michael R. Kagay of Princeton, N.J., assisted The Times in its polling analysis. Complete questions and results are available at nytimes.com/polls . | Polls;The New York Times;SSRS |
ny0169336 | [
"business"
] | 2007/03/01 | Citi Acquisition in Prepaid Cards | Citigroup has agreed to buy Ecount, a privately held provider of prepaid cards, expanding its presence in the fastest-growing part of the payment industry, according to bank officials. Terms of the deal, which is expected to be announced today, were not disclosed. Ecount will be Citigroup’s latest purchase in the last few months aimed at improving the company’s sluggish performance. Charles O. Prince III, Citigroup’s chairman and chief executive, is under pressure from investors to reverse years of disappointing results. Ecount, a nine-year-old company based near Philadelphia, has developed a prepaid rewards card program that has about 1,000 corporate customers. With the acquisition, Citigroup’s Global Transaction Services group plans to offer the cards to its more than 40,000 corporate and government clients. Transaction growth in prepaid cards is expected to rise more than 50 percent this year, according to the Nilson Report, a newsletter for the payments industry. Government agencies use the cards to dispense welfare payments, and many companies use them to reimburse employees or pay people who do not have bank accounts. | Citigroup Incorporated;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Ecount |
ny0020650 | [
"science"
] | 2013/09/03 | Cognitive Science Meets Pre-Algebra | TAMPA, Fla. — The math students at Liberty Middle School were not happy. The seventh graders’ homework was harder and more time-consuming at first, and many of the problems seemed stale. They were old, from weeks or months ago — proportions, again ? — and solving them interrupted the flow of the students’ current work. “They were having to remember, and to work on, stuff they’d learned previously — plus the new material,” their teacher, Jen DeMik, said of last semester’s assignments. “They had to focus on several things instead of just one.” Or as 13-year-old Giulia Falabella, one of her students at the time, put it, “It took some getting used to, that’s for sure.” But as little as Giulia and her classmates may have liked it, the curriculum was part of an unusual educational experiment — one of an increasing number using tools of cognitive psychology, which focuses on the mental dynamics behind thinking, remembering and problem solving. The technique under study in Tampa, called interleaving, has become an especially hot area of interest among researchers. It mixes distinct but related problems or ideas — long division, say, and multiplying fractions — in daily homework assignments. Most textbooks and schools do the opposite, concentrating or “blocking” lessons to drive home skills by having students practice one at a time, over and over. This is the equivalent of shooting 100 free throws in a row for basketball practice, or running through just the A minor scale for an hour’s music lesson. “The result is that you feel you’ve learned the material really well; people prefer blocked practice, when you ask them,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “But they do much better on later tests when they practiced interleaved, or mixed, sets of problems or skills. It’s completely counterintuitive.” Dr. Bjork and others have shown that studying mixed sets of related things — paintings, birds, baseball pitches — greatly improves people’s ability to make quick, accurate distinctions among them, compared with studying as usual, in blocks. Others have found the same improvements when the items being mixed are specific kinds of problems, like calculating volumes, or exponents. A growing number of cognitive scientists now believe that this cocktail-shaker approach could improve students’ comprehension of a wide array of scientific concepts, whether chemical bonds, parallel evolution, the properties of elementary particles or pre-algebra. The Tampa experiment is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences in the Department of Education, which uses randomized, controlled trials — similar to what the Food and Drug Administration demands in approving new drugs — to determine which educational methods work and which do not. It is the first rigorous, classroom-based test of interleaving in mathematics. The researchers started small: eight seventh-grade pre-algebra classes, 140 students in all. “We didn’t introduce anything new, or ask teachers to do any additional work,” said the lead investigator, Doug Rohrer, a psychologist at the University of South Florida and a former math teacher himself; his co-authors were Robert F. Dedrick and Kaleena Burgess. “We simply rearranged the material they already use.” The material included four basic types of problems: ■ Linear equations: for example, solving for x if 3(x + 1) = x + 17. ■ Word problems involving proportions. (Penelope’s tractor requires 14 gallons of gas to plow 6 acres. How many gallons will she need to plow 21 acres?) ■ Graphs. (Graph y = –3x + 1.) ■ Slopes. (Find the slope of the line that passes through (9, 7) and (2, 4).) Image Credit Jeffrey Fisher The students were split into two groups. Half got interleaved assignments on the first two problem types — linear equations and word problems — and regular, blocked assignments on the second two types. The other half got the reverse: blocked homework for linear equations and word problems, and interleaved for graphs and slopes. The students scored near zero on these kinds of problems at the beginning of the study. For the teachers involved in the study, the mixed assignments seemed, essentially, like review work. “Sometimes we do what we call ‘bell work,’ which is where we give them a little review before each class,” said Brendan Paul, another Liberty math teacher who helped run the study. “The difference here is that the review is built into the homework, every day.” Though the interleaved homework took longer at first, most of the students adjusted. “I usually need a lot of time to study for tests,” said Marigny Duga, who was a student in Mr. Paul’s class, “but doing this mixed homework, I felt like, when the test was coming I needed less time than usual, because everything was still pretty fresh in my head.” Over nine weeks, each student in the study got 10 assignments with 12 problems each. Same students, same problems. But each student got half a semester of mixed homework, and half a semester of blocked. Two weeks after the last homework assignment, the researchers gave a surprise cumulative test. The results were striking. Students scored 72 percent, on average, on the interleaved material. They scored 38 percent on the homework-as-usual problems. This is a large difference, but it’s not unheard of in laboratory studies of interleaved practice, experts said. Psychologists are not sure why mixed problem sets can improve learning. One possibility is that studying mixed platters of items makes a student ask, first, “What kind of problem am I looking at?” rather than blindly applying a single procedure to every problem in the assignment. “Contrast this to a typical homework assignment, which might say ‘The Quadratic Formula’ right there at the top of the page,” Dr. Rohrer said. “They know what strategy to use before they read the problem.” Another possible explanation is that interleaving reinforces the brain’s associations between specific types of problems (say, calculating slope) and a matching solution strategy (dividing the vertical change by the horizontal change, or “rise over run”). The problem and the solving strategy become a linked pair. Can these kinds of results hold up across school districts and over time? It is far too early to know, experts said. “You have to think of the classrooms as single units, so it’s a sample size of eight, which is small,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. “The effect of interleaving is exceptionally robust in the lab, in terms of aiding memory, and there is certainly nothing to object to in this particular study. “But I’m much more concerned with how these lab-based techniques interact with everything else in the classroom: the different dynamics, different kids, different teaching styles. For example, some percentage of teachers are going to say, ‘This doesn’t fit with how I teach math.’ Period. A lot of other people are simply not going to grasp what’s required to make it work. The question is: Is it adaptable?” Most psychologists who study learning think so. “Remember, learning is slower when you begin interleaving,” said John Dunlosky, a psychologist at Kent State University. “If you have both groups learn the material to the same level — that is, if you give the people doing interleaving a little extra time at the beginning — then the benefits of mixed practice will be even larger, I expect.” Or, like scores of other educational reforms big and small, interleaving might get lost in an administrative thicket or garbled in translation, one more good idea overwhelmed by reality. Dr. Rohrer wants to run a larger study, involving more than a dozen schools, some 80 classes and 1,600 students. “A lot of ideas have fizzled out as they’re scaled up,” he said. “So we need a larger study to find out if the benefits hold up in more than a few classes. ” | K-12 Education;Mathematics;Psychology;Tampa FL;Florida |
ny0215960 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/04/28 | Rising Oil Price Benefits BP Earnings | LONDON — BP, the British oil company, said Tuesday that its profit more than doubled in the first quarter, helped by higher oil prices. Profit rose to $6.08 billion from $2.56 billion in the first quarter of last year. The results beat some analyst expectation, setting the tone for other large oil companies, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, that are reporting later this week. BP benefited from a crude oil price that almost doubled in the first quarter as the global economy slowly recovers from recession. Oil prices averaged about $78 a barrel at the beginning of this year, up from about $40 a barrel last year. The earnings announcement comes as BP attempts to stem an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico that resulted from an explosion at a rig off the coast of Louisiana earlier this month. Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead. Tony Hayward, the chief executive, had focused on improving BP’s safety record since a fatal explosion at a Texas refinery in 2005 tarnished its reputation. Mr. Hayward has flown to the area to supervise the recovery efforts even though the accident is unlikely to hurt BP’s production because the deposit at the rig was relatively small. Mr. Hayward said earlier he plans to increase output by as much as 2 percent a year over the next five years. BP announced in September the discovery of a giant oil field several miles under the Gulf of Mexico. The company estimated it could take three or more years to begin extracting oil because it is so deep and only a relatively high oil price would make the exploration profitable. Oil prices recovered again in the past year after falling from a record of $147 in 2007. The current oil price of about $80 a barrel has made some exploration projects viable again for oil companies, which had focused on expanding natural gas production in the meantime, some analysts said. Gas prices climbed alongside those for oil but not as fast. Uncertainty about the future of supply of oil as demand rises has continued to push up the price. Governments of some exporting countries have limited access for foreign oil companies to reserves, while the economic recovery in much of the world has increased demand. Royal Dutch Shell is scheduled to release its first-quarter figures on Wednesday followed by ExxonMobil on Thursday and Chevron and Total on Friday. | BP Plc;Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Company Reports |
ny0247092 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2011/05/02 | Life in Limbo for Japanese Near Damaged Nuclear Plant | TENEI, Japan — For seven generations, Yoshitoshi Sewa and his ancestors have tilled this farm in a gently curving valley filled with green rice paddies. But now he will not let his young grandchildren play outside their tile-roofed home for fear of an invisible and potentially long-lasting threat, radiation. “Even if the government says it’s O.K., no one here wants to take the risk of radiation,” said Mr. Sewa, 63, whose farm sits about 40 miles west of Japan ’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant — well beyond the zone where residents have been told to leave or remain indoors. Since an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 crippled the plant, spewing radioactive particles into the air and sea, Tokyo has ordered the evacuation of a 12-mile radius, and some villages beyond that. But those living outside the evacuation zones have felt left in limbo, exposed to levels of radiation that are several times the normal level, though not high enough to cause observable health risks. Still, experts admit that there is a lack of knowledge about the health effects of lower doses of radiation, especially over an extended period of time. Japan’s plant has been dispersing radioactive material for nearly two months and counting, far longer than the 10 days during which the Chernobyl plant released a much larger burst of radioactive particles in 1986. It is difficult for Japanese experts to even agree on clear-cut numerical levels of radiation for deciding which areas are safe to inhabit — decisions that might affect hundreds of thousands of people living in hundreds of square miles of this densely population nation. “This is an unprecedented situation, to which none of our textbooks apply,” said Shigenobu Nagataki, former chairman of the Nagasaki-based Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which studied victims of the World War II atomic bombings. “Decisions are being made now that will have a huge impact on Japan’s future.” The disagreements came to the forefront on Friday, when a government adviser on radiation safety quit, calling on Japan to lower the permissible radiation dose of 20 millisieverts per year that the Education Ministry has set for schools for younger children, including elementary and junior high, in affected areas. Other Japanese critics point out that the figure comes from the International Commission on Radiological Protection, which sets it as the upper limit of radiation exposure in inhabited areas after a nuclear accident, and thus too high for schools because children are more vulnerable. Government officials and some experts retort that the level was still low enough not to pose a health risk. They also said that radiation levels would fall over the next two months with the disappearance of short-lived iodine 131, which accounts for about half of the radioactive material emitted by the plant. Other measures are being taken to clean up the remaining radioactive matter, mainly cesium 137, which can last for generations. Acting on its own, the city of Koriyama, about 35 miles west of the plant, will change the topsoil at 15 elementary schools where the city detected radiation doses above 20 millisieverts per year, and at 13 kindergartens where it found slightly lower radiation levels. The Education Ministry has also found similarly high levels At 13 elementary schools, kindergartens and preschools in Fukushima Prefecture. In the city of Fukushima, 35 miles northwest of the plant, some schools have barred students from playing outside while at school. At least one school also requires children to wear hats and surgical masks, and to avoid contact with playground equipment. The Education Ministry’s guidelines take into account the child’s exposure to radiation during the entire day, both at home and school, and experts say clean-up will have to happen all over towns, not just on school grounds. The radiation levels at schools is just one of the many decisions that Japan must make, whether on farm produce or the safety of entire towns. In Fukushima Prefecture, where the nuclear plant is located, the authorities conduct 50 tests a day on vegetables and milk, as much to reassure consumers as to find contaminated products. Even so, Mr. Sewa, the farmer in Tenei, said that he had to destroy this spring’s crop of 880 pounds of cucumbers because he could find no buyers. “Fukushima products are seen as tainted,” he said. Experts say the fact that the Japanese government has not evacuated more areas reflects the balance it has struggled to strike between public safety and a desire to limit the size of affected areas in a cramped nation with little space to spare. “Fleeing is simply not an option,” said Gen Suzuki, an expert on radioactivity at the International University of Health and Welfare in Otawara, Japan. “The debate now should not be whether 10 millisieverts is safer than 20, but what steps we should be taking to decrease radiation levels.” Mr. Suzuki and others say the risks are not as high as some people fear. But they admit that there is a lack of hard data about the health effects of lower radiation doses delivered over extended periods. Most knowledge about radiation’s health effects comes from Japan and studies on the survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Researchers calculated the exposure levels of survivors and then waited for decades to see what they died from. They then compared the data with death rates and causes of death in other, unexposed parts of Japan. The results showed elevated cancer rates from high levels of radiation released during atomic blasts, said Mr. Nagataki, who did such studies. But researchers are left to rely on educated guesses in trying to extrapolate those results down to lower doses, he said. Mr. Nagataki and other experts agreed that whatever additional cancer stemmed from the radiation levels seen in many of the evacuation zones around the Fukushima plant would probably be very low, even if residents remained in them. They said that a dose of 20 millisieverts per year would likely raise the rate of cancer deaths by far less than one percent, though the radiation levels in some of the evacuated areas are much higher than that, especially near the plant. With health risks so low, Mr. Nagataki said that evacuation was not only unnecessary, but potentially more dangerous than the radiation. He said they could face the same risks as survivors of Japan’s tsunami, who have been put into crowded school gymnasiums and other makeshift shelters where he said they are vulnerable to contagious diseases and emotional problems like depression. The Japanese authorities moved early to evacuate about 78,000 people within 12 miles of the Daiichi nuclear plant, and told another 62,000 people between 12 and 19 miles away to stay indoors. But Tokyo proved reluctant to expand evacuation areas, despite the urgings of the International Atomic Energy Agency and recommendations by the United States that its citizens stay 50 miles from the plant. Late last month, the authorities finally ordered the evacuation of another 7,000 people from the village of Iitate, 25 miles northwest of the plant, and a few nearby areas that showed readings in excess of 20 millisieverts per year. “The fact is that no one knows for sure what the risks are,” said Mr. Nagataki, “but that doesn’t stop many people from saying ‘Scary! Scary!’ ” | Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Japan);Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011);Radiation;Japan |
ny0064468 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/06/18 | Schools Chief Vows to Preserve Number of Gifted Programs and Their Exams | Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña plans to preserve the hallmarks of New York City’s gifted programs, the immensely popular classes and schools that draw high achievers but have been criticized as shutting out low-income children. Ms. Fariña, in an interview this week covering a variety of issues, pledged to continue using a contentious gifted admissions exam for 4- and 5-year-olds that was put in place under former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. She also promised to preserve the number of gifted programs citywide. “What exists right now is serving the purpose of communities, and I have no intention of touching it,” she said during an interview at the Education Department headquarters on Monday. She outlined plans to improve academic options for low-income students, including getting teachers at high-performing schools to advise teachers at struggling ones, and strengthening instruction in algebra, where many middle and high school students founder. But Ms. Fariña, a longtime teacher, principal and administrator who got a quick introduction to politics this year, was careful to note that she intended no changes that could drive middle- and upper-class families from the system. She said she opposed eliminating zone-based elementary school admission, which has been pushed by some advocates as a way of increasing racial diversity. “You would find parents who have invested in certain places,” she said. “You’re not going to tell them this is your zoned school but you can’t go.” And while she said she planned to expand tutoring for low-income children seeking entry to the city’s elite high schools, she said she would not mandate the return of an admissions program that allowed some disadvantaged students into the schools even if they did not score high enough on the entry test. Some advocates had hoped Ms. Fariña would overhaul the gifted and talented programs, which they see as a critical front in the effort to reduce inequality in the school system. As principal of Public School 6 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the 1990s, Ms. Fariña ended a popular gifted program, arguing that students would be better served if they were mixed by ability. In recent years, the city has struggled to increase the number of black and Hispanic students in gifted programs. In 2007, under Mr. Bloomberg, the Education Department instituted a citywide test that it hoped would make the admissions process fairer, replacing a system in which districts set their own standards. Instead, it wound up widening racial and socioeconomic disparities, with students in wealthier districts qualifying for gifted seats in far greater numbers than their poorer counterparts. “The inequities in the current makeup of our gifted and talented programs are a citywide disgrace,” said James H. Borland, a professor of education at Columbia University. Professor Borland suggested that the city judge students relative to the performance of their neighborhoods, rather than the whole city. Ms. Fariña said she was eager to bring strategies used in gifted programs, including project-based learning, to schools across the city. She said bright children outside gifted programs could be served by other means, including clubs, lunchtime programs, and science, technology, engineering and math enrichment. “There’s a lot of other ways to reach the needs of these kids,” she said. Nearly six months into her tenure as schools chief under Mayor Bill de Blasio, Ms. Fariña said she was focused on improving the quality of teaching, especially at low-income schools. She said she was proud of her efforts to require new principals to have more teaching experience, to reduce the role of standardized tests and to negotiate a teachers’ contract that included bonuses for educators who take on leadership roles. “We have changed the climate in terms of people feeling good about the jobs they’re doing,” she said. Mr. de Blasio has promised to involve parents and neighborhood leaders more actively in the work of schools. On Tuesday, he announced a $52 million grant to create 40 community schools , which combine traditional academic programs and social services with the aim of addressing issues like chronic absenteeism. Given a new state law requiring the city to provide free space to new charter schools or to help pay their rent, Ms. Fariña said she did not expect battles over space to end anytime soon, given the scarcity of available classrooms and the city’s efforts to expand prekindergarten programs. Job protections for teachers may also emerge as a topic of contention. A California court recently found teacher tenure laws unconstitutional, and legal scholars expect copycat cases. Ms. Fariña said she did not believe tenure laws hindered education. But she said principals had to be vigilant and work to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom. “Getting tenure might be a goal, but also removing tenure when necessary is also a goal,” she said. Ms. Fariña said that she was enjoying her job, and that she would stay on at least through the end of Mr. de Blasio’s current term. She said her biggest regret was a remark she made at the height of a snowstorm in February. Defending a decision to keep schools open, she said that it was a “beautiful day” outside, even as snow and freezing rain continued to hit the ground. She said that the line had become a conversation starter, and that strangers shouted it to her on the street. “It’s going to be on my tombstone,” she said, “and I can live with it.” | Carmen Farina;Gifted education;K-12 Education;NYC Department of Education;Tests;NYC |
ny0207694 | [
"science"
] | 2009/06/09 | A New Test Is Quicker for Finding Tainted Food | Last year, some 300,000 infants in China were sickened, and at least 6 died, after consuming infant formula that had been deliberately adulterated with the chemical melamine . The scandal, and previous contamination incidents involving pet food and other products, led the United States Food and Drug Administration to test food ingredients for the presence of melamine (which can make a food seem as if it has more protein than it does). The test the F.D.A. uses for infant formula, a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry technique, is time-consuming. So several research groups have been looking for quicker and less elaborate methods to detect melamine in powdered formula. A group at Purdue University is reporting in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that they have successfully used infrared spectroscopy for the task. Lisa J. Mauer and colleagues used several variations of the technique, which detects characteristic frequency-absorption patterns when light at infrared wavelengths is sent through a sample. All were able to detect melamine down to the threshold set by the F.D.A., one part per million, and quickly — the tests require little sample preparation beyond putting some powder into a vial, and results are obtained within a few minutes. | Melamine;Food Contamination and Poisoning;Food and Drug Administration;Science and Technology |
ny0115510 | [
"science"
] | 2012/11/13 | Isotope Analysis Provides Clues in a Florida Cold Case | As cold cases go, this one was frozen. Forty-one years ago a young woman’s badly decomposed body was found floating under a highway overpass at the southern end of Lake Panasoffkee, in central Florida, about an hour and a half northeast of Tampa. There was no clue to her identity, but one clear sign of her fate. “A man’s belt was wrapped around her neck,” said Darren Norris, an investigator with the Sumter County Sheriff’s office who is now in charge of the case. (The original lead investigator was William O. Farmer, who is now sheriff.) She was pulled from the water on Feb. 19, 1971, and detectives spent thousands of hours in a futile effort to determine who she was and who might have killed her. She was buried as Jane Doe. But such cases are not easy to let go. A young woman’s life and body had been thrown away. Detectives could not help but think of the family somewhere who had lost a daughter. In 1986, the body was exhumed, for further investigation, which again led nowhere. What the detectives had to go on, based on forensic science at the time, was frustratingly sketchy: She was 17 to 24 years old, might have had children, and seemed to be white or Native American. It wasn’t enough, and as it turns out it was only partly correct. Early this year, Detective Norris brought the skeleton of the victim, who early on became known as Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee , to Erin Kimmerle , a forensic anthropologist who directs the Tampa Bay Cold Case Project at the University of South Florida. Dr. Kimmerle reconstructed the woman’s face and clothing, took shavings of her tooth enamel and bones, and recruited George Kamenov, a geochemist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, to analyze chemical traces in those shavings of lead, carbon and other elements that can give a surprisingly detailed history of diet and environment. This kind of study, called isotope analysis, is part of the tool kit of geologists, archaeologists and paleontologists, but has only recently been used in criminal cases. Last week Dr. Kamenov reported at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte, N.C., on his work with Dr. Kimmerle and Detective Norris. His conclusions were startling. The young woman was not Native American, he told the society. The best evidence suggested that she grew up in Greece and came to the United States less than a year before she was killed. (Tarpon Springs, north of Tampa, has a large Greek-American population.) The research, said Detective Norris, “turned the case upside down.” Based on the findings, he provided information for an article that was published Oct. 11 in The National Herald, an international Greek-language newspaper. It was accompanied by the new reconstructed image of the victim and her clothing. The case is still not closed. The woman’s identity has not been determined, and Detective Norris acknowledges that it is still a long shot. But he is confident that he is on the right track. “The best lead that has ever come in this case came because of the science,” he said — science that has changed remarkably in the decades since the body was found. Among the changes are better databases for skull measurements used to determine ancestry; 3-D identification software for processing measurements and aiding in producing reconstructions of a face; and isotope analysis. A forensic investigation can now involve scientists from an array of fields, including anthropology and chemistry. “We’re all working together,” said Ann H. Ross , who developed the software program “ 3D ID ” and is professor of anthropology at North Carolina State University. “That’s where it has changed dramatically.” Isotope analysis is one of the newest tools. “It’s in its infancy now” in criminal cases, Dr. Ross said. One of the first times it was used in a criminal investigation was in the gruesome case of the torso of a young boy, who came to be called Adam, found in 2001 in the Thames River in England. Traces of strontium and other elements that accumulate in bones and other tissues led to Nigeria, and eventually to an area near Benin City. He was eventually identified, but no one has been charged with his murder. The reason such an analysis can be done is that elements come in different versions, called isotopes, that vary by mass. Rocks and soil in different geographic locations have characteristic percentages of these isotopes, a kind of signature. Geologists have been documenting these signatures for years, creating geographic databases. Now, with mass spectrometers, a scientist can read the signature of an element like strontium from a small sample of rock, bone, hair or other material and match it to a location. In Adam’s case the strontium signature matched pre-Cambrian rock in Nigeria. Dr. Kimmerle, the Florida anthropologist, was working on human rights cases in Benin City, Nigeria, when she talked to the police chief about Adam. “That’s what inspired me,” she said. She now collects sample isotopes for all her cases. And that’s why she recruited Dr. Kamenov, a geochemist, to whom she sent tooth enamel and bone shavings from the remains of the murder victim. Lead in the victim’s tooth enamel was what led Dr. Kamenov to his first discovery — that she grew up in Europe. In the 1950s, both Europe and America used leaded gasoline, and so lead ended up in the air, the dirt, the food and the teeth of growing children. But the lead came from different sources, with different signatures. European gasoline had lead from Australia, Dr. Kamenov said. “The whole of Europe was contaminated with this Australian lead,” he said. The young woman’s tooth enamel showed she had grown up in Europe. But where in Europe? For that, Dr. Kamenov looked at another element, oxygen, also incorporated in growing teeth. People living near the sea have more of the heavier oxygen isotopes: when seawater evaporates, the heavier molecules (hydrogen and oxygen) fall closer to the coastline. The victim’s tooth enamel showed heavier oxygen, which suggested she was from southern Europe. He also looked more closely at databases showing fine variations of lead isotope signatures in teeth and narrowed down her probable geographic origin to Greece, probably south of Athens. But, he cautioned in an e-mail that this is just “the most likely scenario based on all the data.” He put the probability at 60-70 percent that she was from Greece, but said there could be other locations in the region with a similar lead signature. A final piece of evidence came from carbon in her hair. Corn and wheat have different carbon signatures and Europeans have a more wheat-based diet than do Americans. In looking at samples from the growing root of the hair and the old tip, Dr. Kamenov found a change: “The last hair that grew showed heavier carbon isotopes.” The woman had moved to a corn-based diet during the time her hair was growing, less than a year. She was a recent arrival in the United States. And that discovery has given Detective Norris a slim edge in pursuing a very old, very cold case. People who knew the victim may well be dead now, so such a case is very hard to pursue. (Anyone with information may call the sheriff’s office at (888) 231-2168.) But, Detective Norris said, “the advantage is modern science comes along.” He has another purpose in publicizing the case, he says: the hope that knowledge of new forensic techniques will spread to other investigators. “This science exists,” he said. “You can use it. It’s a great tool.” | Forensic Science;Isotopes;Murders and Attempted Murders;Florida |
ny0202430 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2009/08/20 | Qantas Profit Decline Less Severe Than Expected | MELBOURNE — Qantas Airways, the largest Australian carrier, pointed to early signs of a pickup in air travel after posting its first half-year loss in six years amid the global recession. But the loss was smaller than analysts had expected, and comments that yields, which measure revenue per miles traveled, had stabilized helped to lift the airline’s shares by as much as 6 percent. The cautious outlook came as airlines around the world have been cutting capacity and jobs to deal with the slump in travel demand, aggravated by the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus. “Everybody was assuming the worst, and Qantas delivered a slightly better-than-expected result,” said Brian Han, a Constellation Capital Management investment analyst. “But they made it pretty clear the yields stabilized at a pretty low level, so it’s not much to sing about,” he added. The airline also announced further cost-cutting measures, totaling 1.5 billion Australian dollars, or $1.2 billion, over three years. But the group balked at giving a profit outlook, saying business conditions were too uncertain. It swung to a loss of 93 million dollars in the six months to June 30 from a profit of 351 million dollars a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations. It was the airline’s first loss for a six-month period since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, in 2003, and only the second since Qantas listed on the stock exchange in 1995. Qantas’s five-year credit-default swaps, which offer protection against defaults on debt, tightened but in line with the rest of the market. They were quoted at 163 basis points Wednesday, down from 170 bps Tuesday, according to a RBS trader. Still, Qantas’s chief executive, Alan Joyce, said there were signs of an improvement in passenger volume, and said yields had stabilized at levels seen in the six months to June, when demand for travel was hit by the economic slowdown. He also announced plans to lease extra capacity for the budget carrier Jetstar. The International Air Transport Association forecast in June that global airlines could lose $9 billion this year, nearly double its previous estimate. Singapore Airlines recently posted its first quarterly loss in six years and said it could make a loss for the full year if tough conditions persisted. Cathay Pacific Airways, Hong Kong’s top carrier, said this month it had swung back to profit in the six months to June, but warned of potential problems ahead. For the year to June 30, Qantas managed to eke out a pretax profit of 181 million dollars, a decline of 87 percent. Still, that exceeded analysts’ average forecast of 143.5 million, according to the estimates tracker IBES. Better-than-expected performance from Qantas’s frequent-flyer program and from Jetstar contributed to the result, the company said. Mr. Han, the Constellation analyst, noted that Qantas had outperformed its regional peers given the difficult operating environment. “They are protected to some extent, because they are the dominant one in a duopoly structure in the domestic market, which provides a defensive shield to their international operations,” he said. Qantas said it would take four additional A330-200 aircraft on six-year leases for Jetstar for long-haul international travel, with the first to be delivered in November 2010. Qantas made cutbacks to capacity and jobs in April and cut fares to deal with the downturn. Mr. Joyce said Wednesday that the airline was braced for an uncertain outlook. “If things do improve, we will be in a position to aggressively grow again and take on aircraft to take advantage of that,” Mr. Joyce said, adding, “If things got worse and who knows what could happen, then every option has to be on the table.” | Quantas Airways;Airlines and Airplanes;Company Reports |
ny0013446 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2013/11/09 | Late Loss After Hot Start Is Too Familiar to Oregon | STANFORD, Calif. — Oregon players trudged through the tunnel at Stanford Stadium, toward the visitors’ locker room, after Thursday night’s 26-20 loss to the Cardinal . Their once pristine white uniforms were muddied, their once shiny green numbers muted by shadow. They were silent, mostly, and wore tight-lipped expressions, never looking back at the sea of giddy humanity that had rushed the field, awash in Cardinal Red. The clip-clop of the Ducks’ cleats on concrete was barely audible above the din. Although Oregon entered the game with an 8-0 record and a No. 2 national ranking, it was just another night in a long line of seasons in which the team’s national championship hopes turned from very real to painfully doubtful. Sixth-ranked Stanford led to this undoing for the second year in a row. “Where we’ve put ourselves and where our players have put us, it’s obviously magnified,” Oregon Coach Mark Helfrich said. “We don’t hold the cards anymore.” Last November, Oregon was ranked second when Stanford went to Eugene, Ore., and upset the Ducks. The Cardinal needed overtime to squeak out that win, 17-14 . Thursday night’s game had far less suspense, as they jumped out to a 26-0 lead. The pattern of hot starts undone by late-season losses has become a familiar one in the Oregon locker room. In 2011, the 9-1 Ducks had their title hopes dashed by a loss at home in November to Southern California . Two years before that they were 7-1 and climbing in the polls before the Cardinal tripped them up. Arizona did the honors in 2007, knocking off an 8-1 Ducks team. As in so many recent seasons, Oregon was left to ponder missed opportunities after its loss Thursday night. On Oregon’s first possession, quarterback Marcus Mariota underthrew Josh Huff downfield on what easily could have been a long touchdown pass. On its next possession, the offense went for it on fourth down on the Stanford 4-yard-line, but could not convert. Down by 14-0 in the second quarter, De’Anthony Thomas fumbled at the Stanford 3, ending another potential scoring drive. Stanford, with a methodical offense and a stalwart defense, was a step ahead of Oregon on every critical play — converting crucial third downs and forcing two important turnovers. Oregon had not scored fewer than 42 points this season. The Ducks were scoreless through three quarters. Stanford rushed for 274 yards on 66 attempts. The Cardinal held the ball for more than 42 minutes and converted on 14 of 21 third downs. “We don’t get the ball enough if you don’t have many possessions,” Oregon offensive lineman Tyler Johnstone said. “That’s what held us down tonight.” Added Ducks defensive lineman Arik Armstead, “They just ground and pound you.” The Ducks put on brave faces after the game and saluted their furious fourth-quarter rally — 20 straight points on two touchdown passes by Mariota and a blocked field goal returned for a score — which fell short. They said they would return to practice Monday, focused on their remaining schedule and ready to work. They promised they would finish the season as they began it: with purpose. Stanford, though, now 8-1 and 6-1 in the Pac-12, has the inside track to the conference championship game. Each team has three games remaining. Stanford plays at Southern California and then at home against California and Notre Dame. Oregon hosts Utah and Oregon State and visits Arizona. The national title picture has crystallized, too, with Oregon now very much on the outside looking in. Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State and Baylor each remain undefeated. The one-loss field is crowded, as well. “Stuff’s going to happen this weekend that will be weird, and that’s one of the reasons you need to go back and get treatment and take care of our details and come back fighting next week,” Helfrich said. “I know our guys will.” Mariota, who battled a left knee injury in the game, said the Ducks had not circled this game on their calendar, despite last year’s loss. It was, he said, just another game on the schedule. The long faces and measured words belied that sentiment. “Just to see everything we worked so hard for go down the drain,” Huff said. “Our heart is broken.” Asked if he thought Oregon’s title hopes were dashed, he replied, “Who knows.” As the Ducks players answered hard questions after a tough loss, the team mascot — a giant white duck in a green sweater — lugged a large bag of equipment toward the team bus. Weighed down by his burden, he walked slowly and gingerly. For every Duck, it was a long ride home. | College football;Stanford;University of Oregon;Mark Helfrich |
ny0133408 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/03/02 | From Kindergarten Cutup to Big-Screen Actor at 9 | NEW BRUNSWICK ESHAYA DRAPER was born a showman. When he was just a toddler, his mother says, strangers used to follow them through the grocery store because he was such an engaging, not to mention eager, conversationalist. And in kindergarten he was quite the cutup. But time has mellowed him: As a 9-year-old, the actor who landed a role alongside Martin Lawrence, Donny Osmond and Raven-Symoné in Disney’s “College Road Trip,” to be released Friday, is less an attention-grabbing people-pleaser than a determined but quiet charmer. It’s a quality that can serve a precocious performer well. “We went through a long search to find this kid, because the part is important,” said Roger Kumble, who directed “College Road Trip”; Mr. Kumble was also director of the films “The Sweetest Thing” and “Cruel Intentions.” “We saw everyone from around the country,” he said. “But when I saw him, he reminded me of this kid who used to be in Jack-in-the-Box commercials in the ’70s, Rodney Allen Rippy.” Mr. Kumble’s reaction was: “He’s adorable. But can he act?” Not only did Eshaya have talent, Mr. Kumble said, but “he’s also the most well-mannered kid I’ve met in my life, and he takes direction incredibly well.” Scenes from the film bear that out. Eshaya plays Trey, the brilliant younger brother of Melanie (Raven-Symoné), a 17-year-old on a road trip to survey colleges with her controlling father (Mr. Lawrence). When the family’s parked S.U.V. lands in a ditch — one of many trials on their campus-to-campus journey — Eshaya appears genuinely freaked out. And when his pet pig, Albert, gets a caffeine buzz, he handles the outcome with character-appropriate aplomb. “I just like it. I like saying my lines. It’s fun,” Eshaya said in a conference room at the George Street Playhouse here, where he has been studying acting off and on for four years. “I like being around the actors.” On set in Connecticut last summer, he joked with Raven-Symoné (“Why did the pencil cross the road? To get to Pennsylvania,” was a big hit, he said) and competed in sidewalk races with Mr. Lawrence. “I’ve wanted to be an actor since kindergarten,” he said. That was when Glendora Palao, his kindergarten teacher at St. Mary of Mount Virgin school in New Brunswick, convinced his mother, Marcy Fitz, that he would be a natural for the theater’s workshops and summer camp. “He was always dancing and singing. And what a storyteller! He’d tell ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ making all this action and telling the story at the same time,” Ms. Palao said. Ms. Fitz described how, during trips to the supermarket with her toddler son, “We’d always have a trail of people following us through the store. People like to talk to him. He’s just personable,” she said. A former merchandiser, she recently started acting as her son’s manager. Eshaya and his mother credit George Street with forging a path to Hollywood: before he got an agent and started doing commercial work for Wal-Mart and Sony, among others, around 2005, he was selected for individual training at the theater. “Sometimes with certain kids who are really promising, we’ll hold them out and help them with audition skills,” said Danny Tamez, director of education at George Street Playhouse. “We don’t really do audition techniques training with kids as young as Eshaya, but he was moving much faster than most kids. He’s always there, in the moment.” Using the theater’s scholarship money, which is offered based on need, Eshaya has attended two summer sessions and six after-school programs since 2004. A standout memory is a recent staging of “Guys and Dolls.” “I was just being myself, singing,” he said. He was also just being himself when he decided not to tell his classmates at his New Brunswick school (Ms. Fitz did not want to disclose its name) about his part in “College Road Trip.” “I told some of the teachers but not really any friends. I wanted them to find out by seeing the commercials,” he said. He doesn’t expect to be treated any differently once they discover he’s become a movie star: “I want them to say, ‘You were good’ and ‘That was a great movie,’ ” Eshaya said. “That’s about it.” | Actors and Actresses;Disney Walt Co;Draper Eshaya |
ny0055612 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/09/05 | Sonia Sotomayor Speaks to Immigrant Justice Corps | The fresh-faced lawyers included refugees from violence and persecution in Central America, as well as the grandchildren of refugees from Eastern Europe. They arrived at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, on Thursday in similar shades of gray and black suits, poised to continue their training in a new program to help represent immigrants. Then a familiar face appeared unannounced in the courtroom, as adored by this group for her seat on the United States Supreme Court as for her upbringing by Puerto Rican parents in the Bronx. Justice Sonia Sotomayor ambled to the podium and said, “Well, I guess you know who I am.” Hands covered open mouths, and gasps rose from the 25 lawyers, who make up the inaugural class of the Immigrant Justice Corps, whose goal is to address a growing problem: the dearth of qualified lawyers to represent immigrants facing deportation and other legal problems. On the third day of their monthlong training in the rules of the country’s immigration system, the recent law school graduates expected to hear only from Robert A. Katzmann, chief judge of the federal appeals court and founder of the program. It was in the same 17th-floor courtroom where the group gathered that Judge Katzmann said he “first recognized the devastating problem of the absence of quality counsel.” But he was upstaged in his own chambers by a fellow advocate for immigrants. Citing a study on the shortage of legal representation, Justice Sotomayor said, “You don’t stand a chance of getting into this country if you’re unrepresented.” But, if you are represented, she added, “the odds are more in your favor.” Speaking to the group, she said, “You’re changing those lives for a lot of people.” Tiptoeing around a young lawyer’s question about what an ideal immigration system might look like in 100 years, Justice Sotomayor suggested that the current one was not meeting society’s needs. “A lot of the immigrants who are coming, like some of those in this room, are coming because of asylum needs,” she said. Domestic labor problems also weighed on her. “We’re in a really dysfunctional system right now, where the community obviously is hiring and employing illegal aliens, so there’s a need,” she said. In using the phrase “illegal aliens,” Justice Sotomayor inadvertently broke her own rule to instead use the phrase “undocumented.” The rule, which she explained earlier to the group, was a way to recognize that immigrants who break the law are not necessarily bad people. The lawyers each rose and told her of their own winding journeys. Luis Mancheno said he fled from Ecuador in 2008 and sought asylum in the United States because he was persecuted for being gay. Gloria Chacon, 26, told of escaping violence in Honduras by coming to New Jersey when she was 15, only to find her family’s difficulties compounded by an immigration lawyer who she said “wasn’t well versed in the law.” The lawyers were joined by 10 recent college graduates with multilingual skills who will help handle less complex cases for the group. Three of those advocates are themselves undocumented immigrants, and would not have been eligible to work had they not qualified for deportation deferrals that include permits to work legally. Melissa Garcia Velez, 22, a recent graduate of Lehman College and an undocumented immigrant from Colombia, said she felt the sting of being ineligible for scholarships when she applied to schools. She said Justice Sotomayor’s encouragement fortified her. “People are so silenced,” Ms. Velez said. “Her sharing her impact made me feel more sure about what I wanted to do.” Justice Sotomayor said that Puerto Ricans’ status as United States citizens mostly shielded her family from the immigrant experience. But, she added, a sudden explosion of immigration cases that came before her as an appeals court judge in the early 2000s taught her the perils of incompetent representation. “Immigrants were being hoodwinked, sometimes by their own people,” she said. After everyone had spoken, the lawyers, advocates and Judge Katzmann surrounded Justice Sotomayor at the front of the courtroom for a ceremonial photo, a sea of monochrome suits that belied a spectrum of diverse origins. | Sonia Sotomayor;Immigration;Illegal Immigration;Lawyers;Deportation;Hispanic Americans;Bronx |
ny0051943 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2014/10/23 | New Commissioners Approved for E.U.’s Executive Branch | BRUSSELS — Lawmakers on Wednesday approved a new set of commissioners for the European Union’s executive branch, ending months of sometimes acrimonious debate over the administrative direction of the 28-nation bloc. The vote by the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, enables Jean-Claude Juncker , the former prime minister of Luxembourg, to take over as president of the European Commission on Nov. 1, heading a team of 27 other commissioners. There were 423 votes in favor of the commission, 209 votes against and 67 abstentions. In a speech to the European Parliament before the vote, Mr. Juncker acknowledged that the next five years — the length of the new commission’s term — would be the “last chance” to get citizens of the bloc’s member countries to fully support the concept of European unity. Some of the lawmakers who were elected in May campaigned on a platform of dropping the euro or even leaving the European Union. Others who were voted into office vowed to challenge the powers of European authorities like the commission, which they viewed as overly meddlesome and out of touch with regular citizens. In that spirit, the nomination hearings for the candidates in Mr. Juncker’s commission were unusually contentious. Jonathan Hill, a Briton who was nominated to oversee financial markets, was called back for an unprecedented second hearing before the committee. And for the first time, lawmakers derailed the candidacy of a nominee who was a former prime minister. That candidate, Alenka Bratusek of Slovenia, had been nominated by Mr. Juncker to oversee energy policy. She failed to convince lawmakers that she had the qualifications for the job or that she would be sufficiently tough toward Russia, which is a major supplier of natural gas to Europe. Last week, Mr. Juncker said that Maros Sefcovic of Slovakia was his new nominee to oversee energy policy. Mr. Sefcovic had originally been intended to manage transportation matters, but that role now goes to Violeta Bulc of Slovenia. Each of the European Union’s member countries is allowed one person on the commission. Among its many roles, the commission has the sole right to initiate European legislation and the power to enforce treaties by suing member governments at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Frans Timmermans, a former foreign minister of the Netherlands, becomes first vice president and will serve as Mr. Juncker’s deputy. Federica Mogherini, the Italian foreign minister, becomes the bloc’s foreign policy chief, taking over from Catherine Ashton of Britain. After the vote on Wednesday, Mr. Juncker said it was “time to roll up our sleeves and get down to work: to kick-start economic recovery, create more and better jobs, address the plight of Europe’s youth for a better future, protect the most vulnerable in our society and cope with the rapidly deteriorating geopolitical situation.” The European Union has its origins in the 1950s, after World War II, but it has recently come under strong pressure from populist and anti-European movements, particularly in countries like France and Britain. Those movements, which won record numbers of seats in the Parliament in elections in May, say that institutions like the commission have been ineffective at controlling migration and managing the economy. During the proceedings on Wednesday morning, some lawmakers waved placards opposing austerity, the tough budgetary discipline endorsed by Mr. Juncker’s predecessor, José Manuel Barroso. Austerity measures, which emphasize deficit reduction over stimulus spending, helped prevent debt-ridden countries like Greece and Cyprus from being forced to leave the euro currency union, but also forced many Europeans into economic hardship. Wednesday’s parliamentary session had a helping of hostile statements. Nigel Farage, the head of the U.K. Independence Party, said Britain would no longer be part of the European Union by the end of Mr. Juncker’s term. And Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, a far-right French party, said Mr. Juncker would do too little to protect Europe from the forces of globalization. Philippe Lamberts, a president of the Greens bloc in the Parliament, said his group could not vote in favor of Mr. Juncker’s commission because its platform did not go far enough to “re-establish the trust of our citizens in the nascent European democracy” or to tackle rising inequality. At least one analyst agreed with Mr. Juncker’s statement that the European Union has reached a pivotal moment. “Juncker is right that the next five years are decisive,” Guntram B. Wolff, the director of Bruegel, a research group based in Brussels, said Wednesday. “We have to create jobs to keep the support of citizens for the E.U.” “To convince national policy makers of the need to act,” Mr. Wolff said, Mr. Juncker would need to focus on harnessing financing from institutions like the European Investment Bank and use his diplomatic skills. In scrutinizing the candidacy of Mr. Hill as commissioner for financial regulation, lawmakers expressed concern about the potential for conflicts of interest because of Mr. Hill’s work as a lobbyist for a company with financial services clients. Some also expressed skepticism because Mr. Hill is a close ally of Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain. Mr. Cameron has promised to hold a referendum on whether Britain should remain part of the European Union if he wins the country’s general election next May. | European Commission;EU;Jean-Claude Juncker;Jonathan Hill;Frans Timmermans;Alenka Bratusek;Federica Mogherini |
ny0096989 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/06/04 | Frick Museum Abandons Contested Renovation Plan | The Frick Collection has yielded. Facing a groundswell of opposition to a proposed renovation that would have eliminated a gated garden to make way for a six-story addition, the museum — long admired for its intimate scale — has decided to abandon those plans and start over from scratch. “It just became clear to us that it wasn’t going to work,” said a museum official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the board had not yet made the decision final with a vote. “It won’t be the best plan, but we will go back and prioritize,” the official added. “There was just a number of voices out there and we heard them.” With the proposed renovation, designed by Davis Brody Bond, the Frick, on East 70th Street in Manhattan, had sought to increase its exhibition space, open private upstairs rooms to the public and offer views of Central Park from a new roof garden. But the plan faced strong criticism, much of it from a coalition, Unite to Save the Frick, that includes architects and designers like Robert A..M. Stern and Maya Lin, as well as three former commissioners of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission — Roberta Brandes Gratz, Stephen F. Byrns and Beverly Moss Spatt. The coalition last fall produced evidence that the museum was going back on a promise made in its original landmark review about 40 years ago to make permanent the garden, designed by the British landscape architect Russell Page. This evidence — revealing that the issue of permanence was discussed in correspondence between the Frick and the Landmarks Preservation Commission — built upon a 1977 news release uncovered by Charles A. Birnbaum, the president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, in which the Frick talked about creating a permanent garden. Last month, the Municipal Art Society also declared its intention to publicly oppose any expansion plan. Facing potential “protracted legal battles” associated with pushing its plan forward, the museum decided to go another way, the museum official said. The Whitney Museum of American Art, formerly just five blocks away, fought for more than a year with Upper East Side residents and preservationists over building a nine-story tower behind a row of brownstones in a designated historic district and ultimately decided to move downtown to the new building that opened last month. The project had also met with strong criticism in the press, including from Michael Kimmelman, the New York Times architecture critic, who called the addition “clumsy” and the garden “a civic gem.” Image A gated garden was to be eliminated. Credit Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times The new addition would have extended the building to the east — using space currently occupied by the gated garden that is generally not accessible to the public — and would have established a stronger connection from the museum to its art reference library on East 71st Street. The extension would have given the Frick 50 percent more space for temporary exhibitions and 24 percent more for its permanent collection of some 1,200 works, by artists like Degas, El Greco, Manet and Renoir. The museum has said its current spaces are too small to accommodate popular exhibitions like the recent show of paintings from the The Hague, which had people lining up to see Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” and Fabritius’s “The Goldfinch.” Opponents have countered that the Frick’s modest jewel-box interior is intrinsic to the institution’s importance. The Frick was due to present the renovation plans for approval by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, since the museum is in a late Gilded Age mansion, which was designed by Thomas Hastings for the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The project also would have required several variances. Asked if city officials had alerted the museum that landmarks approval was unlikely, the official said only that there had been discussions with landmark officials about the plan. “This was a board decision,” the official said. The collection, which opened to the public in 1935, added its entrance lobby in 1977 and three years ago converted an outdoor portico into indoor space. There have been three previous attempts to expand the museum in recent years — in 2001, 2005 and 2008. The Frick’s board, which is scheduled to meet on Thursday, has yet to take a formal vote on the matter. The Unite to Save the Frick coalition said in a statement that it was encouraged that the museum had chosen to consider the “many viable alternatives that would preserve the Russell Page Garden and the intimate house museum experience treasured by so many in New York City and around the world.” Since the construction was not scheduled to begin until 2017, the Frick could conceivably maintain the same timeline, the official said, adding that the museum hoped to produce new plans by the end of the year. Any new plan would seek to preserve the garden while retaining as many of the elements of the now scuttled plan as possible, the official said. “Realistically, it’s going to be compromised,” the official said. “Things will have to be pulled back.” | Frick Collection;Museum;Landmarks Preservation Commission |
ny0222531 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2010/11/18 | Fox Goes for Big Ten | Fox Sports acquired the rights to carry the new Big Ten Conference football championship game from 2011 to 2016. Financial details were not disclosed. The championship game was added this year when Nebraska joined the conference as its 12th member. The conference was then split into two divisions. Fox, which owns 49 percent of the Big Ten Network, has wanted to return to carrying big-time college football on broadcast TV since it was outbid by ESPN two years ago to keep the rights to the B.C.S. games that it held from 2007 to 2010. Big Ten games are carried on ESPN’s multiple platforms. | College Athletics;Football;Television;Fox Broadcasting Co;Big Ten Conference |
ny0094415 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/01/27 | New York City Is Spared the Worst Effects of Snowstorm | For the latest on the winter storm affecting the New York region, click here . New York City was spared from the worst of a snowstorm that hit the Northeast early Tuesday, with the dire warnings that it could be one of the worst blizzards in the city’s history failing to materialize. Heavy snow fell east of the city, with about 15 inches at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, according to the National Weather Service . At Central Park, the total snowfall for the storm was about 5.5 inches. More snow and strong winds were forecast for the region on Tuesday. In an updated storm forecast , the National Weather Service in New York said that the total snowfall could reach 14 to 18 inches in the city and 24 to 36 inches in Long Island. “We’re going to see snow falling in the morning hours,” Jim Hayes, a meteorologist for the weather service, said early Tuesday. “The heavy snow will fall from central Long Island and Connecticut eastward.” There will be dangerous driving conditions in the morning, but they will improve as the day goes on, Mr. Hayes said. Late Monday, driving bans had taken effect across New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut. Subway and bus service were suspended, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey closed Hudson River crossings. Thousands of flights were grounded, public transportation was suspended or curtailed, and travel bans were put in place in the half-dozen states in the path of the storm. More than two feet of snow had been expected in some parts of the region before the storm’s end. Video Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday urged New Yorkers to stay indoors and avoid hazardous conditions during the snowstorm. Credit Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times In New York City, after calls by the authorities to head home early, workers poured out of office buildings on Monday and crowded onto subway platforms, packed train stations and squeezed onto buses. As Sandeep Dutta, 42, waited for his train home at Jamaica station in Queens, he held tight to a backpack with emergency provisions, including waterproof boots and chemical warming packs. “There’s just more anxiety,” Mr. Dutta said. “You’re anxious to get home, but so far, things are working out.” As the storm gathered moisture over the Atlantic and picked up energy, commuters also took to the roads — hoping to beat both the deteriorating weather and the widespread bans on driving that were set to go into effect late on Monday. From Fort Lee, N.J., to Andover, Mass., nearly every road was declared off limits by government officials to everyone except emergency workers. The orders were both to keep people safe and to allow workers better access to start clearing roads. “This will most likely be one of the largest blizzards in the history of New York City,” Mayor Bill de Blasio had warned. Early Tuesday, the National Weather Service acknowledged that the predictions had been off-target. “Rapidly deepening winter storms are very challenging to predict, specifically their track and how far west the heaviest bands will move,” the weather service said as it updated its forecast. “These bands are nearly impossible to predict until they develop. Our science has come a long way, but there are still many moving parts in the atmosphere, which creates quite the forecast challenge.” Share Your Instagram Photos From the Snowstorm The New York Times would like to see your photos from the blizzard bearing down on New York and New England. Even as the authorities issued dire warnings on Monday, many reveled at the prospect of taking a day off from school or work and play. Mr. de Blasio took the unusual step of ordering all drivers off the streets by 11 p.m. on Monday, a ban that he said covered “anything that has to do with leisure or convenience,” including, to the chagrin of many housebound New Yorkers, food delivery. The call to completely clear the streets was a reflection of how seriously public officials were taking the threat of the storm, which was expected to affect a 250-mile stretch of the Northeast. Across the region, governors declared states of emergency, deployed National Guard units and prepared fleets of snowplows and salt trucks. Coastal areas including eastern Long Island, Cape Cod and other parts of New England were expected to be battered by winds that could blow nearly as high as a hurricane — the threshold is 74 m.p.h. — leading to possible flooding and widespread power failures that might last for days. The public seemed to heed the warnings, crowding the aisles of grocery and home-goods stores to stock up on supplies. Given that cars stranded on roads and highways have proved to be a problem during recent storms, state leaders all had a common message — get off the roads as soon as possible. How Much Snow Has Fallen Inches of snow and time of measurement as reported by the National Weather Service. “Mother Nature has decided once again to come visit us in an extreme way,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo , who banned driving on Long Island, where winds could exceed 70 m.p.h., and most of the counties in the southern part of the state starting at 11 p.m. “This is going to be a blizzard. It is a serious blizzard. It should not be taken lightly.” Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts echoed those concerns. “This is a top-five historic storm, and we should treat it as such,” he said. “This is clearly going to be a really big deal.” It is also the first storm Mr. Baker is facing since he was sworn in this month, and, like other politicians, he is aware that he will be judged on the state’s response. Mr. Baker ordered a statewide travel ban in effect at midnight on Monday. The Boston subway system and commuter rail lines were also scheduled to shut down at midnight and remain closed on Tuesday. Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston ordered drivers off the street on Monday evening and said residents would be notified by loudspeaker that a parking ban was going into effect at 6 p.m. “You should not be driving in the city of Boston,” he said. “All residents, once you park your car, leave your car there and do not leave your house.” Mr. de Blasio said the decision to order all drivers off the roads in New York City was necessary to ensure that sanitation workers could clear streets and emergency workers could get where they needed to go. He said the order extended to those making food deliveries on bicycles. “People have to make smart decisions from this point on,” he said. “It is not business as usual.” While the city announced that parks would be closed to the public at 6 p.m., crews planned to work throughout the storm, clearing roads and paths and removing downed limbs. In all, the city has deployed some 1,800 plows to clear more than 6,000 miles of roadways. | Snow Snowstorms;Weather;Delays;Bill de Blasio;Andrew Cuomo;NYC;Northeastern States |
ny0210961 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2017/01/20 | Another Day at a Monument to Democracy | WASHINGTON — The glorious Lincoln Memorial was closed on Inauguration Day, leaving its white marble inhabitant to inspire from a distance. The monument had served as a backdrop for an inaugural concert the night before, and now, in the late morning, construction workers were methodically removing the silvery bars of scaffolding that imprisoned it. Even so, its sole resident could still be seen behind the Doric columns, his gaze trained on the far-off domed Capitol, where a peaceful transfer of power was about to take place. And people still came to be in his presence, some to remind themselves that a country riven by dissent can come together. It has before. No matter that the sky was as gray as the Potomac, or that the cold air felt like a wet sweater. Here they were, from the North and South, East and West, in red Trump hats and blue Hillary T-shirts, jubilant, distressed, feeling a part and apart. They stood in admiration of Lincoln, as workers tore down and cleaned up, including a man collecting debris with a hand-held picker, his dog tag laced securely into one of his military-issue boots. Ed Rich, he said his name was, while taking a Camel break. Forty-four years old. A mortgage broker from Annapolis, trying to ride out a slow period. So it’s $12 an hour working for the inauguration, putting up fencing, laying down flooring, snapping up cigarette butts with a metal picker. “I voted for him,” Mr. Rich said of Donald J. Trump, at this point still the president-elect. “I think he could make a mess of it, but it could be cleaned up easily. People seem to forget there’s a House and a Senate.” Mr. Rich tossed his spent cigarette into the box of garbage he was carrying and returned to collecting butts and paper bits, his words nowhere near as eloquent as those of Lincoln, carved into the memorial’s walls, yet in the same vein: the belief — often tested, including on this day — in the country’s democratic system of governance. Generations have come to the Lincoln Memorial to reassure themselves — or to remind the rest of the nation — of this foundational belief. The African-American contralto, Marian Anderson, sang here in 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution had barred her from another Washington venue; she began with “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., of course, delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech here in 1963, after Mahalia Jackson called out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” Even Richard M. Nixon, during a dark moment of his presidency (and that is saying something), came here on a very early May morning in 1970, valet in tow; he wound up in profoundly strange conversations with some Vietnam War protesters, his disjointed message: Don’t give up on this country. In their footsteps came others on this inaugural morning. Jerry Naradzay, 56, a physician from Henderson, N.C., cycled up to the monument with his 13-year-old son, Sammy, the father’s broad smile explained by his red “Make America Great Again” cap. He noted that the memorial’s stone had come from both the North and the South to convey unity after division. He then said he had goose bumps just thinking of more than two centuries of peaceful transfers of power. Nodding toward the memorial, Dr. Naradzay said, “This monument represents how the country is bigger than one man.” Standing nearby in full agreement were four Hillary Clinton supporters from Wisconsin’s North Country. They had made plans for this Washington visit in expectation of a different result, but decided to come anyway, in part to participate in the women’s march on Saturday. So: How did they feel? “Hollow,” said Jackie Moore, 33, a member of the Ashland City Council. Several awkward seconds of silence followed. When conversation resumed, another Ashland council member, David Mettille, 32, and his partner, Teege Mettille, 36, recounted how their blue Hillary shirts had spurred some heckling, but they didn’t mind. It was their way of saying: We’re still here. “We will remember this,” David Mettille said. “We will remember how painful today is, so that four years from now — we work to win.” Then Teege Mettille noted that they had about a half-hour left of President Obama, and off the visitors from Ashland went. It was true: Time was winding down, or winding up. From the swearing-in ceremony in the distance, beyond the reflecting pool’s greenish waters, came the echoes of ministers beseeching God for guidance, the raised voices of the Missouri State University Chorale, the somber tones of imminent transition. All the while, others came to be in Lincoln’s presence. A retired civil engineer from Virginia who said he had voted for Mr. Trump because a relative is a heroin addict, and because the Mexican border is a sieve. A couple from Utah who voted for Mr. Trump because their community depends on natural gas and oil. Mothers and their adult daughters from Texas and New Mexico, so dismayed that Mr. Trump would soon be their president that they kept their backs to the inauguration. Soon the Mormon Tabernacle Choir could be heard singing “America the Beautiful.” Then came the distinctive voice of the new president, his assertions of a restored American greatness in all things floating through the gray noon and up the four score and seven steps leading from the reflecting pool to the memorial. No longer president-elect, he was now President Trump. While the pageantry unfolded, Mr. Rich, the debris collector, kept working. A former Marine, he said he spent six months in Iraq with a mortuary affairs unit, collecting bodies and body parts from the front. Sometimes there wasn’t enough for certain identification, he said, “so you’d write, ‘Believed to be.’” He said he was making plans to succeed again in the mortgage business, in a country whose balanced-power form of government he trusts. But for now Mr. Rich had what he called his mission, which was to keep the plaza beneath Lincoln’s gaze clean. | Washington DC;US Politics;Inauguration;Donald Trump |
ny0254465 | [
"technology"
] | 2011/07/31 | With the Bing Search Engine, Microsoft Plays the Underdog | BELLEVUE, Wash. MIKE NICHOLS has a poster on his office wall. It shows the young Muhammad Ali glaring down at a fallen Sonny Liston, the bruising heavyweight who had seemed invincible — until Ali beat him, in 1964, in one of the biggest upsets in sports history, and then beat him again a year later. “The triumphant underdog,” Mr. Nichols says, nodding toward the wall. The inspirational fight poster is fitting, because Mr. Nichols, a general manager at Microsoft , is a lieutenant in an underdog corporate army here. Its daunting mission is to take on the Google juggernaut. Microsoft’s assault on Google in Internet search and search advertising may be the steepest competitive challenge in business today. It is certainly among the most costly. Trying to go head-to-head with Google costs Microsoft upward of $5 billion a year, industry executives and analysts estimate. As the overwhelming search leader, Google has advantages that tend to reinforce one another. It has the most people typing in searches — billions a day — and that generates more data for Google’s algorithms to mine to improve its search results. All those users attract advertisers. And there is the huge behavioral advantage: “Google” is synonymous with search, the habitual choice. Once it starts, this cycle of prosperity snowballs — more users, more data, and more ad dollars. Economists call the phenomenon “network effects”; business executives just call it momentum. In search, Google has it in spades, and Microsoft, against the odds, wants to reverse it. Microsoft has gained some ground. Its Bing search site has steadily picked up traffic since its introduction two years ago , accounting for more than 14 percent of searches in the American market, according to comScore . Add the searches that Microsoft handles for Yahoo, in a partnership begun last year , and Microsoft’s search technology fields 30 percent of the total. Yet those gains have not come at the expense of Google. Its two-thirds share of the market in the United States — Google claims an even higher share in many foreign markets — has remained unchanged in the last two years. The share losers have been Yahoo and smaller search players. The costs for Microsoft, meanwhile, keep mounting. In the latest fiscal year, ended in June, the online services division — mainly the search business — lost $2.56 billion. The unit’s revenue rose 15 percent, to $2.53 billion, but the losses still exceeded the revenue. Microsoft is a big, rich company. But investors are growing restless at the cost of its search campaign. In May, when David Einhorn, the hedge fund manager, called for Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s C.E.O., to be replaced, he pointed to the online unit as a particular sore spot. Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s online services division, sees the situation this way: “To break through, we have to change the game. But this is a long-term journey.” MR. LU, 49, knows about long journeys — and persistence. His grandparents raised him in rural China, in a home without running water or electricity. A bright student, he won a scholarship to the doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon. After stints at the Almaden Research Center of I.B.M. and at Yahoo, where he was in charge of its search and search ad technology, he joined Microsoft at the end of 2008. He was recruited by Mr. Ballmer, who assured him that Microsoft was committed to search and competing with Google for the long haul. Paul Yiu came from Yahoo two years ago, impressed by Microsoft’s approach to competing in search. A business and product manager, Mr. Yiu had spent most of his career in Silicon Valley, often working for Microsoft adversaries like Netscape and Oracle. He explains that in the valley, with its job-hopping and start-up culture, there is a “renters’ mentality”: if things aren’t working out, just move on. At Microsoft, he says, there is a “homeowners’ mentality”: a dedication to making things work. “If you’re in the expensive search game, you need to have a homeowners’ mentality,” Mr. Yiu says. Microsoft’s leadership knew years ago that becoming a real competitor to Google would take patience as well as dollars. In 2007, Mr. Ballmer met with Harry Shum, a computer scientist who led Microsoft’s research lab in Beijing at the time. Mr. Ballmer, as Mr. Shum recalls, told him that the company wanted to make a concerted push in search and bring in leading technical experts and business managers. “You spent 10 years in research, and now you’ll spend the next 10 years in search,” he remembers Mr. Ballmer saying to him. When Mr. Lu and Mr. Shum, another Ph.D. graduate of Carnegie Mellon, talk of changing the game, they mean making search smarter. Today’s search, they say, primarily finds topics, or noun phrases — a person’s name, a city, a product, a disease and so on. “Search is still essentially a Web site finder.” Mr. Lu says. “It’s all nouns. But the future of search is verbs — computationally discerning user intent to give them the knowledge to complete tasks.” The phrase that Microsoft uses is “decision engine,” as opposed to search engine. New classes of information will help. Social network data, for example. Microsoft has an exclusive partnership with Facebook , and in May it included a feature for linking the “Like” tags of a person’s Facebook friends to that person’s search results in Bing. It might show, say, that 15 of your Facebook friends “liked” a certain restaurant. It is a first step, Mr. Lu says, in including trusted opinions in search — and not just the popular ones that conventional search does so well. Location data, especially from the growing share of searches on smartphones, offers another rich stream of information. If the engine knows where you are, it can add another layer of context and knowledge to the search. The ability to write increasingly responsive, full-featured applications for the Web — using the new HTML5 programming language — should also make search more intelligent. The goal, Mr. Lu says, is that someday you will speak a phrase into your smartphone — “dinner for two on Friday and movie after” — and the software will go to work. It will connect to your personal data — your location, your dining and film preferences. It will then connect to dining and restaurant reservation applications, like Yelp and OpenTable, and movie reservation applications like Fandango. Then the engine will begin a dialogue: “Here’s what is available. Where would you like to eat and when?” In short, Mr. Lu describes a vision of a search engine that is part intelligent software assistant and part mind reader. In Bing, the most visible evidence of the decision-engine concept is the ability to aggregate and present specific kinds of information in a search result. Microsoft has invested in travel services, for example. Type “flights to San Francisco” into Bing, and below a few blue-shaded links to ads is a Bing Travel flight database. Click on departure and return dates, and it performs a full search of all flights and predicts whether the fare is likely to rise or fall in the days before the departure date. That feature is based on technology from Farecast, a start-up that Microsoft bought for $115 million in 2008. Bing also uses technology from MedStory, a health search engine it bought four years ago for an undisclosed price, to pull together information from across the Web and present it in an on-screen box above the conventional search links. Type in “diabetes,” and the gray-shaded information box contains a short definition from the Mayo Clinic, along with a link to the full article. Just below are links to diabetes articles from other professional health publications. Next come links to four related conditions, like high blood pressure and obesity, and four to related medications. At the bottom are links to recent Twitter posts about diabetes. Technology experts agree that Bing is making innovative strides. “There is so little context in current search, and what Microsoft is trying to do is present users with context and structure, more a map of the world of information instead of just ranking it, especially in specific subject areas like travel and health,” says Esther Dyson, an investor in start-ups and a longtime technology analyst. “Microsoft is trying to beat Google at this different game.” But while Microsoft may be ahead in some facets, Google is innovating as well — and acquiring specialized technology to fold into its search engine. In April, the Justice Department approved Google’s $700 million purchase of ITA Software , which collects and organizes online data for airline flights. Last year, Google paid an undisclosed sum for MetaWeb, a start-up that used a vast database to better decipher the meaning, and not just the words, of search queries. In 2008, Microsoft paid an estimated $100 million for Powerset, a start-up that is also a specialist in so-called semantic search technology. “Both these companies are making important steps to make search more intelligent,” says Oren Etzioni, a computer scientist at the University of Washington. “It’s an arms race.” At Google, the Microsoft talk of a “decision engine” is regarded as a clever turn of phrase that merely describes the long-range ambition of search and information retrieval, as the field was called in the years before the Internet. “The goal has always been the same,” explains Amit Singhal, a computer scientist who leads Google’s search team. “The progression is from data to useful information to knowledge that answers questions people have or helps them do things. Knowledge is the quest.” IT’S a Wednesday morning in June, and Brian MacDonald is presiding over back-to-back product meetings for Bing. Mr. MacDonald, 49 and a vice president, is a returnee to Microsoft. His first stint began in 1989, when Microsoft acquired a business software company he co-founded; he stayed on, managing the development of a series of programs in Microsoft’s lucrative Office business until 2001. In those 12 years, Microsoft’s share price soared, and stock options for managers yielded the kind of personal wealth that opened up life choices. He left, invested in a few start-ups, spent time with his young children. But his children became teenagers and the appeal of dabbling in start-ups faded, and he was lured back to Microsoft in 2007, when, he says, the company was finally becoming “focused and serious about search.” The meetings are in a sixth-floor conference room in an office complex here in Bellevue, a Seattle suburb. (Most Bing employees work in Bellevue, needing more space than was available at the headquarters campus in Redmond.) Each meeting involves about a half-dozen designers and engineers ranging in age from the late 20s to 40s. A few others join in by phone and videoconference from Silicon Valley and India. The first session focuses on software still in the concept stage, called Bing DeskBar. It is downloadable software for personal computers, and perhaps for smartphones and tablets. The DeskBar, in the early June prototype, sorts information by categories like people, documents and Web sites. It presents information in those categories in large on-screen icons, or tiles, and sorts data by what is most “recent, relevant and frequently used,” as one designer says. The people feature, for example, sorts through communications including e-mail, Facebook and Twitter messages. The idea is to filter messages according to computed criteria — like those from your work colleagues, or from people you communicate with most often. DeskBar is one of several experimental projects in the larger Bing strategy, Mr. MacDonald explains later. “You take a product category, you expand it and you own that expanded category,” he says. “We have a recipe.” That is the formula that worked in the past for Microsoft in PC software, with Windows and Office. But whether that game plan will work against Google is uncertain at best. The second meeting focuses on design tweaks in Bing’s next wave of improvements, which would be released into the search engine a few weeks later. The upgrades have come in six-month cycles since the preparations for Bing’s introduction in May 2009. Each cycle is named for a city. First was Kiev, then Oslo, Boston and Denver. A recent upgrade was called Mountain View, for the Silicon Valley town where Google is based. The next three cycles will be named for rock bands formed in West Coast cities, gradually moving closer to Microsoft’s base: Metallica (Los Angeles), Nirvana (Aberdeen, Wash.) and Soundgarden (Seattle). “We’re bringing it back here,” Mr. MacDonald says. Witty code names aside, Bing has a long way to go. It is praised for improvements in search quality and features that distinguish it from Google, including its stylish home page — a different and striking picture each day, typically of a place, plant or animal, with four links to information about the subject that appear when a computer cursor passes over the image. Advertisers have noticed Bing’s progress. Laura Desmond, C.E.O. of Starcom MediaVest, an ad strategy and placement agency, says Microsoft’s share of its corporate clients’ click volume from search ads has grown to 24 percent, from 14 percent, in the last nine months or so. “Bing is clearly behind Google, but now it’s a scale player as well,” Ms. Desmond says. Becoming a solid No. 2 behind Google is an accomplishment, but at what cost? Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft senior vice president, declined to say when the company planned to break even in search. The huge reported losses, he says, are a result of aggressive investment over the last few years to hire people and build data centers that can handle 30 percent to 40 percent of search traffic, first in the United States and later in other markets. Those upfront, fixed costs are enormous, Mr. Mehdi acknowledges, but once Microsoft’s search traffic and ad volumes rise, the financial picture could brighten quickly. “As we grow share,” he says, “that really can drive the profitability, and that’s the key for us to turn to profitability and then grow beyond.” Microsoft is not yet translating its search traffic — that 30 percent share in the United States, including the Yahoo partnership — into comparable ad dollars. Revenue per search from Yahoo traffic it handles is far less than it was when Yahoo managed its own search ads, Yahoo said in its recent earnings report. But Microsoft and Yahoo executives say the shortfall is temporary, a result of making a complex technology switch while a business is running. “It’s a matter of time and effort, not an inability to do it,” says Mark Morrissey, a Yahoo senior vice president. “I’m as confident of the economic payoff from this partnership as I was on Day 1.” IF those tech teething problems can be solved, the big remaining challenge will be attracting more traffic at Google’s expense. At this stage, says Mr. MacDonald at Microsoft, the greatest hurdle for Bing is the habitual behavior that works to Google’s advantage. “For most people, Google is search — they go to Google without even thinking about it,” he says. “We’ve got to develop our own habits, of people trying Bing.” Yes, says Mr. Singhal at Google, user habits are a powerful force that help his company. Those habits, he adds, result from Google’s doing so well for so long. “Those habits are earned with trust over the years,” he says. Still, there may be an opening for Microsoft, underdog that it is. Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group, a tech research firm, calls herself a “huge Google user” who turns to its search engine many times a day. “It takes a lot to move me out of Google,” she says. Yet Ms. Li says she now uses Bing for travel — finding airline flights — and sometimes to search for restaurants, too. “Microsoft’s best hope is that it gets more and more people to migrate to Bing for specific tasks like travel,” she says. “Then, if they like what they see, they may use Bing more broadly.” | Computers and the Internet;Search Engines;Software;Microsoft Corporation;Google Inc;Online Advertising |
ny0179268 | [
"business"
] | 2007/08/16 | Macy’s Beats Profit Estimates, but Lowers Earnings Forecast | Macy’s Inc., the department store chain, reported quarterly profit yesterday that exceeded analysts’ estimates but lowered its earnings forecast because of sluggish sales. The company, which owns Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s, said second-quarter net income fell 77 percent, to $74 million, or 16 cents a share, from $317 million, or 57 cents a share, a year earlier, when it had one-time gains. Slowing demand for clothes limited sales growth across its Macy’s chain, the chief financial officer, Karen M. Hoguet, said during a conference call. The company, which is based in Cincinnati, lowered costs by reducing marketing and retirement expenses in the quarter, she said. Macy’s lowered its annual profit forecast by 30 cents a share, to $2.15 to $2.30, excluding merger costs, because of the sales shortfall. It cut the annual sales forecast to $26.5 billion to $26.8 billion. Excluding the costs of integrating May Department Stores locations acquired in 2005, Macy’s said it would have had profit of 29 cents a share, beating the 26-cent average estimate of analysts. “We did see improving sales trends through the quarter in former May Company stores and in home-related merchandise categories,” the chief executive, Terry J. Lundgren, said in a statement. “We are optimistic that our business can and will improve in the second half of the year, despite what appears to be a more challenging economic environment.” Merger costs for the year will be $150 million to $160 million, more than the company’s previous projection of $125 million. Revenue in the period, which ended Aug. 4, fell 1.7 percent, to $5.89 billion, the company said last week. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 2.6 percent, missing its expectations for a gain of as much as 2 percent, also already trimmed. | Macy's Incorporated;Company Reports;Retail Stores and Trade |
ny0022742 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2013/09/06 | Jets Approach Revis Island Cautiously | FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — For six brilliant seasons, the Jets built up Darrelle Revis with a series of intimidating nicknames. There was Shutdown Revis at first, then Revis Christ, Revis Rules and Revis Island — names that evolved interception by interception, deflection by deflection, as his influence and popularity grew. The accolades have not stopped since Revis was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in April. But the realization that he is no longer one of the Jets’ prized performers may only now be sinking in as the Jets get ready face him. “He’s a once-in-a-how-many-years player,” Coach Rex Ryan said. “We know what kind of talent he is; all Jets fans know what kind of talent he is.” In truth, the Jets only know what kind of talent he was, before a serious knee injury last September ended his season and his time with the team. He was the anchor to a defense that was once among the N.F.L.’s best. The “Revis Rules” were simple — don’t throw his way, not even in practice. The “Island” was real — no cornerback in football did a better job isolating receivers than Revis did in his prime. Whether the Jets will test Revis’s health on Sunday by throwing his way is an intriguing question. Ryan seemed to indicate, with an exaggerated shake of his head, that his memory of the old Revis is still too fresh to take shots in that direction. “I can’t lie,” Ryan said. “I don’t see that happening.” The Jets, of course, have many of their own issues to worry about. Their offensive coordinator, Marty Morninhweg, laid out the challenges already facing his team as the season opens. There is a new system (West Coast). A rookie quarterback (Geno Smith). An injured playmaker (Santonio Holmes). A suspended running back (Mike Goodson). A pronounced lack of proven offensive weapons. None of this bodes well for the Jets’ attack, even against the Bucs, who had the worst passing defense in the N.F.L. last year. “They’ve shored that part up,” Morninhweg said of the Buccaneers. He added about Revis: “He’s one of the great players to play the game at that position, there’s no question about it. So we’ll see.” Revis’s status for Sunday still remains in some doubt, although he returned to practice in full on Wednesday and again on Thursday. “As of right now, I’m playing, I’m practicing,” Revis said. “I’m preparing like a regular week.” Throughout the summer, Revis played down the revenge angle in his return to MetLife Stadium. He likened Ryan to Tampa Bay Coach Greg Schiano, who both have attack-oriented defensive styles. He said he had learned patience in his 11 months away from the game. “The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be coming up there with 53 guys, including the coaching staff and our owner,” Revis said. “We’re coming up there with an army, and we’re coming up there to get a win.” The notion that Revis could have imparted wisdom about the Jets’ defensive tendencies to his new team did not seem to trouble the Jets’ defensive coordinator, Dennis Thurman, who worked closely with him for five seasons as the team’s defensive backs coach. Thurman said he had not felt the need to whisper to Morninhweg about Revis’s tendencies either. “The film don’t lie,” Thurman said. “If you go watch him play, I think it speaks for itself.” Then there is the Jets’ receiving corps, which battled Revis daily in practice — or tried to. The second-year receiver Stephen Hill, who is likely to be Revis’s target if Holmes cannot play Sunday, said he hoped the Jets’ offense plays Revis aggressively. “Why not?” Hill said. “I’m not going to back down from competition.” Hill added: “I could care less if he’s 100 percent. If he’s going to be out there, we’re going to go 100 percent, so I hope he does also.” For the first time, the Revis Rules might be applying to the Jets — and they are no joke. “If I had my way,” Ryan said of Revis’s knee, “he’d rest it one more week.” EXTRA POINTS Santonio Holmes (foot) did not practice Thursday. Rex Ryan said it was a scheduled day off and not a setback. Holmes’s status is still questionable for Sunday. | Football;Buccaneers;Jets;Darrelle Revis |
ny0258456 | [
"business"
] | 2011/01/07 | December Sales Are Weaker Than Expected | Retailers did not get all that they wanted for Christmas, with December sales coming in lower than expected. But the holiday season altogether was still the strongest since 2006, and several categories including luxury continued their growth. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 3.1 percent in December compared with the same month a year ago, according to a tally of 28 retailers by Thomson Reuters. That was below analysts’ expectations of 3.4 percent, a prediction buoyed by reports of rising foot traffic, online spending and early holiday sales. Though December was weaker than expected, the overall holiday season was relatively strong, analysts said, especially when November’s 6 percent increase in sales is taken into account. The two months together posted an increase of 4.4 percent, the biggest holiday-season increase since 2006, Thomson Reuters said. “A lot of companies and sectors out there did well, better than analysts expected,” particularly the more exclusive retailers, said Chris Donnelly, a senior executive in the retail practice at Accenture, the consulting firm. The mixed results among specialty retailers suggested that stores with tepid sales had problems with merchandise or operations, he said, since other stores were doing fine. “You’ll see folks with good numbers that are in the same malls as those companies and are catering to, relatively, the same customer base,” Mr. Donnelly said. “It’s not that customers forsook the specialty apparel space — they went in the same malls, they just happened to walk by some stores.” Since specialty stores all designed and sold exclusive clothing, the problem was probably in the clothes, he said. But “for most customers out there, the fundamentals of the economic situation haven’t changed substantially,” Mr. Donnelly said. Customers might be saving a bit less or earning a bit more in the stock market, and small shifts in how consumers felt could push sales higher. “Instead of spending $100, people spent $103,” he said, referring to the December 3.1 percent increase. “It doesn’t take much.” The International Council of Shopping Centers, which tracks sales at chain stores, said on Thursday that December sales rose 3.1 percent for stores open at least a year, compared to December 2009. For the November-December holiday period, same-store sales rose 3.8 percent, which was the biggest holiday increase since 2006. While concerns were rampant about how the post-Christmas snowstorm on the East Coast would affect December results, only a handful of retailers cited that as a factor. BJ’s Wholesale Club, for instance, said that comparable sales rose in every region except the New York City area , where results were hurt by the storm. On the other hand, J. C. Penney said its Manhattan store outperformed the company average for the month, and that the Northeast was one of the best-performing regions in December. The day after Christmas tends to account for only 2 to 2.5 percent of sales for the month, making it one of the lower-ranked spending days in December, according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which estimates overall spending. Luxury items continued to rise, even more so than analysts had expected, with the two higher-end stores reporting results — Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue — beating estimates by the biggest amounts. At Saks , sales at stores open at least a year, a measure called same-store sales, rose 11.8 percent, beating estimates of 3.9 percent. And Nordstrom’s rose 8.4 percent , versus estimates of 3.4 percent. Other data showed strength in luxury. Even at a middle-market store like J. C. Penney, more expensive items like fine jewelry were among the top performers for the month. December jewelry sales rose 10.4 percent compared with the month a year ago, according to SpendingPulse. And luxury sales outside of jewelry rose 8.5 percent. Some apparel stores were among the worst performers for December, missing estimates by big margins, including — American Eagle Outfitters (down 11 percent) , Aéropostale (down 5 percent) and Gap-owned stores (down 3 percent) . But that seemed to be more a store-specific problem than a mark of a troubled sector. Other apparel stores did well, like Abercrombie & Fitch, where sales rose 15 percent ; Limited Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, up 5 percent ; and stores aimed at teenagers, like the Buckle, which was up 6.1 percent. Overall apparel sales rose 10.9 percent in December from a year earlier, according to SpendingPulse, which measures consumer spending. That was the biggest increase since March 2007, and the teen apparel category increased 12.2 percent. For stores with wide arrays of merchandise, a good performance in apparel did not totally offset lackluster categories elsewhere, particularly in electronics. SpendingPulse said that the consumer electronics category was up just 1.5 percent from a year ago, one of the weaker results among the sectors it measures. At Costco Wholesale , for instance, same-store sales rose 6 percent , just a bit below analyst expectations of 6.2 percent. There, the category that includes apparel, jewelry and housewares rose in the high single digits compared to a year ago, but electronics was weak, declining in the high single digits versus a year ago. Costco said that a big reason for that was declining television prices — while the number of TVs sold rose, revenue from TVs dropped in stores open at least a year. Target saw a similar pattern . It posted a same-store sales increase of 0.9 percent for the month, which was 3.1 percent lower than what analysts had predicted and "below expectations," Target said in a press release. Though apparel was up for the month, electronics and some other categories decreased compared to a year ago. "Target saw a weakness in consumer electronics, and we saw that coming from a number of different chains, including, of course, Best Buy," said Michael B. Koskuba, a senior portfolio manager at Victory Capital Management, which owns shares in Target, referring to Best Buy’s lackluster earnings report from last month . "It’s difficult to get that incremental buyer to buy another flat-screen television, and I also think consumers in general have been looking for greater bargains. The prices of consumer electronics should continue to come down, so maybe they’re waiting." Measuring double-digit increases over last December in categories like jewelry, apparel and e-commerce (up 17.6 percent, the highest increase since December 2007), SpendingPulse had a brighter take on the holiday season than the Thomson Reuters numbers. Categories including apparel, auto parts and services, e-commerce and grocery are now above 2007 levels in terms of dollars spent (though electronics, jewelry, luxury and home furnishings still lag behind), said Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis at SpendingPulse. “This is the longest sustained period of improvement, from a consumer-spending standpoint, that we’ve seen since the recession,” Mr. McNamara said. “It’s really strong growth across a number of retail categories.” | Shopping and Retail;Sales;Target Corp;Costco Wholesale Corporation;Bon-Ton Stores Incorporated (The) |
ny0100258 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/12/20 | Sidetracked by Schizophrenia, a Former Film Student Plots a New Path | Step into Ariel Morales’s shoes, and life exists in an elevated state defined by a series of destructive behaviors and dreams with hidden messages that demand hours of obsessive dissection. “I was feeling like a really divine person who was going through an experience,” Mr. Morales said in a recent interview about a personality transformation he had undergone over the past several years. “I felt like whatever decision I was making would have a huge impact, it would be important to my future.” Mr. Morales, 26, was describing what it was like to live with schizophrenia. Though he learned only this year that he had the mental illness, he has grappled with its symptoms for far longer. After graduating from high school, Mr. Morales spent a year pursuing an interest in filmmaking, taking an internship at the Ghetto Film School in the Bronx. He then attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., on a full scholarship. Suffering, Often in Silence, But Determined to Move Forward One in five New Yorkers experiences a mental health disorder in any given year, city officials say. These are the stories of three people fighting to overcome such challenges. A few years into his studies, Mr. Morales, a chronic procrastinator, said he began to miss project deadlines. He regarded the work he did complete as uninspired dross. He lost interest in school, a fog enveloped his brain and he became mired in ennui. Yet he did not question his radical shift in behavior, accepting his muted emotions as elements of a journey he was resigned to let play out. “It isn’t something that just flips over time,” he said of his mental illness. “Minor things slowly become major things.” That included the perception of his college campus as a place of danger. “I didn’t feel I was safe in that environment,” Mr. Morales said. “People started looking at me a certain way. I felt people weren’t as open to me anymore.” In 2012, just 12 credits shy of earning his bachelor’s degree, Mr. Morales dropped out of college. He spent the next two years in Amherst volunteering at a local public radio station and working as a cashier at a CVS store. In 2014, he returned to New York City, moving into his mother’s apartment on the Lower East Side. “I just wanted to be at a peaceful place,” he said. “I was trying to find that when I came back.” After months of aimlessness, Mr. Morales enrolled in Green City Force , an AmeriCorps program that prepares young people from low-income families for careers in the renewable-energy industry. It was around this time, Mr. Morales said, that his paranoia intensified. “I felt like I was being followed,” he recalled. “I felt that my home was being invaded. I felt that my body was being abducted.” The Neediest Cases The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund provides direct assistance to struggling New Yorkers. Tap for information about how to donate. Green City Force counselors referred him to East Village Access , a recovery program for adults with psychiatric disabilities. It was determined there that he had schizophrenia, and that his diet was causing him to be chronically fatigued. He now attends therapy sessions at East Village Access and is on medication. The Community Service Society of New York , one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund , used $303.70 from the fund for Mr. Morales to buy food, as well as $112 for a monthly MetroCard that allowed him to travel to training for Green City Force and to his therapy. “I do feel that I’m still on this very special type of path,” he said. “But I feel much more calm. I feel much more safe. I feel much more grounded.” Mr. Morales wants to pursue a career in renewable energy. He works at Whole Foods, cutting and preparing fruit and other dishes. Using his Green City Force experience, he helps maintain an 8,000-square-foot garden at the Lillian Wald Houses , not far from his Manhattan home, and also tends to Red Hook West Urban Farm in Brooklyn. Although Mr. Morales said his experiences were less intense, various symptoms — circular thoughts, feelings of unease and fantastical perceptions of the world — still plague him. All of which underscores an unsettling reality: Despite therapy, medication and his best efforts, mental illness may always lurk in the background. “Before it was Level 10,” he said. “Now I say it’s a Level 4.” | New York Times Neediest Cases Fund;Philanthropy;Community Service Society of New York |
ny0149472 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2008/09/07 | Cuba Rejects American Offer of Hurricane Aid | MEXICO CITY — The Cuban government turned down Washington’s offer of hurricane assistance Saturday, saying the best way for the United States to help Cuban victims of Hurricane Gustav would be for it to lift the economic embargo on the island. Cuba said it had its own experts on the job while rejecting the State Department offer to send disaster specialists to assess the damages to the western Pinar del Rio Province and the Island of Youth. On Wednesday, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told the Cuban Interests Section in Washington that the United States would aid Cuban victims with $100,000 in immediate aid and more once the extent of the need was known. The aid, State Department officials said, would be sent through non-governmental organizations and not to the Cuban government. But Cuba said that the trade embargo costs the island yearly damages that exceed the billions of dollars in destruction that it attributes to Hurricane Gustav. Cuba has accepted hurricane assistance from Russia, Venezuela and other allies. Such aid has frequently taken on a political dimension between Cuba and the United States over the years. “The only correct and ethical action,” Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, would be to end “the ruthless and cruel economic, commercial and financial blockage imposed against our Motherland for almost half a century.” | Hurricane Gustav;Cuba;Embargoes and Economic Sanctions;Federal Aid (US);State Department |
ny0274244 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/02/05 | Donald Trump’s Ground Game Questioned After Iowa Showing | MANCHESTER, N.H. — David Carney, a veteran Republican strategist here, has received six phone calls at his Hancock, N.H., home from Donald J. Trump ’s campaign the last few days. But five came after the Trump volunteers were told that the occupants were backing another candidate: Mr. Carney’s wife is Carly Fiorina’s campaign director in the state. For Mr. Carney, who has often praised Mr. Trump’s message, the wayward calls signaled impressive grass-roots enthusiasm. But they were also a telltale sign of strategic rudderlessness. “They have a lot of volunteers and they’re proud about that, but volunteers is not a ground game,” said Mr. Carney, who was the top strategist for Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential race and has been deeply involved in studies of how campaigns use information about voters. “They’re basically just picking up the phone book.” Discerning the strength of any candidate’s ground game can be difficult. Mr. Trump has one key ingredient: an army of volunteers drawn to him by his popularity and his message. But precision counts, as Iowa demonstrated. And what Mr. Trump appears to lack is what could provide that precision: a direct-mail program, a comprehensive targeting effort to identify his supporters and their intensity, and a dedicated pollster to help pinpoint the voters to whom his television ads might appeal. Image Volunteers worked the phones Thursday at Donald J. Trump’s campaign headquarters in Manchester, N.H. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Until this week, Mr. Trump’s campaign projected enormous confidence in its get-out-the-vote abilities, predicting it would pull out a victory in Iowa and then blow away the competition in New Hampshire. But his aides shrouded their efforts in mystery, vaguely predicting an impressive result. His not-so-narrow loss to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in Monday’s caucuses, however, immediately raised the stakes in New Hampshire and has aimed a spotlight on Mr. Trump’s efforts to identify, organize and turn out supporters in the primary on Tuesday. In revealing remarks, Mr. Trump publicly questioned his campaign’s efforts in Iowa, where he was out-hustled by the data-driven Cruz campaign. He blamed his team for not spending more money, and even said that he had not known what a ground game was before Iowa. Now, Mr. Trump, who has boasted about spending so little on his campaign, must harness his supporters’ enthusiasm in New Hampshire, a state where, in such a crowded race against organized opponents, a good field organization might be crucial. The question is how much better the turnout operation will be in New Hampshire. Three people briefed on internal discussions in the campaign said that repeated requests from employees in early nominating states for a greater focus on analyzing data had gone unanswered. And though the campaign started to put together a data operation last fall, it has had no direct mail effort — a fixture of Republican primary campaigns in New Hampshire. Image The break room at Mr. Trump’s campaign headquarters. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Asked about those accounts, Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, insisted they were untrue. “I know the budget process at the campaign, and I can’t think of three people who would have knowledge of the decision rights for this type of transaction,” he said in an interview. “Trump has never said no to a funding request.” Mr. Lewandowski, a longtime New Hampshire resident who oversaw the Iowa turnout operation but has an even firmer grip on it here, said he did not see the caucus defeat as indicative of larger organizational problems. “They are two very different states,” he said. “I think the state of Iowa is a state that was tailor-made for Ted Cruz, and our candidate has been in politics for exactly six months and came away with a second-place victory. And we’re proud of that.” Mr. Lewandowski said that the campaign was using detailed consumer data to build lists of potential New Hampshire supporters, but that the campaign, in something of a departure, was not narrowly focused on the most habitual voters. Image Supporters listened to Mr. Trump from the back of the room Thursday at a town-hall-style event in Exeter, N.H. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times “The people that we traditionally talk to are the ones who have been disenfranchised, or maybe they are the old Reagan Democrats,” he said. “We’re looking at those individuals who may not have been the traditional Republicans.” That includes independents, who can vote in either party’s primary, as well as registered Republicans who have not voted in the last four elections, he said. If Mr. Trump has an ace in the hole in New Hampshire, it is Mr. Lewandowski, a wiry figure with a buzz-cut, an earpiece and a Secret Service pin. He previously worked for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group funded by the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch. The highest-profile race Mr. Lewandowski, a native of nearby Lowell, Mass., has run before was the 2002 re-election campaign of Senator Robert C. Smith, who lost in the Republican primary to Representative John E. Sununu, a favorite of mainstream party leaders. Mr. Lewandowski has been more or less denouncing the state’s Republican establishment ever since. Mr. Trump’s basic message, raising the alarm about national security and immigration, has played quite well in New Hampshire. And with a primary election a relatively simple proposition — the most votes wins — compared with a caucus, Mr. Trump may not need to rely so heavily on organization. The New Hampshire primary tends to be driven more by news media coverage, and Mr. Trump’s popularity, coupled with a good performance in the Republican debate on Saturday night, could suffice to spur his voters to the polls. “Momentum and buzz can be its own get-out-the-vote program,” said Mike Dennehy, who worked on Senator John McCain’s winning primary campaign in the state in 2000. Mr. Dennehy said he had seen many Trump lawn signs and bumper stickers, although he ranked Mr. Trump’s operation behind those of Jeb Bush, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Mr. Cruz. The Trump campaign has started emailing supporters nationally asking them to flood New Hampshire as volunteers. An email sent Thursday to his list of Mid-Atlantic supporters offered “free lodging and meals” in the state as well as “potential opportunities to be near Mr. Trump.” Though Mr. Trump’s aides declined to detail their field operations in New Hampshire, they did say they had more than a dozen paid staff members in three offices in the state. That Mr. Trump has a lot of volunteers was evident on a visit to the office building that serves as his Manchester headquarters. Beneath black-and-white photographs of Mr. Trump, including one with Ronald Reagan, roughly 30 volunteers stared at laptops or spreadsheets and made calls. Fueled on pizza, bottled water and adrenaline, they have put in 12-hour days calling in support of Mr. Trump’s effort in the state. Charles Bruckerhoff, 68, a Vietnam veteran who was calling undecided voters, said he had sped up retirement to volunteer. “Many people who take the calls think that we’re a robocall,” he said. “And we’ll get about a half-sentence into it and they’ll say, Are you a real person?’ And of course we are. We all are.” | 2016 Presidential Election;Donald Trump;New Hampshire;Republicans;Corey Lewandowski |
ny0198509 | [
"business"
] | 2009/07/17 | Democrats Cut Labor Provision Unions Sought | A half-dozen senators friendly to labor have decided to drop a central provision of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers. The so-called card-check provision — which senators decided to scrap to help secure a filibuster -proof 60 votes — would have required employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted a union. Currently, employers can insist on a secret-ballot election, a higher hurdle for unions. The abandonment of card check was another example of the power of moderate Democrats to constrain their party’s more liberal legislative efforts. Though the Democrats have a 60-40 vote advantage in the Senate, and President Obama supports the measure, several moderate Democrats opposed the card-check provision as undemocratic. In its place, several Senate and labor officials said, the revised bill would require shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections. While disappointed with the failure of card check, union leaders argued this would still be an important victory because it would give companies less time to press workers to vote against unionizing. Some business leaders hailed the dropping of card check, while others called the move a partial triumph because the bill still contained provisions they oppose. The card-check provision was so central to the legislation that it was known as “the card-check bill.” Labor had called the bill its No. 1 objective, and both labor and business deployed their largest, most expensive lobbying campaigns ever in the battle over it. “This is a very emotional issue,” said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania , the Republican turned Democrat who had been lobbied heavily by both sides. “I cannot remember an issue this emotional in all my years in the Senate.” Several moderate Democrats, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas , have voiced opposition to card check, convinced that elections were a fairer way for workers to unionize. They were swayed partly by business’s vigorous campaign, arguing that card check would remove confidentiality from unionization drives and enable union organizers to bully workers into signing union cards. Though some details remain to be worked out, under the expected revisions, union elections would have to be held within five or 10 days after 30 percent of workers signed cards favoring having a union. Currently, the campaigns often run two months. To further address labor’s concerns that the election process is tilted in favor of employers, key senators are considering several measures. One would require employers to give union organizers access to company property. Another would bar employers from requiring workers to attend anti-union sessions that labor supporters deride as “captive audience meetings.” Labor unions have pushed aggressively to enact the bill — formally, the Employee Free Choice Act. They view it as essential to reverse labor’s long decline. Just 7.6 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions, one-fifth the rate of a half-century ago. Several union leaders interviewed took the senators’ move in stride. One top union official, who insisted on anonymity because lawmakers and labor leaders have agreed not to discuss the status of the bill, said, “Even if card check is jettisoned to political realities, I don’t think people should be despondent over that because labor law reform can take different shapes.” While voicing confidence they have the 60 votes to pass the revised bill, labor leaders acknowledged an additional hurdle: two powerful Democrats, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia , are seriously ill. “This bill will bring about dramatic changes, even if card check has fallen away,” said an A.F.L.-C.I.O. official who insisted on anonymity. The official said the revised bill achieves the three things organized labor has been seeking. “Our goals,” the official said, “have always been letting employees have a real choice, having real penalties against employers who break the law in fighting unions, and having some form of binding arbitration to prevent employers from dragging their feet forever to prevent reaching a contract.” Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa , a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has led a group of six Democrats who have worked closely with labor to revamp the bill. The other senators are Sherrod Brown of Ohio , Thomas R. Carper of Delaware , Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Mr. Specter. Labor leaders voiced confidence that if Mr. Pryor backed the compromise, Ms. Lincoln and other moderates would do likewise. Union leaders argue that under current law, unionization elections are often unfair because, they say, employers have a huge opportunity to intimidate and pressure workers during the lengthy campaigns that precede the unionization vote. Business leaders say the current system is fair, asserting that unions lose so many elections because workers oppose paying union dues and do not feel they need unions to represent them. Corporate lobbyists have indicated they would oppose fast elections, arguing that such a provision would deny employers ample opportunity to educate employees about the downside of unionizing, such as strikes and union dues. Labor leaders counter that employers will have plenty of opportunity to fight unionization, noting that many companies begin plying employees with anti-union information the day they are hired. Business also opposes the bill’s provisions to have binding arbitration if an employer fails to reach a contract with a new union. Companies argue it would be wrong for government-designated arbitrators to dictate what a company’s wages and benefits should be. “Binding arbitration is an absolute nonstarter for us,” said Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute, a business group opposing the bill. “We see it as a hostile act to have arbitrators telling businesses what they have to do.” Several union officials said that once the senators’ revisions became public, some union presidents who are card-check enthusiasts might attack the changes, call for scrapping the revisions and demand an up-or-down Senate vote on a bill with card check. Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Harkin, declined to discuss details of the bill. “Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” she said. Union officials have urged the White House and Senate leaders to schedule a vote this month. But Senate leaders have told labor that the Senate is so preoccupied with health care legislation that September would be the earliest time to take up the pro-union legislation. | Labor Unions;Legislation;Senate;Democrats |
ny0139151 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2008/02/18 | In Washington State Vote, Relevance Is an Issue | SEATTLE — As many as 1.5 million votes are projected to be cast in Washington State’s presidential primary on Tuesday. The question is whether they will count. The state is obliged to tally the numbers, of course, and the state Republican Party will award 19 of its 40 delegates based on the primary results. Yet Senator John McCain’s selection as the Republican nominee is pretty much assured. More problematic is that the state Democratic Party long ago said it would award its delegates based solely on the results of the statewide caucuses that were held on Feb. 9. The party says a record 250,000 people turned out for the caucuses, which Senator Barack Obama won by 36 percentage points. So it appears that the primary, first approved in a 1988 referendum with the goal of giving greater voice to voters who might not be able or inclined to attend a party caucus, may have the distinction of being one of the few essentially irrelevant contests in a presidential race so fierce this year that even outposts like Idaho and Alaska have nudged their way into the national spotlight for a moment or two. The primary was moved up this year from May to February with an eye toward increasing its influence. Yet, while the presidential candidates descended on the state in the days before the caucuses, they do not appear to be coming back for the primary. “They keep telling me it’s very fluid,” said Luke Esser, chairman of the state Republican Party. Aides to Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have long since left the state. “We’ve chosen our delegates,” said Kelly Steele, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party. Political parties have the authority to decide how they select delegates to their nominating conventions, and Democrats here have continued to rely on the caucuses even after the primary. Democratic leaders say the caucuses are well attended and help build party unity. Republicans, who have often awarded a portion of their delegates through the primary and a portion through caucuses, accuse Democrats of deliberately alienating voters from the nomination process. “They would rather be able to do it more with the insiders,” said Sam Reed, a Republican who is secretary of state and Washington’s top election official. That charge infuriates Democrats. “This is a $10 million taxpayer-funded meaningless beauty contest by Republican secretary of state, Sam Reed, that will pick a handful of Republican delegates at a price of about $526,000 per delegate,” Mr. Steele said. Washington is one of several states that use caucuses and primaries to nominate delegates. Accompanying the blame and questionable relevance, there is confusion. People here do not register to vote by party affiliation, but this year voters in the primary must check a box declaring a preferred party and sign an oath promising that they did not vote in a caucus for another party. There is no mechanism to ensure that people do so — just trust. But if a voter does not select a party and sign the oath, their vote will not be counted in the presidential primary. The changes have not gone over well. “We’re hearing daily, in huge volumes, from voters who are angry with this style of primary,” said Bobbie Egan, a spokeswoman for the King County elections division. Ms. Egan said the department had received 50 to 75 complaints a day in recent weeks. Mail-in ballots received so far show that 25 percent of voters in King County, the largest in the state, are not checking the box. Many are writing notes on their ballots. “This is anti-democracy,” one voter wrote. “Political parties should not control who I can vote for.” Still, people appear to be voting in large numbers. Almost all of Washington voters cast ballots by mail, and Mr. Reed said as many as 30 percent of voters in some counties had cast ballots more than a week before the election. He predicted that 47 percent or more of the state’s 3.2 million voters would participate, a record. Mr. Reed insists the primary remains important. “If Hillary Clinton can come back and win the Democratic primary in the state of Washington after Obama won the caucuses, you’d better believe people will be talking about that for a long time as she looks for momentum going into Texas and Ohio,” he said. Mrs. Clinton has fared better in primaries than caucuses. But Cathy Allen, a member of her steering committee in the state, said that other than group e-mail messages being sent to encourage supporters to vote, no great effort was under way to try to win the primary. “There’s a loyal group of Hillary folks who are looking to show our respect,” Ms. Allen said. | Presidential Election of 2008;Washington (State);Primaries;Elections;Republican Party;Democratic Party |
ny0227081 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/10/12 | 9th Suspect Surrenders in Bronx Hate-Crime Attacks | The ninth suspect accused of beating and torturing three Bronx men in antigay attacks was taken into custody on Monday afternoon, the authorities said. A police spokesman said the suspect, Rudy Vargas-Perez, did not turn himself in voluntarily, but was arrested. With that, all the men charged in the attacks were in police custody. Seven of the men were arrested on Thursday and Friday, while an eighth was arrested on Saturday. The stepmother of one of the victims said in an interview on Monday that his face was still swollen from the attack. “He thought they were his friends,” she said of the defendants. “It hurt him more inside than out.” The woman said that her stepson, who is 17, moved to the Bronx from Puerto Rico four years ago and only recently fell in with the gang accused of assaulting him. The young man, who intends to go to college and dreams of being a professional baseball player, plans to return to school on Tuesday, his father said. All the suspects but Mr. Vargas-Perez were arraigned on Sunday in Bronx Criminal Court on charges that included gang assault, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment, all as hate crimes. Mr. Vargas-Perez, 22, will most likely be arraigned Tuesday on similar charges, said his lawyer, Robert W. Georges. Mr. Georges said his client was not involved in the attacks and did not belong to the Latin King Goonies, the gang that the police said was responsible. “He was just as outraged as everyone else to hear about these allegations,” Mr. Georges said. “He’s a young man with a family who works, and he’s never been in any trouble before.” The authorities said the attacks began early on Oct. 3, roughly a day after one of the men had seen a 17-year-old gang recruit spending time with a 30-year-old man who was known in the neighborhood to be gay. The men grabbed the 17-year-old, officials said, beating and sodomizing him. They went on to beat and torture another 17-year-old and the 30-year-old man before robbing the older man’s apartment and beating his brother, the authorities said. The assaults took place in an empty apartment inside a brick house at 1910 Osborne Place in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx. Afterward, the attackers meticulously cleaned the apartment, tearing up the carpet, pouring bleach down the drain and painting the walls. The police said they were still able to find enough DNA evidence to make the arrests. Some of the men were part of a group that had used the house for much of the summer as a base for parties and drinking, according to neighbors. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said over the weekend that Mr. Vargas-Perez’s lawyers had reneged on a promise that he would turn himself in, but Mr. Georges denied that. He said that police detectives had agreed that Mr. Vargas-Perez could turn himself in after the weekend. | Latin King Goonies;Vargas-Perez Rudy;Hate Crimes;Gangs;Bronx (NYC);Homosexuality |
ny0042931 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2014/05/09 | Former BP Chief Is Named Chairman of Glencore Xstrata | LONDON — Glencore Xstrata, the big commodities trading and mining company, said on Thursday that it had named Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP, to be its permanent chairman. Mr. Hayward has been serving in the role in an interim capacity for the past year. Ivan Glasenberg, Glencore’s chief executive, will continue to run the Swiss-based company, with Mr. Hayward serving as nonexecutive chairman. For Mr. Hayward, the appointment continues a comeback after his exit from BP in 2010 in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico blowout that killed 11 people and led to the spilling of millions of barrels of oil. The disaster forced BP to raise tens of billions of dollars by selling oil and natural gas fields, refineries and other assets to pay for damage and liabilities. Lawyers continue to bring claims against the company in the United States. Nevertheless, Mr. Hayward has retained admirers in the oil industry and the investment community. Glencore was founded in the 1970s by Marc Rich, the commodities trader. After an initial public offering in 2011, Glencore acquired Xstrata, a mining company in which it had a big shareholding, in 2013. “Over the last 12 months, Tony has provided exemplary leadership,” Peter Grauer, the head of Glencore Xstrata’s nominating committee, said in a statement Thursday. After the BP debacle, Mr. Hayward was able to return to the oil business the following year. With the aid of Nathaniel Rothschild, scion of the banking family, he raised about 1.3 billion pounds, or about $2.2 billion, for an energy venture called Vallares, through an initial public offering in London. In 2011, Vallares merged with Genel Energy International, a Turkish company, to form Genel Energy, a London-listed company that Mr. Hayward now leads. Although a relatively small oil company with a market value of about $4.5 billion, Genel Energy is one of the largest oil and gas producers in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 2013, Genel Energy had average output of about 44,000 barrels a day and earned $186 million on revenue of $348 million. Mr. Hayward, who began his career as a geologist working in the North Sea, has said he intends to expand Genel Energy beyond Iraqi Kurdistan by exploring for oil and gas in places like Somaliland and Morocco. | Appointments and Executive Changes;Mining;Tony Hayward;Glencore Xstrata;BP |
ny0046839 | [
"sports",
"rugby"
] | 2014/11/02 | All Blacks Trounce Eagles | New Zealand’s All Blacks turned what was billed as an exhibition into a clinic on their way to a 74-6 win over the USA Golden Eagles in Chicago. | USA Golden Eagles;All Blacks;New Zealand |
ny0227028 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/10/15 | UBS Declines Legal Action Over Subprime Losses | GENEVA — The Swiss bank UBS said Thursday that it will not take legal action against former executives and board members for the huge losses suffered during the U.S. subprime crisis that forced a bailout of the company. Kaspar Villiger, chairman of Switzerland’s largest bank, said in a statement that the company had learned lessons from the crisis and now was focusing on the future. “What happened should not have been allowed to happen. With our decision to refrain from legal proceedings, we do not want to gloss over the mistakes made by UBS or absolve those involved of their corporate responsibility,” Mr. Villiger said. “Today, we have laid the foundation for drawing a line under the future.” The transparency report acknowledges that the bank’s expansion into investment banking was not planned in a sufficiently systematic manner, that incentives to generate revenues were not weighed appropriately against risks, and that this happened across business units, multiplying the bank’s exposure. “Despite warnings, the bank falsely believed that its financial products in relation to the U.S. real estate market were valuable and sufficiently hedged against losses,” the report said. UBS, long the star of the Swiss banking industry, lost billions of dollars during the global economic crisis and the confidence of many investors during a lengthy tax dispute with the United States. Regarding this dispute, the report acknowledged that the bank had not made a comprehensive assessment of the compliance risk of its U.S. cross-border wealth management business before the investigation by U.S. authorities. Despite the failures, the bank said there would be no legal action against those running the bank at the time because of the costs involved, negative publicity such activity would generate and uncertain outcome. In a statement attached to the report, independent law professor Peter Forstmoser said there was sufficient evidence to take legal action, but he called the decision not “appropriate” to protect the interests of the bank and the shareholders. | UBS AG;Subprime Mortgage Crisis |
ny0281286 | [
"technology"
] | 2016/10/12 | Greylock Partners Says It Raised a $1 Billion Fund | SAN FRANCISCO — Greylock Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, said it has raised a $1 billion fund as investors increase venture firm funding to highs not seen since the dot-com boom last decade. It took less than three months for Greylock to raise its latest fund, the firm’s co-managing partner James Slavet said in an interview. Greylock, which was an early investor in Facebook and LinkedIn, now has $3.5 billion in assets under management. The new fund shows how resilient the venture capital industry has been this year despite worries that the rich billion-dollar-plus valuations of many private companies, known as unicorns , would crash and drag down start-up investors. Yet in the first three quarters of this year, venture firms have raised $32.4 billion, putting 2016 on pace to be one of the strongest years in terms of fund-raising since 2000, according to a report from the research firm PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. In 2000, the venture industry raised $101.4 billion, according to the association. Venture firms have raised six new funds of $1 billion or more so far this year, including Technology Crossover Ventures with a $2.5 billion fund and Andreessen Horowitz with a $1.6 billion fund. The six funds account for 26 percent of the total capital raised, according to PitchBook and the association. The influx of capital is a potential lift for start-ups that need money, but it could make it harder for venture firms to deliver high returns down the road. The report from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association notes that the number of start-ups getting funded has declined for five straight quarters, even as investors have more money to put to work. With fewer investment opportunities, venture firms may end up overpaying for pieces of private companies. Greylock tends to invest in companies early in their life cycles, a strategy that Mr. Slavet said helps investors earn higher returns when there is a lot of capital in the system. The firm is exploring new places to invest its money. Greylock is known for investments in consumer and business software companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Workday and Airbnb. While it will continue to invest in those areas, it is also working on investments in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality and robotics. “Lots of investors are thinking that certain trends have become more mature and that emerging areas are exciting but unclear,” Mr. Slavet said. | Venture capital;Startup;Greylock Partners;James Slavet |
ny0156581 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2008/06/07 | Full of Laughs, Ochoa Makes Serious Charge in L.P.G.A. Championship | HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — Morgan Pressel sidled up to Lorena Ochoa on the last green Friday and said something that made them both smile. Pressel, Ochoa and the third member of their group, Karrie Webb, had spent four hours putting on a clinic at Bulle Rock Golf Course, competing to see who could produce the better approach shot or purer putt during the second round of the L.P.G.A. Championship. Pressel was looking at a putt to punctuate her first sub-70 round of the year in a major, and Ochoa was stalking a birdie that would put her in great position to win her third consecutive major. Webb was off the green, surveying a tricky chip shot that stood between her and an improbable comeback. This was serious stuff, no? The group’s mirth owed much to Ochoa. “She’s pretty relaxed,” Pressel said. “She’s just fun to be able to get to play with.” Ochoa was a joy to watch Friday, stringing together seven birdies in a round of 65 to reach the halfway point at 10-under-par 134, one stroke better than Lindsey Wright, who shot a second-round 68. Annika Sorenstam, a three-time winner of the L.P.G.A. Championship who is retiring at the end of this year, had a 68 and is four strokes back. The defending champion, Suzann Pettersen, is tied for 10th with a two-day total of 139. Pressel’s day got off to a grim start when her caddie, Jon Yarbrough, greeted her in the parking lot with the news that his father had died after a long illness. “He was obviously very upset,” Pressel said of Yarbrough, who handed Pressel his yardage book, plucked a replacement out of the caddie shack and left the grounds. After three-putting the first green for a bogey, Pressel relaxed with an assist from the cheerful Ochoa, shooting a 69 for a two-day total of two-under 142. “It was an interesting day,” Pressel said. Pressel is tied for 31st with Webb, who probably did not expect to be playing the weekend after shooting four-over on her first three holes Thursday. She got to four-under for the tournament with a 33 on the front nine Friday, but gave back two strokes on the back side and finished the round with a one-under 71. Ochoa, Pressel and Webb collectively missed only four fairways. The 26-year-old Ochoa, who is trying to become the fourth woman to win three consecutive majors, hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation and putted for birdie on every hole but one. Her only slip-up, if one can call it that, came on No. 5, where she drove into a fairway bunker, landed her second shot in a greenside bunker, chipped out to three feet and made the par putt. “It was just easy,” Ochoa said, adding: “Stress free. It was one of those days I could have shot 10 or 11 under.” Those days have become the norm for Ochoa, who has won six titles in nine starts this year. She said she wanted to have the lead heading into the weekend “to put pressure on other players and to let them know, you know, that I want to win.” Ochoa, the No. 1 player in the world, does not let her competitiveness cut into her camaraderie with her playing partners. She laughed with Webb on the first tee. On the 10th hole, she groaned to Pressel about having a 121-yard approach shot for the fourth time in the round. “What are you complaining about?” Pressel said she told her. “I’ve had 185-yard approach shots four times already.” In the interview room, Ochoa picked up the story. “I was like, ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll shut up!’ ” she said. But of course she didn’t. Ochoa said she then complimented Pressel on how close to the pin she was putting her approach shots. That’s Ochoa: She comes to praise her rivals and bury them. On the 18th hole, Pressel played for the last laugh. She walked up to Ochoa and said, “Another 185-yard approach shot.” They both had a good giggle. And then Ochoa stepped up and drained her 20-foot putt. | Ochoa Lorena;Golf;Ladies Professional Golf Assn |
ny0196977 | [
"us"
] | 2009/10/01 | At-Home Moms Rate Themselves Higher Than Working Moms, Surveys Find | More stay-at-home mothers give themselves better marks as parents than do mothers who work outside the home, according to an analysis released Thursday. The analysis , by the Pew Research Center, is based on several of their telephone polls, the most recent of which was conducted this summer and included 1,815 people 16 and older. It found that among the at-home mothers, 43 percent rated themselves 9 or 10, at the top of the scale, while 33 percent of working mothers did so. “In perhaps the most powerful evidence of the cross-pressures that many working mothers feel every day,” the study said, “only 13 percent of moms who work full time say having a mother who works full time is the ideal situation for a young child.” The Pew study, along with a new Census Bureau analysis also released Thursday, provides fresh details on the nation’s 5.6 million stay-at-home mothers. The bureau’s analysis, which considered census data from 2007, found that mothers who do not work outside the home are likely to be younger, Hispanic or foreign-born. For example, the study found that 44 percent of stay-at-home mothers are under age 35, while only 38 percent of mothers in the labor force are under 35. It also found that 27 percent of stay-at-home mothers are Hispanic and 34 percent are foreign born, while 16 percent of mothers working outside the home are Hispanic and 19 percent are foreign born. Women without a job outside the home are more likely to have an infant in the household and have less than a high school degree, the bureau found. “It makes sense that the stay-at-homes are younger, as young people are more likely to be in school,” said Guillermina Jasso, a sociology professor at New York University. The bureau’s analysis is part of its study on “America’s Families and Living Arrangements.” Officials say it is the agency’s first look at who the nation’s stay-at-home mothers are. The Pew study found that 3 out of 10 stay-at-home mothers say family responsibilities keep them out of the labor force. While two-thirds of women with children 16 or younger work full time outside the home, most say they would prefer to work part time, the Pew study said. The Pew study also found that in 66 percent of married couples with children under 18, both spouses were in the labor force. The census data also revealed that the nation’s 5.6 million stay-at-home moms represent 24 percent of all married couples with children under 15. | Pew Research Center;Polls and Public Opinion;Census;Parenting;Women and Girls |
ny0246165 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2011/04/23 | Toyota Says No Full Production Until Year’s End | TOKYO — Toyota Motor will not return to predisaster production levels until the end of the year, the president of the Japanese automaker said Friday. The time frame was the longest yet described by a Japanese car company in assessing the continued effects of the supply chain disruptions caused by last month’s destructive quake and tsunami. Though Toyota’s 17 plants in Japan escaped the disaster relatively unscathed, factory lines are working at only half volume here and at 40 percent overseas, as vital suppliers in Japan’s worst-hit areas struggle to restart operations. Toyota had indicated this week that its Japanese operations would remain at half-speed through at least June 3, but was unwilling to speculate beyond that. And it had said on Tuesday that it would cut production at its North American plants by 75 percent in the next six weeks to conserve its limited supply of parts made in Japan. The two other main Japanese automakers, Nissan and Honda, are also operating at only about half of normal production volumes in Japan. At a briefing for reporters here on Friday, Akio Toyoda , president and chief executive of Toyota, said he expected to ramp up production gradually in Japan, starting in July, as more parts makers came back on line. Toyota will raise production at its overseas plants a month later, in August, to allow for the parts to arrive from Japan, Mr. Toyoda said. Production at home and overseas will return to predisaster levels at all factory lines and across all vehicle models by November or December, Mr. Toyoda said. “The damage has been so widespread in this unprecedented calamity that its economic effect is being felt throughout Japan and in every industry,” Mr. Toyoda said. He added that the automaker had dispatched employees to help recovery work at some of its most vital parts makers. The severe disruptions come as a painful blow to Toyota just as it had appeared set to shake off the effects of a sharp slowdown in sales after the global economic crisis, as well as its handling of a spate of recalls. The reduced production also highlights a downside to Toyota’s insistence on making almost half of its cars in Japan and shipping them overseas. Also, its celebrated just-in-time production system, which reduces parts inventories to a minimum, may have made the disruptions worse. The automaker estimates that it faces shortages of about 150 critical parts, down from about 500 immediately after the March 11 quake. Atsushi Niimi, executive vice president in charge of production, said that Toyota had switched suppliers in some cases to speed the recovery. He said it had been a bitter revelation to Toyota that its cars, even those produced overseas, still relied so heavily on Japanese parts. “We need to procure more parts overseas, and we also urge our suppliers to make more forays outside Japan,” Mr. Niimi said. He added that Toyota would diversify its supplier base over all to make its supply chain more resilient. “It’s something we don’t want to think about, “ he said, “but it is something we cannot avoid if we are to continue to do business in a quake-prone country.” Mr. Toyoda, the company chief, said continuing aftershocks made the outlook uncertain. He declined to comment on the effect of the disruptions on the company’s earnings. “We just had an aftershock yesterday,” he said. “As these continue, the rapid recovery we’ve seen can come undone. The future is impossible to predict.” Another concern is the severe energy shortage brought by the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, 140 miles north of Tokyo, as well as damage to other power plants in the region. To avert a power supply collapse, the Japanese government initially instructed companies to reduce their energy use by as much as 25 percent. But frantic efforts by utilities to increase power generation at plants outside the worst-hit zones, as well as a public drive to conserve energy, has eased the energy shortfall, allowing the government to lower its directive to 15 percent. Mr. Niimi, the executive vice president for production, said that Toyota was discussing energy-saving measures with other automakers, like shutting production lines during the week and running them on weekends, when more electricity is available. Still, Mr. Toyoda said, the company was committed to keeping production — and jobs — in Japan. “Above all, we all love Japan,” he said. “As we face a national crisis, each company must do its part.” | Toyota Motor Corporation;Toyoda Akio;Automobiles;Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011);Tokyo (Japan) |
ny0028193 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2013/01/08 | Iran’s Oil Exports and Sales Down 40 Percent, Official Admits | Iran’s oil minister acknowledged for the first time on Monday that petroleum exports and sales had fallen by at least 40 percent over the past year, contradicting his previous denials and providing an unusual public admission that the cumulative impact of Western economic sanctions has grown more severe. The acknowledgment by the oil minister, Rostam Qasemi, came as new restrictions from the sanctions are threatening to further choke Iran’s ability to sell oil, its most important export. Under provisions of an American law that take effect in February, importers of Iranian oil that have been exempted from the sanctions cannot send the money used to buy it to Iran without risking penalties in the United States. The result could impound billions of dollars’ worth of Iran’s expected oil revenue in the banks of those importing countries. Additional punitive measures, which President Obama signed into law last week, broaden the roster of blacklisted Iranian industries to include all energy, shipping and shipbuilding enterprises and seek to restrict barter transactions that Iran has been using to circumvent earlier sanctions. Some critics of the new steps say they nearly amount to a trade embargo. In another consequence of the sanctions’ impact, the Oil Ministry on Monday stopped the sale of jet fuel to Iran’s heavily indebted domestic airlines unless they pay cash. The semiofficial Mehr news agency reported that most commercial airline flights inside the country had been canceled as a result. Mr. Qasemi, a former Revolutionary Guards commander who was appointed oil minister more than a year ago, had consistently asserted that Iran had no problem selling its oil. In September, in an address to the Parliament, he said that oil exports were rising, despite outside data that showed a sharp drop. At other times, he has threatened to halt all oil exports in retaliation for the sanctions, apparently in a vain effort to raise oil prices by frightening global oil traders. Both the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries , of which Iran is a major member, and the International Energy Agency , a group of mostly Western oil-importing countries, have reported that Iran’s crude exports fell to roughly a million barrels a day by the end of 2012, compared with 2.4 million a year earlier. Other Iranian officials have said it is clear that the country’s oil exports have suffered. Economists knowledgeable about Iran’s sanctions problems said Mr. Qasemi’s acknowledgment of the export decline, made at a parliamentary meeting on finances, was inevitable because the government must find a way to fill a large gap in the budget — a gap that revenue from oil exports had been expected to fill. The Iranian Students’ News Agency quoted the minister as telling lawmakers that “there has been a 40 percent decrease in oil sales and a 45 percent decrease in repatriating oil money.” The agency also quoted him as forecasting further decreases without specifying how much. “It’s common knowledge in Iran that oil exports have fallen,” said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech, who visited his native Iran last month. “I don’t know if the oil minister had been in denial.” Dr. Salehi-Isfahani suggested that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government might have to resolve the budget deficit problem with an accounting maneuver that would recalculate the value of Iran’s oil sales at half the official foreign-exchange rate — 25,000 rials per dollar instead of the central bank’s artificial rate of 12,260 rials per dollar. That change would be much closer to the rial’s actual value and essentially double the amount — in rials — gained from Iranian oil exports. But such a move would also concede the sanctions’ severe inflationary impact, which has caused a steep fall in the value of the Iranian currency this past year. Many Iranians have suffered from the rial’s decline, which has essentially made them poorer by raising the price of imported goods. Iran’s inflation also has left many Iranian businesses unable to pay wages or bills. The problem surfaced in a new way on Monday with the abrupt cancellation of domestic flights by Iranian airlines, which had been buying fuel on credit. The head of the Airlines Association, Seyyed Abdol Reza Musavi, told Mehr that flights in Tehran, Kish, Mashhad and other airports had been halted because the carriers failed to repay their debts, and that fuel would now be provided “on a cash-only basis.” It was unclear how long the flight suspensions would last. The sanctions on Iran have been intensifying for the past few years because of its disputed nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful use but which Western countries and Israel suspect is meant to develop the ability to make nuclear weapons. | Oil and Gasoline;Economy;Iran;International trade;Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries;International Energy Agency |
ny0282447 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/07/28 | A Veteran Living in Squalor, and Allegations of ‘Staggering’ Abuse | HIGHLANDS, N.Y. — The 81-year-old veteran’s mind had been slipping away for years. With no relatives or close friends in his life, few people noticed when he was no longer a regular on the streets of this town in Orange County. Inside the motel room where the man, David McLellan, ended up, he slept in squalor, crowded by piles of furniture, old TVs and a lawn mower. He spent his days outside his door, sitting in a faded armchair, its torn fabric stained from his own urine. Neighbors would see him walking around the parking lot late at night, naked and confused, looking for cigarette butts on the ground. For Mr. McLellan, life at the U.S. Academy Motel, about 50 miles north of New York City, was a lonely blur, marked by what the police say was emotional abuse and neglect. When a detective asked him how long he had lived there, Mr. McLellan said he thought it had been four days. Mr. McLellan had been living there for about six years, exploited for much of that time by another man, Perry Coniglio, living at the motel, the police said. Mr. Coniglio posed as Mr. McLellan’s caretaker, withheld food and stole thousands of dollars of his monthly Social Security and pension benefits, said Joseph Cornetta, the detective in charge of criminal investigations for the Highlands Police Department. Mr. Coniglio, 43, was arrested on July 19 on preliminary charges of unlawful imprisonment, grand larceny, endangering the welfare of a vulnerable person, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing and possession of narcotics. He has pleaded not guilty. “The abuse was staggering,” Detective Cornetta said. “Perry Coniglio exercised custody and control over this individual for one purpose: financial exploitation. Keep the cash cow going.” But how Mr. McLellan ended up languishing in such peril is largely shrouded in official secrecy. Motel records show a case worker from the Orange County Adult Protective Services agency dropped off Mr. McLellan in 2010, and the police say their records indicate the agency was aware of Mr. McLellan’s situation as recently as 2012. But the agency, citing the man’s privacy, said it could not confirm that it had had any role in the man’s care, and it would not say whether anyone from the agency had checked on Mr. McLellan in the years before the police uncovered the alleged exploitation. Video Natasha Blanc, a tenant at the U.S. Academy Motel, , about 50 miles north of New York City, captured video showing Perry Coniglio cursing at David McLellan and charging into the 81-year-old veteran’s room with a long wooden stick. Monica Mahaffey, a spokeswoman for the State Office of Children and Family Services, which oversees local adult protective agencies, said privacy rules precluded the state from disclosing whether it was investigating the county’s handling of Mr. McLellan’s needs. It is not uncommon for older people like Mr. McLellan to slip through the cracks and become vulnerable to fraud and abuse from caretakers, experts say. According to a 2011 study , 141 out of 1,000 older New York State residents have experienced an elder-abuse event since turning age 60, but only a small portion of these cases are brought to the attention of local authorities. In 2010, the police in the village of Highland Falls received a call from a local bank employee who suspected that a man was posing as Mr. McLellan’s relative. The police referred the bank employee to the county’s Adult Protective Services agency, the police chief, Kenneth Scott, said. In April 2012, the department received a complaint that Mr. Coniglio had thrown a burning piece of paper into Mr. McLellan’s window. When officers responded to the call, Mr. McLellan told them the situation was a misunderstanding, Chief Scott said. About two weeks later, Adult Protective Services requested that the police perform a welfare check on Mr. McLellan. Officers found “nothing to report,” the chief said. It was a drug investigation by the police from the Town of Highlands, a neighboring jurisdiction, that eventually led investigators to Mr. McLellan. (The town’s police station is just steps from the motel, but the motel sits just across the town-village border, and the town police never received any reports related to Mr. McLellan while he was living at the motel, Detective Cornetta said.) But according to people who live at the motel, the troubles were no secret to those in earshot. For years, they had heard constant screaming between the two men. “You felt that something was just not right,” said Carmine Bloise, who lived two doors down from Mr. McLellan and Mr. Coniglio for about two years. But fearing he would be kicked out for attracting the attention of law enforcement, Mr. Bloise said he did not report the suspicious relationship to the police. About a month ago, though, one resident of the motel decided to speak up. Natasha Blanc, a former home health aide whose room was opposite Mr. McLellan’s, reported the relationship to the police. Detective Cornetta said he encouraged her to record videos of the interactions between Mr. Coniglio and Mr. McLellan. Image The table in Mr. McLellan’s motel room. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times “He was like a lost little kid,” Ms. Blanc said of Mr. McLellan. “He can’t speak up for himself, so someone has to do it for him.” One video in particular persuaded the detective to make an arrest. In the video, Mr. Coniglio is seen charging into Mr. McLellan’s room with a long wooden stick, cursing at him and seemingly threatening him. Mr. Coniglio is heard screaming at the older man to grab his bowl to be filled with his meal — “like a prisoner,” Detective Cornetta said. Since his arrest, Mr. Coniglio has been held in the Orange County Jail. On the day of the arrest, the authorities escorted Mr. McLellan out of his room, sending him to a hospital for treatment and placing him under the care of Adult Protective Services. A walk through Mr. McLellan’s room revealed flashes of his isolated time in the motel: a filthy, molding bathroom; trash; a table covered in cigarette ash — but there also were snippets of his identity, like a wooden bracelet with Catholic images of the Virgin Mary. The man’s former neighbors in Fort Montgomery, less than two miles south of the motel, recalled Mr. McLellan’s life before his mind succumbed to dementia. Mr. McLellan, originally from New Jersey, is believed to have served in the Navy during the Korean War, Detective Cornetta said. For many years he worked in the Ford assembly plant in Mahwah, N.J., until it closed in 1980, his former neighbor, David Tonneson, said. Mr. McLellan then became a registered nurse and moved to a double-wide trailer on a hill on Hemlock Street in Fort Montgomery, where he lived for decades, neighbors said. Many in town knew him for the six goats he kept on his property, said Mr. Tonneson, a volunteer firefighter and retired contractor in the neighborhood. “Everybody knows who the goat man was,” he said. Image The motel in Orange County, N.Y., where the two men lived. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times Mr. McLellan served as a caretaker for his mother, who lived with him for a number of years until her death, said Cathy McCutchen, who used to live next door. But after Mr. McLellan’s retirement and his mother’s death, something changed. He stopped being able to take care of himself, and his house started falling apart. He would spend nights in the barn with his goats because he had no heat in his house, Mr. Tonneson said. More than six years ago, local officials condemned his house and his animals. Mr. McLellan spent about two months staying in the homes of parishioners of his church in Fort Montgomery and of its former pastor, the Rev. Jack Arlotta, now at St. Stephen the First Martyr Parish in Warwick, N.Y. Shortly after, Father Arlotta said, Mr. McLellan “sort of disappeared.” At the motel where he ended up, the owner, Iftihar Malik, would take him to the bank to collect his benefits, Detective Cornetta said. Then, Mr. Coniglio moved into the motel and began working as Mr. Malik’s so-called maintenance worker. He moved into the only motel room with a full kitchen, next door to Mr. McLellan’s room. In an interview, Mr. Malik said he did not know anything about the alleged financial exploitation or abuse and believed Mr. Coniglio was taking care of Mr. McLellan. Mr. Malik said the criminal investigation was an “exaggeration.” “Tell me, who is washing the clothes?” Mr. Malik said. “Who is cutting the hair?” Mr. Coniglio’s lawyer, Brad White, said, “There’s certainly more to the story.” Mr. Coniglio’s aunt, Phyllis Coniglio, said she felt her nephew was trying to help the veteran but was battling his own mental health problems and was not competent enough to be the man’s caretaker. “I think he just got stuck with it,” Ms. Coniglio said. “This man Dave was just shuffled off to somebody.” The police are still investigating others who might have contributed to, or covered up, Mr. McLellan’s abuse, Detective Cornetta said. “For whatever reason, nothing was ever done,” the detective said. “This is a veteran who got left behind.” | Elder abuse;David McLellan;Perry Coniglio;Robbery;Drug Abuse;Highland Falls NY;Veteran;Domestic violence |
ny0100013 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2015/12/04 | Oscar Pistorius Guilty in Murder of Reeva Steenkamp, Appeals Court Rules | JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s top appeals court ruled on Thursday that Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic star known as the Blade Runner, was guilty of murder in the 2013 killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, overturning a lower court’s conviction on the lesser charge of manslaughter. Mr. Pistorius has already served about a year in prison and is now under house arrest for the previous conviction; a murder conviction carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison. The appeals court sided with state prosecutors on central points, saying that the manslaughter conviction, technically called culpable homicide, had been based on a misinterpretation of laws and an erroneous dismissal of circumstantial evidence. The court said that Mr. Pistorius, who has said repeatedly that he accidentally killed his girlfriend when he believed his home had been broken into, should have foreseen that his actions would cause the death of a person. Mr. Pistorius, 29, who has been under house arrest since October, is expected to remain at home pending a new sentence. He was not present when five judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein delivered their verdict. Ms. Steenkamp’s relatives, who were in the courtroom, embraced upon hearing the ruling. “As a result of the error of laws referred to and on a proper appraisal of the facts, he ought to have been convicted not of culpable homicide on that count but of murder,” Judge Eric Leach said. Under South African law — as in some European countries and Canada — state prosecutors can appeal a verdict to a higher court, as they did in this case. Experts say appeals court judges in South Africa, which does not have a jury system, routinely overturn verdicts or sentences handed down in a lower court. “There’s nothing untoward in that,” said Marius du Toit, a criminal defense lawyer and a former prosecutor. “What you often find is that they would disagree with a ruling and say, ‘This decision is clearly wrong.’ They’re not pronouncing on the bona fides of the judge. It’s just part of the checks and balances you would want in a legal system.” Image Oscar Pistorius in 2014. Credit Mike Hutchings/Reuters The appeals court ordered the lower court to hand a new sentence to Mr. Pistorius, who became the first double amputee to compete in the Olympic Games , in London in 2012. The court’s ruling revives a long-running legal battle that transfixed South Africa last year with its touchstone themes of celebrity, violence against women, crime and home intrusions. In a unanimous ruling, the appeals court described the case as “a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.” Mr. Pistorius’s family said that it had “taken note” of the ruling by the appeals court, the second-highest court in the country, but that it had not decided on its next steps. “The legal team will study the finding, and we will be guided by them in terms of options going forward,” the family said in a statement. Legal experts said Mr. Pistorius could try to take his case to the Constitutional Court, but it was unclear whether that court would regard it as a matter under its jurisdiction. Mr. Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was 11 months old and whose use of curved prosthetics earned him the nickname Blade Runner, said he shot Ms. Steenkamp through the locked door of his bathroom at home in February 2013 in the belief that she was an intruder. In her verdict last year, Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court sided with the defendant, saying his account “could reasonably be true.” She acquitted him of the more serious charge of murder, saying that prosecutors had failed to bring “strong circumstantial evidence” and to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Pistorius had shown intent to kill. But prosecutors, and Ms. Steenkamp’s family, argued that Mr. Pistorius had deliberately killed his girlfriend after an argument. In presenting their case before the five-judge appeals court last month, prosecutors argued that Judge Masipa had misinterpreted the legal concept of dolus eventualis in finding Mr. Pistorius not guilty of murder. They argued that Mr. Pistorius should be found guilty because, under the legal principle, he should have known that firing through the locked door would kill whoever was inside. The appeals court agreed, saying that Judge Masipa had misread the legal principle by narrowly applying it to whether Mr. Pistorius believed Ms. Steenkamp was inside the bathroom. Video Eric Leach, a judge in South Africa, on Thursday read the appeals verdict for Oscar Pistorius over the killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in 2013. Her mother was seen at the trial. “I have no doubt that in firing the fatal shots, the accused must have foreseen, and therefore did foresee, that whoever was behind the toilet door might die, but reconciled himself to that event occurring and gambled with that person’s life,” Judge Leach said. “This constituted dolus eventualis on his part, and the identity of his victim is irrelevant to his guilt.” In a withering criticism of Judge Masipa’s ruling, Judge Leach said she had also erred by dismissing relevant circumstantial evidence, including the type of ammunition used by Mr. Pistorius. Judge Masipa, whose handling of the high-profile trial was widely praised but whose verdict drew criticism as too lenient, is expected to deliver the new sentence on the murder conviction. The legal proceedings in recent months drew little of the intense attention that the trial attracted in South Africa last year. But after Thursday’s ruling was announced, the reaction, on social media at least, appeared to reflect the general sentiment that the punishment handed down last year was not commensurate to the crime. “Finally some justice,” read many messages on Twitter. One person posted : “99% of us don’t have the law degree Masipa had but we’ve been saying what Leach has summed up.” The victim’s father, Barry Steenkamp, told journalists: “I’m satisfied with everything now. I would hope to God that all of this could have been prevented, but seeing that it has been done, let us now all get on with our lives.” At the hearing last month, lawyers for Mr. Pistorius argued again that he had feared for his life when he fired four shots into his bathroom. In a country with high crime rates, the fear of home intrusion cuts across social and racial classes and, in the kind of gated community in Pretoria where Mr. Pistorius lived, manifests itself in high walls and security guards. Mr. Pistorius was released from prison in October after serving about one year of his five-year sentence. He had been serving the remainder of his sentence under house arrest at his uncle’s home in Pretoria, the capital. Mr. Pistorius, who was eligible for early release after serving a minimum of one-sixth of his sentence, was initially scheduled to be released from prison in August. But his release was delayed several times because of pressure from Ms. Steenkamp’s parents, who argued in the news media that Mr. Pistorius had served too little time in prison for the killing of their daughter, a model and law school graduate. The killing occurred several months after the 2012 Olympic Games. Mr. Pistorius, a global model for the disabled and a hero for post-apartheid South Africa, was selected to carry the nation’s flag at the event’s closing ceremony. The South African news media recently showed him reporting to a police station to perform community service, as required by his sentence. Mr. Pistorius, who was wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, did not respond to questions from journalists. | Oscar Pistorius;Murders and Homicides;Reeva Steenkamp;South Africa |
ny0065858 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/06/08 | A Review of ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ in Hartford | What’s so great about licking postage stamps, anyway? Audiences at Hartford Stage will be forgiven if they don’t stop to think this through as Mark Nelson, playing the first of the four title characters in Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” waxes rhapsodic about stamp-licking. His brilliant, showstopping rant about the vanished joys of yesteryear — coonskin caps , Dinah Shore , rotary-dial telephones, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen , handwritten letters and, yes, even the icky, glue-backed stamps for posting them — bursts forth in a torrent that vanquishes any and all cavils. Vanya’s wacky ode to the ’50s will resonate with — and convulse — anyone old enough to summon up the taste of stamps. Others will laugh, too; but they are more likely to sympathize with the tweeting, texting, perennially connected Spike, who rebuts Vanya’s extended takedown of all things digital and modern with four words: “Time marches on, dude.” Which is, of course, exactly the problem plaguing Vanya and his sisters, Sonia and Masha, in this comic mash-up of Chekhovian themes and characters, with additional nods to Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Beckett and Walt Disney. Mr. Durang’s screwball approach to existence has accompanied theatergoing baby boomers through the decades. His antic comedies first skewered his fellow neurotics as they tried to make sense of their schooling (“Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You”), their families (“The Marriage of Bette and Boo”) and their relationships (“Beyond Therapy”). Then he tackled the messes they’ve made in Washington (“ Sex and Longing ” and “ Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them ”). And now, he and his generation have arrived at that time of life when looking backward can become a full-time obsession. Regrets, we’ve had a few. Like the prominent Chekhov characters whose names they carry, Mr. Nelson’s sad-sack Vanya and Caryn West’s deliciously dejected Sonia tool around a big old country house feeling that life has passed them by. The stone-and-stucco farmhouse and everything in it have been designed by Jeff Cowie to look old and faded, too: the upholstery, the walls, the pictures, even the dried-out potted plants on the deck. There may be stacks of puzzles and board games on the cocktail table, but it’s clear no one has had any fun here in years — if ever. Image From left, Stacey Sargeant; David Gregory; Leslie Hendrix; and Mark Nelson and Caryn West. Credit T. Charles Erickson The mood changes when the glamorous, successful actress Masha, given high-camp bluster by the “Law & Order” regular Leslie Hendrix, turns up with an absurdly young, amazingly handsome, completely vacuous new boyfriend. This is the distinctly non-Chekhovian Spike, portrayed with undiluted glee by David Gregory. Working his buff physique like an oversized toddler delighting in his newfound ability to walk, Mr. Gregory creates a hilarious paragon of preening conceit. Sonia and Vanya’s other visitors have also been devised by Mr. Durang and directed by Maxwell Williams to disrupt the torpor of their daily lives. Stacey Sargeant plays Cassandra, the spunky housekeeper who can see the future — and do something about it with her voodoo skills. And Andrea Lynn Green plays Nina, an earnest, bright-eyed young actress staying in the neighborhood and very much resembling her namesake in “The Seagull.” Tricia Barsamian has dressed these oddly assorted characters in appropriately assorted costumes — chic for Masha, dowdy for Sonia, casual for Nina. But in a typically Durangian twist involving a costume party and Snow White, her dwarfs and Maggie Smith, they all end up trading looks, maybe even personalities, for one night (expertly evoked by the lighting of John Lasiter). Mr. Durang’s farcical fancies notwithstanding, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” shares an undercurrent of melancholy with its models from czarist Russia. When Mr. Durang’s Vanya says, “I’m worried about the future,” you can hear Chekhov’s woodcutters approaching the cherry orchard. And you understand that Mr. Durang isn’t just nostalgic for “Old Yeller,” “I Love Lucy” and lickable stamps. Nor is he just showing off his erudition about the theater and providing years of material for Ph.D. dissertations. On his website, describing himself in the third person, the playwright says, “Some mornings he feels bitter and grateful at the same time, which is a complicated feat.” Well, yes. But an even more complicated feat is writing a comedy that can make audiences feel bitter and grateful while they’re laughing. “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” which won last year’s Tony Award for best play, does just that. And Mr. Williams and his marvelous cast at Hartford Stage have brought it vividly to life. | Hartford Stage;Theater;Christopher Durang;Hartford Connecticut;Connecticut;David Gregory;Maxwell Williams;Mark Nelson;Caryn West;Stacey Sargeant |
ny0118559 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2012/10/14 | Alex Karras Played Role of League Outlaw for Lions | For me, Alex Karras will always be a pink giant with a towel wrapped around his waist. He will always have a scowl on his face, a cigar in one paw and a cold beer in the other. That’s how I still see him half a century after I, as a wide-eyed kid, slipped into the Detroit Lions ’ locker room after home games. Karras, who died Wednesday at the age of 77, was pink because he had just finished washing away the mud and the blood from a long day in the trenches. He was scowling through the cigar smoke because, more often than not, the Lions had just lost another game. I got into the locker room because my father had season tickets in a little third-deck aerie beside the press box. Our seats were perched above the gridiron that had been painted on the field where the Tigers played baseball during the warm months and where the Lions played a bruising brand of football during the season of rain, sleet and snow. As cold as it was in those stands, I’ve got to believe the playing field was as forgiving as a sidewalk. My father had those choice tickets because he worked at Ford’s, as Detroiters say. Specifically, he worked for the man who bought the Lions in 1963 and still owns the team, William Clay Ford Sr., whose grandfather gave the world the Model T and the $5 workday. Karras, at 6 feet 2 inches and about 250 pounds, looked as big as a building to my boyhood eyes but was considered small for a defensive lineman even then. If you wanted big, you went with Roger Brown, his neighbor on the Lions’ Fearsome Foursome defensive line of the 1960s. Brown weighed more than 300 pounds, when 300-pound football players and 7-foot basketball players were anomalies and when domed stadiums, luxury suites and multimillionaire athletes did not exist. But Karras, skinny legs and all, played with a murderous intensity that endeared him to me and many other fans in the bare-knuckle city of Detroit. He was known for hating all quarterbacks, even his own. He dismissed them as “milk drinkers.” One story has it that after Lions quarterback Milt Plum threw a late interception, turning a 7-6 lead into a 9-7 loss to the despised Green Bay Packers, an infuriated Karras hurled his helmet across the locker room at Plum’s skull. He missed the target by 10 inches, give or take. As I was to learn later, Karras had another admirable characteristic: an abiding disdain for authority. He got along so poorly with his coach at the University of Iowa, Forest Evashevski, that the two wouldn’t speak to each other off the field. Even so, Karras was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in 1957 and a first-round draft pick by the Lions. He did not have many kind words for the team’s front office, and he was furious and unrepentant when, in 1963, N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended him and Packers running back Paul Hornung for gambling on games. “I don’t like Pete Rozelle,” Karras said in a 1977 interview, recalling his one-year suspension for placing half a dozen bets of $50 or $100. Hornung apologized, publicly and profusely. Karras never did. I always admired him for that, for his unwillingness to bow to authority, doubly so because it carried consequences. Hornung was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986. Despite four Pro Bowl appearances, despite being voted to the All-Decade Team of the 1960s, despite a consensus that he was one of the best defensive linemen ever to play the game, Karras was shunned by the Hall of Fame. Karras played his entire career for Detroit , from 1958 to 1970, missing one game to injury. During his suspension, he took up pro wrestling, including a hyped bout against Dick the Bruiser. Karras told an interviewer in 2003 that he was paid $17,000 for that night, $4,000 more than he made the previous season playing for a team owned by a man who was then worth millions. It may be fashionable nowadays to moan that athletes make outrageous money — and I moan as much as any fan — but we tend to forget that before professional athletes became organized and began to assert leverage, the team owners tended to treat players like serfs. After Joe DiMaggio made $17,000 during his second sensational season with the Yankees, he asked for $40,000 in 1938. He eventually caved in and accepted management’s offer of $25,000. For this he was booed in the Bronx. Karras played in one playoff game in his career, his last game, a 5-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. I’ve got to believe all that losing ate up a competitor like Karras, the scowling pink giant with the cigar and the beer. But he didn’t turn into a bitter old jock. To his credit, he was successful in broadcasting and in acting. And he kept fighting the authorities to the end. He had dementia during the last decade of his life, and in April he joined the more than 3,000 former players who are suing the N.F.L. for failing to protect them from the long-term effects of head injuries. In one of his most memorable movie roles, as the thick-skulled cowpoke Mongo in the 1974 comedy “Blazing Saddles,” Karras said, “Mongo only pawn in game of life.” Alex Karras was anything but a pawn, in the game of football or in the game of life. | Karras Alex;Detroit Lions;Football |
ny0155939 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/06/11 | Technology and Food Yield Choice at Charity | With its airy dining room, round tables and sleek wood chairs that look like something from a SoHo showroom, the new St. John’s Bread and Life center in Bedford-Stuyvesant bears very little resemblance to the traditional soup kitchen. Founded 26 years ago over a hot stove at St. John’s University on Lewis Avenue and run for most of that time by Sister Bernadette Szymczak, a member of the Daughters of Charity, until her death in 1998, Bread and Life became the largest soup kitchen in Brooklyn. This week the organization is moving nearby to 795 Lexington Avenue, with $4.6 million in renovations to a former warehouse that the organization’s staff describes as the emergency food provider of the future. But the most innovative new element to feeding the poor is outside the kitchen, in a little lobby in front, where touch-screen computers sit lined up on a table. They answer the question of how to offer people a choice in what they eat, something that is often overlooked in charity. Until now, at the pantry at Bread and Life and countless other organizations, volunteers have handed out bags or boxes of presorted soup cans, rice, bread and other mainstays whether or not the recipient needed or wanted it all. “It’s not dignified,” Anthony Butler, the executive director, said. “People don’t shop like that.” The computer terminals are the first of their kind in the country to be used in this way, as far as he has been able to tell, Mr. Butler said. He owes a debt of gratitude, perhaps fittingly for a man in the food business, to an anonymous waiter in a New York City restaurant, the name of which is already forgotten. Mr. Butler, 47, was stumped by the question of bringing choice into the pantry at the new center. Other pantries that offer options use a supermarket-style layout, with clients shopping with carts in aisles, but that would have taken up too much costly space in New York. That is when he noticed the waiter, punching in an order on a flat-screen computer monitor. “I asked him, ‘Does it work?’ ” he recalled on Monday. “ ‘Does it frustrate you? Is it easy to use?’ ” The waiter said it was easy, and showed him. After many telephone calls and Internet searches, Mr. Butler found a vendor, Plexis Point of Sale Software, that provides the monitors to restaurants and bars. Mr. Butler looked at point-and-click setups using a mouse, but he worried that would intimidate some clients. “The assumption was that most people use an A.T.M. card,” and would be familiar with swiping the card and using a PIN, he said. He will find out soon. The pantry opens for business Thursday morning and is expected to serve at least 30 to 40 people a day, on top of about 1,150 meals served per day in the traditional manner at the soup kitchen and via a mobile kitchen. The pantry works like this: Clients who can prove they live below the federal poverty level will receive a card and a number of credits based on the number of people in their household, similar to food stamps. The client swipes the card at a terminal, enters a PIN, and begins shopping. Food for three days is provided once a month. The icons on the screen will recall the food pyramid, with buttons for dairy, grains, fruits, vegetables and so on. Foods that have less nutritional value will cost more credits. A printer rolls out a receipt, and the client waits in a lounge-type area with wood-and-leather benches, a skylight and a library attached. A volunteer in the pantry stockroom packs the requested food and brings it to the client. The credits are renewed every month, and clients are evaluated every six months to ensure they still qualify. LaVerne Spencer, 46, first visited Bread and Life as a client on government assistance in 2001, and she volunteered to work. Now she is the supervisor of the pantry. A tall, thin woman who hugs everyone she knows at the center, she was a little skeptical when first approached with the touch-screen idea. “I was a little nervous, you know what I’m saying?” she said. “Not just for me, but for my clients. A lot of people aren’t computer savvy. Some people just don’t like change.” The center has done demonstrations in recent weeks to try to shorten the learning curve. A client in the building on Monday, Leon Simmons, 71, punched in a few items with a demonstration card and sort of shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “It’s easy.” Yet, other clients, sweating and deflated after an opening-week parade from the former center, watched over his shoulder with furrowed brows. “I’m contemplating a little madness,” Ms. Spencer said, a prediction for the days ahead. “Quite a bit of madness.” | Computers and the Internet;Soup Kitchens;Food;Bedford-Stuyvesant (NYC);Brooklyn (NYC) |
ny0273318 | [
"us"
] | 2016/05/24 | Chicago Police Try to Predict Who May Shoot or Be Shot | CHICAGO — In this city’s urgent push to rein in gun and gang violence, the Police Department is keeping a list. Derived from a computer algorithm that assigns scores based on arrests, shootings, affiliations with gang members and other variables, the list aims to predict who is most likely to be shot soon or to shoot someone. Shaquon Thomas was on it. His first arrest came at age 13, and others quickly followed, his face maturing in a progression of mug shots. By 18, Mr. Thomas, who was known as the rapper Young Pappy, had been wounded in a shooting, the police said. Then, last May, Mr. Thomas , 19, was fatally shot in what the police said was a running gang feud. His score was more than 500, putting him near the top of the Chicago Police Department’s list. “We know we have a lot of violence in Chicago, but we also know there’s a small segment that’s driving this stuff,” Eddie Johnson , the police superintendent, said in a recent interview. The authorities hope that knowing who is most likely to be involved in violence can bring them a step closer to curtailing it. They are warning those highest on the list that they are under intense scrutiny, while offering social services to those who want a path away from the bloodshed. About three years into the program and on a fourth revision of the computer algorithm that generates the list, critics are raising pointed questions about potential breaches to civil liberties in the creation of such a ranking. And the list’s efficacy remains in doubt, as killings and shootings have continued to rise this year. In a city of 2.7 million people, about 1,400 are responsible for much of the violence, Mr. Johnson said, and all of them are on what the department calls its Strategic Subject List. So far this year, more than 70 percent of the people who have been shot in Chicago were on the list, according to the police, as were more than 80 percent of those arrested in connection with shootings. In a broad drug and gang raid carried out last week amid a disturbing uptick this year in shootings and murders, the Police Department said 117 of the 140 people arrested were on the list. And in one recent report on homicides and shootings over a two-day stretch, nearly everyone involved was on the list. “We are targeting the correct individuals,” Mr. Johnson said. “We just need our judicial partners and our state legislators to hold these people accountable.” Many government agencies and private entities are using data to try to predict outcomes, and local law enforcement organizations are increasingly testing such algorithms to fight crime . The computer model in Chicago, though, is uniquely framed around this city’s particular problems: a large number of splintered gangs; an ever younger set of gang members, according to the police; and a rash of gun violence that is connected to acts of retaliation between gangs. Supporters of Chicago’s list say that it allows the police to focus on a small fraction of people creating chaos in the city rather than unfairly and ineffectively blanketing whole neighborhoods. But critics wonder whether there is value in predicting who is likely to shoot or be shot with seemingly little ability to prevent it, and they question the fairness and legality of creating a list of people deemed likely to commit crimes at some future time. “We’re concerned about this,” said Karen Sheley , the director of the Police Practices Project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “There’s a database of citizens built on unknown factors, and there’s no way for people to challenge being on the list. How do you get on the list in the first place? We think it’s dangerous to single out somebody based on secret police information.” Image Guns that were confiscated last week during a drug and gang raid in Chicago. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times The city is trying both to calm residents’ worries about mounting violence and to rebuild community relations with the police after years of distrust , which boiled over with the release of a video six months ago showing a black teenager named Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by a white police officer. The Chicago police, which began creating the Strategic Subject List a few years ago, said they viewed it as in keeping with findings by Andrew Papachristos , a sociologist at Yale, who said that the city’s homicides were concentrated within a relatively small number of social networks that represent a fraction of the population in high-crime neighborhoods. Miles Wernick , a professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, created the algorithm. It draws, the police say, on variables tied to a person’s past behavior, particularly arrests and convictions, to predict who is most likely to become a “party to violence.” The police cited proprietary technology as the reason they would not make public the 10 variables used to create the list, but they said that some examples were questions like: Have you been shot before? Is your “trend line” for crimes increasing or decreasing? Do you have an arrest for weapons? Dr. Wernick said the model intentionally avoided using variables that could discriminate in some way, like race, gender, ethnicity and geography. Jonathan H. Lewin, the deputy chief of the Chicago Police Department’s technology and records group, said: “This is not designed to replace the human process. This is just designed to inform it.” The police have been using the list, in part, to choose individuals for visits, known as custom notifications. Over the past three years, police officers, social workers and community leaders have gone to the homes of more than 1,300 people with high numbers on the list. Mr. Johnson, the police superintendent, said that officials were increasing those visits this year, adding at least 1,000 people. During these visits — with those on the list and with their families, girlfriends and mothers — the police bluntly warn that the person is on the department’s radar. Social workers who visit offer ways out of gangs, including drug treatment programs, housing and job training. “We let you know that we know what’s going on,” said Christopher Mallette, the executive director of the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy , a leader in the effort. “You know why we’re here. We don’t want you to get killed.” Uncertain, for now, is the effectiveness. The RAND Corporation is evaluating the city’s list, but results are yet to be published. Mr. Mallette said that 21 percent of the people they had succeeded in talking to had sought assistance, and that fewer than 9 percent had been shot since a home visit. A juvenile who has a high score on the list and who was visited last week was shot in the leg and injured on Sunday, the police said. They said he did not answer the door last week when the group went to his home. Arthur J. Lurigio , a professor of psychology and criminology at Loyola University Chicago, said there was little evidence to date that the approach was slowing crime. “This is a first step,” he said, “but now, figuring what to do with that list — that’s another thing.” A police computer dashboard of the Strategic Subject List gives a glimpse of the arc of each person on it. Shaquon Thomas’s entry went on and on: 23 arrests, the police said, mostly for misdemeanors, then the shootings. “When people think we’re profiling or targeting, it’s not true,” said Mr. Johnson, who was an officer here for decades before being appointed this year to succeed the superintendent in the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald video. “It has nothing to do with your race, your background. It’s just all about the contacts you have with law enforcement.” The police said Shaquon Thomas was scheduled to receive a visit — one of the custom notifications — but he died before it could take place. | Murders and Homicides;Police;Data Mining,Big Data;Chicago Police Department;Crime;Discrimination;Gang;Eddie Johnson;Chicago |
ny0258000 | [
"business"
] | 2011/01/17 | Treasury Auctions Set for This Week | The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday and the regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills on Thursday. The bond markets are closed on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.15 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.17 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.13 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: TUESDAY Florida, $72 million of university system debt securities. Competitive. WEDNESDAY Albuquerque, $135 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Washington State, $445.6 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Chicago, $288 million of taxable general obligation bonds. Loop Capital Markets. Duquesne Light Company, Pennsylvania, $141 million of debt securities. Bank of America. Florida Mid-Bay Bridge Authority, $167 million of revenue bonds. Goldman Sachs. Grossmont, Calif., Health Care District, $137 million of general obligation bonds. Goldman Sachs. Liberty Hill, Tex., Independent School District, $87.7 million of unlimited tax school building and refinancing bonds. Morgan Keegan. New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority, $450 million of debt securities. Jefferies. Philadelphia Hospitals and Higher Education Facilities Authority, $200 million of hospital revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. San Francisco Airport Commission, $225 million of airport revenue refinancing bonds. Siebert Brandford Shank. Southern California Public Power Authority, $195 million of revenue bonds. Goldman Sachs. Wisconsin Health and Educational Facilities Authority, $74 million of revenue bonds. Piper Jaffray. | Government Bonds;Auctions |
ny0198352 | [
"business"
] | 2009/07/16 | Stocks Climb, Spurred by Intel’s Results | Stocks shot higher on Wednesday after investors had a night to digest a stronger-than-expected financial report from Intel. Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, said consumer demand for computers — especially from Asia — led to $8 billion in sales in the second quarter, and the company predicted an even stronger third quarter. Paul S. Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, described the company’s second-quarter growth as the best since 1988. The buoyant mood in the stock market spread beyond technology companies on Wednesday as investors latched onto hopes that consumer spending might be recovering. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 256.72 points, or 3.1 percent, to close at 8,616.21. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index climbed 26.84 points, or 3 percent, to 932.68. And the technology-weighted Nasdaq composite index gained 63.17 points, or 3.5 percent, to 1,862.90. Bond prices, meanwhile, fell sharply as investors moved into increasingly attractive stock positions. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note declined 1 2/32, to 96 2/32, and the yield rose to 3.60 percent from 3.47 percent late Tuesday. Coming on the heels of the huge profit reported at Goldman Sachs, the Intel announcement sent a strong signal to investors, who had greeted the week of heavyweight earnings with caution after a month of market losses and ambiguous economic indicators. Shares of Intel rose 7.3 percent, while its rival Advanced Micro Devices gained 8.7 percent on the positive signs for computer demand. Among other technology companies, Alcatel-Lucent rose 13.4 percent. “In Goldman Sachs and Intel, you’ve got the 600-pound gorillas in the room,” said Tim Smalls, head of United States stock trading at Execution in Greenwich, Conn. Strong performances from the sterling names during difficult circumstances will not necessarily reassure investors, who for weeks have been questioning whether the overall economy is improving, Mr. Smalls said. “We have to watch to see if there is this trickle-down effect,” he said. “If the financials coming up this week and next can show some positive earnings growth and put a positive spin on it, I think that will lessen some of the fears.” The stock market mostly shrugged off a report from the Labor Department that showed the Consumer Price Index rising 0.7 percent in June as a result of higher gasoline prices. Oil prices have been trending downward, and economists expect that consumer prices this month will not be affected nearly as much by energy costs. Oil prices rose Wednesday after falling sharply earlier in the month. Crude oil for August delivery rose $2.02, to settle at $61.54 a barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but that price was still more than $10 below the levels reached last month. Analysts said businesses had shed fuel inventories to the point that demand was expected to pick up again, and a report on Wednesday showed a bigger-than-expected drop in inventories. Market sentiment was similarly upbeat in Europe and Asia. In Britain, the FTSE 100 index gained 2.6 percent, while Germany’s DAX index rose 3.1 percent. The CAC-40 in France picked up 2.9 percent. The Japanese Nikkei 225 stock average and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index both showed gains. | Stocks and Bonds;United States Economy;Company Reports;Dow Jones Stock Average |
ny0051556 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/10/08 | Indian Official Appealing Corruption Case Is Denied Bail | NEW DELHI — A high court judge refused on Tuesday to grant bail to Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the longtime chief minister of the state of Tamil Nadu, noting in his ruling that India ’s Supreme Court was taking a tougher view of corruption, interpreting it as “a violation of human rights.” Ms. Jayaram, an enormously popular leader, was sentenced last month to four years in prison on charges that she illegally enriched herself in the first of her three terms as chief minister. Her lawyers had argued for her sentence to be suspended pending her appeal. Ms. Jayaram’s conviction shook her political organization and cast her followers, who call her Amma, or Mother, into despair, with some going on hunger strikes or shaving their heads in a sign of mourning. The police also attributed a number of suicides, including by poisoning and self-immolation, to distress over the verdict . Though the trial was moved to the neighboring state of Karnataka, a crowd of supporters from Tamil Nadu has been camping since late September outside the prison where Ms. Jayaram is being held. The crowd erupted in celebration on Tuesday, setting off firecrackers and distributing sweets, when the prosecutor in the case told the Karnataka High Court that he had no objection to granting her bail. The jubilation was doused abruptly when the judge refused to do so. “The honorable Supreme Court has held that corruption violates human rights,” the judge, A. V. Chandrashekara, wrote in his ruling. “It is further held that systematic corruption is violation of human rights as it leads to economic crisis.” The decision went on to say that the court had been “adding new dimension to the approach to be adopted towards the public servants involved in cases of corruption.” O. Panneerselvam, a lieutenant of Ms. Jayaram’s who stepped in as chief minister, appealed to party members to refrain from public disturbances. “Do not indulge in closure and strike — Jayalalithaa doesn’t like these,” he said in a statement, according to NDTV, a news channel. “Keeping calm is the only way to express love for Jayalalithaa.” | India;Jayalalithaa;Tamil Nadu;Corruption;Supreme Court of India |
ny0272846 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/05/09 | Ted Cruz at a Crossroads as He Returns to the Senate | WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is expected to return to the Capitol this week, the last of four Republican senators battered and beaten by Donald J. Trump to trudge back to the world of meetings over cafeteria cod and roll call votes to name the national mammal. But Mr. Cruz’s return is more fraught with curiosity than those of the other three, Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida. He made it the furthest, winning 10 states and coming tantalizingly close to pushing Mr. Trump to a contested convention, only to drop out on the same day the billionaire developer suggested that Mr. Cruz’s father had conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald . The party’s presumptive nominee had also insulted Mr. Cruz’s wife, baselessly alluded to extramarital affairs and labeled him “Lyin’ Ted.” Now the man who helped create an outsider movement in national politics, only to have it eat him alive after his rival co-opted the idea, must decide which group among his fellow lawmakers to join. Will he stand with the hold-your-nose set, as Mr. Paul has done, and support Mr. Trump? Or join forces with “Never Trump,” as Senator Graham did on Friday , and publicly decline to get on board? Or will he take the route of Mr. Rubio, in effect giving a non-endorsement endorsement, saying he will support any Republican nominee, but not explicitly name Mr. Trump? “I think all of us will be interested to see what position Senator Cruz takes,” said Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who is more or less in the same place as Mr. Graham. “After he pretty much excoriated Trump on the final day of his campaign, it would be quite a turnabout if he were to support him now.” Millions of voters are watching, but for now, he won’t say. Mr. Cruz “is currently scheduled to be back in D.C. next week, and that’s as much detail as we’re sharing right now,” his spokesman Phil Novack said on Friday. The Senate has long been the cradle of presidential ambition, with each of the 100 senators possessed of the capacity to look in the mirror and see the next president of the United States. But those dreams are so rarely realized that Barack Obama was the first to ascend directly from the Senate to the White House since John F. Kennedy. Mr. Cruz’s return nearly coincides with the arrival of Mr. Trump, who plans to visit Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other House Republicans on Thursday with the goal of unifying the party. Mr. Ryan said last week that he was “not ready” to give Mr. Trump his support. It is a division Mr. Cruz helped create, by pressing congressional Republicans to defy party leaders and their colleagues to shut down the government and repeatedly hold up basic legislation, giving him the distinction of being the least popular member of one of the world’s most exclusive clubs. But outside the noise and theatrics of the campaign, Mr. Cruz also finds himself at a potential turning point in his Senate career, both as a returning failed presidential candidate and as an unpopular firebrand who has been most comfortable as a thorn, rather than partner, to other Republicans. The Senate has a rich history of members whose run for president failed but who came back to effective legislative careers. From Henry Clay, who ran for president three times in the 1800s, to Hubert Humphrey, who narrowly lost to Richard Nixon in 1968, to Edward M. Kennedy, one of the greatest bipartisan lawmakers of all time, to John McCain, who was defeated by Barack Obama in 2008 and is now an effective chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also-rans can find their Senate home a great refuge. “They remember what they liked about the Senate,” said Donald A. Ritchie, a historian emeritus of the Senate. “The fact is United States senators are very influential and powerful people in their own right. Those who come back and are not running again or not at the end of their term hunker down in committee assignments and hopefully have learned a lot that can translate into legislation.” The Senate’s clubbiness and customs can also make for a pleasant landing after a dispiriting defeat. “The Senate can be a forgiving place for those coming back from a run for president,” said Jim Manley, a former senior communications aide to Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. “You still have staffers at your beck and call, and everyone still opens the door for you.” At the same time, even lawmakers who wore their antagonism of leaders with honor can evolve into statesmen in the Senate. This was the case with Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania — now best known for his bipartisan efforts at a gun safety law — and Mr. Flake, who used to irritate House leaders and is now considered one of the most thoughtful members of the Senate. “Toomey and Flake — when confronted with the way the place works, they moderated,” said James A. Thurber, the director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “They changed the institution a little bit, but more the institutions changed them.” In the case of Mr. Toomey, who is up for re-election, “with Trump at the top of the ticket he has to focus on his role in the Senate,” Mr. Thurber said. Mr. Graham returned to the Senate being, well, Lindsey Graham. He quips, he votes, he goes on television and is funny. “Eating a taco is probably not going to fix the problems that we have with Hispanics,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash last week , referring to Mr. Trump’s photo on Twitter of himself with a taco bowl. “I think embracing Donald Trump is embracing demographic death.” Mr. Rubio has become more senatorial in a classic sense than he had been in the last two years, going to the floor of the Senate to fight for money to combat the Zika virus, and traveling to the Middle East. “Marco always believed his purpose in the Senate was to get things done,” said Alex Conant, his former spokesman. “That’s why he joined the immigration reform effort and spent so much time on foreign policy. When the campaign ended, it was easy for him to get back to work in the Senate.” Mr. Paul’s return has been decidedly different. He has mostly just walked around looking miserable. What Mr. Cruz will do is anyone’s guess. Right now he has been resting with his family, and no one seems to have heard from him. “The Senate can change you,” Mr. Manley said, “but if you want to be an effective legislator, 60 votes are key and bipartisanship is necessary if you want to get anything done. Senator Cruz demonstrated zero desire to work with his colleagues before he went on the campaign trail, and I doubt very much he will change when he gets back. And that is a problem the Senate does not need right now.” | 2016 Presidential Election;Ted Cruz;Texas;US;US Politics;Senate;Congress;Republicans |
ny0180633 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/08/15 | Elevator Violations Draw Fine of $50,000 | A New York City housing court fined a landlord $50,000 for serious elevator violations on Monday, one of the largest such civil penalties to date, a Department of Buildings spokeswoman said yesterday. The building in dispute is a seven-story apartment building at 98 Morningside Avenue near West 123rd Street in Manhattan. It is one of the 30 buildings with a history of neglect that the department identified in an enforcement program that began in late 2006. To date, two of those cases have been brought to housing court, including the one decided this week. Of the others, many landlords have settled, while some are facing criminal charges. The department has been using enforcement and incentives in efforts to lead “the top offenders to take action and correct their elevator problems,” said Patricia J. Lancaster, the buildings commissioner. The city’s 56,000 elevators, about 9 percent of the nation’s total, provide about 30 million trips each day, she estimated. The building has had 11 elevator violations since 2005, according to the Buildings Department. Neighbors complained that the building’s lone elevator was frequently out of service for weeks at a time, and that it had a hole in the floor that was covered by sheet metal. The case, City of New York v. 98 Morningside LLC, was brought in June by the city’s Buildings Department and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. On Monday, the housing court judge, Gilbert Badillo, ruled in favor of the city, assessed a civil penalty of $50,000 and gave the landlord 21 days to correct the violations. In addition, Judge Badillo’s order gives the court jurisdiction should the violations continue. The building at 98 Morningside was acquired in 2002 by Baruch D. Singer, a New York landlord known for buying distressed properties, according to a lawyer who was involved in the sale. Messages left for Mr. Singer late last night were not answered. | Elevators and Escalators;Landlords;Fines (Penalties) |
ny0112704 | [
"business"
] | 2012/02/12 | Basic Principles of Lovenomics 101 | BETSEY STEVENSON and Justin Wolfers are known for their work on the economics of coupledom. They avoid giving Dr. Phil-style advice, but they do follow a few basic principles: DON’T MARRY Mr. Wolfers and Ms. Stevenson aren’t married. Why? Taxes, mostly. Ms. Stevenson says the tax code essentially creates “a subsidy for affluent husbands” by treating a working couple’s dual income just as it treats the same amount of income earned by a working married person whose spouse stays home. That makes working relatively expensive for women, particularly those with children. A married working couple often pays for child care and, if they’re relatively affluent, they may also buy many meals out and hire a house cleaner. Such expenses effectively lower their income. Their tax rate, however, remains unchanged. “It’s a system that tries to convince women to stay out of the labor force,” Ms. Stevenson said. Mr. Wolfers and Ms. Stevenson, who have a young daughter, have consulted a lawyer so that they have legal rights similar to those of married couples, like power of attorney. WORK ALIKE Both are economists, so their home is their office, and vice versa. Mr. Wolfers says the synergy is valuable.“The fact that we talk economics all day every day means that in 10 years of being an economist, I’ve had more conversations about economics than many people have in 20 years,” he said. As Ms. Stevenson put it: “Justin is happier as an academic with me as an academic.” OUTSOURCE Even as graduate students, they outsourced domestic chores. “We were living off of credit cards by the end, but we didn’t want to fight,” Ms. Stevenson recalled. Today, they have a nanny and someone who drives them to work, cooks and does other chores. They use their extra time to do work that helps pay for all this. Such a system, they say, helps strike a work-life balance. HAVE CHILDREN Here, economics no longer applies. Children tend to upend the old formulas. Mr. Wolfers used to think that hobbies — he runs, for example — were economically expensive. After all, he could use the time he spends running to make more money. “But parenting throws that all out the window,” he said. Children require much, much time. If he lets his toddler take 10 minutes to do something he could do for her in 30 seconds, “that is a $30 interaction.” But, as a parent, he has learned new ways to value time — accounting for lessons in self-reliance, for example. | Economics (Theory and Philosophy);Work-Life Balance;Children and Childhood;Marriages;Stevenson Betsey;Wolfers Justin |
ny0104652 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2012/03/08 | A New Course for Harvard: Game Theory | CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In the last four months, the Harvard men’s basketball team was ranked among the nation’s top 25 teams for the first time ever. It has been lauded as the springboard for the career of the N.B.A.’s newest sensation, Jeremy Lin . And Tuesday night, for the first time since 1946, Harvard qualified for the N.C.A.A. tournament by winning the Ivy League championship. It may no longer be a surprise that Ivy League institutions can produce good athletes and teams that can win outside their conference. Still, Harvard has been around for 376 years and nothing quite like this has happened before. “Everybody’s so excited about it; in the dining halls, everyone’s talking about it,” said Danielle Rabinowitz, a Harvard sophomore from Brookline, Mass. “So, even for a person like myself, who isn’t at the basketball games themselves, I’m pretty in tune with the success of the basketball team. “People always stereotypically feel that our conversations are generally about philosophy, or obscure topics that the common man can’t relate to. I think that just adding this element of sports to the mix kind of grounds us in a more human way that is really great.” Tyler Neill, a graduate student in South Asian studies, was walking around Harvard Yard on Wednesday morning reading a copy of Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” in its original German. Neill had little knowledge of the university’s latest basketball achievement. “I watch sports none at all,” Neill said. “It’s not in my radar. Actually, when I talked with my father, he’s mentioned this. He’s excited.” The mix of emotions — and nonemotions — was a contrast to the reaction on many campuses this week as N.C.A.A. berths have been decided and celebrated. There were, for example, no streamers or toilet paper caught in the limbs of the trees Wednesday from a basketball rally the night before. The chest and face of the statue of John Harvard had not been painted crimson. No one had inscribed “N.C.A.A.” across the pillars of the library facade, nor had anyone emblazoned the quadrangle next to it with, “ESPN, Here We Come.” “We’re not Duke, and don’t want to be,” said Peter Sampson, an alumnus from Los Angeles who was visiting the campus to attend a research seminar. “We’re proud of the basketball team, and if they’re going to play they might as well be good. But we’re also proud of everyone. Tomorrow it might be the time to notice a new groundbreaking book by a professor or a scientific discovery. A basketball game is fleeting.” Maybe so, but on Wednesday, the university bookstore and apparel outlet was preparing to take the unprecedented step of producing commemorative T-shirts recognizing the basketball team’s Ivy League title. It has not done that for Lin, despite customer demand. Harvard will find out on Sunday what team it plays in the tournament, but regardless of its opponent, it is likely to be an underdog. Harvard tied for the regular season Ivy championship last season but lost a one-game playoff that decided the league’s automatic N.C.A.A. berth. The Crimson earned the 2012 title outright Tuesday when Penn lost to Princeton, falling a game short of Harvard’s 12-2 Ivy record. Most of Harvard’s players watched the Penn-Princeton game in their dorm rooms, although the senior co-captain Oliver McNally said he missed most of it when he fell asleep after staying up all night Monday to write a paper for his American foreign policy course. Energized by his team’s Ivy championship, McNally decided to walk across campus. “People I didn’t know were stopping to congratulate me,” McNally said. “My teachers were sending me e-mails asking about the N.C.A.A. tournament. I remember thinking: This wasn’t happening four years ago when nobody on campus knew any of us. We had zero impact then.” The Harvard team before McNally and some of his senior teammates arrived had an 8-22 record. This year’s team was 26-4. Coach Tommy Amaker , now in his fifth year at Harvard, recalled that when he took the job, he would occasionally run into someone who, upon hearing his occupation, would remark, “I didn’t know Harvard had a basketball team.” Asked before Wednesday’s team practice if someone had said that to him recently, he smiled, “I haven’t had that lately, no.” Part of Amaker’s success has been convincing top high school players in all parts of the nation that Harvard does indeed play college basketball at the highest level. McNally, for instance, initially declined to visit Harvard as a high school senior. Finally, after having narrowed his recruiting choices to colleges near his California home, he flew east to Massachusetts, but only because his parents insisted. “I ended up committing to Harvard during my visit,” he said. “It’s an impressive place, and Coach Amaker made a good case that it would be fun to build something new at Harvard. It’s been great to watch so many people come together and be engaged.” His co-captain, Keith Wright, agreed, to a point. “It’s not like I walk into a classroom and everyone starts clapping,” Wright said. “It’s still Harvard. People clap for A’s on a test, or want to.” To Drew Gilpin Faust, the Harvard president, the basketball team’s significant accomplishments this winter include drawing together a diverse campus populace. “The team has been a real community building force,” Faust said. “It’s a tribute to the notion of the student-athlete, and it’s happening at the same time as the phenomenon of Jeremy Lin, who was on this team just two years ago and was fully a student here.” Faust has attended several Harvard games this season, sitting behind one of the baskets — often a serious fan’s choice — in the small, old-fashioned pavilion gym where Harvard plays its home games. She said that her husband was a diehard basketball fan and that the game had deep roots in her family. But now Harvard’s basketball team will travel to one of the biggest stages on the annual American athletic calendar. People around the country will learn that Harvard has a basketball team, and that it won 26 games — some of them against ranked teams. Was Faust worried that people might start thinking of Harvard as a jock school? Laughing, she said, “I think we’re pretty safe on that account for a while.” | Basketball (College);Ivy League;Harvard University;Amaker Tommy;Lin Jeremy;College Athletics;Basketball;NCAA Basketball Championships (Men) |
ny0101814 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/12/08 | Janet Wolfe, Gothamite on a First-Name Basis With Her Era, Dies at 101 | So. About Janet. We feel within our rights to call her Janet because it was by that single name that Janet Wolfe — gleeful gadabout, archetypal Gothamite and the longtime executive director of the New York City Housing Authority Symphony — was known to readers of The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” department. In those columns — more than two dozen, from Ms. Wolfe’s debut in 1969 to her last bow nearly a quarter-century later — the anonymous author, Susan Lardner, chronicled, in the first-person-plural style that long typified the department, the daily doings of “our friend Janet.” To the magazine’s readers, Ms. Wolfe’s life — rife with routine calamities like tax audits (“I have no intention of using up my life savings for war. My argument is that they owe me money”), hospitalizations (“I asked them to put me in a room with a middle-aged man, but they refused”) and lost passports (“I ran over to the embassy to get a new one. I did a Greek dance. Then I showed them all my pictures of celebrities. They gave me a passport within the hour”) — became an avidly followed picaresque. There was also a variegated cast of supporting characters, generally strangers who had been pulled into Ms. Wolfe’s gravitational field by dint of sitting beside her on the subway, sharing a taxi with her or even driving one. Ms. Wolfe died on Nov. 30 at 101, though if she knew that the correct figure was being bruited about so cavalierly she would almost certainly have some choice things to say. “I try to lie about my age the same way all the time,” she said in a 1980 column, published a month shy of her 66th birthday. “I’ve settled on 48.” We learned of Ms. Wolfe’s death, at her Upper West Side home, from her daughters, Alisa Matlovsky and Deborah Matlovsky, who survive her, along with two grandchildren. Ms. Wolfe, who was long divorced from her husband, the Broadway music director Samuel Matlovsky , had never taken his surname. This was not for ideological reasons but because, she told The New Yorker, “a name like that you have to spell all the time.” As she sprang from Ms. Lardner’s pen, Ms. Wolfe was not so much of New York as she was New York: garrulous, generous, whip-smart, endearingly harebrained, unflinchingly direct, occasionally lonely, more than a little ribald, supremely well connected and sometimes down but never out — a small, bright moon that for decades orbited the rarefied worlds of theater, film and classical music. Ms. Wolfe, who had intended to be an actress, later worked as a dance instructor, with her own studio at the old Hotel Delmonico on Park Avenue at 59th Street. She seemed to be only one degree of separation away from everyone who was anyone, numbering among her friends and acquaintances the likes of Eartha Kitt, Shelley Winters, Farley Granger, Max Roach, Luciano Pavarotti, Mario M. Cuomo and Edward I. Koch. Federico Fellini made passes at her. Orson Welles sawed her in half. Ms. Wolfe herself, she proudly declared, once taught the rumba to the dance impresario Arthur Murray. To be in Ms. Wolfe’s presence, Ms. Lardner’s columns make plain, was to find oneself enveloped by an amiable hurricane, equal parts Holly Golightly, Auntie Mame and Mehitabel, the dowager cat at the center of “ Archy and Mehitabel ,” Don Marquis’s celebrated World War I-era column in The Evening Sun. “Toujours gai” — “Always cheerful” — Mehitabel would declare in her dotage; “there’s a dance in the old dame yet.” (Ms. Wolfe, in fact, was drawn to strays: If she found a kitten on the street she might well take it to Schrafft’s for a bite.) Those who knew Ms. Wolfe, it is said, would meet periodically to swap Janet stories. Strangers came to know her, in her many facets, through Ms. Lardner’s articles and through “ Whatever Happened to Zworl Quern? ,” a 1989 documentary, directed by her daughter Deborah, shown as part of the PBS series “P.O.V.” (Its title invokes the make-believe stage name Ms. Wolfe’s brother had bestowed on her when she dreamed of an acting career.) There was Ms. Wolfe the indefatigable budget traveler. “You meet a lot of people when you travel, especially if they spill something on you,” she said in 1974. “On the plane to Cannes from Paris, I sat next to a nice Fascist from Monaco. He liked Nixon, so I let him pay for the wine.” There was Ms. Wolfe the accidental participant in history, as when, in Venezuela to take a job as a governess, she wound up aiding the revolutionary cause of a new friend, Rómulo Betancourt — he would became the country’s president — by hiding his gun in her lingerie. “You should have seen the gat in my pink panties,” she told a newspaper at the time, “all wrapped up so the cops wouldn’t find it.” There was Ms. Wolfe the tenacious, impecunious tenant of a rent-controlled apartment, who battled the threat of eviction as perhaps only she could. Image Ms. Wolfe, the executive director of the New York City Housing Authority Symphony, in 1996. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times “I walked into the courtroom and saw this kid,” she said in 1989. “I said: ‘You’re the judge? I could be your mother.’” (To pass the time while waiting for her landlord to appear, Ms. Wolfe continued, “I went into my tap-dance routine. The court officer said in a very stern voice, ‘There is no dancing allowed in the court.’” The judge — under Ms. Wolfe’s spell or perhaps simply flummoxed — dismissed the case.) Last but certainly not least, there was Ms. Wolfe the arts administrator, who in 1971, divorced and in need of a job, petitioned an acquaintance at the Housing Authority to give her one. “Could you start a symphony orchestra?” he asked. Ms. Wolfe, who neither played an instrument nor read music, agreed; the orchestra gave its first concert the next year. From that day to this, the Housing Authority Symphony — comprising musical members of the agency’s staff and residents of its buildings, conservatory students, a few freelance professionals and, at least for a time, a cellist who had been a taxi driver of Ms. Wolfe’s — has played in the courtyards of city housing projects, in public parks and at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. The orchestra performs the standard repertoire but highlights the work of minority composers. Most of its members belong to minorities, as do most of its guest conductors. It is usually warmly received, though on occasion members have had to dodge eggs or outplay the music of nearby gunfire. Ms. Wolfe ran the orchestra for more than 40 years — she never officially retired — although the nuts and bolts of administration, she conceded, generally eluded her. “I may be the executive director of a symphony orchestra, but as far as the world is concerned I’m a housing assistant,” she told The New Yorker in 1986. “I took the bottom test and I never took any more. I don’t want to rise in the ranks. They ask you things like what to do if the elevator explodes. I put ‘Run like hell.’ The answer is ‘Call your supervisor.’” What she brought to the job was boundless energy, a talent for pressing the flesh and an almost preternatural ability to charm donations from a Rolodex of distinguished benefactors, among them Harry Belafonte, George Soros and Michael D. Eisner. “I just sleep around a lot,” Ms. Wolfe, then not quite 96, cheerfully told The Daily News in 2010, in accounting for those prominent names. To Ms. Wolfe, the orchestra was a tool for social justice, and she made a point of cultivating minority artists as players, soloists and conductors. “Janet,” Max Roach had said in an interview quoted in the Daily News article, “has provided more work for black, Hispanic and Asian players than anyone in New York.” The daughter of a father who was a stockbroker and a mother who, Ms. Wolfe recalled, was cruel, belittling and manipulative, Janet Schaeffer Wolf was born in Manhattan on April 8, 1914. (As a young woman she added an “e” to her surname because she liked its typographic luster.) She was reared on the Upper West Side in comparative privilege, until her father lost almost everything in the crash of 1929. She attended a string of private schools. “You know, everybody thinks I went to Vassar and Smith, but I never graduated from any where — not even from high school,” she told Ms. Lardner. “The last school I went to was the Northampton School for Girls, and they never recovered from it. “One day, the headmistress told me, ‘Your brain has gone rusty.’ I think it was meant as a challenge, but I accepted it as a fact and I never learned another thing.” During World War II, Ms. Wolfe served with the American Red Cross in Rome. After the war, she stayed on as an American liaison to filmmakers there, including Roberto Rossellini and Fellini (hence the passes). Afterward, she became an assistant to Welles, appearing in his stage magic act (hence the sawing). And so, for the rest of the 20th century and on into the 21st, Ms. Wolfe lived her inimitable life, grappling with bureaucracy (“The only reason I don’t have a license is not because I had 22 traffic tickets 12 years ago, it’s because I’m afraid to take the written test”) and joyfully reducing the degrees of separation that dared divide the world. (“The guy driving the cab was in the secondhand furniture business, and the guy I was sharing the cab with wanted a desk. They both came up and had a drink and then they went off together.”) Last year, the Housing Authority Symphony held a gala 100th-birthday tribute to Ms. Wolfe at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. “I don’t go rumba dancing anymore,” she told The Daily News, pragmatically, at the event. “All my partners are dead.” Then, lest anyone think that she herself was no longer equal to the task, Ms. Wolfe arose from her chair and danced a rumba on her own. | Obituary;Janet Wolfe;Housing Authority NYC;New Yorker;NYC |
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