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ny0029457 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/06/05 | Baseball Roundup | John Mayberry Jr., who entered the game in the seventh inning, tied the score with a homer in the 10th and hit a grand slam with two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning as the host Philadelphia Phillies beat the Miami Marlins, 7-3, on Tuesday night. Mayberry tied it off Steve Cishek in the 10th after Juan Pierre scored on a wild pitch in the top of the inning. In the 11th, an error by pitcher Edgar Olmos (0-1) and two walks loaded the bases for Mayberry, who lined a homer to left. Mayberry became the first Phillies player to hit a game-ending grand slam since Dale Murphy against the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 6, 1991. “Sometimes with John, if you can get him with certain pitchers, that’s when he becomes much better,” Philadelphia Manager Charlie Manuel said. “Sometimes, when he comes off the bench — I wouldn’t call him a great pinch-hitter — but when he goes into the game and he gets some time in the game, the next at-bat, he becomes much better.” ROCKIES 5, REDS 4 Troy Tulowitzki hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning — after the umpires initially ruled fan interference — and visiting Colorado ended a six-game losing streak against Cincinnati. A fan with a glove in left field grabbed Tulowitzki’s fly ball off Sam LeCure (1-1). The umpires changed the call after reviewing video that showed the ball had cleared the wall. BRAVES 5, PIRATES 4 Andrelton Simmons doubled off Mark Melancon in the 10th inning, lifting host Atlanta over Pittsburgh. RED SOX 17, RANGERS 5 Jackie Bradley Jr. hit his first career homer as host Boston had season highs for hits (19) and runs in routing Texas. Stephen Drew, Mike Carp and Jarrod Saltalamacchia also homered for the Red Sox, who scored at least one run in every inning through the first seven. TIGERS 10, RAYS 1 Prince Fielder homered and drove in four runs, and host Detroit handed Tampa Bay’s Matt Moore his first loss of the year after eight wins. ORIOLES 4, ASTROS 1 Danny Valencia homered, Chris Tillman pitched seven solid innings and visiting Baltimore ended Houston’s six-game winning streak. TWINS 3, ROYALS 0 Ryan Doumit homered and drove in two runs for Minnesota, which sent Kansas City to its franchise-record 11th straight home loss. It was the 18th straight time that the Royals’ starter has failed to win a decision. The Royals, who named Hall of Famer George Brett as the interim hitting coach, are hitting.183 with runners in scoring position since May 21. BREWERS 4, ATHLETICS 3 Carlos Gomez scored from first on Yuniesky Betancourt’s line drive in the gap between center and right in the bottom of the 10th, lifting Milwaukee over Oakland. | Baseball;Phillies;Miami Marlins |
ny0283449 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2016/07/08 | Serena Williams-Angelique Kerber Final Is Grand Slam Rematch | WIMBLEDON, England — It did not take long in the least, and as soon as Serena Williams had thrashed Elena Vesnina, 6-2, 6-0, in well under an hour, it was clear that the Wimbledon final on Saturday was going to be a rematch. Either Serena was going to play her older sister Venus in another Grand Slam final or Serena was going to play Angelique Kerber in another Grand Slam final. It turned out to be Kerber, which is a disappointment for all sentimentalists who wanted one more all-Williams final on a major occasion, but which is frankly for the best. From Serena’s perspective, beating your sibling could never feel as good as beating that left-handed German upstart who absorbed your superior power and spoiled your evening in the Australian Open final back in January. With Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam singles titles still on the line, it seems more fitting that Serena gets to swing away with no mixed emotions. And swing away she will against Kerber, who is much closer to the shy Graf personally than Serena. “I feel the real Serena is back,” her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said on Thursday as he walked to Court 2 to watch the Williamses win their quarterfinal doubles match. Lack of self-assurance is not a Mouratoglou trademark, although his back story as the son of a wealthy and demanding French father is certainly complex. He has been upbeat before other big matches in the past year and has been proven wrong when Serena’s all-conquering form turned out to be a facade. Cracks have been visible in the last month as well. First in the final of the French Open, where she was beaten by Garbiñe Muguruza, and again in the second round here at the All England Club, where she was nearly beaten by the unseeded American Christina McHale. But there has been very little for a coach to complain about since that rain delay against Svetlana Kuznetsova at 5-5 in the first set in the fourth round. The Centre Court roof was closed. Mouratoglou, a smooth talker with a true passion for the game, found the words to calm Serena’s nerves, and she has since been on a rumble indoors and outdoors. Thursday’s outdoor display against Vesnina was reminiscent of her display on this same patch of grass against another Russian with roots in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. She was Maria Sharapova, whom Serena used for a designer punching bag in the gold medal match at the 2012 London Olympics. Final score: 6-0, 6-1. Serena has never played better tennis from start to finish in a tournament than she did at the All England Club during those Games, and it was a big part of her late-career revival. “I went on the court with a game plan,” said Vesnina, a 29-year-old making her debut at this high-pressure level. “I think I tried everything. I serve and volley a couple of times. But it was just not meant to be today. It was all about Serena.” Kerber offers the possibility of a broader plotline and, better yet, something resembling a rivalry, which women’s tennis has long needed. It has been 10 years since two women met in two Grand Slam singles finals in the same calendar year: Amélie Mauresmo beat Justine Henin to win the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006. None of this is Serena’s fault. She has endured and excelled, becoming one of the greatest female athletes of all time. “I prefer the word, ‘One of the greatest athletes of all time,’” she said Thursday during a news conference in which she took several stands for gender equality. Kerber is one of the best movers and counterpunchers in the game and is particularly fit. Her left-handedness has been an advantage on grass (consider the nine-time Wimbledon singles champion Martina Navratilova and, more recently, the two-time champion Petra Kvitova). In this year’s Australian Open final – her first major final – Kerber was able to reboot rallies and return serves with a rare aplomb. None of Serena’s first six opponents in Melbourne put more than 70 percent of her serves back in play. Kerber did so 81 percent of the time as Serena, the most imposing server in the history of the women’s game, had an off night by her standards and was then memorably gracious in defeat. Venus, the family’s other big server, had an off day of her own on Thursday. Kerber put 85 percent of her returns into play in what was very likely the 36-year-old Venus’s last chance at reaching a Wimbledon final. She often lacked rhythm and leg drive and was broken in her first four service games, winning just 57 percent of the points on her first serve in the match. Those are not winning grass-court numbers, but Kerber was plenty edgy herself in phases of her 6-4, 6-4 victory, twice starting games with two double faults. How much better will she have to play to give Serena a run on Saturday? “She definitely has to play better than that,” said David Witt, Venus’s coach. “You can’t give Serena one free point a game, much less two double faults, and expect to hold.” Serena will clearly attempt to pounce on Kerber’s weakness: her second serve. Although Kerber is adept at defending an aggressive return with her quick feet and squat shots, it is trickier to do so on grass, where the bounce is lower and not quite as true, than on a medium-speed Australian hardcourt. “If Serena gets that first strike, it’s much tougher to defend on this surface than any other surface,” said Tracy Austin, the former No. 1 working as a BBC analyst. “That being said, it’s a slower surface than it was 10 years ago.” Austin, like most pundits, is picking Serena to end her recent Grand Slam title drought. It is the logical choice based on the weight of shot, but there is also the weight of the occasion. Twenty-two has not been Serena’s lucky number, with her upset losses to Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of last year’s United States Open and her defeats against Kerber and Muguruza this year. Asked what it would mean to equal Graf’s mark, Serena put up her formidable defenses. “My goal has never been 22,” she said. “I don’t talk about that anymore.” Mouratoglou was more nuanced. “We don’t think about that,” he said. “With what happened the last 10 months, it’s about winning a Slam, not about winning No. 22. It’s about finding the real Serena again. That’s the point. That’s what’s important.” This all sounds like a fine attempt to deflect the focus until Serena actually wins No. 22 and then sinks to her knees and begins talking about the weight that is finally off her shoulders. “She’ll get there,” Witt said. “It’s just a matter of time.” But isn’t it more compelling for all involved that she gets to play a grudge match to chase it at Wimbledon? | Tennis;Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon;Serena Williams;Angelique Kerber |
ny0174585 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/10/26 | Skakel Loses in Effort to Gain a New Trial | STAMFORD, Conn., Oct. 25 — Michael C. Skakel , who was convicted five years ago of killing a neighbor, Martha Moxley , in 1975 when they were both teenagers in Greenwich, suffered a further setback on Thursday when a state judge denied his bid for a new trial. The judge, Edward R. Karazin Jr. of Stamford Superior Court, concluded that newly discovered evidence suggesting an alternate theory of the homicide would not have produced a different outcome at trial. The lawyers for Mr. Skakel, 47, who is serving a term of 20 years to life, said they intended to appeal the decision and challenge his confinement on the ground that he had ineffective counsel at his trial. While that line of appeal is often considered a last resort, Judge Karazin’s ruling might make that argument easier because of his findings that Mr. Skakel’s trial lawyer, Mickey Sherman, could have discovered some of the evidence now in question if he had pursued it more diligently. The evidence, developed with the help of Mr. Skakel’s prominent cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, included videotaped testimony from Gitano Bryant, an acquaintance of Ms. Moxley, about how he accompanied two friends of his from the Bronx to Belle Haven, the gated community where the Moxleys and the Skakels lived, on the night she was bludgeoned to death with a golf club. Mr. Bryant testified that his two friends boasted at the time of wanting to attack a girl “cave man style” and later gloated that they had. The threesome, according to Mr. Bryant, also handled golf clubs they found on the Skakel property. The judge wrote that although Mr. Bryant’s account would meet the threshold to be admissible, “it lacks credibility, and therefore would not produce a different result in a new trial.” Ms. Moxley’s brother, John Moxley, called the decision expected, and added: “But still it’s a relief. It’s official.” Mr. Moxley said he never believed the theory that the two visitors from the Bronx were responsible for his sister’s death because Mr. Bryant “was a very well-known person, and he’s not the kind of person who could have been there that night with all those people running around and no one would have known who he was.” He said the alternative account was “like a bad movie script,” and added: “This blames the three black guys coming in off the highway. It’s just too far-fetched.” Mr. Sherman, for his part, said he expected an attack on his competence from Mr. Skakel’s new lawyers, Hope C. Seeley and Hubert J. Santos. “If Hope had not done it, she would have been accused of malpractice,” he said. He added: “I said on the witness stand that if they lose that motion, I become the enemy and get thrown under the bus. It’s the nature of the beast.” | Skakel Michael;Moxley Martha;Greenwich (Conn) |
ny0163867 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2006/02/14 | Selig's Next Problem: Bonds's Landmark Homers | IN campaigning for a more stringent steroids-testing program and prodding the players union to accept it, Commissioner Bud Selig stressed the need to restore baseball's integrity. Some of us were skeptical that baseball had an integrity problem, pointing to record attendance and increased interest as evidence that fans didn't really care about steroids. But with more than a little help from Congress, his argument prevailed. So let us take Selig's position for a moment, that steroids created an integrity problem for baseball. He may feel he has fixed the general problem, but Selig knows baseball faces a specific problem, a huge one, in the coming months. He won't talk about it, declined to as recently as yesterday, but it has a name: Barry Bonds. Supposedly recovered from a series of knee operations that limited him to 14 games and 5 home runs last season, Bonds will begin the season on April 3 needing only six home runs to match Babe Ruth's total of 714 and 47 to catch the career leader, Henry Aaron, and his 755. When Bonds surpasses both totals, which he will unless he falls down an open manhole, Selig, other officials and fans won't know how to greet him and his record. Did he achieve it honestly, or by cheating? Rafael Palmeiro was dumb or desperate or naïve or just plain careless in using steroids, and was caught last year. Mark McGwire stonewalled Congress and will find out in 11 months if his refusal to answer steroids questions will block his path to the Hall of Fame. Bonds has never tested positive for illegal substances, and he has always denied using them. Furthermore, he began his home-run binge before baseball tested for steroids. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in December 2004 that Bonds testified to a federal grand jury investigating a Bay Area steroids lab that he had used two substances supplied by his personal trainer. According to the reported transcript of his testimony, Bonds said he was told the substances were flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, but the government identified them as undetectable steroids, "the clear" and "the cream." Kimberly Bell, who said she had a nine-year relationship with Bonds, said in an interview with The New York Times last year that Bonds told her he used steroids. She has testified twice before the federal grand jury in San Francisco, most recently last month. She declined, through her lawyer, Martin Garbus, to say yesterday what she told the grand jury. Bonds has raised questions himself with the remarkable increase in his offensive production at ages that most players experience declining output. After never having hit more than 49 home runs, he slugged a record 73 in 2001, a year in which he turned 37. Nobody knows if illegal substances have aided Bonds -- no one has produced public evidence of it -- but this is what the commissioner would like to know before he and the rest of baseball salute Bonds as the game's greatest home run hitter. If baseball's integrity hangs on Bonds's next 48 home runs, the only way to find out if he has had help is to conduct an investigation. Some, including the union, would find an investigation distasteful, but if the commissioner is genuinely concerned about the integrity of the game, he has to determine if the 214 home runs Bonds has hit in the past five years have been genuine. The ideal man for such an investigation would be John Dowd, the aggressive Washington lawyer whose investigation into Pete Rose's betting led to his banishment. If Selig wanted to investigate Bonds, however, he wouldn't ask Dowd to do it. They aren't on friendly terms. Dowd upset the commissioner's office several years ago with a television interview in which he discussed the Rose case. The commissioner's office said Dowd had violated lawyer-client privilege and filed a bar complaint against him. But Dowd argued that confidentiality wasn't involved, and the D.C. bar association dismissed the complaint. "I've never been popular up there," Dowd said recently. Nevertheless, Dowd said an investigation into Bonds and steroids was "a very good idea." "I think they're going to have a raging fight about it," he said in a telephone interview, " because so many people are upset at steroids and don't think the home runs are deserved. It's all about the integrity of the game." At least Selig and Dowd agree on that point. How should an investigation be conducted? "They'll have to get the same evidence the U.S. attorney did in San Francisco," Dowd said, referring to the steroid lab case. "It's going to be hard because time has passed. They'd have to look at a lot of film to check his size, talk to his teammates, talk to some of the guys who appeared before the House committee. "It's kind of like the Rose case. You have to go back and recreate what happened, talk to trainers and staff. Talk to Bonds. I don't know if anyone ever asked him." Selig couldn't discipline Bonds if past use of steroids were discovered, but that would not be the point of an investigation. If baseball has an integrity problem, Selig should want to do everything he can to eradicate it. | SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS;SELIG BUD;BONDS BARRY;BASEBALL;RECORDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS;STEROIDS;DRUG ABUSE AND TRAFFIC;NEWS AND NEWS MEDIA |
ny0273264 | [
"world",
"australia"
] | 2016/05/06 | ISIS Operative From Australia Is Killed in Iraq Airstrike, Officials Say | SYDNEY, Australia — An Australian who had recruited for the Islamic State in the Middle East and urged fellow Australians to commit terrorist attacks at home has been killed in an American airstrike in Iraq, officials said on Thursday. Neil Prakash, whom the attorney general, George Brandis, called the most dangerous Australian involved with the extremist group, was killed in the city of Mosul on April 29, Mr. Brandis said. Mr. Prakash had “appeared in ISIL propaganda videos and magazines and has actively recruited Australian men, women and children, and encouraged acts of terrorism,” Mr. Brandis said in a statement, using an alternate term for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS. About 110 Australians overseas are believed to be fighting for the Islamic State or actively supporting the group, according to the Australian government, which is part of the United States-led effort to fight the extremists. Mr. Prakash left Australia in 2013 and had been based mostly in the Syrian city of Raqqa, officials said. Australian officials have linked Mr. Prakash, who also used the name Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, to a number of failed terrorist plots here, including a purported plan to attack police officers in April 2015 during celebrations for the Anzac Day holiday , which honors Australian and New Zealand veterans of World War I. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in an interview with Sky News that Mr. Prakash “has been a target for some time, as he should have been.” Mr. Brandis said another Australian, Shadi Jabar Khalil Mohammad, and her Sudanese husband, Abu Sa’ad al-Sudani, had been killed in a separate United States airstrike near Al Bab, Syria, on April 22. Both recruited foreign fighters for the Islamic State, Mr. Brandis said. Ms. Mohammad was the sister of Farhad Mohammad, 15, an Australian boy who shot and killed a civilian police employee, Curtis Cheng , outside a police station in suburban Sydney in October. The boy was then shot dead by police. | Australia;Neil Prakash;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Iraq;International relations;Terrorism |
ny0203948 | [
"us"
] | 2009/08/12 | Napolitano Focuses on Immigration Enforcement | EL PASO — A day after President Obama announced that legislation to overhaul immigration laws would have to wait until next year, the secretary of homeland security played down the need for change in a speech here and took a tough stance on enforcing current immigration laws. The secretary, Janet Napolitano , defended the administration’s assertive strategy against illegal immigrants and companies that employ them, relying largely on programs started under President George W. Bush. That strategy has drawn fire from immigrant groups and many of Mr. Obama’s Hispanic supporters, who say the president has not lived up to campaign promises to ease the pressure on illegal workers and to seek changes in immigration laws that would give more workers visas. But Ms. Napolitano argued that the Obama administration had changed Mr. Bush’s programs in critical ways, such as putting an emphasis on deporting criminals and holding more employers responsible for hiring illegal workers. “Make no mistake, our overall approach is very, very different,” she said Tuesday at a conference on border security at the University of Texas, El Paso . “It is more strategic, more cooperative, more multilateral and, in the long run, more effective.” Ms. Napolitano said security problems on the border were inextricably linked not only to the drug trade, but also to the problem of illegal workers in far-flung cities across the country. The government needs to address illegal immigration at the same time it attacks the Mexican mafias, she said. Her remarks disappointed advocates for immigrants, who questioned whether increasing enforcement would improve security as much as overhauling immigration laws would. “How many more millions if not billions of dollars are we going to put into the border without fixing the immigration system?” asked Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights , said of Ms. Napolitano, “She’s increasing enforcement of laws that President Obama and she have both said are broken, and the result is going to be a lot of human misery.” Ms. Napolitano and other administration officials have argued that a tough stance on illegal immigration is necessary to convince American voters to accept a wider overhaul that would give legal status to millions of foreigners. Still, the speech was notable for its lack of a single passage about the positive role many illegal immigrants play in society, a concession that has become standard in most political pronouncements from Democrats on the subject. Ms. Napolitano pointed to the buildup of federal agents on the border as part of the fight against drug dealers, saying the nation must take advantage of a historic level of cooperation with Mexico under President Felipe Calderón to stamp out organized crime. This year, she said, the government has seized more than $69 million in drug money, 2.4 million pounds of drugs, 95,000 rounds of ammunition and about 500 assault rifles, far more than last year. “But border security will not itself stop illegal entrants into our country,” Ms. Napolitano said. “Our border strategy must be combined with better enforcement of the immigration laws within the United States.” On that score, she pointed out that the Obama administration had outdone the Bush White House. Immigration agents have arrested 181,000 illegal immigrants and deported 215,000 people so far this year. Both figures are double what they were for the same period two years ago, she said. But Ms. Napolitano said she had shifted the emphasis away from arresting immigrants who have not broken other laws. | Napolitano Janet;Immigration and Emigration;Illegal Immigrants;United States Politics and Government |
ny0215680 | [
"us"
] | 2010/04/11 | Look at Assessor Race. Isn’t Democracy Grand? | Joe Berrios is two-legged evidence that the greatest outrages in politics tend to involve what’s absolutely legal. This enduring truth suggests why the Chicago electorate, having set a record in the Feb. 2 primary for its worst turnout, might actually be roused to vote in the November election for the confounding, mystery-shrouded post of Cook County assessor. Mr. Berrios is a former state representative and a multitasking phenomenon worthy of a course at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies. He’s the Cook County Democratic chairman, a lobbyist for the Illinois Coin Machine Operators Association and Illinois Licensed Beverage Association and the longest-serving member of the important, anonymous, incestuous Cook County Board of Review. Like the assessor’s office, which sets our property tax rates, the board is so enveloped in complexity that its inscrutability ensures a lack of accountability. The chance that any local journalist has covered one of its meetings is about the same as his covering the august South Cook County Mosquito Abatement District. But the board is critical to corporate Chicago and the lucrative commercial real- estate tax appeals practices of certain law firms, including that of Michael Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House. It’s where you appeal the assessor’s decisions. It’s partly why Mr. Berrios and Mr. Madigan are worthy of a Discovery Channel special: the first pair of Hispanic-Irish conjoined twins attached at the checkbook. Mr. Berrios lobbies Mr. Madigan on legislation, while Mr. Madigan appeals to Mr. Berrios for tax relief for clients — saving them many millions of dollars. The two men can make political donations to each other, just like litigants before the board can contribute to Mr. Berrios’s campaigns and Springfield lobbyists can enrich Mr. Madigan. And the duo can plot in political tandem since Mr. Madigan runs the state Democratic Party while Mr. Berrios runs the county party apparatus. Isn’t democracy grand? Mr. Berrios spent part of his youth living in the awful, defunct Cabrini-Green housing project. He’s now a Horatio Alger hero, Chicago-style, faithful servant of coin operators, Anheuser-Busch and high-rise developers avoiding a fair share of taxes. Mr. Berrios won the Democratic primary for assessor but is aghast that Forrest Claypool has announced an independent candidacy. Mr. Claypool is the reform-minded Democratic Cook County commissioner who served Mayor Richard M. Daley (twice) as chief of staff — as have enough others to fill the United Center — and head of the Park District. He’s also close to two Chicagoans working in the White House, namely President Obama and David Axelrod. He might be County Board president now if then-Senator Obama hadn’t been too coy by half and waited until the day before the 2006 primary to back him. Mr. Berrios says that Mr. Claypool should have run in the primary and that to the victor goes the spoils. Such a rationale did not prevail when party honchos showed the exit to Scott Lee Cohen, the pawnbroker who won the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Mr. Claypool needs 25,000 valid signatures by June 21 to get on the ballot, then a lot of free publicity and some luck. As important as the assessor’s post is, it’s not one to galvanize voters, especially in a year when an awful economy, high unemployment and the imminent trial of an impeached Democratic governor are all there to suppress interest. So he’ll have to educate us and get our apathetic selves to the polls. He needs to explain how the system is broken; why the assessed values of our homes seem to bear little link to their market value; how the heck the infamous “multiplier” works in calculating values, and why good intentions won’t be undermined by the review board. Representative Mike Quigley, an ally of Mr. Claypool, cites the “bully pulpit” aspect of the job, including pressing for change, like putting online the results, justifications and attorneys of record for all appeals. But I’d also love to know why assessor is even an elected position. “Good question,” Mr. Claypool said. He then argued that the post is so influential, and can do such damage in the wrong hands, there needs to be political accountability. Cross your fingers and hope for a re-invention. Just imagine somebody pressing to eliminate donations to review board members by the people who practice before it. That’s probably do-gooder dreaming. It’s more realistic to hope that if Mr. Berrios does win, he’ll at least invite us all over to headquarters for free licensed beverages and video poker. | Cook County (Ill);Politics and Government;Elections |
ny0187615 | [
"nyregion",
"long-island"
] | 2009/04/19 | Long Island Transit Modes Recording Fewer Commuters to Manhattan | FOR years, Andrew Bernstein and his neighbors could never find seats together on crowded Long Island Rail Road trains. During the last year, however, those seats have become easier to find. As the number of L.I.R.R. commuters has fallen, Mr. Bernstein, 49, can sit with friends when he makes the trip from his home in Hicksville to his accounting job in Manhattan. While that may make for a more enjoyable ride, commuters say there is an eerie quality to the newfound space on the train, the likes of which Mr. Bernstein said he could not remember in the last decade except under extraordinary circumstances. “The last time I saw this was after 9/11,” he said. “It’s probably as bad today as it was then.” Mr. Bernstein’s experience is not unique, nor is it limited to railroad commuters. According to transportation officials, the number of commuters using trains, buses, roads and bridges that serve Long Island is down by as much as 7 percent — a phenomenon they say is most likely tied to higher unemployment that has grounded would-be commuters at home. “A lot of it is related to the downturn in the economy,” said Aaron Donovan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the L.I.R.R.; bridges like the Throgs Neck, Whitestone and Robert F. Kennedy (formerly the Triborough); and Long Island Bus, which serves Nassau County. Mr. Donovan said that area roads and mass transit experienced similar declines during other tough economic times, like the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to Metropolitan Transportation Authority figures, the number of Long Island Rail Road riders in January was down 4 percent from January 2008. What makes that drop even more significant is that in 2008, the L.I.R.R., the busiest commuter railroad in the country, had the greatest number of passengers, 87.4 million, in its history, Mr. Donovan said. That was a 1.5 percent increase over 2007. The decrease in ridership comes as the M.T.A. faces a growing budget shortfall, has proposed service cuts and is seeking more state aid. However, fewer commuters is hardly the primary cause of the M.T.A.’s financial woes, Mr. Donovan said. “Generally speaking, lower volumes on the roads and trains and buses and on our bridges and tunnels contribute to the weaknesses in the M.T.A.’s revenue,” he said. But the real problem, he said, stems from lower revenue from real estate transfer taxes that are dedicated to the M.T.A. “Those taxes are tied to the health of the economy,” he said, “and those revenues are down more than 50 percent so far this year.” The amount of traffic on roadways has dropped even more than train ridership has, the authority said. Traffic on M.T.A. bridges and tunnels fell 7.3 percent during the period from January 2008 to January 2009. The average number of weekday Long Island Bus riders fell 7.6 percent, Mr. Donovan said. The number of cars traveling the Long Island Expressway, among the most closely monitored roads in the state, has dropped as well, according to State Department of Transportation traffic counts. The average daily traffic on the L.I.E. in 2008 was down 1.93 percent from 2007. Though periodic dips in traffic can be pegged to a range of causes — road construction, high gas prices and alternative routes — Department of Transportation officials believe the current decline is more likely tied to the economy, particularly because it has persisted after other problems, like last year’s high gas prices, have subsided, said Eileen W. Peters, a department spokeswoman. The premise that fewer jobs means fewer commuters is based not only on the decline in traffic counts but also in the long-term analysis of commuter patterns. Trips to and from work account for 30 percent of travel, meaning a significant percentage of road and transit use is reduced when unemployed workers stay home, said Jeffrey M. Zupan, who, as a senior fellow for transportation at the New York City-based Regional Plan Association, studies traffic and transit-related issues in the metropolitan area. Travel is further reduced when unemployment runs high because people who are not working are less likely to drive to activities like shopping or entertainment, he said. In addition, it is not unusual for a transit agency like the L.I.R.R., which serves primarily commuters, to be hit somewhat harder in tough times than those that serve a wider range of travelers, Mr. Zupan said. For example, M.T.A. figures show that Metro-North Railroad ridership in January 2009 dipped only 1.8 percent from the previous year — a smaller decrease than the one experienced by the L.I.R.R. That difference, however, jibes with previous studies that show Metro-North serves riders traveling to and from New York City for a wide range of reasons, compared with the heavier commuter orientation of the L.I.R.R., Mr. Zupan said. “Long Islanders tend to use the railroad less for nonwork purposes than Metro-North riders,” he said. “Metro-North has surveyed their customers recently and issued reports about the fact that they are not just a commuter railroad anymore.” Meantime, travelers say they have mixed feelings about the newfound ease of their trips. Chris Olsen, 26, a Manhattan resident who travels to Farmingdale for work, said the smaller crowds on L.I.R.R. trains is a topic among his colleagues at their company, which provides staff for other companies. He said they see the decline in commuters as a sign of today’s tough times. Caroline Bock, 46, a graduate student who lives in Old Bethpage and drives to City College of New York in Upper Manhattan every Wednesday, said her trip — which includes the L.I.E. and the Cross Island Parkway, goes over the Throgs Neck Bridge and winds up on the Cross Bronx Expressway — has shortened drastically, from as long as an hour and a half to as little as 45 minutes. While there are fewer cars on the road, Ms. Bock said she had also noticed a smaller number of trucks, which she said did not bode well for the economy. “It probably means that there are less goods and less sales going on out there,” she said. “Whoever thought less traffic would be worrisome?” | Transit Systems;Long Island Rail Road Co;Long Island (NY);Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0230230 | [
"us"
] | 2010/09/16 | Lab Quits Research After Video of Animal Treatment | RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina laboratory has stopped doing research and is surrendering all of its animals a week after an undercover video showed what activists allege were workers cruelly treating dogs, cats and rabbits, federal regulators said Wednesday. Dave Sacks, a United States Department of Agriculture spokesman, said officials were trying to find new homes for more than 200 animals that were at Professional Laboratory and Research Services Inc. He said it was the company’s decision to stop research. The agency has started a formal investigation. The developments came after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released a video of conditions at the laboratory. The company’s phone number at the lab in Corapeake, near the Virginia line, was disconnected Wednesday. Helen Sonenshine, the company president, did not immediately return a call seeking comment, but previously said she was appalled by the video. The laboratory was hired by pharmaceutical firms to test animal care products. Agriculture Department inspection reports show no sign of violations before the PETA video. One scene of the video, according to PETA’s account, shows an employee letting a cat grasp a fence with its claw before yanking it in an apparent attempt to rip off its nails. PETA contends that workers also sprayed the animals with harsh chemicals, lifted rabbits by their ears and puppies by their throats, and violently threw cats into their cages. | Cruelty to Animals;Laboratories and Scientific Equipment;Animals;North Carolina |
ny0289387 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/01/02 | The Philippines: Hundreds Injured in Revelry | New Year’s firecrackers left at least one man dead and 380 others injured, and caused a fire that gutted 1,000 dwellings in the Philippines despite rain and a government warning campaign, officials said Friday. A drunken man in Manila, the capital, lighted a powerful firecracker and embraced it as it exploded, ripping his jaw and killing him, Health Secretary Janet Garin announced. Fire officials said that a rocket ignited by revelers started a fire that spread rapidly, destroying about 1,000 shacks and huts in the capital’s Tondo slum district and displacing several thousand families. Ms. Garin said that rain late Thursday and a government public-service campaign that involved showing gory pictures of people who have been injured by firecracker blasts helped to keep the number of injuries below last year’s figure. | Philippines;Fireworks |
ny0169528 | [
"us"
] | 2007/04/20 | California: Suit Over Dairies | The attorney general sued the Tulare County Board of Supervisors to block two huge dairies from being built next to Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, which pays tribute to a black community founded by a freed slave. The approval last month to allow 12,000 cows about a mile from the park violated the state’s Environmental Quality Act, Attorney General Jerry Brown said in the suit. The dairies would produce 20 tons of manure a day, polluting the air and water, the suit claimed. On Wednesday, a State Assembly panel, the Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife, approved a bill that would ban dairies within 2.5 miles of the park. The bill, approved 9 to 4, now goes to the full Assembly. | California;Environment |
ny0033366 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/12/10 | Alderson Considers Best Way to Flesh Out Mets’ Rotation | LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — As baseball’s annual winter meetings kicked into gear Monday, the Mets were busy working on complementary deals that would fill out their roster. Sandy Alderson, the no-longer-impoverished general manager, had three or four more needs to address, some trade chips available and roughly $10 million to $12 million to spend. He said that he had been so busy that he missed Sunday night’s episode of “Homeland.” “So don’t say anything, O.K.?” he added. He was more serious discussing, in vague terms, what he might do next. He had already accomplished a good deal, adding the free-agent outfielders Chris Young and Curtis Granderson at a likely cost of $23 million on the 2014 payroll. His No. 1 need seems to be finding a veteran starting pitcher who is not very expensive and could help fill out a rotation that has Zack Wheeler, Dillon Gee and Jon Niese but will be without Matt Harvey until 2015. Alderson said he would be hesitant to give a free-agent starting pitcher a multiyear deal, only because he expected his two top pitching prospects, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero, to be ready to join the major league rotation sooner rather than later. He said he would prefer not to bring either up until midseason, following the formula he followed with Harvey in 2012 and Wheeler in 2013, but indicated he might not have the luxury to be that patient. “Ideally, we’d like to ease guys in,” Alderson said. “But these may not be ideal times.” Another option for the rotation is Jenrry Mejia, who Alderson said will compete for a spot in spring training. Mejia has been an elusive prospect for the Mets because of a series of arm injuries, one of which required Tommy John elbow surgery. Indeed, Alderson said he wondered if Mejia could stay healthy for a sustained period. Last season, Mejia joined the rotation in the second half and pitched effectively in five starts, with a 2.70 earned run average, but then was shut down to have surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow. He is still only 24. In addition, Alderson has met with a representative for Bartolo Colon, who is 16 years older than Mejia. But Colon, almost defying logic, went 18-6 for Oakland in 2013, with a 2.65 E.R.A. in 30 starts. He may be looking for more money than the Mets want to pay him. Another potential candidate, Bronson Arroyo, has proved to be remarkably durable for Cincinnati during the past eight seasons. But at 36, he is seeking a multiyear deal perhaps worth close to $10 million a year, which is also probably too rich for the Mets, even if they did just give Granderson $60 million over four years. It might make the most sense for Alderson to take a flier on a pitcher such as Daisuke Matsuzaka or Johan Santana. Matsuzaka allowed just four runs in his final four starts for the Mets last season after being acquired almost as an afterthought. However, Alderson said, there have been no discussions aimed at bringing back Matsuzaka. Santana, battered by injuries, has not pitched in two of the past three seasons and is finally off the Mets’ payroll. But would Alderson bring him back at an extremely reduced rate? Wait and see, Alderson said. Until that time, there’s that episode of “Homeland” he would like to take a peek at. | Mets;Sandy Alderson;Baseball;Free agent |
ny0072892 | [
"world"
] | 2015/03/13 | Language of Greek Crisis Shifts From Financial Jargon to Humiliation | BERLIN — Greece’s financial crisis has often been framed in the dry, impersonal language of finance. At issue were credit ratings, bond yields and repayment schedules. The pulse of a collapsing nation was often measured in technical jargon about borrowing costs and primary surpluses. Now, with Greece and its European creditors locked in bitter negotiations this week over the terms of the country’s bailout, the politesse of the talks has disintegrated into starkly personal terms. Now the language of the Greek crisis is about humiliation, national pride, moral hazard and hypocrisy. Most ominously, it has deteriorated into a blunt confrontation between Greece and its biggest creditor, Germany, inflaming public opinion in both countries and reviving recriminations over who owes whom — always a risky exercise on a continent that has not forgotten the horrors of two world wars or the conflicts of centuries before. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece used a speech before Parliament on Tuesday to renew a call for Germany to pay reparations to Greece for the crimes and unpaid debts of the Nazis, and his government threatened to seize German assets in Greece. Berlin responded firmly, insisting that the reparations issue is long settled, and the German news media reacted angrily. “If one takes Athens seriously, then Greece itself, which is so proud of Alexander the Great, would have to fear demands for historical injustice,” Reinhard Müller wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The nationalistic antagonism has added an ugly new dimension of populist brinkmanship to an economic crisis that still threatens to fracture the European Union. Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the escalating exchanges risked hardening popular attitudes in Germany and emboldening other populist parties, from the left-wing Podemos in Spain to the right-wing National Front in France. “The euro was meant to bring Europeans closer together and to strengthen political union,” Mr. Leonard said, but the Greek-German clash has led to a “scary return to civilizational language — national stereotypes, hatred, lack of trust.” “The closer you bind Germany and Greece together,” he said, “the more hostility there is.” The quarrel may be most vivid in the apparently poisonous relationship between the finance ministers, Wolfgang Schäuble of Germany and Yanis Varoufakis of Greece. Many Greeks see the caustic Mr. Schäuble, 72, as the flinty embodiment of a German austerity policy they blame for destroying their country. Many Germans, by contrast, see Mr. Varoufakis, 53, as the swaggering embodiment of an unrepentant Greece trying to shirk its obligations. The rising mutual contempt is not limited to them. The Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, threatened this week that if Germany did not support Greece in the debt talks, Greece would send to Berlin the thousands of illegal migrants who have landed in Greece on rickety boats from Africa in recent months. One of Germany’s police unions responded by calling for Greece to be ejected from the zone of 26 countries in Europe where citizens can cross borders freely without visas. It has been clear since Mr. Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza party won power in late January that Greece would take a more confrontational approach in trying to renegotiate the terms of the country’s bailout, worth 240 billion euros ($255 billion). Mr. Tsipras appealed to Greek nationalism during the campaign. He vowed to force the country’s three main creditors — the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — to write off half of Greece’s debts, and to reinstate thousands of public employees who were fired to meet the creditors’ budget demands. Since taking office, though, Mr. Tsipras has been forced to backtrack on many of his promises, even as he framed a four-month extension to the bailout as a political victory. Image The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, center, at a meeting last month. The verbal sparring between him and his Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, has become a public sport. Credit Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Now, with Greece rapidly running out of money and the European creditors demanding additional action from Athens before they release more loan money, Mr. Tsipras has chosen to revive the question of war reparations. “The best way to deal with the issue would be by taking legal action, but they decided to politicize the issue,” said Theodore A. Couloumbis, professor emeritus of international relations at the University of Athens, adding that Mr. Tsipras may have decided to do so to distract domestic attention. “It is embarrassing for a government that came to power on a promise to reverse austerity — and with rhetoric describing Greece as a debt colony and lenders as loan sharks — to backtrack,” Mr. Couloumbis added. “There is a sense among Greeks that they are sick and tired of being told what to do by Merkel and Schäuble, and so they should push their claims. Why not?” The previous Greek government, a center-right coalition, completed a study of the reparations issue in March 2013, but it was not made public until last Sunday. According to an Athens newspaper, the study concluded that Germany may owe Greece over €30 billion ($32 billion). While the verbal sparring between Mr. Varoufakis and Mr. Schäuble has become a public sport, the historical antagonism it has revived is serious. Mr. Varoufakis set the tone in February during his first trip to Germany as finance minister, when he used a joint news conference to remind Germans that Greece’s economic troubles had helped fuel the rise of a neofascist party, Golden Dawn, and to draw a parallel with the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. “No one can understand better than Germany how a suffering economy, with certain humiliations and a great loss of hope, what effects that can have,” Mr. Varoufakis said, as Mr. Schäuble sat nearby. “We need Germany at our side; we need the support of Germany.” The outrage felt by some German conservatives toward Greece began to boil over on Feb. 27, when the German Parliament approved a four-month extension to the Greek bailout after a heated debate. “Look at Tsipras, look at Varoufakis,” said one member, Klaus Peter Willsch, in a speech before the vote. “Would you buy a used car from them? When your answer is no, then vote no today.” The revival of claims from World War II has dredged up ghosts supposedly laid to rest by Europe’s postwar pursuit of peace, unity and common policies. The hardships inflicted by German-led demands for austerity have prompted angry outbursts of political populism and widened a chasm of historical interpretations. For instance, in arguing that Greece should be forgiven its current debts, some in Athens and their supporters cite the 1953 London conference where Germany’s postwar creditors effectively forgave West Berlin about half its external debt — some 15 billion deutsche marks, equivalent to about 10 percent of West Germany’s gross domestic product in 1953, according to a study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. The Germans point to the same conference to argue that the reparations issue is settled. Under the London agreement, which eventually involved 18 foreign creditors, final reparations were to be settled when Germany was reunited, which happened in 1990. At that time, the Germans say, they received no claim from Greece for any more than the 115 million marks paid in the 1970s. “This chapter is, for us, legally and politically closed,” Steffen Seibert, the German government spokesman, said Wednesday. Still, reports this week that the Greek justice minister, Nikos Paraskevopoulos, was considering signing an order to seize German property in Greece drove some German news outlets into a frenzy. “Enough!” screamed the Bild Zeitung, the country’s most widely read daily newspaper. “That’s what you want to shout to the Greek government. Day after day, hour by hour come new thrusts from Athens. Bizarre, arrogant, unabashed.” There was only one conclusion, the newspaper said: “It’s moral blackmail.” | Greece;Germany;Reparations;Holocaust and Nazis;World War II;Europe;Alexis Tsipras;Yanis Varoufakis;Economy;Berlin |
ny0037391 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2014/03/24 | A Haggadah for the Digital Age | The Haggadah, the book Jews have been reading for centuries as they celebrate Passover at the Seder, the festival meal, is getting a high-tech makeover from Bronfman Associates, which markets books by Edgar M. Bronfman, the businessman and philanthropist who died in December. Bronfman Associates has commissioned a new app for “ The Bronfman Haggadah ,” a 128-page, hardcover book published in February 2013 by Rizzoli that was written by Mr. Bronfman and illustrated by his wife, the artist Jan Aronson. The app is being advertised in a new campaign that is, not surprisingly, digital. Described by Rizzoli as a “contemporary Haggadah,” “The Bronfman Haggadah” retells the Exodus story of slavery and freedom through Mr. Bronfman’s words as well as through the words of the poet Marge Piercy, the author Ralph Waldo Emerson and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Watercolor illustrations, both abstract and figurative, by Ms. Aronson depict symbolic foods consumed during Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, and Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, among other rituals and events. The book retails for $29.95, while the app, which went on sale earlier this month, costs $9. Created by the web design firm RustyBrick, based in West Nyack, N.Y., the app features narration by male and female actors; performances of songs traditionally sung at Passover, whose lyrics appear in the hard-bound book; a glossary of words transliterated from Hebrew to English; and video interviews with Mr. Bronfman and Ms. Aronson. Ms. Aronson said her husband, who served as the chairman of the Seagram Company and president of the World Jewish Congress, had wanted “to write something on his own that would address the issues he was profoundly interested in, Passover, the Seder, being Jewish.” Ms. Aronson called the app version of the book “the next natural progression.” “We are in the 21st century and we don’t move without a device,” she added. Image The cover of the book, which was published in 2013 by Rizzoli. The advertising campaign for the app, by Appular, a New York-based mobile app marketing and public relations agency, began on Friday and will continue through April 15; the budget for the campaign is under $100,000. Ads, which are digital banners, cleverly play upon language traditionally spoken at Seders: One says “The Bronfman Haggadah” “makes this Seder different from all others,” while another says it “makes this night different from all others.” Others ads say, “Like Seder night itself, our Haggadah is a little different,” and “Take an Exodus from the traditional Seder.” The app is being advertised on Facebook and Google, as well as on the websites of Kveller, My Jewish Learning, Tablet Magazine, The Jewish Week and Beliefnet. Amalyah Oren, a communications associate at Bronfman Associates, said the app might be used by families as a learning tool to help prepare for Seder. She said the advertising campaign was directed at families and young mothers, as well as young professionals interested in technology or involved with mainstream and progressive Jewish movements. Ms. Aronson said Mr. Bronfman wrote the Haggadah “to appeal to all kinds of Jews, believers and nonbelievers, to the young who might not have a sense of their own Judaism. Edgar had a tremendous love and regard for youth of every stripe. He found with the tremendous assimilation happening today, it’s always a good thing to bring back into the fold those who may have lapsed or may feel unaffiliated. Edgar wanted to appeal to everybody and to be very open.” Ms. Aronson said she hoped people would buy both the app and the hard-bound book, so they could have “a slightly different experience with the content and context. They can bring it to the Seder table and read it to children; they don’t have to read it just at Passover. I don’t think one excludes the enjoyment of the other; each enhances the other.” Mr. Bronfman’s other books included memoirs on his life as a businessman and on his personal Jewish development, as well as a book on reinventing oneself after retirement. | Passover;Judaism;advertising,marketing;Edgar M Sr Bronfman |
ny0004615 | [
"sports"
] | 2013/04/21 | New Zealand Leads by 5 at America’s Cup | Emirates Team New Zealand won both fleet races to take a 5-point lead over Oracle Team USA Slingsby heading into the final day of the America’s Cup World Series. As winds picked up in the bay in Naples, Italy, conditions were the most challenging of the week, but Emirates’ Dean Barker had no trouble. The Naples leg of the World Series is the last before the Louis Vuitton Cup for challengers begins on July 4 in San Francisco. | Sailing;America's Cup |
ny0208542 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2009/06/25 | Sarkozy Reshuffles His Cabinet | PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy called together his new cabinet Wednesday after a ministerial shake-up, urging them to push on with his ambitious legislative program. Mr. Sarkozy announced late Tuesday the reshuffle, his second since being elected in 2007. In total, nine ministers changed jobs, eight new names entered government and eight others were cut. The changes were more wide-ranging than expected, although Prime Minister François Fillon stays in his job and incumbents were not shifted from the crucial international and financial posts of economy: budget, environment, foreign affairs and defense. Luc Chatel, Mr. Sarkozy’s spokesman, who moved from industry to become education minister, said Wednesday that the president “really urged them to be reformers, as it’s on this basis that the French people will judge us.” The combination of the reshuffle and a keynote speech Monday by Mr. Sarkozy appear to signal a subtle reordering of priorities toward the social and economic, and away from the institutional, said Denis Muzet, director of Médiascope, a Paris-based institute specializing in social and political trends. During the speech in Versailles, seen as a mid-course relaunching of his five-year term, Mr. Sarkozy laid out priorities including overhauling a costly pension system and investing in infrastructure and research, while pledging to keep taxes stable and extend unemployment protection. Mr. Sarkozy repeatedly used words like “future,” “us” and “open” in an attempt to be inclusive. Mr. Muzet said that speech and the reshuffle gave the sense that there was “less of an obsession with following the 2007 promises and more in addressing the problems that this crisis has thrown up” — in other words, stressing social, economic and environment issues. Still, Mr. Sarkozy is not abandoning campaign pledges. He is midway through programs to bring more private-sector forces to health and education, while shaking up the legal profession, including plans to abolish the system of investigating magistrates. Among the most important changes in the reshuffle were the move from the Interior Ministry to the Justice Ministry of Michèle Alliot-Marie, a defense minister under former President Jacques Chirac. Mrs. Alliot-Marie will replace Rachida Dati, who leaves the government to become a European lawmaker. Ms. Dati, criticized for an overly glamorous image, leaves behind a tricky dossier, including overhauling the country’s crowded prisons. Brice Hortefeux, a longtime ally of Mr. Sarkozy, who had been labor and social affairs minister, was named to the Interior Ministry, replacing Mrs. Alliot-Marie. Mr. Hortefeux was also elected to the European Parliament last month but will remain in the cabinet. He said Wednesday that Mr. Sarkozy had told the new team to be “prudent” in their public comments. Mr. Muzet, the analyst, said the new cabinet continued Mr. Sarkozy’s reputation for being inclusive. The most symbolic change was the appointment as culture minister of the author, director and television presenter Frédéric Mitterrand, an open homosexual and the nephew of the former Socialist president François Mitterrand. Mr. Mitterrand, who had been head of the Rome branch of the Alliance France cultural organization, announced his appointment Tuesday before the official government announcement. He had been involved in the radical left movement before supporting Mr. Chirac’s presidency in 1995. Mr. Sarkozy has previously brought in high-profile personalities from the left, including Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who remains in his post. The strategy is seen by analysts as a tool to trip up critics and further weaken the left. He also brought Michel Mercier, a former treasurer of the centrist MoDem party, to the post of rural affairs minister, and appointed some young officials like Benoist Apparu, 39, who becomes housing minister. The government now has only 4 women among the 18 ministers, down from 7 in the previous cabinet; there are 9 more junior female secretaries of state, making a total of 13 women in the full government team of 38. Mr. Mitterrand replaces Christine Albanel, who will leave the government in what is seen as punishment for mishandling the first run through Parliament of a bill to crack down on illegal downloads. Mr. Chatel, a close ally of Mr Sarkozy, inherits the difficult education dossier. This year, university students and staff protested, paralyzing many campuses to force the withdrawal of unpopular laws giving university chiefs more power. Another minister leaving to become a European parliamentarian is Michel Barnier. He is replaced at agriculture by Bruno Le Maire, who had been minister for European affairs. That post is filled by a Pierre Lellouche, who had been an envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bernard Laporte, the former trainer of the French rugby team, leaves the government. His post will be taken by Rama Yade, 32, a telegenic woman of African origin. | Sarkozy Nicolas;France;Politics and Government |
ny0116313 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2012/10/20 | N.H.L. Cancels Another Week of Games | The N.H.L. wiped out the third week of the regular season Friday as the lockout dragged on, leaving no more wiggle room if the league hopes to play a full 82-game schedule. A day after the league turned down three counterproposals from the players union, the N.H.L. canceled 53 more games. A total of 135 games through Nov. 1 have been scratched, which amounts to 11 percent of the season. In its third lockout since 1994, the N.H.L. is sticking to its most recent proposal that stated a full schedule, with 82 games per team and 4 rounds of playoffs, could be played if the season began by Nov. 2. The league has said a deal must be reached with the union by next Thursday for that to happen. Two weeks ago the league called off 82 games from Oct. 11 to 24. On Thursday the union rejected the N.H.L.’s proposal made two days earlier that offered a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenues. In brief talks the players countered with three offers that were, in turn, quickly dismissed by the league. Commissioner Gary Bettman said he was “thoroughly disappointed” as he and the league delegation left union headquarters in Toronto. Bettman said that the owners’ proposal was the “best that we could do” and added that the sides were still far apart. “None of the three variations of player share that they gave us even began to approach 50-50, either at all or for some long period of time,” Bettman said Thursday. “It’s clear we’re not speaking the same language.” No new talks are scheduled. If next Thursday’s deadline passes, more games will probably be cut, and the Winter Classic on Jan. 1 is the next big event in danger of being lost. The Detroit Red Wings are scheduled to host the Toronto Maple Leafs in the outdoor extravaganza at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Donald Fehr , the executive director of the union, said two of the players’ proposals would have the players take a fixed amount of revenue, which would turn into an approximate 50-50 split over the term of the deal, provided league revenues continued to grow. The third approach would be a 50-50 split, as long as the league honored all existing contracts at full value. None of it made any positive impression on the N.H.L. “This is not a good day,” Fehr said Thursday. “It should have been.” | National Hockey League;Hockey Ice;Bettman Gary;Fehr Donald;Lockouts |
ny0063067 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2014/01/01 | Bowden Adjusts to His Life as a Dadgum Retiree | TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Bobby Bowden still lives in the cream-colored brick house he and his wife, Ann, fell in love with in 1976. There was a pool out back, a golf course beyond that and, in the front yard, a sprawling oak tree that canopied the driveway. Its limbs were so big and low that Bowden could walk up them. The Bowdens loved that tree. Then, about 10 years ago, it started dying and had to be cut down. Looking out his front window on a recent afternoon, Bowden grimaced and shook his head. It had to have been 10 years ago. He was not exactly sure. He is 84 dadgum years old, mind you. And to think, four years ago, he was coaching at Florida State. He was aging and the program was foundering, but he wanted to stay one more year. He was told he could stick around, but his title would be something like ambassador coach and he would not be allowed on the field. He rejected the idea and was essentially forced into retirement. Life after Bowden turned out just fine for Florida State. Jimbo Fisher, in his fourth year, coached the Seminoles to an undefeated regular season and a spot in the national championship game, the team’s first appearance since 2001. Fisher’s quarterback, Jameis Winston, won the Heisman Trophy. Asked how he was enjoying life after Florida State, Bowden leaned back in a chair in his home office and let out a loud, familiar laugh. Image Bobby Bowden was carried off the field after beating Florida, 37-9, in 1977. Credit Associated Press At first, he had feared becoming irrelevant once he stopped coaching. Now he is a public speaker in high demand. He travels the country, sometimes by private plane, speaking to corporations, churches and athletes about two or three times a week. He tells football stories and quotes Scripture. People ask about his two championship teams and his two Heisman-winning quarterbacks, Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke. When he is not traveling, he hangs around the house. He usually wakes up about 4 a.m., feeds the cat, has a cup of coffee and starts to read. First, he reads the Bible, maybe just a chapter, and then skims through about 10 books. Then he reads his local newspaper and checks his mail. It can take him hours to autograph all the things people send. His address and number are in the phone book. He tries to sign everything because he thinks he owes the fans. He would not want anyone to think poorly of Bobby Bowden. When he is finished, he watches television. He starts with the Military Channel and, if the program is not about a war he is interested in, he flips to Animal Planet, and if there are no lions, tigers, cheetahs or animals like that, he tunes in to ESPN. He and Ann go to dinner around 4:30 to beat the crowd, somewhere nearby, maybe to a Chinese restaurant or Applebee’s. Then Bowden is asleep by 8. He loves this quiet life. Sometimes, he sits and reads under the magnolia tree in the backyard, or makes himself peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, his favorite, or hits a few golf balls by himself at the country club behind his house. Most Saturdays, at 8:45 a.m., Bowden golfs with a friend, Randy Ray, a pastor at North Florida Baptist Church. Bowden has Type 2 diabetes and watches his diet, but the exercise helps. Plus, he and Ray have a friendly rivalry. Bowden keeps both his and Ray’s scores in his head and pokes fun when he is ahead. He usually wins. “Coach,” Ray once said to him, “I’ll be glad when you start slipping a little bit.” Bowden, in his backyard, says as he looks at the course: “I finished college and the next year was a college coach. I coached for 57 years without being off. So then I retire — a weight’s lifted off your shoulders. All of a sudden, I don’t have to worry about the players going to class. I don’t have to worry about, ‘Did they get in trouble?’ I don’t have to worry about a 2 o’clock phone call from the police. I don’t have to worry about recruiting. It was just a relief, boy!” Image Bowden and his wife, Ann, greet members of the Seminoles’ 1993 national title team in 2013. Credit Phil Sears/Associated Press He laughed louder now. Each Saturday after golf, he makes sure to watch Florida State. Fisher is like a son to him. Bowden has known him since he was in college. You see, Bowden said, his son Terry convinced Fisher to leave Clemson, where he had gone to play baseball, to play quarterback for Terry at Salem College in West Virginia. Terry ran his father’s Florida State offense and studied his team’s film each week. The offense was imaginative, designed to set defenses up, then hit them with the big play, the trick play. Running it required a smart, precise, disciplined signal-caller. And Fisher was his son’s first handpicked quarterback. He came to summer workouts with his football shoes covered in manure and hay from working on his family’s farm. He starred at Salem, then followed Terry to Samford College, in Birmingham, Ala., where he was named the Division III national player of the year. Terry hired Fisher as an assistant, and Fisher coached under him for about 11 years, first at Samford, then at Auburn. Fisher was teaching Bobby Bowden’s offense to Terry Bowden’s quarterbacks. It kept evolving, but the principles remained. “All those years,” Terry said, “he was always kind of part of the family.” Midway through the 1998 season, Terry Bowden resigned at Auburn and went into broadcasting. Fisher continued his rise. He worked at Cincinnati for a season, then went to Louisiana State and saw Nick Saban’s process firsthand. A few years later, after the 2006 season, Bobby Bowden was in need of an offensive coordinator, preferably one who knew quarterbacks. Not since Weinke left in 2001 had Bowden had an elite quarterback. His son recommended hiring Fisher. “We know Jimbo,” Terry Bowden said he told his father. “We know what he can do.” Bowden picked Fisher and turned the offense over to him, which perhaps marked the end of his era at Florida State. After the 2009 season, during which Bowden turned 80, he wanted to stay for one more year. He wanted to reach 400 wins. Then he wanted Mickey Andrews, his longtime defensive coordinator, to succeed him. Instead, the administration forced him out and promoted Fisher. Video The legendary coach talks about his departure from F.S.U., life after football and the coming season. At the time, Bowden was upset. For the next few years, he stayed away from Florida State, out of the spotlight, not out of spite, but to stay out of Fisher’s way. He wanted to give Fisher room to establish himself, his own program, free of distractions. It so happened that, as Fisher and Winston and Florida State made their spectacular run this season, Bowden returned for the first time since he retired. On Oct. 26, Florida State celebrated Bobby Bowden Day. The marching band spelled out “Dadgum,” his favorite expression, and he planted Chief Osceola’s spear at midfield. “I’ve had all that I need,” Bowden said as he smiled and played with the big F.S.U. ring that Burt Reynolds gave him years ago. He said he was fine now that he did not get that extra year. He does not miss coaching. In a few years, he and Ann might move to Panama City, Fla., to be closer to their children. It is amazing what Fisher has done, Bowden said, hiring the right assistants and competing with Southeastern Conference teams for blue-chip recruits. It will become more difficult from here on because, as Bowden said, “Once you win a national championship, they expect you to do it every year.” “Every year!” he said with a wink. In a phone interview, Terry Bowden, who now coaches at Akron, pointed out a clear pattern: “My daddy won two national championships with two Heisman Trophy quarterbacks,” he said. “It takes that one extra — whether it’s a Cam Newton, or Jameis Winston, or whoever. It takes that one little thing to put you over the top.” The elder Bowden has plans to spend four days in California leading to the championship game. He has never been to the Rose Bowl, but he said he would watch the game from home, away from the crowds, in his favorite leather chair. Kickoff is scheduled for past his bedtime, but he will force himself to stay up. “Unless it’s a boring game,” he said. “If one of them is running away with it in the third quarter, I’m going to sleep. I’ll read about it in the morning.” | College football;Florida State University;Bobby Bowden;Jimbo Fisher |
ny0150627 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2008/08/04 | Anglicans to Seek Pact to Prevent a Schism | CANTERBURY, England — Nearly three weeks of discussion aimed at preventing a breakup of the worldwide Anglican Communion over homosexuality ended Sunday at a conference here with 650 bishops and archbishops agreeing to seek a new pact among all parties to the ecclesiastical controversy. The Most Rev. Rowan Williams , the archbishop of Canterbury, announced a consensus to seek the pact, known as a covenant, in the absence of a formal vote at the Lambeth Conference, which meets in Canterbury every 10 years. Archbishop Williams, the supreme voice of a church that is reckoned the third largest Christian denomination, after the Roman Catholic and Orthodox faiths, had decided ahead of the meeting to avoid resolutions and votes in hopes of preventing a schism that might well rupture worldwide Anglicanism more severely than at any time in more than 450 years. The push for a covenant amounted to a stratagem for finding both short- and long-term solutions to a dispute that has bitterly divided an estimated 80 million Anglicans worldwide. The split has expressed itself most keenly in the starkly opposed views of traditionalists, primarily in Africa and Asia, who oppose any concessions on homosexuality, and of more liberal elements, especially in the United States and Canada, who favor the ordination of openly gay and lesbian clergy members and church blessings of same-sex unions. Archbishop Williams told reporters that he hoped Anglican leaders could agree on a draft covenant within a year, but said that winning approval for it among the 44 national and regional churches of the Anglican Communion could take until 2013. That period might coincide with a push among the bishops here to hold another Lambeth meeting after only five years. In the meantime, the archbishop said, agreement was widespread for continuing “moratoria” on the ordination of gay and lesbian priests and blessings of same-sex unions and for matching restraint by conservatives who threatened to walk out unless traditional views proscribing church acceptance of homosexuality prevailed. A document published as the conference ended spoke of the moratoriums ushering in “a season of gracious restraint” while the covenant is negotiated. The archbishop said the decision to seek agreement on a covenant while urging church liberals in North America to hold back on the openings to homosexuals was broadly supported in the small-group gatherings of about 40 prelates each that, together with smaller Bible study groups, constituted the main work of the conference. The small groups were called indabas, after a Zulu term for tribal meetings, often at a village level, to iron out disputes by discussion. Like the bar on voting, the process was intended to avoid breaking into disarray over homosexuality. The outcome appeared to be a modest triumph for Archbishop Williams, a bearded, Welsh-born theologian with liberal views on gay and lesbian issues who was enthroned as the archbishop of Canterbury in 2003. That was just as strains among Anglicans over homosexuality were coming to a boil over the election of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire. Archbishop Williams, 58, has been criticized by conservatives and liberals alike for his efforts to steer a middle course. Even church moderates have suggested that his acknowledged intellectual talents may not have been matched by the political skills and personal force needed to wrench a lasting compromise out of the contending parties. But the conference document, called Indaba Reflections, prepared by a group of bishops, spoke of the “great affection and love” for Archbishop Williams among participants, suggesting that the gathering may have strengthened his hand. He spoke at a news conference with a tone of relieved assurance, while acknowledging more than once that the bishops had met under the threat of a breakup in the Anglican Communion, as the loose network that grew out of the Church of England is called. In one wry aside, he spoke of what he called the communion’s “current rather wobbly state.” “I think we’ve emerged at the end of this conference with some quite surprising results: a surprising level of sheer willingness to stay together, and a surprising level of agreement about what might be necessary to make that happen,” he said. “For all that the details of the covenant proposal still need a great deal of clarification, nonetheless there is a following wind for that. There is also a wide degree of agreement about the need for moratoria on both sides where divisive actions are concerned.” The conference left unclear what form the proposed covenant might take and the extent to which it might seek to lay down a code of practice on homosexuality. Some bishops appeared to see the document as a statement of shared beliefs and a commitment to abide by them; others saw something much looser. Many saw it as a possible step toward a two-tier communion, consisting of churches that embrace the covenant and those that do not, with those that do not still staying, formally but loosely, within the communion. In remarks to reporters, Archbishop Williams said little to clarify what the covenant might entail. But when he described the kind of church he saw emerging from future discussions, he spoke of a willingness to conform to agreed practices that sounded more disciplined than the Anglican Communion has been in recent times. “I hope that a little bit more mutual responsibility and accountability, a bit more willingness to walk in step, will make us more like a church,” he said. In a remark that appeared directed at conservatives and liberals alike, he said Anglicans should work against “the tendency of local churches to get trapped in their local contexts” at the cost of shared spiritual ideals. More pointedly, he appealed to “the North American churches” to stick to moratoriums on the ordination of openly gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions, saying their failure to do so would imperil the chances of broad agreement on the proposed covenant. And that, he said, would mean that “our communion will continue to be in great peril.” | Anglican Churches;Homosexuality;Christians and Christianity;Religion and Churches;Williams Rowan |
ny0091749 | [
"technology"
] | 2015/08/27 | The Upside of a Downturn in Silicon Valley | In October 2008, in the early days of the last economic collapse, Sequoia Capital invited founders of technology companies to a frank meeting outlining the new global reality. Silicon Valley had long since shaken off the doldrums of the dot-com bubble, but one of the industry’s most respected venture capital firms was now counseling entrepreneurs to again “batten down the hatches” — to cut costs, to focus on profit, to “spend every dollar as if it were your last” because “it is going to be a rough ride.” The presentation was called “ R.I.P. Good Times ,” and it ended with a challenge meant to inspire founders as well as to scare them: “Get real or go home.” As it happened, Sequoia’s dire warnings never quite came to pass; the tech industry’s good times merely paused for the recession. But the presentation has achieved the status of legend among venture capitalists. Tech investors are known for their strutting optimism, but the best of them are keenly aware of the motivating powers of impending doom. Some of the most successful tech investments of all time — among them Google and Facebook — came about in Silicon Valley’s lean times. This is a paradox of invention, as well as of investing: Bad times feed good ideas, which in turn lead to good times, which breed complacency, waste and lots of bad business plans. No one in the tech industry knows if the recent stock market turbulence will prompt another opportunity to mourn good times. But some venture capitalists are beginning to plan for a leaner era ahead. Sooner rather than later, some external shock — the Dow, China, Europe, Iran, interest rates, the inauguration of President Trump — may prompt a slow-moving retrenchment in the fund-raising for start-ups . Money will dry up, companies will face hard choices, and there will be layoffs, shutdowns and much heartache. That may just be what Silicon Valley needs. Many investors are optimistic about the clarifying possibilities of a downturn. The boom has made Silicon Valley soft: Companies are spending too much, investors are funding too many me-too ideas, and most founders have never had to confront any limits to their overweening ambitions. Venture capitalists won’t quite say they are looking forward to a correction, but some do say that a bust could toughen up the place. Video Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times discusses the possible benefits of a Silicon Valley downturn. And if a downturn in start-up funding is going to come anyway, you might argue that it couldn’t come soon enough: Not just R.I.P. good times, but good riddance, and let the bad times roll. “The founders who start companies in bad times are the ones who are really driven,” said Roelof Botha, one of Sequoia’s partners. “They’re not jumping on the bandwagon to get to Silicon Valley just because it’s the fashionable thing to do today.” Mr. Botha offered a story from his past at PayPal, where he began his Silicon Valley career in March 2000, the same month the Nasdaq hit a peak that it would take 15 years to reach again . “Most of the people who were building start-ups in that era, including us at PayPal, had only seen one economic environment in our working lives,” he said. But Michael Moritz, another Sequoia partner who was one of PayPal’s board members, repeatedly counseled caution. “He was the one board member drilling into our heads, ‘Guys, you need to work on the runway — how many months do you have left, and what are you going to do about it?’” Mr. Botha said, recalling Mr. Moritz’s advice. At Mr. Moritz’s prompting, PayPal’s executives decided to take what was then an extraordinary step: They began to charge users a fee to use the payment service. The company also worked hard to keep its costs down. “That focus was instrumental in PayPal’s survival,” Mr. Botha said. “We could have been spending money willy-nilly and fallen by the wayside by accident.” Instead, within a year, PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion, and its founders and executives went on to become Silicon Valley luminaries . Over the last year, as money flowing into Silicon Valley went from a gush to a flood, Mr. Botha, like other venture investors, began advising start-ups to raise funds even if they didn’t need them immediately, to have cash on hand for a potential downturn. The companies that did so will have a leg up, because a downturn offers a few immediate advantage for well-positioned start-ups: It lowers prices and wreaks havoc on more vulnerable competitors. Salaries for software engineers could fall, and they could become easier to recruit. The price of office space could go down. Other less tangible costs — Bay Area traffic, marketing, employees’ overall cost of living — could also decline significantly. Image Roelof Botha, left, a partner at Sequoia Capital, with David Karp of Tumblr. Mr. Botha said those who start companies during a downturn “are really driven.” Credit Brian Ach/Getty Images for TechCrunch “For start-ups, the only thing that is easier during a boom is access to cheap capital,” said Samuel H. Altman, president of the start-up incubator Y Combinator. “Every other thing is harder. And an environment of less noise and less competition makes it easier for people to do something that they’re really committed to over the long term.” Silicon Valley’s established venture capitalists, too, will see some upside to a downturn. If the hedge funds and other global investors that have recently poured money into tech begin to pull back, competition for investment in the hottest start-ups will cool, allowing V.C.s to buy more of a company for less money. “I’m not sure that we’re ready to declare that we’re now officially in leaner times,” said Scott Kupor, the managing partner of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. Still, Mr. Kupor noted that as a relatively young firm, Andreessen will likely be putting more money into start-ups over the next few years instead of looking to extract money through sales or initial public offerings — which means that lower prices for start-ups could be good for its portfolio. “All other things being equal, people would rather an environment where asset prices are lower and where there’s less availability of capital, so if one of our companies breaks out, they have less competition from 10 other start-ups going after them,” Mr. Kupor said. Danielle Morrill, co-founder of Mattermark, a company that collects and analyzes data on private market funding, pointed to another benefit that some start-ups may see in tougher times. They could begin to pitch themselves as money-saving services. Mattermark is a software as a service business — a firm that charges a subscription fee for access — and businesses of that type, Ms. Morrill said, can say that they are saving customers money over the competition. “People are going to start talking about which companies are countercyclical,” meaning they’ll prosper in bad times, Ms. Morrill said. But she noted a problem with making such calls: “You don’t really know if you’re countercyclical until you go through a cycle like what we may have. And then you’ll find out.” And that gets to the biggest question if we do enter a gloomy period for start-ups: whether founders will be up for managing in a more stressful, frugal environment. Ms. Morrill said that the current market conditions “could totally affect my fund-raising, and there’s only so much you can change in a week or a month about the way you’re running your company.” She added: “I can say we shouldn’t buy this expensive coffee, but that’s $100. The scarier thoughts are, when will we have to lay off some of our staff? You look at yourself in the mirror and you say, ‘I don’t want to be that C.E.O.’” In good times, in other words, it’s relatively easy to be a great start-up chief executive. When winter comes to Silicon Valley, we’ll find out which founders really shine. A lot of them won’t. Things won’t be pretty. But maybe it’s time. | Venture capital;Silicon Valley;Entrepreneurship;Startup;US Economy |
ny0233395 | [
"us"
] | 2010/08/06 | BP Done Pumping Cement Into Well | HOUSTON — For more than three months, an oil -weary nation has waited for the moment when engineers would begin pumping cement into BP ’s runaway well, in hopes of plugging its flow for good. That moment arrived quietly on Thursday, with cement following the tons of mud already poured into the well in the operation called a static kill . Because no significant amount of oil has leaked since the well was tightly capped on July 15, the start of the cementing was almost anticlimactic. BP did not even hold its regular daily briefing, saying that Kent Wells, the senior vice president who usually explains the technical details to reporters, was traveling. When the cement operation was completed in the afternoon, the company put out a brief announcement. Television newscasts, for months fixated on the spectacle of oil gushing from the broken riser pipe on live underwater video, barely covered the transition. Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who heads the federal spill response effort, told reporters at the government’s midday briefing that once the cement job was completed, “We can all breathe a little easier.” He added, “This is not the end, but it will virtually assure us there will be no chance of oil leaking into the environment.” By applying cement to the well from a surface vessel, technicians can plug most, if not all, of the drill pipe and oil reservoir below. Although the static kill is likely to seal the volatile well permanently, final victory will not be declared until a relief well is completed and it intercepts the well in the middle to later part of August, according to both Admiral Allen and senior BP executives. The first of two relief wells is still 100 feet from intersecting the Macondo well. It will take five to seven days to complete once the cement applied during the static kill dries by the weekend’s end. A second relief well is being drilled in case the first misses the mark. Since blowing out on April 20, killing 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon platform, the well has spewed nearly five million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The tight-fitting capping device that stopped the leak three weeks ago was considered a temporary solution. Because the static kill is not guaranteed to pour cement through the annulus, the portion of the drill pipe between the inner piping and the outer casing, leakage may still remain after the kill, according to officials. But the 18,000-foot relief well can penetrate the entire pipe, after which technicians can test to see how much more cement is needed to kill the well completely. Technicians working on the static kill said that they could not guarantee that the well was now fully plugged. They said they had not been able to determine whether any oil and gas remained trapped in the casing, drill pipe or annular areas that might have been bypassed by the injection of mud and cement. “It’s almost like a mystery you are trying to unravel,” Admiral Allen said. “The question is: what is the path of the cement to the bottom?” Admiral Allen said the mystery would be solved conclusively only by the relief well, and by a final pumping of mud and cement into any areas not reached by the static kill. But Greg McCormack, program director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the University of Texas Austin, said, that the fact that the cementing was finished so quickly “means they had a good cement job, which means that they probably cemented all the way down to the bottom in the production casing and reached the reservoir.” He added, “If there aren’t any leaks anywhere else, that means this well is done.” | BP Plc;Offshore Drilling and Exploration;Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Gulf of Mexico;Accidents and Safety |
ny0067208 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/12/04 | Philadelphia Avoids Tying Record-Worst Start With a Win Over Minnesota | The Philadelphia 76ers avoided tying the record for the worst start to a season in N.B.A. history, ending their 0-17 skid with a victory, 85-77, over the host Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday. Michael Carter-Williams had 20 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists, and Robert Covington added 17 points to keep Philadelphia from tying the 0-18 start by the 2009-10 Nets. Philadelphia shot just 39 percent against the worst defense in the league and turned the ball over 19 times. The 76ers scored only nine points in the second quarter. Philadelphia had been competitive in recent losses to Western Conference heavyweights like San Antonio, Dallas and Portland, and entered this game with real hope that the streak would come to an end, even though they were missing their leading scorer, Tony Wroten, for the fourth straight game. Gorgui Dieng had 15 points and 16 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who shot just 35.7 percent and turned the ball over 19 times to lose for the 11th time in 13 games. As much as Coach Brett Brown tried to minimize the streak and the prospects of tying the record, he did allow himself to envision how he would celebrate a win when he spoke at a morning practice. “Cartwheels, somersaults, great dinner with my family,” Brown said. “Hug my players. Really, salute the fans.” CELTICS 109, PISTONS 102 Jeff Green scored 32 points, including a 3-pointer as Boston opened overtime on the way to ending a five-game losing streak by defeating Detroit at home. The loss was the 10th in a row for Detroit. Greg Monroe scored 15 of his 29 points after the 3 minute 13 second mark of the fourth, when the Pistons erased an 11-point deficit. But Detroit never recovered after giving up the first three baskets to start the extra period. HAWKS 112, HEAT 102 Jeff Teague scored 27 points, Kyle Korver scored 18 and Atlanta handed Miami another home loss. Dennis Schroder scored 16 and Paul Millsap finished with 14 for the Hawks. Dwyane Wade scored 28 points and Chris Bosh finished with 27 points and 11 rebounds for Miami. BULLS 102, HORNETS 95 Pau Gasol had 19 points and 15 rebounds, Joakim Noah and Nikola Mirotic each posted double-doubles, and visiting Chicago handed Charlotte its 10th straight loss. Kirk Hinrich came up with two big 3-pointers in the final three minutes to help the Bulls (12-7) hold on and improve to 10-3 on the road. Kemba Walker had 23 points, and Lance Stephenson had a season-high 20 points to lead the Hornets (4-15), who have lost 12 of 13. WIZARDS 111, LAKERS 95 Bradley Beal scored 27 points, John Wall had 17 points and 15 assists, and host Washington beat Kobe Bryant and Los Angeles. Bryant finished with 29 points — 15 of them in the first quarter, when he shot 6 for 11. He missed nine of his final 11 shots. ROCKETS 105, GRIZZLIES 96 James Harden scored 21 points, and Trevor Ariza and Jason Terry each added 16 to help host Houston defeat Memphis. The Grizzlies (15-3) had won five in a row, and their two previous losses this season had been by a combined five points. Houston played without three starters, including Dwight Howard. MAVERICKS 107, BUCKS 105 Monta Ellis hit a wild, fallaway jumper at the buzzer, lifting visiting Dallas over Milwaukee. Brandon Knight scored 25 points and Khris Middleton added 21 for the Bucks in their third straight loss. RAPTORS 123, JAZZ 104 Kyle Lowry scored a season-high 39 points as visiting Toronto sent Utah to its seventh straight loss. Greivis Vasquez and Lou Williams each had 17 for the Raptors. Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter each scored 19 points for Utah. | Basketball;Timberwolves;76ers |
ny0263397 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2011/12/28 | Bale Leads Tottenham | Tottenham established itself as the likeliest challenger to the dominance of the Manchester clubs in England’s Premier League this season, beating Norwich, 2-0, to tighten its grip on third place. Wing Gareth Bale scored twice in the second half to lift Spurs to 7 points behind Manchester City and United. Fifth-place Arsenal earned a 1-1 draw at home against Wolverhampton. Queens Park Rangers salvaged a 1-1 draw at Swansea. ¶ The United States national team will face Italy in an exhibition game in February, Italy Coach Cesare Prandelli said. He told Gazzetta Dello Sport he was planning to call up the Udinese striker Antonio Di Natale in February “for the game against the U.S.A. in February.” That game has not been announced by either federation. There is only one FIFA match date in February, the 29th. More on nytimes.com/goal . ANDREW DAS | Tottenham Hotspur (Soccer Team);English Premier League;Soccer;Norwich (Soccer Team) |
ny0135572 | [
"business"
] | 2008/04/30 | Patent Law Battle a Boon to Lobbyists | WASHINGTON — A fight has erupted in Congress over the question of whether drug makers and other companies should be allowed to keep patents they obtained by misrepresentation or cheating. The issue has emerged as a contentious point in legislation to overhaul patent laws. In several cases, the courts have voided patents after finding that companies intentionally misled the Patent and Trademark Office. The legislation, affecting a wide swath of the American economy, has been a boon to lobbyists. In 15 months, two dueling business coalitions have spent $4.3 million lobbying on the legislation, which calls for the biggest changes in United States patent law in more than 50 years. Companies from almost every major industry have joined the battle. Patents can protect an invention for up to 20 years. But federal judges can void patents after finding that companies engaged in “inequitable conduct,” meaning that they misrepresented or concealed information with an intent to deceive the patent office. In such cases, judges can declare the patents unenforceable. Robert A. Armitage, a senior vice president and general counsel of Eli Lilly & Company, said, “This is like imposing the death penalty for relatively minor acts of misconduct.” Brand-name drug companies are urging Congress to eliminate the penalty — or to curtail it as proposed under a bill passed by the House. Debra S. Barrett, a vice president of the American unit of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s largest maker of generic drugs, said the changes sought by brand-name drug companies “would make it easier for them to cheat and get away with it, easier for them to defend their patents and more difficult for us to get generic products onto the market in a timely way.” Consumer groups like AARP share that concern. They want to speed access to generic medicines, which can cost 30 percent to 80 percent less than the equivalent brand-name drugs. The House has approved a comprehensive patent bill that would make it harder to prove inequitable conduct. Senators are haggling over a companion bill, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and hope to take it to the floor this summer. In the last 15 years, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles patent cases, has affirmed findings of inequitable conduct in at least 40 cases, including 14 that involved pharmaceutical or health care products. Similar findings have been issued by federal district judges in an unknown number of cases that were not appealed. Courts have found that drug makers knowingly submitted false statements to the patent office, inaccurately described experiments and concealed information that contradicted their claims. In one case, the appeals court said that Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals improperly failed to disclose that it had not performed an experiment described in its application for a patent related to synthetic human growth hormone. In another case, the court said Pharmacia had used an “inaccurate and misleading” affidavit in obtaining a patent for a glaucoma medication. Brand-name drug companies say that generic drug makers routinely attack their patents by accusing them of inequitable conduct when they are blameless or guilty of no more than honest mistakes. The aggressive use of such accusations has become “a plague on the patent system,” the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group, told Congress. Harry F. Manbeck Jr., who was commissioner of patents and trademarks under the first President Bush, said the existing penalty was a powerful deterrent to misconduct. “Patents can be very valuable,” Mr. Manbeck said. “There are strong incentives to want to get them. Cheating occurs from time to time. The inequitable conduct doctrine says that if you cheated to get a patent, you should not be able to enforce it.” Under federal regulations, people applying for a patent have a duty to deal with the patent office in “candor, good faith and honesty.” They are supposed to disclose if their invention was previously known or used by others, offered for sale or described in a publication. In that case, it may not be innovative enough to warrant a patent. In reviewing an application, patent examiners can search the relevant literature, but may not find all the pertinent information, so they depend on applicants to be forthright. “If Congress eliminated or reduced the penalty for inequitable conduct, applicants would no longer have a reason to disclose all the information they are aware of,” said Robert D. Budens, president of the Patent Office Professional Association, which represents 5,500 examiners. Mr. Armitage, the Lilly executive, said: “The doctrine of inequitable conduct is used so aggressively in litigation that it has unintended consequences. Applicants give the Patent and Trademark Office too much information, to avoid allegations that they concealed anything, and they refuse to explain the information, to avoid later allegations that they engaged in some form of misrepresentation.” James C. Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said, “The poor patent examiner gets a dump truck full of information that he has to pore over without any assistance from the applicant.” The number of patent applications — 467,243 in 2007 — has nearly doubled in the last 10 years and has more than tripled since 1987. Jon W. Dudas, the under secretary of commerce for intellectual property, said: “We are getting more and more unpatentable ideas, worse and worse quality applications. Historically, in the last 40 years, the allowance rate — the percentage of applications ultimately approved — hovered around 62 percent to 72 percent. It went up to 72 percent in 2000, but dropped to 43 percent in the first quarter of this year.” A major impetus for the patent legislation is the desire of technology companies to limit the damage awards and legal costs they sometimes face when they are accused of infringing patents. Companies like Cisco and Palm say the disputes drain resources that could be better spent on research and innovation. Many of these companies have banded together in the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which in the last 15 months has spent $2.5 million for a small army of lobbyists including Mark W. Isakowitz, a Republican, and Steven A. Elmendorf, a longtime Democratic strategist. A rival group, the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, consists of about 50 companies that zealously guard their intellectual property and are more likely to file suit to protect their patents. It includes pharmaceutical and biotech companies like Genzyme, Lilly, Merck and Pfizer. This coalition has paid $1.8 million to lobbyists, much of it to the law firm of Akin Gump. | Inventions and Patents;Law and Legislation;Lobbying and Lobbyists |
ny0247343 | [
"technology"
] | 2011/05/27 | Google Unveils Wireless Payment System | Google is among the first out of the gate in the attempt to make leather wallets go the way of the typewriter. On Thursday, the technology giant introduced Google Wallet, a mobile application that will allow consumers to wave their cellphones at a retailer’s terminal to make a payment instead of using a credit card. The app, for the Android operating system, will also enable users to redeem special coupons and earn loyalty points. Starting this summer, the wallet will be available on the Nexus S 4G phone on Sprint and able to hold certain MasterCards issued by Citibank. It will also hold a virtual Google Prepaid MasterCard. The mobile wallet will work at any of the 124,000 merchants that accept MasterCard’s PayPass terminals, which take contactless payments, and more than 300,000 merchants outside the United States. The wallet is powered by a technology called near-field communications, which is incorporated into a chip in mobile phones and sends a message to the merchants’ terminals. “Eventually, you will be able to put everything in your wallet,” Stephanie Tilenius, vice president for commerce at Google, said at a news conference. That grand vision will take a while to come to fruition. Various players have been working on mobile wallets for years, but they have not gained traction because the companies have not been able to agree on how they would be paid or who would control the wallets. Cellular carriers, banks , credit card issuers, payment networks and technology companies all have a stake in this battle. With its wallet, Google plans to make money by offering consumers promotions as they shop. For instance, it plans to introduce “Google Offers” — advertising deals from local and online businesses that can be found online or sent through the phone. Like Groupon, Google will collect a fee from participating retailers every time a person redeems a coupon. Citibank will collect the same fees as it would in a traditional credit card transaction. Google Wallet will need some time to become fully functional nationwide. While Google has worked with more than 15 retailers, like American Eagle Outfitters, Bloomingdale’s, the Container Store and Jamba Juice, they all need to upgrade their payment terminals. When they do, consumers will also be able to store and redeem deals with the wallet. Merchants in New York and San Francisco are expected to be ready this summer. Once the retailers’ technology is in place, consumers will be able to wave their phone at the checkout counter and, in one swoop, discounts will be applied, loyalty points will be awarded and payments made. Someday, Google said, when consumers enter the store, their phones may serve up a list of items they recently bought, and offer them related discounts. The wallet app itself will require a PIN, as will each transaction. The payment credentials will be encrypted and stored on a chip inside the phone. Google emphasized that the wallet would be open to all businesses and invited other banks, credit card issuers, payment networks, mobile carriers and merchants to work with it. “I expect that other payment networks and other banks will join this effort, though in some cases it will be a hedge strategy they employ along with their own mobile payment initiatives,” said Charles S. Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “Since these payments utilize the same underlying business model as cards today, there is not significant disruption risk for these players.” Google is also working with First Data, which processes payments and will ensure the security of the transaction. If the phone was stolen, the credit cards inside could be remotely disabled. Consumers would have the same “zero liability” for unauthorized transactions made with their phones as they would with plastic cards. Separately, PayPal filed a suit on Thursday against Google and two of its former executives who are now at Google, including Ms. Tilenius. The suit claims that they misappropriated trade secrets from PayPal’s mobile-payment business. A Google spokesman declined to comment because he said they have not yet received a copy of the complaint. Eventually, Google said, its wallet may be able to hold much more, including car keys and airline boarding passes. But access to such items will still require a fully charged phone. If the phone battery dies, even Ms. Tilenius of Google conceded, “I think you need to use your plastic at that point.” | Mobile Applications;Google Inc;Shopping and Retail;Smartphones;Wireless Communications;Credit Cards |
ny0168156 | [
"business"
] | 2006/01/13 | Maryland Sets a Health Cost for Wal-Mart | ANNAPOLIS, Md., Jan. 12 - The Maryland legislature passed a law Thursday that would require Wal-Mart Stores to increase spending on employee health insurance, a measure that is expected to be a model for other states. The legislature's move, which overrode a veto by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, was a response to growing criticism that Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has skimped on benefits and shifted health costs to state governments. The vote came after a furious lobbying battle by Wal-Mart and by labor and liberal groups, and is likely to encourage lawmakers in dozens of other states who are considering similar legislation. Many state legislatures have looked to Maryland as a test case, as they face fast-rising Medicaid costs, and Wal-Mart's critics say that too many of its employees have been forced to turn to Medicaid. Under the Maryland law, employers with 10,000 or more workers in the state must spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on health insurance, or else pay the difference into a state Medicaid fund. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the company was "weighing its options," including a lawsuit to challenge the law because it is close to that 8 percent threshold already. It is unclear how much the new law will cost Wal-Mart in Maryland -- or around the country, if similar laws are adopted, because Wal-Mart has not publicly divulged what it spends on health care. But it was concerned enough about the bill to hire four firms to lobby the legislature intensely over the last two months, and contributed at least $4,000 to the re-election campaign of Governor Ehrlich. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, Mia Masten, said that "everyone should have access to affordable health insurance, but this legislation does nothing to accomplish this goal." "This is about partisan politics," she said, "and this is poor public policy driven by special-interest groups." There are four employers in Maryland with more than 10,000 workers -- among them, Johns Hopkins University, the grocery chain Giant Food and the military contractor Northrop Grumman, but only Wal-Mart falls below the 8 percent threshold on health care spending. A Democratic lawmaker who sponsored the legislation, State Senator Gloria G. Lawlah , maintained: "This is not a Wal-Mart bill, it's a Medicaid bill." This bill says to the conglomerates, 'Don't dump the employees that you refuse to insure into our Medicaid systems.' " Opponents said the law would open the door for broader state regulation of health care spending by private companies and would send the message that Maryland is antibusiness. "The message is, 'Don't come here,' " said Senator E. J. Pipkin, a Republican. "This is an anti-jobs bill." Several lawmakers said that in the end, the law would require Wal-Mart to spend only slightly more than it does now on health insurance. But with Wal-Mart refusing to disclose what it pays for health costs, it was unclear how much more it would be required to pay. This is the second time that the Maryland legislature, which is dominated by Democrats, has passed the Wal-Mart bill. Governor Ehrlich vetoed it late last year, inviting a senior Wal-Mart executive to sit by his side as he did so. Indeed, the bill is shaping up as an issue in the fall campaign, with Republicans and their business allies lining up against it, and Democrats and their labor union supporters backing it. Wal-Mart has 53 stores and employs about 17,000 people in Maryland. Debate was particularly emotional among representatives from Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Wal-Mart recently announced plans to build a distribution center that would employ up to 1,000. Wal-Mart executives have strongly suggested that they might build the center elsewhere if lawmakers passed the health care bill. In a passionate speech in the State Senate, J. Lowell Stoltzfus, a Republican, warned that the bill "jeopardizes good employment for my people." "It's going to hurt us very bad," he added, The bill's passage underscored the success of the union campaign to turn Wal-Mart into a symbol of what is wrong in the American health care system. Wal-Mart has come under severe criticism because it insures less than half its United States work force and because its employees routinely show up, in larger numbers than employees of other retailers, on state Medicaid rolls. In response to the complaints, the company introduced a new health care plan late last year, with premiums as low as $11 a month. Consumer advocates specializing in health care are hoping that the Maryland law will be the first of many. "You're going to see similar legislation being introduced," said Ronald Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a nonprofit health advocacy organization, "and debated in at least three dozen more states, and at least some of those states will end up also requiring large employers to provide health care coverage." Mr. Pollack suggested that he did not expect any groundswell of opposition from corporate America. Most companies, he said, provide insurance and know that the costs of medical treatment for uninsured people are reflected in their insurance premiums. Mr. Pollack said that, by his organization's calculations, the cost of such treatment drove up employer premiums by $922 a family last year. In 2006, he said, the added cost could reach $1,000 a family. "Those employers should welcome the fact that the companies that do not offer coverage now will be forced to step up to the plate," he said. State lawmakers here in Annapolis took repeated swipes at Wal-Mart during debate over the bill on Thursday. It appeared that the company's intensive lobbying campaign in Maryland, including advertisements arguing that the requirement would hurt small businesses, might have soured some lawmakers. Senator Lawlah called the lobbying "horrendous" and adding, "I have never seen anything like it." Frank D. Boston III, the chief lobbyist for Wal-Mart on the health care bill, stood in the main corridor of the Capitol building on Thursday wearing a look of resignation. Referring to unions in the state, he said, "They have a power we can't match, and we worked this bill extremely hard." Class-Action Case in Pennsylvania (By Bloomberg News) A Pennsylvania judge granted class-action status yesterday to a lawsuit contending that Wal-Mart employees had been pressed to work through breaks and after hours. The suit could include as many as 150,000 current or former employees in Pennsylvania who have worked at a Wal-Mart store or at the company's Sam's Club warehouse chain since March 1998, Michael Donovan, the lead plaintiff's lawyer, said. The latest class-action filing against Wal-Mart came after a California jury last month awarded workers $172.3 million in another off-the-clock case. Wal-Mart is appealing. The company settled a similar case in Colorado for $50 million. Wal-Mart has given "every indication" that it will go to trial rather than settle, Mr. Donovan said. A Wal-Mart spokesman, Kevin Thornton, said the company was considering appealing the decision. | MARYLAND;WAL-MART STORES INC;HEALTH INSURANCE |
ny0209970 | [
"us"
] | 2009/12/01 | Verdict Elusive in Baltimore Mayor’s Trial | WASHINGTON — Six days into their deliberations, jurors in the trial of Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore sent a note to the judge on Monday saying they had reached an impasse. “We cannot come to a unanimous decision on all counts,” the jurors wrote to Judge Dennis M. Sweeney. In response, the judge asked the jurors if they had reached a decision on any of the counts. Without answering that question, the jurors said they would continue deliberations on Tuesday because of “new things brought to light.” Ms. Dixon is accused of stealing $1,500 in gift cards meant for needy families. The cards were left over from a charity event and had been donated by a developer, Ronald H. Lipscomb, whom Ms. Dixon dated in 2003 and 2004. Ms. Dixon was accused of using the cards to buy items at Target, Toys “R” Us, Old Navy and Best Buy — including, according to court documents, a PlayStation video game console, a digital camcorder, DVDs and CDs. During the trial, in Baltimore City Circuit Court, two charges were thrown out for lack of evidence. Ms. Dixon’s lawyers have argued that she believed some of the cards were personal gifts from an anonymous admirer. Monday’s note from the jury was the most recent indication of contentious deliberations. In the first days of deliberations, jurors requested early release because discussions were getting “out of order” and “heated,” according to juror notes. In response to the note Monday, Ms. Dixon’s lawyer, Arnold Weiner, asked for a mistrial, but Judge Sweeney denied it. Ms. Dixon took office in January 2007 and has generally been viewed as an effective city leader. Throughout the trial, which began Nov. 9, public reaction has tended toward two extremes. Some residents have voiced a sense of outrage that the mayor would steal from children and the needy. Others have accused the prosecutor’s office of wasting time and money on minor offenses. Ms. Dixon faces another trial in the spring on two perjury counts. Those charges stem from an accusation that she failed to report on city ethics forms gifts from Mr. Lipscomb, including money, travel and clothes. Mr. Lipscomb’s company received millions of dollars’ worth of city tax credits for its development projects in 2003 and 2004, the years he dated the mayor. | Dixon Sheila;Robberies and Thefts;Decisions and Verdicts;Baltimore (Md) |
ny0039893 | [
"business",
"energy-environment"
] | 2014/04/09 | Target to Stock More Environmentally Friendly Products | When Eric Ryan helped start Method Products in 2001, the market for environmentally friendly soaps and cleaning products, he recalled, was a “niche of a niche of a niche.” No longer. Target, one of the country’s largest retailers, announced on Tuesday that it would expand its inventory of “natural, organic and sustainable” goods to meet growing customer demand. The company said it would introduce more than 120 new products over the next several months, and unveiled a new umbrella category for these items — “Made to Matter — Handpicked by Target.” “Almost all of our guests, 97 percent, say they buy some product that is natural, organic or sustainable,” said Kathryn A. Tesija, Target’s executive vice president for merchandising and supply chain. “They’re looking for products in this category,” she said. “We’re making it easy by calling them out.” For this initiative, which has been in the works since 2012, Target is working with 17 brands whose goods it already stocks — like Seventh Generation, Vita Coco, Kashi and Burt’s Bees — to provide new or adjusted products exclusive to Target for at least six months. In some cases, what is new might be as minor as a different flavor or scent, while in others, the newness will be more significant, like diapers without bleach, made by Seventh Generation, or an air freshener that is not in an aerosol can, made by Method. In recent years, organic food and products have expanded from specialty stores and into the aisles of many mass-market retailers. According to the Organic Trade Association, the industry grew to $31.5 billion in United States sales in 2012, the most recent data available, from $8.4 billion a decade earlier. From 2011 to 2012, the sector grew 10.3 percent. (The world of “natural” products has also expanded in recent years, but that distinction is almost entirely unregulated so it generally tells consumers nothing about what they are buying.) Barbara Haumann of the trade association said that demand for organic goods had been growing quickly enough in recent years that even though major mainstream companies have been pushing further into organics — Target has sold organic products for years now — they are not necessarily stealing market share from other retailers. Instead, they just bite off a bigger piece of a rapidly growing pie. | Sustainable living;Retail;Target;Organic Trade Assn;Organic Food |
ny0290647 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2016/01/21 | Iran’s Supreme Leader Condemns Mob Attack on Saudi Embassy | TEHRAN — Iran’s highest leader strongly denounced on Wednesday a mob attack on Saudi Arabia ’s embassy in Tehran this month, saying the event was “very bad” and “detrimental to the country and Islam.” The embassy attack followed the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia, and it seemingly played into the Saudis’ hands by shifting the focus of global outrage to Shiite Iran from the Sunni kingdom. The attack led Saudi Arabia and several of its allies to cut ties with Iran. Analysts said the comments from the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , could be tied to a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, where the embassy attack is high on the agenda. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was even more critical of the attack. “This was an act that we were not proud of,” Mr. Zarif told an audience on Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. “It was an act against our security, our sovereignty, and we are prosecuting the people who committed that horrendous act.” As he has in the past, Mr. Zarif said Iran was eager to work with its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, to resolve regional issues, particularly the war in Syria. “I think our Saudi neighbors need to realize that confrontation is in the interest of nobody,” he said. “Iran is there to work with you. Iran does not want to exclude anyone from the region. There is no need to engage in a confrontation.” Despite Mr. Zarif’s conciliatory language, Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in a bitter sectarian proxy war in Syria, with Tehran backing President Bashar al-Assad and Riyadh propping up the rebel forces opposing him. In remarks to election officials that were published on his website, Khamenei.ir , Ayatollah Khamenei also weighed in on a dispute that has the potential to shape Iran’s political course for the next several years. He voiced strong support for a 12-member vetting committee that is said to have disqualified nearly all reformist candidates in coming elections for the Majlis, or Parliament, and for the Assembly of Experts, a council that in the future will elect his successor. The vetting committee, the Guardian Council, which has been severely criticized by the reform camp, has not publicly explained its actions. In his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei said that mistakes could be made but that they “don’t justify attacks on legal entities.” If upheld, the bar on reformist candidates would mean that President Hassan Rouhani, who calls himself a moderate, will in all likelihood confront a hostile Parliament if he tries to introduce measures that he has promised to expand personal freedoms. Ayatollah Khamenei went even further, making it clear that the reformists faced an uphill battle to exert any influence in the immediate future. “I have said that even those who are against the establishment should take part in the election,” he said. “I did not, however, mean that those who are against the establishment must be allowed to find their way into the Majlis. You do not find any country in the world where people who are against the system are allowed into any decision-making bodies.” It is an article of faith among conservatives that the reformists object to clerical rule and have a secret agenda of changing the basic nature of the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Khamenei has been preaching a hard line since the signing of a nuclear agreement with the United States and other nations in July, warning against any softening in Iran’s anti-Western stance, and he has doubled down since the deal went into effect last weekend. The ayatollah complimented the actions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy, which detained 10 United States Navy sailors this month after they entered Iran’s waters not far from one of its naval bases. “What the I.R.G.C. youth did in the Persian Gulf was absolutely the right thing to do, though I have not had the time to thank them yet,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “Our politicians must act in the same way. Detect the line through which they are invading and stop it with strength.” On Monday, the Iranian police said they had arrested more than 150 people in connection with the Saudi Embassy attacks, which left the building in flames. While deploring the incident, Ayatollah Khamenei warned government officials not to “attack the devoted, revolutionary and Hezbollahi youth, merely because of events like those at the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Britain.” In 2011, crowds entered the British Embassy in Tehran , leading to the severing of ties. Ayatollah Khamenei later denounced that assault as well, and ties were restored last year . | Ali Khamenei;Iran;Saudi Arabia;Diplomats Embassies and Consulates;Islam;Mohammad Javad Zarif;Hassan Rouhani;Shiite;Sunnis;Organization of Islamic Cooperation |
ny0275760 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/02/09 | Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney, Takes a Victory Lap in Albany After Winning Corruption Cases | ALBANY — He was hailed as a man of “tremendous courage” by one interviewer. He was trailed, everywhere he went, by a flock of reporters and cameras. He made a packed audience of government watchdog supporters “weak-kneed,” as one spectator posted on Twitter. It was the prosecutorial equivalent of the victory lap, the going-to-Disney World moment after the Super Bowl, if comparisons can be made between household-name football stars and federal law-enforcement officials. Preet Bharara, the soft-spoken crusader who has done for clean government what Bernie Sanders did for Democratic Socialism, had come to Albany. In a season of discontent with elected leaders in the state capital — and in a year when the federal prosecutor’s office Mr. Bharara occupies has been fictionalized in the TV show “Billions” — Mr. Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, enjoyed an admiring reception on his first trip to the scene, so to speak, of the crime. He urged a conference of New York State mayors at the Hilton hotel to be watchful for corruption in city contracts. Seats to an afternoon speech and interview, broadcast live from a performance studio of the regional radio station WAMC, were snapped up in less than a day. Mr. Bharara, 48, had a somewhat more equivocal greeting for the city that has provided him fodder for some of his highest-profile triumphs, including, most recently, the convictions of the former speaker of the State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, and the majority leader of the State Senate, Dean G. Skelos. Publicizing his afternoon speech on Twitter, Mr. Bharara chose a quote from Edward R. Murrow: “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” In his speech from the performance studio, Mr. Bharara repeatedly hammered the complacency and implicit collaboration of other lawmakers, whom he called “enablers,” in the “rancid culture” of Albany. “What’s been going on in New York State government lately is simultaneously heartbreaking, head-scratching and almost comic,” he said, echoing remarks he made last month in front of the Kentucky Legislature. Mr. Bharara rejected complaints about prosecutorial overreach. “Blaming the prosecutors is not leadership,” he said. “Whining is not leadership.” In a Q. and A. after his speech, Mr. Bharara said his public-corruption unit was “not closing up shop anytime soon.” But he was more circumspect about other investigations, demurring when asked about an inquiry into the Buffalo Billion , a plan offered by the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, which has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into that beleaguered western New York city. And he offered no more than a previously released statement about the end of his investigation into the demise of the Moreland Commission, an anti-corruption panel established by Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat. About the only person who seemed determined to treat Mr. Bharara’s appearance as a nonevent was Mr. Cuomo, who sat facing Mr. Bharara but did not speak to him at the swearing-in ceremony of Janet DiFiore, the state’s new top judge, at the Court of Appeals. Mr. Cuomo clapped from his seat when Mr. Bharara was introduced. Mr. Bharara returned the favor from his seat in the second row, behind a group of Cuomo administration veterans that included Lawrence S. Schwartz, the former secretary to the governor, whose strong-armed interactions with the Moreland panel were documented by The New York Times . Mr. Cuomo, noting the Appeals Court judges’ comfortable salaries, mentioned that he might someday nominate himself to the court. The overflow crowd cackled. Mr. Bharara did not. After the ceremony, Mr. Cuomo left by the rear of the court, while Mr. Bharara left by the front entrance. Neither man attended the cheese-and-fruit reception. Reporters outside the court promptly bombarded Mr. Cuomo with questions about Mr. Bharara’s visit, the relationship between the two men and whether Mr. Bharara should be considered a “champion” of the democratic process. Through the entire session, Mr. Cuomo managed to avoid even saying the other man’s name. “I think his point that we need ethics reform is the same thing that I have been saying,” Mr. Cuomo said, later noting that when he served as state attorney general, he had successfully prosecuted a state senator and a comptroller on corruption charges. If Mr. Bharara did not find Mr. Cuomo’s jokes particularly amusing, his own witticisms met with more appreciation from his audiences in Albany — even if more than a few of those jokes were groaners involving Mr. Bharara’s fierce devotion to Bruce Springsteen, who had a show scheduled in Albany on Monday night. The setup: “I understand that Bruce Springsteen is in town.” The punch line: “If any of you have tickets, I am perfectly prepared to subpoena them.” (“Darn it, that’s better than anything I could’ve written for a US Atty,” Young Il Kim, a writer for “Billions,” which stars Paul Giamatti as a federal prosecutor bent on rooting out Wall Street wrongdoing, remarked on Twitter .) Asked during the radio broadcast whether he had any interest in running for elected office, Mr. Bharara invoked, once again, the other celebrity in Albany on Monday night. “Let me put it this way, given that Bruce Springsteen is in town,” he said. “I was not born to run.” | Preet Bharara;New York;Mayor;Corruption;Politics |
ny0099261 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/06/23 | Optimism for an Agreement on Greek Debt, but Not for Long-Term Stability | BRUSSELS — Greece and its European partners appeared on Monday night to be heading for a deal by the end of the week that would secure further funding for Greece and a likely promise of more debt relief in return for changes in the pension and tax systems, European Union officials said. Even so, there is no great confidence that a deal reached when all 28 European Union leaders have a summit meeting here Thursday and Friday will be more than a short-term easing of the Greek crisis, which has preoccupied the European Union for the last five years. And there remains skepticism that the Greek government will follow through on whatever deal is finally struck. One senior official from a European country, asked if this may be peace in our time, answered, “Well, it’s peace for a week.” Given the past pattern of broken promises and sudden changes of position from the left-wing Greek government of Alexis Tsipras , even this outline of a modest deal could come apart once financial experts come to grips with the numbers. After the summit meeting concluded, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said that he was “confident” a deal would be done by the end of the week, “for the simple reason that we have to find agreement this week.” Monday was supposed to be a crucial day on Greece for eurozone finance ministers, followed by an emergency summit meeting of European leaders from the 19 countries using the euro, expected to go late into the night. But in an apparent mix-up, Greek proposals sent to the finance ministers very early Monday were superseded by another proposal later that morning. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch minister who is chairman of the group, said the delay deprived the finance ministers and experts of the time needed to judge the Greek proposals. And there was even brief consideration given to canceling the emergency leaders’ summit. But Mr. Dijsselbloem said there was enough in the Greek proposals to provide some optimism that a real bargain might be in sight, and the leaders decided to meet anyway, even though they made clear that no major decisions would be made on Monday. But they wanted to try to make it clear to Mr. Tsipras that flexibility and patience are limited. Mr. Tsipras has said that the toughest choices can be made only by political leaders, not finance ministers or technocrats, and there is continuing suspicion among many irritated European officials that his government has been playing for time. The idea would be to increase the pressure on his European colleagues to give Athens a better deal that Mr. Tsipras can sell at home as at least a partial victory. “Frankly, it’s not a bad strategy,” a senior European Union official said. Mr. Dijsselbloem said the Greek plan was “a basis to really restart the talks again and really get a result,” although officials needed to assess whether the economic reforms proposed by Greece “are enough for the economy to take off again.” Donald Tusk , the president of the European Council, also signaled cautious optimism. “The latest Greek proposals are the first real proposals in many weeks, although they still need — it’s obvious for me — the assessment of the institutions and further work,” he told reporters. “The most important thing is that the leaders take full political responsibility for the political process to avoid the worst-case scenario, which means uncontrollable, chaotic Graccident,” said Mr. Tusk, using a voguish term for unplanned events forcing Greece out of the eurozone. Despite reassurances about the survival of the euro, the economic and political stakes for the European Union are high, and all would prefer to avoid both a Greek default and an exit from the common currency. Mr. Tsipras knows this, and analysts believe he has been stalling to try to get at least the promise of some relief for Greece’s probably unsustainable mountain of debt in a third bailout program. The last part of the existing bailout expires at the end of June; a tranche of $8.2 billion has yet to be disbursed, which has led to worries that Greece would not be able to pay the $1.8 billion it owes to the International Monetary Fund by the end of the month. According to the Greek economics minister, Giorgios Stathakis, speaking to the BBC, the Greek proposal would raise taxes on businesses and the wealthy, as well as hiking the value-added tax , or VAT, on some items. It reportedly would also raise the retirement age for state pensions gradually to 67, phasing out an early retirement system that allowed many Greeks to stop working in their early 50s. Mr. Tsipras has argued that he needs to be able to show Greeks there is at least some light at the end of the austerity tunnel. By accepting a rise in the retirement age, he can say he has preserved existing pensions for most Greeks, kept pay stable for public workers and kept the VAT down on critical items like electricity and medicine. Image Greeks favoring continued eurozone membership marched in Athens as creditors worked on a deal to secure debt relief. Credit Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Greece’s creditors have complained that pensions take some 16 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product and must be reduced, and the Greek proposal reportedly includes a higher employer contribution to pensions that some experts believe will be very difficult to collect. One European Union official familiar with the Greek proposal said it would also have to pass muster in the turbulent atmosphere of Greek politics. “Looking ahead, the real risks remain located in Greek domestic politics, where government’s movement on the issues of pension and VAT reform could be a tough sell — and would be an impossible one without any concessions on debt relief,” Wolfango Piccoli, a managing director at Teneo Intelligence, a political risk consultancy, wrote in a client note on Monday. Mr. Piccoli, in a telephone interview later, said any offer by negotiators and creditors to give Greece a way to ease its debt repayments was highly unlikely until the Greek proposal had been fully assessed. But if a deal takes longer, European policy makers and the European Central Bank will have to consider how to help Greece avoid imposing capital controls to curb the flight of deposits from its banking system in the event it misses the large repayment to the International Monetary Fund at the end of the month. Already, Greeks have been taking billions of euros out of Greek banks, and so far the European Central Bank has been willing to replace the money in exchange for at least notional collateral, since the bank is forbidden from deficit funding. But if the outflow continues, capital controls might have to be imposed to avoid bank failure and a sudden Greek exit from the euro, since the supply will have stopped. There are geopolitical concerns, too. Officials in both Washington and Berlin put the Greek crisis in the context of a more aggressive Russia, its annexation of Crimea and involvement in separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. Greece is a member of NATO, too, and Mr. Tsipras’s ties with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s hints of financial support for Greece and Russia’s interest in using Greece to pipe natural gas to Europe have not gone unnoticed. And most European leaders fear the potential consequences of a Greek default: a failed state in the Balkans sending tens of thousands of desperate workers north into other European Union member nations and looking to Moscow for a lifeline. But there is also a reluctance among countries that have achieved modest growth after undergoing serious austerity and structural changes to give Greece much of a pass. | Greece;EU;Euro Crisis;Pensions and Retirement Plans;Alexis Tsipras;Eurozone;European Commission |
ny0086643 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2015/07/21 | Live and Kicking: Soccer Games to Watch This Week | The Gold Cup and gold-plated exhibitions fill the schedule this week. Concacaf Gold Cup The United States plays Jamaica on Wednesday in the early game of a semifinal doubleheader in Atlanta (6 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1). If it’s anything like the Americans’ recent games, Clint Dempsey will score and the United States will advance. The nightcap pits Mexico, the luckiest team in the world , against Panama (9 p.m. FS1). They both played for more than two hours in the heat on Sunday night at the Meadowlands. The final is Sunday night in Philadelphia. International Champions Cup The only thing at stake in the summer exhibition tournament currently raking in cash at a stadium near you is pride, even if the organizers have tried to spice it up a bit . But with the tournament now playing in a variety of time zones and continents, there’s always something. Are you an earlier riser? Try Roma-Manchester City on Tuesday (6 a.m., FS1). Night owl? There’s Barcelona vs. the Los Angeles Galaxy that night (11 p.m., FS1). Major League Soccer The game of the week — star-gazing-wise, not competitively, since both teams are deep in the standings — is Orlando City’s visit to New York City F.C. on Sunday afternoon (2:30 p.m., FS1). In addition to Kaka, who managed to start the regular season on time, the game could see the M.L.S. debuts of Frank Lampard and — possibly — Andrea Pirlo. | Soccer;CONCACAF Gold Cup;Los Angeles Galaxy;Manchester City Soccer Team;Roma Soccer Team;Barcelona Soccer Team;Kaka;Frank Lampard;Andrea Pirlo |
ny0189349 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2009/05/18 | Damon’s Home Run Lifts Yankees to Another Victory in Last At-Bat | Johnny Damon placed a black and gold wrestling belt over his left shoulder, his reward for providing the climax to another frenetic game at Yankee Stadium. The toy belt was a gift to Damon last month from A. J. Burnett’s sons, Allan Jr. and Ashton, but it has evolved into a symbol of success for the Yankees . Damon possessed the belt because he hit a game-ending home run off Jesse Crain in the 10th inning on Sunday to power the Yankees to a 3-2 win over the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium. Whichever player Damon deems the star of the game is allowed to hang on to the belt. Lately, the Yankees have passed it around to a bevy of late-inning heroes. Because of Damon’s home run, the Yankees recorded their third straight victory against the Twins in which they scored the decisive run in their final at-bat. The Yankees had not done that since 1972. Damon proudly held the belt Sunday, but he was ready to bequeath it to the next Yankee. “We all have faith in each other in here,” Damon said. “It doesn’t matter who it is, just as long as someone gets the job done.” Damon’s homer , along with a bullpen that followed Burnett with three and a third scoreless innings, Mark Teixeira’s slick defense and another homer from Alex Rodriguez, steered the Yankees to their fifth win in a row. The Yankees may have few fans sitting in some of their priciest seats, but they have shown why it is foolish for anyone to leave before the final out. On Saturday, Rodriguez hit a winning homer in the 11th inning, so he had the belt with Champ etched across the middle. On Friday, Melky Cabrera was awarded the belt after he won the game with a two-run single in the ninth . As they did to Rodriguez and Cabrera, Damon’s teammates slammed him in the face with a celebratory pie. “I’ll take it anytime,” Damon said. “One thing that I did figure out is whipped cream actually makes a real good hair product.” As dramatic as Damon’s homer was, the Yankees almost won in an even more dazzling manner in the ninth. With Brett Gardner on second, Francisco Cervelli scorched a ball that caromed off the glove of pitcher Jose Mijares and bounced back to catcher Joe Mauer. Mauer took a few steps toward first and lifted the ball behind his head as if he were about to throw there. But Mauer did not make the throw. He turned and saw that Gardner had not stopped at third and was rumbling for home. Mauer, who was about 40 feet in front of the plate, barreled for home, too. A former high school quarterback, Mauer dived and tagged Gardner in the midsection while blocking him from touching the plate. “He’s an All-Star player every day when he goes out on the field,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said of Mauer. “The athleticism that he showed to get a very speedy runner is pretty incredible.” Mauer’s play combined athleticism, instincts and smarts. “I didn’t really think I’d have to race and beat him home, but I faked to first, turned around, and he’s already halfway down the line,” Mauer said. “So I just tried to beat him to the plate.” For six innings, Burnett was the pitcher the Yankees had wanted desperately enough to invest $82.5 million in his right arm. His pulsating fastballs, diving curveballs and tough-guy attitude were on display. But this was not the offense the Yankees expected to have. Not a lineup that was lulled to sleep by Kevin Slowey, who cleverly matched every zero that Burnett put on the scoreboard. That succession of zeroes finally vanished in the seventh inning, when the Twins nicked Burnett for two runs on two hits, a walk and two wild pitches. The Yankees countered with two runs in the bottom of the inning on Rodriguez’s home run and a sacrifice fly by Cabrera. Burnett, who struck out seven and walked six in six and two-thirds innings, has not won since April 14. The Twins loaded the bases with one out in the eighth, but Brett Tomko and Teixeira stifled them. Denard Span rapped a grounder that seemed bound for right field, but Teixeira dived to his right to stab it. From his knees, he flipped the ball home for a forceout. Teixeira said he realized that he “had to do anything I could to keep that guy from scoring.” Two innings later, Damon, who is as comfortable a hitter as the Yankees have in crucial situations, shortened his swing on a 3-2 fastball and hit it into the right-field seats. Damon glided around the bases and into a sea of pinstriped players waiting at the plate. Back in the clubhouse, Damon had the belt waiting, too. “Hopefully,” he said, “there’ll be another winner tomorrow.” Inside Pitch Chien-Ming Wang is probably headed back to the Yankees after he pitched seven scoreless innings Sunday in his second consecutive shutout performance for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. “You wonder at some point how much you’re going to get out of this stuff after a period of time,” General Manager Brian Cashman told The Scranton Times-Tribune. Brian Bruney also pitched for Scranton, allowing two hits and a run in one inning. He will probably return to the Yankees by Tuesday. TYLER KEPNER | Baseball;Minnesota Twins;New York Yankees;Damon Johnny |
ny0169728 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2007/04/08 | Fattening Goodies in All Their Sugary Glory | “Sugar Buzz” is a high-calorie, free-wheeling, almost all-female group exhibition inviting us to savor the diversity of contemporary art made of sweets, or inspired by them. Though the 40 assembled works by almost 30 artists are not terribly complicated, or edifying, they are pretty enough to look at, even vaguely nourishing — the ultimate eye candy. Walking into this exhibition you get an instant jolt — there are crazy colors everywhere, and artwork that looks like delicious cakes, pies, ice cream, biscuits, doughnuts and other diet-busters. But much like a real sugar buzz, the initial rush soon begins to wear off. Several artists have made works out of actual foodstuff. Mark Mcleod opens the exhibition with silhouetted images of famous museums burnt into tiles made of cast sugar and Splenda. Designed to change over time, the burnt-in, caramelized designs have begun to deepen and discolor. You can’t help but wonder how long they will last. Nearby is Andy Yoder’s seven-foot pipe made of black licorice Twizzlers, while in another part of the exhibition is Yoshiko Kanai’s process-oriented work consisting of a Japanese table and traditional tea set cast of sugar mixed with egg whites. Every few days the artist pours green tea and Coca-Cola into the bowls, gradually eroding them and the table. Becca Albee also makes edible art, baking dozens of Frisbee-size cakes, which she has arranged on the gallery floor in the shape of a spiral. The obvious reference is to the minimalist artist Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” (1970), a monumental earthwork on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Remaking it in cakes seems ridiculous, though it takes a swipe at macho earth sculpture. Besides stuff made from food, there is a lot of artwork here made to look like food. It is hard to miss Amy Williamson Miller’s eight-foot slice of wedding cake, made of mixed media, and glibly titled “I Do” (2006), and Vadis Turner’s eye-fooling collection of confection and cupcakes made of colored cloth and assorted women’s beauty products. Ms. Turner has also made chocolates out of pantyhose and other fabric odds and ends. They are very cleverly done. Emily Eveleth’s painting of sugar-coated jelly doughnuts, “Repose” (2006), is one of several paintings of pastries and cakes in the show. What can be said of it? Not much, for it is basically a sensual bit of retro Pop art reminiscent (in manner rather than subject) of James Rosenquist’s glossy consumerist paintings from the 1970s, or Claes Oldenburg’s goofy soft sculptures of doughnuts and other junk food. Several other painters owe something to the work of Mr. Rosenquist, and to Wayne Thiebaud, whose paintings from the 1960s and 70s of cafeteria-type foods — cakes, pies, ice creams — and other fattening goodies set the gold standard in this area. Among them is Sara Sill, who paints delicious photorealist images of tables in French patisseries laden with cakes and pastries. Yum. The rest of the cake and sweets paintings look better as a group, much like a party with all the goodies set out on a table for guests. But on their own they are a bit disappointing. Sometimes this is because the painting technique is sloppy, and sometimes because the subject matter or the color scheme doesn’t pique the appetite. I am thinking in particular of Lynda Ray’s dull, murky encaustics that suggest slices of layer cakes. This is not a gathering of artists who specialize in making food-oriented art. It is actually a collection of artists who mostly do other things and who just happened to make an artwork or two related to sweets. They were found through an open call organized by Susan Hoeltzel, the gallery director, who sifted through hundreds of applications to settle on a final selection. One artist who does seem to work regularly with foodstuff is Shelley Miller, a Canadian. She applies colored cake frosting to building exteriors in the shape of cornices, columns and tiles, which eventually wash off in the rain and snow. Photographs of projects in Brazil and Canada are here, one of which shows street children at an installation in Brazil picking at and eating the frosting. The rest of the show is mildly amusing — more imitation cakes, installations with candy wrappers, and a cabinet stocked with collages of the artist’s favorite candies. The exhibits inspired an occasional half smile but never really roused my enthusiasm. Or maybe it was that the buzz I had experienced upon entering this colorful display was beginning to wear off. | Desserts;Sugar |
ny0264357 | [
"business"
] | 2011/12/06 | Patricia C. Dunn Dies at 58; Led Hewlett-Packard During Spying Case | SAN FRANCISCO — Patricia C. Dunn , who rose from a secretary to lead Barclays Global Investors and then serve as chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard only to have her career eclipsed by her involvement in an attempt to stop boardroom leaks by spying on directors, journalists and employees, died on Sunday at her home in Orinda, Calif. She was 58. The cause was ovarian cancer, her husband, William Jahnke, said. She had been treated for three types of cancer since 2002. As its chief executive, Ms. Dunn built Barclays Global Investors into the largest institutional money manager in the country; Fortune magazine ranked her among the most powerful women in business. She was later named the nonexecutive chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard after the firing of Carly Fiorina as chief executive and chairwoman in 2005. While Ms. Dunn was chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, the company’s board became concerned about leaks of its deliberations to the press. Ms. Dunn authorized a spying operation and put it in the hands of outside investigators, who ran amok. They obtained phone records of board members, employees and journalists who wrote about the company and followed some of them. They even considered an operation to enter the San Francisco offices of The Wall Street Journal posing as a cleaning crew in order to snoop. Ms. Dunn maintained that she was a scapegoat, saying her actions had been taken with the board’s knowledge and approval. She later testified before a Congressional subcommittee that she had not directed the investigations but had been guided by the company’s lawyers. Documents submitted to the subcommittee showed that the company’s lawyers had started the operation before informing Ms. Dunn of it, although the efforts were known internally by the name of a Hawaiian resort, Kona. The lawyers told her that the phone records had been obtained legally, she said. She later resigned from the board. As a result of her role, she was indicted along with four others in California on felony charges of using false pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy. But the state dropped all charges against Ms. Dunn shortly afterward, saying the action was “in the interests of justice.” She had just learned of a recurrence of cancer. She also battled breast cancer and melanoma. “She was a really gifted businesswoman from very humble beginnings,” said a friend, Karen Kaplowitz, organizer of the Legal Momentum Aiming High awards, one of many honors Ms. Dunn received. “She rose through the ranks because she was very good at what she did.” Patricia Cecile Dunn was born on March 27, 1953, in Burbank, Calif., the daughter of a vaudeville actor and a Las Vegas showgirl. Her father died of a heart attack while she was still a girl. The family then moved to Marin County, north of San Francisco. Her mother later died of breast cancer. Ms. Dunn attended the University of Oregon before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated in 1975 with a degree in journalism. After briefly working for a community newspaper in San Francisco, she was hired as a secretary for Wells Fargo Investment Advisers (which became Barclays Global), then rose through the ranks as she earned a reputation as an ace saleswoman. She was among the first women to run a large investment management company in the United States, and she introduced an index fund and other computer-intensive quantitative investment management techniques in wide use today. Her most important accomplishment there was the creation of Exchange-Traded Funds, which despite initial resistance from the firm’s corporate parent became a highly lucrative product. E.T.F.’s are a basket of stocks that reflect the industry category or an index. Besides Mr. Jahnke, her husband of 30 years and the former chief executive of Wells Fargo Investment Advisers, Ms. Dunn is survived by their two daughters, Janai Brengman and Michelle Cox; a son, Michael Jahnke; a brother, Paul Dunn; a sister, Debbie Lammers; and 10 grandchildren. | Dunn Patricia C;Hewlett-Packard Company;Industrial Espionage;Deaths (Obituaries) |
ny0136101 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/04/15 | Construction Halted Ahead of Games | BEIJING — City officials laid out an ambitious series of measures on Monday that will freeze construction projects, slow down steel production and shut down quarries in and around this capital during the summer in an attempt to clear the air for the Olympics. Even spray-painting outdoors will be banned during the weeks before and after sporting events, which begin here on Aug. 8. Although officials initially suggested that the city’s wholesale transformation would be complete long before the opening ceremonies, the announcement nonetheless represents the most detailed plan yet for how Beijing might reach its longstanding pledge to stage “green Games” in one of the world’s most polluted cities. In the past, officials had suggested that the city’s makeover would be completed well before the Games, possibly by the end of 2007. But the two-month construction ban announced Monday will instead begin on July 20. Government directives will also force coal-burning power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent through most of the summer. Officials said 19 heavily polluting enterprises, including steel mills, coke plants and refineries, would be temporarily mothballed or forced to reduce production. Gas pumps that do not have vapor-trapping devices will be closed, cement production will stop and the use of toxic solvents outdoors will be forbidden. If Beijing’s air remains unacceptably sullied in the days leading up the Games, officials said, they would take “stringent steps” to curb polluting industries, although they declined to say what those might be. “We will do everything possible to honor the promise,” Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the city’s Environmental Protection Bureau, told reporters. “Just tell everybody they don’t have to worry.” Some Olympic officials and athletes remain unpersuaded. Although the government has made notable strides in reducing the brown haze from coal-burning heaters and stoves, the unabated surge in car ownership has erased many of those gains. There are about 3.5 million vehicles choking Beijing’s roadways, with about 1,200 new cars joining the honking parade each day. Last August, in a four-day exercise that will probably be repeated this summer, authorities forced more than half of Beijing’s cars and trucks off the road. Officials said they would present plans to restrict traffic later. In recent months, independent scientists who have sampled Beijing’s air have said levels of ozone and particulate matter from diesel engines remain five times as high as maximum standards set by the World Health Organization. The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, said a particularly smoggy day could prompt officials to postpone outdoor endurance events. Mr. Du, the environmental official, dismissed suggestions that Beijing had failed to substantially reduce harmful pollution. He said that the number of Blue Sky days, those with acceptably clean air according to the city’s monitoring system, has more than doubled since 1998. There were just 100 such days then, he said, compared with 246 last year. He said levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide had dropped significantly in recent years. However, an independent study released in January by an American environmental consultant, Steven Q. Andrews, found irregularities in the monitoring system that cast doubt as to how much air quality had actually improved. The authorities said they had reduced pollution by forcing local factories to upgrade pollution-control equipment and compelling about 200 of the most hopelessly noxious ones to shut down for good. Even on a day when the horizon was notably hazy and the fumes from idling cars undeniably acrid, Mr. Du urged a roomful of reporters to tell the public how much better Beijing’s air had become in recent years. “Please assure all the athletes,” he said. But even if they find the city’s air cleaner than expected, visitors may be disappointed by the indoor environment. Earlier in the day, government officials announced that a proposed smoking ban, which is to take effect on May 1, had been modified in the face of opposition by business owners. Smoking will be restricted in hospitals, schools and stadiums, but it will be permitted in bars and restaurants. | Air Pollution;Olympic Games (2008);Beijing (China);China;Environment;Building (Construction) |
ny0029455 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2013/06/05 | Deacon Jones, Fearsome N.F.L. Defensive End, Dies at 74 | Deacon Jones, a prototype of the pass-rushing defensive end who became a master of the sack and one of the National Football League’s greatest defensive players with the Los Angeles Rams’ line known as the Fearsome Foursome, died on Monday in Anaheim Hills, Calif. He was 74. His death was announced by the Washington Redskins through their general manager, Bruce Allen, whose father, George Allen, coached Jones with the Rams and the Redskins. Jones had been treated for lung cancer and heart problems, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in September 2009. Jones told the newspaper then that he had undergone lung surgery and had a pacemaker installed the previous May. Jones was a 14th-round draft pick from a historically black college, and he arrived in the N.F.L. when offensive players garnered most of the headlines. But in his 14 seasons, he parlayed his strength, his agility and his size — 6 feet 5 inches and 270 pounds or so — to glamorize defensive play. He pounded opposing quarterbacks, rolling up dozens of sacks, and he popularized the head slap to dominate offensive linemen. He was selected six times to the All-Pro team and played in eight Pro Bowls. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980 and was one of three defensive ends on the all-N.F.L. 75th anniversary team selected in 1994 by a vote by members of the news media and league personnel. Image Deacon Jones parlayed his size — 6 feet 5 inches and 270 pounds or so — his strength and his agility to glamorize defensive play. Credit Associated Press The Rams had only one winning season from 1963 to 1966, the span in which all the members of the Fearsome Foursome were teammates. But Jones became a marquee figure — sometimes called the Secretary of Defense — playing left end alongside tackle Merlin Olsen, who was also chosen for the 75th anniversary team, in a line that also included right tackle Roosevelt Grier, who was known as Rosey, and right end Lamar Lundy. Lundy died in 2007 and Olsen in 2010. Jones’s death leaves Grier, 80, as the last survivor of the group. “He had that head slap move, the constant energy, the incredible speed and the nonstop will,” Sonny Jurgensen, a Hall of Fame quarterback, told The Post-Dispatch in September 2009 when the St. Louis Rams, the successor franchise to Jones’s team, retired Jones’s No. 75. Jurgensen remembered an encounter with Jones late in a game when the Rams were leading his Redskins by 11 points. “He comes in on a pass rush and fell down. He starts crawling on all fours trying to get to me. He’s crawling in the dirt like it was the most important play in the world, and I look at him and said, ‘Jeez-us, Deacon, it ain’t the Super Bowl.’ But that’s how much he cared.” David Jones was born on Dec. 9, 1938, in Eatonville, Fla., where an incident he witnessed as a youngster remained seared in his psyche and fueled his determination to escape from a dead-end life in the segregationist South. After Sunday church services, members of an all-black congregation were mingling on a lawn when white teenagers in a passing car heaved a watermelon at the group. It hit an elderly woman in the head. “I was maybe 14 years old, but I chased that car until my breath ran out,” Jones told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1999. “I could hear them laughing.” Image Jones, right in 1964, with the rest of the Rams’ Fearsome Foursome: Lamar Lundy, left, Merlin Olsen and Roosevelt Grier. Credit NFL Photos, via Associated Press The woman died of her injuries a few days later, but there was no police investigation, as Jones remembered it. “Unlike many black people then, I was determined not to be what society said I was,” he said. “Thank God I had the ability to play a violent game like football. It gave me an outlet for the anger in my heart.” Jones played football at South Carolina State and Mississippi Vocational — now known as Mississippi Valley State, the alma mater of the Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice — before joining the Rams. He was known as D. J. in college, but when he arrived in the N.F.L., he sought something more distinctive and called himself Deacon, having met Deacon Dan Towler, an outstanding Rams fullback of the 1950s and one of professional football’s early black stars, who became a minister. Jones said he believed he would have been the career sacks leader in the N.F.L. — surpassing Bruce Smith’s 200 — if individual sack totals were tallied in his era. They did not become an official statistic until 1982. John Turney, a member of the Pro Football Researchers Association who pored over play-by-play accounts of games played long ago and studied game tape at NFL Films, concluded that Jones had 173 1/2 sacks. But Jones said that his total was well above that. Image Deacon Jones in 2010. Credit David Livingston/Getty Images Jones has been credited with coining the term “sack.” But the statistician Seymour Siwoff of the Elias Sports Bureau once told The Kansas City Star that in the early 1960s, when he began compiling team statistics on getting to the quarterback, the N.F.L. publicist Jim Kensil invented the term. However murky the origin of the term, Jones clearly made the sack his trademark, playing for the Rams from 1961 to 1971, the San Diego Chargers (1972-73) and the Redskins (1974). Jones’s survivors include his wife, Elizabeth, and a stepson, Greg Pinto, The Los Angeles Times reported. After retiring from football, Jones broadcast for the Rams on radio, acted on television, did Miller Lite beer commercials and created the Deacon Jones Foundation, based in Anaheim Hills, which provides college expenses for poor students in return for their going back to their communities for volunteer work. Jones took pride in that, but he did not want anyone to forget his more ferocious calling. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 1999, he provided his imagery of the sack: “You take all the offensive linemen and put them in a burlap bag, and then you take a baseball bat and beat on the bag. You’re sacking them, you’re bagging them. And that’s what you’re doing with a quarterback.” As for his bullying of offensive linemen: “The head slap was not my invention, but Rembrandt, of course, did not invent painting. The quickness of my hands and the length of my arms, it was perfect for me. It was the greatest thing I ever did, and when I left the game, they outlawed it.” | Deacon Jones;Football;Los Angeles Rams;Obituary |
ny0152282 | [
"us"
] | 2008/08/06 | Storm Brings Rain and Relief to Much of Texas | HOUSTON — Tropical Storm Edouard crawled ashore on the Texas coast between Galveston and the Louisiana border on Tuesday morning, causing heavy rain and some flash floods in East Texas but no serious damage, officials said. Many residents were relieved when the storm failed to gain strength overnight as some had feared. Then it turned north away from Galveston and Houston and made landfall between the coastal town of High Island and Sabine Pass, its eye passing over the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge. Meteorologists say the storm never reached hurricane-force winds of 74 miles per hour, in part because it came ashore sooner than expected and did not have a chance to build up over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. “We were prepared for a little worse than this,” said Don Oettinger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Dickinson, Tex. “It wasn’t out of the question that it would become a hurricane.” Some officials said the rain was welcome, as Texas has been suffering a heat wave and drought. Others said that the four to six inches of rain the storm brought might cause rivers to crest in the coming days but that there was no immediate danger of major floods. Power went out in isolated pockets around the East Texas cities of Port Arthur, Anahuac and Beaumont. Winds of about 65 m.p.h. knocked down trees and limbs there, and flash floods briefly closed sections of Interstate 10 in the morning. But no major damage was reported. “All in all, we fared pretty well,” said John Owens, deputy police chief in Port Arthur. Greg Fountain, the emergency management coordinator in Jefferson County, where the center of the storm passed, said it had caused no more trouble than an average thunderstorm, nothing like the chaos produced by Hurricane Humberto last year. “We feel very fortunate,” Mr. Fountain said. Harris County, encompassing Houston, reported minor damage from the wind and rain, which covered the skies in a misty gray canopy. It was a measure of the storm’s weakness that both major airports, George Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, remained open, though there were long delays. In Galveston, where hurricanes have a long and deadly history, a few surfers took to the water to take advantage of the storm waves, and some people rode bikes on the beach. Steady rain fell, but winds gusted only to 20 m.p.h. “It’s a blessing that we missed it,” said Charlie Kelly, the Galveston emergency management coordinator. “It was a good drill for us. We dodged a bullet on this one.” Tourists ventured out after midmorning, many expressing relief that their vacations had not been ruined. The storm skirted the Louisiana coast on its way to Texas, raising tides and flooding bayous and yards in the communities of Dulac and Chauvin. Some residents near the Intracoastal Waterway in Cameron Parish, bordering Texas, were told to evacuate. The storm promised to bring some relief to the residents of Dallas, who suffered through a 12th day of temperatures above 100 degrees, weather that has been blamed for four deaths. Residents are focused on the cooling to come, with forecasts for the weekend in the mere high 90s. “Even though it’s hot, the red flags are not waving as rapidly as they’ve been,” said Sherrie Lopez, public information officer for Dallas Fire-Rescue. | Hurricanes and Tropical Storms;Texas |
ny0074955 | [
"business",
"international"
] | 2015/04/23 | Corruption Scandal Leads to a Big Loss for Petrobras | RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras said Wednesday that it lost $2.1 billion in an eight-year kickback scheme that saw the firm’s executives taking bribes for awarding inflated contracts to suppliers. The company released its long-delayed fourth-quarter financial results that included a write down of 6.2 billion reais — about $2.1 billion. It attributed the losses to a series of inflated contracts and other graft during the scheme it says ran from 2004 to 2012. Releasing the audited results was the first step for Petrobras to try to regain investor confidence and access to international credit markets, which the debt-plagued company desperately needs to develop huge offshore oil fields discovered in recent years. The company was cut to junk status by Moody’s Investors Service in late February in large part because of the scandal. The U.S.-based Eurasia Group said in a research note after the Petrobras results were published that “attention will now shift to measures that will bolster the company’s course correction in the longer-term.” “Since earlier this year, a set of more favorable policies and measures have been taking shape, beginning with a change in the company’s leadership, and the decision to overhaul the company’s board of advisers by removing political appointees and replacing them with more business-friendly names,” the note said. Evan Sponagle, an energy consultant based in Rio de Janeiro, said releasing the audited results would give banks “a reason to start lending again” to not just Petrobras but to Brazil’s entire oil industry, which has been frozen under the cloud of the corruption investigation. Federal prosecutors say the probe has uncovered the largest graft scheme ever uncovered in Brazil. They also stress that they are still investigating and the case is widening, with dozens of top business executives along with federal congressmen and other political figures facing charges, under investigation or already sitting in jail. Investigators say the scheme saw Brazil’s top construction and engineering companies pay bribes to a handful of Petrobras’s politically appointed executives in return for winning inflated contracts. Prosecutors allege some of the money then flowed into the campaign coffers of the governing Workers’ Party and its allies, which they deny. In addition to the dozens of executives who have been charged in the case, the Attorney General’s Office last month said it was investigating over 50 political figures, including 21 federal deputies and 12 congressmen, for alleged participation in the graft. Included among those under investigation are the leaders of both houses of congress. So far, President Dilma Rousseff, who was chairwoman of the Petrobras board during most of the years the scheme played out, has not been implicated in the case. She has expressed strong support for the investigation and for holding the guilty accountable. But the investigation creeped closer to Ms. Rousseff after the arrest earlier this month of her Workers’ Party treasurer, Joao Vaccari, who is charged with money laundering for allegedly taking in money connected to the Petrobras kickback scheme. On Wednesday, a federal judge handed down sentences to two of the main figures in the case, giving the former Petrobras executive Paulo Roberto Costa over seven years in prison and the scheme’s top money bagman, Alberto Yousseff, over nine years. Both can appeal the ruling. | Bribery and Kickbacks;Petrobras;Brazil;Oil and Gasoline;Workers' Party Brazil;Dilma Rousseff;Joao Vaccari Neto;Earnings Reports |
ny0110205 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2012/05/23 | After Paul Falters, Backers Push Agenda in Party and Other Races | WASHINGTON — Armed with an inherited fortune and a devotion to Ron Paul , John Ramsey, a 21-year-old college student from Nacogdoches, Tex., plunged into a little-watched Republican House primary in Northern Kentucky this spring to promote his version of freedom. More than $560,000 later, Mr. Ramsey’s chosen standard-bearer, Thomas H. Massie, a Republican, cruised to victory Tuesday in the race to select a successor to Representative Geoff Davis, a Republican who is retiring. The saturation advertising campaign waged by Mr. Ramsey’s “ super PAC ,” Liberty for All , may be the most visible manifestation of a phenomenon catching the attention of Republicans from Maine to Nevada . With their favorite having lost the nomination for president, Mr. Paul’s dedicated band of youthful supporters is looking down-ballot and swarming lightly guarded Republican redoubts like state party conventions in an attempt to infiltrate the top echelons of the party. “ Karl Rove ’s fear-and-smear-style Republicans are going to wake up at the end of the year and realize we are now in control of the Republican Party ,” said Preston Bates, a Democrat-turned-Paulite who is running Liberty for All for Mr. Ramsey. In Minnesota , Paulites stormed the Republican gathering in St. Cloud last weekend, bumping aside two conventional Republican candidates to choose one of their own, Kurt P. Bills, a high school economics teacher, to challenge Senator Amy Klobuchar , a Democrat, this fall. Backers of Mr. Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas , crashed Republican conventions in Iowa , Maine, Minnesota and Nevada in recent weeks, snatching up the lion’s share of delegate slots for the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August, a potential headache for the national party and its presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney . And Paulite candidates for Congress are sprouting up from Florida to Virginia to Colorado , challenging sitting Republicans and preaching the gospel of radically smaller government, an end to the Federal Reserve, restraints on Bush-era antiterrorism laws and a pullback from foreign military adventures. “I’d call it a strict constitutional approach,” said Senator Rand Paul , Republican of Kentucky and Ron Paul’s son. “And I think it’s spreading.” Republican Party officials say they are in daily contact with Representative Paul, in a delicate effort to harness the energy around him without inciting his supporters. “We have had open dialogue with Dr. Paul and his campaign to ensure we are all focused on winning in November,” said Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee ’s communications director. Mr. Ramsey said that other Paul supporters had brought the Kentucky race to his attention and that he would spend whatever it takes “to get this country moving in a freer direction.” “How much money would you spend for freedom?” he asked Tuesday, after buying airtime from Lexington to Louisville with money he inherited from his grandfather in 2010 as he was being pulled into the libertarian orbit of Mr. Paul. He met Mr. Bates on the Paul campaign, and in March they incorporated Liberty for All with nearly $1 million of Mr. Ramsey’s money. More than half of it went into Kentucky’s Fourth District in a whoosh of advertising. The impact has been significant. Mr. Massie, the Lewis County judge executive and an engineer trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , said he opened the seven-way Republican primary with a lead. But he lost it after Mr. Davis and former Senator Jim Bunning backed one of his rivals, Alecia Webb-Edgington. Then small advertising buys from two other candidates pummeled him with negative accusations. The sprawling Fourth District of Kentucky presents competitors with a challenge. To reach all its voters, a candidate must advertise in four media markets in Kentucky and Ohio . Mr. Massie acknowledged that he could not do that, but that Liberty for All could. Soon, the advertising for his rivals was drowned out by attacks on his behalf. “They owned the airwaves, everything from the Food Channel to Court TV,” he said of the PAC. The Ramsey money does not have a clear path from Kentucky, but Liberty for All appears to have a taste for the obscure. Its next candidate is Michael D. Cargill, a gay, black gun store owner running for constable in Travis County, Tex. But the political action committee will have money to spend. Mr. Ramsey said that between his wallet and a fund-raising push, the PAC expected to have $10 million this summer. As they were nominating Mr. Bills at the Minnesota Republican Convention, the Paul forces also seized 12 of the state’s 13 Republican National Convention delegate slots. In Maine, they took 21 of the 24 slots. In Nevada, they grabbed 22 of the 28. The strategy of crashing state conventions has secured Mr. Paul large slates of delegates in Alaska , Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana and Missouri , as well. Such delegates are not considered a threat to the Romney nomination. But they could be vocal advocates for Mr. Paul’s libertarian views on issues like the war in Afghanistan , the Patriot Act and terrorist detainee policies, which overlap some with Tea Party views but do not mirror them. And lightly regarded Paulites running for Congress could become forces with the right amount of money. Tisha Casida, an independent in Colorado, is running against Representative Scott Tipton. Calen Fretts is chipping away at Representative Jeff Miller in Florida’s Panhandle, and Karen Kwiatkowski is challenging Representative Robert W. Goodlatte in Virginia. “I think there’s a great movement going on in this country,” said Ms. Casida, who said she was pulled into politics by Mr. Paul’s message and the red tape she faced trying to open a local farmer’s market. | Ron Paul;Republicans;PACs;2012 Presidential Election;US Politics;US |
ny0142406 | [
"business"
] | 2008/11/09 | The Mood Always Matters, So Restore Confidence First | HIGH deficits and a declining economy will limit the hand of the new president in many matters of economic policy. Health care reform usually proves more expensive than promised, and voters are in no mood for higher gasoline or energy taxes. Still, President-elect Barack Obama faces the very important task of restoring confidence in our nation’s economy. He will need to appear calm and purposive, and to articulate to the American people the underlying economic strengths. Even if some of this is wishful thinking, there is a chance that positive attitudes will improve the reality on the ground. Over the last several months, the Bush administration has mishandled this issue. Most of all, the “Paulson plan” to bail out the economy was not executed gracefully. The Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., warned the nation that something terrible would happen if the plan were not passed; that terrified both Wall Street and Main Street. The early version of the plan would have given the Treasury secretary almost unlimited powers, without checks and balances on his decisions. The market took that extreme proposal as a sign that the situation was truly dire. After the scare came indecisiveness. Whether or not the Paulson plan was a good idea, no one articulated how it would work or why it was needed. The initial plan was then dumped for a successor plan — laden with Congressional pork, by the way — and then this second plan turned out to be less important, after it was passed, than the need for an immediate recapitalization of the banking system. Along the way it was never clear what Congress favored or why, and the regulators appeared to be stumbling from one crisis to the next, scaring the American public along the way. Political uncertainty hardly caused the crisis, but politics made it much worse. EVEN if you believe the dubious proposition that an initial scare was needed to pass legislation, the time has come to patch up confidence. The federal government lacked a commanding presence during the early stages of the financial crisis . Rebuilding confidence might seem a small matter, but it is not. The truth is this: America is a wonderful and magnanimous nation when it is a winner, but Americans are not used to losing and Americans are not used to panic. Often we respond to negative events badly, so we need to be especially careful when we are in a losing or risky position. Very bad events can cause a panic among the citizenry or its leaders, which translates into subsequent bad decisions. For a classic example of a negative policy dynamic, look at 9/11. The United States lost 3,000 lives and a great deal of wealth and confidence. The government then took actions, most of all the Iraq war, which led to even greater losses. We are in danger of getting stuck in another negative dynamic, but this time in the realm of economics. We might follow up the financial crisis with some worse responses and policies. It’s not just the country’s future that is on the line. Despite the commonality of anti-American rhetoric, the United States sets the tone for much of the world. If America is seen as turning the corner and stabilizing its economy, that will be a positive cue for many other countries. The notion of a downward spiral of ideas and events is not unprecedented. Starting in the early part of the 20th century, the West experienced one awful event after another, including a world war, a flu pandemic and a major depression. The response was a global spread of totalitarian ideas, a loss of confidence in democracy and capitalism and, eventually, another war. While today’s world is far from this point, there is a small chance that we will move in an unstable and worsening direction. Steering away from it should be a priority for the next president. Rebuilding confidence won’t be easy. If our next president seems flip or overconfident, observers will be skeptical above all else. Denying our basic economic problems will erode credibility, but those problems — most of all our debt and a collapsed financial sector — need to be acknowledged in a way that shows a path forward. We need to avoid overreaction at the same time we need to return to feeling in control. | United States Economy;Subprime Mortgage Crisis;Cowen Tyler;Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0187181 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2009/04/27 | Perez Struggles Again as Mets Revert to Bad Habits | Mets Manager Jerry Manuel lacked the assurance he carried earlier. In the fifth inning Sunday, he walked to the mound with purpose, that purpose being to yank the struggling Oliver Perez. But afterward, Manuel seemed less sure of himself when discussing Perez’s immediate future. “I don’t know what we do,” Manuel said. “It’s something that has us concerned. It has me concerned. I’ll put it that way. I’m concerned. I’m not going to come out and make a decision with the mood I’m in at this point.” His mood and that of the 40,023 at Citi Field soured while watching Perez’s performance in a listless 8-1 loss to the Washington Nationals . On a sun-splashed afternoon, the Mets displayed all of their early-season miscues. They played two productive games against the Nationals this series, then relapsed. Perez again failed to emerge from the fifth inning, the Washington rookie Jordan Zimmermann stiff-armed an anemic offense, Daniel Murphy continued his erratic play in left field and Carlos Beltran rekindled memories of last week’s nonslide. After the Mets returned home with a four-game losing streak, Manuel said he would give his starting pitchers one more turn through the rotation before assessing possible changes. Strong performances by Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey briefly camouflaged anxieties, but Perez’s performance in allowing the Nationals their first road victory only magnified them. The bottom half of the Nationals’ lineup unnerved Perez, and Jesus Flores and Austin Kearns tagged him for home runs . Perez departed to boos after four and a third innings, allowing seven runs on nine hits and three walks. Perez has pitched through the fifth inning in just one of his four starts. As Zimmermann, Perez’s counterpart, walked to the plate in the fifth, Manuel had seen enough and called for Casey Fossum. Perez had just allowed three consecutive hits, including Kearns’s home run to straightaway center field. Flores’s homer came in the second inning, after another Murphy fielding gaffe. The occasional misplay by Murphy, a converted left fielder, is becoming routine, and Kearns’s shot spun him like a corkscrew. Murphy fell to the ground on the play, which was generously ruled a double. “I was able to turn,” Murphy said. “I just lost my footing, and hopefully it won’t happen again.” Perez (1-2) entered with a 7.80 earned run average, which ballooned to 9.31. In 19 1/3 innings, Perez has allowed 20 earned runs. Now, Manuel and Omar Minaya, the Mets’ general manager, will decide what to do with Perez. He still has minor league options, but because of his tenure, he must first accept any assignment. He can also be demoted to the bullpen. “They have a decision,” Perez said. “I haven’t been doing my job, and I feel bad for that.” In his six-plus seasons, Perez has been known to pitch well against quality teams and struggle against weaker opposition. “I haven’t seen the stuff,” Manuel said. “That’s what really concerns me at this point.” He added, “And not to have the stuff and not to have command, that’s a recipe for disaster.” So was the pairing of the Mets’ offense against Zimmermann. His fastball resided in the mid-90s through much of his five and a third innings, and he struck out five and allowed six hits. Beltran said the scouting report the Mets had received stated that Zimmermann had trouble locating his pitches, but that was not the case Sunday. The Mets fared no better with Zimmermann out of the game. They were limited to one walk by Mike Hinckley, Garrett Mock and Kip Wells in three and two-thirds innings of relief. The Mets’ only run came in the first inning, when a rare Carlos Delgado triple scored Beltran. In the third, Beltran was thrown out trying to steal second base when he pulled up without sliding. “I heard contact with the bat, and I went to look at where the ball was,” said Beltran, who last Tuesday failed to slide on a close play at home in a loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. “Basically, I got surprised at second base. It was a mistake.” Manuel said: “I told him in that situation you have to slide. Regardless, you have to get down, and he understood that.” Meanwhile, David Wright continued to struggle. He struck out three times, and leads the National League with 23 strikeouts in 18 games. He also grounded out weakly in his final at-bat. His throwing error on Justin Maxwell’s infield hit prolonged the fifth inning, when the Nationals sent nine hitters to the plate and scored four runs. When asked if Wright needed a day off, Manuel offered a long exhale. “I think I need one,” he said. INSIDE PITCH The Mets designated the left-handed reliever Casey Fossum for assignment and called up Ken Takahashi from Class AAA Buffalo. Takahashi, a 40-year-old rookie from Japan, had a 0.77 E.R.A. in 11 2/3 innings. ... Jerry Manuel said he would probably rest Carlos Delgado for the first time this season in Wednesday’s series finale against Florida. ... Mark Sanchez, the Jets’ first-round draft pick, is scheduled to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Monday night’s Marlins-Mets game at Citi Field. | New York Mets;Washington Nationals;Baseball;Pérez Oliver |
ny0223151 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/11/10 | Opposition Parties Concede Defeat in Myanmar | BANGKOK — The main military-backed party won an overwhelming victory in the first election in 20 years in Myanmar , according to international news agency reports from inside the country, in a vote that was carefully engineered by the military to assure its continued grip on power. Although there has been no government announcement, officials of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed victory with 80 percent of the vote, according to the reports from Myanmar, and the leaders of the two main opposition parties conceded defeat. The outcome had been a foregone conclusion, with the election rules slanted to favor two military-backed parties and with opposition parties each contesting only a small fraction of the seats. As the votes were being counted, Myanmar Army troops battled ethnic Karen rebels who had taken over the post office and police station in the border town of Myawaddy. As many as 20,000 refugees have fled across a river into Thailand since the fighting broke out Sunday, but the violence appeared to have died down Tuesday and the refugees were returning home. More than a dozen people were reported to have been wounded, a few of them in Thailand, by stray gunfire and rockets. The election was widely seen as an attempt to legitimize military rule behind a mask of civilian government, after a half century of unambiguous military rule in the former Burma. The National League for Democracy, headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, declined to take part, saying campaign rules were undemocratic and unfair. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won the last election , in 1990, but the military annulled the result and clung to power. She has been held under house arrest for most of the last 20 years. Her latest term of house arrest expires on Saturday, and there is a possibility that the junta will free her now that the election is over. International reaction was sharply split between Myanmar’s big neighbor and supporter, China, and Western nations that have pursued a policy of isolation and sanctions against Myanmar. China praised the election on Tuesday, one day after the United States and the United Nations issued strong statements condemning it. Yet, Myanmar’s neighbors in Southeast Asia, which have wavered between acceptance and criticism of the ruling junta, also welcomed the election. On Monday, President Obama said , “It is unacceptable to steal elections, as the regime in Burma has done again for all the world to see.” In a statement, the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said the vote was “insufficiently inclusive, participatory and transparent.” The fighting on the border was a reminder of a civil war with a number of ethnic groups that has raged in remote mountains and jungles, far from the politics that consume the cities, since Burma won independence from Britain in 1948. Continuing unrest in parts of the minority ethnic areas led the government to exclude about 1.5 million people from the election. The people fleeing into the Thai border town of Mae Sot were the latest wave of refugees who have sought safety over the years in camps along the border. Thai officials said they would be sent back when the situation returned to normal. By Tuesday, the government appeared to have taken control, and the fighting had subsided to smaller clashes along the river, including the area of Three Pagoda Pass, according to reports from the border. At least five Thai villagers were wounded when rocket-propelled grenades landed near Mae Sot, the Thai military said. The Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based magazine with contacts in Myanmar, reported that as many as 20 people were wounded in Myawaddy and that some may have been killed. The attackers were a breakaway group of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, which has given up a longstanding demand for independence and is now seeking autonomy under the umbrella of the national government. Like some other ethnic-based groups, it has reached a cease-fire with government forces. But many in these groups are angry at attempts by the military to absorb them into a border guard force, and the current fighting could be linked to that grievance. | Myanmar;Elections |
ny0199059 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2009/07/31 | U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’ | WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.” The memo offers a look at tensions that emerged between Iraqi and American military officers at a sensitive moment when American combat troops met a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq ’s cities, the first step toward an advisory role. The Iraqi government’s forceful moves to assert authority have concerned some American officers, though senior American officials insisted that cooperation had improved. Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese , an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans. “As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.” Those conclusions are not shared by the senior American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno , and his recommendation for an accelerated troop withdrawal is at odds with the timetable approved by President Obama . A spokeswoman for General Odierno said that the memo did not reflect the official stance of the United States military and was not intended for a broad audience, and that some of the problems the memo referred to had been solved since its writing in early July. Still, the memo opens a rare window into a debate among American military officers about how active the American role should be in Iraq and for how long. While some in the military endorse Colonel Reese’s assessment, other officers say that American forces need to stay in Iraq for the next couple of years as the Iraqis struggle with heightened tensions between the Kurds and Arabs, insurgent attacks in and around Mosul and checking authoritarian tendencies of the Iraqi government. “We now have an Iraqi government that has gained its balance and thinks it knows how to ride the bike in the race,” Colonel Reese wrote. “And in fact they probably do know how to ride, at least well enough for the road they are on against their current competitors. Our hand on the back of the seat is holding them back and causing resentment. We need to let go before we both tumble to the ground.” Before deploying to Iraq, Colonel Reese served as the director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth , Kan., the Army’s premier intellectual center. He was an author of an official Army history of the Iraq war — “ On Point II ” — that was sharply critical of the lapses in postwar planning. As an adviser to the Baghdad Operations Command, which is led by an Iraqi general, Abud Qanbar, Colonel Reese drew examples from Baghdad Province, which is less volatile than the area near Mosul in northern Iraq, where the Sunni insurgency is strongest. But he noted that he had read military reports from other regions and that he believed that there were similar dynamics nationwide. Colonel Reese, who could not be reached for comment, submitted his paper to General Odierno’s command, but copies have circulated among active-duty and retired military officers and been posted on at least one military-oriented Web site . Colonel Reese’s memo lists a number of problems that have emerged since the withdrawal of American combat troops from Baghdad, completed June 30. They include, he wrote, a “sudden coolness” to American advisers and the “forcible takeover” of a checkpoint in the Green Zone. Iraqi units, he added, are much less willing to conduct joint operations with their American counterparts “to go after targets the U.S. considers high value.” The Iraqi Ground Forces Command, Colonel Reese wrote, has imposed “unilateral restrictions” on American military operations that “violate the most basic aspects” of the security agreement that governs American and Iraqi military relations. “The Iraqi legal system in the Rusafa side of Baghdad has demonstrated a recent willingness to release individuals originally detained by the U.S. for attacks on the U.S.,” he added. A spokeswoman for General Odierno, Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, said of the memo: “The e-mail reflects one person’s personal view at the time we were first implementing the Security Agreement post-30 June. Since that time many of the initial issues have been resolved and our partnerships with Iraqi Security Forces and G.O.I. partners now are even stronger than before 30 June.” G.O.I. is the abbreviation for the government of Iraq; the Iraqi Security Forces are sometimes referred to as the I.S.F. Colonel Reese appears to have anonymously circulated a less detailed version of his memo on a blog called “ The Enchanter’s Corner .” The author, listed on the site as “Tim the Enchanter,” is described as an active-duty Army officer serving as an adviser in Iraq who is “passionate about political issues.” That post on Iraq, along with one criticizing President Obama’s health care proposals , has been removed but can be found in cached versions. Under the plan developed by General Odierno, the vast majority of the approximately 130,000 American forces in Iraq will remain through Iraq’s national elections, which are expected to be held next January. After the elections and the formation of a new Iraqi government, there will be rapid reductions in American forces. By the end of August 2010, the United States would have no more than 50,000 troops in Iraq, which would include six brigades whose primary role would be to advise and train Iraqi troops. Some experts, like Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus , have argued that this timetable may be too fast “Renewed violence in Iraq is not inevitable, but it is a serious risk,” Mr. Biddle wrote in a recent paper . “The most effective option for prevention is to go slow in drawing down the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Measures to maximize U.S. leverage on important Iraqi leaders — especially Maliki,” he added, referring to Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki “— can be helpful in steering Iraqis away from confrontation and violence, but U.S. leverage is a function of U.S. presence.” During a recent appearance at the United States Institute of Peace , a Washington-based research organization, Mr. Maliki appeared to be contemplating a possible role for American forces after the December 2011 deadline for the removal of all American troops under the security agreement. But while General Odierno has drawn up detailed plans for a substantial advisory role, Colonel Reese argued in favor of a more limited — and shorter — effort, and recommended that all American forces be withdrawn by August 2010. “If there ever was a window where the seeds of a professional military culture could have been implanted, it is now long past,” he wrote. “U.S. combat forces will not be here long enough or with sufficient influence to change it. The military culture of the Baathist -Soviet model under Saddam Hussein remains entrenched and will not change. The senior leadership of the I.S.F. is incapable of change in the current environment.” | US Military;Iraq;Raymond T Odierno;Timothy R Reese |
ny0076358 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/05/28 | Brooklyn Bridge Park Settles Housing Lawsuit | The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation has settled a lawsuit brought last summer by a community group, allowing park officials to begin to move forward with the final phase of their development plan. The group, People for Green Space Foundation, had argued that the park corporation, which oversees development of both the park’s public spaces and commercial real estate, had modified its original plan, principally by including affordable housing in two towers long planned for Pier 6, near Atlantic Avenue. Mayor Bill de Blasio last summer announced that 30 percent of the units in the towers would be set aside as affordable. The changes, People for Green Space argued, required a new environmental review and an application to amend the plan. In the settlement, filed on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, the group was denied the environmental review, but it prevailed in its demand that the park corporation formally amend its plan. Building luxury housing along the park’s edge was contentious from the start. But the park was predicated on such development. (A residential-and-hotel complex is under construction at the opposite end of the park near Pier 1.) The park is expensive to maintain since it consists of several piers that are subject to wind, tides and marine organisms. Frank Carone, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the park corporation must hold public hearings on any amendment to the plan. Ultimately, he added, the Empire State Development Corporation, a state agency with some oversight of the park corporation, will then “affirm, deny or modify” the amendment. “Now, community folks, interested parties and experts can testify and be heard in a fair process whereby all evidence will be considered,” Mr. Carone said. The group that brought the lawsuit had argued that the inclusion of affordable housing violated the original concept for the park — that the only development necessary was that which would pay for its operations and maintenance. The affordable units, by their nature, would not produce such revenue. But New York City officials countered that the real estate development at the park could serve the twin imperatives of providing more low-cost housing and also supporting the park. Officials for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation praised the settlement. The lawsuit had delayed its consideration of development proposals for Pier 6; now that process can move forward. Belinda Cape, a spokeswoman for the park corporation, said: “We look forward to moving ahead with a fantastic project that will not only plug the final remaining gap in funding for this world class open space, but provide affordable housing, community space and a beautiful gateway to the park’s southern entrance.” The settlement also stipulates that the maximum heights of the two towers — 155 feet and 315 feet — include any mechanical structures on their roofs. Another residents’ group has sued the park corporation over the complex under construction to the north of Pier 6. That group argues that the mechanical structure there exceeds the building height caps. | Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp;Real Estate; Housing;Affordable housing;Brooklyn Bridge Park |
ny0227242 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/10/13 | In Afghanistan, Civilian Plane Crashes Near Kabul | KABUL, Afghanistan — A civilian cargo plane trying to land at Kabul’s international airport crashed into the nearby mountains Tuesday night, and Afghan and NATO officials said they feared that there were no survivors among the eight people aboard. NATO helicopters and members of the Afghan National Security Forces were searching for the wreckage, according to a NATO statement . The cause of the crash was unclear. The plane was a civilian version of the C-130 transport aircraft used by the military for cargo, the NATO statement said. Gen. Zahir Azimi, the Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, said the plane went down near Pul-i-Charkhi, east of Kabul. The city lies in the middle of a circle of mountains, and when planes reduce altitude as they are coming in for a landing they run the risk of crashing into the surrounding peaks. The mountainous area east of Kabul was where a Kam Air plane crashed in February 2005, leaving 104 people dead. The plane in Tuesday’s crash was operated by Transafrik, a cargo carrier flying on behalf of National Air Cargo in Orchard Park, N.Y., and it was delivering a load of general repair parts, National Air Cargo said in a statement. It said eight people were aboard, including one National Air Cargo employee, but the company did not disclose their names or nationalities. “The status of the personnel on board and cause of the crash are unknown at this time,” the company said in its statement. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the crew and their families.” | Afghanistan;Airlines and Airplanes;Accidents and Safety |
ny0273088 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2016/05/08 | Yankees Update a Page in Steinbrenner’s Bullpen Guide | That baseball visionary, George Steinbrenner, was way ahead of Brian Cashman. A generation ago, the Boss was already trending with a bold new plan in the back end of the Yankees’ bullpen. His team won the 1977 World Series, boasting a closer, Sparky Lyle, who won 13 games, saved 26, pitched to a 2.17 E.R.A. and gratefully accepted the American League’s Cy Young Award. What did George do? He signed a premier closer, Rich Gossage, known as Goose, and sent Lyle onto the winter banquet circuit in a foul mood. A young reporter at The New York Post was tipped that Lyle had sounded off at an event in New Jersey. He called Lyle at home, having never had the pleasure of a conversation with him. No matter. Lyle sounded off to a stranger. A scoop on a screaming tabloid back page beckoned. Gossage, next on the call list, agreed that the concept of two high-profile closers was crazy. Larry Rothschild, the Yankees’ current pitching coach, listened to this piquant slice of club history Saturday morning and smiled. “The closers went multiple innings back then,” he said. “Now it’s different. Now it takes three guys to do what sometimes one guy would do.” No offense. Just fact. Back in the day when bullpen aces were no quiche-eating, one-inning wonders, Lyle could throw 137 innings, his 1977 career high. In his 17 seasons as the Yankees’ closer, Mariano Rivera, by most accounts the best in baseball history, averaged fewer than 70. Well into the age of specialists for specific innings, we come to the imminent return of Aroldis Chapman to active baseball duty on Monday after a suspension by Major League Baseball for violating its domestic violence policy — and the much-anticipated reshuffling of Manager Joe Girardi’s late-inning bullpen machinations. Cashman — the last general manager hired (and never fired) by Steinbrenner — made a stunning acquisition with his deal for the southpaw Chapman, who routinely hits 100 miles per hour on the radar gun, amazing to no less a flamethrower than Dellin Betances. “The difference between me and him is that I’ll hit 100” once in a while, Betances said, “where he hits it consistently. He’s a physical specimen, something else.” Cashman wanted to enhance the faded Yankee championship brand by making opponents cower if they trailed after six innings. The last-place team in the American League East, the Yankees have been taking on water in most other places, their disabled list increasingly inhabited by the aged and chronically infirm. In the rearrangement of relievers that Girardi said would most likely take effect as soon as the appropriate game situation presented itself, it’s another story altogether. There, perfection gets demoted. That would be Andrew Miller and his 0.00 E.R.A., after Friday night’s rare flirtation with failure. A four-out, 36-pitch effort ended with Miller leaving the bases loaded in a 3-2 victory, recording his sixth save — after 36 last season, when he was honored as the American League’s best relief pitcher. Miller strolled into the clubhouse Saturday morning, ducked his lean, 6-foot-7 frame into his dressing stall, and spoke so dispassionately about his anticipated move to an eighth-inning setup role (with Betances taking over the seventh) that he sounded like a decaffeinated television analyst discussing it from the booth. “Might be a little bit of an emotional adjustment, trying to prepare quicker but not get too amped up,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll be too big an issue.” In a career of routine change — five teams in 11 seasons, starter to reliever to closer to setup — Miller, 30, has apparently found a healthy context, along with the four-year, $36 million contract Cashman provided him before last season. Betances, 28, also said he was all in with the program. Asked if he believed that he eventually would be the Yankees’ closer, he said: “I can’t get out of my lane. That’s where I’m at. Trying to be the best I can at that.” Joba Chamberlain once was heralded as Rivera’s heir. Who knows what the future brings? Who can even say how long Cashman will have the luxury of keeping Chapman, Miller and Betances? Cashman considered moving Miller after acquiring Chapman, who will be a free agent after this season. The three-man plan could be on a two-month tryout. If the Yankees settle into or around the A.L. East cellar, how could Cashman resist trading from strength? The late-inning relievers would be his best assets with which to inject more youth and hope into what, until this weekend, has played like an atrophying team. But on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees chased Boston’s ace, David Price, and beat the Red Sox for a second straight day, 8-2. Cashman expressed his frustration recently with what he called underperforming talent, but he has been at this for two decades and has to know that this team is far from his finest. If it fails to get into the postseason picture by July, count on calls for Cashman to produce the kind of coup Sandy Alderson scored for the Mets when he landed Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud for the aging knuckleballer R. A. Dickey. Yes, it’s early. Chapman, who will be at the Stadium on Sunday to meet with reporters, should be on many days a sight to behold. Miller and Betances are formidable. The Yankees won Saturday behind Nathan Eovaldi’s eight strong innings, coasting without the services of Betances, who had pitched in three straight games, and Miller, who shook his head when told that Friday night’s wild ninth inning had made for riveting television. “I wish it hadn’t been,” he said, preferring and usually delivering less stress in the workplace. Friday night’s game — an emotional win against their fiercest rival — may have pumped some much-needed adrenaline into the Yankees’ collective body. It also illustrated why Cashman made the Chapman deal. Ordinary or old in too many places, the Yankees really needed to be dominant somewhere. Nor must Girardi stick to the 7-8-9 script every time the Yankees have a lead after six innings. He has always been considered a shrewd handler of his bullpen. Let the juggling begin. “I think it always depends on what the situation calls for,” Girardi said. Sparky Lyle might agree. In 1978, even with Gossage as the closer-in-chief, Lyle saved nine games, won nine more, and received another World Series ring. The Boss was right. | Baseball;Yankees;George M 3d Steinbrenner;Brian Cashman;Coaches;Aroldis Chapman;Goose Gossage;Dellin Betances |
ny0077843 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2015/05/23 | Honor Comes Late to Óscar Romero, a Martyr for the Poor | SAN SALVADOR — María de los Angeles Mena Alvarado knelt at the tomb of the slain archbishop and wept. She had come to the crypt of the city’s cathedral to pray for a cure for the diabetes that was threatening her eyesight and weakening her kidneys. “I feel that, yes, he can perform a miracle,” said Ms. Mena, 62. Thirty-five years after Óscar Romero, the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated with a single bullet as he said Mass in a modest chapel here, this small country is celebrating his beatification on Saturday, the final step before sainthood. For many here and in the rest of Latin America, though, Archbishop Romero is already a saint. His tireless advocacy for the poor resonates deeply in a region where the gulf between those with riches and those without remains vast. He was the champion of impoverished Salvadorans, his homilies and radio broadcasts giving voice to their struggles. And as political violence battered the country and death squads killed any activist who challenged the existing order, the archbishop was defiant. “I have frequently been threatened with death,” he said two weeks before he was killed. “If they kill me, I shall rise again in the Salvadoran people.” The decision by Pope Francis to declare Archbishop Romero a martyr to the faith and speed up the long-stalled process toward his sanctification is widely seen as a recognition of the deep pastoral commitment the archbishop demonstrated, at the cost of his life. “He spoke the truth; he spoke through facts,” said Eva Menjívar, a former Carmelite nun who knew him in the 1970s and continues as a religious worker in poor communities. “We have never stopped teaching the spirit and values of Monsignor Romero.” For decades, the conservative Vatican hierarchy was suspicious of Archbishop Romero, as it was of many Latin American priests who were influenced by liberation theology, which challenges the social and economic structures that perpetuate poverty. Even today he remains a divisive figure in El Salvador, where some on the right believe he was a communist in clerical garb. Archbishop Romero never identified himself with liberation theology. But as an advocate for the poor, “he took sides; he was not a neutral bystander,” said Robert Ellsberg, a scholar and publisher of Orbis Books, a Catholic publishing house. “He spoke out clearly without compromise against the violence and injustice of the elite.” In that sense, he had much in common with Pope Francis, who has said he wants “a poor church for the poor.” The Rev. Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Peruvian priest whose 1971 book first outlined liberation theology, said Archbishop Romero was motivated by the poverty and suffering he saw in El Salvador rather than by any ideology. “Monsignor Romero now appears to be understood, as he was also very misunderstood,” he said. Before Archbishop Romero was appointed in 1977, he had not confronted the growing military repression directly. But a few weeks later, a Jesuit priest and friend, the Rev. Rutilio Grande, was assassinated. The archbishop celebrated Mass several weeks afterward and then organized a procession through the rural town where Father Grande had been organizing farmworkers, recalled the Rev. Jon Sobrino, a liberation theologian who became an adviser. The group suddenly encountered soldiers with their rifles drawn and stopped short. But from the back of the file the archbishop’s voice rang out, urging people, “Forward!” The soldiers lowered their rifles. In the context of the Cold War, Archbishop Romero’s stance marked him as subversive in the eyes of the United States-backed Salvadoran military, even though he also criticized violence by the guerrillas. The month before he was killed, Archbishop Romero wrote to President Jimmy Carter to ask him to end United States support for the military. Then, on March 23, 1980, he called on soldiers to disobey illegal orders. “The peasants you kill are your own brothers and sisters,” he said. The next day, a red Volkswagen pulled up outside the chapel at the cancer hospice where he lived, and a shot was fired from the car’s back window through the chapel doorway to the altar, and the archbishop fell bleeding. A United Nations truth commission found that his murder was planned by a group of officers led by Roberto d’Aubuisson, a former army major who led the death squads. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the assassination, and Mr. d’Aubuisson died of cancer in 1992 . Left open is whether he was acting for someone in the oligarchy. At the archbishop’s funeral, snipers fired on mourners, killing as many as 40 people amid scenes of panic. In the months after Archbishop Romero’s death, the violence escalated into a brutal civil war in which at least 75,000 people were killed before peace accords were signed in 1992. Under President Ronald Reagan, Washington sent as much as $1.5 million a day to support the Salvadoran military. The long-awaited recognition for Archbishop Romero comes to a country and a region that is very different in some ways. But the daily reality of the poor has changed little. Right-wing military dictatorships have been swept away in Latin America. Outright political violence is rare, and in all but a few countries there is a vibrant civil society that is free to criticize governments without fear. In El Salvador, the warring sides of the civil war now compete in elections, and President Salvador Sánchez Cerén is a former guerrilla commander. Democracy has proved a profound disappointment, though. Inequality is as entrenched as it was in Archbishop Romero’s time, and the poor of El Salvador — along with those in many other countries in Latin America — now live in the grip of criminal, not political, violence. “The violence now is of the poor against the poor,” said Roberto Cuéllar, a lawyer who worked with Archbishop Romero to offer legal services to the poor and document human rights abuses. “He would be bitter to see that after reaching the peace accords that we are still in the same place.” Msgr. Ricardo Urioste, who was the vicar general to Archbishop Romero, said the Salvadoran church had failed to take a role in addressing the gang violence that rages through the poor neighborhoods. “I think the church should take a more active part,” said Monsignor Urioste, taking a sharply critical view of a hierarchy that has long resisted honoring the archbishop. “I think if Monsignor Romero were here he would talk to the gangs, something no bishop is doing here. And he would be talking about injustice.” The question now is whether Archbishop Romero’s beatification will prove to be merely a symbol or a watershed for Latin America. Many Central Americans — almost 50 percent of Salvadorans are younger than 25 — have no direct memory of the wars that racked the region and the role that socially committed priests played. And a generation of young people who were inspired by liberation theology in the 1970s have moved on, preferring to work in human rights, labor organizing, legal aid or economic development. They have helped to enrich civil society, where the church now plays a much smaller role. Those who revere Archbishop Romero worry that the long-awaited official recognition may simply be an effort to soften his legacy. “It is an attempt to claim his message,” Lissette Hernández, 42, who works on rural development projects, said after a concert in the archbishop’s memory. “He was correct in the way he lived the Gospel.” “I have mixed feelings” about the beatification, she said. “Nobody has asked for forgiveness or solved the crime.” | Oscar Romero;El Salvador;Beatification;Catholic Church;Pope Francis;Assassination |
ny0042770 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/05/21 | Late Burst by James Helps Heat Even Series | INDIANAPOLIS — Just when it looked as if the Indiana Pacers might have buried the memory of their mysterious bouts of performance dysfunction, they were reminded of an equally unpleasant reality of their Eastern Conference semifinal against Miami. LeBron James, the best player in the world, plays for the other guys. And his sidekick, Dwyane Wade, seems to be at his healthiest after missing 28 games during the regular season. After allowing others on both teams to make signature plays over three quarters, James erupted in the fourth for 12 of his 22 points, and Wade added 10 of his team-high 23 in carrying the Heat to a series-leveling 87-83 victory over the Pacers in Game 2 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Game 3 will be played Saturday in Miami. With the game in the balance, James and Wade combined to score 20 consecutive points, with James erupting for 9 straight and setting up two more with a steal during an 11-2 run that turned a 73-69 Pacers lead into an 80-75 deficit with 3 minutes 17 seconds to play. “That’s why they’re the $100 million guys,” said the Heat’s backup point guard, Norris Cole, who had 11 points and contributed harassing defense as the Heat held the Pacers to 40 percent shooting. After Indianapolis’s day got off to a deflating start with the denial of the city’s bid for the 2018 Super Bowl, James made it a total washout with 22 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists, shredding Indiana’s normally stout defense in almost every imaginable way in the second half. He penetrated the lane and kicked the ball out to open jump shooters. He slipped away from defenders and moved without the ball for uncontested layups. He hit spirit-crushing jumpers and made the biggest steal of the game, with a strip of George Hill that culminated with Wade putting back James’s missed layup for that 80-75 lead. “It was even the whole game, but then LeBron stepped up and made big plays,” said the Pacers’ Lance Stephenson, who was the best player on the floor for three quarters but scored just 2 of his 25 points in the fourth. James wanted to talk more about Miami’s collective defense, an underpublicized trademark during its run to consecutive championships and three straight N.B.A. finals. Referring to the Game 1 defeat, he said: “We had a lot of breakdowns, a little bit of everything. We understand that. We corrected our mistakes. That’s the great thing about this team. We own up to what we did, and then we come out and make it happen.” Image Dwyane Wade shooting over the Pacers’ Lance Stephenson. Wade led the Heat with 23 points. Credit Brian Spurlock/USA Today Sports, via Reuters No team can face a must-win situation in a playoff series before it has played a game at home, and James played down the fear of the possibility of a two-game deficit. It was just basic math, he said, after falling behind from the start. “You come out and play a better game than you did last time,” he said. “Leave it all on the floor.” The Pacers, conversely, were determined to hang onto the home-court advantage they secured during the final week of the regular season after they had surrendered what had been a season-long hold on the conference’s top seed. Miami helped with a 3-6 April record that included home-court losses to Minnesota and the Nets and road failures at Atlanta and Washington. The game was tough and tense, resembling the seven-game war of attrition the teams played in the conference final last season. The fourth quarter had two sequences that made everyone wince. In the first, Paul George stripped Wade, whose left knee collided with George’s head as he scrambled for the loose ball. George was cleared to continue, but after the game, he complained of blurry vision and said he would be re-examined before Game 3. Minutes after that collision, as James took over the game, he took a bounce pass from Wade and went in for a layup, only to be hammered out of bounds, face down, by David West. James was motionless for a few seconds but then picked his head up, slapped five with a fan and hit two free throws. “It’s a hotly contested series,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “You just have to keep on it, stay with it.” The matchup problems caused by the Pacers in the frontcourt were apparent in Game 1, and Spoelstra conceded the point when he put Udonis Haslem in his starting lineup — just as his Pacers counterpart, Frank Vogel, had predicted. It looked good for the Pacers early as they controlled the boards and the tempo. One sequence illustrated Indiana at its grind-it-out best, beginning with George’s missed 16-foot jump shot. Roy Hibbert tapped the rebound out, and George launched another jumper, this time missing from 17 feet. Again Hibbert got a hand on the ball, leading to Stephenson nailing a 19-foot pull-up. When George scored on the break next time down, the Pacers had an 18-10 lead with about 5 minutes left in the quarter. But the danger of making bold statements about the Pacers has long been tied to their penchant for scoring droughts. They had one in the second quarter that allowed the Heat to build an 8-point lead, and they went cold at the worst possible time in the fourth quarter, with Stephenson unable to sustain his play and George, their best player, en route to 4-for-16 shooting. Sitting alongside James in the interview room, Wade spoke of all the Heat had learned their first season together when, he said, they panicked and lost late leads to the Dallas Mavericks in the finals. “Winning time,” he called those pressurized fourth-quarter moments, while James nodded in agreement. | Basketball;Playoffs;Pacers;Miami Heat;LeBron James;Lance Stephenson |
ny0216930 | [
"business"
] | 2010/04/24 | G-20 Split on the Need for a Global Tax on Banks | WASHINGTON — Proposals to establish a global tax on banks and charge them for the cost of government bailouts divided representatives of the Group of 20 countries during a summit meeting here on Friday. The perilous fiscal condition of Greece and other countries in Europe, and the need for the world’s big economies to coordinate changes in financial regulation , were the other major topics in the daylong meetings of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors. “The global recovery has progressed better than previously anticipated, largely due to the G-20’s unprecedented and concerted policy effort,” the officials said in a joint communiqué. The International Monetary Fund endorsed a proposal this week that would establish a tax on bank profits and on salaries paid to bank executives. Canada, whose banking system withstood the crisis, has led the opposition to the idea, while the Obama administration, which has called for a $90 billion levy to be collected over 10 years from banks that received bailout money, tried to marshal support for it. “There was not agreement on a global bank tax,” Jim Flaherty, the Canadian finance minister, said at a news conference after the meetings. “Some countries are in favor of that. Some countries quite clearly are not. It depends whether a country has had to use taxpayers’ dollars to bail out banks, for the most part.” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner defended the idea. “We’re trying to establish the basic principle that where governments are exposed to risk in putting out financial fires like this, that taxpayers don’t bear the costs of paying for those actions,” he said, adding, “That is a simple, fair, basic imperative.” Mr. Geithner said there was “significant support” for the bank tax, but allowed that he understood a “certain lack of enthusiasm” from Canada. He added, “We’re going to do what’s necessary for the U.S., what’s in our interest, and I think the world’s going to want to watch what we do. And I suspect that’ll provide a basis for other actions across some of the other economies.” The cautiously worded joint communiqué acknowledged, but sidestepped, the bank tax proposals. It called for further I.M.F. study “on options to ensure domestic financial institutions bear the burden of any extraordinary government interventions where they occur, address their excessive risk-taking and help promote a level playing field, taking into consideration individual countries’ circumstances.” John Lipsky, the deputy managing director of the I.M.F., said on Friday that the bank tax, if calculated based on the risk banks posed to the financial system, “could help to discourage financial institutions from taking on excessive risk.” Such a fee would also “address the public policy concern that financial institutions are able to privatize gains but socialize costs arising in the financial sector,” he said. Mr. Lipsky’s boss, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the top I.M.F. official, caused rumblings on Friday when he suggested that some countries were moving too quickly on reform. He said the Obama administration’s plan “comes too soon” given the need to coordinate responses across countries. “I read that and I thought, really?” Mr. Geithner said in response. “My sense is that it’s been 15 months — or more than a year — since we started this process in the United States. We’re not moving with excessive haste.” Mr. Geithner acknowledged that one of the biggest reform elements — forcing banks to hold more capital as a buffer against economic disruptions — was partly beyond the scope of the legislation being debated by Congress. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a global regulatory body, is coordinating discussions around capital requirements in the hope of announcing new standards by the end of this year. “The core issue there is the quality and quantity of capital and setting standards for that, and also an appropriate cap on leverage,” said Mr. Flaherty. “We agreed that that’s a key element.” The Group of 20 officials offered few details on the Greek debt crisis, except to support the aid plans of the European Union and the I.M.F. Mr. Flaherty said of the Greeks: “They have undermined the confidence of the markets and it is essential that some steps be taken, that the Greek government work with the I.M.F., and the European Commission of course, to identify a credible, multiyear economic and fiscal program.” Although India and Brazil this week joined calls by the United States for China to allow the value of its currency, the renminbi , to appreciate, the Group of 20 officials said the topic did not come up in their meetings. Yoon Jeung-Hyun, the South Korean finance minister who coordinated the meetings, said “there were no specific discussions” of either the renminbi, also known as the yuan, or the euro , which has recently fallen in value. Even as problems in Europe preoccupied the leaders, officials reported positive developments in some poorer parts of the world. The I.M.F. projected on Friday that economic output in sub-Saharan Africa would expand by 4.75 percent this year and 5.75 percent next year, up from 2 percent last year. “The economic slowdown in sub-Saharan Africa looks set to be mercifully brief,” said Antoinette Monsio Sayeh, director of the fund’s African department, adding that “the slowdown has nonetheless entailed considerable social dislocation and suffering.” | Greece;Group of Twenty;Banks and Banking;Taxation;Economic Conditions and Trends;International Monetary Fund;Geithner Timothy F;Treasury Department |
ny0156026 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/06/29 | Bringing Potential Dropouts Back From the Brink | Roosevelt ON the morning of her Regents Exam in English language arts earlier this month, Sheile Echie-Davis, an 11th grader at Roosevelt High School, pointed to a blemish just below the swirls of pink and purple polish that covered her long fingernails and explained its meaning. “I’ve been writing so much, I’m getting bruises from holding my pencils,” she said, her tone conveying pride rather than concern that the results of weeks of intense studying were so visible. Sheile, 16, expected to do well on the exam, judging by her past results: She scored 88 percent on her Regents Exam in United States history last year, even though the subject is her least favorite. Three years ago, Sheile was an unlikely candidate for academic success given her chronic truancy from school. Skipping class regularly led to her having to repeat eighth grade in her Brooklyn middle school. Parental pressure and visits from truancy officers did little to budge her belief that the classroom was not where she belonged. Dropping out, she said, was a foregone conclusion. “There was just no way for me to sit with 35 other kids and be able to learn anything,” she said. “I couldn’t do it.” Sheile’s prospects improved when her mother and nine siblings moved to Roosevelt. Here, in a school district that is one of the area’s poorest, she caught up and is now planning her next step come graduation next spring: enrollment in a local college with the hopes of working as a medical technician. Dropping out is no longer a consideration. Roosevelt has a 34.6 percent dropout rate, according to figures from the New York State Department of Education from the 2004-5 academic year (the latest year for which statistics are available). By comparison, nearby Hempstead has a 7.1 percent dropout rate and Malverne a 3.7 percent dropout rate. To improve their dropout numbers, officials in districts throughout Long Island said they were taking aggressive steps to keep students in the classroom. Next year, Malverne will start a mentoring program to help students most at risk of dropping out. “Once they slip away, it’s hard to reconstruct a successful path,” said James H. Hunderfund, the superintendent. Brentwood also has programs in place to stem dropouts, including one that identifies children as young as elementary age who are not attending school and may be at risk of dropping out in later years. Sheile’s prospects improved when she enrolled in the New Horizons Alternative Education Program at Roosevelt High School. The five-year-old program caters to about 85 students from the regular high school who have been identified as academically at risk, whether because of truancy, disciplinary issues or even incarceration, said Charlene Stroughn, the program director. Housed in the sprawling Roosevelt High School, New Horizons classes take place in late afternoon and early evening, long after the 700 or so students enrolled in the regular high school have gone home. The late hours allow students to hold down jobs during the day. The alternative school also emphasizes small classes in which individual attention can be paid to students, allowing them to remediate and accelerate their academic standing so they can earn a high school diploma within a time frame consistent with their peers’. That distinction — targeting would-be dropouts and encouraging them not only to return to the classroom, but also to catch up with other students — is important because of new accountability standards school districts must adhere to under state law. Two years ago, the State Department of Education initiated a new system of tracking graduation rates that is based on the number of students who began ninth grade together and graduated four years later, said Tom Dunn, an Education Department spokesman. The goal of the tracking system was to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the number of students completing high school, he said. The previous system did not consider factors like students who dropped out in the first two years of high school, Mr. Dunn said. He called the new system much more accurate even though under it, school districts typically show lower graduation rates than reported using the previous system. Identifying students at risk of failing as early as possible is a vital step in their recovery, said Patrick A. Silvestri, principal of the Program of Alternative Comprehensive Education, or PACE, the alternative high school in Brookville sponsored by the Nassau Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Situated on 40 acres, the Brookville school sits at the end of a secluded road, giving it a remote feel that one recent graduate, Troy Sinatra, 18, of East Meadow, said he initially found daunting. “What is this place?” he recalled thinking when he began classes there two years ago at the suggestion of a guidance counselor who advised him that he was in danger of flunking out. The seclusion worked in Troy’s favor, though, allowing him to apply himself without distractions. Last week, Troy and his 24 classmates graduated from the program, which grants a special certificate. A New York State regents diploma is issued by each student’s home district. Joining Troy was Crystal Sanatass, 18, also of East Meadow. Next fall she will begin attending Nassau Community College, which would have been unimaginable a few years ago when her dismal attendance record at her middle school in East Meadow led her to consider dropping out. “I was just uninspired; no one took the time to sit me down and make the effort,” Crystal said. That changed with her enrollment at PACE. In addition to small class sizes and individual instruction, it emphasizes physical outlets like wall climbing and outdoor yoga that can help with behavioral issues that are often factors in attendance and performance, administrators said. Crystal said that she particularly enjoyed the yoga, which allowed her to relax and concentrate on her studies. “You would lay back and see the sight of the sky and the trees,” she said. “That was beautiful.” | Education and Schools;Dropouts;Long Island (NY) |
ny0138474 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2008/05/13 | Missile Is Fired at Copter Over Baghdad, U.S. Says | BAGHDAD — A surface-to-air missile was fired on Saturday at an American Apache helicopter flying over the Sadr City section of Baghdad, American military officials said on Monday. The attack, which had not been disclosed previously, represents the first time that a helicopter has come under missile attack in Sadr City since fighting erupted in the Shiite enclave in March. The missile missed the aircraft. But the attack was sufficiently worrisome that the American military changed the route of an aerial tour of Baghdad it had arranged for a group of reporters, television cameramen and photographers on Monday. Two helicopters were to fly over or near Sadr City, but an official said the route had been changed because of the missile threat. The United States military has made extensive use of Apache helicopters to try to stop militias from firing rockets at the Green Zone and to protect American and Iraqi troops in Sadr City from Shiite fighters armed with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and roadside bombs. The helicopters have taken a heavy toll on the militia fighters. In an effort to blunt the American advantage in airpower, the militias have waited until dust storms have grounded the Apaches to unleash heavy rocket attacks on the Green Zone. But the attack on Saturday suggests that the militias may intend to make a more determined challenge to the American dominance in the air. Moktada al-Sadr’s movement and the main Shiite coalition within Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government formally signed an agreement on Monday to end fighting in Sadr City, saying they hoped it would end seven weeks of violence. It is unclear whether a cease-fire will take hold. Officials in Mr. Sadr’s movement said they would permit confiscation of heavy weapons and arrests of wanted men, but they warned against any attempt to detain all Mahdi Army fighters. According to an American military official, who declined to be identified because the military has not publicly announced the attack, the attempt to shoot down an Apache occurred about 7:20 p.m. Saturday. An American patrol had been struck by a roadside bomb in Sadr City, and two Apache helicopters flew to the scene to investigate and provide protection for the troops. The missile, described as an SA-7 shoulder-fired missile, was fired at one of the helicopters. It exploded in midair and neither aircraft was damaged. Soldiers from an American Army civil affairs unit in Sadr City saw the missile ascending and reported that it seemed to have been launched from north of Al Quds Street, where the American military is building a large concrete wall to prevent militia fighters from infiltrating south. The missile was also seen by Iraqi volunteers in the “Sons of Iraq” program who provide security in Adhamiya, a nearby neighborhood. They found the missile’s body, which was turned over to American troops. Despite the agreement to end the fighting, there was no sign of a cease-fire along Al Quds Street. Militia fighters fired at Iraqi forces near the wall that the Americans are building. The Iraqi soldiers shot back, and an Apache helicopter fired a missile at a militia position. American military officials released figures on Monday showing more than 700 attacks a month in Baghdad in March and again in April, primarily at American and Iraqi troops — nearly triple the level in February, before the Sadr City clashes began. There have already been more than 200 attacks in May. Col. Allen Batschelet, the chief of staff of the military division securing Baghdad, said overall attacks are still down 42 percent since a peak of 1,200 last June. Colonel Batschelet said that since American and Iraqi troops began the operation to curb the firing of rockets from Sadr City, more missiles are now being fired from areas outside that district. He also said the militias are also using more 122-millimeter weapons, whose 12-mile range is double that of 107-millimeter rockets, which account for most attacks against the Green Zone. Many of the rockets and mortar shells fired by the militias have fallen wide of their intended targets. Of the 285 people killed or wounded by mortars and rockets in Baghdad since March 23, Colonel Batschelet said, 144 were Iraqis, 89 were coalition troops, 20 were Iraqi security troops, 15 were American civilians and 17 were of other nationalities. Officials from hospitals in Sadr City said casualties declined over the weekend. At noon on Monday, however, ambulances were still delivering the wounded. In some sections of Sadr City, residents seemed relaxed, walking on the street and shopping. Lines of cars were waiting for gas. The lines vanished a couple of weeks ago, because people were afraid to remain in the street for long periods of time. | Sadr City (Iraq);United States Armament and Defense;Baghdad (Iraq);Helicopters;Mahdi Army |
ny0243850 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2011/03/12 | As the Season Winds Down, the Rangers Are in a Familiar Spot | SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Rangers have been in playoff position since Oct. 30, their 10th game of the season, but on the eve of their 70th, they are in danger of letting it slip away. They lost their grip on seventh place, which the Buffalo Sabres grabbed with an overtime victory against the Bruins on Thursday in Boston. They remained in eighth place Friday after the Washington Capitals defeated the Carolina Hurricanes, 2-1. “We knew it was going to be a dogfight,” Coach John Tortorella said. “We’re happy about being in it. Now we’ll see what happens.” The Rangers have been forced to scramble for a playoff berth in all three years that Tortorella has been coach. In 2009, they barely held on to finish seventh, ahead of the Montreal Canadiens and the Florida Panthers. In 2010, they missed the playoffs, falling one shootout short of catching the Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal. This season, they are battling the Sabres and the Hurricanes, who have turned games in hand into points. “It’s been the same the last four years,” said Henrik Lundqvist, who will again shoulder the schedule-ending goaltending burden. He will be making his 14th consecutive start on Saturday against the San Jose Sharks. The game will not be an easy one for the Rangers. The Sharks are in third place in the West and 8-1-1 in their last 10 games. “It’s a tight race; every game counts,” Lundqvist said. “You have to see it as a challenge, when every game is so important. It feels like the playoffs already.” On Friday, the Rangers had an extensive video session and a vigorous practice, working on “a lot of D-zone stuff, board battles, positioning, communication,” said the rookie Michael Sauer, who has emerged as one of the team’s steadiest defensemen. They also worked on defensive zone coverage and puck-possession battles along the boards, areas in which they were notably deficient in Wednesday’s 5-2 loss at Anaheim. “We’ve been running around in our own end a little too much, and they just wanted to make sure we stay in our areas, take our guys and be strong on the puck,” Sauer said. The loss in Anaheim was the 12th in the Rangers’ last 18 games (6-10-2), a stretch that may prove to be a season-killer. Tortorella said he was “confident, 100 percent” that his players were aware of the errors they made in Anaheim and had worked to correct them. So was Brandon Dubinsky, the first-line wing whose goal against Anaheim was his first in 12 games. “We’re confident, especially after the last two days of teaching, that we know what makes us a good team,” he said. “We understand the pressures — we’ve got to win this game, we need the points. But words are just words. We’ve got to not only talk about it; we have to believe in it.” Tortorella did not want to compare this season’s home-stretch battle to that of last season or the season before. “This is a different team from last year,” he said. “Like I said from the get-go, this team is closer, right from the grind of camp, through to developing a team identity. I said it from Day One and I still do: I like this hockey club — we’ve bonded together. “But we’re in the same spot.” Tortorella added: “I’m glad we’re there — some teams aren’t. This should be a time when you really grab hold of it and be part of it. We’re not out of it — we’re right in the middle of it, which is right where we want to be.” On Saturday night, they will find out if they really will be where they want to be, or in ninth place, out of a playoff spot with a dozen games to go. | New York Rangers;Tortorella John;Hockey Ice;Buffalo Sabres |
ny0207483 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2009/06/26 | The Online Ad That Knows Where Your Friends Shop | IF a marketer asked people to hand over a list of all their friends so it could show them ads, few would comply. On social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, though, friendships are obvious, and advertisers are beginning to examine those connections. Two companies in particular, 33Across and Media6Degrees, are analyzing such connections, and they are not interested in basic friend lists, but in interactions on the sites, taking note when a user visits a friend’s page, sends a video or exchanges an instant message. In turn, they can identify people who are friends with a company’s existing customers, and then advertise to them. “The implications for this are pretty amazing,” said K-Yun Steele, vice president of Zenith Interactive, part of the Zenith Media unit of the Publicis Groupe, which works with clients including JPMorgan Chase, Puma and General Mills. He has tested both 33Across and Media6Degrees. Instead of using research to identify which Web sites are popular with certain demographic targets, these companies let “the consumer do the heavy lifting for you purely because of the proximity of that customer to other customers,” Mr. Steele said. “There’s a certain traction that you get when you target consumers that you know talk to each other, that you don’t get when you advertise like you would in print.” The approach is based on research , mostly from earlier this decade, about social groups; one influential paper showed that people in contact with clients of a telecommunications firm were more likely to respond to the company’s offer. Advertisers, eager for any information that allows them to waste fewer ads and spend less money, are trying Media6Degrees and 33Across to see whether friendships are a better indicator of who might like their products than other indicators like age, gender, geography or interests. “Instead of understanding all these things about people, you could understand who was connected to who,” said Eric Wheeler, the chief executive of 33Across. “The reality is, those people are very similar not only in socioeconomic terms, but in terms of what they click and buy, so it’s very valuable.” It may be valuable for advertisers, but for publishers, it is not great news — tactics like this mean that advertisers can assemble promising audiences while bypassing expensive sites like, say, CNN.com or ESPN.com . And privacy advocates are complaining about online tracking, a subject Congress is examining. This is a new arena — 33Across and Media6Degrees are two of the more established companies, and each was started within the last two years. They are seeing more and more data, too: traffic to social-networking sites increased 83 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, according to the Nielsen Company . Both companies try to link a Web site visitor to his friends (anonymously, they say). Media6Degrees and 33Across begin at an advertiser’s Web site. When someone visits a certain page — something that indicates interest, like a shopping-cart page or a product information page — the companies place a cookie (a tiny bit of text, like an identification number) on her computer. When she visits another site that has been programmed to look for that cookie, the new site can identify her as someone who has already put something in her shopping cart at a certain beauty site. Meanwhile, Media6Degrees and 33Across use data from social-networking sites to map users’ interactions. To see the connections, 33Across receives data on the type of interaction, like an instant message or a shared video link. Media6Degrees focuses on which Web addresses within social sites people are visiting, which can also indicate the type of interaction, as Web addresses for, say, video tend to look different from a traditional Web page. Both sites score the interactions on a scale from strong to weak based on a variety of factors. “Those will allow us to score out, to get rid of the voyeurs, and find the people who are closest connected to that buyer for that advertiser,” said Joe Doran, the chief executive of Media6Degrees. The companies then extend those connections to build a big audience. If a certain customer most frequently communicates with 30 people, the companies look at who those 30 people interact with the most, and so on. By doing this for all the customers for a certain brand, they can build up a large network for ads. The final step for these companies is actually showing ads, which Media6Degrees and 33Across accomplish by using ad exchanges like Yahoo’s RightMedia or Google’s DoubleClick Advertising Exchange. Media6Degrees and 33Across can tell the exchanges that they want to buy ads that will appear only on browsers harboring certain cookies. Mr. Steele said advertising this way was much cheaper than advertising by buying directly on high-end sites; he used CondéNet, which now goes by Condé Nast Digital, as an example. “Say you do a banner ad buy on CondéNet — that’s going to cost you $10 to $20” for every thousand impressions, he said. (A CondéNet spokeswoman said that range was low over all, but reasonable for banner ads in high-volume areas.) “With this technology, since we’re buying on network inventory, we’re going to be getting these audiences on Yahoo and things like that, using the consumer connections these friends have to buy that inventory much cheaper.” Even including the fees from 33Across and Media6Degrees, buying through them was five to 10 times less expensive than buying through premium sites, Mr. Steele said. Despite the promise of the companies, they have a few challenges. One is the threat of Congressional regulation. Congress has recently been holding hearings on online advertising, quizzing executives from sites like Facebook and Yahoo about the privacy and data practices at their firms. (People can opt out of the advertising at the companies’ sites.) And although the companies promise to reduce waste in advertising, they do not promise to eliminate it. People communicate with their friends online, but they may also be communicating with their parents or random acquaintances — people from different age or socioeconomic groups. Margaret Clerkin, the head of the invention group at Mindshare, a division of WPP’s GroupM, who works with clients including Unilever and Sprint, said she wondered whether the approach would work for every category. “The theory feels strong that in this very social environment that people are influenced more by their friends than they are by advertisers and brands,” she said. She plans to test Media6Degrees and 33Across later this year. “I think the validity of that is going to end up being tested by brand and by category,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re going to see the same ratio in buying a bar of soap that you are in buying a car. The influence rate is going to be so much greater as the price tag of the product goes up.” | Advertising and Marketing;Social Networking (Internet) |
ny0091862 | [
"science"
] | 2015/08/11 | Letters to the Editor | Behind Bars, All Alone TO THE EDITOR: Re “ Punished for Life ” (Aug. 4): In the wake of President Obama’s pointed comments on the overuse and dangerous effects of solitary confinement, elected officials and prison and jail officials in every level of government must take action. At Brooklyn Defender Services, we see firsthand the devastation wrought by solitary confinement on our clients. They often fall into a devastating cycle of rules infractions, solitary confinement, decompensation and more rules infractions. Legislation introduced in New York State would end the torture of solitary confinement and create more humane and effective alternatives. The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act would limit time in “the Box” to 15 days to comply with the United Nations standard, prevent the use of isolation to silence whistle-blowers, and expand programming and support for incarcerated people — reducing recidivism and making us all safer. More than 5,000 of our fellow New Yorkers are in solitary right now, and we owe it to them to call our state legislators and urge support for the HALT Solitary Confinement Act today. Lisa Schreibersdorf Brooklyn The writer is executive director, Brooklyn Defender Services. TO THE EDITOR: It is well established that human beings require social interaction and sensory stimulation in order to be well adjusted. Yet the solitary confinement policies routinely employed in this country deprive prisoners — many of whom suffer from serious mental, emotional and personality disorders to begin with, but who nonetheless will eventually be released into the community at large at the end of their sentences — of these essential building blocks of psychological health. These practices therefore not only amount to cruel and unusual punishment, but are also shortsighted, counterproductive and self-defeating. John S. Koppel Bethesda, Md. TO THE EDITOR: I can only imagine that long-term solitary confinement is as awful and damaging as the article suggests. Still, in reading that inmates “were grieving for their lost lives, for their loss of connectedness to the social world and their families outside and also for their lost selves,” I would have felt more sympathy for them if they also had grieved for the victims of the crimes, who were at least as equally emotionally traumatized as they were, if not physically brutalized or even outright murdered. Edward S. Hochman New York City TO THE EDITOR: I couldn’t help connecting a few dots when I read this article alongside the one about the Chinese chatbot that responds to the intimate messages of its many users. I thought perhaps someone could develop a chatbot for prisoners. Spending 25 years in solitary is inhuman. Offering our prison population some intelligent “human” contact might be a nice touch. Peter Zamiska New York City Aliens Among Us? TO THE EDITOR: Re “ A Case for Why We’re Alone ” (Out There, Aug. 4): The way I heard it at the time was that in a discussion among physicists of the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations, in which almost everybody agreed that there surely were such, Enrico Fermi simply said, “So where are they?” He meant that if there were such, some of them should certainly be advanced enough to have come here to visit. But we haven’t seen any such aliens. The story then continues that the well-known Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard replied, “They are all around us, called Hungarians!” Roger G. Newton Bloomington, Ind. The writer is distinguished professor emeritus of physics, Indiana University. | Solitary Confinement;Extraterrestrial life;New York;Mental Health |
ny0048507 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2014/11/01 | Michigan’s Athletic Director Quits Amid Growing Rancor | Dave Brandon was considered the new model for an athletic director at a major university when he took over at Michigan in 2010. Having been the chief executive of Domino’s Pizza, a multibillion-dollar company, he was seen as someone better qualified to steer a major sports program than the usual candidates like former athletes and university officials. Yet Brandon resigned Friday, under increasing scrutiny from the board of regents, on which he used to sit, revealing that a modern college sports department might be a more complicated business than a multinational company. “Dave feels that it would be in the best interests of our student-athletes, the athletic department and the university community if he moved on to other challenges and allowed the important work of the department and the university to continue without daily distractions,” the university president, Mark Schlissel, said Friday afternoon at a news conference. Another former chief executive, James Hackett, previously the head of an office furniture company in Grand Rapids, Mich., and a former teammate of Brandon’s at Michigan under Coach Bo Schembechler, will replace Brandon on an interim basis, Schlissel said. Brandon, 62, will receive a total of $3 million and other benefits over the next four years — including two Regents Emeritus seats to football, men’s basketball and hockey games. Under Brandon’s tenure, Michigan’s proud football program — which has the most wins in college football history — has increasingly displayed an on-field decline. The Wolverines, 7-6 last season, are 3-5 (1-3 Big Ten) heading into Saturday’s game against Indiana. Brandon had become a lightning rod at Michigan, not just because of the football team’s ineptitude or the handling of a concussed quarterback in a game in September, but also for his unconventional marketing tactics. Football games have featured aircraft flyovers, sky divers who deliver the game ball and even a video greeting from Beyoncé that played during halftime of the 2013 Notre Dame game. Recently, he proposed using fireworks. The last straw appeared to come in emails published this week on a popular Michigan blog that were said to have been sent by Brandon in which he responds to fan complaints, telling one to root for a different team. In an interview at the Big Ten’s football media days in 2013, Brandon spoke of the financial pressure he was under. “Domino’s Pizza is a $7.5 billion company doing business in 72 countries, and the most capital I ever spent in one year was $40 million,” he said, noting that in his first four years at Michigan, the athletic department spent more than $200 million on renovations for the football stadium, $100 million on the basketball arena and millions more on hockey and softball facilities. His background at Domino’s was supposed to have prepared him for managing and growing the athletic department, but critics in recent months have decried higher ticket prices at football games and his business executive approach. Image Dave Brandon resigned as athletic director after nearly five years in the role. Credit Leon Halip/Getty Images “I have to raise revenue, deploy capital, manage costs, market to a broad group of stakeholders,” Brandon said in the 2013 interview. “I have to stand alone and be accountable to a lot of people who care about what I do.” Discontent with the football team alchemized into national news this season, with blame shifting from Coach Brady Hoke to Brandon in the aftermath of Michigan’s 30-14 loss to visiting Minnesota on Sept. 27. In that game, quarterback Shane Morris appeared to take a blow to the head and become dazed but was kept in for another play and reinserted later for another. Afterward, more than 11,000 members of the university community signed a petition to fire Brandon. The petition called the football program “a black eye” and accused the athletic department of threatening to produce “a generation of alumni that are disinterested and disengaged.” It also further inflamed relations between Brandon, a Republican, and the board of regents, currently consisting of six Democrats and two Republicans. “We recognize Dave’s unwavering commitment to our student-athletes and coaches,” the board said in a statement Friday, but it added, “We appreciate and support President Schlissel’s leadership.” On Michigan’s campus, some students welcomed the news of Brandon’s departure, which came a few weeks after hundreds of students rallied for his ouster in the central area of campus known as the Diag. Edward Mears, a law student who wore an Ohio State sweatshirt to the protest, is among a group that includes undergraduates, graduate students and alumni who have been agitating for the firing. In the Diag on Friday, Mears and other group members handed out more than 1,000 “Fire Dave Brandon” T-shirts, which he said were now “collectors’ items.” “I think this was the right decision for the university and athletics department, as long as they do their due diligence in selecting an athletic director who can find the right balance between bringing in revenue and making it the experience that’s been passed through generations,” Mears said. Schlissel has been Michigan’s president only a few months; his predecessor, Mary Sue Coleman, hired Brandon in early 2010. At the news conference, Schlissel was pressed on whether Michigan ties were a requirement for the next athletic director. Emphasizing that the hire must appreciate “the cultural aspects of this athletic program and what it does for our community,” he denied that a Michigan connection was a must. Schlissel, a Princeton and Johns Hopkins graduate who was provost at Brown, added: “I feel like a Michigan man already. So you can learn the values of this great university.” | College football;Dave Brandon;University of Michigan;Brady Hoke;College |
ny0248773 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2011/05/06 | Data Show Bin Laden Plots; C.I.A. Hid Near Raided House | WASHINGTON — After reviewing computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, American intelligence analysts have concluded that the chief of Al Qaeda played a direct role for years in plotting terror attacks from his hide-out in Abbottabad, Pakistan , United States officials said Thursday. The C.I.A. had Bin Laden’s compound under surveillance for months before American commandos killed him in an assault on Monday, watching and photographing residents and visitors from a rented house nearby, according to several officials briefed on the operation. The documents taken at the Abbottabad compound, according to American officials, show that Bin Laden was in touch regularly with the terror network he created. With his whereabouts and activities a mystery in recent years, many intelligence analysts and terrorism experts had concluded that he had been relegated to an inspirational figure with little role in current and future Qaeda operations. A rushed examination of the trove of materials from the compound in Pakistan prompted Obama administration officials on Thursday to issue a warning that Al Qaeda last year had considered attacks on American railroads. The documents include a handwritten notebook from February 2010 that discusses tampering with tracks to derail a train on a bridge, possibly on Christmas, New Year’s Day, the day of the State of the Union address or the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, officials said. But they said there was no evidence of a specific plot. An Obama administration official said that documents about attacking railroads were among the first to be translated from Arabic and analyzed. The materials, along with others reviewed in the intelligence cache, have given intelligence officials a much richer picture of the Qaeda founder’s leadership of the network as he tried to elude a global dragnet. “He wasn’t just a figurehead,” said one American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, who had been briefed on the documents. “He continued to plot and plan, to come up with ideas about targets and to communicate those ideas to other senior Qaeda leaders.” The C.I.A. surveillance team in the rented house near Bin Laden’s hide-out took pains to avoid detection not only by the suspected Qaeda operatives they were watching but by Pakistani intelligence and the local police. Observing from behind mirrored glass, C.I.A. officers used cameras with telephoto lenses and infrared imaging equipment to study the compound, and they used sensitive eavesdropping equipment to try to pick up voices from inside the house and to intercept cellphone calls. A satellite used radar to search for possible escape tunnels. Still, the spying operation had its limits: the American surveillance team would see a man take regular walks through the compound’s courtyard — they called him “the pacer” — but they were never able to confirm the man was Bin Laden. The aggressive effort across the intelligence community to translate and analyze the documents seized from the hide-out has as its top priority discovering any clues about terrorist attacks that might be in the works. Intelligence analysts also were scrubbing the files for any information that might lead to identifying the location of Al Qaeda’s surviving leadership. Since Sunday night, counterterrorism officials have been alert to the possibility of new attacks from Al Qaeda to avenge its leader’s death. Department of Homeland Security officials have reviewed potential terrorist targets and deployed extra security at airports. And in response to the new evidence seized at the Bin Laden compound, the Transportation Security Administration issued a bulletin to rail companies. But officials emphasized that the information was both dated and vague, calling it "aspirational" and saying there was no evidence the discussion of rail attacks had moved beyond the conceptual stage. As the Bin Laden trail grew cold and he stopped broadcasting videos to the world in the last several years, his status as the world’s most influential terrorist seemed to diminish. Still, in the decade since he fled Afghanistan in late 2001, he managed to release four to six audio messages each year, often making reference to current events, showing that his hide-out was not entirely cut off from the outside world. “If he could get six audio messages out in a year, he could certainly get instructions to his followers,” said Ben N. Venzke, who runs IntelCenter, a Virginia company that tracks terrorist groups’ Internet communications. That Bin Laden was found not in Pakistan’s rugged tribal areas but in an affluent town less than an hour from the capital, Islamabad, has prompted a rethinking of the widespread notion that he had little control over Al Qaeda. “Until now, the prevailing wisdom was that he was hiding in a remote, isolated mountain range and cut off from his followers,” said Bruce Hoffman, an expert on Al Qaeda at Georgetown University . “Now we know that was all wrong and reconsider what his role really was.” American officials and terrorism experts have warned that this is not the end of Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that the United States would continue aggressive operations against militants. | Osama bin Laden;Terrorism;Al Qaeda;CIA |
ny0085632 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2015/07/18 | Deleting Facebook Comments in Mobile Apps | Q. I know how to delete a Facebook comment using the web version, but how can I do the same thing on the Android app? A. Facebook’s mobile apps have less space for menus and icons than the desktop edition does. When you are using the Android app and want to delete a comment you posted (or that someone else posted to your own Timeline page in response to one of your posts), press and hold your finger down on the comment. When the menu appears, tap the Delete option. For those times when you just want to reword a previously made comment, press the text on screen for a second or two until the menu arrives and select Edit. Once you have fixed your typo or clarified your remarks, tap the Update button. The process for deleting and editing comments is similar on Facebook’s iPhone app . Seeking Control of the iOS Control Center Q. Is it possible to change the icons on the Control Center screen in iOS 8? Some of the shortcuts, like Airplane Mode, are handy, but I never use the Do Not Disturb or Timer functions and would rather put more useful settings there. A. Apple introduced Control Center in 2013 with the release of iOS 7 , but the slide-up menu of shortcut icons to popular functions has been decidedly static since its arrival. Developers have previously found settings buried in the code within beta versions of iOS, which let the Control Center screen be configured differently. The authorized final editions of the system Apple has released to the public, however, include only settings for allowing access to the feature from the iPhone’s lock screen, or within apps. But while Apple does not include tools in the Control Center settings that let users customize the selection of shortcuts, developers who create software for jail-broken iPhones have come up with ways to change the icons. Jail-breaking, which is the intentional modification of the phone’s official system software to install alternative apps and gain more access to the device, is not illegal, but it can take some technical patience and fortitude to do properly. If that appeals to you, a quick web search on the topic brings plenty of advice on how to start. As one might expect, jail-breaking is strongly frowned upon by Apple, which notes that “unauthorized modifications” can cause numerous issues with iOS devices. A webpage on the company’s site also states “unauthorized modification of iOS is a violation of the iOS end-user software license agreement and because of this, Apple may deny service for an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch that has installed any unauthorized software.” If that makes you nervous and dissuades you from tinkering with your phone, you can at least add your voice to the chorus of other users on Apple’s feedback page requesting iPhone features. | Mobile Apps;Facebook;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry |
ny0236910 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2010/06/11 | Guilds Are Said to Have Concerns on Miramax Talks | LOS ANGELES — Representatives of Hollywood’s principal guilds have told the Walt Disney Company that they have serious concerns about the possible sale of its Miramax Films unit to an investor group organized by David Bergstein. A number of Mr. Bergstein’s companies are subjects of involuntary bankruptcy proceedings in which the guilds are creditors. The guild leaders are alarmed that Disney is in exclusive talks with Mr. Bergstein, his co-investor Ron Tutor and others, according to a person briefed on the expressions of concern, which have stopped short of a formal threat to oppose the acquisition. A sale would turn over responsibility for millions of dollars in residual payments connected with more than 600 films and television episodes in the Miramax library. That person spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid conflicts with Disney, guild leaders and the Bergstein group. A Disney spokeswoman, Zenia Mucha, said top Disney executives said they were unaware of the guilds’ expression of concerns. For the last week, Disney has been talking exclusively with the group led by Mr. Bergstein. Those talks began after a group that included the investor Ron Burkle and Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who co-founded Miramax and later sold it to Disney, failed to reach a deal for the unit. A failure by Mr. Bergstein’s group could swing the Weinsteins and Mr. Burkle back into center position. The Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, West — as well as their related pension and health plans — have been listed as creditors in a complex of bankruptcy cases that involves the Capco Group and other companies associated with Mr. Bergstein. One case, which was filed in March in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, includes claims related to the films “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and the “Love Ranch,” an as-yet-unreleased film directed by Taylor Hackford, who is the president of the directors guild. Representatives for the three guilds declined to comment. Asked on Thursday about the guild concerns, Mr. Bergstein said the specific claims against various companies in the bankruptcy court were misdirected, because he did not actually produce movies and was not a party to agreements the guilds cited. “My organization basically is a lender,” Mr. Bergstein said, adding that he had specialized in buying the debt of distressed companies and acquiring assets through foreclosure. Mr. Bergstein described any attempt by the guilds to question the possible Miramax sale as belonging to a pattern of illegal interference with his business. “To call a potential seller is completely illegal behavior,” Mr. Bergstein said. “We’ll be doing something about it. I can’t tell you what,” he said, referring to what he described as continuing challenges to his business dealings by the guilds. Any legal challenge to a transfer of Disney’s guild obligations to a Bergstein-led group would most likely come only after a deal was concluded, partly because the guilds have been careful to avoid impairing their already tense relationship with Mr. Bergstein by taking a public position against the merger. | Disney Walt Co;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Movies;Miramax Films |
ny0139808 | [
"sports",
"othersports"
] | 2008/02/10 | Earnhardt Gets a Victory After Two Top Rivals Get a Warning | DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Dale Earnhardt Jr. aced his first test with his new team. Earnhardt had a smashing debut in his Hendrick Motorsports racecar, getting a boost from his new teammates to power past Tony Stewart to win the Budweiser Shootout on Saturday. It was Earnhardt’s first victory in any series since 2006, and it could be a sign of things to come now that he is partnered with Hendrick, Nascar’s most powerful team. Seconds after taking the checkered flag, Earnhardt declared himself a favorite for next week’s season-opening Daytona 500. “What a race car!” Earnhardt yelled over his radio. “This might be a 500 winner here.” The winner of the 70-lap exhibition has gone on to win the Daytona 500 five times, with Dale Jarrett the last in 2000. Earnhardt spun his new white No. 88 Chevrolet in a flurry of victory doughnuts before excitedly heading to Victory Lane. No one had to show him the way. It was his 11th victory at Daytona, Nascar’s most famous track, but first since a second-tier series win in June 2006. His last official Cup win came at Richmond the month before. “It felt pretty good to be back like we’re supposed to be,” said Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt’s cousin and crew chief. The two burst into the winner’s news conference, Earnhardt sprinting to the stage with a huge grin. He said his 2004 Daytona 500 victory was his greatest, but that Saturday night’s show ranked right up there. “I don’t know what took him so long to win a race for us,” the car owner Rick Hendrick quipped. Stewart, a two-time series champion, capped a tumultuous 24 hours by finishing second. Stewart and Kurt Busch were told to steer clear of each other in a Saturday morning meeting because of an altercation on the track that carried over into the Nascar hauler. Stewart was said to have punched Busch during the confrontation, but all participants in that meeting would not confirm or deny the altercation. The attention surrounding Stewart dimmed the focus that has been on Earnhardt since he signed with Hendrick last June. “Tony and Kurt getting into it the other day, that sort of took us off the front page,” Earnhardt said. “I felt such a relief after that. I wasn’t happy for those guys being in that situation, but I felt like a load had lifted off my shoulders when I saw them walking to the Nascar hauler.” He equaled the distraction to the push he got from his new teammate Jimmie Johnson that won him the race. Stewart was closing in on the win until a late caution — caused when Busch spun — set up a final restart with three laps to go. Stewart was in front but was surrounded by Hendrick cars. The push from Johnson helped Earnhardt slide past Stewart on the outside and into the lead. | Stewart Tony;Busch Kurt;Automobile Racing |
ny0071963 | [
"business"
] | 2015/03/31 | In Atlanta, a Quest to Keep Its Airport the World’s Busiest | ATLANTA — The typical flier might wonder why an airport would promote its designation as the world’s busiest. Images of long lines, crowded concourses and auxiliary parking lots in the next area code could be evoked. But it is no small matter at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where officials say that the vibrancy of the local economy rests in part on how many passengers course through its sprawling terminals every day. And it is why some of those authorities took notice recently that Chicago’s O’Hare International surpassed Hartsfield-Jackson in one measurement of an airport’s activity: takeoffs and landings. Soon after, Atlanta’s mayor, Kasim Reed, announced that he was gathering a dozen marketing experts from prominent local firms and civic organizations to figure out how to keep its airport — and the area’s fiscal fitness — thriving. “We want to make sure we’re not sitting on our laurels,” Mayor Reed said. “Candidly, we were failing to aggressively promote the city to passengers passing through.” Indeed, growth in the airport’s traffic, after decades of steadily climbing, has leveled off in the last decade and is barely increasing. While the idea of a committee was conceived well before the latest passenger and operations statistics were disclosed, Mayor Reed said that one goal was to maximize flier volume. The thinking is, as more knowledge about the city is shared to the airport’s clientele, more jobs in the surrounding area ultimately could be created. Richard K. Green, a business and public policy professor at the University of Southern California, sees a correlation between busy airports and faster gains in jobs and population. “While it is very difficult to separate cause from effect, in my view there is stronger evidence than not that a busy airport leads to growth,” he said. The belief is that spreading awareness entices businesses, especially those based overseas, to relocate or expand in Atlanta, which happens to own and run the airport. To Jeffrey A. Rosensweig, associate professor of international business and finance at Emory University in Atlanta, a booming airport’s role in robust areas that it serves cannot be underestimated. “An airport can wield tremendous impact on the economic health of its city and its whole region. I believe that the global economy is pivoting around major hubs for trade and finance. World-class transportation facilities are a key to becoming a hub,” he said, citing Dallas and Denver as examples in the United States. The two cities “invested massive dollars in huge new airports and they have helped jobs and real estate boom in their regions,” he added. Image Crowds at the ticket counters in the Atlanta airport’s domestic north terminal. The airport’s growth has leveled off. Credit Kevin Liles for The New York Times No city-airport tandem has prospered in lock step like Atlanta and Hartsfield-Jackson. “The airport has been almost uniquely crucial to the rapid and sustained development of metro Atlanta and, frankly, of Georgia,” Mr. Rosensweig said. He suggested that Hartsfield-Jackson deserved credit in luring a wide range of entities, including automobile factories and prominent corporate headquarters like United Parcel Service and Porsche, and the 1996 Summer Olympics. Civic leaders have long envisioned the airport as a major component in helping to advance the area’s growth. In 1961, well before Atlanta was a primary population center, the largest single terminal in the country was christened. It was followed 19 years later by what was then the world’s biggest passenger terminal complex. One reason to focus on raising passenger numbers is that some airlines already with a presence will increase routes and those without a foothold will enter the market. Hartsfield-Jackson craves more direct international flights that are particularly appealing to foreign business leaders who might establish a presence in the region. “You have to look at an airport not only as a passenger depot, but as driving additional jobs and economic development,” said Miguel Southwell, the airport’s general manager of aviation. The airport is promoting itself as the busiest for the 17th straight year, citing Airports Council International statistics showing that slightly more than 96 million fliers boarded or exited planes (or both) there in 2014. The runner-up in the United States was O’Hare, with just under 70 million. The Chicago airport leapfrogged Hartsfield-Atlanta for operations — or, in aviation parlance, movements. O’Hare, which had ceded the distinction to its southern rival in 2005 and trailed ever since, recorded nearly 882,000, compared with some 868,000 in Atlanta. While some news reports, mainly in Chicago, declared O’Hare as the world’s busiest, the airport refrained from wagging a foam No. 1 finger and declined to comment about vaulting ahead in operations. For its part, Hartsfield-Jackson pointed out in a news release that passenger count is the metric for world’s busiest that is most recognized by the industry. Mr. Southwell took a subtle dig at O’Hare, saying in an interview, that Atlanta was not concerned that Chicago moves millions fewer passengers than Hartsfield-Jackson does “while using more aircraft.” Mr. Reed is equally unrestrained with making the “world’s busiest” boast. Like Mr. Southwell, he maintains that it carries discernible benefits. “I definitely think so,” said the mayor, noting how chief executives of major companies that have dropped anchor in the area have mentioned the ranking. About 1,500 German firms alone have metropolitan Atlanta mailing addresses. But some aviation officials are skeptical that the world’s busiest crown bears direct fruit on its own. “It’s a fascinating story,” said Rafael Echevarne, director of economics at Airports Council International World, a global trade representative. “Nonetheless, there are no tangible benefits to being the world’s busiest airport — whether from a passenger traffic or aircraft movement perspective — other than the recognition received.” And no matter the efforts of Atlanta officials, the title may not last long. Dubai, currently the world’s busiest international hub, is growing fast and, more immediately, the surging Beijing Capital International is about 10 million passengers a year behind, with the gap steadily narrowing. | Hartsfield-Jackson;Airport;Atlanta;Jobs;O'Hare Airport |
ny0247740 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2011/05/28 | Minority-Stake Sale Could Stabilize Mets’ Finances Through Next Year | When the Mets said Thursday that they were in exclusive negotiations to sell the hedge fund mogul David Einhorn a minority stake in the team for $200 million, they moved one step closer to securing a much-needed financial lifeline. The question is how much breathing room Einhorn’s proposed cash infusion will give them. Fred Wilpon , the team’s principal owner, said this week that the Mets may lose as much as $70 million this season. With the injury-riddled team performing poorly, attendance has declined 10 percent this year, and fewer fans at Citi Field means less revenue from food concessions, parking and sales of team shirts and caps. And attendance could continue to decline next season if the Mets again finish under .500 — they are currently 23-27 — and then fail to make any notable signings during the winter. Still, the $200 million from Einhorn is almost certain to meet the team’s most pressing needs and potentially stabilize its finances at least through next year, several bankers and baseball executives said. The Mets are expected to use $75 million of Einhorn’s money to retire some of their bank loans and another $25 million to repay a loan, due next month, that the team received from Major League Baseball, according to several people familiar with the team’s finances. This should save the Mets tens, and perhaps hundreds, of thousands of dollars in interest payments. The remaining $100 million should help with the team’s most urgent issue — paying its players. With a payroll of about $142 million this season, roughly $12 million in checks must be cut every two weeks. At the very least, Einhorn’s investment would mean that the Mets will have little trouble on that front for the remainder of this season. But whether Einhorn’s cash would provide the impetus to sign a prominent free agent this November or December is another matter. Last winter, the Mets ignored that option and instead added a dozen players from baseball’s bargain basement for less than $11 million over all. The results, so far, have been decidedly mixed. Of course, Einhorn’s money would stretch further if the Mets’ payroll drops substantially, and it almost certainly will. Carlos Beltran ($18.5 million) is in the last year of his contract and will not be back and may soon be traded. Jose Reyes ($11 million) is also in the last year of his contract and he, too, is not likely to be a Met in 2012. The same can be said for closer Francisco Rodriguez ($11.5 million). And the $18 million now being paid to the already departed Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez will also be coming off the books. Vince Gennaro, a marketing consultant to several major league teams, said Einhorn’s $200 million buys the Mets “a significant amount of time, possibly well into next year.” And shedding numerous contracts, he said, “gives them a chance to realistically find pieces in the free-agent market.” But if the Mets do not, and there is no positive buzz about them through the winter, they may be faced with cutting ticket prices for a third straight season and reducing advertising and sponsorship rates. In addition, the contracts for some of the Mets’ high-priced suites at Citi Field will expire at the end of the season. Some clients may not want to renew unless the team promises to be more appealing than it has been the last few years. Although Einhorn was introduced Thursday, the Mets will not be receiving any of his cash immediately. If the agreement is completed — the team and Einhorn are in an exclusive negotiating period that could last 30 days or more — it must then be approved by Commissioner Bud Selig. If Einhorn is approved, there is no certainty he will disclose how much of a minority share he is taking on or if he has agreed, beyond his $200 million, to help cover the team’s losses on an ongoing basis. However, as soon as Einhorn signs his $200 million check to the team, the Mets will become more creditworthy, which means they could borrow more money if they want, a sports banker said. The team has more than $400 million in bank debt. “I get the sense that Morgan would lend again; they want to be helpful, for a bunch of reasons,” the banker said in reference to JPMorgan Chase. One other factor still looms — the $1 billion lawsuit filed against the team’s owners by the trustee representing victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud. Until that is resolved, everything about the Mets ultimately has an air of uncertainty, even with Einhorn aboard. “Mets fans need to get hit with a cold dose of reality,” said Marc Ganis, an industry consultant. “In the near term, this team is not going to be able to operate like a big-market team.” | New York Mets;Baseball;Einhorn David;Wilpon Fred;Wages and Salaries;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures |
ny0187160 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2009/04/27 | Sri Lanka Rejects Tamil Call for Cease-Fire | COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Demanding a full surrender, the Sri Lankan government on Sunday dismissed a “unilateral cease-fire” declared by Tamil Tiger rebels who were surrounded and outnumbered by government troops on a narrow strip of land on the Indian Ocean. The rebels said the cease-fire was in response to calls from the United Nations and many foreign governments for a pause in the fighting, but military analysts said it appeared to be a reflection of the rebels’ severely weakened position. The Tigers did not say what they would do with the tens of thousands of civilians they had trapped in their shrinking strip of territory along the coast of northeastern Sri Lanka. “We are in full agreement that the humanitarian crisis can only be overcome by declaration of an immediate cease-fire,” the group said in a statement. “As the first step, we have now announced this unilateral cease-fire and call upon the international community to pressure the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate it.” The Sri Lankan defense secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, called the cease-fire offer a “joke.” “They were not fighting with us; they were running from us,” Mr. Rajapaksa said, according to Reuters. “There is no need of a cease-fire. They must surrender. That is it.” John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, arrived in Colombo over the weekend to try to persuade the government to allow a humanitarian mission into the combat zone , where civilians were running short of food and medical supplies. Britain announced Sunday that its foreign secretary, David Miliband, would travel to Sri Lanka on Wednesday along with the foreign ministers of France , Bernard Kouchner , and Sweden , Carl Bildt , to discuss the plight of the trapped civilians. Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary, Palitha T. B. Kohona, told an Indian television station, NDTV, that the cease-fire offer was a “cynical effort” to gain leverage during Mr. Holmes’s visit. “The L.T.T.E. is down on its knees,” he said, using the initials of the formal name of the group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. “It has nothing to bargain with.” The military said Sunday that it had sunk three rebel boats offshore from the rebel-held territory, killing 13 fighters. Separately, more than 20 fighters surrendered on Sunday, according to a military spokesman. Roughly 500 fighters are left inside the four square miles of rebel-held territory, according to military estimates. The military’s assertions were impossible to verify; journalists have not been permitted near the war zone. The country’s governing coalition has been emboldened by a surge in popularity over its handling of the war. On Sunday it won a sweeping victory in a local election in Western Province. But government successes on the battlefield have also embittered many ethnic Tamils, especially those overseas, and have displaced at least 200,000 civilians now in refugee camps across the northern part of the country. The government is requesting tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments to help manage the flood of refugees. Since late January, when rebel-held territory shrank sharply, more than 6,400 civilians have been killed and 13,000 wounded, according to the United Nations. | Sri Lanka;Tamil Tigers;Military;Civilian casualties |
ny0264488 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2011/12/24 | Soyuz Spacecraft Raises Doubts on Russian Space Program | A Soyuz spacecraft safely delivered a Russian, an American and a Dutchman to the International Space Station on Friday, restoring the permanent crew to six members for the first time since September. But a different version of the Soyuz rocket failed to launch a satellite because of an engine failure, the latest in a string of launching failures that have raised questions about the state of Russia ’s space industry. The failed launching of a cargo ship in August had raised doubts about future missions to the station, because the Soyuz rocket that crashed used the same upper stage as the booster rockets carrying Soyuz ships to orbit. “What happened today was a highly unpleasant situation,” said the head of Russia’s space agency, Vladimir Popovkin, above, according to state news agencies. “It confirms that the industry is in crisis and its weakest link is engine building.” | Russia;Soyuz Project;Rocket Science and Propulsion;International Space Station;Space |
ny0108863 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2012/05/16 | College Football Hall of Fame Members Selected | Art Monk, Dave Casper and Jonathan Ogden are among 14 former players who have been selected to the College Football Hall of Fame. The former coaches Phillip Fulmer of Tennessee; Jimmy Johnson, who coached Miami and Oklahoma State; and R. C. Slocum of Texas A&M also were selected. | Monk Art;Ogden Jonathan;College Football Hall of Fame;Football (College);Casper Dave;Awards Decorations and Honors |
ny0132153 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2012/12/09 | Averyhardt and Howard Hope to Inspire Other Black Women | DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It was crunch time last Sunday in the last round of the L.P.G.A. ’s final qualifying tournament, and history and milestones were not the top priority for two young golfers trying to earn playing status for the 2013 tour. Shasta Averyhardt and Ginger Howard knew what was at stake if they played well enough to earn a tour card in the 90-hole tournament. Averyhardt and Howard, among the few black women in professional golf, were also aware that others were watching. When she earned her tour card for the 2011 season, Averyhardt became the fourth black player in L.P.G.A. history. She tried to play down her achievement while showing appreciation for the many fans who came to see her play. Financial struggles and injuries left her wondering if she could pursue her dream, but Averyhardt said her hope was restored by the minority youths who looked up to her during junior clinics and pro-ams. “Typically, people who come from small towns or urban areas want to get out, or they want to do something great for their lives or for their families,” said Averyhardt, a 26-year-old from Flint, Mich., whose mother is Mexican and father is African-American. “I feel like I can be a testament to that.” Howard, an 18-year-old rookie, also hopes to encourage young players. Her younger sister Robbi has emerged as a top junior player, and Howard wondered if they could do for women’s golf what the Williams sisters have done for women’s tennis. “I don’t really look at color, but a lot of people ask about it because I’m one of only a few African-Americans in women’s golf,” said Howard, a Philadelphia native who lives with her parents and three younger siblings in Bradenton, Fla. “I have high expectations because it keeps me driving toward my goals, and I want to try to inspire people.” Averyhardt lost her L.P.G.A. status last December and returned to Q-School this year hoping to regain her tour card. Howard did not earn L.P.G.A. membership last December and aimed to qualify after playing a full 2012 season on the L.P.G.A’s development circuit, the Symetra Tour. Among those monitoring their progress is Sisters Across America, a nonprofit organization that was founded in 2006 to mentor young minority women seeking to play professional golf. Averyhardt, who began playing the game when she was 10, was the first golfer sponsored by the group, which helped pay her tour expenses and tournament entry fees from March 2009 through July. She has aged out of the program, but Howard became eligible when she turned 18 and will receive support from Sisters Across America next season. “Ever since we started supporting Shasta, I wanted to provide the mentoring, financial support or whatever she needs to play on the L.P.G.A. Tour,” said Deloris Jones, the organization’s president. “The same is true with Ginger.” The organization holds two tournaments each year to raise money for the sponsorship program. It also hopes to attract sponsors to help cover expenses incurred by program participants. With corporate support, the group could provide up to $80,000 per player each year, Jones said. The organization also functions as a nationwide network. Whenever Averyhardt was traveling and playing tournaments, the group would ask members in the area to provide support, housing and transportation. Without the support of Sisters Across America, Averyhardt said, she would not have been able to begin her professional golf career. Averyhardt and Howard took different paths to the final qualifying tournament. Averyhardt, who earned an accounting degree from Jackson State in 2008, struggled as an L.P.G.A. rookie in 2011. Without full status, she bounced between the Symetra and L.P.G.A. tours. She missed cuts and produced spotty performances. Just as Averyhardt gained L.P.G.A. membership, tendinitis flared in her left wrist, a result of swing changes. Her new swing placed pressure on her slender 6-foot-1-inch frame and weak upper body. “It was very painful, but I felt obligated to play,” Averyhardt said. “I should have taken medical leave, but I felt like I was playing for a lot of other people.” Averyhardt rested and rehabilitated her wrist last winter, and in 2012 she had her best season, with a tie for fourth and four top-25 finishes on the Symetra Tour. She earned $14,362 in 15 events and was named the tour’s most improved player. She also ranked third in driving distance with an average of 268 yards and finished sixth in birdies with 132 for the season. “This was a rebuilding year in which I had to reassess why I’m playing,” Averyhardt said. “I put so much pressure on myself to play well and to play for other people instead of saying, ‘I love this sport, I’m good at it and I’m playing for me.’ ” Howard, who began playing golf at age 6 and graduated from home schooling in May, skipped college to take a quicker path to the L.P.G.A. She played in 16 Symetra tournaments this year with her father, Robert, as her chaperon and caddie. For many of those events, her 4-year-old brother, Julian, also traveled with them. It was not always optimal for Howard to learn to play week after week of tournament golf with a little brother in tow. “He slept O.K., but he’s not very good at watching me play during the tournaments,” Howard said. She arrived on the Symetra Tour with solid amateur credentials, as a member of the Junior Ryder Cup and Canon Cup East teams in 2010. After turning professional, she won eight tournaments in 2011 on a Florida minitour. She was also the medalist in last year’s sectional tournament at the L.P.G.A. Q-School. Howard’s best Symetra Tour finish this year was a tie for second at the Riviera Nayarit Classic in April. But then she missed five tournament cuts as she wrestled with the learning curve and experimental equipment. “It was my first time on a real golf tour and it was a great experience,” said Howard, who earned $16,863 in 16 events and led the Symetra Tour with a putting average of 29.19 strokes per round. “I feel like I got a lot stronger mentally and physically this year.” The top 40 finishers at the qualifying tournament earned tour cards. Averyhardt squeezed in as she tied for 39th. She posted a final-round score of three-under-par 69; on the last hole, her chip shot rolled 25 feet downhill and fell into the cup for a birdie. “I told my caddie after the third round that I was not leaving here without some kind of L.P.G.A. status,” said Averyhardt, a fourth-year pro. “But I didn’t know that I had to birdie the last hole to get my card.” Averyhardt hopes to find sponsorship that will enable her to play in the L.P.G.A.’s Monday qualifying tournaments each week. Once again, she will split her time between the L.P.G.A. and Symetra tours, but she will focus on reaching the highest level and staying there. Howard missed earning her tour card by eight strokes. Now her goal is to finish among the top 10 on the Symetra Tour’s money list to earn full membership on the L.P.G.A. Tour for 2014. “Unfortunately, I’ll be back on the Symetra Tour next year,” she said. “But fortunately, I learned a lot this year that will help in 2013.” Sisters Across America is hopeful that Averyhardt and Howard can help pave the way for other minority women. Another top black player, Cheyenne Woods, missed advancing to the final round of the qualifying tournament. But as the niece of Tiger Woods, she will probably earn some sponsor exemptions. “Golf is tough, and neither Shasta nor Ginger played as they had anticipated at this year’s L.P.G.A. Q-School,” said Jones, the Sisters Across America president. “But the fact is, they were there. And that’s where you start.” | Ladies Professional Golf Assn;Golf;Blacks;Averyhardt Shasta;Howard Ginger;Women and Girls |
ny0131529 | [
"us"
] | 2012/12/28 | Murder Confession Prompts Calls in Texas for Recording Interrogations | LIVINGSTON, Tex. — Max Soffar slurred his words in 1980 as he confessed to shooting two teenagers while robbing a Houston bowling alley, a confession that can be heard over the hisses and crackles of an audiotape. Only two hours of at least 26 hours of questioning over three days were recorded, according to the police officers who were at the interrogation. Three decades and two trials later, Mr. Soffar, 57, maintains that he never committed the crimes — he says he confessed to shooting the two teenagers while trying to implicate someone else in the shootings at the bowling alley, in which three people were killed and another was injured. But Mr. Soffar also says he only has faint memories of the interrogation. The investigators “took full advantage of someone who had no idea of the danger of the situation,” Mr. Soffar said recently from death row. Prosecutors said that the evidence against Mr. Soffar was solid. Mr. Soffar’s lawyers say his case highlights a broader debate about false confessions, and as they ask the United States Supreme Court to look at the case, Texas lawmakers are renewing a push to require police officers to record interviews in cases of violent crime. On July 13, 1980, Arden Alane Felsher, 17, Greg Garner, 18, Stephen Allen Sims, 25, and Tommy Lee Temple, 17, were shot at the bowling alley. Mr. Garner survived with severe injuries. A few weeks later, the police stopped Mr. Soffar for speeding and arrested him for driving a stolen motorcycle. On the way to the police station, Mr. Soffar said that he had information about the bowling alley murders. “I got involved in something I had no business opening my mouth about,” he said in the recent interview. He was charged with the murders after his confession. Mr. Soffar was found guilty of shooting all four people and received the death penalty in 1981, but his conviction was reversed in 2004 when the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided that his first lawyer had been ineffective. He was convicted again in 2006 and sentenced to death. Lyn McClellan, who prosecuted Mr. Soffar at the 2006 retrial, said that the confession included “information that only the killer would know.” “I think this audiotape is the key to the whole case,” Mr. McClellan said. “He tells them how this bowling alley murder went down.” Of the police officers who interviewed Mr. Soffar, one has since died and another declined to discuss the case. A third, Detective Gil Schultz, said that the confessions were “free and voluntary.” Richard A. Leo, who teaches at the University of San Francisco School of Law and has written several books on police interrogation procedures, analyzed Mr. Soffar’s tape and determined that officers in the case used verbal techniques like accusation, forceful pressure, repetition and confrontation. All of these, Dr. Leo wrote in an affidavit, “create a risk of eliciting false confessions when misapplied to the innocent.” Mr. Soffar, sleep-deprived and coming down from drug use, was particularly susceptible, Dr. Leo said. Detective Schultz said that he was kind to Mr. Soffar during the interrogation. “I never raised my voice to that man,” Detective Schultz said. “I treated him like a human being.” Last Friday, Mr. Soffar asked the Supreme Court to determine if the Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, has an effective standard for judging whether his trial lawyer, Kathryn M. Kase, represented him adequately in the 2006 trial. He and his advocates say she should have found an expert like Dr. Leo to cast doubt on the confession. Ms. Kase said that her strategy was to introduce news articles that showed that Mr. Soffar possibly learned the details of the crime from the news media, but that the judge barred the articles from being presented. In 2009 the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Mr. Soffar’s conviction, though Judge Cathy Cochran wrote that the confessions appeared “to be a tale told by one who heard about the robbery-murders rather than by one who committed them.” Mr. Soffar’s lawyers said that neither jury was allowed to see evidence that another man, Paul Reid, might have been involved. Mr. Reid is now on Tennessee’s death row , having received seven death sentences. He lived in Houston at the time of the bowling alley killings. An employee at the bowling alley said in an affidavit that a man resembling Mr. Reid got into an argument with one of the victims and threatened him a week before the killings. The employee said the police showed him a picture of Mr. Reid during the investigation and he identified him as the man who got into the argument. Mr. Soffar’s lawyers and Detective Schultz agree that much of the debate over the interrogations could have been avoided if the police had recorded them, though they say that it was not technologically practical at the time. Now, with inexpensive digital recording, Texas legislators are renewing a push to require the police to record interrogations. According to the National Registry of Exonerations , at least seven wrongful convictions in Texas have involved false confessions. Senator Rodney Ellis, Democrat of Houston, has filed a bill requiring the taping of interrogations for violent crimes. Ms. Kase, who helped write an earlier version of Mr. Ellis’s bill, said this was one of many cases that led her to conclude that the police should be recorded so they do not “prop somebody up and record the ‘Yes, I did it’ statement after hours of interrogation.” Police officers and prosecutors are split on whether recordings should be required. Lon Craft of the Texas Municipal Police Association called the requirement “another attempt for the defense bar to find new ways to object to lawfully obtained confessions.” Part of the concern, said Shannon Edmonds, the legislative director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association , is that in situations where there was no recording, prosecutors might be unable to use a “lawful and voluntary confession” as evidence. His organization has not taken a position on the bill. Detective Schultz said recordings would be “fantastic” and could help protect police officers and lawyers from accusations of wrongdoing. But he added that recordings would not have mattered in Mr. Soffar’s case. “I’m absolutely positive he’s guilty,” he said. Brian Stull, a former lawyer for Mr. Soffar, said that there would always be unresolved issues in the case, because without recordings “you have to trust what the police officer says.” “They may be telling the truth,” he said, “but there are things that could just be lost.” | Confessions;Interrogations;Murders and Attempted Murders;Decisions and Verdicts;Capital Punishment;Crime and Criminals;Texas |
ny0163372 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2006/02/01 | Defense Rests in Killings of Detectives | Crowds of police detectives, assistant district attorneys and uniformed officers returned yesterday to the trial of Marlon Legere, 30, who is accused of killing two detectives in September 2004. Their appearance repeated a display of solidarity made three weeks ago when the trial began, but this time they heard a full-throated, wide-ranging defense of Mr. Legere. There was nowhere to sit in the courtroom. There were many folded arms. Mr. Legere is accused of first-degree murder in the killings of the detectives, Robert L. Parker and Patrick H. Rafferty, who confronted him outside his mother's house. Prosecutors have portrayed an argument between mother and son that left Mr. Legere riled, defiant and reasonably aware that she would call the police. Mr. Legere's lawyers have built his case in a seemingly lean manner: Ivan A. Vogel's opening remarks were brief, and Wayne C. Bodden rested for the defense after a single day of testimony. But when Mr. Bodden jumped to his feet at the defense table yesterday in his closing argument, he began a speech that would last more than two and a half hours, not counting an interruption for a lunch break. Taking a combative tone, he circled the chronology of the case, arguing credibility, context and perceptions. Facing jurors and away from the audience, he spoke of an overzealous, narrow investigation and accused the police of witness intimidation. "They're going to tell you Marlon terrorized her," Mr. Bodden said, referring to Mr. Legere's mother. "Well, the police terrorized that lady." Mr. Bodden repeatedly revisited Mr. Legere's state of mind on the night of the shooting, suggesting that Mr. Legere did not recognize the men confronting him as police officers and thought he was being robbed. On Monday, Justice Anne G. Feldman of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said she would instruct the jury to consider evidence of justification, a modern term for self-defense. The standard for justification shifted after rulings in the case of Bernard Goetz, the so-called subway vigilante, legal experts said. Jurors are now told to consider a defendant's education, background and prior experiences, so this jury is likely to be told to consider whether a reasonable person would feel imperiled in Mr. Legere's situation if that reasonable person was Mr. Legere. To that end, Mr. Bodden sought to convey a sense of street knowledge as he spoke to the jurors. Dressed in a necktie, glasses and a silver watch, he used the words "folks," y'all," "cops" and "whassup," and at one point he disparaged the opera. He said that on the night of the shooting, Mr. Legere had no reason to believe that his mother had called the police. "He went to the car happy, ignorant of Detective Parker but happy," Mr. Bodden said. "What you have is a frustrated cat and an ignorant mouse. Bad combination. Tragic combination." Acknowledging his broader audience, the men with badges standing in a line at the back of the courtroom, Mr. Bodden asked the jury to follow the law. "You told me you wouldn't be affected by the people in the audience," Mr. Bodden said. "You wouldn't be scared." | NEW YORK CITY;BODDEN WAYNE C;RAFFERTY PATRICK H;FELDMAN ANNE G;PARKER ROBERT L;ATTACKS ON POLICE;MURDERS AND ATTEMPTED MURDERS;SELF-DEFENSE |
ny0110974 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2012/02/04 | As Clashes Continue, Egypt Soccer Riot Becomes Metaphor for Government Failure | CAIRO — Clashes between protesters and security forces left five people dead on Friday in an escalation of violence that threatened to undo Egypt ’s halting steps toward stability after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak one year ago. The protests began Thursday in anger at the police for failing to prevent a post-match fight between rival groups of soccer fans in Port Said in which 70 people were killed on Wednesday night. But as the protests continued for a second day, the original riot had become a metaphor for the failure of the military-led government to resolve the complaints that fuel recurring street violence, including brutal but capricious police officers, a lack of accountability and implausible attempts to blame mysterious third parties for social unrest. If the ruling military council cannot control a soccer game, many asked, how can they run a country of more than 80 million? “If you can’t secure a match, tell me how will you secure Egypt?” demonstrators chanted on their way to the headquarters of the Interior Ministry. The violence erupted just days after two much-anticipated and potentially combustible occasions managed to pass in Egypt with unexpected calm: the first anniversary of the revolt against Mr. Mubarak and the installation of a new Parliament. Now, though, the soccer riot has come to epitomize a new wave of miscellaneous crimes around the country, from a bank robbery in Cairo last week to the kidnapping of two American tourists and their guide for six hours in the Sinai on Friday. Addressing the resulting public anger at the police and the military-led government is the first challenge for the new Parliament and its Islamist leaders. Initially led by die-hard soccer fans — known as ultras — the protests that began around the country on Thursday were the first since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster that at least some demonstrators began not in peace but with the avowed intent to inflict violence on security forces. By Friday, however, the ultras still on the front lines had been joined by thousands of other protesters. They marched after prayers and chanted for the end of military rule. In both Suez and Cairo, rock-throwing protesters continued to surround and attack the Interior Ministry headquarters for a second day, after battling through the night. And in both places, the police fought back with heavy, round-the-clock volleys of tear gas, then with birdshot. In Suez, hospital officials reported wounds from live ammunition as well. Three protesters were killed there, hospital officials said, and one was killed in Cairo. An army officer was also killed during the fighting in Cairo when he was accidentally run over by a security truck. The fighting in Cairo resembled battles fought in some of the same streets in November, when more than 40 people died, and again in December, when more than 15 more were killed. Whether because of the depth of the public anger over the soccer riot or because of the potential supervision of the new Parliament, the security forces seemed, if anything, more restrained. But the protesters quickly fell back into the patterns of previous battles. Vendors sold hospital masks to protect against tear gas. Young women dispensed vinegar and other home remedies. And after working through the night, gleeful protesters partially tore down a wall of concrete blocks that the military had erected to keep them from the Interior Ministry. Racing to respond to the outcry over the soccer riot, officials of the military-led government announced that it had imposed travel bans on certain police officials under scrutiny in an investigation into who was responsible for security at the match. The ruling military council, which has pledged to hand over power after the writing of a constitution and the election of a president by the end of June, urged in a statement that Egyptians “confront the attempts at escalation by foreign and domestic parties.” The council did not explain who those parties were. Leaders of the week-old Parliament, which will return Saturday to another emergency session about the riot, indicated Friday that they might take legal action against the officials responsible. The Web page of the Muslim Brotherhood ’s political party, which leads the chamber, linked to a Parliament Web site explaining that “in response to the massacre of Port Said,” Parliament had decided to “reactivate” a law allowing the trial of cabinet ministers by a tribunal of lawmakers and judges. If approved by Parliament, the law could be applied retroactively even to Mr. Mubarak, the explanation continued. A senior figure in the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Mohamed El Beltagy, said top security and intelligence officials would be called Saturday to testify about the events and could be asked to resign if they failed to identify the perpetrators. He said that the chaotic security in the country was a deliberate ploy by the country’s military rulers to build support for an extension of their power. Other Muslim Brotherhood statements suggested that the riot in Port Said had been orchestrated by former officials of the Mubarak government or unnamed “foreign fingers.” In Port Said on Friday, a crowd gathered around the cafe of a former Mubarak ally, Gamal Omar, after rumors suggested that he and an ally had hired hundreds of people to instigate the riot. The same rumors, without evidence, appeared on the Web site of the Freedom and Justice Party . In the shifting crowds that filled the streets of downtown Cairo, advancing and retreating with the flow of tear gas, demonstrators said they had little faith in either the military-led government or the new Parliament. Ahmed Hussein, 27, had come with several others to try to stop the violence by kneeling in prayer between the security forces and the protesters. But he said they fled after the police fired tear gas at their backs. “I have no idea how this situation could be resolved,” he said. On the corner, a child of about 12 was wearing a makeshift cape made from the flag of the Cairo soccer team Al Ahly and resisting advice to get home to safety. “I am responsible for getting the rights of my brothers who died,” he said, referring to his fellow fans killed in Port Said. “I will avenge them.” A well-known activist, Tarek Shalaby, 27, said the Muslim Brotherhood party now running Parliament “does not want to change anything.” “They are a bunch of businessmen,” he said. “They just want the economy to grow.” An armed power like the military council, Mr. Shalaby argued, “would never surrender its full authority without a struggle.” The only hope, he said, was more strikes and protests. “Politics is in the street.” | Arab Spring;Egypt;null;Military;Fatalities |
ny0134095 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2008/03/13 | Ogres, Dragons, Medusa and More, All in an Epic on a 4-Inch Screen | The hand-held Sony PlayStationPortable game console can barely contain the action-adventure game God of War: Chains of Olympus. With its ogres and dragons, stone temples and massive ancient machinery, the game feels as though at any moment it will burst through the four-inch screen and bring hellfire and destruction to your sofa. Chains of Olympus is a prequel to the two PlayStation 2 God of War games. The brutal antihero Kratos must do the bidding of the fickle Greek gods, hoping they will release him from the memories of his unbearable sins. The gods demand Kratos kill a city-ravaging dragon, but that’s only the beginning of his troubles. The game assures the player of its determination to match the scale of the other games early on when Kratos’s battle with a monster 10 times his size is interrupted by a dragon 10 times its size killing the monster. The game faithfully emulates the savage, macho tone of the previous games. It is not for children or the faint-of-heart classics professor. Kratos beats a king to death with a chest of his own gold, murders chained residents of Tartarus to gain health and, early on, has sex with two women (which involves the player hitting keys on the console while watching a candle shake as the three characters moan off camera). It is remarkable how much Chains plays like its big-console forebears. Once again you madly push buttons to swing the blades, chained to Kratos’s wrists, through ogres or to grab a snakelike Medusa and snap its neck. Kratos gains more weapons as he progresses, acquiring a metal fist that can punch through walls and gaining the ability to call forth a fiery monster that can incinerate nearby attackers. The game also beautifully recreates the look of the series. I played much of Chains through my television, which can be done with the newer PSP-2000 and a component cable, and, even blown up for the big screen, the game looks nearly as good as the original God of War. Chains is certainly the biggest, baddest game ever to hit the PSP, but it is still not quite so big and bad as previous games for other platforms. The story is not as grand, the puzzles aren’t nearly as ingenious and the game is at times too fond of making Kratos backtrack through areas, probably because there is a limit to how much you can squeeze onto those little PSP discs. But since God of War and God of War II are two of the greatest games ever made, saying Chains is almost as good is still high praise. It is surprising that it is even possible to create such an epic game on the PSP. It is almost equally surprising that no one seems to be able to do the same thing for the Wii, whose games are often fun but usually feel more like short jaunts than grand voyages. The closest thing to a Wii epic since The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which came out in 2006, is the action-role playing game Dragon Quest Swords: The Mask Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. Unfortunately the uninspired plot makes a battle against a great evil feel as vital as a trip to the mall. In Swords, you play the son of a famous hero who long ago vanquished an evil overlord. Everything’s been hunky-dory in the kingdom since, but now the queen has taken to avoiding people and wearing a strange mask. This familiar setup starts a by-the-books story devoid of interesting characters or any real surprises. But it does offer the opportunity to explore forests and flatten monsters. Like most Wii games, the main focus of Swords is on the Wii’s motion-sensitive controller, and in that aspect the game is quite successful. You can slash the remote through the air and see a slit of light across the screen that will chop enemies in half. Properly timed slashes can also be used to hurl projectiles back at their senders. You can raise a shield to block attacks. You are accompanied by a companion who casts spells, some healing and some more warlike. When you’ve acquired enough energy you can make a tremendous thrust that will wipe out a host of monsters. It’s certainly not the most elaborate battle system, and is clearly aimed more at the Wii’s casual-game fan than hard-core role-playing gamer, but it is fun. Enemies are of the goofy, cartoonish variety usually found in Dragon Quest games, and the game’s backgrounds are pretty, as Wii games go. As in any role-playing game, you become more powerful both through experience and through improving your weapons and armor. Upgrading your sword involves collecting items that are then used by a blacksmith to enhance the sword. To find these items and to build up your strength to deal with particularly strong monsters, you need to replay some of the game’s eight levels, sometimes several times. I have never been a big fan of viewing the same scenery while battling the same enemies in the same places, but levels can be traversed fairly quickly, so it’s a relatively painless procedure. By the time I reached the final bad guy, who slaughtered me quickly, I simply didn’t feel like replaying a lot of levels just to collect the items to upgrade my sword yet again. Frankly, I didn’t care if the game’s two-dimensional characters lived or died. I had no problem leaving the evil overlord to wreak havoc. Still, a Wii game that at least goes through the motions of telling a story is something; I suppose half an epic is better than none. I hope that someday game makers will offer a Wii adventure as compelling as God of War: Chains of Olympus. And if a Kratos jumped out of the screen ready to wreak havoc, you could just hand him the Wii remote; he might find swinging it around so much fun that he’d completely forget to destroy your sofa. | Computer and Video Games;Sony Corp;Wireless Communications |
ny0009423 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2013/02/02 | Tournament of Hope in South Africa Postponed | The South African golf tournament claiming to be among the richest outside the United States has been indefinitely postponed. Organizers said that the Tournament of Hope, which was to have prize money of $8.5 million, would not take place in November and had been “put on hold for the foreseeable future” after failing to secure sponsorship. | Golf;South Africa |
ny0007432 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/05/21 | U.S. Says 3 N.Y.U. Scientists Took Bribes to Reveal Work to China | It was, the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan said on Monday, “a case of inviting and paying for foxes in the henhouse.” Three researchers at the New York University School of Medicine who specialized in magnetic resonance imaging technology had been working on research sponsored by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. But, prosecutors charged on Monday, the three had their eyes on other business as well. They conspired to take bribes from a Chinese medical imaging company and a Chinese-sponsored research institute to share nonpublic information about their N.Y.U. work, according to the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. The defendants, all Chinese citizens, included Yudong Zhu , 44, of Scarsdale, N.Y., an associate professor in the school’s radiology department who was described by the authorities as “an accomplished researcher and innovator.” He was hired by the university around 2008 to teach and conduct research related to innovations in M.R.I. technology, the authorities said. After the National Institutes of Health awarded the university millions of dollars over five years to pay for Professor Zhu’s research, he arranged for the two other defendants to move to New York from China to work with him, prosecutors said. He also arranged for them to receive financial support from an executive of the Chinese imaging company who was also affiliated with the government-sponsored institute, officials said. The two other defendants are Xing Yang, 31, and Ye Li, also 31, both of Hartsdale, N.Y. They were each described by N.Y.U. as research engineers at the medical school. The support they received included graduate school tuition for Mr. Yang, a rental apartment for Mr. Li and, for both, travel between China and New York, prosecutors said. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney, who announced the charges with George Venizelos, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office, said the defendants had “colluded with representatives from a Chinese government entity and a direct competitor of the university for which they worked to illegally acquire N.I.H.-funded research for the benefit of those entities.” N.Y.U. said in a statement that it was “deeply disappointed by the news of the alleged conduct by its employees.” “Through our internal review processes,” it said, “we became aware of possible irregularities pursuant to research being conducted through a grant from the N.I.H. to develop new M.R.I. technologies.” The university said that it had alerted the authorities and continued to cooperate fully with the investigation. Dr. Zhu and Mr. Yang were both arrested on Sunday and ordered released on bond by a magistrate judge on Monday. All three defendants were charged with one count of commercial bribery conspiracy; Dr. Zhu was also charged with one count of falsification of records. A prosecutor said in court that Dr. Zhu had admitted to the F.B.I. that he had received almost $500,000 in the scheme. Dr. Zhu’s lawyer, Robert M. Baum, said in court that N.Y.U. had recruited his client because he was “one of the world’s renowned experts in M.R.I. technology.” Mr. Li was believed to have flown to China before charges were brought, Mr. Bharara’s office said. | MRI;Bribery and Kickbacks;NYU;China;Yudong Zhu;NYC;Ye Li;Xing Yang;College;Corporate espionage |
ny0177269 | [
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] | 2007/09/16 | University Blues | “I’m still looking, but I want to go away. I’m going to look at Syracuse and Ithaca and Boston and places in D.C. I know I want communications and journalism, but I haven’t found a perfect match yet. I want to go to college to experience new things and meet new people. But it’s kind of scary to decide about your future.” Jill Feigelman St. George, Staten Island Curtis High School Born May 1, 1990 “I’m confused about college, because my goal is a psychology major or criminology. I’m taking SAT prep classes here at La Guardia. It’s not easy. I spoke a little bit of English when I came here from Poland three years ago, but it didn’t really help. The thing that is really hard for me is vocabulary, because there are a lot of vocabulary words.” Justyne Faledysz Ridgewood, Queens Forest Hills High School Born May 28, 1990 “I’m going! F.I.T.” Chris Brodie Jr. Hollis, Queens Thomas A. Edison High School BORN May 26, 1990 “I plan to go to college, but I’m not sure if I want to go right away or not, because I want to work as well. I talk to my friends, and they want to either start their own business or be a veterinarian or whatever, and they want to go to college for that. But some are like me and they’re unsure. Maybe if I go to college, that will help me figure out what I want to do. I guess I have 12th grade to figure it out.” Janelle Allen Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Brooklyn Preparatory High School Born April 29, 1990 “Neither of my parents went to college. My dad didn’t even finish high school. Not a lot of people from Bushwick go to college; I’ve heard the statistics, so, hopefully, I can be one of the people who breaks the barrier. I’m interested in being a lawyer because I’d like to defend people, and because I speak Spanish, I could help the Spanish community. I heard Hunter is a good college, and my brother goes to Long Island University, so I’m going to check that out, too. I’m really looking forward to college, but I’m worried about my SATs because I didn’t do so good. The math is killing me.” Keila Perez Bushwick, Brooklyn EBC High School for Public Service Born June 8, 1990 “I’m taking SAT prep classes for English and writing at the Kent Institute, in Bayside. I’m pretty sure my parents read about it in the Korean newspaper. It’s basically like another school: You go to classes, you sit for a couple hours, you sit for a lesson, and then you go to another class, and another class after that, and another class after that, and that’s pretty much it. It’s for my own good, I guess, so I don’t really mind that much.” Jay Park Bayside, Queens Bronx High School of Science Born Nov. 29, 1990 “Since I play soccer at a high level, they recruit early from colleges. I got ‘most assists’ in the whole city, and I missed ‘most goals’ by, like, three. By the end of freshman year, there were lots of scouts e-mailing me. I had to take my SATs early and meet all these coaches. I had all these deadlines, going through in my junior year what all the seniors go through. I committed to Loyola in Maryland. I got a full ride. My parents are certainly happy about that.” Alyssa Faller Floral Park, Queens Queens High School of Teaching Born April 3, 1990 “I don’t want to go to college where I live. I want to be somewhere else, where I can live alone. I’m a little worried about doing bad in college. I heard it’s really hard.” Tasmim Atahar Kensington, Brooklyn International High School at Prospect Heights Born June 11, 1990 “I plan to go to Lehman College. I don’t want to go away, because my family’s here and I’m very close with them. I don’t know what I’ll study yet, but I want to do better than my parents. I don’t want to struggle. But I’m not worried; I’m good at what I do. College is important because you make more money.” Stephanie Villanueva Castle Hill, the Bronx Adlai E. Stevenson High School Born March 8, 1990 “There’s a limit at my school of how many private colleges you can apply to. That limit is eight. Then you can apply to as many public universities as you want. I’d say I’ll definitely apply to more than eight schools, maybe around 10. My friends and I talk about it all the time, and we’re all pretty stressed out. When you meet new people and tell them you’re a senior, the first question is always ‘Do you know where you’re applying?’ It’s kind of annoying answering the same questions over and over again.” Anna Henriquez Stuyvesant Town Hunter College High School Born Oct. 21, 1990 “I’ve been home-schooled since I was 5 years old. I take some outside classes with tutors or other families; right now I’m taking a remotely-operated-vehicle engineering class, and I’m probably going to take calculus outside. Being a home-schooler influences the way you apply to college. Since you don’t really graduate with a diploma, you’ve got to put something together. But colleges like home-schoolers, so that helps.” Cole Houston Upper West Side Home-schooled Born Dec. 27, 1990 | Children and Youth;New York City |
ny0056405 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2014/09/16 | Kerry Says U.S. Is Open to Talking to Iran, Even as Ayatollah Is Dismissive | PARIS — The Obama administration is open to talking with Iran on the security crisis in Iraq, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday, even after Iran’s supreme leader angrily said Tehran would no longer discuss Middle East issues with the United States. Mr. Kerry was speaking as 26 nations, Iran conspicuously not among them, gathered in Paris for an international conference on helping the new government in Baghdad fight the extremist Sunni group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He acknowledged that he had opposed Iran’s attendance, but he stressed that the United States was still prepared to speak with the Iranians about Iraq and Syria, including on the margins of the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that will resume in New York on Thursday. Just because the Iranians were not invited to the conference, Mr. Kerry said, “doesn’t mean that we are opposed to the idea of communicating to find out if they will come on board or under what circumstances or whether there is the possibility of a change.” Image President François Hollande of France greeted President Fuad Masum of Iraq at the Elysée Palace in Paris on Monday. Credit John Schults/Reuters In Tehran, the tone was quite different. Iranian officials gave out flurries of statements to local reporters on Monday, saying that they had rejected multiple invitations by the United States to join the coalition. On Monday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, issued a scathing and, at times, sarcastic statement on the day he left the hospital after prostate surgery. In remarks posted on his personal website, he said he had enjoyed his recent time in the hospital because he had “a hobby,” which was “listening to Americans making statements on combating ISIS — it was really amusing.” Such statements, he added, are “absurd, hollow and biased.” The Obama administration has long sought to separate the nuclear talks with Iran from discussions of regional issues, out of concern that Tehran might seek concessions in the nuclear negotiations in return for cooperating on Syria or Iran. Mr. Kerry also acknowledged that the administration’s previous effort, led by the deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, to draw Iran into quiet talks on Iraq and other regional issues had not been productive. “The confidential discussions never got to that sort of substance,” Mr. Kerry told reporters. When ISIS burst onto the global stage this summer, some analysts speculated that Tehran and Washington might be able to narrow their deep differences over Iraq, Syria and the Middle East. The same thought occurred after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the two antagonists shared a mutual antipathy for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Image In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, left the hospital after prostate surgery. Credit Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran, via Associated Press For a number of reasons, the fissures have not narrowed appreciably. First, in mobilizing international support for Iraq, Mr. Kerry has turned to Sunni Arab nations, which remain deeply suspicious of Iran’s intentions. Both King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and top officials from the United Arab Emirates made clear to Mr. Kerry that they would not attend the Paris conference if Iran was present. So when the French raised the prospect of a role for Iran, Mr. Kerry was bluntly opposed. For the Obama administration, it came down to a choice between the coalition it is trying to assemble to support Iraq’s new government politically and militarily and an Iran whose allies include two longtime American adversaries: President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and the anti-American Shiite militias in Iraq. Second, Iran fears that the coalition Mr. Kerry is assembling will ultimately undermine Mr. Assad, who has been receiving extensive financial and military support from Tehran. To counter Iran in Syria, the administration is pressing ahead with its plan to train moderate Syrian rebels at bases in Saudi Arabia. Finally, any form of partnership with the “Great Satan,” particularly one in which the United States plays a decisive role, is hard for Ayatollah Khamenei and his hard-line supporters to stomach. In pushing back, Iran appears to be arguing that it would not want to be part of any club that would not welcome it as a charter member. A Rogue State Along Two Rivers The victories gained by the militant group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. “Even the American deputy foreign minister, who is a woman and everyone knows her, had repeated this request in a meeting with Mr. Araghchi again,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, referring to Wendy R. Sherman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, and Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister. “But Mr. Araghchi also rejected her request.” Iran appeared to be signaling that it has a coalition of its own. Along with the ayatollah, a major Iranian-based Iraqi Shiite militia also bitterly assailed the United States on Monday. “We will not fight alongside the American troops under any kind of conditions whatsoever,” the militia, Kataib Hezbollah, said in a statement on its website, adding that its only contact with the American military would be “if we fight each other.” The fiery words from Tehran appeared to have little or no effect on the international conference. The 26 nations that participated issued a statement pledging their support for the new Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS, including military assistance. But the statement made no mention of Iran or any role it might play. “They committed to supporting the new Iraqi government in its fight against Daesh, by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance,” said the statement, using the Iraqi name for ISIS. It added that the aid would be “in accordance with international law and without jeopardizing civilian security.” | ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Iran;Iraq;John Kerry;Ali Khamenei;Syria;Bashar al-Assad;US Foreign Policy |
ny0122126 | [
"business"
] | 2012/09/11 | Consumer Borrowing Falls as Less Is Put on Credit Cards | WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans cut back on their credit card use in July for a second consecutive month, suggesting that many remain cautious in the face of high unemployment and slow growth. Total consumer borrowing dipped $3.3 billion in July from June, to a seasonally adjusted $2.705 trillion, the Federal Reserve reported Monday. The drop in credit card debt offset a small rise in a measure of auto and student loans . The Fed also said Americans had borrowed much more than previously estimated after it revised consumer borrowing data back to December 2010. June’s figure was increased to $2.708 trillion, or $130 billion more than initially thought. That is also well above prerecession levels. Consumer debt declined even though Americans increased their spending in July by the most in five months, according to government data released last week. Consumers have been using credit cards much less since the 2008 financial crisis. Four years ago, Americans had $1.03 trillion in credit card debt, a record high. In July, it was $850.7 billion, 17 percent lower. During that same time, student loan debt has increased sharply. The category that includes auto and student loans, along with other loans for items like boats, has jumped to $1.85 trillion from $1.56 trillion in July 2008. The weak job market is putting more pressure on the Federal Reserve to provide more help to the anemic economy. The Fed’s policy makers will meet Wednesday and Thursday to consider whether to take further action at this time. The economy is growing too slowly to bolster business and consumer confidence and spur sustained gains in spending and hiring. Overall economic growth slowed to an annual rate of just 1.7 percent in the April-June quarter and analysts do not expect much of a pickup for the rest of the year. Over all, Americans have been steadily paring debt since the financial crisis. Household debt, including mortgages and home equity lines of credit, has declined for 16 straight quarters to $12.9 trillion in March, according to a separate Fed survey on consumer finances. That is down from $13.8 trillion in March 2008. | Credit and Debt;Consumer Behavior;Credit Cards;Personal Finances;United States Economy |
ny0059077 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2014/08/29 | U.S. Identifies Citizens Joining Rebels in Syria, Including ISIS | WASHINGTON — American intelligence and law enforcement agencies have identified nearly a dozen Americans who have traveled to Syria to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the militant group that the Obama administration says poses the greatest threat to the United States since Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As ISIS has seized large expanses of territory in recent months, it has drawn more foreign men to Syria, requiring more American and European law enforcement resources in the attempt to stop the flow of fighters, senior American officials said. And as a result of the increasing numbers of men, ISIS is now recruiting foreign women as jihadist wives. ISIS has become more attractive to would-be militants because, unlike Al Qaeda, it has seized territory that it rules by strict Islamic law. “ISIS is able to hold itself up as the true jihad,” said a senior American official. “They’re saying: ‘Look at what we are doing, what we’re accomplishing. We’re the new face. We’re not just talking about it. We’re doing it.’ ” ISIS’ attraction to some is based on its reputation for brutality. On Thursday, that reputation grew worse when it was revealed that it had waterboarded four hostages early in their captivity — including the American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded this month. Over all, American intelligence officials said the number of Americans who have joined rebel groups in Syria — not just ISIS — had nearly doubled since January. The officials now believe that more than 100 Americans have fought alongside groups there since the civil war began three years ago. The agencies have been able to specifically identify Americans fighting for ISIS based on intelligence gathered from travel records, family members, intercepted electronic communications, social media postings and surveillance of Americans overseas who had expressed interest in going to Syria, the officials said. A Rogue State Along Two Rivers The victories gained by the militant group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Many more Europeans have joined the fight against President Bashar al-Assad — more than 1,000, according to many estimates. The British government has identified about 500 of its citizens who have gone to Syria, according to a senior British official. About half have returned to Britain, and a small number have died on the battlefield, the official said. Senior American officials acknowledge that as the conflict in Syria and Iraq drags on, it is becoming harder to track Americans who have traveled there. In many instances, the American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are learning that Americans are there only long after they have arrived. In the latest example of how difficult it is for the United States to track its citizens, the F.B.I. on Thursday was trying to verify reports that two more Americans had been killed fighting for ISIS in Syria. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, at least four Americans have died fighting for rebel groups, including Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, a Minnesota man who was fighting for ISIS when he was killed last weekend by a rival group backed by the United States. Another challenge that the intelligence and law enforcement authorities say they face is a difference from previous conflicts: The Americans who have traveled to Syria to fight have little in common. The conflict has attracted both men and women, including some who were raised as Muslims and others who converted from Christianity, and they have come from different parts of the United States. One trend the authorities have detected in recent months is that the American recruits are younger. They are now mostly in their late teens or early 20s, the officials said. The territorial gains by ISIS, and its attempt to govern towns and cities in eastern Syria and western Iraq, have forced it to recruit foreigners not just for the battlefield. The group has tried to lure doctors, oil field workers and engineers to live in, and help run, the caliphate it claims to have established, according to the officials. Video Background on ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Credit Credit Reuters The F.B.I.’s psychological analysts at Quantico, Va., armed with court-approved powers, are increasingly monitoring the activities of Americans who have expressed extremist views in jihadist chat rooms and on websites. It is an effort to chart their radicalization, law enforcement officials said. But ISIS and other violent Islamist groups operating in Syria have not been deterred by the American efforts. In Minneapolis, for example, Abdirizak Bihi, director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center, said that young Somali women were being recruited by violent Islamist groups to support Syrian militants. Mr. Bihi said that despite efforts to combat the recruiting, multiple Somali families in the city had “lost their girls to Syria.” “We are frustrated because nobody’s helping us,” he said. “We’re losing everything we have.” In Europe, where larger numbers are leaving for Syria, officials share the same concern and are working closely with the American authorities to coordinate measures to stem the flow and track those who return. But the ISIS-led fighters who swept into Mosul, Iraq, in June and advanced south to within 60 miles of Baghdad, the capital, have built considerable momentum in recruitment. “There’s certainly been a P.R. boon for them,” said Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. New attention was focused on ISIS on Thursday when The Washington Post reported that the group had waterboarded at least four of its Western hostages. The hostages were tortured in other ways as well, American officials said, but the waterboarding disclosure was considered significant because the practice was used during the George W. Bush administration on detainees held in the fight against terrorism. Some senior American officials warned that Americans might face the same treatment if they were captured abroad. | ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Government Surveillance;Terrorism;Syria;Iraq;FBI;Douglas McAuthur McCain;Islam |
ny0284521 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2016/09/05 | PGA Tour Rookie Smylie Kaufman Strives to Aid Louisiana Flood Victims | NORTON, Mass. — The elite of the PGA Tour, the 30 fortunate players who qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship, will have a week of rest to prepare for the Sept. 22-25 tournament. Smylie Kaufman may well be one of those fellows. But he will not spend the third weekend of September with his feet on the couch watching his alma mater, Louisiana State, play Mississippi State in football. He is planning on being in the Baton Rouge area, though not for a game. Rather, he will be raising money for flood victims as well as heightening awareness of their plight. Three other PGA Tour players who also went to L.S.U. will join Kaufman. They will try to help the many children who have been displaced because their schools were flooded. The governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, said recently that the state had sustained more than $8.7 billion in damage from floods last month. “A lot of schools down there got extremely flooded,” Kaufman said. “Kids are exchanging schools. It’s unusual. We’re going to try and help out at the high schools, middle schools, elementary schools. Whatever it is they need us to do to help the kids get back on their feet.” He added: “We can’t help everybody. But we’re going to try to do the best with the time we have.” The gesture is all the more meaningful given that Kaufman and everyone else in the Deutsche Bank Championship field will be teeing off in threesomes early Monday to try to get the final round completed before the remnants of Hurricane Hermine arrive at T.P.C. Boston. Kaufman is in contention for his second tour win, part of a three-way tie for third at 11 under par, four strokes behind the leader, Paul Casey. Brian Harman is at 12 under. Casey shot his third straight 66 during Sunday’s third round, capped by an eagle on No. 18 after his 232-yard approach shot landed two and a half feet from the hole. Casey has won only once on the PGA Tour, in April 2009 in a playoff at the Shell Houston Open. He was 59th in the FedEx Cup standings heading into the tournament. “To be sitting here with a 66, obviously, I’m over the moon,” Casey said. A leaderboard lacking in marquee names got one major boost on what the pros call moving day. Rory McIlroy nearly had a two on No. 18 and finished with a five-under 66 to get to nine under for the tournament. Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champion who is looking for his first win on American soil, also made a big move, shooting a seven-under 64 to wind up at nine under. They were joined by Justin Rose, the Olympic gold medalist, and Tony Finau. The P.G.A. Championship winner Jimmy Walker is tied with Kaufman at 11 under, but Walker’s fellow Ryder Cup team members Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth stumbled to over-par rounds. Ryan Moore is at 10 under. When most people last saw Kaufman, a PGA Tour rookie, he was in the final group of the Masters on the last day with Spieth. While Spieth’s meltdown on No. 12 at Augusta very likely cost him the tournament, Kaufman played like a rookie, finishing with an 81. In his next 11 tournaments, he missed the cut eight times. His best finish was a tie for 10th in the Quicken Loans National in June. But he said he had made one discovery as a rookie: He does not need to be perfect to win. He realized that in his victory at the Shriners Hospital for Children Open in Las Vegas last October. “I barely made the cut,” he said, neglecting to mention that he shot a 61 on the final day for a one-shot victory. He continued, “That was a big wake-up call for me, realizing I could win on the PGA Tour without my A game.” He also referenced the experience of playing in the final group on the final day of the Masters, again neglecting to mention his final score. A strong finish on Monday would move Kaufman into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings; he was 34th heading into the Deutsche Bank. He missed the cut last weekend at the Barclays. But while he did not play particularly well at Bethpage Black, he did leave a mark in the form of a golf bag. His plan was to get his fellow pros to sign the bag and then auction it off, with the proceeds going to flood victims in Louisiana. Then his grandfather, a former golf coach at Alabama-Birmingham, received a phone call from a friend who wanted to make a $50,000 donation to Kaufman’s flood-relief efforts. “I was like, ‘Do you want the golf bag in return and just kind of skip the whole eBay process?’” Kaufman said. That man got the golf bag. | Golf;Smylie Kaufman;Louisiana;Flood;PGA Championship;Philanthropy |
ny0185620 | [
"science"
] | 2009/03/31 | Single Gene Shapes Behavior of Ant Castes | Researchers studying the social behavior of ants have found that a single gene underlies both the aggressive behavior of the ant colony’s soldiers and the food gathering behavior of its foraging caste. The gene is active in soldier ants, particularly in five neurons in the front of their brain, where it generates large amounts of its product, a protein known as PKG. The exact amount of the protein in the ants’ brains is critical to their behavior. Low levels of PKG predispose both castes of ant to foraging; high levels make the soldiers fight and the foraging caste less interested in food gathering, Christophe Lucas and Marla B. Sokolowski report in the current issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The soldier and foraging castes in the species of ant under study, known as Pheidole pallidula, have their career choices settled in infancy when they start to be fed different diets. The soldiers develop large heads and jaws, and go on to guard the colony and kill invaders. The foragers, who remain small, specialize in looking for food and bringing back prey to the nest. These specialties are quite flexible, however, because the foragers can recruit the soldiers to food gathering duties when they need extra help. When presented with a live meal worm, within a few minutes the foraging ants can induce the soldiers to help them cut the worm up and take it home. On measuring the levels of the PKG protein in the brains of the soldiers that had helped with food gathering, the researchers found it was much lower than when the soldiers were on guard duty. And the PKG levels shot up in both castes when they were confronted with alien ants from a different colony. Are the different levels of PKG a cause or effect of the ants’ changed behavior? They seem to be a cause. It so happens there is a drug that raises PKG levels. When given a dose of the drug, both castes of ant became less interested in foraging, as tested in the meal worm experiment, and the soldiers became more aggressive in response to intruders. The classical approach to studying how the brain works is to stick electrodes into individual neurons and record their signaling behavior. The analysis of genes and genetic networks seems to be developing as an alternative approach. The PKG gene is of particular interest because it is found throughout the animal kingdom, in fruit flies, worms, ants and people. More than a decade ago, Dr. Sokolowski found that fruit flies have two versions of the PKG gene that endow their larvae with different food gathering behavior. Those with one version rove about in search of new sources of food. Those with the other version are less adventurous. The new study is important because it shows how ants have developed a new use for the PKG gene, that of shaping the characteristic behavior of their different castes, said Gene Robinson, an expert on insect behavior at the University of Illinois. In fruit flies, a DNA difference in the gene changes behavior, but in ants it is a difference in the gene’s activity that makes the soldier caste fight and the foraging caste forage. Dr. Sokolowski said she was studying the PKG gene in people who have seasonal affective disorder , a condition in which they put on too much weight in the winter and take it off in the summer, with swings of up to 50 pounds. The disorder seems to be correlated with genetic variations in the PKG gene. Could the drugs used to manipulate PKG levels in ants prove useful in controlling obesity in people? Dr. Sokolowski said that might be possible if the drugs could be delivered just to the brain. PKG plays important roles elsewhere in the body, including the heart, so the drugs would be perilous in the general circulation. Dr. Robinson said the PKG gene appeared to be one of great versatility, relied on by evolution for tasks relating to feeding behavior in many species. In this respect it seems similar to the FOXP2 gene, which has turned up in communication behaviors from bats to people, or to the PAX6 gene, which has been involved in all of evolution’s many approaches to vision. | Ants;Genetics and Heredity;DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid);Science and Technology |
ny0052427 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2014/10/22 | A Retreat From Weather Disasters | After Hurricane Sandy roared across the Northeastern United States, many homeowners on Long Island — even those who escaped the most damage — often lost their property insurance . The same thing happened in coastal Virginia after Hurricane Katrina , which hit hundreds of miles away along the Gulf Coast. Today, from Florida to Delaware , property insurance near the water is becoming harder and harder to find. “I’m worried because insurers only stay in markets until they deem them not profitable,” said Mike Kreidler, the Washington State insurance commissioner. “We want these insurers to stay fully in the market.” This is not exclusively an American phenomenon. As the damages wrought by increasingly disruptive weather patterns have climbed around the world, the insurance industry seems to have quietly engaged in what looks a lot like a retreat. A report to be released Wednesday by Ceres , the sustainability advocacy group, makes the point forcefully. “Over the past 30 years annual losses from natural catastrophes have continued to increase while the insured portion has declined,” it concluded. Last year, less than a third of the $116 billion in worldwide losses from weather-related disasters were covered by insurance, according to data from the reinsurer Swiss Re. In 2005, the year Katrina struck, insurance picked up 45 percent of the bill. This gradual, low-key withdrawal reveals an alarming weakness. Even as the risks of climactic upheaval increase with a warming atmosphere, the industry created to provide for civilization’s first line of defense against disasters is turning tail. “In the long run,” the Ceres report added, “these coverage retreats transfer growing risks to public institutions and local populations, and reduce the resiliency of communities, which are less able to finance postdisaster recoveries.” In the first report of this kind, Ceres ranked the preparedness for climate change of the 330 largest insurance firms doing business in the United States, representing about 87 percent of the property and casualty, health and life insurance market. Using insurers’ responses last year to a climate risk survey developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Ceres ranked their performance on half a dozen indicators, from how climate change figured in risk-management systems and governance to whether they took into account climate-related risks to their investment portfolios. The good news is that a few big firms are truly paying attention. The bad news is that there are only nine — including just two American companies, Prudential and the Hartford, and several big reinsurers like Swiss Re and Munich Re. By contrast, 276 insurers earned “beginning” or “minimal” ratings. “Eighty-five percent of the industry is just starting to develop a plan or really not doing much at all,” said Cynthia McHale, director of the Ceres insurance program, who led the research effort. For some insurers, apparently, the risks of climate change still seem too distant and abstract. Life insurers must hold very long-term investments in assets like real estate that could lose value sharply because of climate change. Still, Ceres noted, most of them “do not believe they face significant risks.” Similarly, with the exception of Kaiser Permanente, health insurers are ignoring the impact that climate change could have on disease patterns and human health. Property and casualty insurers have a clearer picture of the huge potential costs they face. CoreLogic, which provides analysis on the property market, calculates that more than 6.5 million homes in the United States are at risk of storm surge damage . Their reconstruction value is $1.5 trillion, or about one-tenth of the annual output of the entire American economy. What is holding back the insurers on the front line of climate change, it seems, is an entirely different reason: the threat of legal liability. Lawsuits over climate are popping up. In 2011, the power company AES tried to draw on its contracts with Steadfast Insurance when an Inupiat Eskimo village in Alaska sued it, along with a bunch of coal-burning utilities, a coal producer and some energy companies, because sea ice that formerly protected the village from winter storms was melting. The state Supreme Court of Virginia ultimately agreed that Steadfast could deny coverage . Other suits for damages have also failed. But that won’t hold liability at bay forever. Munich Re, for instance, says it believes policies covering corporate officers and directors may have to pay for damages stemming from their failure to consider the consequences of climate change in their professional activities. “Lawsuits are an inevitable part of the American system for determining whether and how to compensate for damages,” the Ceres report noted. “The larger the alleged injuries from climate change, the greater the recovery efforts will be.” They could quickly add up. In a 2011 report, the United Nations Environmental Program’s Finance Initiative concluded that the world’s 3,000 top public companies were causing about $1.5 trillion a year of environmental damage because of greenhouse gas emissions. Fears of liability risks seem to be freezing insurers like deer in the headlights. Insurance companies that were already wary of the political risk of wading into the climate change debate have been further chilled by the potential legal liability. If they start writing policies specifically excluding liabilities related to climate change, could that be interpreted as saying that previous policies did cover them? What if they don’t mention it at all? “Discussions of liability disclosure occur more openly outside of the U.S.,” said Lindene E. Patton, the former chief climate product officer at Zurich Re, who was a co-author of the American Bar Association’s “Climate Change and Insurance” report two years ago. “In the U. S. anything you say can be interpreted in future litigation.” Indeed, “there’s a huge reluctance to even use the word climate change,” Ms. McHale, the Ceres expert, said. “Insurance companies did not underwrite or price for climate liability. So their lawyers advise them not to talk about it and not to use the word.” The quandary for insurance companies, of course, is that they can’t give up writing insurance policies without eventually putting themselves out of business. And walking away from markets as they become too risky to insure is not sustainable. For one thing, as insurers on Long Island discovered after Hurricane Sandy, politicians will try to stop them. Insurers won’t be able to stay in markets where they can’t align premiums with rising risk. Government regulators must acknowledge this fact. Policy makers must also realize that the enormous subsidies for Americans to build in harm’s way are ultimately counterproductive. Insurers could play a constructive role in preparing the world for climate change, prodding governments and consumers to take account of rising climate risks. “If we have the ability to affect the rebuild after a catastrophe we can have an impact,” said Tony Kuczinski, chief executive of Munich Re America. But rather than promoting a better understanding of risk, Ms. McHale notes, American insurers flooded with foreign cash are in a race to take market share from one another . The biggest risk of all is that the insurance industry fails when it is most needed. “At some point, sooner or later, there will be a situation where there are much higher liabilities than anybody anticipated,” Ms. McHale warned. “Some companies will have problems.” So will the rest of us. | Personal finance;Weather;Swiss Reinsurance;Climate Change;Global Warming;Emergency Response and Preparedness;Lawsuits;Hurricane Sandy;US Economy |
ny0149475 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2008/09/07 | Science Answers Why Frozen Ropes Freeze Outfielders | Almost all outfielders have had fleeting moments of panic when balls are hit straight at them. How far away is the ball? How fast is it going? When will it get here? And most important, where should my glove be when it arrives? Why do line drives hit straight at outfielders give them so much trouble? A new study by British psychologists may help explain the problem — although knowing the scientific facts may prove cold comfort to fielders who have watched liners zip three feet past their ear or bounce off the tops of their shoes. These scientists did not have baseball players in mind, or even cricket players, for that matter. They say their findings, published in August in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may prove useful in designing artificial visual systems for robots to help the blind and for use in industrial applications. But their work applies as much to center fielders as it does to computer engineers. The Yankees’ Johnny Damon said that trying to decide where a liner was going could make an outfielder numb, at least for a second or two. “The other day in Minnesota, I had to freeze with a ball hit right at me,” he said. “I didn’t know where it was going. It’s always a tough play for an outfielder, not just a center fielder, but a left fielder, a right fielder.” The researchers used a computer screen to turn their subjects into virtual outfielders. They showed them the sequential movements of a small target, going either side to side or straight at them, and asked them to decide which moved farther. The observers were one and a half to three times better at guessing the correct answer when the objects were moving laterally. Then they presented their subjects with two targets moving at the same speed — one laterally and one in depth — and asked them to decide which was faster. On average, they said the lateral motion was 1.3 to 2.7 times faster than an object at the identical speed but moving straight at them. Finally, they asked their subjects to estimate the angle at which an object was approaching them. The trajectory of an object moving close to the midline of vision was consistently harder to predict than objects moving at greater angles to the observer. In other words, when the object was moving directly toward them, people were terrible at estimating distance, bad at guessing speed and highly inaccurate at predicting trajectory — a combination all but guaranteed to increase the opposition’s batting average. “Binocular vision is quite good for working out where objects are in space,” said Andrew E. Welchman, the lead author of the study and a lecturer at the University of Birmingham in England. “Because you have two eyes, the brain can take signals from each and compare them over time, averaging them. But when you have an object coming toward you, the differences in the information you get from the left and right side are more subtle,” and this makes the decision on location and speed more difficult. There are techniques outfielders can use, but they are not always able to apply them. “A line drive — sometimes they go down, sometimes they go up,” the Yankees’ Bobby Abreu said. “If you can see the rotation, you can judge it.” And if you cannot see the rotation? Abreu laughed and shook his head. “They’re going to boo you,” he said. He rocked in the chair in front of his locker, then repeated, “They’re going to boo you.” The problem Damon and Abreu face, the scientists say, is a product not only of human biology and the laws of physics, but also of our environment. We live, generally speaking, in a world of slowly moving objects, and things that move fast are, under normal circumstances, rarely moving at us. Our motor responses to moving objects have evolved to deal with this ordinary world, not the world of fast-flying baseballs. Damon said he could go back to the video after a game to slow things down and see what happened to the ball — whether it moved up or down, or sliced away. But by then, it is too late. “Sometimes, you’re watching, watching,” Damon said. “And then — whoops! And that’s the worst feeling in the world.” | Baseball;Science and Technology |
ny0149332 | [
"nyregion",
"westchester"
] | 2008/09/21 | Purchase Performing Center Chief Hopes to Give the People What They Want | YOU can learn a lot from watching an audience, said Wiley Hausam, the new executive director of the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, in Purchase. Mr. Hausam has done lots of watching and listening since assuming his post in July. And what he has learned, he said, is that the center is “a little behind the times.” “In the old days, someone said, ‘This is what you’ll see,’ ” he explained. “The people accepted that, and came and sat quietly. The world is different now, it’s interactive.” So he is reaching out to the center’s main constituencies — the residents of Westchester, and of Fairfield County in Connecticut — to find out what kind of entertainment people want at the theater complex. which is among the area’s largest. He has even gone so far as to make his e-mail address — [email protected] — public. “I’d love a flood of e-mails,” he said. Mr. Hausam, a native of Missouri, has had ample opportunity to observe audiences over the last 30 years. In his previous capacity as the founding executive director of the Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University, he oversaw the construction of a new 850-seat theater and shaped its philosophy. He was the artistic director of the Songbook Series at Joe’s Pub, part of the Public Theater in Manhattan, and, earlier, served as an associate producer at the theater and its New York Shakespeare Festival. He has worked at the Houston Grand Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, as well as with the director and producer Harold Prince at the New Lyric Festival in Northampton, Mass., a summer festival Mr. Hausam founded that was devoted to the development of American musical theater. He has also worked as a theater, music, television, film and literary agent. What audiences need more than anything today, he said, is a feeling of connection. “I really believe that the live performance experience in the way we live now is a social glue that’s much more important than an evening’s entertainment,” Mr. Hausam said. “People are in cars alone, or on their computers or cellphones. The time you spend with people in a room is important now.” He said he learned along the way that “if you don’t have three shows going on at once” in a space like the Purchase center, with its four theaters, then “you don’t have enough energy to keep it alive.” At Purchase, he said, he envisions simultaneous events like traditional classical music, indie rock and either experimental theater or contemporary dance. When the three audiences mingle in the lobby at intermission, he said, “it will be like the town center.” The catch is the money needed to sustain such a creative maelstrom, he said, estimating that the center would have to raise $1 million of its $3 million presentation budget each year. The other $2 million would come from box office income, other earned income and state and college support, he said. (The center’s total budget is $5.8 million.) Mr. Hausam’s goal is to broaden the center’s offerings and possibly add a pop star to the lineup. “We need to engage the community,” he said. He is sure to be present on Saturday, when the mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves opens the center’s 31st season. Mr. Hausam, who once aspired to being an opera singer, may even stand on one of the grand stairways flanking the main lobby, much as he did at the Skirball Center, with its “great curving steps.” In that, he would be like his predecessor, Christopher Beach, who ran the Purchase center from 1989 to 2005 and made a point of his visibility. But don’t be surprised, Mr. Hausam said, if he doesn’t have “a big theatrical personality.” “I’m not like that,” he said. “I’m passionate, and a bit quirky.” | Hausam Wiley;Theater;Performing Arts Center at Purchase College;Westchester County (NY);State University of New York at Purchase |
ny0151531 | [
"sports",
"olympics"
] | 2008/08/10 | First U.S. Gold of ’08 Games Comes in Fencing | BEIJING— Three American fencers swept the women's sabre finals on Saturday, winning the first three medals of the Olympics for the United States and at least temporarily investing this little-known sport, introduced to the Olympics in 2004, with some Errol Flynn-like glamour. Mariel Zagunis, of Beaverton, Ore., defeated her teammate Sada Jacobson, of Dunwoody, Ga., to win the gold. And in the most thrilling bout of the evening, Becca Ward, from Portland, Ore., rallied to edge Russia's Sofia Velikaya for the bronze. Zagunis, the daughter of two Olympic rowers, also won the sabre event in Athens in 2004. This time, she beat Ward, 15-11, in an emotional semifinal match that had each fencer yelling and punching the air after winning a point. Then, her momentum building, she was unstoppable in the final. Lunging and slashing, Zagunis never gave Jacobson a chance and defeated her, 15-8. Ward, 18, the youngest of the three fencers, left the hall in tears after her loss to Zagunis. Against Velikaye in the bronze medal bout, she still looked crestfallen and fell behind by 6-1, parrying and backing up, before starting to attack. After scoring 4 quick points in a row, she began to draw even, and near the end of the bout, she led, 14-13, before getting caught on a quick lunge by Velikaye. On the final, tie-breaking point, she said she was so nervous that she made up her mind to attack. Velikaye attacked, too, and their sabres flashed so quickly that before awarding the winning point to Ward, the referee had to consult a video monitor. Fencing is a small world. Zagunis and Ward belong to the same fencing club in Oregon. Jacobson took up the sport following the example of her father, who was a member of the 1974 United States national fencing team. That the women's sabre event was so new was an advantage, Zagunis said, because it meant that the team was able to get international experience right away. The team has been together long enough that the three women have not only become very good friends but have fenced together countless times and know one another's moves. "When we're on the strip, it's all business," Jacobson said, referring to the competition area. "When we're off the strip, we're friends again." Talking about how it felt to compete against her teammates, Jacobson said: "They know you, and you know them, so there's no real advantage there. It's more an emotional thing." When you fence against someone you don't know, she added, "it's a lot easier to want to — well, not destroy that person, but to want the victory a lot. But you're more aware when you're fencing against you're friend — you know how devastating it is to lose. It doesn't make the fencing more complicated, but it makes the emotional aspect more difficult." | Fencing (Sport);Olympic Games (2008) |
ny0207726 | [
"us"
] | 2009/06/30 | Richard Byrd, 86, Virginia Orchardist, Dies | BERRYVILLE, Va. (AP) — Richard E. Byrd, a prominent orchardist and a son of Harry F. Byrd Sr., a former governor and senator, died Sunday at his home here. He was 86. His death came after months of failing health, said his son Richard E. Byrd Jr. Mr. Byrd spent part of his childhood in the Virginia governor’s mansion, but unlike his father or his older brother, former Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr., he did not go into politics. He ran the canning division of the family’s apple business, H. F. Byrd Inc., after returning from World War II, during which he had been injured while serving in the 10th Armored Division under Gen. George S. Patton. He was company president from 1966 to 1980, when it ceased operations. Mr. Byrd’s wife, Helen Bradshaw Byrd, died in 2005. In addition to his son Richard Jr. and his brother, he is survived by another son, William Benton Byrd; his daughter, Lucy Bradshaw Byrd; and four grandchildren. | Byrd Richard E;Virginia;Deaths (Obituaries) |
ny0146087 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/07/02 | 2 Are Charged With Giving Trainees Fake U.S. Badges | The badges issued by U.S. Recovery Bureau at its bounty-hunting classes in New York and New Jersey were often made to look like gold detective shields and were encased in leather wallets with serial numbers and a title reading “Agent,” prosecutors said. For $860, a student could get one after a three-day course of study that included “baton takedown and control” classes, “speed cuffing” lessons and the proper use of pepper spray. Unfortunately for the men who ran the school, which was not affiliated with the government, they also showed the great seal of the United States, complete with a bald eagle clutching an olive branch and a bundled bunch of arrows. This, as it happens, is against the law, and the two men, Robert Neves and Ralph Rios, were arrested Tuesday morning and charged with a federal crime. The crime in question was a violation of Title 18, Section 713, of the United States Code: a conspiracy, court papers said, to “display a printed and other likeness of the great seal of the United States” for “the purpose of conveying, and in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the government.” The eagle on the badge had a banner in its mouth, reading “E Pluribus Unum.” The government said the two defendants put holographic decals on the badges to make them look “more legit.” Mr. Neves, 49, a Staten Island resident and a former city detective, appeared on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and was released on $55,000 bail. The police said he was fired from the Police Department in 1995 for improperly obtaining computer records. His lawyer, Steven Witzel, declined to comment on the case. Mr. Rios, 49, was arrested on Tuesday in Miami and appeared in Federal District Court there, prosecutors said. The case is being prosecuted in New York, and Mr. Rios will be brought to Manhattan to face the charges, officials said. According to a federal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, Mr. Neves took a course at the Passaic, N.J., branch of Recovery Bureau in 2004 after which Mr. Rios asked him to become an instructor and to open up a second school in Brooklyn. Of the thousands of students who passed through locations in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Washington Heights, 78 who received credentials were convicted felons, prosecutors said. In fact, court papers said, some of the students used their phony badges to avoid parking tickets and avoid other “law enforcement actions” while others used them to improperly gain access to secure government buildings. In at least one case, the papers said, a student used a badge to pose as an officer while committing a robbery. “The industry has been tightening up over the years, but unfortunately there are a lot of mavericks out there impersonating law enforcement officers,” said Bill Kreins, a spokesman for the Professional Bail Agents of the United States, an industry trade group. “It should be dealt with accordingly.” Mr. Kreins said there were 14,000 licensed bail agents in the country who are legally bound to identify themselves clearly as “bail enforcement people” on their badges and their clothing. While chasing fugitives, a bail agent will sometimes transfer powers of arrest to actual bounty hunters; Mr. Kreins said there “are probably not more than 150 or 200 properly licensed” bounty hunters nationwide. Recovery Bureau’s badges were obtained, the government said, from Smith & Warren, which has manufactured badges and other public safety insignia in White Plains since 1925. A spokeswoman for the company said on Tuesday that she had never heard of Recovery Bureau and had no comment on the case. | Badges;Federal District Courts;Decisions and Verdicts;New York State |
ny0225569 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2010/10/16 | Cable Dispute Could Leave Millions of Fans in the Dark | The much-anticipated matchup between the Phillies’ Roy Halladay and the Giants’ Tim Lincecum in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series Saturday at 7:57 p.m. Eastern may not be seen by Cablevision’s 3 million customers in the New York metropolitan area. The signal for WNYW Channel 5 could go dark in Cablevision homes at midnight Friday if the cable operator and News Corporation, which owns Fox Broadcasting, cannot resolve a financial dispute over the cost of carrying Fox stations like Channel 5 and WWOR Channel 9. The talks also include the Fox Business Network, Fox Deportes and Nat Geo Wild, all owned by News Corp. If the impasse continues beyond Saturday, the Giants’ game against the Detroit Lions Sunday at 1 p.m. and Game 2 of the N.L.C.S. at 8:19 p.m. will not be see in Cablevision’s territories (Long Island and parts of Connecticut, the Bronx, Brooklyn, New Jersey and Westchester, Rockland and Dutchess Counties.). The two sides were negotiating as of late Friday afternoon. “It is outrageous and wrong for Fox to use baseball and football games to hold viewers hostage and extract tens of millions of dollars from Cablevision customers,” the Cablevision spokesman Charles Schueler said in a statement. “Cablevision has agreed to binding arbitration and Fox should do the same.” Talks in such squabbles usually go to the deadline or are extended as stations seek to increase their fees from cable operators for programming that they believe is critical. Major sports and entertainment events often become the focus of what might be lost if the stations cannot be seen. “It’s unfortunate that a sports fan might have to miss a single pitch or snap,” Lou D’Ermilio, a spokesman for Fox Sports, said in a statement, “but our position in these negotiations is entirely reasonable — we are simply asking for fair compensation for the value that Fox5 and My9 programming offers and the same negotiated rate that other cable operators have agreed to already.” | Cable Television;News Corporation;Cablevision Systems Corp;Baseball |
ny0207478 | [
"business",
"economy"
] | 2009/06/26 | Unemployment Claims Rose Last Week | WASHINGTON (AP) — The Labor Department said on Thursday that new jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week. And the number of people continuing to receive unemployment was higher than expected. The figures indicate that jobs remain scarce even as the economy shows some signs of recovering from the longest recession since World War II. A revised reading on gross domestic product , the broadest measure of the nation’s output, said the economy posted a 5.5 percent annualized decline from January through March. That was slightly better than the 5.7 percent estimate made a month ago. Economists generally think the economy is shrinking at a slower rate, about 2 percent, in the current quarter. During the quarter, businesses held larger stockpiles of goods than in previous quarters, and imports declined more sharply than previously estimated. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose last week by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 627,000. Economists had expected a drop to 600,000. Several states reported more claims than expected from teachers, cafeteria workers and other school employees, a Labor Department analyst said. The number of people who are continuing to receive unemployment insurance rose by 29,000, to 6.74 million, slightly above analysts’ estimates of 6.7 million. The four-week average of claims, which smoothes out fluctuations, was largely unchanged, at 616,750. Most economists still expect the number of initial unemployment insurance claims, which reflects the level of layoffs, to decline slowly in coming months as the recession bottoms out. “We still firmly believe that the underlying trends in claims is downwards, but it is slow and uneven,” Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist for High Frequency Economics, wrote in a client note. The number of people continuing to receive unemployment aid remains below the peak of 6.8 million reached on May 30. That means job losses are most likely slowing, economists said. Meanwhile, the rebound in consumer spending in the first quarter was slightly less vigorous than previously reported. Consumers increased their spending at a 1.4 percent rate, down from a 1.5 percent growth rate estimated last month. Still, that was the strongest showing in nearly two years and a huge improvement from the fourth quarter, when skittish consumers cut spending by the most in nearly three decades. | Unemployment;Unemployment Insurance;Gross National Product (GNP) |
ny0123760 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2012/09/15 | Winds as High as 60 M.P.H. Halt Play at Women’s British Open | HOYLAKE, England — On the 10th tee, her first hole of the day, Cristie Kerr stuck her teed ball in the ground. Never mind the ball staying put; Kerr said she was nearly swept off her feet by the strong winds that whipped through Royal Liverpool Golf Club on Friday, turning the second round of the year’s final major into the Women’s Brutish Open. Six groups were sent off the 1st and 10th tees in weather conditions that were bad even by British Open standards. Some players said the conditions were the worst they had ever seen on a course. Nobody finished, and there was heated debate about whether any golfer should have started. “I thought it was iffy when I went out,” said Michelle Wie , who was playing in the group behind Kerr’s. “I put a couple balls on the practice green right before I went out, and the balls were not stopping, and mind you, that’s a flat surface.” She added: “I would say windy conditions would be 15 miles an hour; 20 is really bad. The gusts were going up to 35 this morning. That’s really, really, really, really windy.” When the winds reached 60 miles per hour, with the first players through four holes, play was suspended. It was called for the day in the early afternoon. The players who began their second round in the gale will resume play early Saturday morning with a fresh start after all of Friday’s scores were voided. That news was perhaps most welcome to the English player Felicity Johnson, who posted a nine on the par-4 opening hole. Haeji Kang and So Yeon Ryu were the first-round leaders, at two-under-par 70. Susan Simpson, the Ladies Golf Union tournament director, said, “The competitors began their round in extremely adverse weather conditions, and conditions subsequently worsened despite our belief that they would remain stable.” After reviewing its options, the Championship Committee decided the second round would be completed Saturday, with the cut reduced from 65 players to the top 50 players and ties. The third and fourth rounds will be played Sunday, with a two-tee start and no redraw after the third round. The decision to try for an on-time finish was motivated by the forecast for Monday, which calls for conditions similar to Friday’s. “You can’t play under unplayable conditions, and that’s what we did for three holes,” said Kerr, who was in the first group off the 10th tee with Suzann Pettersen and Erina Hara. Kerr said on the 12th hole, which is exposed to the Dee Estuary, “My ball almost didn’t stay on the tee, and I got knocked over hitting my tee shot.” Kerr said Pettersen had a 1-foot putt that turned into an 8-footer because the ball moved as soon as she placed it in front of her marker. Wie said that by the time she and her playing partners, Carly Booth and Beatriz Recari, got to the 12th fairway, “we were waiting for quite a while because none of the balls on the greens were stopping once they were marking it.” She continued, “I think the rules official was called over about four or five times, and finally the sixth time Beatriz decided to go up to the green to really make our point that really it’s unplayable right now.” Tournament officials said no records were kept on scores being voided, but it is known to have happened at least three times: in the third round of the 1988 British Open at nearby Royal Lytham & St. Annes, won by Seve Ballesteros in a Monday finish, and in two events on the L.P.G.A. Tour. Local officials recalled a men’s event at Royal Liverpool being suspended because of high winds in the 1980s. That competition was also held in September, when daylight decreases and the winds typically pick up. This year’s Women’s British Open was pushed back from its usual July date so it would not coincide with the London Olympics. The players waited out the suspension in the players’ lounge, a tented area that grew more crowded and noisy as the day progressed. “We were just telling stories back and forth about how ridiculous the conditions were,” Wie said, adding, “I was thinking today, under these conditions, breaking 90 would be a good thing.” Karen Stupples, the 2004 Women’s British Open champion from England, was in the first group off No. 1 and started double bogey, birdie, double bogey, par before play was suspended. She said she was reduced to hitting putts while the ball was oscillating on the green, an experience she had never encountered in all of her years playing links golf. “It was an ongoing battle against the golf ball and the wind,” Stupples, 39, said, “and I’m afraid when the wind is like this, it just won.” | Women's British Open (Golf);Golf;Kerr Cristie;Wie Michelle;Wind;Weather |
ny0065410 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2014/06/26 | A Breakdown of the Raspberry Pi Computer | Raspberry Pi, a tiny computer the size of a credit card, has captured the imaginations of students, educators and tinkerers around the world since it became available in 2012. Earlier this month, the organization behind the computer announced that it had sold its three millionth device. The computer was first developed by faculty members at the University of Cambridge in Britain who had noticed their incoming computer science students were ill-prepared for a high-tech education. They decided to build an inexpensive device that students could learn from. The result was an astonishingly simple product, delivered as a bare circuit board. Its innovation comes in its size, seizing upon a trend of fitting computing power on small hardware that has become a standard of smartphone development. While connecting Raspberry Pi to a keyboard and monitor recreates something like a conventional computer, its simplicity and adaptability has fostered far more creative applications, from miniature arcade games to a computerized balloon that has traveled to the brink of the Earth’s atmosphere. The Model B computer, the most popular version, is available for $35. | Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Cambridge University;Raspberry Pi Foundation |
ny0056829 | [
"sports"
] | 2014/09/19 | Against Blue Jays, Derek Jeter and Yankees Show Signs of Life | The flashbulbs portion of the season has finally arrived. That was one of the first surefire signs of Derek Jeter’s final regular-season homestand at Yankee Stadium: the winking lights from digital cameras greeting his every at-bat. There were many more signs, and more to come still. The farewell tour has turned its final corner. But with the Yankees still ostensibly in the hunt for the postseason — at least according to the standings — Jeter was hardly in a mood for remembrance. He jogged right past the No. 2 logo painted along each baseline, and remained in the dugout as fans cheered his name after a sixth-inning home run, forgoing a curtain call so that Brian McCann could focus on his at-bat. This is crunch time. And the Yankees gladly accepted a game-ending error by Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Adam Lind in the ninth inning, allowing pinch-runner Antoan Richardson to jog in from third base with the winning run in a 3-2 victory. It was not the prettiest of finishes, but it technically counted as Chase Headley’s third game-ending, run-scoring at-bat since he joined the Yankees in July. Richardson, who pinch-ran for Chris Young after Young led off the ninth with a single, stole second to get into scoring position and reached third on Brett Gardner’s sacrifice bunt. “Tonight obviously it was about the guys before me,” Headley said. “I put the ball in play and it worked out.” Three innings earlier, Jeter jolted the crowd by lashing a 3-1 fastball from the knuckleballer R. A. Dickey into the stands in left field, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead. It was Jeter’s first home run since Aug. 1, a drought of 158 at-bats. It was also his first home run at the Stadium this season. “Thank you,” he said playfully when informed of this after the game. “I’m happy we won the game. I can’t worry about what I’ve done up until this point. I’m just trying to have one last good homestand here and I’m going to try to play as hard as I can.” The Yankees are in desperation mode, five games behind the Athletics for the second wild-card spot. But Kansas City, which was off Thursday, has lost six of its last 10 games. Oakland, which is a half-game behind the Royals, has been even worse, losing eight of 11. Image Chase Headley scoring in the fifth inning. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times Other teams in the race, like Seattle and Cleveland, have not exactly come in hot pursuit. That at least provides the Yankees, after a 2-5 trip, some incentive to capitalize on the emotional lift of Jeter’s farewell. The game remained scoreless until the fifth. Dickey issued a two-out walk to Headley, and Stephen Drew jumped on the first pitch, sending it into the right-field corner to score Headley. Then came Jeter in the sixth. Dickey fell behind in the count, 3-0, and then left an 82-mile-per-hour fastball up and in. Jeter whipped it around into the left-field stands. “He has that ability,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “He’s a guy you want up with the game on the line in big situations.” It represented the game’s hardest hit until the Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista’s two-run homer in the eighth inning off reliever Shawn Kelley tied the score. Jeter is well aware that this is his last hurrah, at least in the regular season. When he showed up at his locker early Thursday afternoon, a crowd of reporters had already formed. “I just talked to you last night,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.” Jeter’s No. 2 painted along each baseline matched the logos all the Yankee players are wearing on their caps. Earlier in the day, Gatorade released a commercial celebrating Jeter’s final weeks in the Bronx, to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” “I’ve always liked the song,” Jeter said before the game. “I thought it fit for what I’m going through. I’m happy we used it.” Asked if he had had any chance to process this being the end of his 20-year career, Jeter said it was hard because “it’s all anyone’s been talking about.” “I want to just try to enjoy it,” he added. “I want to play games and I’m looking forward to going out and playing. INSIDE PITCH Masahiro Tanaka threw 32 pitches in a bullpen session Thursday afternoon and reported feeling fine. He is scheduled to make his first start Sunday since sustaining a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament July 8. ...Carlos Beltran returned to the team after Wednesday’s announcement that his wife, Jessica, had miscarried. Beltran did not start, but Joe Girardi said he was available to pinch-hit. | Baseball;Derek Jeter;Chris B Young;Chase Headley;Yankees;Blue Jays |
ny0130157 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2012/06/15 | Matt Cain’s Perfection Matched by His Dominance | There is no such thing as a typical no-hitter, but this year it seems pitchers are going to extreme lengths for individuality. Johan Santana broke the Mets’ 8,019-game streak of not having a no-hitter; six Seattle Mariners pitchers combined to throw one; and Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox tossed a perfect game just a few years removed from being considered a major league bust. Measured against that group, Jered Weaver’s no-hitter in May seems almost boring. But on Wednesday night, Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants trumped them all, throwing not just a perfect game but also perhaps the second-greatest perfect game in baseball history. Cain’s 10-0 masterpiece against the Houston Astros was the first perfect game and 14th no-hitter in the Giants’ 130-season history, which includes the efforts of the Hall of Fame pitchers Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell and Juan Marichal. Cain’s performance was nothing short of stunning. His 14 strikeouts tied the perfect-game record set by Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 9, 1965, and he allowed just seven balls out of the infield. Contrast Cain’s performance to that of Humber, who threw his perfect game on April 21 against the Seattle Mariners. Humber struck out nine and had 13 flyouts. It is splitting hairs, but Cain’s combination of 20 outs through strikeouts or ground balls was superior in the sense that he controlled more of the game’s outcome. The statistics guru Bill James developed a statistic called game score to evaluate pitching performances. It awards points for outs, innings and strikeouts and takes points away for hits, walks, runs and earned runs. By that measure, Cain’s performance tied Koufax for the most dominant of the 20 modern-era perfect games with a score of 101. Making game score controversial in the evaluation of no-hitters and perfect games is that it is a measure of dominance, not perfection. For instance, Nolan Ryan also scored 101 in one of the no-hitters he pitched, but he also allowed two walks, balanced out by his 16 strikeouts. The highest game score came in a game that was neither a no-hitter nor a perfect game. Cain, Koufax and Ryan all trail Kerry Wood, who, as a Cub, struck out 20 Astros, walked none and allowed one hit on May 6, 1998, setting a nine-inning record with a game score of 105. In Wood’s masterpiece, the lone hit was a ground-ball single by Ricky Gutierrez. To trade one ground-ball single for six strikeouts gives Wood the edge in dominance, even if the performance lacked the romance of a pitcher remaining perfect. The only knock against Cain’s performance was the quality of his competition. While the 1965 Cubs were not a particularly good team, Koufax had to contend with Billy Williams, Ernie Banks and Ron Santo, a much more intimidating threesome than the light-hitting 2012 Astros can offer. Cain needed 125 pitches to complete the game, while Koufax needed just 107. It is fitting that the competition for greatest perfect game would come down to a Dodger and a Giant; the teams have had a fierce rivalry since the 19th century, and by the narrowest margins Koufax does appear to have the edge on Cain. If Cain and Koufax threw the most dominant perfect games, the least imposing in terms of game score was pitched by Addie Joss of the Cleveland Naps against the White Sox in 1908. In that game, Joss struck out just three batters, giving him a game score of 90. Individual game data is searchable on Baseball-Reference.com only since 1918, but in that time frame 639 starters have had a game score higher than Joss did in a nine-inning game. However, what Joss lacked in dominance in his perfect game he made up for in economy, needing just 74 pitches to get through nine innings. The oddest of the perfect games was one of the two thrown before the modern era began in 1901. Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs was perfect on June 12, 1880, but benefited greatly from the rules of the era. Richmond was throwing underhand from 50 feet away, and three times in the game an out was recorded on a foul ball that had bounced. The rule on bouncing foul balls being counted as outs was not changed until 1883. Finally, on the same night that Cain was attaining perfection, R. A. Dickey of the Mets managed a game score of 95 by striking out 12 in a one-hitter against the Tampa Bay Rays. The scoring decision on the base hit is being appealed by the Mets, but it is not likely to be reversed. For now, anyway, Dickey has the 79th-most dominant nine-inning performance of the last 94 years. | Cain Matt;Baseball;San Francisco Giants;Koufax Sandy;Chicago Cubs;Houston Astros;Records and Achievements |
ny0291303 | [
"us"
] | 2016/01/06 | Michigan: Emergency Declared Over Flint’s Water | Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan declared a state of emergency for the Flint area on Tuesday as concerns grew about the health effects of lead-tainted water there. His order, which followed emergency declarations by the city and county governments, came on the day federal officials announced an investigation of the contamination. Mr. Snyder’s administration has been criticized as slow to respond to residents’ concerns about their water. Last week, he apologized and announced staffing changes at the state agency that oversees environmental quality. Flint, which had long received water from Lake Huron provided by Detroit’s water utility, began drawing its water from the Flint River in 2014 in an effort to save money while a new pipeline was built. Residents soon complained about rashes and strange odors from the river water, but city and state officials mostly insisted that it was safe to drink . Last year, elevated levels of lead were found in children’s blood, and in October, Flint switched back to Detroit’s water system. Mr. Snyder, a Republican, said Tuesday that the emergency declaration would allow for more state resources to be used in addressing the effects of the tainted water. | Water;Flint Michigan;Lead;Michigan;Rick Snyder;Water pollution |
ny0194985 | [
"us"
] | 2009/11/23 | Radiation Leak Is Called No Risk | MIDDLETOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the small amount of radiation detected at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is not significant. John White, a specialist, told ABC News on Sunday that there was no indication that radiation at the plant had exceeded or even approached regulatory limits. The commission sent investigators to the power plant, in Dauphin County in south-central Pennsylvania, after a small amount of radiation was detected Saturday in the Unit 1 reactor. About 150 employees were sent home that afternoon, but officials said there had been no public health risk. Beth Archer, a spokeswoman for Exelon Nuclear, said the radiation had been quickly contained. The unit has been shut for refueling and maintenance since Oct. 26. Workers are being tested for radiation exposure. In 1979, a partial meltdown occurred in Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor. | Three Mile Island (Pa);Pennsylvania;Nuclear Energy;Radiation;Nuclear Regulatory Commission |
ny0130193 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2012/06/12 | In Romney’s Voucher Education Policy, a Return to G.O.P. Roots | “Voucher” is a fighting word in education, so it may be understandable that when Mitt Romney speaks about improving the nation’s schools, he never uses that term. Nonetheless, as president, Mr. Romney would seek to overhaul the federal government’s largest programs for kindergarten through 12th grade into a voucherlike system. Students would be free to use $25 billion in federal money to attend any school they choose — public, charter, online or private — a system, he said, that would introduce marketplace dynamics into education to drive academic gains. His plans, presented in a recent speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , represent a broad overhaul of current policy, one that reverses a quarter-century trend, under Republican and Democratic presidents, of concentrating responsibility for school quality at the federal level. “I will expand parental choice in an unprecedented way,” Mr. Romney said, adding that families’ freedom to vote with their feet “will hold schools responsible for results.” His proposals are the clearest sign yet that Republicans have executed an about-face from the education policies of President George W. Bush , whose signature domestic initiative, the No Child Left Behind law of 2002, required uniform state testing and imposed penalties on schools that failed to progress. Now Mr. Romney is taking his party back to its ideological roots by emphasizing a lesser role for Washington, replacing top-down mandates with a belief in market mechanisms. It is a change driven in part by Tea Party disdain of the federal government. In the Republican presidential nominating fight, candidates competed in calling to shut the Education Department . Mr. Romney, who never went that far, also seems hemmed in politically by the fact that President Obama promotes many solutions that were once Republican talking points, including charter schools and teacher evaluations tied to test scores. “There’s not much left for Republicans to be distinctive about,” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy group. “The one line the Obama folks have refused to cross is the voucher line” — that is, allowing students to use taxpayer money to attend any certified school, even a private school. Specifically, Mr. Romney proposed to change federal payments made to schools with large numbers of poor and disabled students into an individual entitlement. Students would take a share of the $25 billion in two federal programs to the school of their choice. He would also extract the federal government from intervening to turn around the lowest performing schools, which has been a chief focus of the Obama administration. Instead, to drive improvement, Mr. Romney would have schools compete for students in a more market-based approach to quality. “This is the best motive to reform there will ever be — if you give parents the ability to vote with their feet,” said Tom Luna, Idaho ’s superintendent of schools, who is an adviser to Mr. Romney. But there is limited evidence in the real world of schools improving much as they compete for students, according to education experts. One notable skeptic is Margaret Spellings , a former education secretary under Mr. Bush, who this year was an informal adviser to Mr. Romney. She said she withdrew once the candidate rejected strong federal accountability measures. “I have long supported and defended and believe in a muscular federal role on school accountability,” Ms. Spellings said. “Vouchers and choice as the drivers of accountability — obviously that’s untried and untested.” Although offering economically disadvantaged children an escape from a failing neighborhood school may be a matter of fairness, Mr. Romney’s argument is broader: choice, he said, will promote competition for students and, like a rising tide, lift all schools. One recent study of a Florida program offering private school vouchers to low-income families found that test scores at public schools, faced with competition, went up. But critics say that the improvements are small, and that the idea is shaped by ideology more than evidence. “Romney is on poor empirical ground in making a claim based on competitive effects,” said Christopher Lubienski, an education professor at the University of Illinois . James Kvaal, the policy director of the Obama campaign, accused Mr. Romney of seeking to “stop the clock on decades of reform by no longer insisting action be taken when a school has been struggling for years.” Advocates for vouchers say they will have a larger impact if they become more widespread. One of Mr. Romney’s ideas for increasing students’ choices seems to contradict an anti-Washington emphasis: giving poor students the freedom to choose a public school outside their district. District boundaries have long been sacrosanct. They prevent urban students, for example, from enrolling in suburban schools that typically have higher-income families and sometimes more lavish budgets. Calls for open enrollment across districts are usually the province of liberal groups, said Kevin Carey, director of education policy at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. “For the federal government to require districts to open up their boundaries would be a level of federal intrusion into the affairs of states and local districts far beyond anything” in current law, Mr. Carey said. Mr. Romney’s policy seems closely inspired by a pro-voucher report issued in February by the conservative Hoover Institution. Five of eight members of a task force that produced the report are among the 19 education advisers the Romney campaign named last month. Once thought to be moribund, the voucher movement was revived by gains Republicans made in the 2010 midterm elections. Fourteen states since then have introduced or expanded private school vouchers, according to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. The money for the vouchers would come from two federal programs that Mr. Romney would overhaul that target students deemed in need of extra support: Title 1, for economically disadvantaged students; and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Currently the money from both programs, the largest K-12 initiatives in the Education Department, is awarded to states and districts based on federal formulas. Grover J. Whitehurst, a Romney adviser, said that remaking the programs into individual payments that follow the student — he used the metaphor of a student’s backpack — could attract other streams of education dollars. “If you connected state funding with federal funding, then you’re talking about a backpack with enough money in it to really empower choice,” said Mr. Whitehurst, director of education policy at the Brookings Institution . “The idea would be the federal Title 1 funds would allow states that want to move in this direction to do so, and if they did so, all of a sudden it’s a game changer.” | Vouchers;Mitt Romney;2012 Presidential Election;K-12 Education;US Politics |
ny0169359 | [
"science"
] | 2007/03/06 | A Toast to Evolvability and Its Promise of Surprise | Late last month, the day after my birthday, I was feeling punch drunk on my favorite glogg of sullenness, self-pity and panic. My life was passing by at relativistic speed, not one of my rotten siblings had called to wish me a happy birthday, my husband hadn’t bothered to arrange so much as a waiter-serenaded slice of cake at the restaurant the night before, and did he really think that his gift to me of an “amazing squirrel-proof bird feeder” would excite anybody but the squirrels? My post-birthday gloom was so rich, so satisfyingly glutinous, that I forgot to be suspicious, and when we headed over to a neighbor’s house later that evening, I opened the door like a cartoon buffoon onto a huge throng of friends and relations, gathered from across the nation and athwart my entire curriculum vitae, bellowing out in fractured synchrony that magic word “Surprise!” I gasped. I squealed. I felt like I’d died and gone to a TV game show. I’d gotten the surprise party of my admittedly oft-expressed fantasies, and I was thrilled, moved and profoundly grateful. Yet as I stumbled in a stupor from one friend who’d spent hundreds of dollars on airfare just to be there to the next, I couldn’t help wondering why I’d wanted such a shock to my system in the first place. I’m not much of a thrill seeker or adventurer. I like libraries, museums and speed bumps. I am, nevertheless, a multicellular organism of reasonably complex structure, and we complex bioforms can’t help but appreciate novelty. We are the fruits of it. If not for evolutionary novelty — that is, the periodic and often radical overhauling of an existing cell type, body plan, limb shape or brain design into something new and useful, or at least entertaining — we might still be so many daubs of blue-green algae decorating an Australian rock. And while I mean no offense to algae and recognize that my ancestors looked very much like them, an algal colony has yet to throw me a surprise party or make a passable stab at saying “G’day.” A tip of the paper-cone hat, then, to biological novelty. Under its tutelage, early groups of cells made the leap from the sleepy expulsion of oxygen as waste to the aerobic consumption of oxygen to grow at a hastier pace; and groups of single cells learned to pool their talents into multicellular collectives of specialized body compartments that could then go out and hunt other multicellular collectives; and fishy fins became amphibious feet and crept onto the beach, and some land-weary feet changed their mind and flippered back to the sea, while still other limb bones lengthened and found skin flaps for flying, and, hey, this airborne business is pretty handy, let’s rearticulate the forelimbs of three separate lineages and take wing as a pterodactyl, a bird, a bat. As scientists see it, these and others of nature’s fancy feats forward are clearly the result of large-scale evolutionary forces, but the precise mechanisms behind any given innovation remain piquantly opaque. For some researchers, the conventional gradualist narrative, in which organisms evolve over time through the steady accretion of many mincing genetic mutations, feels unsatisfying when it comes to understanding true biological novelty. “The standard Darwinian view always sounds like a better theory for making improvements than for making inventions,” said Dr. Marc W. Kirschner, a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School. If incremental, additive genetic changes were responsible for all the boggling biodiversity we see around us, he said, how can it be that humans have hardly more genes than a microscopic nematode, and that many of those genes are nearly identical in roundworms and humans besides? In their recently published book, “The Plausibility of Life,” Dr. Kirschner and Dr. John C. Gerhart of the University of California, Berkeley, offer a fresh look at the origins of novelty. They argue that many of the basic components and systems of the body possess the quality of what they call “evolvability” — that is, the components can be altered without wreaking havoc on the parts and systems that connect to them, and can even produce a reasonably functional organ or body part in their modified configuration. For example, if a genetic mutation ends up lengthening a limb bone, said Dr. Kirschner, the other parts that attach to and interact with that bone needn’t also be genetically altered in order to yield a perfectly serviceable limb. The nerves, muscles, blood vessels, ligaments and skin are all inherently plastic and adaptable enough to stretch and accommodate the longer bone during embryogenesis and thus, as a team, develop into a notably, even globally, transformed limb with just a single mutation at its base. And if, with that lengthened leg, the lucky recipient gets a jump on its competitors, well, g’day to you, baby kangaroo. Dr. Kirschner also observes that cells and bodies are extremely modular, and parts can be moved around with ease. A relatively simple molecular switch that in one setting allows a cell to respond to sugar can, in a different context, help guide the maturation of a nerve cell. In each case, the activation of the switch initiates a tumbling cascade of complex events with a very distinctive outcome, yet the switch itself is just your basic on-off protein device. By all appearances, evolution has flipped and shuffled and retrofitted and duct-taped together a comparatively small set of starter parts to build a dazzling variety of botanic and bestial bodies. The combined modularity and bounciness of body parts suggest that life is spring-loaded for change, for outrageous commixtures, the wildest fusion cuisine. And who knows whether our organismic suppleness, our deep evolvability, isn’t related to our mental thirst for the new, and our hope that behind the door lies the best surprise yet? | Evolution;Genetics and Heredity;Psychology and Psychologists |
ny0072905 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/03/13 | Germany: Archaeologists Find 300-Year-Old Pretzels. (No Sign of the Beer.) | Two pretzels unearthed during a dig on the banks of the Danube in Regensburg could be more than 300 years old but are similar to ones available today, archaeologists said Thursday. Dorothee Ott, spokeswoman for the Bavarian Office for Historical Conservation, said the pretzel fragments went on display this week at the Regensburg Historical Museum. Ms. Ott said the pretzels and other baked goods found were badly burned, which is why they survived over the centuries. Archaeologists say they believe they were discarded from a bakery that was once on the site. Carbon dating places their creation between 1700 and 1800. Taking into account about 15 percent shrinkage, Ms. Ott said, “It’s a normal pretzel, maybe a little smaller than today.” | Pretzel;Archaeology;Germany |
ny0068518 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/12/21 | A Review of Beyti Kebab in Union City | Once the holiday season starts, restaurants in which you can dine well and festively, free of crowds or the necessity of advanced planning, are as rare as a perfect Christmas. May I, therefore, introduce you to Beyti Kebab ? Since my children were in high school (they are now too old to eat anywhere but in Brooklyn), our family has been joining friends for dinner, somewhat irreverently, on Christmas Day at this casual and cheerful bastion of sumptuous Turkish food. Traditional it is not, but given our mix of religions and orientations, neither is our crowd. Our only common bond: We like good food, a lively atmosphere and a celebration that is hassle-free. Beyti Kebab, which originally opened as a butcher shop in the early 1980s, fulfills those requirements. Image Chicken kebab with yogurt. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times The décor is not enhanced by the acoustic tile ceiling and ho-hum travel posters, but the room is brightly lit and the atmosphere is resonant of similar establishments throughout the Middle East, an odd confluence of crystal chandeliers and shelves displaying stacks of plastic containers (Beyti Kebab has a lively takeout business). The food is similarly basic and authentic. Any review of the menu must start not with appetizers but with the restaurant’s pièce de résistance: any meat entree where the word “yogurtlu” appears in the name. The various “yogurtlu” dishes consist of a meat kebab set in a pool of satiny yogurt in which bits of pita bread are in the process of disintegrating. It is the apotheosis of a soggy sandwich — and it is irresistible. Try it and I predict that nostalgia for holiday baked ham or stuffed turkey will cease. The more highly seasoned beyti kebab, the restaurant’s namesake entree, is best eaten without yogurt, because then you can appreciate the judicious use of garlic, onions and red and green peppers that bring out the rich, gamy flavor of the veal and lamb in the dish. Except for the ones with yogurt, plain kebabs, which dominate the list of entrees and include combinations of chicken, lamb, veal or gyro (a mix of veal and lamb), arrive on a bed of buttery, seasoned rice. The accompanying mealy tomato is best ignored, but the long-green pepper beside it is essential: its juicy texture and fruity flavor lighten the experience of eating all that meat. Image The beyti kebab platter. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times Another suitable companion for the kebabs is the shepherd salad. Long before chopped salads became fashionable, Beyti Kebab was carving chunks of tomato, cucumber and Spanish onions into jewel-like cubes. Chopping the ingredients allows more of their juices, and therefore their flavors, to mingle. The fresh parsley and lemon juice add so much verve that even without feta cheese, the salad sparkles (with feta, it is $2 extra). Like the owner, Ozcan Arslan, the chef, Turan Dayakli, was born in Turkey. When I asked him in a telephone call after my visits where he learned to make the kind of thick, tangy, tahini-rich hummus that is rare outside of the Middle East, he answered Israel. There, too, he perfected his falafel, which he makes with chick peas and broad beans, and serves with a cool, minty sauce. The Turkish bread that appears instantly at your table is a highlight. Served still warm, the slightly charred strips have the qualities of great pizza dough: crusty on the outside with a soft and airy interior. Slightly sour because of the yeast, the strips are perfect for scooping up the ultrarich hummus or the thick, gooey and unforgettably smoky baba ghanouj. Will the more fussy family members in your party find flaws? Don’t they always? One night when the lamb cubes in every other dish were moist and tender, the chunks in the lamb shish were, in fact, leathery. The chicken, a tad dry, might benefit from less cooking. Fried eggplant, the centerpiece of the appetizer known as patlican tavasi, was overwhelmed by yogurt in this version. Perhaps because we come here during the holiday season, our excursions usually end not only with the strong Turkish coffee, but with a stop at the retail shop at the front of the restaurant. There you can purchase gifts: halvah made with pistachios, plump Middle Eastern dates, and the kind of large, buttery Turkish walnuts used in the restaurant’s best dessert, the sweetened shredded phyllo and walnut pastry known as kadayif. Typically quiet on Christmas and New Year’s, Beyti Kebab is quite different on holidays like Ramadan, after the sun sets and daily fasts are broken. “Then, even my banquet room is full,” Mr. Arslan said. | Restaurant;Union City NJ;Ozcan Arslan;Turan Dayakli;Beyti Kebab |
ny0064915 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2014/06/16 | Egyptian Police Confiscate Newsletter, Arrest Sign Holders and Close Grocery Stores | CAIRO — The Egyptian police over the weekend confiscated a human rights group’s newsletter, arrested two activists for a paper sign criticizing the police and shut down two Cairo grocery store chains that the police said had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Less than a week after the inauguration of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the grab bag of notable police actions over two days was the first indication that his administration intends to continue the broad crackdown on dissent that began after the military takeover he led last summer. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said in a statement on Sunday that the police had confiscated all 1,000 copies of its newsletter, Wasla, at its printer the previous night. The statement said that a police officer had accused the organization of inciting “the downfall of the regime.” The officer also charged that the newsletter was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that backed the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, and was outlawed after the military takeover. But the Arabic Network is a well-established liberal organization often critical of the Islamists. The newsletter, published occasionally since 2010, compiles commentary from blogs and social media, mainly for older Egyptians who are unaccustomed to using the Internet, the organization said in a statement. “The new regime’s intentions have been demonstrated,” Gamal Eid, the executive director of the organization, said in the statement, calling the raid “an indication of the fate of freedom of the press along with freedom of expression.” Riot police officers were seen Sunday forcibly closing many locations of the two grocery store chains, Zad and Seoudi, which Egyptian state media said were also accused of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Zad chain was reportedly founded only a few years ago by Khairat el-Shater , a business mogul and senior Brotherhood leader who is now in jail on various political charges. Seoudi, a high-end market, is owned by a businessman who was arrested, under former President Hosni Mubarak, but later acquitted of charges of belonging to the Brotherhood. The arrests of the two activists occurred at about 6 p.m. on Saturday at a small state-authorized demonstration against sexual harassment that was held in one of Cairo’s wealthiest enclaves. With a few dozen demonstrators far outnumbered by truckloads of riot police officers, the two young activists tried to scrawl a sign that said, “The Police Are Harassers.” Egyptian women often complain of harassment by the police or members of the security forces, and they complain even more often that the police fail to enforce existing legal protections against such abuse. But when the two activists were writing the sign, the police swooped in even before they could raise it, said one of the activists, Nader Osama, 20, a student. “We did not even hold it up or anything,” he said. “They told us that the charge will be offending the Interior Ministry,” he said, but “then they released us at 2 a.m. and told us: ‘You can go. That is it.' ” | Egypt;Abdel Fattah el-Sisi;Muslim Brotherhood Egypt |
ny0199945 | [
"us"
] | 2009/07/25 | As Officers Face Heated Words, Their Tactics Vary | Police departments issue their officers Kevlar vests to stop bullets, and thick helmets and even shields to protect them from bottles and bricks. But there is nothing in the equipment room to give an officer thicker skin. That tool — as vital to an officer’s safety and the public’s as anything clipped to his belt — is developed in training, and its strength differs from one officer to the next. The issue of tolerance, in fact, lies at the heart of the dispute surrounding the arrest of the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Cambridge, Mass. The police say Professor Gates was arrested and briefly charged with disorderly conduct after he ignored warnings to stop haranguing an officer who had asked him for identification inside his home. Though Professor Gates said he was not abusive and was the victim of racism, the police report said he told Sgt. James M. Crowley, “I’ll speak with your mama outside.” Several officers interviewed in four cities on Friday said they tried to ignore such remarks. Others said they had zero tolerance for being treated disrespectfully in public. The line of when to put on handcuffs is a personal and blurry one, varying among officers in the same city, the same precinct, even the same patrol car. A mounted police officer who has been with the Los Angeles Police Department for 25 years said that taking verbal abuse was a regular part of his job. “We don’t get to tell people what they want to hear,” said the Los Angeles officer, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being quoted on duty. “Whether we’re giving them a ticket or responding to some conflict between a husband and wife, we’re not dealing with people at their best, and if you don’t have a tough skin, then you shouldn’t be a cop.” The officer said he recently confronted a woman walking in the middle of the street and asked her to step out of traffic. She refused and became belligerent, using a string of four-letter words and ethnic epithets. He said he wrote the woman a ticket and went on his way. But in Brooklyn, a 24-year-old officer, with three years on the force, seemed less inclined to walk away from verbal abuse. “We say, ‘Back down,’ ” he said. “If they don’t back down and start making direct threats, that’s an offense. They don’t get a free pass.” He said that threats could be defined in different ways, and he preferred to talk people down, but that the rules changed if a crowd formed, which was routine in New York and also occurred during the Gates incident. “I wouldn’t back down if there’s a crowd gathering,” the Brooklyn officer said, in part out of concern of sending a message of weakness that could haunt another officer later. “We’re a band of brothers. We have to be there to help each other out. If there’s a group and they’re throwing out slurs and stuff, you have to handle it.” A 13-year veteran of the Denver police force, who did not wish to give his name, said likewise. “We’re not going to take abuse,” he said. “We have to remain in control. We’re running the show.” But Robert Anderson, with the same department five years, said he tried to “let people vent” if they grew irate. “People usually aren’t happy to see the police,” he said. “They’d rather see a fireman.” In New York, State Senator Eric Adams, a retired New York City police captain and co-founder of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, said the rules for dealing with someone differed by setting. “If it’s their house, they’re allowed to call you all sorts of names,” Mr. Adams said. “A man’s house is his castle. If they’re in the street, and they don’t listen to the officer’s warning, ‘Sir, you’re being disorderly,’ you can lock them up at this time.” Not that the officer necessarily should, he said. “Let’s say I do a stop,” Mr. Adams said. “I question, and it’s nothing. ‘Sir, I’m sorry, I apologize.’ What’s the reason for staying, if the anger’s directed at me? If it’s directed at a third party, a storekeeper, I stay.” But if the officer himself is the provocation, the officer should leave, he said, and added that Sergeant Crowley did not use such common sense. Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association in New York, took a harder line and said officers should not tolerate disrespect on the street. “We pay these officers to risk their lives every day,” Mr. Palladino said. “We’re taught that officers should have a thicker skin and be a little immune to some comments. But not to the point where you are abused in public. You don’t get paid to be publicly abused. There are laws that protect against that.” In Atlanta, Officer M. Tate, who would not give his first name, said he was trained not to lose his cool — or his job — by reacting to name calling. He recalled from memory the exact definition of when a person’s behavior crossed the line into being worthy of arrest: “The set of circumstances that will lead a reasonable and prudent person to believe that a crime has or is about to be committed and that the person in question is involved in a significant manner.” Anything short of that, he said, does not warrant handcuffs. “I’ll take them yelling at me,” Officer Tate said. “Unless I’m hit or they get violent, I won’t arrest them for just yelling at me.” But the training cannot be applied to every situation, one officer said. “You want the training?” a detective in Queens asked. “Or how I train myself?” He described a scenario he had faced many times: stopping someone who he just saw appear to slip drugs to someone else, only to learn that was not the case. “ ‘Oh, it’s a cigarette. Oh, O.K., sorry to bother you,’ ” the detective said. And if the person then becomes verbally abusive? “If you locked everybody up that was technically disorderly — you’ve got to know which battles to fight,” he said. “If this guy’s causing commotion, there’s a scene, you look for the level-headed person who’s a friend of his. Say, ‘Look, we’re out here cleaning up your block.’ When you leave, they’re going to talk to him.” Senator Adams said black men were more likely to be locked up for what in police parlance is called getting “lippy.” “The ‘uppity Negro,’ ” he said. “You may not have committed a crime, but you know what? You’ve got a big mouth.” | Gates Henry Louis Jr;Police;Discrimination;Crowley James M;Blacks;Police Department (NYC);Cambridge (Mass) |
ny0037172 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/03/08 | Eyes Are Off the Court as the Knicks Get a Rare Win on It | Basketball again felt like a backdrop for the Knicks on Friday. The team, one of the N.B.A. leaders in off-court distractions, was preparing for a game against the Utah Jazz, but the focus was instead on whether Carmelo Anthony might be headed to Chicago and Phil Jackson might be headed to New York. It had been two days since the Knicks beat the Timberwolves in Minnesota, snapping a seven-game losing streak. The time in between that game and the one on Friday at Madison Square Garden was not filled with stories of what the Knicks had finally done right on the court. Rather, the conversation immediately shifted, first to reports that Chicago’s Joakim Noah had spoken to Anthony during the recent All-Star weekend in New Orleans and had urged him to sign with the Bulls if he opted out of his contract with the Knicks at the end of this season. The possibility that he might do so, leaving a Knicks team in disarray for a Bulls team with far more potential, understandably gives the Knicks nightmares. Image Reports suggest the Knicks may be interested in Phil Jackson. Credit Frazer Harrison/Getty Images After the Knicks soundly beat the Jazz, 108-81, Anthony denied having a conversation with Noah. “I can’t have that conversation,” he said. Anthony added that he expected several more months of similar reports until he decided what he wanted to do. “Without a doubt,” he said. “Everybody will have their own take on different stories. I’ve got to focus on ball, and whatever stories is going to be out there, I can’t control that.” Speaking to reporters in Chicago, Noah would also not say much, moving to change the subject when asked about the conversation during the Bulls’ morning shootaround Friday. “What does that have to do with our team right now?” Noah said. “It doesn’t matter.” Perhaps it was not a coincidence that one day after the Noah story emerged, there were reports, not publicly confirmed by the Knicks, that they had recently approached Jackson about coming to New York, presumably to fill a role in the front office. Image Carmelo Anthony, left, guarded by Utah’s Richard Jefferson, scored 29 points in only three quarters in the Knicks’ victory. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times Left to address all this, as usual, was the beleaguered Mike Woodson, who has dealt with speculation about his job security for much of the season and who, in the continued absence of any other Knicks officials willing to speak on behalf of the team, is often left to answer all the questions. On Thursday, he went on ESPN Radio and was asked about Noah and Anthony. “You know, legally, nobody can recruit anyone,” Woodson said. “You can’t do that at this point. Melo is still wearing a Knicks uniform, and I hope he stays with the Knicks for the rest of his career.” On Friday, Woodson struck a particularly defiant tone when asked before the game about speculation that Jackson and Knicks General Manager Steve Mills had met. One report said Jackson had been asked to coach the Knicks, although the possibility that Jackson will ever coach anywhere again seems unlikely. “I’m the coach of the Knicks,” Woodson said, even showing a hint of a smile. Jackson, who last coached in the N.B.A. in the 2010-11 season and has never had an established front-office role with a team, has long been viewed as a possible New York savior, in part because of his many accomplishments and because, as a player in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he played a role in the Knicks’ only championship era. There has always been the notion that there would come a day that Jackson would want to return to where it all began and complete his career arc. Image Mike Woodson said, “I’m the coach of the Knicks.” Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times If the Knicks have approached Jackson in recent weeks, it would not be the first time they have done so. In 1999, when the Knicks were battling to stay in the playoff picture and Jackson was between coaching jobs, Dave Checketts, then the Garden’s president, began to hold clandestine talks with Jackson, hoping to get him to replace Jeff Van Gundy as the Knicks’ coach. But the Knicks made a surprising run that year, reaching the N.B.A. finals, and Jackson ended up in Los Angeles, where he coached the Lakers to five titles. It is unclear if Jackson might have more inclination to join the Knicks now and finish his career where it began. It is also unclear if he would be willing to work under the Knicks’ often-derided owner, James L. Dolan. What is known is that Jackson provided input to the Pistons’ president, Joe Dumars, on the hiring of Maurice Cheeks as Detroit’s coach, although Cheeks was eventually fired on Feb. 10. Woodson, to the surprise of many, has not been fired, and before Friday’s game he maintained that his team still had “an opportunity to make the playoffs” despite everything that had occurred. Amar’e Stoudemire echoed Woodson’s thoughts. “We’ve been through it this year,” he said, adding that when a team is not winning, “it opens the door for a lot of rumors.” For the Knicks, it is a whole bunch of open doors. And it is not clear who exactly is leaving, or arriving. REBOUNDS Coach Mike Woodson said Kenyon Martin was out of his walking boot but had yet to resume basketball activities. Martin has not played since Feb. 1 because of a chronic left ankle injury. “Still not there yet,” Woodson said. “How far out that he is, I have no idea at this point.” | Basketball;Utah Jazz;Knicks;Mike Woodson;Carmelo Anthony;James L Dolan;Phil Jackson |
ny0256781 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2011/08/15 | French Suspect Articles in Le Monde Set Off Market Panic | PARIS — Misunderstandings between the French and visiting British vacationers are a traditional feature of summers in France. But did a British malentendu over another French summer staple — a fictional series of articles in Le Monde — contribute to a mysterious sell-off in French bank stocks last week? That is the question that French politicians, business leaders and journalists — at least those who are left in Paris during the dog days of August — are asking, as they struggle to explain the plunge, which was accompanied by concerns about the country’s ability to pay back its debts. The series, “End of the Line for the Euro,” looked at how a collapse of the single currency might play out, against the backdrop of French presidential elections next year. While the 12-part story was clearly labeled as fiction, it named real banks, like Société Générale , whose shares plunged 15 percent last Wednesday, prompting the bank to deny speculation that it was in financial trouble. As market participants and journalists searched for possible reasons, the trail seemed to lead to London. There, The Mail on Sunday, a tabloid newspaper, had published an article in which it said Société Générale was “on the brink of disaster.” Société Générale and an Italian bank, UniCredit, were in a “perilous” state, the paper added, citing “a senior government source.” Last Tuesday, two days after the report appeared, The Mail retracted it, writing, “We now accept that this was not true and we unreservedly apologize to Société Générale for any embarrassment caused.” Readers of the fictional “End of the Line for the Euro” noticed that Société Générale and UniCredit were both named in the same passage in the series, in an imaginary conversation involving the hedge fund manager John Paulson, where he says that U.S. regulators have been raising concerns about the liquidity of the two banks. On Wednesday, a journalist at the Reuters news agency, Natalie Huet, speculated about a possibility of a link between the tale in Le Monde and the story in The Mail on Sunday. “The rumor of a collapse of SocGen could have come from a misreading of the summer series in Le Monde by The Daily Mail,” she wrote on the blogging site Twitter, referring to the weekday sister publication of The Mail on Sunday. Ms. Huet subsequently clarified that her comment was based on the “words of traders” and was merely intended to relay a “funny and not impossible hypothesis.” She also specified that she had been commenting in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the news agency. Ms. Huet did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment. The story took off from there. On Thursday, the news agency Agence France-Presse asserted, in an article that it later killed, that the Le Monde series “was the source of false information that has largely contributed to Société Générale’s stock market drop.” On Friday, the French economy minister, François Baroin, discussed the possible connection in a radio interview. By the weekend, the talk had grown so loud that Le Monde was moved to defend itself in a front-page editorial by Erik Izraelewicz, its top editorial executive. “The reality is that our fiction had nothing to do with this crazy rumor,” Mr. Izraelewicz wrote in the Sunday-Monday edition of Le Monde. “The paradox is that this case has come to illustrate something that our series denounced: the unacceptable role played by rumors in determining the fate of nations and businesses.” In the series, the fictional collapse of the euro zone is fueled by market rumors — spread by British traders, to bring things full circle — that Germany intended to pull out of the euro zone. That set in motion a disastrous cycle of events. The scrutiny comes at an awkward time for Le Monde, less than a year after it was taken over by a group of French business executives with links to the opposition Socialist Party, and less than a year before French presidential elections, which are set for next May. (In the fictional series, the voting results in disaster for the Socialists, who finish third behind the incumbent, President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the National Front leader, Marine Le Pen.) Even before the series ran, from late July through early August, it was the subject of complaints from Le Monde journalists, who issued a news release to protest the decision by Mr. Izraelewicz to give the plum assignment to a reporter at La Tribune, a business newspaper that he previously edited. Mr. Izraelewicz was named to the top job at Le Monde in February. Société Générale actually fared better in Le Monde’s fiction than another French lender, Crédit Agricole. That bank wrote a letter of complaint to the newspaper after it was portrayed as requiring a costly bailout. The French market regulator, the A.M.F., is investigating the source of the speculation about Société Générale, which was accompanied by talk, denied by ratings agencies, that France’s triple-A credit status might be at risk. Société Générale declined to elaborate on the nature of the investigation, which came at its request. “Regarding the unfounded rumors circulating on the bank, Société Générale received the public apology from the Mail on Sunday, recognizing that their article was not true, and the group made a request to the A.M.F. — which was accepted — to open an enquiry into the origin of these irresponsible rumors,” the bank said in a statement. As for The Mail on Sunday, a senior executive, who insisted that he not be identified because he is not an official spokesman, dismissed talk of a link to the series in Le Monde. Neither the paper’s reporters nor its sources had been aware of “End of the Line for the Euro,” the executive said. | News and News Media;Banking and Financial Institutions;Societe Generale |
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