id
stringlengths 9
9
| categories
sequence | date
stringlengths 10
10
| title
stringlengths 3
232
| abstract
stringlengths 4
42.4k
| keyword
stringlengths 6
360
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ny0064165 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/06/05 | Not Guilty Plea in a Killing on Prom Day | MILFORD, Conn. — A 17-year-old charged with stabbing a classmate to death in school on their prom day pleaded not guilty to murder on Wednesday as his lawyer said he was investigating a possible mental health defense. The youth, Christopher Plaskon, entered the plea in Milford Superior Court. He waived his right to a probable-cause hearing and elected for a trial before a three-judge panel rather than a jury. Mr. Plaskon’s lawyer, Richard Meehan, said after the hearing that it would be premature to say he was going to mount a mental health defense, but he said doing so would be more difficult before a jury. Mr. Plaskon, whose family attended the hearing, is on anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medications but is lucid, Mr. Meehan said in court. “Obviously we have an obligation to this young man based on the things that we do know to evaluate what his mental status was,” Mr. Meehan said. A trial is not expected until at least the fall, he said. The prosecutor, Kevin Lawlor, said his job was to prove the case and that a possible mental health defense was irrelevant at this point. Mr. Plaskon is charged with fatally stabbing his friend Maren Sanchez, 16, at Jonathan Law High School in Milford in April. Police are investigating whether it was related to Ms. Sanchez’s refusal to be Mr. Plaskon’s prom date. Mr. Plaskon, who turned 17 last week, is being prosecuted as an adult and faces up to 60 years in prison. | Chris Plaskon;Murders;Jonathan Law High School;Milford CT;Maren Sanchez |
ny0057887 | [
"us"
] | 2014/09/12 | Military Action Against ISIS Divides U.S. | HARRISBURG, Pa. — A few months ago, Kevin Kinard, a 55-year-old utility worker here, had barely heard of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But when the Sunni militant group beheaded a second American journalist, Mr. Kinard clicked on an Internet video of the execution — and lost sleep for two nights. “Nobody wants war,” he said, taking a break from some underground streetlight switch work near the State Capitol here to explain why he believes ISIS must be destroyed, and why America must take the lead. “It costs too much money; it costs lives. But we are protecting ourselves. We can’t turn a blind eye.” A half-mile away, in an artsy neighborhood of thrift shops and cafes, Mary Hess, 57, sat amid stacks of rare volumes at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore and offered the opposite view. “What possible purpose for America,” asked Ms. Hess, a caterer, “would it serve to get us more in debt and to fight in Iraq and Syria?” As President Obama makes his case for an aggressive American-led campaign to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” ISIS, he is confronting a confused, conflicted and in many ways exhausted nation. Image Kevin Kinard said that he did not want a war, but that ISIS must be destroyed. “We can’t turn a blind eye,” he said. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times In dozens of interviews around the country — in shopping malls, restaurants, small businesses, and on city sidewalks — and follow-up conversations after Mr. Obama’s address to the nation on Wednesday night, Americans expressed horror at the brutality of ISIS, alarm at its seeming emergence out of nowhere and fear that it is grooming agents in the United States. But they also seemed deeply divided over Mr. Obama’s leadership, and unsettled at the thought of yet another conflict that could last into another presidency. Mr. Obama called for expanding airstrikes but rejected sending combat troops to Iraq and Syria, where ISIS is seizing territory in its quest to build a caliphate, or Islamic state. Polls show most Americans support that course; on Capitol Hill, Democratic and Republican leaders are in rare agreement on it. But conversations reveal feelings murkier than the numbers suggest. “I don’t know if I’m ready to get into another war,” Clara Bush, 64, a science fiction writer, said as she picked through the aisles of a sprawling camping and hunting supply store in Colorado Springs, a deeply Republican city in an area that is home to five military installations. Her voice shook slightly; she wondered what good airstrikes or sending military trainers would do. “America,” Ms. Bush declared, “needs to develop an isolationist platform. We need to take care of ourselves.” A few aisles away, Chris Marsette, 45, a military contractor and Air Force veteran who served in Iraq in 2003, sounded similarly cautious, yet drew a different conclusion. Image Mary Hess asked what possible purpose it would serve “to get us more in debt and to fight in Iraq and Syria?” Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times “We really don’t want to get bogged down in another war,” said Mr. Marsette, who faults Mr. Obama for “just sitting back” while ISIS grew. “Before it grows too big,” he said, “there has to be some kind of action.” As the nation marks the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks , the ISIS rampage in the Middle East is provoking thought about America’s place in the world. Hunched over his computer at a coffee shop in Harrisburg, Greg Beeman, 42, who telecommutes to his job at Nyack College in New York, said America’s greatness derived from its willingness to lead. “There is always going to be evil in the world,” said Mr. Beeman, who said he voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. “Someone has to address it.” Perhaps nowhere are the memories of Sept. 11 as searing as in New York. Buying coffee on Thursday at a Forest Hills Starbucks, Martin Sandler, 57, grappled with the odd juxtaposition of the anniversary and Mr. Obama’s speech. “It’s hard to believe we’re back at this spot again,” he said. In Los Angeles, Lawrence Shih, a county worker who describes himself as politically liberal, regards the last Iraq war as “a total mistake.” But he is appalled by ISIS’ attempts to eradicate the Yazidis, a minority religious sect. “We cannot let these people overwhelm regions and commit genocide,” he said. On the campus of Northern Illinois University, in the small city of DeKalb, 65 miles west of downtown Chicago, Scott LaDeur, a visiting assistant professor, strayed from his syllabus in his class on global terrorism on Wednesday to explain the origins of ISIS. The 50-minute class produced a lively discussion, ranging from the threat to the United States (“On a scale of 1 to 10, probably around a 4,” said one student, Francesco Cimmarrusti, 21) to the wisdom of arming moderate Syrian rebels, as Mr. Obama has proposed. Image Allen Taylor, a carpenter, with his family at the Marysville All-American Diner in Marysville, Pa. “To me, it just seems like he kind of protects the Muslim people,” he said of the president. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times Tapan Dave, who is 34 and studying public administration, fears such a move would increase the risk of a terrorist attack on American soil. “We should keep our hands out of the war,” he said, adding that American allies should take the lead. But after listening to Mr. Obama, he softened a bit. “I think I’m convinced — kind of,” he said. In a nation divided by partisan politics, the debate over military action does not track along partisan lines, though the debate over Mr. Obama’s performance does. That was evident on Wednesday morning in Marysville, Pa., a town of about 2,300 people across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, in heavily Republican Perry County. At the local diner, where eggs, hash browns and toast were on special for $1.79 and the refrigerated display case featured shoofly pie, suspicion of the president ran deep. A waitress whispered that she likes Mr. Obama. But most patrons scowled at his name; some, in accusing Mr. Obama of being weak, conflated terrorism with Islam. Terry Matter, a retired Army veteran and computer programmer, said it was time for Mr. Obama to “quit coddling the Muslims,” but added quickly, “They are not all bad.” A few tables away, Allen Taylor echoed the sentiment, over eggs and pancakes with his wife and two young children. “He should have had troops in there a while ago,” Mr. Taylor, 47, a carpenter, said. “To me, it just seems like he kind of protects the Muslim people.” Back in Harrisburg, Joyce Davis, communications director to Mayor Eric Papenfuse, a Democrat, is troubled by such talk. Ms. Davis is a former foreign correspondent, the author of two books on Islam and founder of the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg; she says people are frightened and confused. Even her pastor struggled to make sense of ISIS in a recent sermon. 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. “He was trying to see it from a spiritual perspective — demonic forces,” she said. Chatting with friends at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore, Robert Lane, 70, a retired state employee, applauded Mr. Obama’s cautious deliberation, saying the time had come for America to act. “The beheadings,” he said, “have galvanized the country.” At the State Capitol here, a granite bench bears a paraphrase from John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, the Revolution-era pastor and soldier: “There is a time to pray and a time to fight.” It caught the eye of a couple from Portland, Ore.: Steve Anderly, 67, an engineer, and his wife, Andrea, 65, a lawyer. “It would be nice if we could pray our way out,” he said. To which she responded: “But sometimes we have to fight.” The couple, Democrats, were here visiting Mrs. Anderly’s sister and her husband, Republicans. Though the four disagree on politics, all said ISIS must be stopped. Yet even as Mrs. Anderly wanted to “bomb the hell” out of the militants, she was uncomfortable with a protracted campaign. “We’ve been doing this for 11 years. Another three years? We’re not supposed to be a war nation; we’re not Rome.” If Mr. Obama intended to assuage American unease, he succeeded with at least one person: Mr. Kinard, the utility worker. A Republican, he voted for the president, he said, and regrets it. But Mr. Obama’s speech impressed him; he found the president “clear and concise,” especially in explaining that ISIS did not emerge out of nowhere, but is the successor to Al Qaeda in Iraq — something Mr. Kinard said he had not previously grasped. “For the first time, possibly since the elections, I’m pretty proud of him,” Mr. Kinard said. Not so Ms. Hess, the caterer, a Republican who voted against the president. She came away unconvinced that Mr. Obama has “a clear, cohesive plan.” Instead, she posed a question that seems to be on many American minds after more than a decade of war: “Did we really accomplish anything?” | ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;US Military;Barack Obama;Polls;US Foreign Policy;Terrorism |
ny0095735 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2015/01/30 | Sri Lanka to Free Tamils and Return Their Land | COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan government pledged Thursday to free hundreds of minority Tamil detainees and return much of the Tamil land in the north and east that the military seized and continues to hold years after the end of the country’s bitter civil war. The promises represent the most significant efforts yet announced by the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena to heal the still-festering wounds of a decades-long civil war that ended in 2009. This month, Mr. Sirisena defeated the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in what many analysts said was a surprising upset. Thousands of civilians were killed in the final weeks of the war, waged by separatist Tamil rebels who had long felt marginalized by the dominant ethnic Sinhalese group. Hundreds of civilians surrendered to government forces, only to disappear while in government custody. The question of whether those who disappeared were killed by government forces or are still alive in a camp somewhere has long tortured families in the formerly restive provinces. Rajitha Senaratne, the minister of health and a spokesman for the new government, said this week that 275 people detained on suspicion of rebel involvement were still held in camps and jails, but he added that no one seemed to know how many face charges or have languished without formal proceedings against them. The promise to return seized lands will also give hope to thousands who have been living in refugee camps for decades. In many cases, the government seized the lands not for security purposes but simply because the holdings were attractive for development, often providing no compensation in return. Thousands filed suit in cases that have long languished in the courts. Much of the land was used by the military to develop tourist hotels, golf resorts, and poultry and vegetable farms in former conflict zones in the northern and eastern parts of the country, making the military a significant force in the country’s civilian economy. Former landowners were mostly barred from visiting the seized areas, and their homes were often bulldozed or left to rot. “Whatever was acquired for business purposes, other than security purposes, we want to give back to the owners,” said Dr. Senaratne. Dr. Senaratne said the new policy was a profound change in the government’s philosophy about how to prevent a resurgence of separatist sentiment among the Tamils. “We don’t believe that by using the army and spending so much on security that we can prevent an L.T.T.E. resurgence,” Dr. Senaratne said at a news conference, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , a separatist group. “Such a resurgence can only be prevented by politicians, not the army.” Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said that the government was waiting for a list of legal titleholders to begin releasing the land to its rightful owners. “The process should start very soon,” he said in an interview. The government has also announced that it will issue a “special statement of peace" on National Day, Feb. 4, expressing solidarity and empathy with all victims of Sri Lanka ’s conflict, a marked change from the triumphalism of the previous government. The new government has taken several steps toward reconciliation with the Tamil minority since assuming office three weeks ago. Soon after Mr. Sirisena’s election, his administration lifted a ban on travel by foreigners to the Northern Province. Last week, the government appointed a civilian governor to the Northern Province, replacing a former major general who had held the position since the war ended. The new governor, H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, a retired diplomat, will assume his new duties on Monday in Jaffna, the northern provincial capital. | Sri Lanka;Tamils;Maithripala Sirisena;Tamil Tigers;Mahinda Rajapaksa |
ny0186342 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2009/03/12 | Court in Zimbabwe Orders Release of Opposition Figure | JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwe ’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release on bail of Roy Bennett, an opposition official arrested on revived terrorism charges the very day he was to be sworn in as deputy agriculture minister in the new power-sharing government. For more than three weeks, prosecutors have resisted court rulings that granted bail to Mr. Bennett, and by evening he still had not been freed from his prison cell in the city of Mutare. “We physically waited in the attorney general and chief magistrate’s offices until they told the people in Mutare to release him, but it still may not happen until tomorrow,” Beatrice Mtetwa, one of Mr. Bennett’s lawyers, said in exasperation on Wednesday. “There’s a whole lot of malice involved here.” A crucial ally of the recently installed prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai , Mr. Bennett is despised by many insiders loyal to President Robert Mugabe . Agents arrested Mr. Bennett on Feb. 13, originally charging him with treason. That allegation was dropped in favor of three-year-old accusations concerning weapons possession and a plot to use the arms against the state. Mr. Bennett denies the charges, and his lawyers say that the case was built on the tainted testimony of someone who now claims that incriminating lies were extracted from him through torture. Judges had twice granted bail to Mr. Bennett, but each time the prosecution appealed. Last week, after a High Court ruling that reinstated the bail, a magistrate in Mutare was arrested for what the police said was a premature signing of release papers. Other magistrates may now be reluctant to get involved in the matter, Ms. Mtetwa said, though she said she still expected Mr. Bennett to be released on Thursday at the latest. Mr. Bennett’s wife, Heather, said she did not “think there was anything sinister” in the delay, but she complained that her husband was being kept under inhumane conditions, with 15 prisoners jammed into a small, unsanitary cell. “One man died last Thursday in Roy’s cellblock and the body wasn’t removed until Monday,” she said. Mr. Bennett, 52, had been living in exile in South Africa. His 7,500-acre coffee plantation in eastern Zimbabwe was seized during the government’s campaign to confiscate the land owned by white farmers in 2000. Mr. Bennett, extremely popular in the region, was elected to Parliament that same year. In 2004, while still serving in the legislature, he shoved a government minister during a heated debate about land reform and was sent to jail for eight months. He was an early activist in the Movement for Democratic Change, the opposition party led by Mr. Tsvangirai. In a vote for president last March, Mr. Tsvangirai outpolled Mr. Mugabe, setting off months of violence by forces loyal to the president. International pressure led to the shaky power-sharing arrangement now in effect, and the case against Mr. Bennett has been viewed by many as a test of whether the nation is moving back toward the rule of law. | Zimbabwe;Bennett Roy;Tsvangirai Morgan;Mugabe Robert;Movement for Democratic Change;Bail;Decisions and Verdicts;Agriculture |
ny0068642 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2014/12/07 | Mary Landrieu Is Defeated by Bill Cassidy in Louisiana Senate Runoff | BATON ROUGE, La. — Mary L. Landrieu, the last Deep South Democrat in the United States Senate, was defeated in a runoff election here Saturday by Bill Cassidy, a Republican congressman who incessantly attacked the incumbent for her support of President Obama. With Mr. Cassidy’s victory in what had been the last undecided Senate race of the midterm elections, the Republicans gained a total of nine Senate seats, giving them 54 senators and firm control of the upper chamber when the 114th Congress convenes in January. For Democrats, Saturday’s outcome was yet another sobering reminder of their party’s declining prospects in the South , a region they dominated for much of the 20th century. Ms. Landrieu was the last statewide elected Democrat in Louisiana, and Mr. Cassidy will join a fellow Louisiana Republican, David Vitter, in the Senate, making it the first time in 138 years that a Democrat from the state has not sat in the Senate. Speaking to supporters at the Crowne Plaza Hotel here, Mr. Cassidy said, “This victory happened because people in Louisiana voted for a government which serves us but does not tell us what to do. Thank y’all.” Even though Ms. Landrieu narrowly edged out Mr. Cassidy in a multicandidate primary in November, his victory was widely expected. A second conservative candidate with a significant following, Rob Maness, ran a strong third in the primary, and subsequently endorsed Mr. Cassidy. As in much of the South, Louisiana has seen many white Democrats defect to the Republican Party. Compounding Democrats’ problems was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which forced roughly 125,000 reliably Democratic voters to permanently relocate to other states. Mr. Cassidy, 57, is an associate professor of medicine at Louisiana State University who joined the House of Representatives in 2009. He closely followed the Republicans’ overall strategy this year of nationalizing congressional races and linking Democrats to President Obama. Mr. Cassidy’s campaign and the outside groups supporting it regularly noted that Ms. Landrieu had voted with Mr. Obama 97 percent of the time. Mr. Cassidy also repeatedly promised to seek the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which Ms. Landrieu voted for. Louisiana regularly ranks as one of the poorest and unhealthiest states in the country, but Mr. Cassidy’s biography allowed him to pre-emptively combat suggestions that he was insensitive to the needs of the poor: According to his congressional website, he founded a community health care clinic, treated uninsured patients at the public Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge for two decades, and set up an emergency medical facility for Katrina evacuees in an abandoned Kmart shortly after the storm. An early ad featured him in green scrubs and a lab coat, poring over a dog-eared copy of the health care bill by lamplight. “Most in Congress who voted for Obamacare never read the bill,” he said in the ad, adding: “I read the bill. It was clear there would be canceled plans, expensive premiums, no guarantee you could keep your doctor. I voted no.” Image Senator Mary L. Landrieu delivered a concession speech on Saturday after losing a runoff election in Louisiana to Bill Cassidy, a Republican. Credit Jonathan Bachman/Reuters For Ms. Landrieu, 59, the daughter of former Mayor Moon Landrieu of New Orleans and the sister of the current mayor, Mitch Landrieu, the defeat brings an end to an 18-year run in the Senate in which she earned a reputation as a Democratic Party nonconformist, particularly with her staunch support of the oil and gas industry. Her prospects in the runoff dimmed after the Nov. 4 election, when Democrats lost their majority in the Senate. That meant that she would no longer chair the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which had given her significant sway over the oil and gas industry, which is crucial to Louisiana’s economy. Senate Republicans also promised Mr. Cassidy a spot on the Energy Committee if he were to win, further undermining Ms. Landrieu’s ability to claim that she was uniquely positioned to protect oil jobs in the state. Last month, Ms. Landrieu was also unable to rally enough fellow Democrats to support a bill approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline. She had hoped that its passage would show that she could still be a major player in setting national energy policy. Her natural allies also appeared to have abandoned her in the advertising war. A Center for Public Integrity data analysis found that ads by groups backing the senator amounted to less than 1 percent of the 14,000 total TV ads that ran during the runoff period. In August, Republicans seized on revelations in The Washington Post that Ms. Landrieu claimed her parents’ house in New Orleans as her primary residence in campaign qualifying documents. Critics said it showed that Ms. Landrieu had become overly wedded to Washington, where she owns a home on Capitol Hill. In the final days of the campaign, Ms. Landrieu went on the attack as well, claiming that Mr. Cassidy received thousands of dollars in pay from Louisiana State for medical work that she said he did not do. Mr. Cassidy has denied any wrongdoing, and university officials said they were reviewing the matter. In her concession speech at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, Ms. Landrieu spoke warmly about her father, who, as mayor, oversaw the racial integration of the city in the 1970s. She cast her work as a continuation of his legacy. “We may not have won tonight,” she said, “But we most certainly have won some extraordinary victories.” As a congressman, Mr. Cassidy represented Louisiana’s Sixth District, which covers most of his hometown, Baton Rouge. His record in Congress has been reliably conservative, earning him endorsements from the National Rifle Association, former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and Phil Robertson, star of the “Duck Dynasty” reality TV series. Louisiana voters also decided two runoff races for the House of Representatives. The Fifth Congressional District seat, in northeast Louisiana, was won by Ralph Lee Abraham, a rural doctor and Republican candidate, according to The Associated Press. The current congressman, Republican Vance McAllister, lost his re-election bid in November after being captured on video kissing a campaign staff member who was not his wife. In the Sixth District, which Mr. Cassidy is vacating, Garret Graves, a Republican former coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal, defeated former Gov. Edwin Edwards, The A.P. projected. Mr. Edwards, an 87-year-old Democrat, was released from for prison in 2011 after serving time for extortion. | Bill Cassidy;Mary L Landrieu;Louisiana;Senate races;2014 Midterm Elections;Senate;Congress |
ny0261755 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2011/06/06 | Nadal Equals Borg’s Record With Sixth French Open Title | PARIS — Bjorn Borg could not make it to Roland Garros on Sunday, which turned out to be a missed opportunity. It would have made for just the right photograph: Borg handing over the Coupe des Mousquetaires to his successor in the soft evening light in Paris. It has been 30 years since Borg won his sixth and last French Open , and it was possible to imagine then that no other relentless baseliner would be able to match Borg’s domination at the world’s greatest clay-court tournament. In fact, the man who would manage it had not yet been born. But Rafael Nadal is in the prime of life now, and on Sunday, he reeled in Borg and won his sixth title here by holding off his customary French Open foil: Roger Federer . “It’s an honor to say that I won as many French Opens as Borg,” Nadal said after his 7-5, 7-6 (3), 5-7, 6-1 victory. “It’s extraordinary. There is a lot of emotion, but the real satisfaction comes from all the work you do before you get there. There were difficult moments and some very good moments.” There were tougher moments than usual this year for Nadal. He was pushed to five sets for the first time at the French Open in the first round against John Isner of the United States and struggled with his timing, depth and confidence into the second week. “This one was the most difficult of all of them,” said Nadal’s uncle and coach, Toni Nadal. “Rafa was more nervous. He couldn’t manage to really hit the ball well and that gives you a real sense of insecurity.” But Federer has been quite a French Open security blanket for Nadal. Their rivalry is one of the greatest in tennis history, yet it has been decidedly short on suspense here. Nadal is now 5-0 against Federer at Roland Garros. Four of those victories have come in finals, and though this match was a thriller in comparison with Nadal’s 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 victory in 2008, it still ended with Nadal’s imposing his topspin forehand and Federer slumping toward the trophy ceremony with most of the crowd commiserating. They do love the French-speaking Federer in Paris, the only Grand Slam city where he has been an underdog during his glory years. But though the chants of “Ro-ger, Ro-ger” helped him scale revivalist heights on Friday in his magnificent ambush of Novak Djokovic , they were not enough to lift the 29-year-old Federer past the 25-year-old Nadal, who had a solid, vocal minority chanting “Ra-fa” his way, too. Federer had his chances, none more significant than the set point he failed to convert with Nadal serving at 2-5 in the first set. Taking the opening set from Nadal in his year of living dangerously at Roland Garros might have caused more doubts to surface. But Federer’s backhand drop shot — a stroke he would use often and effectively throughout the match — landed just wide. Nadal held serve, then broke Federer in the next game and gathered momentum. “That’s how it goes; Rafa is tough,” Federer said. “I definitely thought I got maybe a touch unlucky there and he got a touch lucky.” Nadal then shrugged off a false step late in the second set. Serving for a two-set lead at 5-4, 40-30, heavy rain began to fall. Federer saved a set point to deuce, but the players were forced to leave the court as the rain intensified. When they returned little more than 10 minutes later, Federer saved another set point and broke Nadal for 5-5. Though it felt like foreshadowing, it proved nothing more than a brief respite for Federer, who played a mediocre tie breaker, pressing and making errors in bunches. “Obviously I’m the one who’s playing with smaller margins, so obviously I’m always going to go through a bit more ups and downs,” Federer said. “Whereas Rafa is content doing the one thing the entire time. So it’s always me who’s going to dictate play and decide how the outcome is going to be. If I play well, I will most likely win in the score or beat him. If I’m not playing so well, that’s when he wins.” Nadal is certainly capable of dictating terms, but Federer’s quality of play fluctuated drastically on Sunday. He would rise up for one more meaningful surge in the third set, rallying from a 2-4 deficit. But the match turned again in the opening game of the fourth set when Nadal escaped from a 0-40 deficit on his serve. He later broke Federer at love to go ahead, 3-1. The rest felt like a processional, and when the match ended with a forehand error, Nadal dropped to his knees and cradled his head in his hands before jogging forward to offer his hand and condolences to Federer once more. A thank-you would have been appropriate, too. Nadal held on to his No. 1 ranking because of Federer’s win over Djokovic in the semifinals. Even if the duopoly of Federer and Nadal appears to be over for good, they managed to restore order in Paris this year, and it would be no surprise to see them playing in the Wimbledon final in four weeks. Nadal leads their series, 17-8, and has won their last four matches in Grand Slam tournaments. The last time they played in a major event — in the 2009 Australian Open final — Federer broke down in tears at the awards ceremony after his five-set defeat, muttering, “God, it’s killing me.” This loss did not look nearly so traumatic. Federer is ranked No. 3 now, but he proved here that, when in form and inspired, he remains a member of the ruling class, even with his 30th birthday looming. “It’ s too bad I couldn’t win, but I’m very proud of my run here the last two weeks,” he said in his postmatch remarks to the crowd. Federer remains the leader in Grand Slam singles titles with 16, but Nadal now has 10, and is the second-youngest man to hit that number. The youngest was Borg, who was 24 when he won his 10th at Wimbledon in 1980. Nadal and Borg, who won his titles in Paris between 1974 and 1981, were at their most dominant at Roland Garros. Nadal and Borg lost to just one man here: Borg to the Italian Adriano Panatta (twice); Nadal to the Swedish slugger Robin Soderling in the fourth round in 2009. But Borg and Nadal have more in common than such numbers. They were both long-haired teen idols who maintained career-long connections to their early coaches (Borg had Lennart Bergelin, Nadal has Toni). They each redefined the forehand with their technique and topspin. They were the best movers on clay of their generations and possessed fine two-handed backhands, underrated touch, superb endurance and an ability to block out the distractions and momentum shifts and focus, again and again, on the challenge at hand. Perhaps Borg will make it to Roland Garros when Nadal breaks their tie. Watching Nadal win in Paris even in an off year, it is hard to imagine him not getting to seven. | French Open (Tennis);Nadal Rafael;Federer Roger;Borg Bjorn;Tennis |
ny0091131 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2015/09/25 | Cultural Revolution Shaped Xi Jinping, From Schoolboy to Survivor | Editors’ note: We are resurfacing this 2015 article on Xi Jinping ahead of the Chinese president’s visit to the United States on Thursday to meet with President Trump. BEIJING — When the pandemonium of the Cultural Revolution erupted, he was a slight, softly spoken 13-year-old who loved classical Chinese poetry. Two years later, adrift in a city torn apart by warring Red Guards, Xi Jinping had hardened into a combative street survivor. His father, a senior Communist Party official who had been purged a few years earlier, was seized and repeatedly beaten. Student militants ransacked his family’s home, forcing the family to flee, and one of his sisters died in the mayhem. Paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution and denounced by his own mother, the future president of China was on the edge of being thrown into a prison for delinquent children of the party elite. Visiting the United States this week, Mr. Xi, 62, has presented himself as a polished statesman, at ease hobnobbing with American capitalists in Seattle and attending a state dinner at the White House in his honor, set for Friday. Yet his first immersion in politics came on the streets of the Chinese capital during the most tumultuous era of Communist rule, when Mao Zedong exhorted students “to bombard the headquarters” of order. “I always had a stubborn streak and wouldn’t put up with being bullied,” Mr. Xi recalled in an interview in 2000 , one of the few times he has spoken about his experience as a teenager in Beijing. “I riled the radicals, and they blamed me for everything that went wrong.” Mr. Xi has often discussed the seven years he spent exiled to a rural village during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution, including in a speech in Seattle on Tuesday, casting that chapter of his life as an uplifting story of a city boy who discovers the suffering of ordinary Chinese in the countryside and resolves to make a difference. But Mr. Xi has rarely spoken in public about his experiences from 1966 to 1968 at the tumultuous start of the Cultural Revolution, and his close contemporaries refuse to talk to foreign journalists about those years. An examination of memoirs written by them and by members of Mr. Xi’s family, though, offers an unusually vivid look at how a shy, bookish youth, raised in the bosom of party privilege, was tested and changed by the chaos that unfolded after Mao’s decision to turn the masses against the party establishment. Mr. Xi started his transformation in the equivalent of the seventh grade in the August 1 School, a cloistered boarding school largely reserved for children with parents in the senior ranks of the party and the military. When Cultural Revolution militants shut it down, he ended up at the No. 25 School, which was a hotbed of discontent with the party elite, said Qian Peizhen, chairwoman of the school’s alumni association. Video President Xi Jinping of China arrived in the United States on Tuesday for a state visit at a crucial crossroads in the Sino-American relationship. Credit Credit Wu Hong/European Pressphoto Agency But as order broke down, Mr. Xi, like many youths, spent little time in class. Mr. Xi and a friend “would hang out all day,” Ms. Qian said. After fleeing their home, he, his mother and his siblings took refuge at the Central Party School, an academy for officials. “We grew up in a highly abnormal environment,” Li Xiaobing, a classmate at the August 1 School, recalled on a school alumni website . The purges, zealotry and mass strife that Mao unleashed during the Cultural Revolution left a lasting mark on every Chinese leader who has succeeded him. But Mr. Xi stands out because he is the first party chief from the generation of the Red Guards — the youths who served as Mao’s shock troops — and because he fell so far before beginning his trek to power, from a family in the party elite to an unmoored life as a teenage political pariah. Some of Mr. Xi’s critics argue that his experiences during the Cultural Revolution inform his authoritarian ways. But the imprint of that time was more complex than that, said Patricia M. Thornton, a professor at Oxford who is researching the Cultural Revolution and its legacy. Mr. Xi’s generation venerated Mao, she said, but his family suffered in the violence that Mao unleashed, and Mr. Xi’s outlook is rooted in an elitist rejection of that turmoil. “Xi got to see both sides of that time, which is one reason I think he’s such an interesting character,” she said, “but that’s also why he’s so difficult to read.” Image Mr. Xi in 1979. Credit Xinhua Press, via Corbis Unlike some youths from elite backgrounds, Mr. Xi did not turn against the party or Mao, but learned to revere strict order and abhor challenges to hierarchy, said Yongyi Song, a historian and librarian in Los Angeles who has long studied the Cultural Revolution. “He suffered much under Mao,” Mr. Song said, “but I think that actually increased his belief that those who are ‘born red,’ those children of the party elite, earned the right to inherit Mao’s place at the center.” At the August 1 School, Mr. Xi and other students were expected to be exemplary servants of the socialist revolution. “We took the children to clean out latrines, and they did a really fine job,” a former teacher, Tang Yuhua, said in an interview for the school alumni association. “The children of officials did what they were told.” One of Mr. Xi’s teachers, Chen Qiuying , recalled him as a studious, elaborately polite boy who was fond of Du Fu, an ancient Chinese poet. He had a “very steady, kind personality,” she said in an interview published in Hong Kong. But Mr. Xi and his brothers and sisters were vulnerable when the Cultural Revolution began because Mao had turned on their father, Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary veteran and vice premier, four years earlier. He lost his post and was sent to work in a factory in central China, while his wife, Qi Xin, kept her job as a party cadre in Beijing. Image Mr. Xi visiting San Francisco in 1985. Credit Xinhua Press, via Corbis Many of the first Red Guards who embraced Mao’s call in August 1966 to purge society of ideological enemies and traitors were the children of party officials. But Mr. Xi could not join them because he was too young and had been tainted by his father’s fall. Instead, he became a target of abuse, Ms. Chen said. “He told me of one incident, in which a primary school sports teacher with a very poor attitude bullied him when the wave of physical assaults in the Cultural Revolution was spreading,” she said. The sports teacher, she recalled, mocked him as “child of a black gang,” a term for toppled officials. Radicals accused students at the school of betraying Mao by defending their parents and privileges. A journal published by Red Guards described the school as “a cradle for pampering the sons of senior cadres” that had “bred a successor class of the bourgeoisie.” Violence was encouraged and widespread. In August and September of 1966, nearly 1,800 people died in attacks across Beijing, according to party estimates issued in 1980. Mr. Xi lost an elder sister, Xi Heping, his father’s first daughter through an earlier marriage. Official accounts say she was “persecuted to death,” leaving out details, but a historian familiar with the party elite who spoke on condition of anonymity said she probably had taken her own life under duress, as many targeted by the Red Guards did in those years. Xi Jinping on ‘House of Cards’ and Hemingway Here are a few excerpts from President Xi Jinping of China’s speech to business leaders in Seattle on Tuesday night. Mr. Xi’s father, exiled in central China, was seized by Red Guards, who took him to Xi’an, a city in northwest China. There they paraded him around on a truck, beat and interrogated him, and made outlandish accusations that he had used a secret radio set in his home for clandestine foreign contacts. As the Cultural Revolution spiraled into mayhem, Mr. Xi learned to fend for himself. “We were the ‘blackest’ in the class, and the others all despised us,” recalled Nie Weiping, a classmate at the No. 25 School whose father had also been purged. “They wouldn’t come near us, and we also despised them.” One day, he, Mr. Xi and another teenage friend with a purged father, Liu Weiping, were among a large group ambushed by radical Red Guards outside a school hall. “Hundreds of them came rushing out, waving clubs and yelling, and they beat whomever they saw,” Mr. Nie said in a memoir . “Xi Jinping and I moved fast and escaped,” he said, “but Liu Weiping ran a step slower, and almost suffered a concussion from a beating.” In the interview published in 2000, when he was still a provincial official, Mr. Xi recalled being singled out and detained by the radicals because of his refusal to yield. “They all believed I was a leader,” he said. Image Xi Jinping, front left, meeting villagers as the Communist Party secretary in Zhengding County, in the north Chinese province of Hebei, in 1983. Credit Xinhua Press, via Corbis “They asked me how bad I thought my crimes were,” he said. “I said that they should make a guess, was it enough to deserve being shot? They said it would be enough to be shot 100 times over. I thought, what was the difference between being shot once and 100 times?” “Afterwards,” he added, “I recited the thoughts of Chairman Mao every day late into the night.” At one point, militants paraded Mr. Xi and five adults on a stage before a rally, according to an associate of Mr. Xi’s father, Yang Ping , citing conversations with the father and family. Mr. Xi had to use both hands to hold up the cone-shaped metal hat he was made to wear. “The mother had no choice but to go to the struggle session and sat below the stage,” Mr. Yang wrote. “When they yelled, ‘Down with Xi Jinping!’ on the stage, his mother was forced to raise her arm and shout the slogan along with everyone.” By late 1968, Mr. Xi’s record of defiance was enough that he was ordered to a juvenile detention center for the children of purged officials. But he was spared imprisonment after Mao issued a call for urban youths to go to the countryside. He did not see his father again until 1972, when Premier Zhou Enlai arranged a family reunion. The father, battered and disoriented after years of isolation and interrogation, “looked at his two grown boys, and totally failed to recognize them,” according to his father’s biography, citing an interview with Mr. Xi. The older man wept, and Mr. Xi offered him a cigarette. “He asked me, ‘How come you also smoke?’” Mr. Xi said. “I said: ‘I’m depressed. We’ve also made it through tough times over these years.’ “He went quiet for a moment and said, ‘I grant you approval to smoke.’” | Xi Jinping;China;Beijing;Cultural Revolution;Xi'an China;Communist Party of China |
ny0271872 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/05/27 | Loris Francesco Capovilla, Pope John’s Aide and ‘Spiritual Son,’ Dies at 100 | Cardinal Loris Francesco Capovilla, who as personal secretary to Pope John XXIII helped prepare the Roman Catholic hierarchy for the opening of the Second Vatican Council, died on Thursday in Bergamo, Italy. He was 100. His death was reported by the Italian news agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata. Cardinal Capovilla was a priest when he met Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the future pope, in Venice in 1953. He had served as a military chaplain during World War II and later as a radio broadcaster and journalist for the church. Cardinal Roncalli had just been installed as the patriarch of Venice in 1953. The two men formed an instant rapport. Cardinal Roncalli engaged Father Capovilla as his private secretary and, after the death of Pius XII in 1958, as one of his representatives to the papal conclave convened to elect a new pope. After his election to the papacy, Pope John took his assistant with him to the Vatican. “In Capovilla, Roncalli got much more than a secretary: He got a spiritual son, a literary executor, a confidant and a Boswell,” Peter Hebblethwaite wrote in “Pope John XXIII: Shepherd of the Modern World,” his definitive biography of Pope John, published in 1985. Loris Francesco Capovilla was born on Oct. 15, 1915, in Pontelongo, near Padua. His father, Rodolfo, died when was a boy, and his youth was filled with extreme deprivation. His mother was the former Letizia Callegaro. He entered the Patriarchal Seminary of Venice as a teenager and was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Venice on May 23, 1940. After serving as a chaplain at the air force base in Parma, he took on a more public role when he returned to civilian life in Venice, delivering Sunday sermons on Radio Venezia and editing La Voce di San Marco, the diocesan weekly. He also edited the Venice section of L’Avvenire d’Italia, a Catholic daily published in Bologna. In the first days of the new papacy, Cardinal Capovilla recalled in the 2015 documentary “Voices of Vatican II: Council Participants Remember,” Pope John turned to him and said: “My desk is piling up with problems, questions, requests, hopes. What’s really necessary is a council.” Worried that Pope John, at 77, might not be up to the demands of a council, he recommended a go-slow policy. The pope, he argued, should use his considerable personal charm to build a base of support and avoid major initiatives. He was overruled, and Pope John sent him in early 1959 to Venice, Padua and Bergamo to give a series of addresses aimed at easing apprehensions about the proposed council and countering the impression in certain quarters that the new pontiff was a bit of a bumpkin. The council opened in October 1962, and it was Father Capovilla who suggested to Pope John at the end of the council’s opening day that he address the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, estimated at 500,000. It proved to be a masterstroke of public relations. In plain language, the pope expressed his hopes for the council and concluded with the now famous words, “Now go back home and give your little children a kiss — tell them it is from Pope John.” In June 1963, it fell to Father Capovilla to tell Pope John, in the terminal stages of stomach cancer, that there was no longer any hope. “I must be totally honest with you: Your time has come,” he recalled saying, in an interview with The Tablet in 1992. The pope thanked him for his loyalty. “We have worked,” he recalled the pope’s saying. “We have served. We have loved. We have not stopped to gather the stones which were thrown against us from one side or the other of the way, to throw them back.” He wrote a memoir of his time with the pope, “The Heart and Mind of John XXIII: His Secretary’s Intimate Recollections,” published in 1964. Several years earlier the pope had entrusted him with the diaries he had kept since age 14, with permission to publish them after his death. They were included in “Journal of a Soul,” published in English translation in 1965. Pope Paul VI appointed him prelate di anticamera, an advisory position under the chief chamberlain of the Vatican, and expert to the Second Vatican Council, after Pope John’s death. He was made bishop of the Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto, in the Abruzzo region, in 1967. Four years later he was named prelate of Loreto and titular archbishop of Mesembria, Bulgaria, appointments he resigned in 1988. In retirement he moved to Sotto il Monte, northeast of Milan, the birthplace of Pope John, now known as Sotto il Monte Giovanni XXIII. There he helped run a museum dedicated to the pope. On Jan. 12, 2014, Pope Francis announced his appointment as cardinal and, at the same time, cardinal-priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome. When approached by the news media for his reaction, Cardinal Capovilla invoked the memory of the pope he had served. “If you think,” the Catholic News Service quoted him as saying, “that Pope John, on the greatest day of his life, the opening of the council, said in front of the whole world, ‘My person is nothing, it is a brother who speaks to you, become a father by the will of our Lord’ — if a pope said this at the height of his pontifical service, what do you think a poor little priest can say?” | Loris Francesco Capovilla;Catholic Church;John XXIII;Obituary |
ny0101447 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2015/12/07 | For Speech, Obama Selects a Setting He Usually Shuns: The Oval Office | WASHINGTON — When the cameras blinked on for Sunday night’s address on the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings and the threat from the Islamic State, President Obama delivered it from the Oval Office, a place for speechmaking that he had largely shunned during his presidency. The choice of the Oval Office as the location for the address to the nation was partly the result of holiday happenstance: The rest of the White House is decorated for the many parties that Mr. Obama will be hosting this week for his staff, members of Congress, journalists and others. But the decision also reflects the gravity of a subject that has come to define Mr. Obama’s presidency, especially in his second term: how to reassure Americans of their safety even as the United States faces an increasingly aggressive terrorist foe. Video The president made a televised address from the Oval Office on Sunday and discussed the country’s fight against the Islamic State. Credit Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times And it suggests the importance that the president and his advisers place on responding to criticism of his strategy for defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. That criticism has grown more fierce in recent months, as the terrorist network has initiated or inspired attacks beyond those borders — in Paris; in Beirut, Lebanon; in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt; and, perhaps, last week in the United States. Mr. Obama has delivered formal remarks to the nation from the Oval Office twice before — in the summer of 2010, as oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken well, and a few months later, as he announced the end of combat operations in Iraq, declaring that he had made good on a central promise from his campaign. He had not done it since. Most of the dramatic moments of Mr. Obama’s presidential oratory have happened outside the Oval Office. He announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in a speech from the East Room, a location that allows him to stride up to the lectern through the Cross Hall of the White House as the cameras are rolling. He used the same location to hail the passage of his signature health care initiative, the Affordable Care Act. Video From Truman to Obama, when presidents address the nation from the Oval Office the topics have been of major concern. Credit Credit Associated Press And throughout his presidency, Mr. Obama and his aides have sought backdrops outside Washington. A speech directed toward Muslims worldwide was delivered at Cairo University in Egypt. He talked about the economy at Georgetown University. He celebrated civil rights at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. And he discussed the war in Afghanistan at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Aides have said the Oval Office is suited more for a short address than the longer speeches Mr. Obama sometimes favors. And in today’s media age, it can sometimes be difficult to persuade networks to carry a short Oval Office address live in the middle of a lucrative prime-time television lineup. Some of Mr. Obama’s media advisers have long believed that sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office, as presidents like Ronald Reagan usually did, is no longer an effective image in a fast-paced, YouTube world. The desk, sitting between the viewer and the president, becomes an obstacle for those watching, a distraction from the president’s message, they said. Those aides — some of whom have left the White House — also believed in the power of the image of Mr. Obama walking up to a lectern in the East Room. But there is also history to think about, and there is no doubt that the Oval Office backdrop conveys the historic nature of a moment. In addressing the terrorist threat on Sunday, Mr. Obama clearly hoped to achieve that goal. | Speeches;White House;Barack Obama;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Terrorism;US Politics |
ny0220161 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2010/02/05 | Haiti Charges Americans With Child Abduction | PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week without the government’s consent have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, as Haitian officials sought to reassert judicial control after the Jan. 12 earthquake . The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho , had said they intended to rescue Haitian children left parentless in the quake and take them to what they described as an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic . But they acknowledged failing to seek approval to remove the children from Haiti , and several of the children have at least one living parent. The Americans will face a potentially extended legal proceeding in Haiti and could, if convicted, face prison terms of up to 15 years. In a sign of the cloudy nature of the case, the prosecutor, Mazar Fortil, decided not to pursue what could have been the most serious charge against the group, that of trafficking. The charges will now be considered by an investigative judge, who has up to three months to decide whether to pursue the matter further. The leader of the group, Laura Silsby, a businesswoman who describes herself as a missionary as well, has also come under scrutiny at home in Idaho, where employees complain of unpaid wages and the state has placed liens on her company bank account. The lawyer for the group, Edwin Coq, said after a hearing on Thursday that 9 of his 10 clients were “completely innocent,” but that, apparently in a reference to Ms. Silsby, “If the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group.” The Haitian capital lost courthouses, judges, lawyers and its main prison in the earthquake, straining the judiciary along with everything else. Prosecutors said this was the first criminal case to receive a hearing in Port-au-Prince since the natural disaster. The hearing took place in a hilltop courthouse that had minor cracks in the walls and scores of squatters living outside. A crush of journalists sought access to the defendants on their way into the courthouse, where police officers in riot gear prevented access. The Americans were transported in two Haitian police vehicles — one labeled “Child Protection Brigade” — from the police station where they have been held since the weekend to Port-au-Prince’s main criminal courthouse. Mr. Coq said beforehand that their immediate release was possible, and the police who transported the detainees took their luggage to the hearing as well in case they were to be freed. Ms. Silsby, who had helped organize the group’s mission, sounded a hopeful note as she waited to be taken into court, saying, “We’re just trusting God for a positive outcome.” But during the hearing, Jean Ferge Joseph, a deputy prosecutor, told the Americans that their case was not being dropped and that it would be sent to a judge for further review. “That judge can free you, but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings,” the deputy prosecutor said, according to Reuters. When they received the news, the Americans did not appear distraught, Mr. Coq, their lawyer, said. “They prayed,” he said. “They looked down and prayed.” Reuters, which had a reporter in the session, said that all 10 of the detainees acknowledged to the prosecutor that they had apparently violated the law when they tried to take the children from Haiti, although they said they were unaware of that until after they were detained. “We did not have any intention to violate the law, but now we understand it’s a crime,” said Paul Robert Thompson, a pastor who led the group in prayer during a break in the session. Ms. Silsby asked the prosecutor not only to release the group, whose members range in age from 18 to 55, but also to allow them to continue their work in Haiti. “We simply wanted to help the children,” she said. “We petition the court not only for our freedom, but also for our ability to continue to help.” As they were led out of the courthouse one by one for their return to jail, some of the Americans smiled as reporters surrounded them. They left without comment. The Americans were arrested last Friday as they tried to take the 33 children by bus to the Dominican Republic, where they said they were in the process of leasing or building an orphanage. It is unclear if the group had arranged for someplace to house the children in the Dominican Republic. A Web site for the group, the New Life Children’s Refuge, said that the Haitian children there would stay in a “loving Christian homelike environment” and be eligible for adoption through agencies in the United States . The children are being taken care of now at SOS Children’s Villages , an Austrian-run orphanage in Port-au-Prince. The Americans and members of their churches have said that they are innocent of any wrongdoing, and described the case as a misunderstanding. In an interview this week, Ms. Silsby said that the group had come to Haiti to rescue children orphaned by the earthquake, and that “our hearts were in the right place.” But some of the children had living parents, and some of those parents said that the Baptists had promised simply to educate the youngsters in the Dominican Republic and to allow them to return to Haiti to visit. Ms. Silsby had made her intentions known to child protection officials, human rights experts and Dominican authorities in Haiti, all of whom warned her that she could be charged with trafficking if she tried to take children out of the country without proper documentation. Some Haitian leaders have called the Americans kidnappers, but their case has created divisions. Outside the courthouse on Thursday, one onlooker backed the Americans. “The process they followed was wrong, but they were not stealing kids,” said Béatrice St.-Julien. “They came here to help us.” Until Thursday, Haitian judicial officials had left open the possibility that the group could be returned to the United States for trial, sparing Haiti’s crippled justice system a high-profile criminal prosecution fraught with diplomatic and political land mines. American officials have talked with Haitian judicial authorities about the case, but it is unclear exactly how much lobbying Washington is doing behind the scenes to affect the outcome. The State Department has said that whether to pursue charges for any possible violations of Haitian law remains a Haitian decision. One expert said that by pursuing the case Haitian authorities seemed to be trying to make a point. “Haiti’s decision to prosecute the Baptist missionaries may be motivated, in part, by the need to show its own people and the world that it is a viable entity that is tackling the grave problem of international child abductions in Haiti,” Christopher J. Schmidt, a lawyer with Bryan Cave L.L.P. in St. Louis who has been involved in multiple cases of international kidnapping, said in a statement. The families of the 10 Americans released a statement on Thursday evening, pleading with the Haitian authorities for lenience. “We are anxious, fearful and concerned about our family members, especially the young people who are jailed in a foreign country,” the statement said. “Obviously, we do not know details about what happened and didn’t happen on this mission. However, we are absolutely convinced that those who were recruited to join this mission traveled to Haiti to help, not hurt, these children. “We are pleading to the Haitian Prime Minister to focus his energies on the critical tasks ahead for the country and to forgive mistakes that were made by a group of Americans trying to assist Haiti’s children.” | Haiti;Orphans;Earthquake;null;Adoption;Laura Silsby;Missionary |
ny0020398 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2013/07/14 | After Protest, China Cancels Plans for Uranium Plant | HONG KONG — One day after a rare public protest, Chinese authorities said Saturday that they were abandoning plans to construct a uranium processing plant in southeastern China, where residents raised concerns about its safety and potential environmental impact. The decision not to proceed with the plant in Guangdong Province, less than 60 miles from Hong Kong, came after hundreds of people turned out on Friday and “took a walk” through the city of Jiangmen carrying banners showing their opposition to the proposed plant, which would have been capable of processing half the fuel needed for China’s nuclear power needs. Unsanctioned gatherings are banned in China, but participants said the police did not intervene to stop the protest. The Jiangmen City government Web site said Saturday that the project had been “canceled,” and Southern Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party in Guangdong, said the decision was made “out of respect for public opinion.” Image The police stood across from demonstrators on Friday during a protest against plans for a uranium processing plant in Jiangmen, China. Credit Maggie Cen/Reuters The protest in Jiangmen was the latest display of growing public disquiet about environmental hazards, which could frustrate China’s ambitious plans for nuclear power and technology. The catastrophic failures at nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, also kindled anxiety in China about its expansion of nuclear power. That expansion is a major part of China’s plans to decrease the reliance on coal, and the government has indicated that by 2020 it wants nuclear reactors to provide about 5 percent or more of the country’s power, up from about 2 percent now. The government has also faced a widespread public outcry over the air pollution enshrouding Beijing and many other major Chinese cities, forcing officials to begin instituting a series of measures to try to control emissions. Word of the planned protest against the proposed Guangdong plant had spread rapidly in recent days on Chinese social media despite government efforts to censor the discussion on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. Opponents were also planning another protest for Sunday. Some opponents were outraged the public was given only 10 days to comment on the plans, while others said they were upset that the public had no apparent role in deciding where the plant would be located. | Guangdong;Uranium;Nuclear energy;Hong Kong;China |
ny0247576 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2011/05/29 | Joe Torre and Baseball Putting the Focus on Prostate Cancer | When Joe Torre was managing, he used to receive suggestions from fans about lineups and rotations and, most helpful of all, how to handle the Boss. As if. Now that he is working for Major League Baseball, Torre occasionally receives news from strangers that they have something in common: they have survived prostate cancer. “All of a sudden, we’re in the same club,” he said. Torre has been out front in fighting this surreptitious disease since his bout with it early in 1999. One hundred twenty-five victories the year before meant nothing at that moment. The only number that counted was that his P.S.A., the marker for cancer, had nearly doubled in one year. Instead of choosing between the lefty and the righty in the bullpen, Torre had to choose between conservative and aggressive treatment. He opted for surgery. Now he is 70 years old and working in the commissioner’s office and enjoying his family, and spreading the news about prostate cancer, which strikes one in six men , in the gland between the bladder and the rectum . Torre is putting himself in public, serving as a judge in a Father’s Day contest, MVP Dad, held by Major League Baseball. Through Wednesday, fans may nominate their fathers on a Web site, MLB.com/mvpdad . Thirty fathers, one per franchise, will be honored around June 19; Torre will visit four ballparks in the preceding days — Coors Field, Yankee Stadium, Nationals Park and Wrigley Field. Current stars will also publicize the cause, and a charity home run challenge will be held in June. “My father wasn’t the best role model to me,” Torre said, alluding to the abuse his father directed at his family, the motivation for the Safe at Home Foundation , which combats domestic violence. Father’s Day is the perfect time to remember the love and guidance fathers can give — but it works both ways. Children can also urge their fathers to seek annual checkups for prostate cancer, the way many of them lecture their parents about smoking or bad diets. “Kids are much more intuitive these days,” Torre said in a telephone interview. “Not that I’m crazy about what’s on TV, but they know so much these days.” Torre was 58 when a routine checkup revealed he had prostate cancer. His daughter, Andrea Rae, was 3. “I wanted to be around for her,” he said. His wife, Ali , was part of the process , which Torre says is vital, to have somebody close sharing the details and the fears. He often refers to his wife in conversation, as if her counsel was helping him hold a news conference, say the right thing, and maybe it is. Then there is the army out there, the men who have faced the chilling diagnosis, the options for treatment. Some men cannot talk about it; others share their experience . Just like checking the batteries on a smoke detector when moving the clocks two times a year, Father’s Day is a good time to remind men of a certain age. Torre praises Michael Milken , the founder of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, for taking some of the mystery from this common disease. After a few months off for surgery in 1999, Torre helped the Yankees win two more World Series, then moved to Los Angeles after 2007, when the Yankees let him know it was time. Last September, he turned the job over to Don Mattingly. “The price for losing wasn’t worth it,” Torre said. He recalled going to spring training this year and saying to Mattingly, “How do you feel about this managing stuff now?” Mattingly, still on the learning curve, is engrossed. Torre said he was sad to watch M.L.B. take over the strapped team. “It’s a shame,” Torre said. “I go back with that club to growing up in Brooklyn.” He was a Giants fan, but he understands the history. He also watches his previous club, the Yankees, in their first full season since the death of George Steinbrenner last July. “Let’s admit it, George cast a very large shadow,” Torre said. He gets a kick when fans say this event or that event would not have happened if the Boss had been running the club, as if things always ran smoothly back in George’s day. Torre’s main responsibility is overseeing the umpires. He says he feels for them, when modern technology suggests they have made a mistake. He says he can see technology deciding fair from foul one of these seasons, adding to the current use of cameras to determine whether a ball went over a home run line. But he does not see the day when technology decides balls and strikes, or plays at the bases. “It’s an imperfect sport,” he said, adding quickly that umpires were very, very good. Ultimately, it is a sport, however combative and expensive — not to be confused with real life, which is children urging their fathers to get a checkup. | Torre Joe;New York Yankees;Baseball;Prostate Cancer |
ny0089859 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2015/09/07 | Andy Murray Keeps Winning, and Resting and Recuperating | As he marches through the United States Open while battling a cold, Andy Murray talks to The New York Times about rest, recuperation and recovery. Murray has defeated Nick Kyrgios, Adrian Mannarino and Thomaz Bellucci, and he plays Kevin Anderson in a fourth-round match Monday. Q. So with the win over Bellucci on Saturday behind you, let’s move on to what you’re doing Sunday. How do you recharge? A. It does change a little bit. This time I want to practice early, and I did that after my last match as well with Mannarino. I came into practice quite early, around 1 o’clock so I could get back to the hotel. It’s pretty late just now, midnight. I’ll see my physio when I get back, and have a little bit of food at the hotel. But yeah, tomorrow I’ll come in here, leave the hotel at 11 a.m. and then I’ll see my physio for 45 minutes to an hour. I’ll warm up with my physical trainer, and then practice for an hour, probably fairly light. It’s not always light on the days off, but just because I’ve played a lot of tennis, I’m trying to kind of conserve my energy as much as I can, and recover on the days off rather than doing a tough practice session. After I finish, I’ll do an ice bath in there in the locker room. I do eight minutes in the ice bath at 46 Fahrenheit, which is like 9.5 Celsius or something like that. And then after that I’ll get in the car back to the hotel. I make sure I eat and drink a lot on the days off. When I get back to the hotel I’ll see my physio and have a stretch, massage, maybe sleep, and then go out for dinner. That’s pretty much it. Q. Do you ever do things to take your mind totally off tennis during a tournament? Roger Federer went to a Broadway play, Petra Kvitova watched “Moneyball”; anything along those lines of an activity unrelated to optimizing your tennis? A. I’ve done it before. We went to see “War Horse,” I went to see “Lion King,” just before the tournament. In Australia I’ve gone to see comedy shows during the event. But here, normally because it’s quite a long way to get to and from the venue, I don’t normally do much, to be honest. Q. A bunch of players have been battling sickness at this tournament, you among them. What do you do to prevent that, if anything, or is it just luck? A. Hand sanitizer — a lot of hand sanitizer. And when players are sick, it sounds stupid, but I try not to shake loads of people’s hands. I just give them the fist bump instead of shaking hands. And it’s important to not spend so much time here in the locker room. Q. So is it awkward when you see someone coughing and you have to move away? A. (Laughs) I’m not that bad with the germs and stuff, like Brad Gilbert and Andre Agassi. I don’t know if you’ve heard this story: When I went for dinner with Agassi and Gilbert once in Vegas, Agassi went to open the door, and literally, I swear to God, bent down and grabbed the bottom corner of the door. I went, ‘What’s he doing?’ And then Agassi goes ‘No one touches the door down there!’ Um, O.K. (Laughs). But those two are big germaphobes, and I’m not that. Q. When you have a cold or something, you have to be careful about what you can take and what might contain a banned substance. Do you have a stash of approved stuff with you, do you apply for exemptions? A. I have never in my career applied for an exemption for anything. I go to the tournament doctor, and just speak with them. There’s a couple of things you can take, like decongestants. That’s pretty much it — and 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C every morning, and try to sleep as much as possible. Q. And you always go through those official channels to play it safe. A. Yeah, I would absolutely never buy anything over-the-counter from any pharmacist. I don’t understand athletes that do that. | US Open Tennis;Tennis;Andy Murray;Brad Gilbert;Kevin Anderson;Andre Agassi |
ny0002537 | [
"business"
] | 2013/03/12 | Boeing Seeks Approval for Updated Jet | Boeing is likely to seek approval from its board as early as next month to start taking orders for an updated version of its 777 passenger jet, industry officials said Monday. The company plans to add lightweight carbon-composite wings and new engines to the popular model to take advantage of new technologies that it developed for its 787 Dreamliner and to cut fuel usage by perhaps 20 percent. The 777 holds a sweet spot in the growing commercial plane market. It seats more than 300 people, but with only two engines, it is cheaper to operate than the largest planes, like the Boeing 747 or the Airbus A380. All 50 of the 787s delivered so far have been grounded after two incidents involving smoke and fire from new lithium-ion batteries, and no decision has been made about which batteries would be in the new 777s. But the long-awaited decision to upgrade the planes would be an important moment for Boeing as it tries to hold onto its recent dominance in sales of twin-engine planes, which represent the middle of the size range for commercial jetliners. Airbus, Boeing’s main rival, is building the A350-XWB, its first jet making substantial use of composite parts, to compete with both the 787 and the larger 777. Boeing also plans to build two larger versions of the 787. Boeing would like to deliver the first of two new models of the 777 to customers by 2019. The first model would probably seat about 400 people, while the second one would hold about 350 passengers and be ready in 2021. Boeing’s plans to seek board approval soon were first reported by Aviation Week. It said Boeing was trying to decide whether to offer engines from both General Electric and Rolls-Royce and might make G.E. the sole supplier. The Emirates airline has pushed Boeing to move ahead with the 777 and hinted last week that Boeing was close to a decision. A Boeing spokesman, Marc R. Birtel, said Monday that the company was “aggressively moving forward” with its plans for the 777. “Customers are happy with the airplane design, and we are pleased with where we are in the process,” he said. Boeing is already working on an extended 787, called the 787-9, and some analysts had expected the company’s board to approve an even longer 787-10 before authorizing the 777 upgrade. But while Boeing works to fix the 787 batteries, airlines have been pushing harder for a decision on the new 777. Boeing has also been talking to airlines about design plans for 787-10. But its board has not yet approved that jet for sale. | Airlines,airplanes;Boeing |
ny0113225 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/11/05 | Freezing Temperatures Complicate Storm Recovery | New York City officials said on Sunday that they faced the daunting challenge of finding homes for as many as 40,000 people who were left homeless after the devastation of last week’s storm, a situation that the city’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg , compared to New Orleans ’s after Hurricane Katrina . The mayor said that the 40,000 figure was the worst possible case given by the Department of Housing and Urban Development , and that a more realistic assessment was 20,000 people — most of them residents of public housing. Even in the best possible case, he said, the task will be formidable. “We don’t have a lot of empty housing in this city,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Sunday. “We are not going to let anybody go sleeping in the streets or go without blankets, but it’s a challenge, and we’re working on that as fast as we can.” It is a task shared throughout the region, as officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut struggle to meet the demands of those whose homes have been left uninhabitable. In some cases, the solution may be a familiar, if unwelcome sight: the trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina. Craig Fugate, director of the agency, said most displaced people would probably be housed in hotels or apartments. But in some regions, like Long Island with its many single-family homes and few large apartment blocks, he said there was a shortage of vacant housing. “It has got to make sense for the neighborhood,” Mr. Fugate said, adding that it was up to the states to request the trailers. “We are going to bring all potential housing solutions and look at what works best for each neighborhood.” Even as utility companies work to restore power to millions of customers, a northeaster, projected to land midweek, may hit the already battered coastal areas with heavy winds and strong waves that could cause more flooding and tear down power lines recently replaced and stop repair workers in their tracks. “The first concern is slowing the army that we’ve got down; the second is more outages,” said John Miksad, Consolidated Edison ’s senior vice president for electric operations. “It certainly does complicate the restoration.” A week after Hurricane Sandy tore through the region, millions have regained electricity, mass transit is on the mend, and volunteers have rushed in to help those who are desperate. On Sunday, some runners who had expected to compete in the New York City Marathon , which was canceled, instead pitched in to haul fallen trees and to distribute clothing and food in the city’s most heavily damaged regions. Others ran a modified marathon route in Central Park. In many regions, power is still lacking and fuel is nowhere to be found. As of Sunday, the number of utility customers without power was over 1.8 million, the Energy Department said; that included more than 900,000 in New Jersey, 280,000 served by the Long Island Power Authority and 198,000 Con Edison customers — nearly half of them in Westchester County . Gas shortages persisted with rationing imposed in New Jersey and lines at some gas stations stretching for miles. And with recovery times in some areas projected to last not days or weeks, but months, a sense of desperation appeared to have set in. In parts of Staten Island , Long Island and coastal New Jersey, many still reside in dank, waterlogged houses and survive on food handouts from federal agencies and the National Guard. FEMA announced over the weekend that it would begin providing free hotel rooms for up to two weeks to victims whose homes are not habitable, as authorities try to move people out of emergency shelters. Individuals must register with the agency to get the assistance, which also in some cases can include rental assistance for temporary apartments. As of 3 p.m. Sunday, 182,000 residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut had applied for disaster assistance, and a total of $158 million has been approved, he said. Some share of that total will need a temporary place to stay. Word that some may have to leave their homes permanently caused further confusion and fear, particularly in public housing complexes heavily damaged by the storm. At the Hammel Houses, a public housing complex in the Rockaways, saltwater stains from the storm surge were visible above first-floor windows, which like many in this part of New York City were all dark. “They tell us we might evacuate,” said Gloria Evans, 47, who has lived at apartment 1B at the houses since she moved there 26 years ago as a new mother. “Are they going to help us? They can’t just move everyone out and have no place to put them,” she said. It is still uncertain how many people would ultimately need housing, temporary or otherwise. In New Jersey alone, over 5,000 people remain in shelters and tens of thousands who evacuated their homes now reside with relatives and friends. Those with no homes to return to will have to find a new place to live. “We lost a lot of housing here in New Jersey,” Janet Napolitano , the Homeland Security secretary, said in Hoboken with Gov. Chris Christie . “We don’t even know yet which houses are reparable.” In making his reference to Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Bloomberg said that to his recollection the number of displaced people in New York may have been similar to that in New Orleans. That estimation seemed inaccurate since several hundred thousand people were placed in federal housing in the months after that storm. Officials were scrambling to prepare for the onset of cold weather. New York City has opened heating shelters and is passing out blankets to residents without electricity. Temperatures throughout the region were expected to fall Sunday evening into the 30s, and the National Weather Service issued a freeze watch for parts of New Jersey, including the coast, the scene of some of the worst damage. Officials have urged residents across the region to head to shelters. Volunteers were also trying to help. In the narrow streets of Midland Beach, one of the hardest hit areas on Staten Island, they carried hoes, rakes, brooms and shovels as they went door to door offering their labor. Others circled the blocks in pickup trucks full of food, blankets, clothes and cleaning supplies. Impromptu distribution centers, piled high with food and secondhand clothes, sprung up on every other corner. On Sunday morning, runners dressed in orange marathon gear crowded onto the Staten Island Ferry and headed to the storm-ravaged borough to help. They packed blankets, food, water and flashlights in shoulder bags. Some planned to run to battered areas once the ferry docked. “There are people suffering on Staten Island, and we’ve got to do something about it,” said Neil Cohen, 42, from Riverdale in the Bronx . On Sunday, gas lines seemed slightly shorter in some places than in the previous few days, but many stations were still closed. The authorities set up three fuel depots in New Jersey to provide doctors and nurses with up to 15 gallons apiece to allow them to get to work. The gas crisis in the New York metropolitan area appeared to be easing, according to information released late Sunday by the Energy Department. As of Sunday, only 27 percent of the gas stations in the region reported to be out of fuel, down from 67 percent on Friday. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a news conference that tankers and barges were on the way to ease shortages. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that Port Elizabeth, N.J., reopened on Sunday to receive its first shipments. Other Port Authority seaports remained closed. “We do believe it is a short-term problem,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding that shortages could continue for several days. As for the subways, all of the numbered lines were running to some degree, said Joseph J. Lhota , the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority . The No. 1 train has been extended south to 14th Street, and transit officials said they hoped that it would reach Rector Street by Monday. On Sunday evening, Mr. Lhota announced that Q train service had been partially restored to Kings Highway. The South Ferry station, although the water has been pumped out, remains unusable. The L train from Brooklyn to Manhattan and the G train from Brooklyn to Queens also remain suspended with no estimated time for resuming service. Mr. Lhota said trains would arrive at stations less often on Monday than on a normal weekday. “It’s an old system,” Mr. Lhota said in televised remarks. “It needs tender loving care, and it just had a major accident.” Monday morning would also bring another change: the return to school of nearly a million children. About 96 percent of the city’s school buses are expected to be operating, and a vast majority of schools should be open, Mr. Bloomberg said. Students at closed schools will be sent to other locations, though the mayor said that keeping everyone informed about who goes where was proving difficult. The city has made over a million robocalls to parents and has purchased full-page advertisements in Monday’s newspapers with information about scheduling changes. Mr. Bloomberg also set the stage for possible confusion at polling places during the election on Tuesday. About 143,000 voters in the city will be assigned to polling sites outside their districts, and the mayor expressed hope that the New York Board of Elections, which he has criticized for mismanagement, would be prepared. Asked whether he thought the board was up to the task, he replied: “I have absolutely no idea.” | Hurricane Sandy;New York;Connecticut;New Jersey;Real Estate and Housing |
ny0111282 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/02/27 | Green Book, Official N.Y.C. Directory, Is to Go Online | Almost a century ago, Mayor John F. Hylan put together a comprehensive directory of New York City’s agencies and published it for residents of the growing metropolis. Since then, the so-called Green Book has been a bible of city government, a compendium of trivia (including a description of the councilmanic flag) , history (what year was the Westfield ferryboat explosion?) and, most important, phone numbers. But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose administration has not updated the once-annual publication since the 2008-9 edition, now proposes to make the Green Book greener — by publishing it in digital form. Sometime this spring, the city plans to update the Green Book, and transfer its contents to a searchable, and easily updated, Web site. A limited number of copies of the printed version would once again be available for sale, but the city clearly intends for the digital version to be the primary one. “The city is in the process of producing a truly ‘green’ Green Book, and has worked to update the resource after a series of turnovers, election cycles and other changes,” said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg. The digital Green Book would be only another example of the migration of vast amounts of data to the Internet — in many ways, it is startling that the online version was not developed sooner, given the mayor’s emphasis on technology. The state government’s directory, called the Red Book, is already sold in digital, as well as printed, form. But for longtime creatures of City Hall, many of whom have chafed at the Bloomberg administration’s failure to update the directory in recent years, the book was a mark of the insider. Those who have spent countless hours thumbing through the Zagat Guide-size books, looking for, say, the Finance Department’s first deputy sheriff (say hello to Oliver Pu-Folkes, on Page 141, with a phone number that no longer works), or that Westfield ferry explosion (1871), have conflicting feelings about the change. “There’s something beautiful about the historic value of the Green Book as a paper volume,” said Edward C. Wallace, a former city councilman who is a longtime lobbyist. “But in truth, if they really keep it current — so when the deputy mayor changes, and the staff changes, and you know who does what — that would be invaluable. The danger, though, is that online searches can be like going to the moon: if you’re off by an inch, you miss by a mile.” City officials have not finalized crucial details, like whether there will be a fee for access to the online Green Book, how much the project will cost, and how often — and with what safeguards — the directory will be updated. It is not for financial worries that the Green Book — its official name, after the color of its cover — is going digital. The city made $234,000 from the last edition, selling about 20,000 copies at $19.95 apiece. (By comparison, Mr. Bloomberg’s own book, “Bloomberg by Bloomberg,” has sold 8,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks book sales.) An alphabetized and indexed guide to the city’s bureaucracy, it has not always been green; the 2005-6 edition featured a saffron hue, in tribute to Christo’s Central Park artwork, “ The Gates .” The book has been published annually since 1918. The only exceptions have been in 1945, when there was a wartime shortage of paper; the early 1970s, when the fiscal crisis forced the city to publish one every other year; and the last few years, after the Bloomberg administration, without explanation, stopped publishing it. The most recent edition lists George W. Bush as president, Andrew M. Cuomo as attorney general, Joel I. Klein as schools chancellor and William C. Thompson Jr. as comptroller. In May 2010, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which publishes the book, promised that a new edition would be out soon. In March 2011, the spokesman (who has since left the agency) made the same promise but explained that there were many things to update, after the citywide elections in 2009, then after the 2010 elections. In recent interviews, several former senior officials of the administration said there had long been talk about trying to move the Green Book online, as was done with The City Record, the city’s official journal of bids, announcements and personnel changes. But the project stalled over various debates: Should the book’s publication be privatized? Is publication even a priority? “Maybe people were thinking, we’re getting close to the end, what’s the point?” said one former official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships with City Hall. But last month, City Councilman Daniel R. Garodnick , who represents Manhattan’s East Side, wrote a letter to the department’s commissioner, Edna Wells Handy, demanding an explanation. “The release date should not be something shrouded in mystery,” Mr. Garodnick wrote. “If there is a reason for the delay, please make it known. At the very least, you should provide notice of the firm publication date and offer updated information online in the interim.” Mr. Garodnick received a vague response from Ms. Handy (who is listed in the last Green Book in a state job) that suggested that the city hoped to provide a “more environmentally friendly version” of the book “in the coming months.” Mr. Garodnick, who said his office had compiled its own list of city agency numbers, said that he was encouraged, but he remained wary. “This is long overdue, and much needed by people who are looking to navigate city government,” he said, “but I will believe it when I see it.” | Directories;New York City;Politics and Government;Department of Citywide Administrative Services |
ny0252389 | [
"business"
] | 2011/11/21 | Looking Ahead This Week | ECONOMIC REPORTS Existing home sales for October (Monday); revised third-quarter gross domestic product (Tuesday); durable goods for October, weekly jobless claims, personal income and spending for October, and Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for November (Wednesday). CORPORATE EARNINGS Tyson Foods and Hewlett-Packard (Monday); Campbell Soup, Medtronic, Pandora Media and TiVo (Tuesday); and Deere (Wednesday). IN THE UNITED STATES On Tuesday, Nebraska lawmakers are scheduled to vote on a bill that would reroute the Keystone XL pipeline away from the Sandhills region. On Wednesday, the Congressional deficit reduction committee faces a deadline to come up with $1.2 trillion in cuts. IN EUROPE On Monday, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos of Greece will meet in Brussels with European leaders about the debt crisis . On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy will meet in Brussels with Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, to discuss the European debt crisis , and Mr. Papademos will meet in Luxembourg with Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the Euro Group, to discuss the European debt crisis. On Thursday, Mr. Monti will meet in Strasbourg, France, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to discuss the European debt crisis. | Economic Conditions and Trends;Company Reports |
ny0160621 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2006/03/23 | A Basketball Lifer Who Learned to Play With Fire | SPOKANE, Wash., March 21 - After grabbing a rebound for Gonzaga late in a first-round N.C.A.A. tournament game against Xavier, Adam Morrison screamed. In a furor, he slammed his head against the basketball three times, an unusual way to celebrate a pivotal play in the victory. Morrison finished that game with 35 points and proceeded to lead Gonzaga to the Round of 16 for the first time since 2001 with his distinct style, from his just-hit-puberty mustache to his wild hair to his fiery on-court demeanor. To understand how Morrison, a 6-foot-8 junior, has evolved from a virtually unwanted recruit to one of college basketball's leading scorers (28.2 points a game), it is necessary to examine his roots. To understand how he has coped with diabetes, compensated for his lack of athleticism and stayed grounded despite a rock-star-like following, look no further than his parents. "Life as a coach's kid is win first; that's pretty much all you know," Morrison said. "If you don't win, you don't eat. I kind of grew up in that environment." Both John and Wanda Morrison will be in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday night when the third-seeded Bulldogs face second-seeded U.C.L.A. [Morrison, who missed practice Monday because of the flu, said Wednesday that he felt 100 percent.] A pinch of his mother's feistiness mixed with his father's basketball lust has helped Morrison become a college basketball sensation this season. "After you meet Adam's parents," the Gonzaga assistant coach Tommy Lloyd said, "it all makes sense that Adam is like he is." John Morrison grew up on a farm in Montana, shooting baskets at a rim hung on the side of a red barn. In the winter, he would wear mittens and dribble on frozen cow chips. He attended grade school in a two-room schoolhouse and said his first basketball teams practiced in a gym with nine-foot ceilings. A skinny 6-6 shooter, John Morrison did not make the varsity until his senior year at Scobey High School. Yet he carved out a college career and played professionally in Europe in the 1970's. When he took a job as a laborer for Burlington Northern Railroad after graduation from Northern Montana, he said, his co-workers mocked his persistence. "I talked about going overseas so much," he recalled with a laugh, "they nicknamed me Jump Ball." Morrison played one year in the Netherlands and one in Austria, where, he said, he made about $1,000 a month. In between, he met Wanda Hames at the Ponderosa, an old bar in Scobey, and gave up playing. She had been a three-sport star in high school. A few years after they married in 1974, John Morrison heard about a coaching job at Northern Montana, now Montana State University-Northern. Ted Chidester, a former graduate assistant under Bobby Knight at Indiana, said he would hire John Morrison as a graduate assistant if he cut his Afro and shaved his Fu Manchu mustache. Morrison traded them for the start of a life as a sideline grinder. He went on to coach junior varsity ball at a high school in Billings and eventually at Dawson Community College in Glendive, Mont. He won six league titles in eight years at Dawson, doing so with fewer scholarships and less resources than others in the league. Adam Morrison recalled that his father screamed and stomped his feet, demanding the most out of his players. "John was always up and moving around, a high-energy guy who coached with passion," said Ken Rochlitz, the former coach at Northwest College in Powell, Wyo. "He coached the way Adam plays." Morrison parlayed his success in Glendive into a job at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D. The team played its home games in the Corn Palace, an Interstate 90 landmark. From there he went to Casper College, a junior college in Wyoming. Morrison, a disciplinarian, punished players who missed class by having them run three miles at 6 a.m. In 1993, the team finished 11th at the national junior college tournament. But Morrison said that five of his players were involved in trying to steal stereo equipment, and that it ultimately led to his firing. The Morrisons -- including Adam and his older sisters, Brandie and Sara -- moved to Spokane, the home of Gonzaga University. Wanda Morrison became the breadwinner. Her husband worked odd jobs, from refereeing games to running shooting clinics, and his flexible schedule allowed him to coach many of Adam's teams. It was a blessing in disguise, father and son said. Adam Morrison grew up as the consummate coach's son. He remembers that he took a plastic foam airplane to the gym one day and that his father was happy when it broke. His father remembers Adam as a second grader in Casper, competing in a dribbling race at a summer camp. Running neck and neck with his opponent, Adam picked the ball up five feet from the finish and dived over the line to win. That same intensity came across in high school. Adam would guzzle orange juice on the bench rather than come out of a game because his blood sugar level was too low. "If he would have had the body, the mental part and his intensity would have been perfect for football, floor hockey, rugby, boxing, eye gouging, wrestling," John Morrison said of his son. "He just competes." Adam Morrison knows exactly where he got his competitive drive. He became a basketball lifer at a young age, from the bus trips he took in diapers to places like Devils Lake, N.D., and Scottsbluff, Neb., to watching his father after losses. "He's the one that was always putting the foot in my rear and always pushed me," Adam said of his father. "He taught me all the fundamentals and I just kind of grew from there." John Morrison still helps, although he said he had to realize that when Adam comes home these days, he is looking more for a good meal and a nap in the recliner than for talk about his release point. His parents are proud of what Adam has accomplished, but they are not above teasing him. One of John's favorite stories comes from taking his son to the 1992 Final Four in Minneapolis. They bumped into Bob Huggins, whose Cincinnati team was playing in the Final Four. "Are you going to the game, Coach?" Adam, then a wide-eyed grade schooler, asked. Huggins laughed. "Adam," he said with a wink, "I've got a front-row seat." The Morrison family's trip through some of basketball's backwaters was not conventional. But if the Zags win two more games, that meandering road will yield their own front-row seats at the Final Four. | GONZAGA UNIVERSITY;UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA;MORRISON ADAM;NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT;BASKETBALL |
ny0005606 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/04/13 | Albany Teacher Gives Pro-Nazi Writing Assignment | ALBANY — High school is full of hypotheticals, like “How does one solve for x?” and “What happens if I skip class?” But this week, students at Albany High School were given an alarming thought puzzle: How do I convince my teacher that I think Jews are evil? That question was posed to about 75 students on Monday by an unidentified 10th-grade English teacher as a “persuasive writing” exercise. The students were instructed to imagine that their teacher was a Nazi and to construct an argument that Jews were “the source of our problems” using historical propaganda and, of course, a traditional high school essay structure. “Your essay must be five paragraphs long, with an introduction, three body paragraphs containing your strongest arguments, and a conclusion,” the assignment read. “You do not have a choice in your position: you must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” The assignment — first reported by The Times Union of Albany — prompted an embarrassed reaction from school district administrators, who were alerted to it by a concerned parent on Wednesday night. “Obviously, we have a severe lack of judgment and a horrible level of insensitivity,” said Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, superintendent of Albany’s schools. “That’s not the assignment that any school district, and certainly not mine, is going to tolerate.” Dr. Vanden Wyngaard, who met with Jewish leaders in Albany and made a public apology on Friday, said the assignment was apparently an attempt to link the English class with a history lesson on the Holocaust. The assignment itself seems to back up that theory, telling students to use “what you’ve learned in history class.” It also suggests using “any experiences you have.” It echoed another recent, controversial assignment in Manhattan, where an elementary school class was given math problems featuring the whipping and killing of slaves, according to The Associated Press . That assignment was an effort to combine math and social studies lessons. In Albany, Dr. Vanden Wyngaard said, “No one here believes that malice was the intent.” The teacher was not in class on Friday and is facing disciplinary action, she said, which could include termination. Outside the classroom, reaction was mixed. Rabbi David M. Eligberg of Temple Israel , a Conservative synagogue, said he found the lesson incendiary, inappropriate and academically unsound. “The assignment is flawed in its essence,” Rabbi Eligberg said. “It asks students to take the product for a propaganda machine and treat it as legitimate fodder for a rational argument. And that’s just wrong.” He also faulted a less controversial part of the homework, which asked students to use one of three classic Greek ideals — ethos, pathos or logos — to support their anti-Semitic argument. (“Choose which argument style will be most effective in making your point. Please remember that your life here in Nazi Germany in the ’30s may depend on it!” the assignment read.) Rabbi Donald P. Cashman of the B’nai Sholom Reform Congregation , the father of three Albany High graduates, was more forgiving. “Hypothetical situations are often effective teaching tools,” he said, and debating positions one may not believe in can also be valuable. “We know it’s important for kids to get out of their comfort zones,” Rabbi Cashman said, adding that the assignment seemed to correspond with Holocaust Remembrance Day, known as Yom Hashoah, which was Monday. The reaction at Albany High, a racially and ethnically diverse school of about 2,000 students, also varied. Nick Brino, a 10th grader, said he had heard about the assignment from a classmate. “I thought it was wrong,” he said. “But she was flipping out, saying if anyone was going to do it, she wasn’t going to be their friend.” Ninth-grader Jyasi Nagel, though, said he thought the teacher was not anti-Semitic, but just trying to teach different points of view. Jyasi’s father, Moses Nagel, who is Jewish, said that he was not in favor of a harsh punishment for the teacher, but that another topic might have provided a more palatable lesson. “It just seems like there’s a million other examples to use rather than going there,” he said. | K-12 Education;Antisemitism;Holocaust and Nazis;Albany |
ny0129972 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2012/06/24 | Jeremy Lin Is Trying to Have Linsanity Trademarked | By Feb. 13, Jeremy Lin was five games into transforming the Knicks . He was the point guard they craved, the player whose court vision, zippy passing and double-figure scoring brought unexpected joy to Madison Square Garden. From Seventh Avenue to Taiwan, he became a phenomenon: Linsanity. So, on the Monday after that fifth game, when he scored 20 points and dished out 8 assists against Minnesota, he did what any athlete whose stardom comes equipped with a perfect catchphrase would do: he filed to register a trademark for Linsanity with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The plan to trademark Linsanity formed quickly inside Lin’s legal and marketing team. “We laid out a strategy and moved forward with it in 36 hours,” said Pamela Deese, a partner in the intellectual property group at Arent Fox, in Washington. “You have to be able to pivot quickly, as they say in basketball.” Lin would not need the trademark to license Linsanity for the T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, energy drinks, duffel bags, fruit juices, nightshirts, scarves, socks, underwear, sandals, visors, bandannas, footwear and action figures that are listed in his application. But the trademark would provide him with legal protection against others who wanted to stamp, sew or print the Linsanity name on their merchandise. “We wouldn’t want marks like these if there were no business to be made,” Deese said. “But we wouldn’t want them hanging out with someone else, either. It’s defense, but it’s also a good offense.” Other people and companies also filed to register Linsanity trademarks, some before Lin, some after. One wants to use Linsanity to sell perfume and after-shave. Another covets Linsanity to market cellphone cases. A third lists dancer apparel, chef’s hats, fire-retardant pajamas for toddlers and toboggan hats as products to exploit Linsanity. A fourth has video games and headbands in mind. “We’ve filed letters of protest against every other application that tries to play off Jeremy Lin’s fame and personality,” Deese said. “We’ve sent cease-and-desist letters to others who were trying to sell products. There’s a burden on a famous person to protect your celebrity status.” The patent office recently sent the five surviving, non-Lin trademark aspirants — two of whom filed twice — initial refusals. The office said the applications lacked consent from Lin to register the trademark and convey a false connection to him. They have six months to provide additional information. Jonathan Moskin, a partner in trademark law at Foley Lardner, said that Lin “effectively has an automatic preference” with the patent office because Linsanity was coined for him. “Linsanity is a distinctive term with a distinctive meaning and is closely associated with Lin himself, rather than any other individual or business entity,” he said. The other applicants for Linsanity declined to speak or did not respond to a request for comment. Lin’s agents, Roger Montgomery and Jim Tanner, who was hired last week, did not return messages. One of the more celebrated N.B.A.-related trademarks — 3-peat and three-peat — was registered by Pat Riley, the former Los Angeles Lakers coach, after his team won two N.B.A. championships. The Lakers did not fulfill Riley’s merchandising hopes, but he was nonetheless able to collect royalties in 1993 when the Chicago Bulls beat the Phoenix Suns to win their third title in a row. Even if Lin gets the Linsanity trademark, its earnings potential will rely in part on his shelf life. After his college career at Harvard, Lin was not drafted by any N.B.A. teams, so his sudden and unusual rise to stardom grabbed the public’s attention. The first Linsanity era ended with his knee injury in March and season-ending surgery. Whether Linsanity resumes depends on various factors. One, can he return to the level of play that defined Linsanity? Two, if he re-signs with the Knicks as a restricted free agent for a starting salary of about $5 million, will Coach Mike Woodson use him in a way that lets him energize fans? Third, if he signs elsewhere, will he play in a system that lets him fully exploit his skills? “We haven’t seen enough to know if those few weeks were a flash in the pan or if he will play at that level for several years,” said Darin David, an account director for the Marketing Arm, a sports marketing firm. “As far as hitching a brand to him or building a promotional campaign around him, it’s a risk.” Linsanity T-shirts are available from Nike, with whom Lin has a deal. And Linsanity T-shirts and caps are made by Adidas, Majestic and New Era, which are N.B.A. licensees. One element of Lin’s marketing plan hinges on his popularity in Asia, where applications for Linsanity trademarks are pending in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. “There is extraordinary interest in Jeremy even since he was injured and recuperated,” Deese said. “We’re approached multiple times a day from interests in Asia for endorsements and licensing. The Asian market holds incredible opportunities.” David added, “Yao Ming established a growing market, and Lin’s added to it.” | Lin Jeremy;Trademarks and Trade Names;New York Knicks;Advertising and Marketing;Basketball |
ny0030196 | [
"us"
] | 2013/06/28 | U.S. Standards for School Snacks Move Beyond Cafeteria to Fight Obesity | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday released long-awaited nutrition standards for foods that schoolchildren can buy outside the cafeteria, changes that are intended to combat climbing childhood obesity rates. The new rules come a year after the administration updated standards for the federally subsidized school lunch and breakfast programs. The rules would apply to food sold during the school day in vending machines, snack bars and school stores. They would set calorie limits for children and limit the size of beverages they drink at school. Snack foods would be limited to 200 calories per serving, and caffeinated drinks would be allowed only in high schools. The Agriculture Department, which is responsible for putting the new standards into effect, said the foods sold in schools would have to contain more whole grains, low-fat dairy, fruits, vegetables and leaner protein. Food high in sugar, sodium and fat would not be allowed. The department said schools and food and beverage companies would have a year to make the necessary changes. The changes, now considered “interim final rules,” would go into effect during the 2014-15 school year. The new rules would also allow local and regional flexibility by setting minimal requirements. States and schools with higher standards than the new nutrition standards would be allowed to maintain those policies, the department said. “Nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our children,” said Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary. “Parents and schools work hard to give our youngsters the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong, and providing healthy options throughout school cafeterias, vending machines and snack bars will support their great efforts.” Image Commack High School in Commack, N.Y. New nutrition rules would cover food sold in vending machines and snack bars. Credit Kirsten Luce for The New York Times The standards would not affect homemade lunches or treats for activities like birthday parties, holidays and other celebrations at school. After-school activities like sporting events and bake sales would be exempt, as would candy sold during fund-raisers. Children’s health advocates called the rules a good first step. “I think it’s going to have a positive impact on children’s health,” said Jessica Donze Black, director of the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington. “Stronger standards will reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity.” Howell Wechsler, president of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation , a partnership between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation, also praised the new standards. An industry spokesman was also receptive to the new rules. “We commend the U.S.D.A. for its thorough work in developing the first-ever national standards for all foods and beverages in schools which largely follow the guidelines implemented voluntarily by our industry beginning in 2006,” said Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association. “We’ve been waiting for decades for this kind of thing to happen,” said Dr. Wechsler, a former health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’re going to have national standards for the first time. This is a huge step.” Despite the enthusiasm for the new rules, health advocates and schools officials say there are still a number of issues that have to be addressed. One is the cost to schools to carry out the regulations. Another is getting children to actually eat the healthier foods, school officials said. In a number of cases when schools have moved to add healthy foods, children did not buy them. School nutrition workers say they are reviewing the details of the interim rules to assess what impact they will have on school meal programs. “School meal programs are already in the midst of a sea of change as cafeterias work to meet new school breakfast and lunch standards and encourage students to try the healthier choices offered,” said Sandra Ford, president of the School Nutrition Association, which represents nutrition professionals working in school cafeterias. “Complex regulations can present unique challenges and unintended consequences when put into practice.” | Lunch and Breakfast Programs;Nutrition;Agriculture Department;Tom Vilsack |
ny0251137 | [
"science",
"earth"
] | 2011/02/01 | Obama’s Bid to End Oil Subsidy Revives Debate | WASHINGTON — When he releases his new budget in two weeks, President Obama will propose doing away with roughly $4 billion a year in subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies, in his third effort to eliminate federal support for an industry that remains hugely profitable. Previous efforts have run up against bipartisan opposition in Congress and heavy lobbying from producers of oil, natural gas and coal . The head of the oil and gas lobby in Washington contends that the president has it backward — that the industry subsidizes the government, through billions of dollars in taxes and royalties, not the other way around. But even as the president says he wants to do away with incentives for fossil fuels, his policies continue to provide for substantial aid to oil and gas companies as well as billions of dollars in subsidies for coal, nuclear and other energy sources with large and long-lasting environmental impacts. Mr. Obama’s proposal rekindles a long-running debate over federal subsidies for energy of all kinds , including petroleum, coal, hydropower, wind, solar and biofuels . Opposition to such subsidies — often euphemistically referred to as incentives, tax credits, preferences or loan guarantees — spans the ideological spectrum, from conservative economists who believe such breaks distort the marketplace to environmentalists who believe that renewable energy sources will always lose out in subsidy fights because of the power of the entrenched fossil fuel industries. David W. Kreutzer , an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, argues that the federal government should take its thumb off the scale by eliminating subsidies for all forms of energy, even it if means slowing development of cleaner-burning fuel sources. “We would like to get rid of all subsidies,” Dr. Kreutzer said. “We know that petroleum and coal survive just fine in places where there are no subsidies. I don’t know if that’s true for wind and solar now, but someday it will be, when the price comes down.” H. Jeffrey Leonard, president of the Global Environment Fund, a private equity firm that invests in clean-technology ventures, said that the current subsidy structure was the legacy of 60 years of lobbying and political jockeying in Washington that largely benefits oil, coal, nuclear power and corn-based ethanol. He calls for scrapping all subsidies and letting fuel sources compete on equal ground. Mr. Obama is not willing to go that far. He has supported favored tax treatment for wind and solar power as well as a 50 percent increase in federal research spending on other alternative energy sources. He also has proposed as much as $50 billion in federal loan guarantees for nuclear power plant construction, money he believes is needed because the private market is unwilling to assume the potential costs of a catastrophic accident. Energy economists say that the president’s call in the State of the Union address for doubling the amount of electricity produced from cleaner technology by 2035 is designed to manipulate energy markets, forcing utilities to shift to the government’s preferred sources of energy on the government’s timetable, although leaving to them the choice of fuels. A White House spokesman put it a bit more benignly. “The plan the president outlined would establish a clear goal for clean energy and let utilities achieve that in the most cost-effective way possible,” the official said. Mr. Obama’s policies encourage utilities to switch from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas to generate electricity, which simply substitutes one fossil fuel for another and helps subsidize natural gas exploration and distribution. The president is also proposing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and oil refineries, another hidden subsidy for fossil fuels. And, many environmentalists argue, every day that goes by without a policy to put a price on carbon emissions from all sources is a day in which the federal government subsidizes energy producers by socializing the long-term health and environmental costs of their products. “My view is the country is better off on having a neutral playing field for all forms of energy,” said Douglas Koplow, founder of Earth Track , a group in Cambridge, Mass., that studies global energy subsidies. “President Obama defines ‘clean fuels’ as natural gas, coal with carbon capture, nuclear,” Mr. Koplow said. “From my perspective, if you subsidize carbon capture and storage, that’s a big subsidy for coal. Nuclear is massively subsidized through a risk transfer from shareholders to ratepayers. It’s hard to justify these technologies that can’t make it on their own.” “If we’re really concerned about greenhouse gases, we should deal with the problem and cap them,” he added. “Instead, politicians and lobbyists want to carve out policies for their own industries.” Mr. Obama specifically proposes to eliminate roughly $4 billion a year in more than a half-dozen tax exemptions for oil and gas companies and an additional $200 million a year in preferences for coal. The tax breaks for oil have a long history — the so-called percentage depletion allowance for oil and natural gas wells dates to the 1920s — and have withstood repeated efforts to kill them. The president proposed a global end to such subsidies at the Group of 20 meeting in 2009, and while most nations endorsed the idea in theory, little has been done. And Mr. Obama will have a tough fight trying to get even these relatively modest proposals enacted over the objections of the oil and coal industries, who argue that such tax treatment is necessary to keep drillers drilling and miners mining. “This is a tired old argument we’ve been hearing for two years now,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute , the oil and gas industry’s main lobby in Washington. “If the president were serious about job creation, he would be working with us to develop American oil and gas by American workers for American consumers.” Mr. Gerard noted that there was bipartisan opposition to lifting the tax breaks, adding: “The federal government by no stretch of the imagination subsidizes the oil industry. The oil industry subsidizes the federal government at a rate of $95 million a day.” Michael Levi , an energy and climate change analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said calls for an end to energy subsidies missed a broader point: that embryonic energy technologies will need some government help to gain a foothold against the fossil fuel lobbies. “I’d love to find a quick fix for America’s energy problems just as much as the next guy,” Mr. Levi wrote last week on his blog. “I’d also be delighted to have a reason to cut subsidies, many of which are hugely wasteful,” he added. “But an effort to eliminate all energy subsidies without instituting better alternative policies should be understood for what it is: a recipe for cementing the dominance of traditional fossil fuels against their competitors.” | Obama Barack;Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline;Alternative and Renewable Energy;Federal Aid (US) |
ny0006555 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2013/05/27 | New York Archdiocese Reluctantly Paying for Birth Control | As the nation’s leading Roman Catholic bishop, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York has been spearheading the fight against a provision of the new health care law that requires employers, including some that are religiously affiliated, to cover birth control in employee health plans. But even as Cardinal Dolan insists that requiring some religiously affiliated employers to pay for contraception services would be an unprecedented, and intolerable, government intrusion on religious liberty, the archdiocese he heads has quietly been paying for such coverage, albeit reluctantly and indirectly, for thousands of its unionized employees for over a decade. The Archdiocese of New York has previously acknowledged that some local Catholic institutions offer health insurance plans that include contraceptive drugs to comply with state law; now, it is also acknowledging that the archdiocese’s own money is used to pay for a union health plan that covers contraception and even abortion for workers at its affiliated nursing homes and clinics. “We provide the services under protest,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York. As president of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Dolan has consistently rejected similar arm’s-length compromises offered by the Obama administration, which has agreed to exempt many religious institutions from the provision, but not religiously affiliated employers like schools and hospitals that employ people of many faiths and do not exist primarily to inculcate religious values. In February, the bishops opposed a proposal that would have allowed employees of those nonexempt religious institutions to receive contraceptive coverage through policies paid for directly by insurance companies. The New York Archdiocese is also suing the federal government to stop the mandate. “There remains the possibility that ministries may yet be forced to fund and facilitate such morally illicit activities,” Cardinal Dolan said at the time. The archdiocese agreed to cover its own health workers long before Cardinal Dolan became archbishop of New York, and even today insists that it has no choice. As a result, about 3,000 full-time workers at ArchCare , also known as the Catholic Health Care System, receive coverage for contraception and voluntary pregnancy termination through their membership in 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a powerful health care workers union, according to Dave Bates, a spokesman for the union. ArchCare, which operates seven nursing homes and a variety of other health facilities, gives its 1199 union employees the same coverage they would get at over 100 other nonprofit hospitals or nursing homes in the New York area, because ArchCare voluntarily belongs to the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes , a multi-employer organization that negotiates with the union every few years for a joint labor contract. Bruce McIver, the president of the league since 1991, said he recalled that some Catholic organizations had expressed concern about paying for the contraception benefits in the mid- to late 1990s. But in recent years, as the number of Catholic hospitals in the city dwindled, “they just kind of stopped, from my perspective, paying attention to this issue,” he said. “Eventually, the Catholics just said, you know, we are going to ignore the issue and pay into the fund and people are going to make their own choices about contraception and so forth,” Mr. McIver said. During union negotiations, “I don’t remember it coming up in the last dozen years or so, ever,” he said. “In a place like New York, their employees, not all of whom are Catholic, would react pretty badly.” Image Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan opposes the birth control mandate in the new health care law. Credit Max Rossi/Reuters ArchCare, like other employers in the league, does not directly pay for the coverage. Instead, employers contribute to the union’s National Benefits Fund, in amounts equal to roughly 25 percent of each employee’s base pay; that money is used to pay for the insurance coverage. It is not known how many ArchCare workers actually use the disputed services. Mr. Zwilling, the spokesman for the New York archdiocese, said that Cardinal John J. O’Connor and the archdiocese “objected to these services’ being included in the National Benefit Fund’s health insurance plan” when joining the league in the 1990s. But the cardinal then decided “there was no other option if the Catholic Church was to continue to provide health care to these union-affiliated employees in the city of New York,” Mr. Zwilling said. Since 2002, other New York Catholic agencies with standard commercial insurance have been subject to a state mandate to provide contraceptive services, Mr. Zwilling added. Fordham University, for example, covers contraception for employees and students. But rather than nullify the issue, “in fact, these rare exceptional concessions have made the bishops even more aware of the gravity of the situation and lead to the attempt to remedy the matter on a national level,” he said. In theory, ArchCare could have negotiated independently with the union to avoid providing its 1199 employees — health support staff members ranging from physician assistants to orderlies — abortion and contraception coverage. The archdiocese avoids providing those services for 1,100 other ArchCare employees, for example, by insuring them through a special self-insurance plan that is exempt from the mandate. But in reality, “it would be very difficult,” Mr. McIver said. “It’s hard to go backwards.” Similar skepticism was expressed by Scott LaRue, the chief executive of ArchCare. “It doesn’t matter whether you join the league or you don’t join; the league determines the contract, and then the union goes and forces the same arrangement on the other homes whether you are in the league or not,” he said. Religious employers nationally have often grudgingly covered contraception, whether to comply with state health care mandates or because they simply did not realize they were doing so, said Stephen S. Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, in Washington. “It’s surprising, but a good number of employers don’t really get into the weeds that much with their insurance plans to know” if they are covering contraception and sterilization, Mr. Schneck said. Even among the more than two dozen for-profit companies suing the Health and Human Services Department over the mandate, some were paying for contraception and other objectionable coverage until recently. They included the American Manufacturing Corporation, a mud pumping company in Minnesota whose owner, Gregory Hall, a Catholic deacon, played a pivotal role in helping to free trapped Chilean miners in 2010. Mr. Hall’s lawyer, Tom Matthews, said his client realized that he was covering contraception for his employees only in December, when reviewing what the government would require in his next health care contract. More recently, he was “very upset” to find the plan had also been covering abortion, Mr. Matthews said. A federal court granted the company an injunction that will allow it to stop the coverage until the courts settle the matter. Another company, Korte & Luitjohan Contractors in Illinois, found out in August that its insurance was covering abortion, contraception and sterilization “as a mistake,” according to Edward L. White, senior counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington. Korte is one of seven companies represented by the American Center in a challenge to the mandate. Federal courts have dismissed most of the roughly 30 lawsuits already filed against the mandate by Catholic dioceses and other nonprofit corporations, because the government is not enforcing the mandate for religiously affiliated nonprofits until this August. The case brought by the New York Archdiocese, however, is moving forward. The mandate already applies to for-profit companies, but many of those suing have been granted reprieves until the end of their legal cases. In courtrooms, government lawyers have pointed out to judges that some of the employers challenging the mandate have already been providing similar coverage. But Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is also representing companies suing against the mandate, said that so far “the courts have not bought the argument that, aha, you must not really mean it if you haven’t caught it before now.” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, an analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, which supports the contraception mandate, sees the matter differently. “I can’t begin to understand the argument that coverage that has been part of the plan for however many years is suddenly anathema,” she said. | NYC;Catholic Church;Obamacare,Affordable Care Act;Birth control;Cardinal Dolan;Health Insurance;ArchCare |
ny0233991 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/01/03 | An Exhibition of Old Objects at the Northport Historical Society | LAURA GABRIEL looked both perplexed and amused as she strolled last week through the exhibition “Low Tech ... and That’s the Way It Was,” organized by the Northport Historical Society. For Ms. Gabriel, a 24-year-old Manhattan resident, this was a strange world where tweeting was done by birds and people had photo albums, not Facebook. Asked if she would have been content in such an era, she raised her eyebrows in a you-can’t-be-serious look. “No,” she said dryly. “Definitely not.” Reactions like hers are common when the computer-age generation looks over the tools, instruments and gadgets from bygone days at the society’s brown brick museum on Main Street in Northport, said Rosemary Feeney, the director. “Most of the kids have never seen anything like this,” she said. “But, of course, the older people remember all of them.” A pamphlet for the show has a section with drawings of modern objects next to blank boxes, so that younger visitors can sketch their old-time counterparts from the objects on display. The proper selection for the box next to a cellphone, for example, would be a “candlestick” telephone with a hand-held receiver. The correct match for an iPod is a Victrola phonograph, with a recording of “Oh! Susanna” on the turntable. Museum workers will play it on request. Most of the items on view, either from the society’s collection or on loan from residents, were in use from 1850 to the 1950s, Ms. Feeney said. They include a gramophone, which used wax cylinders for recording voices, and a Remington standard typewriter from 1888. Just how effective some of these tools were is debatable. Take the Dorothy Gray Patter, a round slice of rubber stuck on the end of a footlong handle; women were instructed to pat their faces with the rubber end to stimulate muscles and prevent double chins. “Pat a thin face gently,” the instructions read, “a plump face firmly.” The advertisements are sometimes as amusing as the items on display. An ad for the Auto Strop Safety Razor asked, “Why is Santa Claus more happy this year than ever before?” The answer showed a clean-shaven Santa who apparently had grown a bushy beard over the years “for lack of a good razor.” Some 400 children from area schools and scouting groups have visited the exhibition since it opened in September, Ms. Feeney said. It runs through the end of January. One of the items today’s children have trouble understanding, she said, is the rotary phone. They also cannot believe that students once sat comfortably in the tiny (by 21st-century standards) desks on display. “And they’re fascinated that they had inkwells with pens that you had to dip in ink,” she said. Ms. Gabriel was visiting the museum with her father, Russ, a telecommunications engineering director from Elwood, N.Y., as part of a traditional family holiday visit to Northport. They used to come to the village annually to shop and get a burger at a local restaurant and decided to do it again this year, her father said. They found no comparison between the blink-fast technology of today and the devices of the past. Yes, Ms. Gabriel said, she tweets at the drop of a hat. Yes, she is on Facebook. And how would she get along without her BlackBerry? “It’s right here,” she said, patting the pocket of her black quilted jacket. Mr. Gabriel also was doubtful that his daughter would be happy living in a low-tech age. He described one of her visits a few years ago: the power went out, meaning the computer was down, along with the ability to contact her friends. “She said to me, ‘What did you guys used to do in the daytime?’ ” he recalled. Ms. Gabriel did like the Art Deco designs of the hair dryer and the curling iron. Another item that piqued her curiosity was a precursor to the vacuum cleaner, a fan-shaped wire rug beater with a handle. “I thought that was weird,” she said. So, was there nothing beneficial she could imagine about living back then? Ms. Gabriel looked around, politely searching for some redeeming feature of the period. Her eyes finally fixed on some of the domestic items. “Well,” she said, “I probably would have learned to cook and clean better.” | Northport Historical Society and Museum;Art;Wireless Communications;Long Island (NY) |
ny0249132 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2011/05/12 | Greeks Stage Protests Against Spending Cuts and Tax Hikes | ATHENS — Tens of thousands of Greeks took to the streets here on Wednesday for a largely peaceful protest against the debt-ridden government’s austerity drive, as a general strike called by labor unions disrupted transport services and closed schools and other public services. The one-day strike came as the government — still struggling to get its financial house in order — is about to unveil yet another raft of spending cuts and tax increases. But many experts are increasingly skeptical of Greece ’s ability to find a path to solvency without further aid from its European partners. Greece’s economy has shrunk far more than experts originally expected last year, when the government needed a $140 billion rescue package to avoid bankruptcy. It shrank 4.5 percent last year, and is likely to contract by an additional 3 percent, according to Greece’s Central Bank. The national debt — now at about 140 percent of G.D.P. — is forecast to hit nearly 160 percent by 2012. Just how that debt would be restructured to keep Greece from falling even further behind remains an open question. So far, Greek and European officials have said a restructuring that would cause bondholders to suffer a haircut — a loss on their holdings — is out of the question. But that does not preclude softer options, like longer maturity dates on the loans in the rescue package and perhaps even a lower interest rate. Experts believe proposals are likely to come after the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund complete an audit of Greece’s progress in executing various reforms it agreed to in exchange for the emergency loans last May. That report is due next month. But despite Greece’s grim finances and the appeals of labor unions, the demonstration Wednesday drew a modest turnout by Greek standards, with the police and the unions putting the figures at 20,000 and 40,000, respectively. Prime Minister George Papandreou continues to outpoll his rivals, though he is facing some disorder in his own party. He held an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday after one of his most popular and visible ministers, Andreas Loverdos, criticized his government for “mixed policy messages.” Mr. Loverdos, the health minister, was referring to months of cabinet in-fighting that has delayed an austerity package and a $70 billion privatization program, which the European Union and the International Monetary Fund are demanding be in place before any further talk of new aid. During the demonstrations, tensions flared up outside Athens University when hundreds of youths pelted the police with stones and bottles. Officers responded by firing tear gas that sent passers-by scurrying into side streets. Maria Kalimeri, a 48-year-old teacher, sheltering from the tear gas under a bus stop, said she had had enough of austerity, and of protests. “It’s not enough that we’ve had our salaries cut, they treat us like trash,” she said. “I’m not an anarchist, I’m a taxpayer. Are they going to arrest me for demonstrating?” A statement posted on the police’s Web site on Wednesday night said that 12 people had been detained and that 15 officers had been injured. The statement did not give an overall figure for injured demonstrators but confirmed reports on local news Web sites that a 30-year-old man had suffered serious head injuries during the skirmishes. The labor unions that organized Wednesday’s strike want the government to revoke wage cuts and tax increases. They are particularly opposed to a privatization plan to raise up to $71.3 billion by 2015 through the sale of state utilities and venues built for the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. Ordinary Greeks seem less outraged, despite the indignant slogans at rallies. By early afternoon the crowds in central Athens had thinned, and tourists were photographing the riot police stationed in front of Parliament. | Greece;Economic Conditions and Trends;Demonstrations Protests and Riots;Strikes;Politics and Government |
ny0243545 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2011/03/24 | Schottenheimer to Coach in U.F.L. | The longtime N.F.L. coach Marty Schottenheimer was named coach and general manager of the expansion Virginia Destroyers of the five-team United Football League. Schottenheimer, who has a 205-139-1 record with Cleveland, Kansas City, Washington and San Diego, is the fourth former N.F.L. coach in the U.F.L., joining Jim Fassel (Las Vegas), Dennis Green (Sacramento) and Jerry Glanville (Hartford). | Schottenheimer Marty;United Football League;Football;Coaches and Managers |
ny0279430 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/10/05 | Afghan Forces Push Taliban Out of Kunduz Center, Officials Say | KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said on Tuesday that their commando forces had reclaimed the main city square in Kunduz from the Taliban and were making gains elsewhere in the vital provincial capital, where the insurgents overran central neighborhoods on Monday. Residents and local police officers reached by telephone said that clashes were continuing, with the insurgents focusing on the police headquarters and the governor’s compound. Ahmad Javed Salim, a spokesman for the Afghan Army special forces in Kunduz, said a small team of American forces was on the ground near the governor’s compound to guide airstrikes if necessary. “They are not fighting the Taliban; they are here to manage the air support,” Mr. Salim said. “We asked the United States forces for air support, and now we and the U.S. forces are in the planning stage.” Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for the United States forces in Afghanistan, said he could not provide details on “the current disposition of enabler and train, advise and assist forces” because the operation was still underway. General Cleveland said the American forces had not carried out airstrikes directly on the city but “had one air-to-ground engagement via a helicopter this morning in the west of the city,” adding that the helicopter dropped off Afghan forces to join the fight. Asadullah Omarkhel, the governor of Kunduz Province, said the military’s clearance operations would continue until the city and its surroundings were free of insurgents. “The armed opposition are using people’s homes as shields, and that is why our clearance operations are slow, to make sure civilians are not harmed,” he said. But Amruddin Wali, a member of the provincial council, said local officials were exaggerating their successes and accused them of deceiving the Afghan people and the central government. “It’s not the home of the police chief, or the army division commander, or the zone commander that is burning,” Mr. Wali said. “It’s the ordinary people’s homes and lives that are ruined, and the officials are continuing with their lies.” Mr. Wali said the government controlled the area between Kunduz’s airport and the main city square, where it had parked armored vehicles. But, he said, “You can’t go past the main square without armored vehicles.” The coordinated Taliban attack on Kunduz, about a year after the city was briefly taken by the insurgents , began from four directions before dawn on Monday. Alarm began to spread as the Taliban reached the main square, posting updates of their progress on social media. While insurgent fighters infiltrated large parts of the city, the government managed to hold on to its main administrative and security buildings. Stern warnings were issued to members of the Afghan forces not to abandon their posts, as many have done in past assaults. Civilians, once again, were bearing the brunt of the fighting, with the roads out of the city closed off by Taliban checkpoints. And though the Taliban’s main focus seemed to remain on Kunduz, the closing of the roads had residents in neighboring Baghlan Province also worried. While exact casualty figures from the Kunduz battle were not available, with residents taking their wounded to different health centers across the city, at least 151 were wounded and one was killed, according to Abdul Hami Alam, the provincial health director. Massoud Payez, who lives near the headquarters of the police in the city center, said that his neighborhood was still on lockdown and that movement in the city was limited. “We can’t leave our homes. The shops and bakeries are closed,” Mr. Payez said. “The police are firing from the towers of their headquarters, and the commandos are also firing from one side. And the Taliban are at the other end of the street.” Shafi Zakhil, the police commander for the second precinct, where the governor’s office is, said that the area was the front line and that United States forces were helping defend the governor’s compound. “I am in Fatema Zahra School, which is in front of the governor’s office, and it is the front line,” he said. “U.S. forces are around the governor’s office and the police headquarters with their tanks. Taliban are on top of a building near the governor’s office and police headquarters.” Qand Agha, an officer inside the police headquarters, said that the Taliban had mounted 11 attacks on the building since Monday night but that they were pushed back by the police each time. American military officials say they are determined to prevent major cities from falling the way Kunduz did last year. But the fallout from an American warplane’s deadly barrage on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz during efforts to retake the city last October hangs over any decision to have American forces directly enter the fighting. At least 42 people were killed in that continuous series of airstrikes, which the Doctors Without Borders called a war crime. The timing of the latest assault on Kunduz seemed aimed at embarrassing the leaders of the Afghan coalition government, who are in Brussels to ask for continued financial support at a conference attended by dozens of world leaders. The governments represented at the conference are expected to pledge more than $3 billion in annual development aid over the next four years, in addition to the funds spent by NATO and the United States in covering much of the expenses of the Afghan security forces. In the southern province of Helmand, Afghan officials said their forces were trying to push back the Taliban from Nawa district, the fall of which to the Taliban has added pressure on the already-besieged provincial capital city, Lashkar Gah. The insurgents basically overran the entire district on Sunday night, killing the district’s police chief. On Tuesday afternoon, there was conflicting information about whether the district governor’s compound was controlled by the Afghan forces or the Taliban. Aqa Muhammad Takra, the district governor who was in Lashkar Gah, said Afghan Army forces were still holed up in the district governor’s compound, which was surrounded by the Taliban. Additional Afghan forces had arrived to try to break the siege, and they managed to recover the police chief’s body from the police headquarters, he said. | Kunduz;Taliban;Afghanistan War;Afghan National Security Forces;Assault;Afghanistan |
ny0296299 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2016/12/01 | Ousting Squatter Farmers to Save Forest, Ivory Coast Sets Off New Crisis | MONT PÉKO NATIONAL PARK, Ivory Coast — Tramping through a thicket of brush alongside soldiers with Kalashnikovs, Kpolo Ouattara stopped at the sight of an interloper: a cocoa tree, gray with rot. “We should let the forest reconquer the whole area,” Mr. Ouattara said as he picked at what was left of an illicit cocoa plantation deep within the 130 square miles of Mont Péko National Park. “Those who decide to re-enter the park,” he warned, “will be considered outlaws.” Mr. Ouattara is a park ranger on the front lines of the Ivorian government’s renewed campaign to clear cocoa-farming squatters out of the country’s protected forests, which are home to dwindling populations of elephants, chimpanzees and other rare animals. Ivory Coast has a serious deforestation problem: Some scientists say it is losing its woodlands faster than any other nation in Africa. Four-fifths of the forest cover that the country had when it became independent in 1960 was gone by 2010, according to the European Union. Government officials put much of the blame on the many tens of thousands of people who took advantage of years of political unrest to seize land in protected forests and use it illegally to grow cocoa, the country’s most important export crop. Now, the officials say, the squatters have to go. Teams of rangers like Mr. Ouattara fanned out across Mont Péko over the summer to evict the cocoa farmers . Deprived of their livelihood and driven from the forest, the farmers have poured into nearby villages, creating a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations estimates is affecting more than 51,000 people. One of the overwhelmed villages, Michelkro, has seen its population nearly double since 2013. The influx has strained its food supply and flooded its schools with the former farmers’ children. Image Cocoa pods left to rot in Mont Péko National Park, Ivory Coast, after squatting farmers were removed last summer. The evictions are part of a crackdown to save the West African nation’s dwindling forests. Credit Sean Lyngaas “Some students don’t have materials, so I pay for them from my own pocket,” said Bleou Abel, a 39-year-old primary-school teacher. Three meals a day are hard to come by, according to Mohammed Badini, a 37-year-old cocoa farmer who relocated to Michelkro. The United Nations said in its most recent assessment that food shortages, if not remedied quickly, could “cause social tensions” in the region, which was plagued by deadly violence in 2011 in the wake of a disputed national election. The World Food Program delivered food rations to villages around Mont Péko in the autumn, including Michelkro, but that was a stopgap; advocates have pressed for a more lasting response. They are also blasting the government’s handling of the evictions. The Coalition of Ivorian Human Rights Actors criticized officials for chasing the cocoa farmers out “without taking the necessary precautions to ensure that the displaced have access to food, potable water and sanitation.” The government did announce in October that it would allocate more money to “reinforce” the eviction process around Mont Péko and to relocate “non-Ivorians to their country of origin.” (Many of the evicted farmers are from neighboring Burkina Faso.) It did not specify how much money was involved or how it would be spent. The World Food Program, in partnership with the Ivorian government, delivered $1.2 million in food aid to the villages around Mont Péko in late November. Col. Adama Tondossama, the head of the agency that oversees national parks, acknowledged that the government had been slow to get assistance flowing. But he said that officials had been warning the farmers for years that they had to leave the park and that the government had asked humanitarian aid groups for help. In Michelkro, those evicted from the park are living wherever they can, often in the crowded shacks of other farmers who have moved to the village in recent years. Some of the displaced still ply their trade, laying out to dry however many cocoa beans they managed to salvage as they were leaving. When it comes to cocoa, the government faces a conundrum. It wants more farmers to grow more cocoa, but on less land. Image Park rangers patrol Mont Péko to prevent evicted cocoa farmers from returning to claim their crops, but the park’s 130 square miles make this a difficult task. Credit Sean Lyngaas The country already produces about 40 percent of the world’s supply, and it counts on the beans for a big chunk of its export earnings. President Alassane Ouattara wants to raise its share to half of the global market by 2020. Ivory Coast also looks to agriculture as a main tool to combat poverty and hunger in the countryside. Most of its cocoa is grown on small family farms of a few acres, much like the plots the squatters carved out in Mont Péko. But Mr. Ouattara has also set another goal: to restore 20 percent of the country’s territory to forest, up from less than 12 percent now. The only way to reconcile these ambitions is to find ways to get much higher yields from the land that will still be cultivated, using modern farming techniques that are often beyond the knowledge of the squatters. The chocolate industry is trying to help. The World Cocoa Foundation, a trade group that counts giant manufacturers like Mars and Nestlé as members, has spent millions of dollars trying to double cocoa productivity in Ivory Coast, “and therefore take the pressure off the kind of expansion into protected forest areas that we’ve seen,” said Richard Scobey, the foundation’s president. Even so, higher-yield cocoa plantations are not likely to do much for the displaced farmers of Michelkro, who have no land to work, at least for the foreseeable future. Along with growing more cocoa, Ivory Coast wants to process more of the beans itself, rather than export them for processing abroad. Only last year did the country get its first major chocolate factory, opened by the Cémoi Group of France. Paradoxically for the country that grows more cocoa than any other, the chocolate treats on display in shop windows in the better-off neighborhoods of Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital, are almost all imported. They are delicacies that few of the country’s cocoa farmers, legal and squatter alike, have ever tasted . | Ivory Coast;Cocoa bean;Agriculture;Forests;Squatting;UN;World Food Programme;Chocolate;Land use;Rationing |
ny0061188 | [
"business"
] | 2014/01/03 | Martha Stewart Living and Macy’s Settle Dispute and Keep Partnership | Macy’s and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have ended their legal battle over whether J. C. Penney had the right to sell certain Martha Stewart branded housewares. On Thursday, Macy’s and Martha Stewart announced that they had settled the breach-of-contract case, saying the details were confidential and not material to either company. They said their partnership would continue, but declined to comment further. Macy’s larger suit against J. C. Penney still remains. Macy’s said the settlement with Martha Stewart Living would not affect that case. Macy’s and Martha Stewart Living joined forces in 2006 with an agreement to sell “Martha Stewart” branded products in Macy’s stores, including exclusive items like kitchenware and bedding. The partnership has done well over the years, accounting for $250 million in sales in 2012. But Martha Stewart Living and J. C. Penney announced a deal in 2011 to sell home décor products out of Martha Stewart store-within-a-store locations at Penney’s stores. The move was part of a broader turnaround effort by J. C. Penney’s previous chief executive, Ron Johnson, who was fired last year as losses mounted at the retailer. After the deal was announced, Macy’s sued them both, saying the deal violated the terms of its original contract with Martha Stewart Living. The retailer called for pulling certain items off Penney’s shelves and demanded compensation for loss of profits. Penney and Martha Stewart Living countered that their agreement fell into an exception carved out in the Macy’s contract. Days before a judge was expected to rule on the Penney case, Penney and Martha Stewart Living backed down, revising their agreement to exclude kitchen, bed and bath products, items that the Macy’s suit said were exclusive. In effect, J. C. Penney gave up many core home décor products and was left with items like rugs and window treatments. Theodore M. Grossman of the Jones Day law firm, the lead counsel for Macy’s in the case, said at the time that the new agreement “was a complete surrender.” With the settlement, Martha Stewart Living puts to rest a costly and contentious case. In October, Martha Stewart Living reported a disappointing third quarter, partly because the diminished relationship with J. C. Penney had cut into revenue. J. C. Penney has shown some signs of improvement in recent months, although it continues to post losses. Macy’s has been a standout. The company’s earnings per share increased 31 percent over the same period the year before, easily beating analysts’ expectations. | Lawsuits;Macy's;JC Penney;Martha Stewart Living;Martha Stewart |
ny0109068 | [
"us"
] | 2012/05/10 | California: Compromise Ends Battle Over Development | After decades of fights, California’s chief coastal regulator approved a scaled-back development plan on Wednesday by a Clint Eastwood-backed group on a swath of real estate covered by rare Monterey pines. The California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to allow the company Pebble Beach to build 90 homes in the Del Monte Forest of Monterey County. The company can also build a 100-unit hotel on the former site of Spyglass Quarry and expand its Lodge at Pebble Beach. The plan also will preserve 635 acres of native forest and improve public access to the site. The compromise ended a battle over the pristine land, which is visible by motorists on the 17-mile drive near the famous Pebble Beach Golf Links. Mr. Eastwood, Arnold Palmer and the former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s group bought the site in 1999 and proposed to develop a play land for the wealthy: a new golf course, revamped polo fields and 100 new mansions on a much bigger area of forestland. The commission rejected the plan in 2007 after county voters had approved it. | California Coastal Commission;Forests and Forestry;California;Eastwood Clint;Monterey (Calif);Pebble Beach;Land Use Policies |
ny0115476 | [
"us"
] | 2012/11/13 | F.B.I. Inquiry Into E-Mails Raises Questions on Motives | WASHINGTON — Is a string of angry e-mails really enough, in an age of boisterous online exchanges, to persuade the F.B.I. to open a cyberstalking investigation? Sometimes the answer is yes, law enforcement officials and legal experts said Monday — especially if the e-mails in question reflect an inside knowledge of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency . That was true of the e-mails sent anonymously to Jill Kelley, a friend of the C.I.A. director, David H. Petraeus , which prompted the F.B.I. office in Tampa, Fla., to begin an investigation last June. The inquiry traced the e-mails to Mr. Petraeus’s biographer, Paula Broadwell, exposed their extramarital affair and led Friday to his resignation after 14 months as head of the intelligence agency. On Monday night, F.B.I. agents went to Ms. Broadwell’s home in Charlotte, N.C., and were seen carrying away what several reporters at the scene said were boxes of documents. A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case remains open, said Ms. Broadwell had consented to the search. Some commentators have questioned whether the bureau would ordinarily investigate a citizen complaint about unwanted e-mails, suggesting that there must have been a hidden motive, possibly political, to take action. F.B.I. officials are scheduled to brief the Senate and House intelligence committees on Tuesday about the case. But law enforcement officials insisted on Monday that the case was handled “on the merits.” The cyber squad at the F.B.I.’s Tampa field office opened an investigation, after consulting with federal prosecutors, based on what appeared to be a legitimate complaint about e-mail harassment. The complaint was more intriguing, the officials acknowledged, because the author of the e-mails, which criticized Ms. Kelley for supposed flirtatious behavior toward Mr. Petraeus at social events, seemed to have an insider’s knowledge of the C.I.A. director’s activities. One e-mail accused Ms. Kelley of “touching” Mr. Petraeus inappropriately under a dinner table. “There was a legitimate case to open on the facts, with the support of the prosecutors,” said the official who described the search at Ms. Broadwell’s home. He added, “They asked, does somebody know more about Petraeus than you’d expect?” Ms. Kelley, a volunteer with wounded veterans and military families, brought her complaint to a rank-and-file agent she knew from a previous encounter with the F.B.I. office, the official also said. That agent, who had previously pursued a friendship with Ms. Kelley and had earlier sent her shirtless photographs of himself, was “just a conduit” for the complaint, he said. He had no training in cybercrime, was not part of the cyber squad handling the case and was never assigned to the investigation. But the agent, who was not identified, continued to “nose around” about the case, and eventually his superiors “told him to stay the hell away from it, and he was not invited to briefings,” the official said. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Monday night that the agent had been barred from the case. Later, the agent became convinced — incorrectly, the official said — that the case had stalled. Because of his “worldview,” as the official put it, he suspected a politically motivated cover-up to protect President Obama. The agent alerted Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who called the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, on Oct. 31 to tell him of the agent’s concerns. The official said the agent’s self-described “whistle-blowing” was “a little embarrassing” but had no effect on the investigation. David H. Laufman, who served as a federal prosecutor in national security cases from 2003 to 2007, said, “there’s a lot of chatter and noise about cybercrimes,” and most of it does not lead to an investigation. But he added, “It’s plausible to me that if Ms. Kelley indicated that the stalking was related to her friendship with the C.I.A. director, that would have elevated it as a priority for the bureau.” Orin S. Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who specializes in computer crime issues, said it was “surprising that they would devote the resources” to investigating who was behind a half-dozen harassing e-mails. “The F.B.I. gets a lot of tips, and investigating any one case requires an agent or a few agents to spend a lot of time,” he said. “They can’t do this for every case, and the issue is, why this one case?” Still, Mr. Kerr — a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s computer crimes and intellectual property section from 1998 to 2001 — said it was likely that several factors, in addition to the Petraeus connection, made the complaint stand out. Ms. Kelley was fairly prominent in Tampa social circles and had previously had dealings with the F.B.I. agent who took her complaint. Moreover, he said, the F.B.I. has been putting more resources into investigating cyberstalking crimes in recent years. A government official clarified on Monday that F.B.I. agents’ first interview with Ms. Broadwell — at which she is said to have admitted having had an affair with Mr. Petraeus, and voluntarily allowed agents to search her computer — took place in September. An earlier account had put that interview during the week of Oct. 21. Before Ms. Broadwell spoke to the F.B.I. agents, Mr. Petraeus had learned that she had sent offensive e-mails to Ms. Kelley and asked her to stop, another official said. By the time agents interviewed the C.I.A. director during the week of Oct. 28, he was aware of the cyberstalking investigation and readily acknowledged his affair with Ms. Broadwell, the official said. Mr. Petraeus’s former colleagues in the Obama administration have said little about the circumstances preceding his resignation. But on Monday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A. before Mr. Petraeus, criticized the F.B.I. for not informing members of the Congressional intelligence committees of its investigation. “As a former director of the C.I.A., and having worked very closely with the intelligence committees, I believe that there is a responsibility to make sure that the intelligence committees are informed of issues that could affect the security of those intelligence operations,” he said on a flight to Australia. His remarks were similar to those by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, on Sunday. Mr. Petraeus’s former spokesman, Steve Boylan, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that the C.I.A. director was “devastated” over the affair and its consequences. “He deeply regrets and knows how much pain this causes his family,” he said. Mr. Boylan, a retired Army colonel, said Holly Petraeus, Mr. Petraeus’s wife of 38 years, “is not exactly pleased right now.” “Furious would be an understatement.” | Petraeus David H;Kelley Jill;Broadwell Paula;Central Intelligence Agency;Federal Bureau of Investigation;Adultery;Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations |
ny0104577 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/03/08 | Jury Hears Rutgers Student Admit Posting on Roommate | NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — For more than a week, jurors in the trial of a former Rutgers University student heard witnesses discuss a brief webcam feed in which he watched, from another room, while his roommate had a sexual encounter with another man. On Wednesday, they finally got to watch a video , but it was of the defendant, Dharun Ravi , 20, when he was questioned by the police. In the video, investigators ask Mr. Ravi about a Twitter post in which he “dared” friends to use the feed from his webcam to watch his roommate, Tyler Clementi , in another encounter. The questioning took place on Sept. 23, 2010, the night after Mr. Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. “Obviously I said that in a sarcastic way,” said Mr. Ravi, dressed that night in black pants, a black T-shirt and flip-flops. Later, he said that he expected his Twitter followers would have known that he was joking because “that’s just the way we talk.” An investigator asks Mr. Ravi if he invaded Mr. Clementi’s privacy. “Yes I did,” Mr. Ravi replies. When asked if he did so deliberately, Mr. Ravi says, “No, I didn’t do it deliberately.” He adds, “It was my room, also.” Mr. Ravi is on trial in Middlesex County Superior Court on charges including bias intimidation, invasion of privacy and destruction of evidence. Prosecutors say that he used his webcam and Twitter messages to bully his roommate because of his homosexuality. Mr. Ravi’s lawyers say he spied on Mr. Clementi not because of antigay sentiment, but because he was suspicious that Mr. Clementi’s boyfriend, an older man who did not attend the school, might steal his equipment. On Wednesday Mr. Ravi, 20, sat closest to the screen of anyone in the courtroom, and he hung his head as jurors, for the first time, heard his voice. In the video, Mr. Ravi tells Michael Daniewicz, an investigator with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, that on the night of Sept. 19, he was “weirded out” after Mr. Clementi brought a stranger, who testified last week and is known publicly only as M.B., into their room. Mr. Ravi says M.B. gave him a “bad vibe.” “He didn’t say anything; he just sat on Tyler’s bed,” Mr. Ravi says. “I was freaked out and a little worried about what was happening.” Mr. Ravi says he went into the room of his friend, Molly Wei, and used her computer to activate his camera remotely. Mr. Ravi says that on the screen he could see one of the men’s backs and “movement.” When the investigator asks if the men were being “intimate,” Mr. Ravi replies, “Yeah.” Mr. Ravi wrote in a Twitter post that night that he saw Mr. Clementi “making out with some dude. Yay.” Two days later, after Mr. Clementi asked to have the room to himself again, Mr. Ravi sent a Twitter post that read: “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and midnight. Yes, it’s happening again.” Robert Torrisi, an investigator with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, testified that a forensic analysis of Mr. Ravi’s BlackBerry showed that the second Twitter post had been edited on the night of Sept. 22 to begin, “People with iChat, don’t you dare video chat me.” Mr. Ravi told the police that he then sent a message: “Everyone ignore that last tweet. Stupid drafts.” He said he altered his posts because “I realized they could be interpreted by anybody.” Mr. Ravi said that he felt “shocked,” “very awkward,” “really uncomfortable” and “guilty” after viewing the scene from his webcam, and closed out the window after a few seconds. Mr. Ravi said he received a visit on the night of Sept. 22 from Raahi Grover, a resident assistant in the dorm, who said that Mr. Clementi had come to him upset. Mr. Ravi said he learned from Mr. Grover that Mr. Clementi had saved a copy of his message daring others to view the webcam. “Tyler thought I was trying to broadcast him and telling a bunch of people to watch it,” Mr. Ravi told investigators. “I didn’t want him to think I was spying on him. I don’t know who would want to see that.” So he sent his roommate an apology at 8:46 p.m. on Sept. 22. “I want to make amends for Sunday night,” Mr. Ravi wrote. “I’ve known you were gay and I have no problem with it.” Mr. Ravi told investigators, “I was waiting for his response while I was trying to fall asleep that night.” Four minutes before Mr. Ravi sent his apology, Mr. Clementi posted on his Facebook page: “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” Mr. Ravi said he saw that post the next morning. In the police interview the night of Sept. 23, when he is told that his apology and his roommate’s suicidal message were posted at almost the same time, Mr. Ravi lets out a heavy sigh, his shoulders slump and his head falls into his right hand. | Ravi Dharun;Clementi Tyler;Homosexuality;Rutgers The State University of New Jersey;Video Recordings and Downloads;Colleges and Universities;Hate Crimes |
ny0119955 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2012/07/19 | U.S. Officials Sued Over Citizens Killed in Yemen | WASHINGTON — Relatives of three American citizens killed in drone strikes in Yemen last year filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against four senior national security officials on Wednesday. The suit, in the Federal District Court here, opened a new chapter in the legal wrangling over the Obama administration’s use of drones in pursuit of terrorism suspects away from traditional “hot” battlefields like Afghanistan . The first strike, on Sept. 30, killed a group of people including Anwar al-Awlaki , a radical Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico , and Samir Khan , a naturalized American citizen who lived at times in Queens , Long Island and North Carolina . The second, on Oct. 14, killed a group of people including Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was born in Colorado . Accused in the suit of authorizing and directing the strikes are Leon E. Panetta , the secretary of defense; David H. Petraeus , the director of the C.I.A. ; and two senior commanders of the military’s Special Operations forces, Adm. William H. McRaven of the Navy and Lt. Gen. Joseph L. Votel of the Army. “The killings violated fundamental rights afforded to all U.S. citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law,” the complaint says. Press officials with the C.I.A., the Pentagon and the Justice Department declined to comment. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed by Nasser al-Awlaki, who was Anwar’s father and Abdulrahman’s grandfather, and Sarah Khan, Samir’s mother. Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights are assisting them in the legal action. In 2010, the two groups helped Nasser al-Awlaki in an effort to obtain a court injunction against government efforts to kill his son. A federal judge threw out the case, primarily on the ground that Nasser al-Awlaki had no standing to sue in place of his son. Now Nasser al-Awlaki and Ms. Khan represent the estates of their sons and his grandson. But the new lawsuit may face other procedural impediments before it would reach any substantive ruling on whether the strikes violated the Constitution — or even a public acknowledgment that the United States government did carry them out and an explanation of the evidence and decision-making behind them. The Justice Department, which is likely to provide lawyers for the defendants, may ask a judge to dismiss the case by asserting that the evidence necessary to litigate it would disclose state secrets, or that decisions about whom to kill in an armed conflict are “political questions” not fit for judicial review. The government asserted both arguments in the 2010 case, and the judge who dismissed that lawsuit also cited the “political question” doctrine. Even if a judge declined to dismiss the case on those grounds, the officials could assert that “qualified immunity ” protected them from lawsuits that accuse them of violating someone’s constitutional rights while performing official actions that did not violate “clearly established law” at the time. President Obama is not named in the lawsuit; the Supreme Court has ruled that presidents enjoy “absolute immunity” from lawsuits stemming from their official actions. While it has been widely reported that the United State carried out the strikes, the Obama administration has never officially acknowledged responsibility for them. The New York Times has described the details of a secret Justice Department memorandum that concluded that it would be lawful to target Anwar al-Awlaki if capturing him was infeasible. The Times and the A.C.L.U. have sued for disclosure of that document under the Freedom of Information Act. Several administration officials, including Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in a speech at Northwestern University in March, have also defended the targeting of citizens, without a trial, if they join terrorist groups and under certain conditions. “Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces,” Mr. Holder said. “This is simply not accurate. ‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’ are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.” In 2010, reports surfaced that Anwar al-Awlaki had been placed on a “kill list” after the attempted bombing of a Detroit -bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009. The would-be bomber is said to have told his interrogators that Mr. Awlaki recruited him for the operation . Mr. Awlaki has also been accused of playing a role in other terrorist plots, but he was not indicted or tried. The complaint says Mr. Awlaki should not have been designated “for death without the protections of a judicial trial” by the executive branch and contends that at the time of his killing, he did not present any immediate “concrete, specific and imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.” It also asserts that any threat he did present when he was found could have been mitigated without lethal force, although it does not say how. Complicating matters, it is believed that the Sept. 30 strike specifically targeted Anwar al-Awlaki, making the people around him — including Mr. Khan — collateral damage. Likewise, Mr. Awlaki’s son is said to have been a bystander in the Oct. 14 strike. Mr. Khan was involved in producing propaganda for Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, but Abdulrahman al-Awlaki had not been accused of joining the group. Under the international laws of war, civilians may not be deliberately targeted; while it can sometimes be lawful to shoot at a military target knowing that some civilians nearby may be killed, collateral deaths must be minimized and proportional to the military objective. Still, it is not clear how domestic-law constitutional rights interact with wartime targeting law, and the A.C.L.U. and the Center for Constitutional Rights dispute the extent to which armed-conflict rules apply in Yemen. In discussing Mr. Khan and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the complaint accuses the defendants of failing to take adequate measures to prevent bystanders from harm. “Even in the context of an armed conflict, government officials must comply with the requirements of distinction and proportionality and take all feasible measures to protect bystanders,” it says. | Drones;US Military;Targeted Killings;Barack Obama;Lawsuit;Yemen;Anwar al-Aulaqi,Anwar al-Awlaki;Leon E Panetta;Samir Khan;David H Petraeus |
ny0068436 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2014/12/19 | U.S. Women Romp to Reach Final | Christen Press scored four goals and Carli Lloyd had a hat trick as the United States women’s national team routed Argentina, 7-0, in the International Tournament of Brasília. The United States will face Brazil in the final on Sunday. ■ Juventus eased to a 3-1 win at relegation-threatened Cagliari to ensure that it would end the year atop the Serie A standings. Early goals from Carlos Tevez and Arturo Vidal gave Juventus a comfortable lead in the opening 15 minutes, and Fernando Llorente sealed the match shortly after halftime. ■ Atletico Madrid set up a crosstown Copa del Rey clash with Real Madrid despite drawing, 2-2, with third-division Hospitalet, advancing by 5-2 on aggregate. ■ Liverpool forward Mario Balotelli was suspended for one game and fined $39,000 by the governing body of English soccer for making a racially offensive online post. | Soccer;Christen Press;Juventus Soccer Team;Atletico Madrid Soccer Team |
ny0280883 | [
"sports"
] | 2016/10/08 | Grand Prix Drivers May Race Like Their Jobs Are on the Line | SUZUKA, Japan — A Formula One driver’s job is to try to prove he is the fastest driver on earth. But a question lurking in the paddock in Suzuka this weekend, where the Japanese Grand Prix takes place on Sunday, is whether a driver will race better if he believes his job is on the line, or with a signed contract securing his future. With just five races and seven weeks left in the longest ever Grand Prix season — 21 races — nearly half of the 22 drivers still do not know whether, or where, they will be racing next year. As in other sports, it is often called the “silly season,” the period when teams decide which drivers to use the following year, and when often a driver switches teams, or his career is suddenly over. It has usually ended by this late date, and the drivers can concentrate on the final races. But this year, for financial reasons at some teams, contractual complications at others and a “wait and see” approach at others, the horse-trading continues. So far, four of the 11 teams — Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren — have announced both of their drivers for next season. Sometimes there is a chain reaction waiting to happen set off by the moves of one or two drivers who are the key to the puzzle, as is now likely to happen after Sergio Pérez finally announced last weekend that he would re-sign with the Force India team. His move came after weeks of speculation that he would join Renault or Williams. “The team knows me well, and it’s important to have stability,” said Pérez. As negotiations have continued with other drivers at the Renault team, neither of its drivers, Jolyon Palmer of Britain and Kevin Magnussen of Denmark, has yet signed for next season. “They are taking their time to decide, and I just focus on driving,” said Palmer. “If I was Renault I would be wanting to make the best decision for the future. There is no need to really decide quicker than they have to. If you start to hang on until next year, January, February, that is getting very late, and you can end up hurting drivers’ careers.” He said that waiting would not affect his approach to racing, but that there was a competition between him and Magnussen to prove who is the best. “I’m sure everything we do will swing things,” he said. “There is more pressure on, but then again, in Formula One there is always pressure. It doesn’t matter if you have just signed. It’s not like you can take your foot off the gas. There is still pressure to show why you’ve got it.” Palmer helped his case by scoring his first point in his rookie season last weekend at the Malaysian Grand Prix, by finishing 10th. Another driver Renault is watching is the reserve driver it signed early this year, Esteban Ocon, a Frenchman who began racing at the Manor team four races ago. Ocon races alongside Pascal Wehrlein, a German, and neither of them has signed for next year. In Malaysia, Magnussen said that he was frustrated by the wait and that he did not want to relive the experience he had at McLaren, when after his rookie season in 2014 he was suddenly replaced by Fernando Alonso. Renault has also been looking at Valtteri Bottas, of the Williams team, who has not yet confirmed where he will race. Bottas, like Pérez, is also seeking stability, but he said that although Renault may not be performing well now, he is looking at his long-term career situation. “I’ve always been very committed to Williams and always very thankful for the opportunities,” said Bottas. “But as a driver you want to know what else is going on.” But waiting until this late in the season, or occasionally until after the season, is not always the best way to help a driver’s mental state through the final races of the year. Romain Grosjean, a driver with the Haas team, who is also waiting to hear whether he will be with the team next year, said it varies from driver to driver. “Mentally the sport is very demanding and the performance comes from there,” said Grosjean. “Some drivers like to have a signed contract for next year, and they can drive better. Some like pressure. There is always a lot of pressure, but we are all different.” Of the two drivers at the Haas team, Grosjean has scored all of the team’s 28 points. But the other driver, Esteban Gutiérrez, a Mexican, has finished 11th five times, or just one spot outside the points. Günther Steiner, the team’s director, said he wanted to see how Gutiérrez develops, but he is also in a waiting game to see which drivers from other teams might be freed up. Steiner noted that the human factor does count, despite the intensely competitive nature of the enterprise. “We are dealing with human beings,” said Steiner. “You have to know the pluses and minuses, and it’s easy if you have no connection to him to say, ‘Oh, I would fire him,’ because you don’t have to do it. It’s not ‘do it or not’; it’s just not the full story. To not do people justice is basically wrong.” Although neither Marcus Ericsson nor Felipe Nasr at the Sauber team has had his contract renewed, probably the driver in the most precarious situation is Daniil Kvyat, at Toro Rosso. Kvyat was coldly demoted this year from the Red Bull team to the weaker Toro Rosso team, which is now looking closely at another Red Bull protégé, Pierre Gasly, who is in second place in the GP2 series, a Formula One feeder series. Another team director who said he factors in the human element is Maurizio Arrivabene, the director of Ferrari, who said he had extended the contract of Kimi Raikkonen for next season as long ago as July in order to remove pressure from the Finn, who turns 37 on Oct. 17 and is Formula One’s oldest driver. “In the last three or four races, every time that Kimi was sitting in a news conference somebody would ask, ‘What about your contract?’ ” Arrivabene said after the announcement, and, referring to Raikkonen by his nickname, he added: “Even ‘Iceman’ is a human being with his emotions, and I think he could feel the pressure.” | Car Racing;Formula One |
ny0146238 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2008/07/20 | Yankees Top A’s in 12th When Molina Is Hit by a Pitch | José Molina carried his bat all the way down to first base, even though he did not need it. When he reached the bag, his teammates swarmed him, jumping on his back and bouncing in celebration. Without using that bat, Molina had just recorded the winning run batted in for the Yankees , ending a marathon of a game on a boiling Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. With the bases loaded in the 12th inning of a game in which the Yankees had floundered trying to find ways to push runners across the plate, Molina stumbled upon a simple solution. He let a just-barely-too-inside fastball from Oakland reliever Lenny DiNardo hit him in the knee. As a result, the game ended after 4 hours 45 minutes as Molina trotted to first with a game-ending hit-by-pitch that gave the Yankees a 4-3 victory against the Athletics . “It feels good because we won the game,” said Molina, who took over for Jorge Posada in the 10th. “But it hurts.” Manager Joe Girardi offered a tongue-in-cheek compliment for his catcher for his stand-still star turn that helped make the 21 runners the Yankees (52-45) left on base a bit easier to swallow. “José did a good job of letting the ball hit his leg,” Girardi said. Molina’s game-winning plate appearance helped save another solid start by Joba Chamberlain . It also saved the bullpen from squandering a win against the A’s, a team that Yankees could find themselves battling for the wild-card spot. Chamberlain did not throw as deep into the game as he would like, making it through six innings on a day when the temperature was in the mid-90s. He allowed base runners in every inning but his last, but he struck out the final batter in every inning but one. He allowed one run to score, on a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning, and scattered six hits while striking out eight, walking one and breaking a few bats. “I pitched six innings and gave my team a quality start,” Chamberlain said. “That’s all you can ask.” The start was Chamberlain’s ninth since his transition from setup man, and this time the bullpen almost let the game slip away. The A’s tied the score off the right-handed reliever José Veras in the seventh. Veras loaded the bases, then threw an inside fastball into the dirt. Wes Bankston scored on the wild pitch. Mariano Rivera ran into trouble in the ninth, giving up two singles and a lead to the A’s. Rajai Davis pinch-ran for Jack Hannahan after Hannahan singled. Rivera became preoccupied with Davis on base, but Davis stole second anyway. Ryan Sweeney knocked him home with a single of his own for a 3-2 edge. It was only the sixth run Rivera had allowed this season. The Yankees fought back in the bottom of the ninth. Wilson Betemit stroked a single to left-center field to score Robinson Canó and tie the score at 3-3. The Yankees threatened in every extra inning. Relievers Edwar Ramírez and David Robertson shut down the A’s, allowing one hit and striking out five in the final three innings. In the right-hander Sean Gallagher’s first career outing against the Yankees, he nearly had something to boast about. Gallagher, making his second start for the Athletics after being acquired in the trade that sent Rich Harden to the Chicago Cubs on July 8, struck out Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez (twice) and Jorge Posada (twice) for an impressive tally of victims. But while Gallagher looked masterly at times against the meat of the Yankees’ order, he could not come up with any answers for the bottom half of the lineup. The trouble started in the second, when Canó, Betemit, Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner alternated singles and doubles to push two runs across the plate and provide Chamberlain with an early lead. Then the top of the Yankees’ order came up, and Gallagher regained control, striking out Jeter, Abreu and Rodriguez — all three swinging. The last four hitters of the Yankees’ lineup went a combined 6 for 11 against Gallagher, while the first five managed just one single in 12 at-bats. In all, Canó, Betemit and Cabrera had 10 hits, with Canó accounting for four, including two doubles. Canó, who is batting .256 on the season, is a career .335 hitter after the All-Star break and is 6 for 10 in the two games since the All-Star Game. Girardi joked that next year he will tell Canó during spring training that it was already the second half of the season. The Yankees, too, are off to a strong start as they try to duplicate the second-half surge they had last season, when they had the major league’s best record after the break to make the playoffs. “These are the types of games you need to win,” Jeter said. INSIDE PITCH Johnny Damon (left shoulder sprain) took batting practice for the first time before the game, displaying power and appearing comfortable. Joe Girardi said that he expected Damon to return to the team sometime next week as a designated hitter (he has not thrown yet). He was unsure if Damon would require a rehab stint first. ... Jorge Posada blocked a pitch with his palm and shook his hand in pain at times. He left the game in the 10th inning. | New York Yankees;Oakland Athletics;Molina Jose;Girardi Joe;Chamberlain Joba;Baseball |
ny0022169 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2013/09/21 | Homering in His Return, Wright Leads Mets to a Win | PHILADELPHIA — Each spring, Mets Manager Terry Collins talks with his young players about their expectations for spring training and the season ahead. He tells them: if you want to know what it takes, watch David Wright — do what he does. Collins hoped they were watching Friday. Wright returned to the lineup seven weeks after straining his right hamstring, with 10 games left in a lost season. He could have sat out the rest of the year, but he came back for his teammates, the fans and the organization. “This is what I do,” Wright said. “This is what I love to do. If I’m healthy enough to play, I’m going to play. Therefore, I’m playing. It’s about as simple as it gets.” His first game back went about as well as it could. Wright homered in his initial at-bat, and the Mets followed his lead, scoring the first five runs and beating the Phillies, 6-4. Having Wright back seemed to lift the Mets’ spirits. Collins was happy just to write his name in the lineup again. During warm-ups, Wright smiled and chatted. He put everyone at ease, said Daniel Murphy, the Mets’ only real lineup threat for weeks. “He shows you how to be a pro,” Murphy said. Wright had not faced live pitching in seven weeks, and the minor league seasons had ended before he was ready for a rehabilitation assignment. He took batting practice, fielded grounders and ran the bases at Citi Field, but there was no way to replicate the speed of a major league game. Before Friday’s game, at his locker, Wright seemed somewhat concerned, especially with Cole Hamels on the mound. Image David Wright homering in his first at-bat after missing seven weeks because of an injury. Credit Rich Schultz/Getty Images “We’ve talked about it, that he hasn’t seen any live pitching,” Collins said. “But, you know, he’s David Wright, too. You’ve got to take that into consideration.” When Wright stepped to the plate in the first, Murphy had already singled home Eric Young. The crowd at Citizens Bank Park was mostly quiet, still settling into their seats. Hamels’s first pitch was out of the strike zone, and then Wright lifted a high fastball deep to right field for his 17th home run of the season. In the dugout, Collins told him, “The game’s not that easy.” The home run moved Wright past Mike Piazza into second place on the Mets’ career list, with 221. In the field Wright appeared to move well, and after the game he said his play would become more smooth as he regained his rhythm. In the third, Murphy singled in front of Wright again. But Hamels threw a cutter high and inside, and Wright’s fly ball ended in a nifty sliding catch by left fielder Domonic Brown. Two batters later, Andrew Brown drove in Murphy with a single. By the time Wright came up again in the fifth, the Mets’ lead had been reduced to a run, at 5-4, after Daisuke Matsuzaka allowed the first four Phillies to reach base in the fourth, highlighted by Darin Ruf’s bases-loaded double. The Phillies had life, and Hamels struck out Wright on four pitches. The score was still 5-4 in the seventh when Murphy singled again and advanced to third as Wright popped a single to right field. Josh Satin then scored Murphy on a fielder’s choice. As Wright rehabilitated his hamstring, he was asked why he was trying to come back at all this season. He insisted that it was the right thing — he wanted to finish the season strong and put on a show for the fans. Collins said he hoped Wright would play 8 of these final 10 games. He and Wright will take it day by day. The first day back, at least, was a success. “That’s why he’s the captain,” Collins said. “This guy leads by example.” | Baseball;Mets;Phillies;David Wright;Terry L Collins |
ny0277245 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/11/20 | Suck It In, New York, It’s Party Season | I’m a little tired today because I just went six rounds with a Spanx Extra Firm Control body suit, an undergarment constructed with the same sort of expandable concrete used in airport runways. Possibly you heard us battling it out at Saks. I knew Spanx’s reputation, of course. I’d been told by friends that putting on one of their control garments would take every ounce of strength in me, that women have gotten these items on only to pass out on the floor and never make it to their event. The Inaugural Ball? That was over weeks ago. It’s March. But it’s party season in New York, and they’ve been cracking down on the whole midriff bulge thing this year. I was at a book event last week, and a smartly dressed woman, whom I estimated to be a size 6 but who actually had a little belly, was taken away by the fashion police, sobbing. “Have a little dignity, suck it in,” I heard one of the officers tell her. “But I’ve had two children, and I’m 58,” she whimpered. “It doesn’t matter how much you starve yourself, everyone has a little belly at 58.” “Not in Manhattan, Chubs,” one of the cops said. Now, I am no undergarment naïf; I have fabulous underwear for just about every occasion except space travel. I had once experienced Spanx, having bought a pair of their All the Way Firm Control pantyhose. That was rough. A better name would have been, O.K., I’ll Try It This Way Once, but First Let’s Agree on a Safe Word pantyhose. These things were so tight that struggling to get them on I tore the stockings. I never even got to wear them once, which, unless I am mistaken, is a violation of the Bill of Rights. Goodbye, $28. I had also seen Tina Fey in her final appearance on David Letterman last year, on which she wore a form-fitting dress that betrayed not an ounce of the jiggle normally found on the human body. She was buff. Then she stepped out of the dress and revealed a terrifying set of undergarments: bra, thigh-control pantyhose and, over the pantyhose, an open-bust body suit. The bodysuit makes me think of the overalls farmers used to wear. That is probably where the design originated, farmers with body dysmorphic disorder who were embarrassed by the way their bellies pooched out when they sat down on their harvesters. Excuse me, I have an I.M. from a male reader: I saw Tina Fey in that scary underwear, and I’ve always wondered: How did she go to the bathroom? Reply: Sorry, can’t type … laughing too hard. The bathroom , did you say? When were you last at a formal affair with a woman who went to the bathroom? Where was I? Oh, yeah, Tina Fey’s big reveal. She told David Letterman this would be the last time she would be wearing the sort of dress that required this level of body armor. Which of course meant that up to that time, Tina Fey, eight-time Emmy Award winner, best-selling author, television star and producer, had found that it was necessary. You get what I’m saying? Without that underwear, she would be taking orders at IHOP. She would be nothing. Now, I happen to be one of those women who is pleased with her body, at least when I assume the posture of a Marine honor guard and am sucking in my stomach. Certainly you ladies have all spent many pleasant evenings in that position. I do, however, have a tiny midriff roll. More like a minibrioche, actually. And since I had just gotten a clingy gold cocktail dress for a fancy awards dinner and New Yorkers are so critical, I felt a restrictive, possibly totalitarian, garment was necessary. Off I go to Saks. “A medium, really?” the lingerie saleswoman says. “I would have thought you were a small.” I know, I know, it’s the oldest sales trick in the world, but I never get tired of hearing it. The saleswoman finds four body suits but the one that grabs my attention is the Spanx Extra Firm Control Boostie-Yay!® Bodysuit 1908, in rose gold. It doesn’t even need a body in it to have an hourglass figure; it’s so hot that on the way to the fitting room two guys try to get its number. It takes several minutes of struggling during which I gasp for breath and the oxygen mask drops from the ceiling, but eventually I manage to get the Boostie-Yay on. Getting the bra top closed is, however, impossible. (Bonus customer service tip for Saks: In the areas where body armor is sold, post a weight lifter outside the dressing rooms, ideally one who has not done time in prison.) Eventually the saleswoman, who has obviously trained for this moment, comes in with a winch cable and hooks the bra. The effect is mesmerizing. I look like a Playboy bunny, an offensive objectification of a female body, unless the body is attached to your own head. I buy the suit for $118, a steal as far as I am concerned. How I will get into it the night of the big awards dinner with no one at home to help me, I do not know. But I will somehow manage. My career could use a boost. | Fashion;Lingerie and Underwear;Party;Women and Girls;Joyce Wadler |
ny0057881 | [
"us"
] | 2014/09/12 | Noel W. Hinners, Voice for Scientific Research at NASA, Dies at 78 | Noel W. Hinners, a geologist and soil chemist who helped NASA launch some of its farthest-reaching scientific probes into space — to retrieve moon rocks, map the surface of Mars and peer beyond intergalactic dust to where stars are born — died on Friday in Littleton, Colo. He was 78. His wife, Diana, said the cause was cancer. Dr. Hinners, who held various titles as an administrator and chief scientist for NASA in the 1970s and ’80s, was the main advocate for pure scientific research in an organization ruled by rocket engineers and pilots. It was by most accounts a diplomat’s job, requiring finesse in piggybacking scientific experiments onto missions intended first and foremost for getting spacecraft — carrying people or not — to and from their assigned destinations safely. Dr. Hinners had honed those skills from 1963 to 1972 as part of a team of geologists, privately contracted, who recommended landing sites for the six successful manned Apollo moon missions. The group persuaded NASA administrators to pick more and more geologically interesting sites, Dr. Hinners told an interviewer in 2010 . The more extreme the terrain and the more layers of rock it exposed, he explained, the more geological information it revealed. “Good geology correlates with bad terrain,” he said. With geological field training provided by Dr. Hinners and his colleagues, Apollo astronauts, from 1969 to 1972, brought back about 850 pounds of lunar rock from valleys, crater beds and ravines that NASA had previously considered too risky to venture into. Named deputy director and chief scientist by NASA in 1972, Dr. Hinners helped plan the final Apollo missions and oversaw the design of scientific projects for almost every NASA venture for the next seven years, including the Skylab space station; the first unmanned missions to Saturn, Mars and Venus; and the planning stages for the space shuttle and the Hubble orbiting telescope. Dr. Hinners often represented NASA at congressional budget hearings. His self-deprecating humor made him well suited to the role, said Alex Roland, a Duke University professor who has studied the history of NASA. “He was very good at making the case for space science without pouting or stamping his foot,” Professor Roland said. But he added that Dr. Hinners’s patience had been frayed by relentless federal budget cuts in the 1970s and ’80s. Dr. Hinners told interviewers that he was equally frustrated by NASA’s efforts to design missions with an eye toward popular support — the “strategy of firsts,” as he called it: the first comet flyby, the first pictures from the atmosphere of Jupiter, the first images from Venus. “We are the victim of our own success at firsts, and there aren’t many left to be done,” he said in an interview with Science magazine in 1979. Meanwhile, he said, there were moon rocks collected 10 years earlier that had still not been studied for lack of research money from Congress. That same year, he was named director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. From 1982 to 1987 he was director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. He returned to NASA space operations in 1987 as associate deputy administrator, and left in 1989 to become an executive with Lockheed. Noel William Hinners was born in Brooklyn on Dec. 25, 1935, one of seven children of William and Hazel Hinners, who moved the family when Dr. Hinners was an infant to Chatham, N.J., where he grew up. His father was an insurance agent, his mother a homemaker. Dr. Hinners graduated from Rutgers University in 1958 with a degree in soil science and agricultural research, and with thoughts of a career in agriculture. He received a master’s degree in geology from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in geochemistry from Princeton in 1963. Besides his wife, Dr. Hinners is survived by his sons Jeff and Craig; his sisters Barbara Miller, Cynthia Altschuler and Janet Amos; and his brothers Richard, Bruce and John. With his newly minted Ph.D., Dr. Hinners was hired in 1963 by Bellcomm, a division of AT&T, which was then involved in developing geographical maps for the Apollo moon landing. He was soon hooked on the moon mission and forgot all about farming, his wife said in an interview. “I have a bachelor’s degree in agricultural research,” he told a conference of college students interested in space careers in 2011. “Of course, that’s why I’m in the space program. With the turkeys and the chickens.” | Obituary;Space;NASA;Noel W Hinners |
ny0107049 | [
"science",
"earth"
] | 2012/04/08 | Invasive Species Target of New Ballast Water Rule | Nearly a quarter-century has passed since an oceangoing ship from Europe docked somewhere in the Great Lakes and discharged ballast water carrying tiny but tenacious zebra mussel larvae from Europe. Within a few years after they turned up in Lake St. Clair, between Lakes Huron and Erie, the small freshwater mussels and their larger and even more destructive cousins, quagga mussels, had coated lakebeds throughout the region, clogging intake valves and pipes at power, water treatment and manufacturing plants. The filter-feeding mussels have since helped to upend the ecosystems of the Great Lakes, fouling beaches, promoting the growth of poisonous algae and decimating some native fish populations by eating the microscopic free-floating plant cells on which their food web depends. “They didn’t just spread — they completely colonized the Great Lakes,” said Andrew Buchsbaum, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office. Yet it was not until last month that the Coast Guard issued a federal rule requiring oceangoing freighters entering American waters to install onboard treatment systems to filter and disinfect their ballast water. The regulation, which largely parallels a pending international standard and another planned by the Environmental Protection Agency , sets an upper limit on the concentration of organisms in the ballast water. About 12,000 oceangoing ships moving through United States waters will be covered by the Coast Guard rules; hundreds reach the Great Lakes system through the St. Lawrence Seaway. Until now, they were only required to flush their tanks at sea, a system called ballast water exchange . The goal of the new rule is not to vanquish quagga or zebra mussels — scientists assume they are here to stay — but to bar entry to other invasive species like the so-called killer shrimp that are spreading through Europe. “Some things it’s too late for,” said Andrew Cohen, director of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions in Richmond, Calif. “We’re not going to keep quagga mussels and zebra mussels from coming to the U.S. They’re here, and we’re not going to get rid of them.” But “the damage to come may be worse than we’ve seen,” said Dr. Cohen, who added that ballast water is a potential source of microscopic invaders like infectious or antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have sometimes reached North American waters. Scientists have tracked at least 329 invaders in marine environments worldwide ; ecosystems have been disrupted from the Great Lakes to San Francisco Bay, where the Asian clam is implicated in a collapse of fish stocks, to Lyttelton Harbor in New Zealand, where an invasive fanworm , a prodigious filter feeder, outcompetes local shellfish. Yet environmentalists, who have long sought a tough ballast rule, worry that the Coast Guard rule and the other proposals are too weak and that the rollout of enforcement will be far too slow to do much good. For now, the Coast Guard requires only new ships to install the filtering and disinfecting equipment; others can wait until the next time they enter dry dock for maintenance or repair, which may happen only every five years or so. Because some ships do not fall under the rule until 2016, it could be 2021 before they comply. “The industry’s had fair warning that this was coming,” said Thom Cmar, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council who focuses on Great Lakes ecosystems issues. “To give an even further compliance extension on top of what’s already been a long period of delay is unjustified.” The original proposal by the Coast Guard called for a reappraisal and tightening of standards in 2016; that was dropped, angering the environmentalists and some scientists. They say that onshore treatment plants could be 1,000 times as effective than onboard technology. Land-based systems could filter ballast with dense and heavy material like sand, they say, a process that is likely to be difficult to replicate on a ship, at least not without crowding out cargo. Most shipboard systems — some 60 have been developed to date — mix and match different filtration methods, usually pumping water through filtered pipes. Then they treat the ballast water with chemicals or ultraviolet light. The Coast Guard points out that a network of onshore treatment centers for ballast water has not been developed. Even if it were, said Richard Everett, the project manager at the Coast Guard’s Office of Operating and Environmental Standards, “It’s a question of whether we can require a ship to discharge to shore.” Dr. Cohen said he and other colleagues on a panel advising the E.P.A on the issue had told the agency that the panel did not think present shipboard technology to be the best treatment, in part because land-based technologies can be more effective. The shippers themselves prefer a single worldwide standard. Paul A. Londynsky, vice president for safety, quality and environmental affairs at the Matson Navigation Company, which is based in Oakland, Calif., said: “We go to multiple jurisdictions, multiple destinations. The idea of having a single standard to meet is much better.” “We think what the Coast Guard is proposing is very reasonable and certainly very achievable over time,” Mr. Londynsky added. One Matson ship has been working with a new onboard system for cleaning ballast water; Mr. Londynsky said the current generation of ships had no mechanism for discharging ballast to a shore-based site for filtering. Whether or not onboard systems are optimal, large international companies have already sunk considerable capital into developing them. “There’s a huge investment gone into getting that right, getting that system within the tight space,” said Frederick Royan, a research analyst at the market research firm Frost & Sullivan. The new standards from the Coast Guard, the E.P.A. and the International Maritime Organization are expected to spawn a booming global market in such technology, the firm says. Frost & Sullivan predicts that ballast-water management technologies and their corporate backers will compete for an estimated $35 billion in sales over the next decade as the rules take effect. The E.P.A.’s standard is likely to be made final later this year; the international standard has yet to muster the required support from 30 countries representing 35 percent of the world’s shipping tonnage. “It’s a huge cottage industry waiting to happen,” said John Berge of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. “Whoever can come up with the best mousetrap certainly has a lot of business opportunities.” Regardless of the financial implications, Tom Nalepa, a biologist working with invasive species on the Great Lakes, is worried about the biological ones if the rule is inadequate. The chief threat on his mind is Dikerogammarus vellosis , an aggressive freshwater shrimp that feeds on other shrimps and disrupts food webs. Native to Eastern Europe, it has made its way to Western Europe in recent years. “Dikerogammarus vellosis is a killer shrimp,” he said. “If that gets into North America and the Great Lakes, it’s going to cause as many changes as the zebra mussel.” | Invasive Species;Filters;Ships and Shipping;Water;Environmental Protection Agency;Environment;Fish and Other Marine Life |
ny0169338 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2007/03/01 | Profits Are Up at Starz and QVC | Liberty Media said yesterday that profit rose at two of its most important divisions, on subscription growth at its movie channel, Starz, and increased sales at its home shopping channel, QVC. The company, which is controlled by the cable industry pioneer John C. Malone, posted separate operating results for its two tracking stocks — Liberty Interactive Group, home to QVC, and Liberty Capital Group, which includes Starz. Liberty Interactive revenue rose 11 percent and operating cash flow increased 21 percent. QVC revenue rose 7 percent, to $2.24 billion, while operating cash flow was 19 percent higher. Starz revenue rose 4 percent, to $257 million. Shares of Liberty Capital rose $4.17, to $107.88. Liberty Interactive shares rose 67 cents, to $23.57. | Liberty Media Corporation;Company Reports;QVC Inc;Television |
ny0097590 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2015/06/27 | Yevgeny Primakov, Former Russian Premier and Spymaster, Dies at 85 | MOSCOW — Yevgeny M. Primakov, a former prime minister of Russia, the country’s first post-Soviet spymaster and for decades the Kremlin’s top expert on Middle Eastern affairs, has died, state news agencies said on Friday. He was 85. The agencies did not say when or where he died or provide the cause of death. With hooded eyes and a gravelly voice, Mr. Primakov struck an image of the archetypal Soviet diplomat and intelligence operative. He was well known to kings, dictators and revolutionaries throughout the Middle East. But as he rose to more senior positions in the post-Soviet Russian government, his sly sense of humor, sharp intellect and willingness to stand up to the United States made him popular in domestic politics. For a time, he was seen as a possible successor to President Boris N. Yeltsin. In this way, his career and popularity foreshadowed the success of another veteran of the Soviet intelligence services turned politician, Vladimir V. Putin. On Friday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry S. Peskov, said the president saw Mr. Primakov as “a statesman, a scholar and a politician who has left an enormous legacy.” Russian television broadcasts warmly recalled how Mr. Primakov had presided over a turning point, literally, in Russian-American relations. Heading to the United States for talks in March 1999, Mr. Primakov, who was prime minister then, turned his government plane around over the Atlantic Ocean after learning that the United States was about to begin its military intervention in Kosovo. Mr. Primakov said he would not talk to the Americans while bombs were falling. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Friday that Mr. Primakov had “made an invaluable contribution to formulating the fundamentals of Russia’s foreign policy,” including, “above all, the independent, self-sufficient course of the Russian Federation.” As Mr. Yeltsin’s health weakened in the late 1990s, Mr. Primakov aligned with Yuri M. Luzhkov, then the mayor of Moscow, in a bid to assume control in the Kremlin. But Mr. Putin and his backers quickly sidelined the movement. After leaving government, Mr. Primakov led a business lobby before returning to his scholarly interests in the Arab world as director of Eastern studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov was born on Oct. 29, 1929, in Kiev, Soviet Union. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies in 1953. Survivors include his wife, a daughter and grandchildren. Early in his career, Mr. Primakov proved a wily and energetic backer of Soviet interests in the Middle East. He began his decades of experience in the region as a foreign correspondent for Soviet radio and the Communist Party newspaper Pravda in Cairo for most of the 1960s, a posting generally seen as a cover for espionage activity. He went on to lead ultimately unsuccessful shuttle diplomacy efforts to reconcile a newly ascendant Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, whom the Kremlin was courting, with the Kurdish insurgency in northern Iraq, which was also supported by Moscow. In 1990, before the Persian Gulf War began, Mr. Primakov led an unsuccessful effort by the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to broker a peace agreement between the United States and Iraq, which had invaded Kuwait. The Gorbachev plan, calling for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, might have slowed the erosion of Russian influence in the region had it succeeded. But Mr. Hussein resisted until it was too late to accept the proposal. Back in Russia, Mr. Primakov steered the foreign intelligence branch of the K.G.B. into the post-Soviet era, separating it from the domestic surveillance branch. In various government positions, Mr. Primakov also tried and failed to broker peace deals that would have prevented American military action in the former Yugoslavia and again in Iraq. Mr. Gorbachev, in a statement issued on Friday, praised Mr. Primakov for “defending the country’s interests with both resolve and flexibility.” | Obituary;Russia;Yevgeny M Primakov |
ny0215437 | [
"business"
] | 2010/04/20 | Small Child, but a Big Passport Headache | ON one of my very first business trips, I was fortunate enough to have my wife accompany me to Paris. We were young and didn’t have a lot of money. So this was an incredible treat. My son was only 3 months old, and since he was nursing, he came along, too. One of the things that I always do when I travel — even back then — is to make sure that I have everything in order. I checked with our travel agent and the airline, and was told that as long as we had our son’s original birth certificate, he didn’t need a passport. When we got to the airport in Boston, the airline refused to board us on their Paris flight. I was told my son needed a passport. I’m a mild-mannered guy, but I jumped up and down for about 30 minutes. This was a dream trip and no one was going to take it away from us. Then I got a great idea, or so I thought. I lived outside the United States for a few years, and I knew my son could get a quick passport at the United States embassy in London. So I decided we should fly to London, and then get to Paris from there. The airline said O.K., and they let us board their London flight. When we arrived in London, we went through immigration without any issues. Or so I thought. While we were in baggage claim, an immigration officer came up to us and told us that we had, in fact, brought our son into the country illegally. I told him what happened back in Boston and he said: “We have the same rules as France. But don’t worry.” He wrote up what’s called an “innocent” report and let us into the country. It was just 6 a.m., so we went to the Sheraton Park Tower and got a day room. We had breakfast, freshened up and then headed to the embassy, where I was told that we had entered the country illegally and that we were going to be fined $1,500. I nearly passed out. The embassy person asked if I wanted to be billed for the fine. What kind of question is that? I said, “Sure, bill me.” While my wife filled out the paperwork, I took my son to get a passport photo. At the photo shop I was told my son’s eyes must be open. He was sound asleep. So I did the only thing I could. I gave him a little kiss on the cheek and he woke up with a huge smile. At least he was happy. So with passport in hand, we got on a flight to Paris, and I made it in time for my afternoon meeting. And the rest of the time with my young family was magical. But when I got back to the United States, I confronted the airline. An official pulled out an official-looking international travel regulations book, and showed me the travel requirements for infants traveling to Europe. It said that passports “may be” required. I asked how something “may be” required. It either is required or it isn’t required. I never got an answer. What’s so funny is that I still carry an extra copy of my son’s passport photo in my wallet. It’s a little dog-eared, since my son is now 17 years old. After that mishap, I got all my kids passports, practically at birth. On a positive note, I never received that bill. I hope I don’t now. | Business Travel;Airlines and Airplanes;Passports;Children and Youth |
ny0292774 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/06/27 | ‘Brexit’ Worries British Cultural Institutions Facing Loss of Aid | LONDON — British cultural organizations and prominent figures in theater, dance and film reacted with dismay after Britain voted to leave the European Union. But as with many British industries and institutions, uncertainty prevails over what withdrawal will mean. People who make their living in the arts had been strong supporters of the Remain campaign, with a survey of members of the Creative Industries Federation showing that 96 percent backed Britain’s membership in the European Union. “First time I’ve ever felt ashamed and embarrassed to be British … And soon we may have no UK either?” the choreographer Matthew Bourne posted on Twitter on Friday, referring to the possibility of another referendum on independence for Scotland, which voted overwhelmingly to stay within the European Union. “Canada?” tweeted Josie Rourke, the artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, a London theater. Michael Ryan, the chairman of the Independent Film and Television Alliance, said in a statement on Friday that the decision was “a major blow to the U.K. film and TV industry.” “This decision has just blown up our foundation — as of today, we no longer know how our relationships with co-producers, financiers and distributors will work, whether new taxes will be dropped on our activities in the rest of Europe or how production financing is going to be raised without any input from European funding agencies,” he added. Between 2007 and 2015, a European Union program provided nearly $145 million to Britain’s film, television and games industry, according to an open letter published by a number of British film producers last Tuesday. The money helps finance production budgets, distribution and film festivals. Co-production, a relatively straightforward endeavor governed by a European convention, could become a far more complicated legal process. The British exit from the European Union is likely to affect the subsidies that both British and cinemas on the Continent receive to show films from member countries. Dance is also likely to be severely affected. Alistair Spalding, the artistic director of Sadler’s Wells Theater, a major dance house in London, said the theater had received about $550,000 from the European Union program over the past five years. “The money is for collaborative projects that involve cross-European relationships,” Mr. Spalding said. “These are important and enhance our programs, but are also part of bigger Pan-European collaborations that are now unlikely to happen.” Mr. Spalding said the extent to which visas and work permits would become a problem was unclear. “Dance companies are extremely multinational, and at the moment, no one from Europe needs anything to perform in Britain,” he said. “I suspect at some point there is going to be a process for work permits, and that is a big burden of time and cost, and is a discouraging factor. It may be that directors are simply unable to employ the people they want.” He added that economic uncertainty was another major concern for Sadler’s Wells, and dance in general. “We are very dependent on donors, and 90 percent of our income is vulnerable to economic ups and downs, so that is actually a big worry,” Mr. Spalding said. In a recent interview, Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate art museums, mentioned that he, too, was worried about the impact that a withdrawal from the European Union might have on the Tate’s ability to employ the best curators from all over Europe. “It is too early to say how the result of the referendum will affect Tate,” he said in a statement on Friday. “However, our mission remains unaffected, and Tate has a responsibility to promote public interest in modern and contemporary art from across the world.” The office of John Whittingdale, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, who openly supported Britain’s exit from the European Union, declined an interview request on Friday. | Brexit;The arts;Great Britain;EU;Donmar Warehouse Theater;Sadler's Wells;Tate Museum Group |
ny0207352 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2009/06/10 | Initially Confusing: Just Call Phillies Pitcher Jay | C. C., A. J. and J. J. all came to town this season, and on Tuesday night the Phillies, apparently looking to take on New York in every category, sent the left-hander J. A. Happ to the mound against the Mets. That would be James Anthony Happ, who wants to be called Jay. No, he did not drop the A; he wants J. A. to be pronounced Jay. | Baseball;Philadelphia Phillies;Names Personal |
ny0179973 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2007/08/07 | Giants Cornerback Eager to Go Back to Work After Concussion | ALBANY, Aug. 6 — Last week, Kevin Dockery had headaches so painful that he was kept inside his dormitory room for days and he needed to wear sunglasses because he was sensitive to light. On Monday morning he was on the practice field in pads and a helmet, chasing after receivers and diving for balls with the same fervor as before. It took a little more than a week for Dockery, a second-year cornerback for the Giants , to recover from what a team physician called “a mild traumatic brain injury,” or a concussion. “I don’t think we’re going to have tackling practice with him,” Coach Tom Coughlin said. “I’d like to keep his head out of the contact for a little bit, but he feels good.” Dockery sustained a concussion July 28, the first day of training camp, after his helmet came off and his head slammed into the ground. Dockery said that his helmet could have been secured better. “We are in the process of reminding and educating our players that the proper wear of equipment is as important as anything else,” said Kameno Bell, a Giants associate team physician, adding that wearing equipment correctly was a point of emphasis throughout the N.F.L. Although the concussion was not severe, Dockery had nausea and headaches. He was also sent to a local hospital for a CT scan, Bell said. Dockery said he was “bored out of my mind,” and he remained in his room until Friday. He said he joined his teammates for meals on Saturday, and after the headaches subsided, he started working with a team trainer on noncontact exercises. Dockery also had to take neuropsychological exams on a Palm Pilot, which consist of a series of questions and measure reaction time, Bell said. Every player takes the tests before training camp begins, so team physicians can compare in-season results with the baseline results. Although Dockery had to wait for physicians to clear him to practice, he was eager to begin working toward securing a spot in the secondary as soon as possible. He was signed as a rookie free agent out of Mississippi State before last season and had two interceptions, including one against Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo that he returned 96 yards for a touchdown on Oct. 23. But at 5 feet 8 inches and 188 pounds, he will probably not be a starter when the regular season begins. “Right now, everybody’s basically competing for a job,” Dockery said. “If I’m sitting in my room not competing, another guy is out there trying to get my job.” Dockery called the first concussion of his career “a freak accident,” and said he would not worry about having another. “When you play scared and worried, that’s usually when you get hurt,” he said. EXTRA POINTS A day after Michael Strahan released a letter to Giants fans saying that his holdout had nothing to do with a contract dispute, Tom Coughlin said that there had been no new developments. Coughlin added that there would be a time when the Giants’ stance on Strahan could change, but he refused to say when that would be. ... Cornerback Aaron Ross, the first-round pick out of Texas, sat out of practice Monday, saying he was worried about a tweaked hamstring. “I don’t think I’ll be out there tonight, but I hope for sure tomorrow, even if I have to make myself get out there,” Ross said. Receiver Plaxico Burress (ankle) and safety Michael Stone (hip flexor) also sat out. ... Linebacker Gerris Wilkinson had to be helped off the field after he appeared to hurt his right leg during Monday evening’s practice, and offensive lineman Todd Londot was carted off the field with his left leg elevated about midway through the evening practice. | New York Giants;Football;Dockery Kevin |
ny0100395 | [
"business",
"dealbook"
] | 2015/12/18 | Shkreli Indictment Portrays Small-Time Fraud | Martin Shkreli told investors that his hedge fund had an auditor, that it had posted a 36 percent return since its inception and that it had $35 million in assets under management. None of it was true, federal authorities say. Mr. Shkreli has gained nationwide notoriety for his bravado in spiking prices on pharmaceuticals, one of the biggest industries in the country. But his predawn arrest in Manhattan on Thursday was on charges of a small-time hedge fund fraud. An indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and a related civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission assert that Mr. Shkreli was nothing like the stock market genius and savvy entrepreneur that he had portrayed. His former hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, had recorded losses of at least 18 percent and was essentially broke by 2011, having less than $1,000 in its bank account, according to the indictment. The hedge fund had no auditor. The authorities described Mr. Shkreli, 32, as a failed trader with a habit of spreading falsehoods and running his businesses on fumes and misappropriated money. His Ponzi-like scheme, they said, involved looting Retrophin, a biopharmaceutical company he used to run, to pay back his disgruntled investors. “At a certain point, when you lie, it catches up with you,” said Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, at a news conference discussing the charges. The investigation of Mr. Shkreli was underway long before he became a target of criticism for raising the price of a drug sold by a company he acquired, Turing Pharmaceuticals, to $750 a pill from $13.50 . It is not clear whether federal authorities had quickened the pace of their investigations in light of the defiant posture Mr. Shkreli struck in news media interviews and on Twitter since the drug-price gouging controversy first emerged. Recently, it became known that he was the buyer of the sole copy of a rare Wu-Tang Clan album at an auction for $2 million. The F.B.I. ‘s New York office tweeted on Thursday that it had not seized the record, saying: “no seizure warrant at the arrest of Martin Shkreli today, which means we didn’t seize the Wu-Tang Clan album.” The schemes outlined by both prosecutors and securities regulators were not especially sophisticated. The indictment charges Mr. Shkreli with two counts of securities fraud, saying that he deceived the fewer than two dozen investors in his former hedge fund about the firm’s viability and performance in persuading them to give him more capital. He also faces five conspiracy counts. Mr. Shkreli, the authorities said, quickly lost money at a small hedge fund he managed called Elea Capital Management from 2006 to 2007. At his next fund, MSMB, he did not disclose information about his prior losses and poor performance when raising money from investors. He also lied about MSMB’s assets. He told an investor in December 2010 that the firm had $35 million in assets under management. In fact, it had $700. He then lost even more money — some $7 million — at MSMB when he bet wrong in 2011 that the shares of a small pharmaceutical company would fall in price. He owed Merrill Lynch, his brokerage firm, that amount, and settled with Merrill for $1.35 million. He used money from a new fund, MSMB Healthcare, to pay off the Merrill settlement. Again, he did not tell investors. Finally, at Retrophin, he once again used company money to cover up his failed investments. Mr. Shkreli received help, authorities said, from a corporate lawyer, Evan Greebel, 42, who at time was working for the law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman. Mr. Greebel, who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., recently joined the Kaye Scholer firm as a partner. Prosecutors charged him with helping Mr. Shkreli engineer a series of fraudulent transactions that effectively took money from Retrophin so it could be given to some of Mr. Shkreli’s former hedge fund investors. Image Left, Robert Capers, the federal prosecutor, and a chart with the charges against Martin Shkreli. Credit Pearl Gabel for The New York Times The indictment mirrors some of the accusations contained in a civil lawsuit filed in August by Retrophin, which ousted Mr. Shkreli as chief executive in 2014. The company had accused him of using Retrophin as his personal piggy bank to help pay off upset investors in the hedge fund by hiring some of them for sham consulting jobs. The authorities contend that fraudulent transactions were devised to make it appear as if Mr. Shkreli’s former hedge fund had invested in the pharmaceutical company when in fact it had not. In a scheme involving two other unnamed people, Mr. Shkreli and Mr. Greebel created a paper trail using backdated stock transfer agreements in response to an inquiry the S.E.C. had begun in early 2012. Mr. Shkreli and Mr. Greebel also used $3.4 million in Retrophin funds and stocks to settle claims with several MSMB investors who were threatening to sue in 2013. The money was transferred to the hedge fund investors, even though Retrophin had no responsibility for those claims. The indictment contends the lawyer was an active participant in the scheme. In some instances, Mr. Greebel removed the outside auditors from Retrophin from emails to hide what he and Mr. Shkreli were doing, the authorities said. The indictment includes portions of an email exchange between Mr. Shkreli and Mr. Greebel in which they discussed questions from Retrophin’s auditors in August 2013 about the appropriateness of the settlement agreements. In one email, Mr. Shkreli writes, “There were serious faults with the agreements including lack of board approval.” Mr. Greebel responds, “That will open up some very big issues. The current thinking is let RTRX pay,” referring to Retrophin’s trading symbol. “It would be easier than the road you are referring to,” he continued, adding that the auditor “would get very spooked with what you are talking about.” “That works for me,” Mr. Shkreli replied. It is not clear from the court filings what Mr. Greebel’s motivation might have been in helping Mr. Shkreli with the purported fraud. Mr. Greebel is charged with one count of conspiracy. Regulatory filings with the S.E.C. show that Retrophin was not Mr. Greebel’s only corporate client. In recent years, Mr. Greebel had built an expertise working with Bitcoin, the digital currency. He is listed on filings with the S.E.C. as one of the outside lawyers working on the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, the publicly traded Bitcoin investment vehicle that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss plan to introduce. On Mr. Greebel’s profile at Kaye Scholer, which he joined during the summer, it mentions that The Financial Times recognized him as an “innovative lawyer” in the United States. A spokeswoman for Kaye Scholer said in a statement: “We are deeply concerned that these charges have been made against Mr. Greebel. He has been with us for a relatively short period of time, and all the alleged activities occurred before he joined the firm. We are conducting our own internal investigation, and based on our findings we will take appropriate action.” Jacquelyn L. Heard, a spokeswoman for Katten Muchin Rosenman, said, “It would be inappropriate for us to comment on an investigation into a former colleague.” In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Shkreli said, “It is no coincidence that these charges, the result of investigations which have been languishing for considerable time, have been filed at the same time of Shkreli’s high-profile, controversial and yet unrelated activities.” Both Mr. Shkreli and Mr. Greebel entered not guilty pleas at their arraignment in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon. The case is being prosecuted by assistant United States attorneys Winston Paes and Alixandra Smith. Mr. Shkreli, dressed in a short-sleeve, black T-shirt and dark jeans, was released on $5 million in bail, secured by a bank account and guaranteed by his father and his brother. Mr. Greebel was released on $1 million in bail, secured by his house, and guaranteed by his wife and his mother. Mr. Shkreli, who had shown a great deal of self-confidence in recent television appearances before his arrest, looked a little shaken during the arraignment, occasionally twisting his head to look at the packed courtroom. At one point, he questioned Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy after the judge mentioned a date, asking, “Did you say 2016, your honor?” He wore sunglasses as he exited the court in the pouring evening rain, declining to speak to journalists. | Martin Shkreli;Hedge fund;Pharmaceuticals;Retrophin;Turing Pharmaceuticals;Securities fraud;MSMB Capital Management;Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes |
ny0169228 | [
"business"
] | 2007/03/26 | Distributor of Medical Test to Buy a Rival | Beckman Coulter, a maker and distributor of biomedical testing and laboratory products, agreed yesterday to acquire Biosite, a smaller maker of diagnostic blood tests, for about $1.55 billion in cash. The combination would bolster Beckman Coulter’s offerings for blood tests, including those for heart failure, certain diseases and the presence of drugs. Beckman Coulter said that it would make a tender offer of $85 a share, or a premium of about 54 percent over Biosite’s closing share price of $55.38 on Friday. The merger is expected to close in the second quarter. Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have committed to financing the transaction. The deal grew out of a four-year partnership between Beckman Coulter and Biosite for Biosite’s heart-failure blood test, called Triage B.N.P., which can diagnose congestive heart failure within 15 minutes. A study presented in 2002 to the American College of Cardiology found that Biosite’s test was more accurate in diagnosing the presence and severity of heart failure than traditional X-ray tests. The diagnostics field has seen a surge in deal activity recently. In January, General Electric agreed to buy Abbott Laboratories’ diagnostic unit for $8.13 billion. Last year, Siemens, the German conglomerate, bought the diagnostics business of Bayer Healthcare for $5.3 billion and all of Diagnostics Products for $1.86 billion. Last fall, Beckman bought another diagnostic technology company, Lumigen, for $185 million in cash. Beckman Coulter is based in Fullerton, Calif., has more than 10,000 employees, and reported net income of $186.9 million last year. Biosite, based in San Diego, has more than 1,000 employees and reported net income of about $40 million last year. | Beckman Coulter Incorporated;Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures;Medicine and Health |
ny0039385 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2014/04/17 | Pineda’s Line: No Runs Allowed, and No More Talk | The attention on Michael Pineda started with the integrity of his right hand. It soon transitioned to the electricity of his right arm. By the end of his six shutout innings, there was no more talk of the indeterminate substance on his pitching hand that inflamed social media during Pineda’s previous start, against the Boston Red Sox, and caused more than a few to question how much of his success was aided by some sort of adhesive. On Wednesday night, as Pineda shut down the Chicago Cubs, there looked to be — at least to the naked eye — nothing dirty about it. His performance helped the Yankees win, 2-0 , and complete a shutout sweep of a day-night doubleheader. Pineda followed Masahiro Tanaka’s near-perfect outing with an equally impressive offering, allowing four hits, walking one and striking out three on a bone-chilling night at Yankee Stadium as the wind chill hovered around freezing. The Cubs’ bats certainly never warmed up: For the first time since 1962, they were shut out twice in the same day. “It was big,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said of the performances of Tanaka and Pineda. “We’re going to Tampa, and we have a fairly rested bullpen. I feel pretty good about where our bullpen is going into an important four-game series, and that’s because of our starters.” After Tanaka’s mastery in the afternoon, the focus turned to Pineda, 25, another new right-hander in the Yankees’ rotation, who had missed the previous two seasons because of a shoulder injury. His first two starts this year were stellar, but during the early innings of the second game, against Boston last week, a substance on his hand and wrist was caught on camera. The suspicion by many around baseball was that Pineda had used pine tar or some other substance to keep his grip in the cold weather. (Pineda said it was dirt .) Images from Pineda’s first start, against Toronto, also appeared to show a substance on his hand, which would have been in violation of Rule 8.02, prohibiting the use of foreign substances on a baseball. An April Doubleheader (Snow Included) 8 Photos View Slide Show › Image Tim Clayton for The New York Times But neither the Red Sox nor the Blue Jays complained during his starts, and Major League Baseball declined to investigate, so the controversy was effectively dismissed. Certainly, though, there were additional eyes on Pineda’s extremities Wednesday. Pineda said he was not bothered by the scrutiny. “I’m focusing on pitching my game,” he said. “That’s it.” Although pitching in even colder weather than he faced during the Boston game, Pineda found himself in trouble only a couple of times Wednesday. He retired the first seven batters in order before getting in some trouble in the fifth. The Cubs had two runners in scoring position with one out, but Pineda struck out Ryan Kalish and got Darwin Barney to fly out to end the threat. Girardi said he did not speak with Pineda specifically about the Red Sox incident before Wednesday’s start, although he acknowledged he wondered some about how Pineda would respond. “I think there was a little concern,” Girardi said. “I haven’t had him long enough to know how he responds to certain things. Some guys are really good at just moving on; some guys think about it. I thought he handled it extremely well and was ready to go tonight.” Pineda declined to elaborate on why he felt more comfortable gripping the baseball without dirt on his hand Wednesday. “I don’t know,” Pineda said. “I threw the ball good, and I’m happy with that.” Brett Gardner put the Yankees on the board with a run-scoring single in the fourth, and Scott Sizemore added a run-scoring single in the fifth. The Yankees had 10 hits through the first five innings. Sizemore was making his season debut, having recovered from two anterior cruciate ligament tears that cost him the entire 2012 season and all but two games of the 2013 season for the Oakland Athletics. He went 2 for 3, finishing with multiple hits for the first time since September 2011. In the ninth, the Cubs had two runners on base with two outs against Adam Warren, and a wild pitch put them in scoring position with Kalish at the plate. It was a considerable threat after 17 innings of offensive futility for the Cubs, but it ended the same way: with another zero on the scoreboard. “You don’t want to be the guy that messes that up,” Warren said. | Baseball;Yankees;Chicago Cubs;Michael Pineda |
ny0273442 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2016/05/23 | Mexico Prepares to Counter ‘the Trump Emergency’ | MEXICO CITY — Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico , was recently stuck in Mexico City traffic, overcome with frustration — not by the congestion, but by something that was irritating him even more: Donald J. Trump. He grabbed his phone, turned the lens on himself and pressed record. “Ha! Donald,” Mr. Fox said, holding the phone perhaps a little too close to his face. “What about your apologies to Mexico , to Mexicans in the United States, to Mexicans in Mexico?” In short order, the 15-second clip was on Mr. Fox’s Twitter feed — another salvo in a personal campaign against the American presidential candidate that has included television appearances, radio interviews and a fusillade of hectoring Twitter posts. Mr. Fox’s voice is among a growing, if uncoordinated, chorus of influential Mexicans worried about what a Trump victory could mean for the complex relationship between the United States and Mexico — not to mention the impact Mr. Trump’s presidential bid may have already had. The voices have included at least two former Mexican presidents, top government officials, political analysts, academics, editorial writers and cultural figures. President Enrique Peña Nieto likened the candidate’s language to that of Hitler and Mussolini in an interview with Mexico’s Excelsior newspaper . And he recently shuffled his diplomatic corps in the United States, replacing Mexico’s ambassador to Washington and installing new consuls general around the country, in part to strengthen his administration’s response to the rise of Mr. Trump and what it reflects about American sentiment toward Mexico. While many leaders around the world are worried about how Mr. Trump’s campaign, win or lose, could shape American foreign policy, the concerns are particularly pointed in Mexico and throughout the Mexican diaspora because of the exceptionally close geographic, economic, demographic and cultural ties between the two countries. The two countries are now enjoying one of the more harmonious periods in a turbulent history. But many in Mexico fear that the friendship would rupture should Mr. Trump win the election and follow through on his threats to undo the North American Free Trade Agreement, force Mexico to pay for the construction of a wall between the countries by interrupting remittances and deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, about half of whom are Mexican. “His threat is cataclysmic, I think, for Mexico,” Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian and literary magazine editor, said in an interview. “What it would mean for bilateral trade, in social terms, in the tearing of families, in the trauma, the collective panic, the opening of old wounds.” He added: “I can use one of Trump’s favorite words. Yes, this is huge. It’s a huge danger.” Mexican critics of Mr. Trump say he has already damaged the image of their country and of the Mexican people with his espousal of views that many regard as xenophobic. At a rally to kick off his campaign in June, the Republican candidate suggested that many Mexican immigrants were drug traffickers and rapists. Mexican officials, concerned about negative impressions of Mexico in the United States, have been rolling out a strategy to improve the image of their country and show how the relationship between the two nations has been of “mutual benefit,” said Paulo Carreño, the newly appointed under secretary for North America in Mexico’s Foreign Ministry. The strategy includes “cultural diplomacy,” grass-roots activism and the deployment of Mexican community and business leaders living in the United States, he said. As part of the strategy, the Peña Nieto administration shook up its diplomatic corps in the United States last month: The Mexican ambassador to Washington, Miguel Basáñez Ebergenyi, who had been in the job less than a year, was abruptly replaced by Carlos Sada Solana, a veteran diplomat. In addition, 26 consulates changed leadership. A statement from the Foreign Ministry announcing Mr. Sada’s appointment emphasized his experience “protecting the rights of Mexicans in North America, as well as defending the interests of Mexican abroad.” Image Vicente Fox, a former Mexican president. His voice is among a chorus of influential Mexicans worried about what a Trump victory could mean for the relationship between the United States and Mexico. Credit Elaine Thompson/Associated Press In addition, a few high-level government officials have reacted publicly to Mr. Trump, including Humberto Roque Villanueva, the Interior Ministry’s under secretary for population, migration and migratory affairs. He told the newspaper El Universal this month that the Mexican government was analyzing “how to confront what we would call the Trump emergency.” “I believe Mr. Trump speaks off the top of his head and doesn’t have a clear idea about financial matters or international accords,” he added. “We live in a globalized world. The United States would have to return to a kind of Middle Ages to prohibit remittances or charge tariffs that aren’t charged in other parts of the world.” In general, however, the administration has mostly refrained from commenting on the candidate. That has frustrated many Mexicans, who have called on the government to come to the defense of Mexico and push back at Mr. Trump more forcefully. “They can package that in the traditional Mexican nonsense: We don’t interfere in elections,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister. “The real reason is that they have no idea what to do, so the default option is to do nothing.” Instead, most of the Mexican agitation against Mr. Trump has come from the general public. At the beginning of his campaign, many Mexicans viewed Mr. Trump with a mixture of alarm and amusement. But the amusement has mostly fallen away. “Why should we worry?” Mr. Krauze asked, rhetorically. “I couldn’t think of a reason not to worry, no?” In the fall, Mr. Krauze and Carmelo Mesa-Lago, an emeritus professor of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh, drafted a letter denouncing Mr. Trump’s campaign. Sixty-seven prominent Latinos — academics, scientists, writers and filmmakers in the United States, Spain and Latin America — signed it. “His hate speech appeals to lower passions like xenophobia, machismo, political intolerance and religious dogmatism,” the letter said. In recent months, Mr. Castañeda has been pushing a pro-Mexico social media campaign with the hashtag #ImProudToBeMexican. Aiming at an American, English-speaking audience, he has uploaded videos to Facebook and a campaign website extolling the diversity of the Mexican diaspora and its contributions to the United States. Explaining the American focus of this lobby, he said: “I don’t want to convince Mexicans how nasty Trump is, because everyone knows that. That’s a done deal.” Mr. Fox’s drumbeat of harangues against Mr. Trump began in February when he declared in a television interview, using a forceful expletive, that Mexicans would not build the candidate’s proposed wall. He escalated from there, chiding Mr. Trump with language that sometimes devolved into schoolyard churlishness. He called the candidate “a false prophet,” “dictator” and “loser.” He posted a selfie taken against the backdrop of a beach with this message: “Trump, this beautiful Cancun. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.” He posted photos from his wife’s birthday party, taunting Mr. Trump: “What do you know about love? Or you just know about hating. How sad!” This month, Mr. Fox expressed contrition for some of his comments in an interview with Breitbart News and apologized to Mr. Trump. But amid blowback from Mexicans on social media and elsewhere who accused him of weakness, he resumed his badgering, posting photos on social media of a Trump-brand tie made in China and a Trump-brand jacket made in Mexico — evidence, he said, of the candidate’s hypocrisy. Mr. Fox said in a telephone interview from his home in Guanajuato State that he was motivated to attack Mr. Trump by what he called “pure love for that great nation, the United States.” “I don’t understand why the American public is buying this,” he continued, pain in his voice. “We are partners, we are neighbors, and we should be friends. He’s dividing not only American society, but he’s dividing two nations. “Why does he pick on Mexico?” | 2016 Presidential Election;Donald Trump;Mexico;Illegal Immigration;US Foreign Policy;Immigration;Vicente Fox;Enrique Pena Nieto |
ny0255237 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2011/09/28 | Collins Signed Up; Reyes Lights It Up | On the day the Mets exercised Manager Terry Collins ’s club option for the 2013 season, Jose Reyes provided a jolt of excitement in what could be his next-to-last game in a Mets uniform. Reyes entered the game against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night with an oh-so-slight lead over Ryan Braun of Milwaukee in his bid to become the first batting champion in franchise history. He increased the lead, ever so slightly, with a display of power and speed that has fans dreaming he remains in Queens after this season. He grounded out in his first at-bat but homered in each of his next two against Cincinnati Reds starter Bronson Arroyo. After flying out in the seventh inning, he reached on a swinging bunt with two outs and the score tied in the ninth inning. Reyes took second on a throwing error, then stole third, where he was stranded. He finished his night with a flyout in the 11th and a .33582 batting average, just ahead of Braun’s .33453. The Mets’ final game is Wednesday afternoon at Citi Field, with the Brewers playing at night. “I don’t even know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight, thinking about tomorrow,” Reyes said. “It’s going to be the last game of the season, and I’m going to be a free agent after the season, and who knows what’s going to happen. I’ll try to do my job tomorrow and see what happens.” The Reds went on to win Tuesday in 13 innings, 5-4 , but with the Mets long removed from the playoff race, Reyes’s chase has been the Mets’ main story line. Usually when that happens with a team holding a $120 million payroll, the franchise is not motivated to exercise the manager’s club option more than a year in advance. But General Manager Sandy Alderson was encouraged enough by Collins’s effort this season despite the 76-84 record entering Tuesday’s game. “It’s certainly an honor,” Collins said. “Very proud with the way players have played. We get extended and we get contracts because the team plays well. Certainly we’re not very happy with the wins and losses, but we’ve hung in there all season long.” Collins, in his first year at the helm, has been one of the few consistent cogs in an otherwise unpredictable season. Despite an inordinate amount of injuries that have forced him to fill out lineup cards in a slew of combinations and a financial turmoil in ownership, Collins remained upbeat and kept the Mets around .500 for the majority of the year. “We’re a team under sometimes difficult circumstances, and in all of those circumstances he has not used injuries or trades or anything else as an excuse for the performance of the team,” said Alderson, who also cited Collins’s work ethic, knowledge of the game and “authentic personality” in making the decision. Injuries to Reyes, Johan Santana, David Wright and Ike Davis were the Mets’ most significant, and they in part prompted the trades of Francisco Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran. Alderson’s announcement was not what Mets fans had been eagerly waiting for, however. The elephant in the clubhouse all season has been Reyes’s impending free-agent status. Reyes began his contract year on a tear, batting .354 through 83 games and vaunting himself into the early discussion for most valuable player. But a hamstring injury forced him onto the disabled list in early July and again a month later. “On balance, you have to say it was an outstanding year for Jose,” Alderson said. “He’s definitely someone we’re going to try to retain going into next year. But we’ll see how that progresses.” If these are indeed his final games in a Mets uniform, at least he is chasing something historic. Never in the history of the franchise, which dates to 1962, has a Met won a batting title, but after three hits Monday, Reyes entered Tuesday with a .33396 average — .00003 ahead of Braun. On Tuesday, each time Reyes stepped to the plate, he was greeted with a boisterous ovation from the crowd of 30,027. Leading off the bottom of the first, Reyes rolled Arroyo’s second pitch to second base for a groundout and a 1-point dip in his average. With one out in the third inning, Reyes pounced on a flat 1-0 splitter over the middle of the plate, crushing it over the Xerox ad in right-center field for a solo home run, his sixth of the season, spiking his average to .335. In his next at-bat, in the fifth inning, he belted another solo home run, this one off a 3-2 slider that hit off the Subway ad along the front of the upper deck in right field to push his average to .336, which was displayed on the scoreboard above Braun’s .335. While Reyes’s future remains a mystery, Mets fans’ opinion of him is far from one. The fans cheered loudly as he trotted around the bases after his second blast. They beckoned him for a curtain call and he obliged. Perhaps for the final time. | Collins Terry L;Reyes Jose;Baseball;New York Mets;Alderson Sandy |
ny0015443 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2013/10/11 | Norwegian Investigated in Deadly Mall Siege in Kenya | NAIROBI, Kenya — The Norwegian police said on Thursday that they were investigating whether a Norwegian citizen was involved in the deadly siege of the Westgate shopping mall here in late September. The Police Security Service said in a statement that it had “received information indicating that a Norwegian citizen of Somali origin allegedly was involved in the planning and execution of the attack.” The service said it had sent investigators to Nairobi to work with the Kenyan police and security services in their inquiry into the attack, in which Islamist militants stormed the mall and killed more than 60 men, women and children. The Shabab, a militant group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack. Western security officials have been deeply worried about members of the Somali diaspora who have trained and fought for the Shabab, fearing that they could return to the West and mount attacks there. “We have lately seen an increase in the number of persons leaving Norway to take part in acts of war, attend training camps or join terrorist networks abroad,” the Norwegian authorities said. “We are concerned that this development may have an increasingly negative impact on the threat situation in Norway.” Dozens of American citizens have fought for the Shabab, and there have been unsubstantiated reports that one of the mall attackers may have been American. Kenyan officials are worried about the number of Kenyan citizens among the militants. Shabab Militants Draw Money From East Africa’s Underworld 7 Photos View Slide Show › Image Tyler Hicks/The New York Times East African militant networks extend as far as Burundi and Chad. The Tanzanian police said on Monday that they had arrested 11 people suspected of training with the Shabab, according to The Citizen, a Tanzanian newspaper. Many questions about the mall siege remain unanswered nearly three weeks after it ended. Investigators have not yet made clear how many assailants were involved or what countries they came from. Kenyan officials have said publicly that as few as 4 or as many as 15 militants may have been involved. The Kenyan authorities identified one assailant as Sudanese. But Col. Al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad, a spokesman for the Sudanese armed forces, told the SUNA news agency in his country on Wednesday that the assailant “was of Somali origin and has no connection to Sudan,” despite having the surname al-Sudani. The television channel TV2 in Norway reported this week that Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, the senior Shabab leader known as Ikrimah, lived in Norway for several years. The channel said he moved to Norway in 2004 and applied for asylum. He then traveled between Somalia and Norway several times, it said, and left Norway for good in 2008 before his asylum application was completed. American officials say Mr. Abdikadir is a top planner of attacks for the Shabab. American Navy SEAL commandos raided a villa in the Somali port city of Baraawe early Saturday in a failed attempt to capture him. The Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang reported on Thursday that the person the Norwegian authorities are investigating as a possible mall assailant is not Mr. Abdikadir. The newspaper did not name the suspect. NRK, the state broadcaster, said the man was in his 20s and grew up and went to school in Norway. “The main purpose of the investigation is to contribute to preventing possible new terrorist actions and to investigate whether, and to which extent, the named Norwegian was involved in the attack,” the police security service said. | Westgate Mall Shootings;Al Shabab;Norway;Somalia;Nairobi |
ny0283484 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/07/01 | Donald Trump Has Long Benefited From Trade Practices He Now Scorns | Donald J. Trump vowed on Tuesday that as president, he would put an end to policies that send American jobs overseas, threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese imports and promising to punish companies that relocate their manufacturing to countries with cheaper labor. “It will be American hands that remake this country,” said Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, standing before a hunk of aluminum at a recycling plant in western Pennsylvania. But such declarations are at odds with Mr. Trump’s long history as a businessman, in which he has been heavily — and proudly — reliant on foreign labor in the name of putting profits, rather than America, first. From cheap neckties to television sets, Mr. Trump has benefited from some of the trade practices he now scorns. Far-flung apparel Besides construction, Mr. Trump is big in the clothing business. But most of his line of suits, ties and cuff links bear a “Made in China” label. Some also come from factories in Bangladesh, Mexico and Vietnam. He has blamed China’s currency manipulation to argue that it is almost impossible to find garments that are made domestically these days, or that they are prohibitively expensive. “The answer is very simple,” Mr. Trump told ABC News when asked about his merchandise in 2011. “Because of the fact that China so manipulates their currency, it makes it almost impossible for American companies to compete.” Despite that claim, some companies such as Brooks Brothers continue to make clothes in the United States. Furniture from abroad In 2013, Mr. Trump teamed with Dorya, a Turkish maker of luxury furniture, for his Trump Home brand. In a news release at the time, the Trump Organization promoted the craftsmanship of the pieces, which furnish some of Mr. Trump’s hotels. “The entire production process, from the moment the raw wood is cut until the product is finished or upholstered occurs in Dorya’s Izmir, Turkey, production facility,” the release said . Mr. Trump also invested in a line of crystal bearing his name to go with his Trump Home line. The collection was produced in Slovenia, the home of his wife, Melania. Mr. Trump told The New York Times in 2010 that the production facilities were first class. “I’ve seen factories over there; their glass and crystal works are unbelievable,” he said. Putting Romanians and Poles to work Mr. Trump has not held back when it comes to his concern that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs from American workers, but he has used them on occasion. In 1980, a contractor hired by Mr. Trump to demolish the Bonwit Teller building in New York and make way for Trump Tower used undocumented Polish immigrants who reportedly worked round-the-clock and even slept at the site. Mr. Trump said that he did not know they were undocumented and later settled a lawsuit over the matter. Last summer, The Washington Post found that Mr. Trump was using undocumented immigrants for the construction of his Trump International Hotel at the site of the Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington. And The Times reported this year that Mr. Trump had employed hundreds of foreign guest workers from Romania and other countries at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Mr. Trump said that he found it difficult to find qualified local people to work there during the high season. For outsourcing before he was against it While Mr. Trump has for years railed against trade and currency policies that he says are unfair, he has not always been opposed to outsourcing. Writing on the Trump University blog in 2005 , Mr. Trump acknowledged that foreign labor was sometimes needed to keep American companies from going out of business. “If a company’s only means of survival is by farming jobs outside its walls, then sometimes it’s a necessary step,” Mr. Trump wrote. “The other option might be to close its doors for good.” Mr. Trump usually makes the case that foreign labor is necessary to keep production costs down, but in an interview with David Letterman in 2012 he also offered a humanitarian argument for outsourcing. Teased for selling dress shirts that were made in Bangladesh, Mr. Trump expressed pride that he was creating jobs around the world. “That’s good, we employ people in Bangladesh,” Mr. Trump said. “They have to work, too.” | 2016 Presidential Election;Foreign Workers;Donald Trump;Outsourcing;International trade;Jobs |
ny0235360 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/01/31 | Yanina Karlinsky and Irina Golub Aid Holocaust Survivors | Three years ago, Robert Ivker, a radiation oncologist, read an article about a caseworker dedicated to helping Holocaust survivors apply for reparations from the German government. The article, part of the Neediest Cases campaign, inspired him to start a fund to benefit New York-area Holocaust survivors, many of whom were destitute. His own efforts were described in a Neediest Cases article in 2008. Yanina Karlinsky and Irina Golub, business partners and lifelong friends, were among those who read it. Ms. Golub, 32, and Ms. Karlinsky, 31, who are originally from Bobruisk, Belarus, began donating to the Ivker Fund, which collected $60,000 in 2009. That year, 90 people received grants of $50 a month. When the women were approached at the end of last year by Lyubov Mikityansky, associate director of immigrant services at the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst, and told that the fund was running out of money, they felt compelled to take action. Since then, they have been soliciting clients of their accounting firm for contributions to the fund. And so the cycle of giving continues. “We feel very fortunate that we were able to open a successful business, so we want to give back,” said Ms. Karlinsky, who along with Ms. Golub operates Innovative Accounting Solutions in Brighton Beach. They came to the United States as children, attending high school and college here. When they opened their business in 2002, they took it upon themselves to teach their fellow émigrés about money. “We realized that the Russian community in New York was so illiterate about finances,” Ms. Golub said. Ms. Karlinsky attributes this lack of financial sophistication to the socialist background they share. “They hear I.R.S., they run,” she said. Charity is also a relatively new idea for recent Russian arrivals. “Russians are not philanthropic by nature because they never saw it,” she said. But she and Ms. Golub are working to change that, client by client. “I feel because we have access to all these people, it should be no problem to raise money,” Ms. Golub said. “Everyone who comes here has a checkbook. It’s very easy to get a check.” And it is tax deductible. She and Ms. Karlinsky have begun collecting credit card contributions, and in the last month they have collected $3,500, with more pledged. And Dr. Ivker donated $500 to save his fund from insolvency. According to a 2003 report commissioned by UJA-Federation of New York, 55,000 survivors of the Nazi regime live in the New York area, and just over half of them live in Brooklyn. Over the last two decades, the area has received an influx of survivors of Nazi rule from the former Soviet Union. These households are more likely than other Jewish households in New York to be poor. One of those Russian arrivals is Sarra Zilberman, 78, a Holocaust survivor who came to Brooklyn in 1992. Her husband died four years ago, and she is still paying a $7,000 funeral debt, not easy to do on a fixed income of $761 in monthly Social Security payments and $200 in food stamps. Even with a rent of $370, Ms. Zilberman struggles, and the stress is hard on her health. “This organization is like an oasis in the desert,” she said of the Jewish Community House, which administers the Ivker Fund. Every dollar from the fund goes to survivors; none are spent on administrative costs. (The Jewish Community House is a subsidiary of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by the Neediest Cases Fund.) Ms. Zilberman, a retired engineer, spent her childhood in a southwestern Ukrainian ghetto, where she contracted typhoid and ran from German soldiers as they shot at her. But even more painful than that was losing her husband, who was a Russian military officer for 40 years. After she lost that vital companionship, she came to rely on the Ivker Fund and the Jewish Community House for more than financial reasons. “It’s not the money; it’s the moral support we get,” she said through a translator. “It’s not just a formal, bureaucratic way of treating us. Only people with a big soul can work here.” | New York Times Neediest Cases Fund;Philanthropy;Holocaust and the Nazi Era;World War II (1939-45);Accounting and Accountants;Jews and Judaism |
ny0190829 | [
"science",
"space"
] | 2009/05/15 | Astronauts Replace 16-Year-Old Camera on Hubble | It took all of astronaut Andrew Feustel’s experience as a mechanic and an old Jaguar restorer to fit the Hubble Space Telescope with a new set of eyeballs Thursday. The first task of a five-day set of repair and maintenance spacewalks was to install a new camera, the Wide-Field Camera 3, on Hubble. But to get it in, astronauts had to first remove the old camera by unscrewing a seven-foot-long bolt known as the “A” latch, which was last moved in 1993 on the first Hubble servicing mission. At first, the latch did not want to move. For about an hour, Dr. Feustel, working on the end of the robot arm, tried a variety of computer-controlled wrenches and settings. Finally, mission controllers gave him permission to apply as much muscle grease as he wanted, even if the balky bolt broke. If that happened the old camera, which has performed flawlessly for almost 16 years, would have to stay in the telescope and the new $126 million camera would have to go home — not a great start to the servicing mission. But the bolt finally budged and then turned freely. “Woo hoo, it’s moving out,” Dr. Feustel said. “That’s been there for 16 years,” said John Grunsfeld, a mission specialist, “and it didn’t want to come out.” “It decided to be a recalcitrant teenager,” Dr. Grunsfeld added. An hour later, as Atlantis was sailing over the southwest Pacific, Dr. Feustel was sliding the new camera into the telescope and latching it down. Among the new camera’s features is the ability to record images in the normally invisible ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelength bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as in visible light. The infrared capability extends Hubble’s reach into the past because the expansion of the universe stretches the wavelengths of light from distant galaxies to longer, redder wavelengths. During the remaining hours of Thursday’s spacewalk, the astronauts planned to replace a router and instrument command box that failed last fall and was running on a backup channel. The new router will restore a vital redundancy to Hubble’s operations. The astronauts began their long-awaited service call at 9 a.m. Eastern time. “Oh, this is fantastic, you’re gonna love it, Drew,” Dr. Grunsfeld said as he slithered out of the airlock and into the cargo bay of the shuttle. He was followed about seven minutes later by Dr. Feustel, who is making his first spacewalk. He pronounced the experience fantastic, and set off learning to move around in the cargo bay. Dr. Grunsfeld, a veteran astronaut, was embarking on his sixth spacewalk, all of them devoted to working on Hubble. This is the fifth and last of the servicing missions that have repaired, refurbished and reinvented the venerable telescope over the years. | Hubble Space Telescope;Space |
ny0216068 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2010/04/17 | Voters’ Concerns on Immigration Spin British Campaign | LONDON — Few people in the working-class neighborhood of Barking seem willing to proclaim unalloyed enthusiasm for the ultra-right-wing, anti- immigration British Nationalist Party. But get past “hello” in any conversation and their feelings come spilling out. “I’m not a racist, but they’re letting so many of them in,” complained Bill Greed, 66, speaking of foreigners. “They come and sign on for benefits. A lot of the children in schools don’t even speak English. There’s so many illegal ones that the government can’t even find all of them.” The B.N.P.? “I agree with what they’re saying, but not with how they go about it,” Mr. Greed said. As they prepare for the national election on May 6, Britons everywhere identify immigration as one of their biggest concerns. But in few places is the issue so urgent, or the electoral choices so stark, as in the borough of Barking and Dagenham, on the eastern edge of London. With little support for the Tory or Liberal Democratic Parties here, the race is between the unpopular ruling Labour Party and an emboldened B.N.P. capitalizing on its rival’s weaknesses. Once Barking and Dagenham were white, blue-collar bastions, with 40,000 people employed at a huge Ford factory. Now 35 percent of the residents are from ethnic minorities, up from 5 percent 10 years ago. The factory has given way to a diesel engine plant with one-tenth the work force. Unemployment stands at 8 percent. The influx has put a serious strain on services, particularly housing. Mick W., a 20-year-old maintenance worker who did not want to give his last name because he is employed by the Borough Council, said his family waited a decade for decent public housing while immigrants with large families leapfrogged ahead. “I don’t mind the ones who come and get a job,” he said, “but all they do is claim, claim, claim.” The B.N.P.? “I can’t see them running the country, but I support what they stand for.” The B.N.P. says it stands for many things, but chief among them is an implacable belief that Britain belongs to indigenous white Britons. Until a judge struck down the provision last month, the party had a whites-only membership policy. It favors an immediate end to immigration and the repatriation of people of foreign descent. In 2006, the party won 12 of the 51 seats on the Barking and Dagenham Council, its strongest showing anywhere in the country. This time, it hopes to secure 14 more seats, enough to take control of the council, its 300 million pound annual budget and its 9,300 employees. It is also working to unseat Margaret Hodge, the Labour stalwart who represents Barking in Parliament. Ms. Hodge’s opponent is Nick Griffin, the B.N.P. leader. A well-dressed, well-spoken Cambridge law graduate, Mr. Griffin, 51, has denied that the Holocaust took place, and also said that Hitler “went a bit too far.” In 1998, he was convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial violence. But in recent years Mr. Griffin has taken care to moderate his public statements as his party seeks mainstream electoral success. Last year, he was elected to the European Parliament from North West England. In Barking, B.N.P. supporters are campaigning against Ms. Hodge by using her maiden name, Oppenheimer, apparently in a bid to court the anti-Semitic vote, and by falsely accusing her of supporting a fictitious plan that — the story goes — pays Africans to move in, presumably increasing Labour’s electoral base. “It’s the most important election I’ve ever fought and the one I feel most passionate about,” Ms. Hodge said as she campaigned door to door last weekend. “I came into politics to fight racism, and the idea that these people could get a seat in Parliament or get control of a council is just against everything I stand for.” In a place full of angry, disaffected voters, many of whom did not want to come to the door or who closed it upon discovering a politician was standing outside, her task was not easy. Ms. Hodge tried to enumerate Labour’s achievements, but then changed tactics as she gauged the anti-government mood on the doorsteps. “It’s been a horrible time, but it’s a two-horse race here, I’m afraid,” she told one woman, who identified herself as a Tory sympathizer. “If you want to keep the B.N.P. out, you’re going to have to swallow hard and vote for us.” Fears about immigration are echoed across Britain, where new arrivals have added to a leap in population in the last decade. In a country that is already among the most crowded in Europe, the prospect of even more growth inflames people’s fears at a time of financial crisis and worries about terrorism. Concerns that immigrants are unfairly taking up public resources in such places as schools and hospitals have been aggravated by anti-government newspapers like the populist Daily Mail, which regularly publish articles that gnaw at public anxiety. Earlier this month, for instance, The Mail reported on a hospital with employees from 70 countries who spoke such poor English, it said, that they had to take state-financed language classes. On Sunday, the paper reported that Muslim women who are hospital workers are being now allowed to cover their forearms because of religious modesty, in contravention of standard hygiene rules. Perhaps belatedly, Labour is acknowledging how deeply voters feel about immigration. On Monday, it said it would require that all local government workers who deal with the public be able to speak English. In Dagenham, Meg Hillier, a fellow member of Parliament and a minister in the immigration office, was campaigning alongside Ms. Hodge, armed with a sheaf of information about Labour’s immigration policies. “We deport someone every eight minutes,” Ms. Hillier said. “We fingerprint anyone who comes in for over six months. Foreigners now have to carry special national identity cards.” Ms. Hillier said the government was not pandering to xenophobia, but responding to public concern. “People are allowed to have fears about immigration,” she said. At the Barking Saturday market, where white faces mingle with brown and black ones, and where burka-shrouded forms glide past women in tank tops, 72-year-old Freda Shaw surveyed the scene last weekend and shook her head. “I don’t think the B.N.P. is the answer — they’re just racist,” she said. “But look — there’s not one white shop here. Where I live, you need a passport to get in.” As it happened, Dominic Carman, the Liberal Democratic candidate for Parliament, was campaigning down the street. He has a single goal: to stop the B.N.P. “They’re the obvious beneficiary of the protest vote against the ineptitude and incompetence of Labour,” he said. “The B.N.P. are capitalizing on the problems here by blaming it all on immigration.” Mr. Carman gestured at the market stalls, a cacophony of noises and odors and exotic goods from around the world. “The true spirit of multiculturalism is alive and well in this market,” he said. “This is what Nick Griffin wants to destroy.” | Great Britain;Elections;Politics and Government;Immigration and Emigration;Labour Party |
ny0080831 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2015/02/13 | U.S. to Host Qualifying Event for 2016 Olympics | North American, Central American and Caribbean teams will compete in a qualifying tournament in the United States in October for two spots at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. | Soccer;2016 Summer Olympics;North America;Caribbean |
ny0276049 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2016/02/06 | Moving Files to a Mac From a PC | Q. How can I transfer files from a 10-year-old Dell PC to a MacBook Pro? A. Crossing platforms from a Windows machine to a Mac can be as simple as copying folders and files from the PC onto an external USB drive, and then connecting the drive to the Mac and copying the files there. OS X can easily handle most common formats, like .jpg photos, .mp3 music files, text documents and browser bookmarks. You may need to invest in the Mac equivalents of certain programs, like Microsoft Office, if you want to use Office files in familiar surroundings, but you can also find inexpensive or free equivalents like Office Online , Google Docs or Apple’s iWork for iCloud to work with the documents. Moving files between the two computers over a network connection is another approach. You can set up the Windows PC to share files with the MacBook over a network connection or connect the two computers to copy files. Manually relocating your files can be tedious, and you may have to do a lot of digging around on the PC to find everything you want to transfer, but Apple has a free piece of software that may simplify the moving process. The Windows Migration Assistant tool , available to download from Apple’s site, works with PCs running Windows XP and later. When the PC and the Mac are connected to each other on the same network (or linked directly to each other with an Ethernet cable), the Windows Migration Assistant can transfer email accounts, browser bookmarks, contacts, calendars, certain system settings, photos, videos, iTunes content and other files from the home directory on the PC — and put everything in the right place on the Mac. Apple’s support site has an online guide to moving your files and settings on the PC to the Mac and instructions for using the Windows Migration Assistant. | Apple;Microsoft;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry |
ny0227310 | [
"business"
] | 2010/10/14 | Foreclosures Spur Action by U.S. and States States Plan Joint Inquiry of Foreclosure Filings | As the nation’s attorneys general announced a joint investigation into flawed paperwork filed to support home foreclosures, federal housing regulators urged lenders Wednesday to vet their foreclosure procedures and fix them. The regulatory body, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, made it clear that the foreclosure process should “proceed without delay” if no problems were found, even though some Democratic lawmakers have called for a nationwide moratorium. “The country’s housing finance system remains fragile, and I intend to maintain our focus on addressing this issue in a manner that is fair to delinquent households, but also fair to servicers, mortgage investors, neighborhoods and most of all, is in the best interest of taxpayers,” Edward J. DeMarco, the agency’s acting director, said. The agency is the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage holding companies that were taken over by the government after they collapsed in the financial crisis. Big banks sell their mortgages to Fannie and Freddie and then service them. In its guidance, the agency urged mortgage servicing companies to work with lawyers to “take appropriate remedial actions” where paperwork was not filled out properly. Those actions depend on the status of the foreclosure case and may involve filing a motion in court to substitute a properly prepared and executed document for the flawed one. Some of the nation’s largest home lenders are already heeding the agency’s advice and have said that they would halt some, if not all, of their foreclosures while they review the paperwork. On Wednesday, the nation’s attorneys general vowed to do their own inquiry into whether mortgage servicers filed flawed paperwork to justify foreclosures. Attorneys general from all 50 states will participate, with state bank and mortgage regulators. The inquiry will focus on signed affidavits that mortgage loan servicers have filed with the court without confirming their accuracy, a practice known as robo-signing. Some were signed without a notary public present, in violation of state law. Others were signed by employees who spend their day signing one affidavit after another, raising questions about whether they could possibly attest to knowing the facts claimed in each document. At a news conference on Wednesday, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who is leading the joint investigation, said the inquiry was not a “silver bullet” to keep delinquent homeowners in their homes. Rather, he said, “this is a chance to right the law and get the process right.” Previously, several attorneys general announced their own inquiries into the use of robo-signers. Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray went beyond that last week. He sued MAC Mortgage, saying that it had filed fraudulent affidavits against Ohio homeowners. | Foreclosures;Attorneys General;Suits and Litigation;Mortgages |
ny0004754 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2013/04/07 | Serena Williams Routs Venus in Family Circle Semifinal | DANIEL ISLAND, S.C. — The first match between Venus and Serena Williams in nearly four years drew the largest crowd in the Family Circle Cup’s history, with 9,538 fans on hand Saturday to watch Serena defeat her older sister, 6-1, 6-2, in a semifinal that lasted just 54 minutes. Serena, a 15-time Grand Slam singles champion, has won 14 of their 24 meetings. She will face ninth-seeded Jelena Jankovic in the final after Jankovic defeated Stefanie Voegele, 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-2, in the second semifinal. Venus, who has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, got off to an imposing start, cracking a backhand return winner off Serena’s second serve on the first point. But Serena served effectively from there on, and she wound up making 84 percent of her first serves for the match. And though Serena never seemed to be hitting with full power, she effectively kept Venus off-balance with a surprising range of high, sometimes looping ground strokes that Venus was never quite able to comfortably attack. Despite the crowd’s clear inclination toward Venus, the underdog, Serena continued to dominate, taking the first set in 22 minutes. After Venus’s forehand flew long on the first match point, there was a quick but sympathetic exchange at the net. The disparity in their rankings — Serena is No. 1, Venus No. 24 — was the biggest in their professional meetings since their first, at the 1998 Australian Open, when Venus, then 17, was ranked 16th and the 16-year-old Serena was 63rd. Personal dynamics have often seemed to make matches between the two sisters uncomfortable, but the physical toll of the day before seemed to most affect Saturday’s match. Each had been forced to play twice Friday after heavy rain washed out several matches Thursday. Serena acknowledged that would have been harder on Venus, who has been dealing with lingering back pain as well as Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder. “She’ll never admit it, ever, but I don’t think she was 100 percent,” Serena said. “But you will never get that out of her. And quite frankly, three matches for her is much tougher than three matches for me. And so, you know, it’s definitely not easy because I’m struggling, and I can’t imagine what she must be feeling.” Although she lost quickly Saturday, Venus put a positive spin on her run to the semifinals, as well as the effect she and Serena had made together over the last 15 years. Asked what the legacy of the sisters’ rivalry would be, Venus said: “I haven’t actually thought about that. I don’t know. I think that Serena and I will be remembered as women who changed the sport, and for us just to be able to achieve something like that in our lifetimes is beyond what we ever dreamed of achieving on the court. So I think at the end, that’s what we will cherish.” Jankovic, a former No. 1 currently ranked 18th, has been one of Serena’s toughest rivals, winning four of their nine career meetings. That 44.4 percent success rate is the highest by any active player who has faced Serena at least three times. “I just go out there and try to find the keys to play her, and it’s important not to have that fear,” Jankovic said. “You have to believe you can win. It doesn’t matter who’s on the other side of the net. You’ve got to go there thinking you are the better player and that you can win that match. Otherwise, you have no chance.” | Tennis;Serena Williams;Venus Williams;Jelena Jankovic;Family Circle Cup |
ny0204039 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2009/08/13 | As Studios Cut Budgets, Indie Filmmakers Go Do-It-Yourself | LOS ANGELES — Quentin Tarantino never had to go through this. When “The Age of Stupid,” a climate change movie, “opens” across the United States in September, it will play on some 400 screens in a one-night event, with a video performance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead , all paid for by the filmmakers themselves and their backers. In Britain , meanwhile, the film has been showing via an Internet service that lets anyone pay to license a copy, set up a screening and keep the profit. The glory days of independent film, when hot young directors like Steven Soderbergh and Mr. Tarantino had studio executives tangled in fierce bidding wars at Sundance and other celebrity-studded festivals, are now barely a speck in the rearview mirror. And something new, something much odder, has taken their place. Here is how it used to work: aspiring filmmakers playing the cool auteur in hopes of attracting the eye of a Hollywood power broker. Here is the new way: filmmakers doing it themselves — paying for their own distribution, marketing films through social networking sites and Twitter blasts, putting their work up free on the Web to build a reputation, cozying up to concierges at luxury hotels in film festival cities to get them to whisper into the right ears. The economic slowdown and tight credit have squeezed the entertainment industry along with everybody else, resulting in significantly fewer big-studio films in the pipeline and an even tougher road for smaller-budget independent projects. Independent distribution companies are much less likely to pull out the checkbook while many of the big studios have all but gotten out of the indie film business. “It’s not like the audience for these movies has completely disappeared,” said Cynthia Swartz, a partner in the publicity company 42 West , which has been supplementing its mainstream business by helping filmmakers find ways to connect with an audience. “It’s just a matter of finding them.” Sometimes, the odd approach actually works. “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” a documentary about a Canadian metal band, turned into the do-it-yourself equivalent of a smash hit when it stretched a three-screen opening in April into a four-month run, still under way, on more than 150 screens around the country. “I paid for everything, I took a second mortgage on my house,” said Sacha Gervasi , the film’s director. Mr. Gervasi, whose studio writing credits include “The Terminal,” directed by Steven Spielberg , nearly three years ago, began filming “Anvil!” with his own money in hopes of attracting a conventional distributor. The movie played well at Sundance in 2008, but offers were low. So Mr. Gervasi put up more money — his total cost was in “the upper hundred thousands,” he said — to distribute the film through a company called Abramorama, while selling the DVD and television rights to VH1. The aging rockers of Anvil have shown up at theaters to play for audiences. Famous fans like Courtney Love were soon chattering online about the film. And an army of “virtual street teamers” — Internet advocates who flood social networks with admiring comments, sometimes for a fee, sometimes not — were recruited by a Web consultant, Sarah Lewitinn, who usually works the music scene. The idea behind this sort of guerrilla release is to accumulate just enough at the box office to prime the pump for DVD sales and return the filmmaker’s investment , maybe even with a little profit. “Anvil!” has earned roughly $1 million worldwide at the box office so far, its producer, Rebecca Yeldham, said. Finding even relatively small amounts of money to make and market a film is, of course, no small trick. “The Age of Stupid” raised a production budget of about £450,000 (about $748,000) from 228 shareholders, and is soliciting a bit more to continue its release, Franny Armstrong, its director, said. “Money has simply vanished,” said Mark Urman, an independent-film veteran, speaking of the financial drought that has pushed producers and directors into shouldering risks that only a few years ago were carried by a more robust field of distributors. Many of those distributors have either disappeared or severely tightened their operations, including Warner Independent Pictures, Picturehouse, New Line Cinema, Miramax, the Weinstein Company, Paramount Classics and its successor, Paramount Vantage. Typically, the distributors have paid money upfront for rights to release films. That helped the producers recover what they had already spent on production, but it often left the distributor with most or all of the profit. Mr. Urman’s own position as president for distribution at Senator Entertainment evaporated this year when financing fell through for a slate of films. So he started a new company, Paladin, to support filmmakers willing to finance their own releases. In September, Paladin is expected to help the filmmaker Steve Jacobs and his fellow producers release “Disgrace,” a drama with John Malkovich that is based on a novel by the Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee . The film won a critics prize at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but no attractive distribution offers. One key to releasing it without a Miramax, said Mr. Urman, is to minimize expensive advertising in newspapers or on television and play directly to a friendly audience — in this case through extensive promotional tie-ins with Mr. Coetzee’s publishers. “Everyone still dreams there’s going to be a conventional sale to a major studio,” said Kevin Iwashina, once an independent-film specialist with the Creative Artists Agency and now a partner at IP Advisors, a film sales and finance consulting company. But, he said, smart producers and directors are figuring out how to tap the value in projects on their own. Some big companies will still be on the hunt in Toronto this year, where the annual festival is scheduled to begin Sept. 10. “We’ll be there in full force,” said Nancy Utley, a president of Fox Searchlight Pictures, which last year acquired rights to “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Wrestler,” both screened in Toronto. “It’s a great opportunity for us,” said Robert G. Friedman, a chairman of Summit Entertainment, which acquired “The Hurt Locker,” directed by Kathryn Bigelow . The film was offered in Toronto last year and has already been mentioned widely as an Oscar contender. But some filmmakers and producers pointed toward the festival have already started working for themselves, rather than waiting for the few remaining, and ever fussier, buyers to swoop in. In fact, the next-wave Tarantinos are in Canada already — coddling not prospective buyers, but concierges, who just might steer people to promotional parties and screenings. “These guys have figured it out,” Barry Avrich, a member of the festival’s governing board, said of the do-it-yourself crowd. “They’re into all the cool hotels, to get the concierges thinking about them.” | Movies;Budget;Advertising Marketing;Sacha Gervasi |
ny0260425 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2011/06/11 | China-Vietnam Dispute Grows With Naval Maneuvers | BEIJING — Vietnam said on Friday that it would conduct live-fire naval exercises off its coast next week, a step that escalated a long-running dispute with China over territory in the South China Sea that both nations claim. The naval maneuvers follow an exchange of sharp statements on Thursday. Vietnam claimed that China had harassed a seismic survey boat, damaging a research cable trailing behind it, and China demanded that Vietnam halt oil-exploration activities in the area. In an announcement on its Web site, Vietnam’s state-run Northern Maritime Safety Corporation said that nine hours of naval exercises would be held on Monday off the country’s central coast, and it warned other vessels to avoid the area. This is the first time that the government has publicized a live-ammunition drill, The Associated Press reported. The diplomatic flare-up is the most serious confrontation this year in a territorial dispute that also involves the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan. All five countries have competing claims to parts of the South China Sea bed, which may hold valuable oil and mineral deposits. Arguments over the territory have continued for years, and the nations signed a 2002 accord that committed them to show restraint in disputed waters. The issue heated up again last year because of a United Nations treaty that required all nations to file formal claims to continental shelf seabeds by the end of 2009. The documents that Vietnam and China filed asserted their competing territorial claims in the South China Sea more aggressively than they had before. China has seized scores of Vietnamese fishing boats in recent years, and Vietnam has responded with naval activities like the seismic survey this week. China blames Hanoi for that episode, saying that armed Vietnamese boats were illegally chasing Chinese fishing boats out of the area, and that a fishing net accidentally snagged the research cable. Vietnam, however, called the damage to the research cable premeditated and said it was the second such confrontation in recent weeks. The episode, Vietnam said, took place within the exclusive economic zone, extending 200 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast, that is reserved for Hanoi under international law. China said it took place outside that zone. Both countries are seeking to establish a demonstrated presence in the area, a principal requirement for pressing a territorial claim should negotiations over the maritime boundaries ever become serious. One reason the dispute has flared in recent years is that the 2002 accord has proved to be toothless, Michael Vatikiotis, a security expert at the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue in Singapore, said in a telephone interview. China’s neighbors have grown increasingly uncomfortable as the People’s Liberation Army Navy has opened a submarine base on Hainan Island, and has ranged across the South China Sea. “It would appear that incidents involving China and other claimants have increased,” Mark Valencia, a maritime analyst in Hawaii and a leading expert on the dispute, said in an e-mail interview. “But why now — that’s the $64,000 question.” With regard to China, he said, the answer is “perhaps, in part, because they can.” | Vietnam;China;International Relations;South China Sea;Defense and Military Forces |
ny0176145 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2007/07/28 | Request for Players’ Names in Steroid Inquiry Is Denied | PHOENIX, July 27 — A federal judge on Friday denied a motion filed by The Associated Press to unseal the original version of a search warrant affidavit in which several major league baseball players were implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs. In the opinion, Magistrate Judge Edward C. Voss III of the Federal District Court said the names should remain sealed because the government needed to protect a continuing investigation into performance-enhancing drugs, users included. The motion filed by The A.P. involved the case of Jason Grimsley, a former major league pitcher who gave a federal agent the names of ballplayers he said had used performance-enhancing drugs. A search warrant for Grimsley’s home in Arizona was made public in June 2006, but the names of the players Grimsley implicated were blacked out. The A.P. argued that the public had a “right to know” the full information included in a search warrant affidavit, particularly if the information had been revealed to a third party. At the time, it appeared that The Los Angeles Times or George J. Mitchell, the former senator who is leading an investigation of performance-enhancing drugs for Major League Baseball, might have seen the blacked-out names. Voss said in his ruling that there was no evidence of disclosure to a third party. Lawyers for the United States attorney’s office in the Northern District of California said that the continuing investigation outweighed the public’s right to know and that an original copy of the affidavit had not been leaked or turned over to another party. The Major League Baseball Players Association, which intervened in the case to protect the names, said the names should be protected because The A.P. was seeking them only “for the sensational and the morbid, nothing more.” Throughout the government’s five-year investigation of steroids, the suppliers, not the users, have been the target of the government’s probe. But Voss said “what remains for possible prosecution is the alleged illegal possession and use of these substances.” Peter S. Kozinets, a lawyer for The A.P., said in a telephone interview that the judge’s decision relied heavily on sealed information provided by the government. “That information has not been made available to us, and as a result, we cannot directly rebut the information from the government,” he said. Daniel C. Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former lawyer in the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, said, “The law is pretty settled that the public does not have a general right of access to search warrant materials while an investigation is pending.” Kozinets said that The Associated Press had not decided whether to appeal the ruling. | Baseball;Steroids;Athletics and Sports;Drug Abuse and Traffic |
ny0064224 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2014/06/05 | Crowds Gather in Hong Kong for Anniversary of Tiananmen Crackdown | HONG KONG — Tens of thousands gathered at a central park in Hong Kong on Wednesday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown , even as a stifling security presence in Beijing and elsewhere in mainland China appeared to forestall protests. The organizers of the vigil in Hong Kong said the crowd on Wednesday numbered over 180,000, while the police estimated that 99,500 people had attended. The turnout on Wednesday was the largest since 1989, according to the organizers, and the second-largest, according to police estimates, trailing the 2010 turnout, which was 113,000. Video Outside mainland China, tens of thousands of people gathered to mark the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters 25 years ago in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Credit Credit Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images State-controlled Chinese news organizations largely ignored the anniversary, even as the foreign news media gave it global attention. In Washington, the White House said in a statement, “Twenty-five years later, the United States continues to honor the memories of those who gave their lives in and around Tiananmen Square and throughout China, and we call on Chinese authorities to account for those killed, detained or missing in connection with the events surrounding June 4, 1989.” In the years since the crackdown, mainland China has combined rapid economic growth with severe and recently increasing restrictions on civil liberties. In the weeks preceding the anniversary, the Chinese police detained and in some cases prosecuted scores of human rights activists. Online censors have stepped up their already extensive blocking or deleting of websites and postings that challenge the Communist Party’s effort to erase the public’s memory of the bloodshed in 1989, when soldiers in Beijing killed hundreds of students, workers and professionals demonstrating for greater democracy and limits on corruption. Video Nicholas Kristof remembers the unlikely heroes of the protests 25 years ago. The crowd that gathered Wednesday night in Victoria Park in Hong Kong was visibly younger than in previous years and included, for the first time, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a widely admired Roman Catholic priest who in the past had held prayers near the commemoration but had not taken part. In recent years, the gathering had been dominated by people age 40 or older who remembered coverage of the night of the crackdown and who sometimes brought their children. That demographic profile appeared to have been upended this year, as people in their 20s and 30s predominated. An announcer on the stage asked all those attending the vigil for the first time to raise their hands, and many sprang up. One first-time attendee, Rex Liu, a 27-year-old office worker, said that although he felt regret that students had died 25 years ago, he was motivated more by concern about the prevalence of corruption in current-day China. “I feel the need to come this year to express my discontent over the rotting and corrupt state of the Chinese government,” he said. Image Thousands in Hong Kong gathered on Wednesday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Credit Kin Cheung/Associated Press The general silence about the anniversary that security agencies imposed in mainland China left Hong Kong as the only city on Chinese soil where such a public commemoration could take place. Asked during a brief interview near the end of the vigil whether he was attending the event as a church leader, Cardinal Zen, the retired archbishop of Hong Kong and a longtime advocate of greater democracy, gave a small shrug and a short, amused laugh. “No, no, no, I am myself,” he said. Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, published an article on Wednesday quoting a government spokesman criticizing the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, who called on Tuesday for Beijing to release pro-democracy activists and others who have been detained. Image Beijing kept the historic site tightly guarded on Wednesday. Credit Feng Li/Getty Images “The so-called press release made by U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, grossly goes against her mandate and constitutes a grave intervention of China’s judicial sovereignty and internal affairs,” Hong Lei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a daily news briefing, according to the Xinhua report. Ms. Pillay had released a statement on the anniversary calling on China to free dissidents. “China has chosen a viable path to develop human rights, and this is not to be changed by any discordant voice,” Mr. Hong added. Among those who had assembled around Victoria Park was one man defending the armed crackdown. He held a sign in Chinese that read: “Oppose overturning the verdict on June 4; the democracy movement is a menace to national tranquillity. Without a prompt crackdown, China would not be what it is today.” The man, Chiu Keng Wong, a Hong Kong resident and camera dealer, said he was in China in 1989. “People don’t understand the situation back then,” he said. “This had to be done to defend reform and opening up. Older people who have spent time in China understand my view.” Image A T-shirt and a headband displayed to symbolize the hunger strike of pro-democracy activists in the spring of 1989, ahead of a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Credit Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Several groups in Hong Kong allied with the Beijing government have tried to make the case that dwelling on June 4 is politically unhealthy, and one of them, the Voice of Loving Hong Kong, held a small gathering near Victoria Park. Guarded by a phalanx of police officers and metal barriers, the group had a banner urging the people of Hong Kong to “let go of this burden.” The democracy movement in Hong Kong has fractured over how to deal with Beijing’s steadfast refusal to change its official stance on the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and over Beijing’s reluctance to allow greater democracy in Hong Kong itself. The clearest sign of that division was a separate protest Wednesday evening on the opposite side of the harbor from the Victoria Park candlelight vigil, which has been held every year since 1989. The rival event, which the police said attracted 3,060 people, was organized by the Proletariat Political Institute, a group led by Wong Yuk-man, a democracy activist who is also on the 70-member Legislative Council. He contends that the established pro-democracy parties are not sufficiently assertive in challenging Beijing. “The vigil has been held for more than two decades, and the significance of the vigil is diminishing,” Mr. Wong’s group said in a statement Tuesday evening. “It is now no more than a routine ceremonial event.” | Hong Kong;People's Liberation Army;Communist Party of China;China;Tiananmen Square |
ny0191368 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/02/05 | In Brooklyn, Court Officers Fill Gallery in Support of Murdered Colleague | It was a courtroom, but the court officers seemed out of place. They were not escorting prisoners or guarding a judge, shepherding the family of a defendant or quieting a crowd. They were the crowd. In federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday, in a rare rendering of a grim law enforcement rite, court officers filled the rows of the gallery to honor the memory of a colleague killed in the line of duty. The ritual, one that the city’s police officers have become woefully accustomed to, was unusual for the court officers, who, in the last 40 years, have lost only a handful of their number in violent circumstances. The occasion was the trial of Charles Carneglia, who is accused of murdering Officer Albert Gelb, a decorated court officer, and several others. Officer Gelb was fatally shot in 1976, and his death remained a mystery for more than three decades. The authorities, who accused Mr. Carneglia last year in a wide-ranging racketeering case in which 61 others were also charged, say the killing was mob related. Also in court was Emily Gelb, Officer Gelb’s sister, listening as Peter Zuccaro, a burly Gambino family associate who became a government informant, testified about the killing. Ms. Gelb buried her face in her hands as Mr. Zuccaro matter-of-factly talked about beating her brother and of later hearing from his associate, Mr. Carneglia, a reputed Gambino soldier, about his death. About two dozen court officers, wearing suits rather than uniforms, filled up several rows. They said they knew about Officer Gelb from stories told at the Court Officers’ Academy and from the plaque dedicated to him in criminal court in Brooklyn, where he had worked. Officer Gelb, 24 when he was killed, was the most decorated court officer in the city at the time, making arrests, both on and off duty, of men with guns and a purse snatcher. “He didn’t have to get involved,” said Sgt. Tim Smyth, a court officer, outside court. Mr. Zuccaro’s testimony had been tough to watch, he said. “It made it real.” The state’s 4,000 court officers protect and secure courtrooms and court buildings. They guard defendants and sequestered juries, keep guns out of courthouses and escort judges to their cars (and in some cases, when the judges receive threats, guard them at home). They are authorized to carry weapons when they are off-duty. In interviews, court officers said their work was not without dangers, although nothing like those faced by police officers. They are not out on the streets alone, or forced to confront heavily armed criminals. Dennis Quirk, who has been president of one of the two court officers’ unions since 1974, said that he and his colleagues had to master different skills, like subduing attackers in the courtroom without using guns. “The perps we’re dealing with are criminals who we know don’t have a weapon,” he said. The perils court officers confront are courthouse scuffles and the occasional riot, or the crush of observers at high-profile trials, officers said. Lt. Jack Sullivan, 49, said in an interview that the trial of John A. Gotti in Manhattan, for example, was a circus. “There were as many people rooting for him as against him,” he said. Lieutenant Sullivan said he had taken his share of knocks, but he did not want to talk about his injuries in detail. When court officers die in the line of duty, it is usually away from the safety of the courthouse In 1973, Francis Carroll, an officer in Criminal Court in Manhattan, was shot to death trying to prevent the escape of two men who took $50 from the clerk of a Midtown hotel. Alphonso B. Deal, another court officer, was also killed while off duty. Mr. Deal, a senior court clerk who worked in Lower Manhattan and lived in Harlem, was fatally shot in 1988 when he came to the aid of a neighbor who had been shot in a robbery attempt. Senior Court Officers Mitchel Wallace and Thomas Jurgens as well as Capt. William Thompson died after they raced to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Then there was Officer Gelb, the son of a dry cleaner from Flatbush, Brooklyn, who in three years as a court officer racked up more arrests than many of his colleagues made in a career. In February 1975, in the Esquire Diner in Brooklyn, he crossed paths with Mr. Carneglia, according to Mr. Zuccaro, who was in the diner at the time. Officer Gelb wore a leather jacket and a big hat, and Mr. Carneglia wore two guns. Mr. Zuccaro said that he saw Officer Gelb and Mr. Carneglia struggling over a pistol, and that Mr. Carneglia had asked for his help. Mr. Zuccaro said he had obliged. “I punched him to the side of the head,” he said. “I kicked him a couple of times.” Mr. Carneglia was arrested on a charge of weapons possession and, Mr. Zuccaro testified that later, Mr. Carneglia told him that he was trying to “straighten it out” with Officer Gelb so that he would not testify against him. In March 1976, before he was scheduled to testify against Mr. Carneglia, Officer Gelb was found dead in his car with four bullets in his body. In court on Tuesday, Mr. Zuccaro testified about another conversation with Mr. Carneglia. “He told me that the guy couldn’t be reached,” Mr. Zuccaro said, “and that he wouldn’t back off and that he had to go.” | Gelb Albert;Murders and Attempted Murders;Organized Crime;Carneglia Charles;Gambino Crime Family;Court Officers |
ny0005146 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2013/04/06 | Scott Brown Hints at Another Senate Race — in New Hampshire | If the special Senate election in Massachusetts has put the political cognoscenti to sleep, a possible race in neighboring New Hampshire may wake them up. Scott P. Brown, who just turned down a chance to run again for the Senate in Massachusetts, is hinting that he might hop over the state line and challenge Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who is up for re-election in 2014. Asked Thursday if he might consider such a race, Mr. Brown said, “I don’t think I’m done with politics, but I’m not going to rule out anything right now because I really haven’t thought a heck of a lot about it.” He spoke to reporters after delivering a speech in Nashua, N.H., on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. “New Hampshire’s like a second home,” Mr. Brown added. “I was born at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. My mom and sister and family live here. Spent summers here growing up. Have a house here. Been a taxpayer for 20 years.” While any politician who appears in New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the first presidential primary every four years, is presumed to be running for something, Mr. Brown may just have been having a little fun with reporters who wondered why they had traipsed to Nashua to hear him give a speech. Image “I don’t think I’m done with politics," Scott Brown said Thursday at an event in Nashau, N.H., commemorating the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. Credit Will Wrobel/The Telegraph, via Associated Press “I think it’s just as plausible to think that Mr. Brown is trying to scare up some publicity for himself than that this was the opening foray into running against Ms. Shaheen,” said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. After all, Mr. Brown decided in February to opt out of the special election in Massachusetts to succeed John Kerry, now the secretary of state, saying he was exhausted from last year’s Senate campaign, and he has just signed on with the law firm Nixon Peabody, in its Boston office. Mr. Brown is also a Fox News contributor. But the Shaheen campaign is not waiting for any clarification of Mr. Brown’s intentions. On Friday morning, the campaign shot out a fund-raising letter warning supporters that Mr. Brown could try to run the kind of race he ran — and lost — last year against Elizabeth Warren in the most expensive Senate race in the country. “This is serious,” the letter said. “Brown’s campaign spent $40 million in 2012. Most of it went to lie-filled attack ads.” The campaign hopes that the mere threat of a Brown candidacy will prompt potential donors to open their wallets for Ms. Shaheen, who so far has no major Republican opponent. The progressives nationwide who flocked to Ms. Warren have not been a natural base for Ms. Shaheen, but such activists might be persuaded to donate if it means stopping Mr. Brown from returning to the Senate. And Mr. Brown may have concluded that it would be easier for a Republican to get elected in purple New Hampshire than in deep blue Massachusetts. He noted to reporters that he would be coming back to New Hampshire for several more speaking engagements over the next few weeks. The next is a luncheon on April 20 for the Grafton County Republican Committee, which is likely to draw an inordinate amount of news coverage. | Scott P Brown;New Hampshire;Senate races;US Politics;Jeanne Shaheen |
ny0244871 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2011/04/11 | Rebels and NATO Strikes Repel Assault on Key Libyan Town | AJDABIYA, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi ’s military forces appeared to falter in eastern Libya on Sunday on the second day of an assault against the strategic rebel city of Ajdabiya, as opposition fighters aided by NATO airstrikes retook their positions and claimed the checkpoints at the city’s approaches. Occasional skirmishes on Sunday morning appeared to be subsiding in the late afternoon. And other than an apparent mortar attack against a rebel checkpoint, the loyalists’ artillery and rocket batteries were mostly silent as evening approached, when rebel fighters roamed many of Ajdabiya’s streets with confidence. Their presence marked a sharp turnabout from the fighting on Saturday, when sustained artillery or rocket barrages sent the bulk of rebel forces running . As the shells exploded on the streets, loyalist forces infiltrated the city, fighting gun battles in its center against a contingent of local men who had stayed to defend their homes. By Sunday, the worst of the threat from the Qaddafi loyalists appeared to have passed. At 4 p.m., a long rebel column of pickup trucks drove slowly through Ajdabiya’s main street, firing rifles and anti-aircraft machine guns in the air. It was a celebratory parade. “I think the Qaddafi forces go out of the city,” a doctor working at the city’s hospital said, in English. Meanwhile, an African Union delegation said it met with Colonel Qaddafi in Tripoli in an effort to broker a cease-fire and planned to meet with rebel leaders in Benghazi on Monday. A member of the delegation said at a news conference Sunday night that the issue of Colonel Qaddafi’s possible departure had been broached, but he said details of the discussion would remain confidential. The rebels’ gains in eastern Libya were aided by NATO airstrikes throughout the morning and afternoon outside Ajdabiya, at a vital crossroads of highway networks in eastern Libya. NATO officials reported destroying tanks over the last day on the western approaches to Ajdabiya and in the rebel holdout city of Misurata, where civilian casualties have reportedly been heavy. “The situation in Ajdabiya, and Misurata in particular, is desperate for those Libyans who are being brutally shelled by the regime,” said Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, the Canadian commander of the NATO air operation. The effects of Western air power were evident in a grisly display near Ajdabiya’s southwestern checkpoint, where a line of charred corpses of Colonel Qaddafi’s soldiers were arrayed on the sand beside the smoldering remains of their pickup trucks. The nearby checkpoint, overlooking a landscape of ruined military vehicles and abandoned munitions, was back in rebel control. The city’s morgue presented another chilling site — the remains of a man whose wrists had been bound and whose torso had bullet wounds. The attendants at the morgue said the man had been executed while helpless. Who he was, and who had killed him, was not immediately clear. Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have been credibly accused of executing detainees during the uprising. But on Saturday, journalists for The New York Times observed a man accused of being a Qaddafi agent being summarily executed by rebels at Ajdabiya’s northeast checkpoint. With the immediate danger that Ajdabiya might fall now having passed, another shift in mood was discernable among the rebels. They assembled on pickup trucks, many equipped with a fresh batch of jury-rigged surface-to-air rocket pods scrounged from the looted military arsenals, and seemed eager to rush southwest and rejoin the battle for Brega, the oil town where the Qaddafi forces have been entrenched. The situation on the dangerous ribbon of highway from Ajdabiya to Brega remained unknown. The rebels claimed to hold isolated pockets in the desert along the highway with groups of fighters who had been cut off from the main rebel forces when the Qaddafi forces had moved northward on Ajdabiya in recent days. The rebels seemed to be preparing to resume the push for the oil assets of Brega and Ras Lanuf — an effort that has been repeatedly frustrated this month by the Qaddafi forces’ superior tactics and firepower. While NATO’s operation is focused on destroying the heavy equipment that poses the most threat to civilians, the alliance’s statement said the airstrikes were also aiming at ammunition bunkers and supply lines. And it suggested that the events in Ajdabiya were not isolated. “We are hitting the regime logistics facilities as well as their heavy weapons, because we know Qaddafi is finding it hard to sustain his attacks on civilians,” General Bouchard said. As the fighting continued in its now familiar seesaw fashion, the African Union said that a high-level peace delegation led by President Jacob Zuma of South Africa had met in Tripoli on Sunday with Colonel Qaddafi. After the meeting, Reuters reported, Mr. Zuma said that the colonel had accepted a “roadmap” for ending the conflict. The Associated Press reported that the roadmap calls for an immediate cease-fire, cooperation in opening channels for humanitarian aid and starting a dialogue between the rebels and the government. Reuters quoted Mr. Zuma: “The brother leader delegation has accepted the roadmap as presented by us. We have to give cease-fire a chance." The delegation is scheduled to meet with rebel leaders in Benghazi on Monday. In recent weeks, the rebels have accepted the idea of a cease-fire with certain conditions — for example, the withdrawal of government troops from cities under siege, like Misurata. But they have been unwilling to accept any proposal that would allow the colonel or his sons to keep power. In a new report, Human Rights Watch said government forces attacking Misurata had “targeted a medical clinic in violation of international law.” The group said that during attacks on March 23 and April 7 at the Misurata Polyclinic, shrapnel from mortar rounds killed a cafeteria worker and a man bringing food to the clinic. The report, citing local doctors, said that at least 250 people had been killed in the city during the past month. Meanwhile on Sunday, concern continued for four journalists who were reported to have been detained by government forces. Those journalists — Clare Morgana Gillis, an American freelancer for TheAtlantic.com and USA Today; James Wright Foley, an American writer for GlobalPost ; Manuel Varela de Seijas Brabo, a Spanish photographer; and Anton Lazarus Hammerl, a South African photographer — were said to be held by Libyan government officials. But the editor of The Atlantic, James Bennet, said in an article that their condition had still not been verified. “We are concerned that, despite reports Clare and the other three journalists are in the hands of the Libyan government, no diplomats or independent journalists have yet had access to them,” Mr. Bennet said. “We continue to appeal to the Libyan government to release Clare and our other colleagues promptly and safely.” | Libya;Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- );Qaddafi Muammar el- |
ny0034906 | [
"us"
] | 2013/12/22 | Gay Couples in Utah, Surprised but Glad, Rush to Marry After Ruling Permits It | SALT LAKE CITY — They arrived with children in strollers and with bouquets of flowers, with co-workers and with friends — dozens of gay couples pouring into a government building just a few miles from the headquarters of the Mormon Church to do what many said they thought would never be possible: get a Utah marriage license. A federal judge’s ruling on Friday afternoon striking down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages touched off what Mayor Ralph Becker called a “thrilling pandemonium.” Hundreds of people filled the hallways and spilled out onto the sidewalks on Friday, hoping to marry before the county clerk’s offices closed for the weekend — and before an appeals court could stay the decision that made Utah, at least for the moment, the 18th state to allow same-sex marriages. For gay couples, it was a seismic change in a state where 66 percent of voters approved a ban on same-sex marriage in 2004. The Mormon Church also played a pivotal role in supporting a 2008 measure that banned same-sex marriage in California. “I can’t believe it,” James Goodman said. He and his partner, Jeffrey Gomez, rushed from work to the clerk’s office on Friday after hearing about the ruling. Since they had no car, they hitched a ride from a boss and colleagues at Nordstrom, where Mr. Gomez works. Their rides also ended up being their witnesses. “We knew it was just something we had to do,” Mr. Gomez said. “This is my home, and I never thought I’d be able to get married here. I feel like a real person.” Salt Lake County officials issued more than 100 marriage licenses by the end of the day. But in legal documents filed late Friday, the state said those marriages might now fall under a “cloud of uncertainty” as it fights the decision by Judge Robert J. Shelby. Utah has asked that the judge’s decision be put on hold as it appeals. As of Saturday morning, no court had granted a stay. Image State Senator Jim Dabakis, left, and Stephen Justesen wed on Friday. Credit Kim Raff/Associated Press Brandon Mark, a lawyer in Salt Lake City, said his partner, Weston Clark, called him shortly after the ruling to share the news. They raced down to the clerk’s office with their son, Xander, 3, joining a throng of news cameras and cheering couples. “We wanted to wait until it was legal in our state,” Mr. Mark said. “This is the state we live in and where we raise our family. We weren’t willing to settle for second best.” Even as gay couples celebrated the ruling, it drew condemnation from some religious leaders and elected officials in this deeply conservative state. Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican, assailed it as judicial activism that had upended the will of Utah voters. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement saying it hoped a higher court would overturn Judge Shelby’s ruling. And The Deseret News, which is owned by the Mormon Church, criticized the ruling for creating “a new class of same-gender applicants deemed ‘married’ under the Utah Constitution.” As the case now heads to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, gay couples said they had many questions about how state agencies would treat their marriages. Would the state allow them to file joint income-tax returns? Would it allow them to enroll their new spouses in state insurance programs? In its legal filings, Utah said the new same-sex marriages could be “declared invalid” if its legal challenges succeeded. But Jim Dabakis, a gay Democratic state senator who married his longtime partner on Friday, said he planned to call Utah’s health insurance office and enroll his partner, “whether the state likes it or not.” “We will expect every other right and benefit of other Utah marriages,” he said. “I don’t see how the state takes that back.” | Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Homosexuality;Mormons;Salt Lake City;Legislation;Utah |
ny0141359 | [
"nyregion",
"new-jersey"
] | 2008/11/02 | Highland Park Store Finds Itself in an Economic Pinch | HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. AVI REISS, 58, opened Trio Gifts, a Judaica art and craft gallery here, in 2003 as a second career. He had been downsized at JPMorgan Chase & Company after 25 years. Mr. Reiss had no experience in retailing, just the conviction he could transform the gloomy gift shop he bought on Raritan Avenue into a thriving business. Over time he attracted a following, not only locally but also from out of town. “We get Jewish, non-Jewish, straight, gay, all kinds of customers,” he said. “A Baptist minister bought a prayer shawl here.” But since summer, business has fallen — Mr. Reiss declined to say exactly how much — and he has been calling vendors and asking them to delay filling orders. “There are certain overseas vendors I order from twice a year, huge orders, where the items trickle in and you make your payments,” he said. “Just this week I e-mailed a gentleman and told him basically to put the rest of my order on hold.” Mr. Reiss and his wife, Jane, residents of East Brunswick, have three grown children. He has no payroll since his wife, who is employed full time, assists him in the store evenings and Sundays. But they are still paying off college debt and a mortgage. As sales declined, he has adjusted. “You can’t cut back on electricity or heat, so you cut back on inventory,” he said. “You order much more carefully. You think about ordering items that may not be so expensive. You give customers a break, offer a discount.” November and December are normally his busiest months. Though optimistic by nature, Mr. Reiss feels uncertainty about the season. “It’s scary,” he said. “You absolutely don’t know what retailing will be like 30 days from now.” Shoppers’ behavior has changed, Mr. Reiss said. Some circle about longer, picking up objects and putting them down. “You feel a certain holding back,” he said. “They are considering very carefully prior to making a final decision. People are losing jobs, and their expenses are going up. Some are in a ‘budget’ frame of mind.” With a computer in the back of the store, Mr. Reiss keeps close tabs on financial news. “A niche store like this might be somewhat recession-proof, but it is not bulletproof,” he said. “Things could go south or north. The prudent approach is to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.” | Economic Conditions and Trends;New Jersey;Retail Stores and Trade;Layoffs and Job Reductions;Recession and Depression |
ny0252873 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2011/10/04 | Jets’ Losses Turn Up Heat Under Ryan’s Collar | FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — When the Jets look around their complex — the locker room, the field house — they are reminded of their duty. They are reminded to play like a Jet, whatever that even means anymore. Their season-opening four-game stretch, dominated by offensive breakdowns and defensive volatility, has muddled the definition, creating a crisis of identity and personality. “Right now, we’re kind of in flux,” guard Matt Slauson said. “We’re trying to figure that out.” The Jets thought they had it figured out after last week’s debacle at Oakland. And then came Sunday, when the Baltimore Ravens exploited the Jets’ shortcomings in front of a national television audience that left Coach Rex Ryan in a — how can we put it gently? — very unhappy mood Monday. If he was hurt Sunday, then the day after, he was just plain angry — angry that the Ravens were able to swarm Mark Sanchez so easily, angry that the offensive line failed to account for Ed Reed on a blitz on the Jets’ first offensive play from scrimmage, angry that they managed but 38 yards rushing, the lowest output of his tenure. “Right now, we’re not going to the Super Bowl ,” Ryan said. “It’s at the quarter pole. We’re 2-2. We’re not even in the playoffs. So how can we get to the Super Bowl if we’re not even in the playoffs? But my confidence in our football team, by the time we get to the finish line, we’ll be right there.” Usually, 15 minutes are set aside for Ryan’s scheduled news conferences. On Monday, five additional minutes were allotted, and it took him longer still to finish addressing his concerns, in a subdued manner that concealed boiling frustration. It hardly helped matters that Bryan Thomas, the steady linebacker, was lost for the season with an Achilles’ tendon injury. “I’m bothered by the fact that I think we’re a better football team than we’re playing right now,” Ryan said, adding, “There’s probably a little bit more fire burning in me than I’m letting on.” It is no wonder. The Jets — the 2-2 Jets — have abandoned their running game and failed to protect their quarterback, two entwined notions that Ryan, as well as the few players available Monday, vowed will change. Reclaiming their identity, the foundation of that “Play Like a Jet” slogan, starts with re-establishing their so-called ground-and-pound philosophy, something that Ryan emphasized during Monday meetings. The Jets veered away from running the ball for several reasons, partly by design, partly by circumstance. As Ryan reiterated, they had intended all along to throw the ball more this season, recognizing Sanchez’s natural progression in his third year and the presence of pass-catching assets like Santonio Holmes, Plaxico Burress, Derrick Mason and Dustin Keller. Indeed, the Jets have thrown more this season — and thrown, and thrown, and thrown, with Sanchez averaging almost 37 attempts a game, roughly five more than last season. That figure is higher than the Jets expected, largely because they have been forced to play from behind so much: they have trailed for 117 minutes 49 seconds — roughly half their season — and have not led since before halftime against Oakland. Without a proven ground game as a change of pace, the Jets essentially invite defenses to blitz and pressure Sanchez, often successfully. Sanchez barely had time to throw the ball, let alone go through his progressions Sunday, when he went 11 for 35 for 119 yards, fumbled four times and threw a critical interception that halted the Jets’ comeback. “In the past, everything we could do was because we could run the ball so great,” Slauson said. “We need that identity back.” The Jets want to run the ball. They want to control the clock. They just find it difficult when their offensive line has gone from a bona fide strength to a weakness. Part of their problems stem from the absence of Nick Mangold, their All-Pro center, who is expected to return Sunday at New England. “I hope so,” Ryan said, his voice rising. Colin Baxter, Mangold’s rookie replacement, fared well against Oakland, but was victimized by the Ravens’ relentless pass rush. Then again, so were his fellow linemen. Miscommunication allowed Reed to come untouched off the line and sack Sanchez, forcing a fumble that was recovered for a touchdown. Slauson said he should have slid over to block Terrell Suggs, putting D’Brickashaw Ferguson on Reed. It also allowed Haloti Ngata to steam past Vlad Ducasse and Ferguson to strip-sack Sanchez on the play that led to the Ravens’ third touchdown. “It was pointless, it was needless,” Ferguson said of the Reed sack. The Jets, once a team that controlled the clock by running the ball 35 times every game, now average 23 attempts, ranking 30th in the N.F.L. through Sunday’s games. Their 284 yards rank 28th, and their average of 3.1 yards a carry exceeds only that of Detroit (3.0) and Tennessee (2.8). Ryan can barely rationalize that figure, but he vowed to give the maligned Shonn Greene every opportunity to succeed, even as they try to figure out who they are. | Football;New York Jets;Ryan Rex;Sanchez Mark |
ny0174481 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2007/10/10 | Indians May Have Help in Otherworldly Season | CLEVELAND, Oct. 9 (AP) — Ray Chapman’s spirit could be floating the Cleveland Indians through a season unlike any other in their history. Strange, unexplainable, head-scratching events have surrounded this team for months, beginning almost from the moment the Indians rediscovered a lost piece of Chapman’s legacy. Unexpected snowstorms, thrilling comebacks, unlikely stars, invading bugs — the entire season has been downright eerie for the Indians, who play a few tape-measure home runs from the shores of Lake Erie. And Chapman, a popular shortstop killed by a pitch that struck him in the head on Aug. 17, 1920, has hung around to witness it all. In March, the Indians opened Heritage Park, a walkthrough exhibit beyond the center-field wall at Jacobs Field that honors the club’s history. At that time, a forgotten plaque of Chapman was unveiled and mounted on a wall facing home plate. The 175-pound bronze memorial had been stashed away inside a crate when the Indians moved from Municipal Stadium to Jacobs Field in 1994. Workers discovered it while cleaning out a storage room. Years of neglect had made the plaque’s text illegible, but it was refurbished and placed alongside those honoring the Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, Larry Doby, Lou Boudreau and other Cleveland baseball greats. Chapman’s story had been reborn, and things have not been the same for the Indians since. The club’s home opener April 6 was postponed when a spring storm dumped more than two feet of lake-effect snow on Cleveland, which until that point had been enjoying a mild winter. “Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Folk, the club’s vice president of ballpark operations. “By far.” The snow started falling on a Friday and did not stop for three days, forcing the club to reschedule a four-game series with Seattle throughout the season. More bad weather sent the Indians to Milwaukee to play their next so-called home series against the Los Angeles Angels under Miller Park’s roof. On Sept. 26, the Indians, who will meet the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series starting Friday, were the home team at Seattle’s Safeco Field. The Indians had played home games in three cities this season. Want more oddities? ¶The Indians beat the White Sox, 2-1 ,on April 15 despite getting just one hit — a leadoff double in the first. They became the first team since 1952 to win when its only hit opened the game. ¶Fausto Carmona, ticketed for the minors before injuries to other starters put him in the rotation, began the season with a 7-1 record and finished with 19 victories. In 2006, he went 1-10 and flamed out spectacularly in a tryout as Cleveland’s closer. ¶Ten years after catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. hit a homer in the All-Star Game at Cleveland, Indians catcher Victor Martínez hit a two-run homer in July’s All-Star Game, a shot that secured home-field advantage for the A.L. in this year’s World Series. ¶On Aug. 27, the Indians turned their first triple play at Jacobs Field. ¶Cleveland finished the season with 44 come-from-behind victories, 26 in its final at-bat. ¶Then came The Bug Game. Last week, millions of tiny insects called midges descended upon Jacobs Field in Game 2 of the division series and buzzed the hitherto-invincible Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain, who threw two wild pitches in the eighth inning to help the Indians tie the score, 1-1, in a game they would win, 2-1, in 11 innings. “This team,” Manager Eric Wedge said, “has seen it all.” Then there was the unforeseen role of the rookie Asdrúbal Cabrera in the Indians’ rise. Called up from the minors in August, Cabrera, a 21-year-old shortstop acquired in a trade last season from Seattle, replaced second baseman Josh Barfield in the starting lineup and sparked Cleveland. The Indians went 28-12 when he started and 24-6 when he batted second. In 1920, after Chapman was killed by a pitch from Carl Mays, a submarining right-hander for the Yankees, the Indians brought up a young shortstop, Joe Sewell, whose arrival pushed Cleveland to its first World Series title, a championship the Indians dedicated to Chapman. Sewell went on to have a Hall of Fame career. Without Cabrera, there ’s no telling what would have happened to the Indians, who were scuffling along before finally pulling away from the Detroit Tigers. And, finally, consider this fact: Cleveland did not take over first place in the A.L. Central for good until Aug. 17 — the 87th anniversary of Chapman’s death. | Cleveland Indians;Baseball |
ny0178065 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/09/06 | New Jersey Police Win Praise for Efforts to End Profiling | TRENTON, Sept. 5 — Eight years after New Jersey acknowledged that troopers were focusing on black and Hispanic drivers at traffic stops, federal monitors said on Wednesday that the New Jersey State Police had made so much progress in its attempts to eliminate racial profiling that it no longer needed federal supervision. The monitors concluded in a report that in periodic reviews during the past eight years, the police had shown significant improvement in procedures and training. In a consent decree signed in 1999, the state agreed to allow the federal Department of Justice to oversee how traffic stops were conducted, along with other State Police activities. Stating that “compliance requirements in all areas are now at 100 percent levels,” the report said that “it appears the ultimate goal has been attained.” “Ample evidence exists to suggest that the agency has become self-monitoring and self-correcting to a degree not often observed in American law enforcement,” the report added. Gov. Jon S. Corzine appointed a 21-member committee last year to determine whether to ask the federal government if the consent decree should be lifted. This report does not eliminate the federal supervision by itself, so it is up to the state to file a request with federal officials to have it end. Although Mr. Corzine said he found the report “very encouraging,” he said he would wait for his advisory committee to make recommendations. “Do we have the checks and balances to make sure it stays in place over a longer period of time?” Mr. Corzine said. “We’re pretty optimistic.” James E. Johnson, the committee’s chairman and a treasury official in the Clinton administration who oversaw the Secret Service, said in a telephone interview that he had not yet seen the report, but that the committee members would discuss it at a public hearing on Sept. 24. He said that the committee would submit its findings in about two months. If federal supervision is waived, New Jersey would be able to formally move beyond a troubling era in which the delicate topics of race, politics and the police often collided. And now, given the recent directive on illegal immigration by Attorney General Anne Milgram that requires all law enforcement agencies to ask people who are arrested their immigration status, the lessons learned from racial profiling are more important than ever, said Capt. Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the State Police. “We’re very happy once again with the positive findings,” Captain Della Fave said. Racial profiling became a major issue in New Jersey after the events of April 23, 1998, when two troopers patrolling the New Jersey Turnpike fired 11 shots into a van carrying black and Latino men from the Bronx. The police said that they had stopped the van for speeding and that they fired when it lurched backward as they approached. Later, the troopers acknowledged that they had stopped the van because its occupants were black and Latino. Their supervisors, the troopers said, had trained them to rely on race and ethnicity, asserting that blacks and Latinos were more likely to be drug traffickers. No drugs were found in the vehicle. The troopers, both white, eventually avoided jail time and probation by pleading to reduced charges. But the shooting resonated beyond the state’s borders. For one thing, it highlighted the frustration of black and Latino drivers who had complained for years that they were being unfairly and illegally singled out by police officers because of their skin color. The case also contributed to a heated national debate about the use of racial profiling in police work, particularly in drug interdiction, with critics calling it racist but some law enforcement officials saying it was vital and effective. In its recent reports, the independent monitors — Public Management Resources, of San Antonio, and Lite, DePalma, Greenberg & Rivas, of Newark — faulted the State Police’s handling of staffing, technology and workload. But in Wednesday’s report, the monitors praised the police on page after page. In particular, the monitors praised the police’s use of the Management Awareness and Personnel Performance System, or Mapps. “In effect, the New Jersey State Police have taken the Mapps system beyond the requirements of the consent decree, using it for more than a tracking and control device for motor vehicle stops, use of force and complaints, and instead using it to identify systemic organizational issues and to craft solutions to those issues before they negatively impact the organization in any significant way,” the report concluded. | New Jersey;Police;Discrimination;Race;Justice Department |
ny0256608 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2011/08/08 | A Push to Redefine Knowledge at Wikipedia | HAIFA, Israel “MAKING fun of Wikipedia is so 2007,” a French journalist said recently to Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation that runs the Wikipedia project. And so Ms. Gardner, in turn, told an auditorium full of Wikipedia contributors and supporters on Thursday in Haifa, Israel, the host city for the seventh annual Wikimania conference, where meetings and presentations focus on the world’s most used, and perhaps least understood, online reference work. Once routinely questioned about its reliability — what do you mean, anyone can edit it? — the site is now used every month by upwards of 400 million people worldwide. But with influence and respect come responsibility, and lately Wikipedia has been criticized from without and within for reflecting a Western, male-dominated mindset similar to the perspective behind the encyclopedias it has replaced. Seeing Wikipedia as The Man, in so many words, is so 2011. And that’s a problem for an encyclopedia that wants to grow. Some critics of Wikipedia believe that the whole Western tradition of footnotes and sourced articles needs to be rethought if Wikipedia is going to continue to gather converts beyond its current borders. And that, in turn, invites an entirely new debate about what constitutes knowledge in different parts of the world and how a Western institution like Wikipedia can capitalize on it. Achal Prabhala, an adviser to Ms. Gardner’s Wikimedia Foundation who lives and writes in Bangalore, India, has made perhaps the most trenchant criticism in a video project, “ People are Knowledge ,” that he presented in Haifa (along with its clunky subtitle, “Exploring alternative methods of citation for Wikipedia”). The film, which was made largely with a $20,000 grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, spends time showing what has been lost to Wikipedia because of stickling rules of citation and verification. If Wikipedia purports to collect the “sum of all human knowledge,” in the words of one of its founders, Jimmy Wales, that, by definition, means more than printed knowledge, Mr. Prabhala said. In the case of dabba kali, a children’s game played in the Kerala state of India, there was a Wikipedia article in the local language, Malayalam, that included photos, a drawing and a detailed description of the rules, but no sources to back up what was written. Other than, of course, the 40 million people who played it as children. There is no doubt, he said, that the article would have been deleted from English Wikipedia if it didn’t have any sources to cite. Those are the rules of the game, and those are the rules he would like to change, or at least bend, or, if all else fails, work around. “There is this desire to grow Wikipedia in parts of the world,” he said, adding that “if we don’t have a more generous and expansive citation policy, the current one will prove to be a massive roadblock that you literally can’t get past. There is a very finite amount of citable material, which means a very finite number of articles, and there will be no more.” Mr. Prabhala, 38, who grew up in India and then attended American universities, has been an activist on issues of intellectual property, starting with the efforts in South Africa to free up drugs that treat H.I.V. In the film, he gives other examples of subjects — an alcohol produced in a village, Ga-Sabotlane, in Limpopo, South Africa, and a popular hopscotch-type children’s game, tshere-tshere — beyond print documentation and therefore beyond Wikipedia’s true-and-tried method. There are whole cultures, he said, that have little to no printed material to cite as proof about the way life is lived. “Publishing is a system of power and I mean that in a completely pleasant, accepting sense,” he said mischievously. “But it leaves out people.” But Mr. Prabhala offers a solution: he and the video’s directors, Priya Sen and Zen Marie, spoke with people in African and Indian villages either in person or over the phone and had them describe basic activities. These recordings were then uploaded and linked to the article as sources, and suddenly an article that seems like it could be a personal riff looks a bit more academic. For example, in his interview with a South African villager who explained how to make the alcoholic drink, morula, she repeatedly says that it is best if she demonstrates the process. When the fruit is ready, said the villager, Philipine Moremi, according to the project’s transcript of her phone conversation, “we pry them open. We are going to show you how it is done. Once they are peeled, we seal them to ferment and then we drink.” The idea of treating personal testimony as a source for Wikipedia is still controversial, and reflects the concerns that dominated the encyclopedia project six years ago, when arguably its very existence was threatened. After a series of hoaxes, culminating in a Wikipedia article in 2005 that maligned the newspaper editor John Seigenthaler for no discernible reason other than because a Wikipedia contributor could, the site tried to ensure that every statement could be traced to a source. Then there is the rule “no original research,” which was meant to say that Wikipedia doesn’t care if you are writing about the subway station you visit every day, find someone who has written reliably on the color of the walls there. “The natural thing is getting more and more accurate, locking down articles, raising the bar on sources,” said Andrew Lih, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, who was an early contributor to Wikipedia and has written a history of its rise. “Isn’t it great we have so many texts online?” But what works for the most developed societies, he said, won’t necessarily work for others. “Lots of knowledge is not Googleable,” he said, “and is not in a digital form.” Mr. Lih said that he could see the Wikipedia project suddenly becoming energized by the process of documenting cultural practices around the world, or down the street. Perhaps Mr. Prabhala’s most challenging argument is that by being text-focused, and being locked into the Encyclopedia Britannica model, Wikipedia risks being behind the times. An 18-year-old is comfortable using “objects of trust that have been created on the Internet,” he said, and “Wikipedia isn’t taking advantage of that.” And, he added, “it is quite possible that for the 18-year-old of today that Wikipedia looks like his father’s project. Or the kind of thing his father might be interested in.” Ouch. | Encyclopedias;Computers and the Internet;Wikimedia Foundation;Wikipedia |
ny0149499 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/09/09 | Paterson ‘Bloodsuckers’ Remark Riles Some in Albany | ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson on Monday compared some state legislators to “bloodsuckers” who were too quick to cut programs for the needy and underrepresented, prompting a testy response from some lawmakers. It was the latest comment from the Democratic governor to offend Republican lawmakers as well as those from his own party, who were incensed in July after Mr. Paterson said in a televised address that he would end their summer vacations and bring them back to Albany for a special legislative session, implying that they were idle during the recess. “The governor’s comments were flip and not very amusing. In fact, they were Spitzeresque,” the State Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, said in a statement that referred to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his famously strained and contentious relations with the Legislature. “Coming from the Legislature,” Mr. Skelos said of Governor Paterson, “he should know better.” Mr. Paterson, a former state senator, uttered the “bloodsuckers” line as he was telling a joke about what he saw as the hypocrisy in the way some of his colleagues treated advocates for groups like the disabled. “There were legislators who I used to think practiced their own versions of being Count Dracula in that they would be very nice to the advocates when they came to Albany,” Mr. Paterson said in a speech to a group of activists for the disabled at an Albany hotel. “By 5 o’clock, the sun would go down, and they’d go back to who they really are: a bunch of bloodsuckers.” The line drew gleeful cheers from the audience. Mr. Paterson later backpedaled. In a news conference following his speech, he said: “I didn’t say that my colleagues were bloodsuckers. I said that there were certain people who listened to advocates, and as soon as they left and, you know, it got dark, were acting in that way — like Count Dracula — because they really didn’t care.” Mr. Paterson made the comments while recounting his emotional response to a noisy demonstration outside his office last month in which advocates for the disabled protested proposed cuts to social service programs. “During that discussion, I realized that I haven’t heard from voices like this,” he said after his speech. “And that really is my fault. I’m going to have to find and be willing to listen to the voices that don’t always have impact because they’re not campaign contributors.” Mr. Paterson, who is legally blind, said meeting with the protesters was “probably the most important event that occurred in my six months as governor.” Some legislators appeared willing to give Mr. Paterson the benefit of the doubt and attribute his comments to a slip of the tongue. But that this was the second time this summer that the governor had taken a public jab at legislators was not lost on many. “The first one, everyone kind of shrugged,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County. “This is the second one. If it becomes a pattern, you worry that David, who is a very decent person, is being told he’s got to sort of Spitzerfy himself a little to look tough. That’s just a mistake.” | Paterson David A;Politics and Government;Democratic Party |
ny0276011 | [
"sports",
"tennis"
] | 2016/02/01 | Far From Home, Djokovic Is a Favorite Son | MELBOURNE, Australia — Novak Djokovic was trying to explain to the television studio hosts how he had managed to tie two Australian legends with his 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (3) victory over Andy Murray in the Australian Open final Sunday. But he could not hear himself think. Below the makeshift broadcasting studios on the Melbourne Park grounds, a large group of fellow Serbs had broken into song. “They’re saying, ‘We love you,’ in Serbian,” Djokovic said sheepishly. For one piquant mix of people in this country’s melting pot, Australia Day last Tuesday was not the only time during the tournament set aside for nationalistic revelry. Sunday, with the men’s final, became Serbia Day for fans of Djokovic, who tied the Australian Roy Emerson with his sixth title here. It was his 11th major singles championship over all, equaling the career total of another Australian great, Rod Laver, as well as Bjorn Borg. Djokovic, 28, carried into the match a stuffed toy wombat named Fatso, a good-luck token he borrows every year from a volunteer driver who ferried him to and from the tennis grounds during his first title run, in 2008. His fans went bearing, and in some cases wearing, their own lucky charms. Some came in water polo caps in the red, blue and white colors of Serbia in a nod to the country’s world championship team, which Djokovic cheered on his social media accounts during its march to the title in August. Other fans wore red, blue and white bandannas tied around their heads; draped the Serbian flag across their shoulders like capes; or covered their necks with Serbian soccer scarves. One man wore a white sweat jacket with three silk-screened images of Djokovic on the back. Image Serbian fans waved flags and signs in support of Novak Djokovic long after he won the men’s title at the Australian Open. Credit Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press Many arrived four and a half hours before the first point of the final so that they could line up to have their faces painted. Popular choices were the Serbian flag or “Go Nole,” in reference to Djokovic’s nickname. Sandra Vukovic, a resident of Brisbane, Australia, of Serbian ancestry, said she had waited 25 minutes to have red, blue and white stripes applied ear to ear, with a white eagle — like the one in the coat of arms on Serbia’s flag — painted around her eye. Several hundred Serbian fans paid 35 Australian dollars (about $25) each for a grounds pass and planted themselves in front of the video screen on a spacious garden square that has effectively become Novak’s Neighborhood over the last nine years. The square is set up like a pedestrian version of a drive-in theater, with double chaise longues and straight-back chairs all pointed toward the screen and available first come first served. By 4 p.m., three and a half hours before Djokovic and Murray walked onto the court, all the seats were taken. Vukovic, who said she had bought a grounds pass because she could not afford a ticket to the final, which would have cost hundreds of dollars, has been attending the tournament for nearly a decade. She comes, she said, to cheer for Djokovic, whose humility she finds irresistible. Djokovic explained the reason for his modesty in his postmatch news conference. Asked if his victories over Murray, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal this year were proof that he had separated himself from his competitors, Djokovic said he did not think that way because then “you can get a big slap from karma.” Image Djokovic acknowledged his fans below a television studio after the men’s final. Credit Cameron Spencer/Getty Images While Djokovic was the main draw, he was not the only attraction for the Serbs who spilled over the grass and onto the pavement, where they sat cross-legged, necks craned at the screen. “It’s become like a tradition,” said Vukovic, who has built friendships with many of the other regulars. With a sweep of her hand, she indicated a group seated at a picnic table behind her and said, “I met these people one year at the tournament.” Vukovic held in her lap a glossy photograph of Djokovic with the words: “I can’t keep calm. I’m a Nole fan.” For Vukovic — unlike Djokovic, who won his Australian Open tuneup in Doha, Qatar — 2016 did not start auspiciously. She lost her job. “But I think Novak’s my lucky charm,” she said. “I got a new job that I’ll be starting when I get back to Brisbane.” For Australia’s sizable Serbian population, the final day of the men’s tournament has become an annual chance to pay homage to a sporting hero. “Nole’s like a god in Serbia,” said Tom Dimitrijevic, who was on break from his job supervising the tram service operating outside the tennis grounds. “I was in Serbia during last year’s French Open ,” Dimitrijevic said, referring to the year’s second major, in which Djokovic lost to Stan Wawrinka in four sets in the final. “After he lost to Wawrinka, it was like a week of mourning. People were so dejected in the streets. “I don’t think Australians understand. This is a prosperous country. But in Serbia, it’s not like it’s in an economic boom. Nole is No. 1 in the world, so it gives the country something to be happy about.” On Sunday, several police officers patrolled the periphery of the grass square. Over the years, skirmishes have broken out between fans from Serbia and those from Bosnia and Herzegovina or Croatia. Plastic chairs, bottles and punches have been thrown on occasion, but on this night all was calm — except when a Djokovic winner caused the crowd to break out in chants. During the second set, a man with a Serbia bandanna around his head and a Serbian flag around his shoulders returned from a concession stand with four cups of beer in a drink holder. He delivered the drinks to his friends, who were leaning against a tree, their eyes fixed on the big screen. Someone started a chant of “Let’s go, Nole,” and it rippled through the crowd like a wave. On the big screen, the analysts from Seven Network of Australia remarked on how quiet the crowd was inside Rod Laver Arena. The crowd outside the arena grew more boisterous as Djokovic made his way from one television interview to another. They serenaded him in Serbian, singing, “We love you.” After Djokovic finished his last interview, he turned around, waved, gave a thumbs-up sign and threw four sneakers, one by one, into the rippling sea of red, blue and white. “They waited for me,” Djokovic said. “I’m very grateful for their support. It’s quite incredible. I don’t take it for granted, obviously. I’ve had the fortune to win this trophy now for six times, but I never experienced such support after a match.” He added, “It’s amazing.” | Tennis;Novak Djokovic;Andy Murray;Serbia;Australian Open |
ny0175321 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/10/06 | Atlantic City’s Latest Problem: Mayor Is Missing | ATLANTIC CITY, Oct. 5 — This long-suffering city is no stranger to scandal. After all, in the past 40 years, five mayors have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of one bit of criminal malfeasance or another. But few episodes, even by the three-ring standards here, could match the latest act of political theater. A week ago, the mayor of this carnival-like town, Robert W. Levy, 60, abruptly stopped showing up at City Hall, and his aides issued a cryptic one-sentence news release saying he was temporarily stepping aside to deal with medical matters. He has not been seen in public since, and in that vacuum all sorts of explanations have flourished. Whatever made him disappear and hand the reins of government to the city’s business administrator, he has a lot more to deal with. For one thing, there have been reports that the United States attorney for New Jersey is investigating whether Mayor Levy falsified his military record to improperly increase his military pension. Some City Council members are clamoring for the council president to run the city, leading Gov. Jon S. Corzine to say he would ask the state attorney general to look into the question of succession. “It’s another really pathetic example of the problems of leadership at the top in Atlantic City,” said David P. Rebovich, director of the Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. Speculation and innuendo have been rampant over why the mayor simply dropped from sight. Mr. Levy’s lawyer, Edwin J. Jacobs, told the city last week that he had checked into a hospital, but he refused to say where or for how long. Not surprisingly, the mayor’s absence has set off a scrum among elected officials here. One councilman has filed suit in State Superior Court asking that the mayor’s seat be declared vacant, a move that would allow the Council to appoint a successor. “Other efforts under way to determine the legally sufficient transfer of authority have yet to resolve the ongoing dilemma,” Councilman G. Bruce Ward said on Friday. As Mr. Ward put it, “The mysterious disappearance of Mayor Levy is now a national news story causing significant embarrassment and exposing the city to unwarranted risk.” Later in the day, about two dozen demonstrators gathered at City Hall to protest Mr. Levy’s absence, saying it has paralyzed this city of 40,000. To veteran observers of politics in this city where drug-infested neighborhoods are still waiting for the full benefits of the $16 million-a-day casino industry, the episode seems sadly familiar. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” said Louvinia Nixon, a retired hostess at Caesars Casino who was casting a fishing line into the tea-colored surf off the Pacific Avenue jetty on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Levy, a longtime chief of the beach patrol here, is a Democrat and first-term mayor whose political problems apparently began last fall when several articles appeared in The Press of Atlantic City questioning his service record in Vietnam. Although he said for years that he had been a member of the Army Special Forces, the newspaper reported that he never had. Last fall, the mayor acknowledged the misrepresentation and apologized. “I’m sorry for having this happen at all,” Mr. Levy told The Associated Press. “It’s something I should have corrected 40 years ago. It is what it is, and I apologize for the embarrassment I’ve created for myself and my family.” In recent weeks, it was reported that the United States attorney for New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, was investigating whether Mr. Levy has improperly collected pension payments by claiming that he served in the Special Forces. According to the news accounts, the designation would entitle him to an additional $25,000 in military benefits. A spokesman for Mr. Christie, Michael Drewniak, declined to comment on reports of the investigation. Then, last week, Mr. Levy simply dropped from sight, and aides issued the 36-word statement saying that the mayor was taking an indefinite medical leave. “His attorney shared with us that he’s in the hospital,” said Nicholas J. Morici, a spokesman for the mayor. “Which hospital? Where? We weren’t privy to that information.” In Mr. Levy’s absence, the city’s business administrator, Dominic Cappella, has served as mayor. But Councilman Ward said he asked the court to rule the office vacant because the city’s order-of-succession rules are vague and Mr. Cappella has no authority to hold the office. “There is a difference between an absence and a vacancy,” he said in a telephone interview on Friday. “There has been no formal designation by the mayor.” Mr. Corzine seemed to agree. At a boardwalk news conference here on Friday, he said, “It’s seems to me the situation can’t go on,” and added, “You can’t just create a vacuum.” For much of the past week, Assemblyman James Whelan, a former three-term mayor here and close friend of Mr. Levy, has called for him to speak out and put an end to the speculation over his whereabouts and even resign if he has committed a crime. “You can’t go months on end with a situation where you don’t know where the mayor is,” Mr. Whelan said at the news conference with the governor. Residents are equally exasperated. “He’s in the hospital?” said Ms. Nixon, the hostess. “For what? O.K., maybe some things are personal. But you owe it to the people who put you in office to say what’s going on.” Ms. Nixon, 66, talked about the many politicians who have been brought low by scandal and how this city has fallen so far short of the prosperity promised by the opening of casinos three decades ago. “I’m disgusted,” she said. “Like most of us, I’m disgusted. I can’t remember when Atlantic City was an easygoing town.” | Atlantic City (NJ);Mayors;Robert Levy |
ny0180894 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/08/14 | Spitzer in His Element at Nascar Race | WATKINS GLEN, N.Y., Aug. 12 — Leo Hindery Jr., cable television entrepreneur and onetime professional race car driver, walked out of the buffet at the hospitality club at the racetrack here and spotted Gov. Eliot Spitzer in his pressed trousers and buttoned-down pinstripe shirt. Mr. Hindery, who finished first at Le Mans in 2005 and currently serves as an economic adviser to the presidential candidate John Edwards, hugged Mr. Spitzer, then bellowed that the governor was “the best Jewish Nascar fan they’ve ever had.” Mr. Spitzer beamed. “Hey come on, we’re trying to cross all cultural barriers here!” he cracked. Not long after, he headed to a tent to chat with the elite drivers of the sport, who were gathered with a pastor, and bowed his head with them as the pastor asked for protection from harm on the track “in Christ’s name.” For almost nine hours on Sunday, Eliot Spitzer, the Upper East Sider with the Princeton and Harvard education and the reputation for a hyperkinetic braininess, indulged his other side. Nascar, possibly the vehicle for the nation’s most overt display of country fried machismo, has recently become a calculated interest for ambitious politicians trying to appeal to a working-class male demographic. Mr. Spitzer, however, can lay a legitimate claim to fandom, and appears to relish the sport as fervently as he does the Yankees. Ever since he married his North Carolina-born wife, whose brother is a top engineer at Hendrick Motorsports, one of Nascar’s top teams, Mr. Spitzer has followed stock car racing, and has made Jeff Gordon, a Hendrick driver, his favorite. On Sunday, there was no shortage of double takes as the governor, who served as a grand marshal, made his way around the grounds of the track set among the hills of the Finger Lakes region. “What’s Nascar doing putting a Democrat on TV?” Christine Merritt, a fan from the Syracuse area, wondered aloud as the governor glided past her. There were a blue sky and broiling sun overhead, and tens of thousands of fans gathering on bleachers and patches of grass. The governor kept in motion, watching the race for a time with two U.P.S. truck drivers, posing for pictures with a guy with a flaming skull tattoo and breaking down the complexities of Nascar’s championship point system to listeners. Few details seemed to elude Mr. Spitzer, who acknowledged that eyes often glaze over when he starts talking stock car racing on the cocktail party circuit. Watkins Glen is an unusual track by Nascar Nextel Cup standards — a 2.45 mile, 11-turn road course with 90 laps, instead of the more common oval track. “One thing that’s true in a road course as opposed to an oval, passing is a lot harder here,” the governor said. “There are only two or three corners where you can easily pass people. Some of the big ovals like Daytona or, I guess, Michigan, where everybody has the same horsepower and they have restrictor plates on the carburetor, you’re all going the same speed. You have 43 cars within a second of each other bunched up, and in the end you have huge crashes, and you never quite know who’s going to win.” If nothing else, the day provided a respite from what has been a gloomy few weeks for the governor. Last month, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo released a report saying the governor’s staff misused the State Police in an attempt to discredit Mr. Spitzer’s chief political rival, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader. Even on Sunday, Mr. Spitzer could not fully escape. Watkins Glen is in the district of Senator George H. Winner Jr., a Republican who, as chairman of a Senate committee holding hearings into the conduct of the governor’s staff, has emerged as one of the governor’s antagonists. The two men bumped into each other not long before the race and exchanged several minutes of polite banter — comparing notes on local skiing sites and the smell of tar. Mr. Winner, in flip-flops and shorts, said he was, while not particularly a race fan, partial to Jeff Gordon. “See,” the governor said, “we agree on something.” Many of the racegoers — the ones from New York, at least — said they knew about the governor’s troubles, but they largely chalked them up to politics as usual. “I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I don’t think he was behind that,” said Don Lauper, 53, of Corning, N.Y., one of many upstate Republicans who voted for the governor. “You put people in positions of trust, and sometimes those people don’t make the right decisions,” he added. “Unfortunately, this looks like this was one of those times.” The governor’s brother-in-law, Jim Wall, introduced him to the sport in the mid-1980s. A tennis player and runner, Mr. Spitzer did not expect to be drawn in, but the technology and strategy appealed to his analytical side. “He showed me where they built the cars, and it was not what I expected, it was more like being in a hospital operating room, in terms of the meticulous care they took on every piece, the design of the engine, the hand-craftsmanship that went into every piece of the car,” Mr. Spitzer said. “It was not what people would ordinarily have thought of, in terms of some guys standing around, looking at an engine and scratching their heads.” Mr. Wall, the top engineer in the engine division at Hendrick, said the governor is “a very competitive person, and he enjoys the competitive nature of this sport.” And Mr. Spitzer likes speed, and noise, and crashes. His favorite event is at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, known for its spectacular bang-ups. “Bristol is arguably the best race to watch,” the governor said to a reporter. “This is a short circuit, Saturday night, more crashes, more spins, slower speeds because it’s a shorter track, but it’s just complete mayhem.” Sunday seemed to have all the ingredients for racing fans — the thundering flyover by F-16s beforehand; a shoving match between two drivers after a wreck; Dale Earnhardt Jr. blowing out his engine; and then the intense competition between Jeff Gordon and the swaggering Tony Stewart of Joe Gibbs Racing. “My wife’s from Concord, N.C., a town that most of you probably know,” the governor told the drivers before the race. “Her brother’s worked for Hendrick Motorsports for going on 25 years now, and I don’t want you to think that we’re going to rig anything in favor of Hendrick because of that, but we did tow a couple cars a few minutes ago.” “The No. 20 car,” he added, “can be recovered at the State Police pound down the road.” That would be Tony Stewart’s car. The drivers laughed, and not long afterward, when they were introduced one by one, Mr. Stewart leaned over and asked Mr. Spitzer what officer he needed to ask to pick up his car. Early in the race, Mr. Stewart fell back but then fought his way back into the top 10. “My prediction, by the end of the race, it’s Tony Stewart and Jeff,” the governor said, more than an hour before the end. With just a few minutes to go, Mr. Spitzer’s prediction proved right. Mr. Stewart was gaining but Mr. Gordon, Mr. Spitzer’s favorite, seemed poised for victory. And then he suddenly spun out, inexplicably. “It’s all over,” Mr. Spitzer said, adding with a smile, “We should have impounded Tony’s car.” | Automobile Racing;Spitzer Eliot L;National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing;New York State |
ny0197940 | [
"business"
] | 2009/07/02 | Claims Processed by Madoff Trustee Close to $3 Billion | With thousands of claims still pending, the documented total of cash losses in Bernard L. Madoff ’s Ponzi scheme is nearly $3 billion, according to the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the claims process. The trustee, Irving H. Picard , reported on Wednesday that 543 of the 8,800 filed claims had been processed. Those claims — which reflect the difference between the cash invested and the cash withdrawn — total $2.97 billion. At Mr. Madoff’s sentencing hearing on Monday, federal prosecutors said that net cash losses in accounts opened since 1996 would total at least $13 billion. Records for older accounts must be converted from microfilm before the accounts can be reconstructed, according to the trustee’s office. At the time of Mr. Madoff’s arrest in December, his customers believed they had almost $65 billion invested in their Madoff accounts. In reality, almost all of the cash they had invested was paid out to other investors as dividends or withdrawals. The Securities Investors Protection Corporation, which provides a degree of protection to brokerage customers, will pay up to $500,000 of the documented cash losses. So far, its commitments to Madoff victims total $231 million, which is more than the total amount SIPC paid out in 11 of its largest previous liquidations, according to Stephen P. Harbeck, the SIPC president. The remainder of the losses, totaling $2.74 billion, must be paid from whatever assets Mr. Picard can recover for the estate. With $1.23 billion in hand, he has filed lawsuits seeking more than $10.1 billion. The update reflects a faster pace for the processing of claims. As recently as May 14, just 125 cases had been resolved; as of June 23, the total was 441. The period for filing claims is set to expire at midnight on Thursday, and Mr. Picard said his law office, Baker Hostetler, would accept last-minute claims delivered by hand right up until the deadline. The office is at 45 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. Claims forms and additional information are available on the trustee’s Web site . | Madoff Bernard L;Ponzi Schemes;Picard Irving H |
ny0226436 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2010/10/31 | Tulsa Stuns Notre Dame, 28-27; Dayne Crist Is Injured | SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — G. J. Kinne raced to the end zone, grabbed a baton and began conducting the Tulsa band. The celebration was on at Notre Dame Stadium after the Golden Hurricane pulled off one the biggest wins in university history. Kinne completed two long late passes to set up a go-ahead field goal by Kevin Fitzpatrick, and John Flanders’s interception in the end zone sealed the game with 36 seconds left, giving Tulsa a stunning 28-27 win on Saturday. “I’ve never been a part of anything like that; it was an awesome feeling,” Kinne said, describing the locker room after the victory — Tulsa’s first over a Bowl Championship Series team since 1998, a win that snapped a 19-game losing streak in those games. Kinne threw a 31-yard pass to Ricky Johnson on third-and-26 and connected with Genesis Cole on a 32-yarder to set up Fitzpatrick’s 27-yard field goal with 3 minutes 23 seconds left. Notre Dame then drove down the field behind the backup quarterback Tommy Rees, who entered the game in the first quarter when Dayne Crist left with a knee injury. Reese threw a 26-yard pass to Michael Floyd that carried the Irish (4-5) to the Tulsa 32 as they tried to get in position for a field goal. But on second-and-8 from the Tulsa 19, Rees lofted a pass toward the corner of the end zone, and Flanders picked it off. After the Golden Hurricane (5-3, 2-2 Conference USA) ran out the clock, the players raced to the end zone to celebrate. Rees threw for four touchdowns but was also intercepted three times. Notre Dame was playing just three days after the death of Declan Sullivan, a 20-year-old student videographer who was filming the team’s practice Wednesday when the lift he was in fell on a windy day. Both teams wore shamrock decals inscribed with “DS” on their helmets in Sullivan’s memory. Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly said that it was his decision to hold practice outdoors the day of Sullivan’s death. The National Weather Service said the wind was gusting to 51 miles per hour at the time the tower that Sullivan was in toppled to the ground. Kelly said that Notre Dame had systems in place to deal with safety issues at practice and that those systems failed and were being evaluated. After the game, Kelly said, “In terms of the tragedy that occurred, there’s never been a more difficult time in my life.” He said that he had gotten to know Sullivan personally and that he met with his family before a Mass on campus Thursday. A moment of silence was observed and a prayer offered before Saturday’s game for Sullivan. “Obviously the game didn’t end how we wanted, but everyone did a good job of dedicating the game to Declan, his family, being supportive with that,” Rees said, adding, “Obviously a terrible, terrible tragedy, what happened.” Crist was hurt in the first quarter when he was knocked out of bounds by Tanner Antle after a 29-yard run. He watched the second half on crutches from the sidelines. Kelly said that Crist’s injury was severe but that he was unsure if it would end his season. He also said the Notre Dame career of the team’s leading rusher, the senior Armando Allen, could be over because of a hip flexor injury that may need surgery. Tulsa stayed close in the flag-filled game, overcoming 12 penalties with scores on a 66-yard interception return by Shawn Jackson right before halftime and a 59-yard punt return by Damaris Johnson in the third. | University of Notre Dame;University of Tulsa;Football;College Athletics;Sports Injuries |
ny0122506 | [
"technology"
] | 2012/09/17 | Aereo Distributes Local TV Channels via the Internet | On the ninth floor of an old tire factory in Downtown Brooklyn, Joe Lipowski, chief technology officer of a company called Aereo, proudly showed off a steel sheet covered with TV antennas. These were not your standard rabbit ears. They were thumbnail-size slivers, neatly arranged in rows. Behind Mr. Lipowski stretched rows of rectangular shelving units with dozens of sheets just like the first. “There’s enough in here to accommodate a half million people,” he said. “And that’s just the beginning.” The army of antennas is at the core of the ambitious service Aereo is introducing, first in New York and then across the country. Aereo picks up local broadcast channels like Fox and ABC and streams them over the Internet to mobile devices and TV sets. Its subscribers, who can record shows to watch later, pay fees starting at $8 a month. Aereo executives say they are looking ahead to a future in which many “television” watchers have never had cable, or even a TV, and grab their favorite shows piecemeal from a number of online sources. In that sense they are joining the many other companies, including start-ups like Boxee and hardware juggernauts like Apple, that are trying to position themselves for the next wave of entertainment and media spending. “The goal is not to recreate the cable companies but to create an alternative for people who are coming into television from the Net side first,” said Chet Kanojia, Aereo’s founder and chief executive. “There’s an emerging population of people who have never signed up for traditional cable packages, who are used to customizing their own TV experience.” The rows of antennas are helping Aereo walk a fine legal line. Broadcasters want to shut the company down, claiming that it is violating copyright law. Repackaging television transmissions without permission or payment would ordinarily be a blatantly illegal endeavor. But Aereo says it assigns each subscriber two antennas, allowing live viewing and recording at the same time, and lets a customer watch only the programming that those antennas pick up. It claims this is not so different from a person’s buying an antenna and a DVR at RadioShack and hooking them up to a TV at home. Aereo’s headquarters are in clear view of the Empire State Building, the source of most of the local TV stations’ broadcasts. The signals are converted into an Internet-friendly format and streamed live or funneled to hard drives for playback — with individual copies for each subscriber who has requested a show. “A single copy for a single user is not a copyright issue,” Mr. Kanojia said. Broadcasters do not see it that way. Soon after Aereo introduced its service in February, a group of 17 stations, including Fox, NBC, CBS and CW, sued Aereo , accusing it of illegally capturing broadcast signals in New York and saying it was stealing copyrighted content. But in July a judge ruled in Aereo’s favor , denying a temporary injunction to shut the company down and allowing it to keep operating — for now. The broadcasters have appealed the ruling and say they will not rest until Aereo is out of business. “We believe that upon appeal, Aereo will be found to be a copyright infringer in violation of the law,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. The other significant problem Aereo faces is luring customers. Dan Rayburn, an analyst at the market research firm Frost & Sullivan, said that the company’s service would appeal to a niche audience at best. “Aereo says a large market would be 300,000 subscribers, but that’s not even 1 percent of the entire market of people who pay for TV in the United States,” Mr. Rayburn said. “That’s not disruption.” Mr. Rayburn cited the service’s sparse content — a handful of channels per city — and its technical requirements. For now, Aereo requires an Apple mobile device and, for those who want to watch on a TV, a Roku box. In addition, the company’s lofty expansion plans — 10 to 15 cities by next year — will be an expensive endeavor. It is likely to require more than the $20.5 million that Aereo has raised from a roster of impressive investors, including Barry Diller, who created Fox and is now the chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp. The company designs and manufactures its own equipment, and it will need to build antenna farms in each metropolitan area it hopes to enter. Then there is the staffing for those cities and marketing campaigns to warm consumers to the idea. Aereo executives, who say they are in the process of raising more money, say they are confident they can pull it off. “Our main expenses are power, bandwidth and customer care,” Mr. Kanojia said. “We can do it at a fraction of the cost of a cable company. It’s probably 70 cents in bandwidth per customer. It’s an extremely profitable business.” And once its service is available on Android-powered devices, PCs and gaming consoles, Aero says streaming will be as easy as flipping on the TV. “We couldn’t have done this before,” Mr. Lipowksi said. “To pull this off five years ago would have been impossible.” Aereo’s main subscriber plans cost $8 or $12 a month, with different amounts of storage for recording shows. Cheaper options include a $1 day pass and a free hour of live television a day as a teaser. The company declined to disclose how many people have signed up in New York. But its customers, who analysts estimate number in the low thousands, say that the service scratches an itch for entertainment that they have struggled to satisfy elsewhere. Raul Gutierrez, 44, an apps developer from Brooklyn, tried to tune into free broadcast signals, but “even the most powerful antenna I could find didn’t work,” he said. He and his wife cobble together their programming through a combination of Amazon Prime, Netflix and Web video. After he tried unsuccessfully to tune into a baseball game this summer, a friend clued him into Aereo, and Mr. Gutierrez signed up immediately. He said he found it “convenient and pleasant” to be able to record and watch the political conventions, sporting events and the Olympics on his iPad . “We enjoy being able to watch where you want, when you want,” he said. “It’s a mode shift to watch big events on an iPad, but we’ve never been huge TV watchers to begin with.” It’s exactly these types of viewers that Aereo will need to corral if it is to last. “People are quick to call this company a failure because they don’t have any subscribers yet,” said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG. “But it’s a company that is just in New York right now. Consumers love these devices, they love playing on them and Aereo is playing into that.” If it succeeds, Mr. Greenfield said, Aereo could start to chip away at the existing television model. “It might lead to a larger breakdown in the bundling of content over time, and that could be really interesting,” he said. | Aereo Inc;Television;Computers and the Internet |
ny0287551 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/08/28 | Things to Do in Connecticut, Aug. 27 Through Sept. 4 | A guide to cultural and recreational events in Connecticut. Comedy HARTFORD Cedric the Entertainer, Eddie Griffin, D. L. Hughley, George Lopez and Charlie Murphy: “The Comedy Get Down.” Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. $45.75 to $85.75. XL Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza. xlcenter.com; 860-249-6333. MANCHESTER Kurt Metzger. Sept. 1 through 4. $10 and $15. The Hartford Funny Bone, 194 Buckland Hills Drive. hartford.funnybone.com; 860-432-8600. MASHANTUCKET Sinbad. Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. $35 and $45. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Resort Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. MASHANTUCKET Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. $54.50 and $64.50. Grand Theater, Foxwoods Resort Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. UNCASVILLE Luis J. Gomez. Aug. 27 at 10:30 p.m. $15 to $40. Jessimae Peluso. Sept. 1, 2 and 3. $25 to $60. Joe Bartnick and Paul Virzi, presented by Bill Burr. Sept. 8, 9 and 10. $15 to $50. Comix Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard. 860-862-7000; comixcomedy.com. Film GREENWICH Movie on the Lawn: “Zootopia” (2016). Bring lawn chairs and a picnic. Aug. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Free. Round Hill Community Church, 395 Round Hill Road. 203-869-1091; roundhillcommunitychurch.org. HARTFORD “Howards End” (1992), directed by James Ivory. Through Sept. 1. “Captain Fantastic” (2016), starring Viggo Mortensen, written and directed by Matt Ross. Sept. 2 and 3. “The Lobster” (2015), starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. Sept. 11 through 14. $7 and $9. Cinestudio, 300 Summit Street. 860-297-2463; cinestudio.org. STAMFORD “Blue Velvet” (1986), directed by David Lynch, starring Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern and Dean Stockwell. Aug. 30 at 8:30 p.m. $7 to $12. Avon Theater, 272 Bedford Street. avontheatre.org; 203-967-3660. For Children ANSONIA Nature’s Child: Incredible Insects. With naturalist. Preregistration required. Sept. 2 at 10 a.m. $5 and $7. Organic garden program, led by Food Corps. Closed-toe shoes and appropriate dress recommended. Through Sept. 23. Free. Ansonia Nature Center, 10 Deerfield Road. ansonianaturecenter.org; 203-736-1053. FAIRFIELD Craft and BBQ Festival. Live entertainment, activities for children and more. Aug. 28, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission with donation of two canned goods for Operation Hope. Congregation Beth El, 1200 Fairfield Woods Road. 203-374-5544; congbethel.net. GREENWICH “Electricity,” its science and history. Through Nov. 6. $7; students and seniors, $6; members and children under 5, free. Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive. 203-869-0376; brucemuseum.org. MIDDLEFIELD “Breakfast on the Deck,” 275th-anniversary celebration; farm-fresh country breakfast. Through Oct. 9. $3.99 to $9.99. Lyman Orchards, 32 Reeds Gap Road. 860-349-1793; lymanorchards.com/apple-barrel. NORWALK Norwalk Seaport Association Oyster Festival. Activities and entertainment, featuring Sawyer Fredericks. Sept. 10 and 11. $5 to $12. Veteran’s Park, Seaview Avenue. 203-838-9444; seaport.org. ORANGE Odyssey: A Greek Festival. Food, music, dancing, marketplace, presentations on Greek culture, activities for children, cooking demonstrations, raffle and more. Sept. 2 through 5. Free. Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, 480 Racebrook Road. 203-795-1347; saintbarbara.org. Music and Dance BRIDGEPORT The Latin ballroom champions Alexandr Nabiullin and Valeriya Ryabova perform. Dance lessons at 8 p.m., and snacks. Aug. 27 at 9:30 p.m. $17. Premier Ballroom, at Holy Trinity Greek Church, 4070 Park Avenue. premierballroomdance.net; 203-374-7308. DANBURY Bela Fleck and Chris Thile, bluegrass. Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. $29 to $125. Ives Concert Park, 43 Lake Avenue Extension. 203-837-9227; ivesconcertpark.com. DANBURY A Taste of Greater Danbury, featuring the rock band Everclear, games and local foods from around the world. Sept. 10 and 11. Everclear performs at 8 p.m. on Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Free. City Center Danbury, Danbury Green, at Ives Street. 203-792-1711; citycenterdanbury.com. FALLS VILLAGE Shanghai String Quartet performs Mendelssohn, Zhou Long and Brahms. Guest artist, Jonathan Yates, pianist. Sept. 3 at 6:30 p.m. $30 in advance; $35 at the door. Shanghai String Quartet performs Beethoven and Brahms. Gilbert Kalish and Jonathan Yates, pianists, perform Schubert. Sept. 4 at 3 p.m. $75. Music Mountain, 225 Music Mountain Road. 860-824-7126; musicmountain.org. HARTFORD Rob Zombie with Korn: Return of the Dreads Tour. Sept. 1 at 6:30 p.m. $25 to $59.50. Blink 182 with A Day to Remember and All Time Low. Sept. 2 at 8 p.m. $75 to $90. Jason Aldean with Thomas Rhett and A Thousand Horses, country. Sept. 11 at 7:30 p.m. $31.25 to $71.25. Xfinity Theater, 61 Savitt Way. 860-548-7370; livenation.com. MASHANTUCKET The B-52s, pop and rock. Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. $55. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Resort Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. MASHANTUCKET Lil Jon. Aug. 30 at 9 p.m. $15. Shrine, Foxwoods Resort Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. NEW HAVEN Group Chat with Underwear, electronic and experimental. Aug. 28 at 9 p.m. $5. Elm City Noise Festival featuring Avmus, Pulsewidthmod, Parlay Droner and Compactor. Aug. 29 at 8:30 p.m. $5. Agent Orange with FEA and the Excrementals, punk. Sept. 6 at 8:30 p.m. $15. Cafe Nine, 250 State Street. 203-789-8281; cafenine.com. NEW HAVEN The Claypool Lennon Delirium with Jjuujjuu. Aug. 27 at 9 p.m. $28 to $32.50. Willie Nelson and Family with Robert Ellis. Sept. 3 at 8 p.m. $63 to $175. Dinosaur Jr. with Cloud Nothings, rock. Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. $28 to $30. Of Montreal with Ruby the Rabbitfoot, indie. Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. $16 to $18. College Street Music Hall, 238 College Street. collegestreetmusichall.com; 877-987-6487. NEW HAVEN Lil Yachty, hip-hop. Sept. 5 at 9 p.m. $25 and $30. August Burns Red with Erra, Silent Planet and Make Them Suffer, metalcore. Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. $17.50 and $20. Toad’s Place, 300 York Street. 203-624-8623; toadsplace.com. NEW MILFORD Rob Brereton and Thomasina Levy, folk and popular music. Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. $10 online; $15 at the door. Margarita Nuller, classical piano. Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. Free. Merryall Center for the Performing Arts, 8 Chapel Hill Road. 860-354-7264; merryallcenter.org. RIDGEFIELD Loretta Lynn with Jessica Lynn, country. Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. $110 to $155. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. 203-438-5795; ridgefieldplayhouse.org. ROXBURY Litchfield Hills Brass Ensemble. Aug. 28 at 3 p.m. Free. Minor Memorial Library, 23 South Street. 860-350-2181; minormemoriallibrary.org. SOUTHBURY “Orfeo ed Euridice” by Christoph Willibald Gluck, libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. Aug. 27 at 7:30 p.m. $20. Jewish Federation Auditorium, 444 Main Street North. ctsummeropera.org. TORRINGTON Amos Lee, singer-songwriter. Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. $39 to $69. Warner Theater, 68 Main Street. 860-489-7180; warnertheatre.org. UNCASVILLE Prophets of Rage, rock and hip-hop. Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. $18 to $69. Bryan Adams, pop. Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. $47. Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard. mohegansun.com; 888-226-7711. UNCASVILLE Charles Esten, singer-songwriter from the show “Nashville.” Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. Foghat, classic rock. Aug. 28. DragonForce, power metal. Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. All That Remains, metal. Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. Free. The Wolf Den, Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Blvd. 888-226-7711; mohegansun.com. WALLINGFORD Blues Traveler with the Wallflowers, G. Love & Special Sauce and Howie Day. Aug. 27 at 7:30 p.m. $20 to $50. Schoolboy Q with Joey Bada$$, hip-hop. Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. $35. Gary Clark Jr., blues rock. Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. $32.50. Oakdale Theater, 95 South Turnpike Road. 203-265-1501; oakdale.com. Outdoors ANSONIA Guided hike: Goldenrod Jungle. Sept. 11 at 1 p.m. Free. Ansonia Nature Center, 10 Deerfield Road. ansonianaturecenter.org; 203-736-1053. AVON Blues, Biscuits and Brews. Craft beers, blues music and dog-friendly activities to benefit Our Companions Animal Rescue of Manchester. Sept. 3, noon to 5 p.m. $10; children 12 and under, free. Brownstone Bakery for Dogs, 16 Ensign Drive (off Route 44). 860-677-2111; brownstonebakery.com. GREENWICH Hawk Watch Season Kickoff. Bring binoculars. RSVP to Gigi Lombardi at [email protected] or 203-930-1351. Aug. 28 at 11 a.m. $5. Audubon Greenwich, 613 Riversville Road. 203-869-5272; greenwich.audubon.org. Theater NORWALK “Gypsy,” musical fable, book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Weekends, Sept. 9 through 25. $30 to $55. Music Theater of Connecticut, 509 Westport Avenue. musictheatreofct.com; 203-454-3883. RIDGEFIELD “Farragut North,” by Beau Willimon. Cabaret seating. Bring food and beverages. Weekends, Sept. 9 through Oct. 1. $20 to $24. Ridgefield Theater Barn, 37 Halpin Lane. 203-431-9850; ridgefieldtheaterbarn.org. Museums and Galleries BRANFORD “Abstract Realities,” Maralyn Adlin, Marjorie Gillette Wolfe, Henry L. Loomis, Patrick McGowan and Victoria Navin. Artists reception on Sept. 10 at 4 p.m. Sept. 2 through 28. Connecticut Hospice, 100 Double Beach Road. 203-387-4933; azothgallery.com. BRIDGEPORT “Vision and Line,” pencil drawings, acrylics and sculptures by Tony Calendrillo. Through Aug. 31. Free. Tuesdays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Framemakers Gallery, 3004 Fairfield Avenue. framemakersblackrock.com; 203-338-0332. BROOKFIELD “A Tradition of Excellence,” works from more than 30 faculty members, representing the glass, jewelry, fiber, forge, wood turning and ceramics studios. Through Sept. 6. Tuesdays through Fridays, 1 to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Brookfield Craft Center, 286 Whisconier Road. 203-775-4526; brookfieldcraftcenter.org. COS COB “Close to the Wind: Our Maritime History.” Through Sept. 4. $8 and $10; members and children under 6, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Greenwich Historical Society, 39 Strickland Road. greenwichhistory.org; 203-869-6899. Image NEW HAVEN “Untitled” (2016), acrylic on paper by Kathy Kane, will be on view in “Outside the Lines” Sept. 8 through Oct. 2 at City Gallery, 994 State Street. An opening reception will be held on Sept. 8 at 5 p.m., and an artist’s talk will be held on Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. Information: 203-782-2489; city-gallery.org. Credit Chris Gardner DANBURY “Luminous Intervals: Extended Exposures in Alternative Photography,” Colin Burke. Through Sept. 30. Free. Weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Gallery at Still River Editions, 128 East Liberty Street. stillrivereditions.com; 203-791-1474. DARIEN “Impressões de Água (Impressions of Water),” waterscapes by Elisabeth Aguiar. Sept. 1 through 30. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Geary Gallery, 576 Boston Post Road. 203-655-6633; gearygallery.com. DARIEN “Darien 1925-1950: Golden Age of Art and Design.” Through Sept. 11. Suggested donation, $5. Tuesdays through Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 3 p.m. The Darien Historical Society, 45 Old Kings Highway North. 203-655-9233; darienhistorical.org. FAIRFIELD “Family, (Vintage)” Elisa Khachian. Opening reception on Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. Sept. 1 through Oct. 9. Thursdays through Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 2 to 5 p.m. Art/Place Gallery, 70 Sanford Street. 203-292-8328; artplacegallery.org. FAIRFIELD “Fabulous Animals: The Illustrated World of Robert Lawson.” “Connecticut, 1940: Farms, Factories and the Photographs of Jack Delano.” Through Sept. 18. $5 for adults; $3 for students and seniors; children 5 and under, free. Daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fairfield Museum and History Center, 370 Beach Road. 203-259-1598; fairfieldhistory.org. FAIRFIELD “Earth & Beyond,” digital photography by Fran Gallogly and paintings by Eric Chiang. Through Sept. 25. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Fridays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Fairfield Public Library, 1080 Old Post Road. fairfieldpubliclibrary.org; 203-256-3155. FAIRFIELD Marine Art exhibition and sale: A. D. Blake, Christopher Blossom, Don Demers and others. Through Sept. 3. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, 1899 Bronson Road. 203-259-8753; jrusselljinishiangallery.com. GREENWICH “Electric Paris,” Edgar Degas, Jean Béraud, Mary Cassatt and more. Through Sept. 4. $6 and $7; members and children under 5, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive. brucemuseum.org; 203-869-0376. GUILFORD “Upon Reflection,” Thomas Sarrantonio. Through Aug. 28. “Structure/Deconstructed,” Susan Fehlinger and Jamie Orr. Sept. 10 through Oct. 9. Thursday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street. 203-453-4162; greeneartgallery.com. HAMDEN “The Seed of the People: 1916 Remembered,” Irish history exhibition. Through Sept. 30. Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel. 203-582-7809; quinnipiac.edu. HARTFORD “Surface Work,” abstract group exhibition. “Distracted Driving,” conceptual sculpture. “Road to Ruin,” fabric-text constructions by Rita Valley. Through Sept. 11. Suggested donation, $3; members and cinema patrons, free. Daily, 2 to 9 p.m.; and by appointment. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. 860-232-1006; realartways.org. HARTFORD “40 Acres: The Promise of a Black Pastoral.” Through Oct. 23. $5 to $15; members and children under 12, free. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main Street. thewadsworth.org; 860-278-2670. KENT “Fifty Years After,” photography by Gordon Parks, Carrie Mae Weems, Mickalene Thomas and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Through Oct. 16. Weekends, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. James Barron Art, 4 Fulling Lane. 917-270-8044; jamesbarronart.com. LITCHFIELD “Heal,” Erin Tapley, fiber scrolls. Through Oct. 1. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Marie Louise Trichet Art Gallery, Wisdom House, 229 East Litchfield Road. wisdomhouse.org; 203-338-0332. NEW BRITAIN “New Media: Maya Jeffereis, Fallout Shelter.” Through Sept. 11. “Masterpieces of the Sanford B. D. Low Illustration Collection.” Through Oct. 2. $10 to $15; members and children under 12, free. Sundays through Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street. 860-229-0257; nbmaa.org. NEW CANAAN “Waterways IV,” group exhibition. Through Sept. 10. Free. Mondays through Saturdays, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Heather Gaudio Fine Art, 66 Elm Street. 203-801-9590; heathergaudiofineart.com. NEW CANAAN “Liana Moonie, A Retrospective.” Through Oct. 9. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. New Canaan Library, 151 Main Street. 203-594-5003; newcanaanlibrary.org. NEW CANAAN School of Art open house and pop-up faculty show. Sept. 10 at 1 p.m. Free. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Silvermine Arts Center Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Road. 203-966-9700; silvermineart.org. NEW HAVEN “Outside the Lines,” paintings by Kathy Kane. Opening reception on Sept. 8 at 5 p.m. Artist’s talk on Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. Sept. 8 through Oct. 2. Thursdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. City Gallery, 994 State Street. 203-782-2489; city-gallery.org. NEW HAVEN “Recollection,” paintings by Barbara Marks. Artist reception on Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. Sept. 10 through Oct. 1. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Da Silva Gallery, 899 Whalley Avenue. 203-387-2539; dasilva-gallery.com. NEW HAVEN “Metal Sculpture,” Gar Waterman. Sculptures inspired by insects, orchids, birds and diatoms, as well as the utilitarian constructs from his Tin Man series. “Diversity of Lines,” Robert Bienstock. Opening reception on Sept. 10 at 4 p.m. Sept. 8 through Oct. 2. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Weekends, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Avenue. 203-389-9555; kehlerliddell.com. NEW HAVEN “Carole Bolsey: New Works.” Opening reception on Sept. 2 at 5 p.m. Sept. 2 through Oct. 29. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Reynolds Fine Art, 96 Orange Street. 203-498-2200; reynoldsfineart.com. NEW HAVEN “Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA).” Sept. 1 through Dec. 11. “Britain in the World,” reinstallation of exhibit after completion of building conservation project. Through Dec. 31. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street. 203-432-2800; britishart.yale.edu. NEW MILFORD “Strange Paradise,” photographs by Martin Parr. Through Aug. 27. Thursdays through Saturdays, noon to 8 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 3 p.m. The Harts Gallery, 20 Bank Street. thehartsgallery.com; 917-913-4641. NEW PRESTON “The Summer,” paintings by Alicia Mordenti and photography by Corey Lynn Tucker. Through Oct. 2. Wednesdays through Mondays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Loft Gallery, at the Smithy, 10 Main Street. 860-868-9003; thesmithystore.com. NORWALK “Coney Island: Visions From the Boardwalk,” Gail Ingis-Claus. Reception, Sept. 8 at 5:30 p.m. Through Sept. 30. $6 to $10; members and children under 8, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Avenue. 203-838-9799; lockwoodmathewsmansion.com. OLD LYME “The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887-1920.” Through Sept. 18. $8 to $10; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme Street. 860-434-5542; flogris.org. OLD LYME New England Landscape Invitational. Opening reception on Sept. 9 at 5 p.m. Sept. 2 through Nov. 18. Free; suggested donation, $5. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Lyme Art Association Gallery, 90 Lyme Street. lymeartassociation.org; 860-434-7802. RIDGEFIELD Kim Jones, David Brooks, Peter Liversidge and Virginia Overton, including works based in sculpture, drawing and performance. Through Feb. 5. $5 and $10. Members, teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade, active-service military families and children under 18, free. Mondays and Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. aldrichart.org; 203-438-4519. RIDGEFIELD “My Inspiration,” Erin Nazzaro. Through Oct. 31. Sarah’s Wine Bar, 20 West Lane. sarahswinebar.com; 203-438-8282. ROXBURY “On the Edge: The Littoral and the Liminal,” exhibition and sale of coastal photographs by Jay Kaplan. Through Sept. 17. Minor Memorial Library, 23 South Street. 860-350-2181; minormemoriallibrary.org. STAMFORD “James Gortner: Ground Breakage,” works on canvas fabricated using the floorboards of the artist’s studio. Opening reception on Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. Sept. 10 through Oct. 15. Mondays through Wednesdays, by appointment; Thursdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, 96 Bedford Street. 888-861-6791; flalvarezgallery.com. STAMFORD “The Exquisite Corpse,” group exhibition. Through Aug. 28. Free. Weekends, 1 to 4:30 p.m. Loft Artists Association, 575 Pacific Street. 203-247-2027; loftartists.com. STAMFORD “Counterpoint,” group exhibition. Through Sept. 15. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. University of Connecticut Stamford Art Gallery, One University Place. 203-251-8450; artgallery.stamford.uconn.edu. STORRS “First Folio: The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.” The first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Sept. 1 through 25. “Presidential Campaigning Over the Decades: The Mark and Rosalind Shenkman Collection of Early American Campaign Flags.” Sept. 9 through Dec. 18. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; weekends, 1 to 4:30 p.m. William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 245 Glenbrook Road. benton.uconn.edu; 860-486-4520. STRATFORD Artists and Artisans in Paradise. Handmade art and crafts, music, poetry and food. Aug. 28, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free. Paradise Green, Main Street. 203-243-1756; facebook.com/paradiseartshow. SUFFIELD 3rd Annual Textile Trunk Show, art and projects by Timna Tarr. Sept. 10 and 11, 1 to 4 p.m. Donations suggested. Phelps-Hatheway House and Garden, 55 South Main Street. ctlandmarks.org; 860-668-0055. WALLINGFORD “Landscapes, Figures and Flowers,” oil paintings by P. L. Corbett. Through Aug. 28. Wednesdays through Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Camelot Gallery of Fine Art, 310 North Main Street. 201-803-3766. WATERBURY “Tea Day 1931: The Art Community at Old Lyme,” William Chadwick, Frank Dumond, Lydia Longacre, Bessie Potter Vonnoh and others. Through Sept. 4. “Nature’s Patina: Elizabeth MacDonald.” Through Sept. 6. “The Hand of the Maker Speaks to Us: Renee Iacone.” Through Sept. 6. “What a Woman!”: Rosalind Russell. Through Oct. 30. Free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Mattatuck Museum, 144 West Main Street. 203-753-0381; mattatuckmuseum.org. WESTPORT “Summer Selections,” Cathy Choi, Cara Enteles; Pamela Harris, Nancy Lasar, Paul Shakespear and Fumiko Toda. Through Sept. 24. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Amy Simon Fine Art, 1869 Post Road East. 203-259-1500; amysimonfineart.com. WESTPORT “MORE Than Words,” works focused on courage, resilience and empowerment in the face of bullying by Archangel, Gonzalez-Torres, Leibowitz, Moffett and Yuskevage. Opening reception on Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. Sept. 9 through Oct. 29. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Westport Arts Center, 51 Riverside Avenue. 203-222-7070; westportartscenter.org. WINDSOR “Made in the Shade: Reflections of the Tobacco Valley Industry,” Andrew Buck and Lucy Sander Sceery. Through Aug. 27. Thursdays, 6 to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Windsor Art Center, 40 Mechanic Street. windsorartcenter.org; 860-688-2528. WOODBURY “Many Journeys: The Art of Missy Stevens,” fiber art. Through Sept. 17. Clapp & Tuttle Gallery, 742 Main Street South. 203-263-2207; clappandtuttle.com. | Art;The arts;Music;Connecticut |
ny0205012 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2009/01/28 | Steelers’ Clark Knows What It’s Like to Take a Hit | Tampa, Fla. It wasn’t that long ago that the man who leveled Willis McGahee recently on a frozen field in Pittsburgh couldn’t bench-press his 3-year-old daughter, dress without the aid of his wife or get on a scale without stepping off in shock. After doctors removed Ryan Clark’s spleen and returned weeks later for his gallbladder, he lost about 35 pounds. Soon after, he couldn’t work out for five minutes without throwing up. Call him a cheap-shot artist or a tackling assassin or whatever military cliché befits a Super Bowl Steeler. But consider one paradoxical thing about Clark: “I know how it feels to be stuck in the hospital, away from your team, away from your family,” he said. That is where Clark, 29, was in November 2007 — or 14 months before he sent Ravens running back McGahee to the hospital after a ferocious hit in the American Football Conference title game, and ignited the endless debate on operating within football rules versus the intent to inflict bodily harm. Clark, the Steelers ’ 5-foot-11, 205-pound free safety, was cleared by the N.F.L. for his helmet-on-helmet collision with McGahee, as he was for a similar strike on New England’s Wes Welker in November. On Tuesday, when he crashed head-on with the monster that is Super Bowl media day, he cut to the heart of the matter like a poised surgeon. “When you’re playing within the rules and people talk about it like it’s dirty, it’s almost a compliment,” Clark said. His job, after all and perhaps above all, is to stretch the limits of what is allowed, hoping, as he said, “that both of us get up and walk away.” Isn’t that what Rex Ryan, the new Jets coach, was getting at when he had the same New York-area news media that chewed up and spit out Eric Mangini swallowing his kill-or-be-killed defensive credo? Isn’t that why Pittsburgh is the favorite to end Arizona’s pinch-me bid to run the postseason table — because the Steelers and especially Dick LeBeau, their soft-spoken, 71-year-old defensive coordinator, preach a family brand of black and blue? As Clark said, he really wasn’t one of the boys after joining the Steelers until he flattened his first opponent, Chris Henry of the Bengals, in the third game of the 2006 season. “And then James Harrison comes over to me and says, ‘O.K., now you’re a Steeler.’ ” First he was a Giant, after going undrafted as a rookie in 2002 out of Louisiana State, before drifting to the Redskins two years later. Then on to the Steelers, where he cracked the lineup in 2006 and last season, until a fateful road game in Denver that left him feverish, weak and out for the season. He already knew he carried the sickle-cell trait, as his father, a brother and his youngest daughter did. “Most people live without a problem, but what the doctors told me was that the altitude combined with overexertion triggered a reaction,” Clark said. “Part of my spleen didn’t receive oxygen for a while, and it died.” For weeks, nothing was further from his mind than laying people out because he could barely walk. “I stopped caring about football,” he said. But he got stronger and regained the weight, along with the urge to do what he was trained to do — making up for his ordinary size and speed by hitting exceptionally hard and high. “I had a coach in high school who wouldn’t let you tackle bigger players low,” Clark said. “I remember one game I went out there and they had a big running back, I cut him at the knees and my coach said: ‘Look, we don’t do that here. We try to hit everybody in the face, everybody up high.’ It’s kind of been instilled in me to do that.” Surgery left him spleenless, not spineless. “Guys in this league are so talented,” he said. “My goal is to get there fast enough so they can’t put a move on me.” But he added, “I always turn my head, and that’s probably why I had two shoulder dislocations this year.” Dirty plays invariably occur in pro football, but who can read a pernicious mind? Clark reminded us that his takedown of McGahee, which forced a fumble, left him woozy as well. He remembers that he was told he was in no condition to check on McGahee as the game continued, and that when it was over, Troy Polamalu, his fellow and equally feared safety, put a Super Bowl cap on his head. When Clark heard the next day that McGahee had left the hospital in Pittsburgh and was quoted as saying that the hit was part of the game, just football, Clark said, “O.K., let it go.” The so-called assassin — who consumes a steady diet of antibiotics to maintain his health, wears his religious faith on his sleeve and keeps the right side of his body free of tattoos because his mommy asked him to leave some part uncovered — decided not to pick up the telephone to check on McGahee. “No running back has ever called me after running me over, either,” Clark said. | Football;Pittsburgh Steelers |
ny0253423 | [
"business",
"mutfund"
] | 2011/10/09 | Large-Cap Funds Fared Better in Quarter, Relatively Speaking | SINCE the start of the financial crisis, many money managers have been predicting that investors would gravitate to shares of large, industry-leading companies. Yet since the start of 2008, large-capitalization stocks have lagged riskier small-company shares, belying their reputation as ports in an economic storm. That changed a bit in the third quarter — relatively speaking. While mutual funds that invest in blue-chip stocks suffered major losses in the late summer, they fell considerably less than small-cap portfolios. The average fund that invests in large-cap growth stocks fell 15.6 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30, versus the average 22.1 percent loss suffered by small-cap growth funds. The bigger the stocks, the less painful the performance during the last quarter. Traditionally, stocks of companies with a market value of around $10 billion are considered large caps. But large-cap funds with average holdings of at least $25 billion held up slightly better — losing 14.7 percent in the quarter, according to the fund tracker Morningstar. “In the latter half of last year and the first half of this year, ‘the riskier the better’ was the mantra,” said Bradley P. Hinton, co-manager of the Weitz Partners Value fund. “But in the last quarter, you’ve seen smaller companies sell off stronger, which is more what you’d expect in periods of uncertainty.” What changed? Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ, said the relative outperformance of large caps could reflect the nature of this sell-off, which appears to be focused on the weakening global economy, he said. Blue-chip stocks tend to hold up better than the rest of the market in such conditions. By contrast, he said: “The last two mega-meltdowns have not really been economically driven. The 2000-2 bear was the popping of the tech bubble, which directly affected large-cap tech stocks. And 2008 was triggered by the meltdown in large-cap financials.” Timothy Mulrenan, co-manager of the Pioneer Fundamental Growth fund, which finished in the top 5 percent of all large-cap growth funds in the third quarter, cited a couple of other factors. For starters, the economic recovery that began in June 2009 has matured to the point where corporate profit growth has peaked and is now slowing. “Once you move past peak growth rates, then sentiment does shift,” Mr. Mulrenan said. Investors are showing a preference for larger companies with a proven record of thriving in tough economic times or that stand to benefit from faster-growing markets outside the United States, he said. “This economic environment,” he said, “certainly hasn’t hurt the earnings of a company like Apple at all,” referring to one of the stocks in the fund. Nor has it damaged the long-term prospects of a company like MasterCard, another fund holding, he said. It assumes no credit risk on transactions and is therefore somewhat insulated from a weak economy, he said. And while the economy could slow MasterCard’s growth, the company generates around 60 percent of its revenue from overseas. MR. MULRENAN added that another reason for the relative attractiveness of large stocks is their relatively favorable valuations. Donald A. Yacktman, manager of of the Yacktman Fund , makes a similar argument. Mr. Yacktman, whose portfolio finished among the top 4 percent of all large-cap value funds in the third quarter, favors dominant companies with predictable cash flows and strong balance sheets — companies like the News Corporation., PepsiCo, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble, he said. “On a relative basis, I don’t think I can think of another period of time where so many of these companies were selling at such cheap prices relative to other companies or to U.S. Treasuries,” he said. Many large caps are also paying dividends that now exceed the yields of long-term Treasury bonds , offering investors more of a cushion in a volatile market, said William C. Nygren, manager of the Oakmark Fund , which fared better than more than 80 percent of its large-cap peers for the first nine months of the year. “There’s an amazing list of large-cap names where you can get over a 3 percent dividend yield and price-earnings ratios in the single digits,” Mr. Nygren said. Examples in his portfolio, he said, include companies like Microsoft, which yields more than 3 percent and trades at nine times next year’s estimated earnings per share, and Merck, which yields nearly 5 percent and trades at eight times next year’s estimated earnings. Still, this doesn’t mean that all large-cap stocks will offer investors protection if the economy worsens. That’s why Thomas H. Forester, chief investment officer for the Forester Value fund, has been raising cash in his portfolio and making subtle shifts. “We try to over- and under-weight companies within a sector based on the environment we’re in,” he said. For example, the prospects for falling oil prices because of the slowing global economy and problems in Europe could hurt oil drillers. Instead of fleeing energy altogether, Mr. Forester said, he recently sold his position in Marathon Oil and has shifted a good deal of that money into Exxon Mobil, a more diversified energy company with strong cost controls. It’s important even for large-cap investors to take precautions. “It’s like when you’re driving,” he said. “When you go around a curve, you slow down, and when you straighten out you speed up. Well, it sure feels like we’re in the curves when it comes to this economy.” | Stocks and Bonds;Mutual Funds;Asset Allocation (Personal Finances) |
ny0101540 | [
"business"
] | 2015/12/09 | If It Owns a Well or a Mine, It’s Probably in Trouble | The pain among energy and mining producers worsened again on Tuesday, as one of the industry’s largest players cut its work force by nearly two-thirds and Chinese trade data amplified concerns about the country’s appetite for commodities. The full extent of the shakeout will depend on whether commodities prices have further to fall. And the outlook is shaky, with a swirl of forces battering the markets. The world’s biggest buyer of commodities, China, has pulled back sharply during its economic slowdown. But the world is dealing with gluts in oil, gas, copper and even some grains. “The world of commodities has been turned upside down,” said Daniel Yergin, the energy historian and vice chairman of IHS, a consultant firm. “Instead of tight supply and strong demand, we have tepid demand and oversupply and overcapacity for commodity production. It’s the end of an era that is not going to come back soon.” The pressure on prices has been significant. Prices for iron ore, the crucial steelmaking ingredient, have fallen by about 40 percent this year. The Brent crude oil benchmark is now hovering around $40 a barrel, down from more than a $110 since the summer of 2014. Companies are caught in the downdraft. A number of commodity-related businesses have either declared bankruptcy or fallen behind in their debt payments. Even more common are the cutbacks. Nearly 1,200 oil rigs, or two-thirds of the American total, have been decommissioned since late last year. More than 250,000 workers in the oil and gas industry worldwide have been laid off, with more than a third coming in the United States. The international mining company Anglo American is pulling back broadly, with a goal to reduce the company’s size by 60 percent. Along with the layoffs announced on Tuesday, the company is suspending its dividend, halving its business units, as well as unloading mines and smelters. Image Anglo American's Los Bronces copper mine, in the Andes near Santiago, Chile. The mining company said it would reduce operating costs over the coming year by $1.1 billion. Credit Ivan Alvarado/Reuters The situation has darkened in recent months. In July, the company outlined plans to cut 53,000 jobs after reporting a loss of $3 billion for the first half of the year. Now, Anglo American plans to reduce its current work force of 135,000, to 50,000 employees. “Quite frankly we didn’t expect the commodity price rout to be so dramatic and in all likelihood the next six months are going to be even tougher,” Mark Cutifani, the company’s chief executive, said at an investors’ conference on Tuesday. “We have pulled costs out of the business, but we need to do more because prices continue to deteriorate.” China looms large in the commodities equation. Between 2000 and last year, companies invested hundreds of billions of dollars to expand their production capacity to satisfy China in a period of rapid economic expansion. Much of the corporate growth was fueled by debt. But the situation has proved unsustainable as demand has waned. Chinese copper imports are down nearly 3 percent from last year, while imports of steel products are down by more than 12 percent. The country’s crude oil and iron ore imports are still up, but by rates that are slowing from previous years. The economy’s slowing growth rate is adding to the uncertainty. China reported on Tuesday that exports, the country’s engine of growth, slipped 6.8 percent in November, compared with the same month a year ago. Imports were also weak, although the rate of decline was lower than in the previous month. The weakening Chinese demand is hurting prices while production is overwhelming markets. Even with prices falling rapidly, American oil production has only declined to 9.2 million barrels a day, from a record high of 9.6 million barrels a day in June. Momentum in drilling and production have been building over the last three years. Gulf of Mexico offshore production has been steadily increasing since the federal drilling moratorium that followed the 2010 BP oil spill . Many international oil projects have been canceled and production should fall more rapidly next year. But it probably won’t be quickly enough to stabilize prices. That is because companies are getting more production out of their investments as efficiency has improved. And some need to keep producing to keep up with their debt payments. The commodity fallout has been global. The Swiss company Glencore is scrambling to reduce its $30 billion debt by a third before the end of 2016 by slashing its copper-mining operations in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and selling much of its agricultural business. Kinder Morgan, the North American pipeline company, cut its dividend on Tuesday afternoon, prompting a sell-off in the stock after hours. There have already been about 40 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings by North American oil and gas producers this year, accounting for roughly $15 billion in secured and unsecured debt. And energy experts predict more bankruptcies in 2016 if oil prices remain below $40 a barrel, or even below $50 a barrel. When one company topples, it reverberates broadly. On Monday, Energy & Exploration Partners, a Fort Worth oil and gas driller, filed for Chapter 11 protection. In the bankruptcy, it listed debt of more than $1 billion owed to several service companies, including units of Schlumberger and Baker Hughes. For some players, the mess creates opportunity. Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, a major Texas oil company, predicts a wave of consolidations and corporate shake-ups because of financial strain from the commodity price collapse. “There is about $150 billion of private equity out there looking for deals in the U.S.,” he said. Others are facing a period of prolonged problems. Some energy experts are even beginning to express concerns that sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Persian Gulf and oil-producing countries will redeem their money from investment firms in the coming year to shore up their balance sheets. If they do, the moves could initiate more instability in global equity and debt markets. Anglo American is drastically shrinking to remain viable. Since he became chief executive in 2013, Mr. Cutifani said, not a single month has passed during which any of the products that Anglo American mines has risen in price. When he took the job, Mr. Cutifani signaled that the free-spending ways of the commodity price supercycle had ended by selling the corporate jet. Now, everything is getting a second look. Anglo American will close its London head office and share space in the city with the headquarters of De Beers, its diamond mining unit. Over all, Anglo American plans to reduce operating costs over the coming year by $1.1 billion and cut capital spending by an additional $1 billion in the same period. The company intends to focus operation in three areas: the diamond operations of De Beers; industrial metals like copper; and bulk commodities like coal. Details about the job cuts will not be announced until February, but it appears that they will probably focus on the firm’s bulk commodities operations. Mr. Cutifani said that Anglo American would simply shut money-losing mines rather than sell them at heavily discounted prices, although he did not entirely rule out asset sales. The nickel, coal and iron ore mines, he said, will have to show that they can reduce costs sufficiently to generate cash. “If not, they won’t be in the portfolio, it’s as simple as that,” he said. “In this sort of environment, nothing can be considered business as usual.” | Anglo American;Layoffs;China;Futures and Options;Commodity;De Beers Group;Mining;Oil and Gasoline |
ny0249189 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2011/05/13 | White House Wants Tougher Penalties for Computer Breaches | WASHINGTON — Almost two years after outlining a broad strategy intended to strengthen the security of the nation’s computers and networks, the Obama administration said Thursday that it was sending proposed legislation to Congress that would strengthen penalties for any invasion of private computer systems. But the White House, in a briefing for reporters, said it had elected not to seek authority for stringent top-down regulations that would require companies to erect specific barriers to computer intrusions — which corporations feared would be enormously costly and soon be outdated. Instead, the administration is hoping to offer incentives that will persuade private industry to improve computer security voluntarily and have those standards reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security . “The private sector has a huge incentive to secure its own systems and an incentive to do that work better by sharing that information more broadly,” said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a policy group here. The administration made no mention of seeking authority for the president to hit a “kill switch” that would essentially shut off access to the Internet in the event of a national emergency or a broad-based computer attack meant to shut down financial markets or power plants. But administration officials said the Department of Homeland Security would designate certain privately run computer systems as part of a “critical infrastructure” over which the department would have enhanced authority. While the proposed legislation will address new American defenses against computer crime, it does not appear to deal with a growing cyberoffense capability in the American intelligence agencies and in the military. Billions are being spent on building weapons for attacking computer networks — in part to deter cyberattacks on the United States. While those programs are highly classified, the United States is believed to have played a major role in the software-based attacks on Iran’s nuclear program , and recently Iran announced the creation of a cyberforce of its own. The international component of the strategy will be addressed on Monday, according to several policy specialists, who have been invited to a White House briefing with John O. Brennan, the deputy national security adviser. The White House said it would release proposed language for the new legislation on Thursday evening, and the text of different sections of the proposal were placed online by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, during the day. By increasing and clarifying the penalties for computer crimes, and giving the homeland security agency a clear mandate for the protection of the government’s own networks, the administration hopes to reverse a growing perception that the penalties for attacks on government, corporate and personal computers have been comparatively trivial. Just in the past few months, companies including the EMC Corporation and Sony have experienced major breaches of security. In some cases, the digital identity information for millions of customers has been stolen. In addition to giving the Department of Homeland Security new authority over federal computer systems, the proposed legislation calls for the agency to work with energy companies, water suppliers and financial institutions to rank the most serious threats and find ways to counter them. The new law would require each business to have an independent commercial auditor assess its plans, and, in the case of financial firms, report those plans to the Security and Exchange Commission. A senior homeland security official, who declined to be identified during a telephone news briefing on Thursday under ground rules set by the administration, said the administration had shied away from a stronger regulatory approach because it believed “it did not have all the answers.” “Nor do we believe that it’s appropriate for the government to say, ‘Thou shall do X, Y and Z’, ” he said. Privacy groups said that the administration’s proposals did not appear to put in place strict enough controls to protect personal information against potential government surveillance. “There should be legal standards, not voluntary guidelines,” said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington policy group. Six major bills addressing computer security have been introduced in the past two years and the administration must now work to get Congress to adopt its language. On Thursday, members of Congress welcomed the administration’s draft while saying that it did not cover as much ground as legislation that has already been proposed. “I commend the president for sending us a package of cyberinitiatives,” said Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York “This is a good step forward, but we must also address the growing international cyberthreat.” | Obama Barack;Computer Security;Law and Legislation;Corporations;Regulation and Deregulation of Industry;Cyberattacks and Cyberwarfare;Homeland Security Department |
ny0072587 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2015/03/23 | Even Losers at Arnold Palmer Invitational See Good Signs for Masters | ORLANDO, Fla. — The golf treadmill was turned up another notch at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and Henrik Stenson was struggling to keep pace. Still, he managed to create enough momentum to carry him to a runner-up finish, and a third consecutive top-five showing, two days later. After the first six holes of his second round at Bay Hill, Stenson was even for the day and losing ground steadily to a lead pack that included the eventual winner, Matt Every. It was hot and humid, perfect conditions to wilt a golfer’s will. At four under par for the tournament, Stenson could have let his concentration lapse, lost a few more shots to par and slipped off the treadmill. He could have spent the weekend with his feet up, in his air-conditioned home a few miles from the course. But Stenson was not just trying to win this tournament; he was grooming his game for next month’s Masters, where he will try for the 10th time to become the first Swede to plant his flag at Augusta National. Winning that tournament requires unbroken concentration and infinite patience. So instead of going through the motions, Stenson treated each shot on the back side Friday as if he were grinding for a green jacket. He finished with six birdies and never stopped pushing. Stenson played his final 48 holes in 14 under, including a two-under 70 on Sunday. Holding a two-stroke lead at the day’s start, Stenson missed a 21-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole that would have forced a playoff with Every, who closed with a 66 for a total of 19-under 269 to secure a spot in the Masters. Every, also the Arnold Palmer Invitational’s 2014 champion, is the third player to repeat here, after Loren Roberts and Tiger Woods, an eight-time winner who missed the event this year because he has taken an indefinite leave from competition. Referring to Woods, Every joked, “I actually told him, Don’t worry, man; I’ll hold it down for you until you get it back.” With his victory last year, Every secured his place on the PGA Tour for two years, but that was not the impetus, he said, for the changes to his swing that he instituted shortly thereafter. “I’m thinking about getting better and winning again, not will I have a job for two more years,” Every said, adding, “I want my good shots to be really good shots, you know, and my bad shots to be what my good shots used to be.” He made strides toward that goal, finding 41 of 56 fairways and 58 greens. Every, who played two groups ahead of Stenson, made three birdies on the back nine, including a 17-footer on 18. Stenson played with Morgan Hoffmann, who was five under after eight holes but struggled down the stretch. Hoffmann carded a 71 to finish fourth at 15 under. The two played in 3 hours 58 minutes and were put on the clock a couple of times for falling out of position. The first time was on the sixth hole, Stenson said, and it happened again on the 15th. He three-putted the next two holes, for a bogey on the 15th and a par on the par-5 16th. He said he rushed on those holes because he was hyperaware that an official was watching with a stopwatch in hand. “I wasn’t in the right frame of mind on a few of those putts, and it cost me,” Stenson said glumly. Despite the loss, Stenson said he felt as if he had gained a lot by playing his way into contention. It is rewarding, he said, to know the grinding that he did Friday paid off in a pressure-filled back nine two days later. “I just tried to refocus, dig a bit deeper,” Stenson said. He added: “I’m trying to get into that mind-set, because you can’t be just average and then all of the sudden try to turn it on when you get to Augusta. You’ve got to try to push yourself to get to be where you want to be with your decision making and routine, patience and all the rest. I’m trying hard, and hopefully I can keep it and make it better going into Augusta, and if I do that, I know I’ll give myself better chances to succeed.” With a win at Augusta, Rory McIlroy would complete a career Grand Slam. But after winning in Dubai in February on the European Tour, McIlroy has broken 70 just once in 10 rounds on the PGA Tour. He closed with a 70 on Sunday to finish tied for 11th at 11-under 277. McIlroy’s next start will be the Masters. Until then, he plans to work on his wedge play and his putting. Sunday’s round included a few misses from inside 6 feet. His concentration was not as keen as it will need to be, but McIlroy did not sound worried. Like Stenson, he saw enough good signs to believe he was headed toward a peak performance at the Masters. “I sort of like that I have some things to work on,” McIlroy said. “If I had played really well the last few weeks, it’s almost like, how do I keep this going? It’s nice to be able to try and build yourself up.” For Every, it was nice to know that his rebuilt swing held up. “I just found a way today,” he said. | Golf;Henrik Stenson;Matt Every;Tiger Woods;Arnold Palmer Invitational;Masters Golf,Masters |
ny0124405 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2012/08/04 | Kim Jong-un of North Korea Calls for Greater Prosperity | SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for building a “prosperous country” in a major policy guideline published on Friday, a day after he told a visiting Chinese delegation that he was focused on “developing the economy and improving people’s livelihoods.” The statements were the latest in a series that Mr. Kim has issued in which he sounded more focused on tackling North Korea ’s moribund economy than his father, Kim Jong-il , who championed a “military-first policy” that lavished resources on the armed services. “Developing the economy and improving livelihoods, so that the Korean people lead happy and civilized lives, is the goal the Workers’ Party is struggling toward,” Mr. Kim said when he met Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, on Thursday, according to China ’s Xinhua news agency. China’s help is crucial to an economic revitalization program that analysts believe Mr. Kim is pursuing, including a reported agreement to allow thousands of North Koreans to work in China on a guest-worker program as a way of building foreign currency reserves. North Korea’s reliance on China has deepened as international sanctions have tightened and outside aid has dwindled after the country’s nuclear and long-range missile tests in recent years. China’s trade with North Korea grew rapidly in the past several years as North Korea bolstered exports, mainly minerals, to China and imported more food and other Chinese goods to make up for losses in trade and aid from countries like South Korea and Japan. For years, Chinese leaders have urged North Korea to follow their route to economic reform. But so far, the country has only dabbled in such experiments. Mr. Wang’s group was the first foreign delegation Mr. Kim had received for formal bilateral talks since he took over the leadership of North Korea after his father’s death in December. Official media in both countries quoted Mr. Kim and Mr. Wang as promising to consolidate their countries’ traditional friendship. Mr. Kim delivered the policy guideline calling for building a prosperous country in a talk he gave to leading officials of the ruling Workers’ Party, according to state media. He gave the speech July 26, but the media carried it Friday. Although Mr. Kim called for “steadfast confidence in justice of the Socialist system and victory of Socialism,” he has recently begun indicating at least some policy shift. Now that his father’s “military-first policy” has turned North Korea into “a world-level military power,” he said recently, the North must now try harder to “improve the livelihoods of the people and build an economically prosperous country.” He has also moved to strip the military of some financial perks, according to a Seoul-based Web site with contacts in the North, in what analysts described as a possible effort to give the cabinet more control of the economy. In the speech published Friday, Mr. Kim suggested a reason for change. “Not long ago, I told you that we must ensure that the people shout hurray for the Workers’ Party all the time and everywhere, not only during large rallies but also in far-flung islands and deep mountain valleys,” he said. “They will do that when we make the country prosperous and people’s lives affluent.” North Korea’s poverty is so deep, and its economy so dysfunctional, that two-thirds of its people are estimated to be suffering from chronic food shortages. While analysts have noted what appeared to be a change in tone from Mr. Kim, some suggest caution in reading too much into it just yet. “Kim Jong-un must promise economic recovery and improvement in the people’s lives to justify his rule,” said Chang Yong-seok, a North Korea specialist at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. “But he still mentions the military-first policy. So it will be too rash to expect that he will replace the military-first policy with an economy-first policy. He most likely means that since the military can stand on its own for now, his country must give urgent attention to the economy.” Mr. Kim’s expression of concern for his people’s welfare in his recent speech is not unusual in North Korean propaganda, and it jibed with his efforts to build his image as a more people-friendly leader. The North’s state-run media recently showed him holding toddlers on his lap and riding a roller coaster at an amusement park, a break from the past when photos of his father focused on formal events like visits with the military. The younger Mr. Kim got an unexpected boost in the past week. His country’s athletes, one of the smallest delegations at the London Olympics , have won four gold medals so far — their best performance since the 1992 Barcelona Games, where they also won four golds. North Korea’s state-run television expanded its Olympics coverage to five hours a day from 15 minutes, South Korean media quoted North Korean sports officials in London as saying. | Kim Jong-un;North Korea;Economic Conditions and Trends;China;Kim Jong Il |
ny0014621 | [
"us"
] | 2013/11/25 | With Extra Anchovies, Deluxe Whale Watching | MONTEREY, Calif. — It began with the anchovies, miles and miles of them, their silvery blue bodies thick in the waters of Monterey Bay. Then the sea lions came, by the thousands, from up and down the California coast, and the pelicans, arriving in one long V-formation after another. Fleets of bottlenose dolphins joined them. But it was the whales that astounded even longtime residents — more than 200 humpbacks lunging, breaching, blowing and tail flapping — and, on a recent weekend, a pod of 19 rowdy orcas that briefly crashed the party, picking off sea lions along the way. “I can’t tell you where to look,” Nancy Black, a marine biologist leading a boat full of whale watchers last week, said as the water in every direction roiled with mammals. “It’s all around.” Image Large numbers of whales have congregated off Monterey Bay to the delight of camera-wielding whale watchers like the ones aboard Nancy Black’s Sea Wolf II. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times For almost three months, Monterey and nearby coastal areas have played host to a mammoth convocation of sea life that scientists here say is unprecedented in their memories, inviting comparisons to African scenes like the wildebeest migration or herds of antelope on the Serengeti. Humpback whales, pelicans and sea lions are all common summer sights off the Monterey coast, with its nutrient-rich waters. But never that anyone remembers have there been this many or have they stayed so long, feeding well into November. “It’s a very strange year,” said Baldo Marinovic, a research biologist with the Institute for Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. What has drawn the animals is a late bloom of anchovies so enormous that continuous, dense blankets of the diminutive fish are visible on depth sounders. The sea lions, sea birds and humpbacks (which eat an average of two tons of fish a day) appear to have hardly made a dent in the population. Last month, so many anchovies crowded into Santa Cruz harbor that the oxygen ran out, leading to a major die-off . Image Sea lions have also been attracted by an enormous late bloom of anchovies. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times Marine researchers are baffled about the reason for the anchovy explosion. “The $64,000 question is why this year?” said Dr. Marinovic, who noted that anchovies had been unusually scarce for the last five or six years and that when they do thrive, they usually appear in the spring and early summer. He and other scientists speculated that a convergence of factors — a milder than usual fall, a strong upwelling of colder water, the cycling of water temperatures in the bay — have created what Dr. Marinovic called “the perfect storm.” “Now they’re all kind of concentrating on the coast,” he said of the anchovies. “They seem to seek out Monterey Bay because the water tends to be a little warmer and the eggs will develop quickly.” The fish, he said, “are providing a feast for all these things that feed on them.” The frenzy has been a boon for whale-watching companies like Monterey Bay Whale Watch , of which Ms. Black is the owner, and for their customers. Image Guests on the Sea Wolf II examined a piece of the filter system in a whale’s mouth. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times In a normal season, passengers are lucky to see one or two humpbacks and a single whale breaching. On the trip last week, more than 60 whales were spotted feeding in the deep water of the canyon offshore, and the breaches were almost too numerous to count — in one case, two whales arced their bodies out of the water in unison, like competitors in an Olympic synchronized swimming event. Foul-smelling whale breath occasionally permeated the air. Ms. Black said that for the first time this year — she has studied whales here since 1986, specializing in orcas — she has seen evidence that the humpbacks are feeding cooperatively with groups of thousands of sea lions. The sea lions dive simultaneously, surfacing a few minutes later. They herd the anchovies into tight balls, called bait balls, and the whales scoop them up, several hundred in a mouthful. Food is plentiful enough that the giant cetaceans — an adult male humpback measures 45 to 50 feet in length, Ms. Black said, and weighs a ton per foot — can afford to take breaks to play. The humpback population off the California coast, once rapidly decreasing, has rebounded with restrictions on hunting, to about 2,000, experts say. Many whales and sea lions have been congregating to feed near the rim of the Monterey Submarine Canyon offshore. Bottlenose dolphins — groups of 100 or more have been spotted this year — feed closer in. In most years, the humpbacks would have departed for Mexico weeks ago and the pelicans flown south. But with the anchovies still in abundance, no one is sure how long they will stay. They could remain through December, scientists said, or depart any day. “I hope it doesn’t end,” Ms. Black said. “But it will.” | Monterey CA;Whales;Anchovies;Fish |
ny0296676 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2016/12/12 | Pep Guardiola: A Continental Success and English Soccer’s Measuring Stick | The criticism itself will neither surprise nor sting Pep Guardiola. He made that perfectly clear months ago, on the day he was presented as Manchester City manager. “I know when it is not going well, you are not going to help us,” he told the assembled news media that day. Guardiola has spent his entire coaching career at clubs where crisis and defeat are synonyms. The pressure cookers of Barcelona and Bayern Munich soon remove any thin skin. “When we play badly, you have to say, ‘Oh, this team played badly,’” he said. Over the last 15 games, Guardiola has heard that more than he would have liked. Manchester City has won just four times since the start of October. Against Leicester City on Saturday, Guardiola’s side allowed three goals inside 20 minutes. His team is now 7 points behind Chelsea, the Premier League’s ever-more-imposing leader. In recent weeks, Manchester City has played poorly more often than not. Guardiola has not especially enjoyed hearing it, of course. His news conferences have become awkwardly staccato, most of his answers preceded by a brief, pointed glare at his inquisitor. He would have expected nothing less, however. “I know this is business,” he said back in July. At times, however, it has not felt like business. In defeat, or even the absence of victory, Guardiola — more than any of his peers — is reproached not just for his professional decisions, his tactics and team selection, but for his personal flaws, too, as if the number of games City loses is directly proportional to the number of character failings its manager possesses. After the defeat at Leicester, for example, Peter Schmeichel, the former Manchester United goalkeeper, declared that Guardiola’s refusal to adapt his tactics to try to combat the reigning Premier League champions marked him as a “very arrogant man.” “That is a man saying: ‘I know best. My way of playing football is the best,’” Schmeichel added. That is not the only accusation that has been leveled at Guardiola during City’s stutter over the last 10 weeks: Intransigence has been featured, as has a supposed tendency to overcomplicate matters, and a perfectionist’s restlessness. For his part, Guardiola admitted after leaving Bayern that he is “arrogant,” though not to the point that he thought he could change German soccer. All of this illustrates just how acidic, how charged, the subject of Guardiola has become. This is not just another of those quibbles and squabbles that sustain the soap opera of the Premier League over the course of a long season; it runs deeper than that. There are few subjects — perhaps José Mourinho apart — more contentious, more keenly felt than the issue of whether Guardiola deserves the lofty reputation that precedes him. That is because, at root, the debate is not actually about Guardiola at all. It is about English soccer’s sense of self. Almost every week since Guardiola arrived, in those news media briefings he finds such a chore, one question has recurred. Now, he is almost waiting for it. He knows, at some point, he will be asked whether the Premier League is the strongest in the world. His answer is not always the same. In the middle of October, he chided the lazy assumption that soccer in Spain and Germany was lacking in intensity. “You have not been there, so you do not know how intense it is,” he said. A couple of weeks later, he seemed to have changed his tune. “Guys, you have to be so proud,” he said, his tone studiously flat. “The Premier League is so difficult.” His reaction to the question is now more consistent. He smiles, fleetingly, when he hears it: It is so familiar that it has almost become comforting. He is also, it is fair to say, just a little bit amused by the fixation; it is, after all, curious that a league so bombastic in its self-promotion should appear to be so desperate for validation. There is, however, a reason for it. Guardiola, in English eyes, is the epitome of Continental sophistication. He has enjoyed unparalleled, almost unbroken, success in the two domestic competitions that might be considered the Premier League’s superiors, in Spain and Germany. He is also — from what he wears to how he thinks — resolutely other. He eschews both the traditional options for Premier League managers on the sideline — tracksuit to convey dynamism, business suit to project authority — in favor, usually, of a turtleneck, skinny jeans and sneakers. On the surface, so below: Many of Guardiola’s principles border on heretical in England. He does not mind that his goalkeeper, Claudio Bravo, is not a wonderful stopper of shots or a fearsome collector of crosses, because Guardiola believes it is more important that he plays a role in starting attacks. “I’m sorry, but until my last day as a coach, I will try to play from my goalkeeper,” he said after a draw with Everton in the middle of this difficult run. Nor does he have much time for England’s obsession with the physical. “I am not a coach for the tackles, so I do not train them,” he said after the defeat at Leicester. In a league and in a country that treasures its reputation for blood and thunder, where, as Xabi Alonso once observed, a tackle can be applauded almost as loudly as a goal, such an out-of-hand dismissal is unthinkable. It is that otherness that makes Guardiola’s presence in England so fascinating, of course; it is also, however, what makes him the subject of such heightened emotions. In part it is because his endorsement is a considerable prize in a public relations battle; if Guardiola, of all people, can be won over by the idea that England’s top division is the most demanding of all, then it would prove beyond doubt that there is substance behind the spin. But it is more than that. If Guardiola struggles — or if he fails outright — at Manchester City, then the myth of English exceptionalism is vindicated. The Premier League can continue to regard itself as a world apart. He will have failed the Rainy Night in Stoke test, the idea that greatness accrued elsewhere in Europe can only ever come with an asterisk until it has been proved when faced with the unique array of challenges on offer in England. If he succeeds, though, then all of that falls away. He has made it plain that he does not intend to compromise his beliefs for his new surroundings. “I won 21 titles in seven years: three titles per year playing in this way,” he said earlier this season. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m not going to change.” This, in essence, is a battle of ideas. Guardiola, in many ways, represents a new way of thinking. Should he thrive, it would not just represent the triumph of his philosophy, but also the failure of so many of the tenets that are central to England’s identity. That is where the vitriol comes from; that is why it has become personal. It is not about Guardiola; it is about us. | Soccer;Josep Guardiola;Coaches;Manchester City Soccer Team;Premier League |
ny0165729 | [
"technology"
] | 2006/09/07 | PlayStation 3 Won’t Reach Europe Till ’07 | Sony said yesterday that it would delay the European introduction of its PlayStation 3 game machine to March from November because of inadequate supplies of a component, missing the critical holiday shopping season. This is the second time that Sony, which competes with Microsoft and Nintendo in the nearly $30 billion video game market, has delayed the sale of its PlayStation console. The company had already delayed the worldwide introduction of the PlayStation 3 to November from spring of this year. The delay means that the PlayStation 3 will fall substantially behind the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the Wii from Nintendo in reaching some markets. Sony still plans to introduce the game console on Nov. 11 in Japan and on Nov. 17 in the United States. | Sony Corp;Computer and Video Games;Europe |
ny0087382 | [
"us"
] | 2015/07/24 | Cincinnati Police Issue Report on Shooting | CINCINNATI — A University of Cincinnati police officer who fatally shot a man he stopped over a missing license plate over the weekend said he was being dragged by the man’s vehicle and had to fire his weapon, according to a police report and the officer’s radio call released Thursday. The officer, Ray Tensing, can be heard on the Sunday call yelling, “Shots fired. Shots fired,” and asking for a medic for a gunshot wound to the head for the driver, Samuel Dubose. “He took off on me,” Officer Tensing says on the call. “I discharged one round.” The authorities said the officer stopped the car, which did not have a front plate, and a struggle ensued after Mr. Dubose, 43, refused to provide a driver’s license or get out of the car. The authorities said the officer fired the shot during the struggle. Mr. Dubose’s death comes amid months of national scrutiny of police dealings with black suspects, especially those killed by officers. Mr. Dubose was black; Officer Tensing is white. The police report released Thursday said Officer Tensing told officers responding to his radio call that he was trying to conduct a traffic stop when “at some point, he began to be dragged by a male black driver who was operating a green Honda Accord.” “Officer Tensing stated that he almost was run over by the driver of the Honda Accord and was forced to shoot the driver with his duty weapon,” the report said. The officer complained of pain to his left arm, and the back of his pants and shirt “looked as if it had been dragged over a rough surface,” the report stated. Mr. Dubose’s family and supporters held a protest outside the office of the Hamilton County prosecutor, Joe Deters, calling for the release of video from the shooting. But Mr. Deters said it would not be released until the investigation was finished. | Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;University of Cincinnati;Cincinnati |
ny0252712 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2011/11/13 | President Obama’s Policy on Deportation Is Unevenly Applied | A new Obama administration policy to avoid deportations of illegal immigrants who are not criminals has been applied very unevenly across the country and has led to vast confusion both in immigrant communities and among agents charged with carrying it out. Since June, when the policy was unveiled, frustrated lawyers and advocates have seen a steady march of deportations of immigrants with no criminal record and with extensive roots in the United States, who seemed to fit the administration’s profile of those who should be allowed to remain. But at the same time, in other cases, immigrants on the brink of expulsion saw their deportations halted at the last minute, sometimes after public protests. In some instances, immigration prosecutors acted, with no prodding from advocates, to abandon deportations of immigrants with strong ties to this country whose only violation was their illegal status. For President Obama , the political stakes in the new policy are high. White House officials have concluded that there is no chance before next year’s presidential election to pass the immigration overhaul that Mr. Obama supports, which would include paths to legal status for illegal immigrants. But immigration authorities have sustained a fast pace of deportations, removing nearly 400,000 foreigners in each of the last three years. With Latino communities taking the brunt of those deportations, Latino voters are increasingly disappointed with Mr. Obama. White House officials hope the new policy will ease some of the pressure on Latinos, by steering enforcement toward gang members and convicts and away from students, soldiers and families of American citizens. In a June 17 memorandum, John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement , laid out more than two dozen factors that its agents and lawyers should weigh when deciding whether to exercise prosecutorial discretion to dismiss a deportation. The memo called for “particular care and consideration” for veterans and active-duty troops, elderly immigrants and minors, and those brought here illegally as children. In August, the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano , announced additional measures to put Mr. Morton’s guidelines into effect, including a review of all deportation cases — about 300,000 — currently in the immigration courts, with the aim of closing cases that do not meet the administration’s priorities. In a report released Wednesday, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council collected 252 cases from lawyers across the country who had asked Mr. Morton’s agency, known as ICE, to exercise prosecutorial discretion to spare immigrants from deportation. “The overwhelming conclusion is that most ICE offices have not changed their practices since the issuance of these new directives,” the report found. “This is a classic example of leadership saying one thing and the rank and file doing another,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the lawyers association. The report found that training for immigration officers on the new guidelines had been lacking. Officials at the Homeland Security Department acknowledge the policy’s slow start. Mr. Morton’s June guidelines were followed by a three-month lull, when resistance grew among agents in the field. In late September, Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Morton went on the offensive to press the policy, and since then Mr. Morton has been on the road inaugurating training programs. “Like any major change in enforcement policy, this is a work in progress,” Mr. Morton said by telephone from Miami, where he was joining in a training session. “I have been handling much of the initial explanation myself, because I feel so strongly about it.” Officials say they need time to transform federal agencies accustomed to cut-and-dried immigration enforcement, with any illegal immigrant a target for deportation. Ms. Napolitano says immigration agents must become more like other police officers, using “sound prosecutorial practice” to follow priorities. Those priorities are to deport convicted criminals, serial violators of immigration law and recent border crossers, officials said. The priorities did not apply for Neida Lavayen, 46, an American citizen in Elizabeth, N.J. After a three-year courtship, she had planned on Sept. 23 to marry Rubén Quinteros, an illegal immigrant from Uruguay. Mr. Quinteros, 43, had come legally to the United States, then stayed past his time limit. But once he and Ms. Lavayen married, he would be eligible for a permanent resident’s green card as the spouse of a citizen. Eight days before the wedding, Mr. Quinteros was arrested by immigration agents. His lawyer, Heather Benno, argued that he should benefit from prosecutorial discretion, since he was days away from resolving his immigration status. He had no criminal record, had paid taxes and had provided vital support for his fiancée, who suffered domestic abuse in her first marriage. Ms. Benno’s motions were denied. Ms. Lavayen found a pastor to marry the couple in the detention center, but immigration agents declined to release Mr. Quinteros for a few hours so he could go with Ms. Lavayen to get the marriage license, since registrars would not issue one without him. They were not able to marry, and Mr. Quinteros was deported Oct. 27. “I never thought I would fall in love again and have dreams again and live such a beautiful romance,” Ms. Lavayen said in a telephone conversation, pausing often to cry. “How did my country take away my happiness?” By contrast, a student from Germany received good news that he had not asked for. Manuel Bartsch, now 24, was brought to the United States when he was 10 years old, then remained without documents. He stuck to his studies and is now nearing graduation from a private university in Ohio. After a legal fight in 2006, the immigration agency suspended Mr. Bartsch’s deportation, said his lawyer, David Leopold. On Nov. 3, the agency surprised Mr. Bartsch by terminating his deportation case entirely. Like others whose deportations are canceled under the new policy, Mr. Bartsch will remain in limbo without any positive immigration status, Mr. Leopold said. But he will be able to apply for a work permit, an identity document that can open many doors. “Hats off to ICE in the field for following the directives,” Mr. Leopold said. Outspoken resistance to the policy has come from Chris Crane, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ union local that represents ICE deportation agents. In testimony last month before the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Crane said that Mr. Morton’s guidelines were too complex and “cannot be effectively applied in the field.” Rather than adding flexibility, Mr. Crane said, the guidelines “take away officers’ discretion and establish a system that mandates that the nation’s most fundamental immigration laws are not enforced.” Still, uncertainty about the policy among agents appeared more widespread than outright rejection did. That was the experience of Shamir Ali, a 24-year-old student born in Bangladesh, who was detained Oct. 19 when the police raided a Miami car rental agency where he worked, looking for someone else. Mr. Ali seemed to fit within the discretion guidelines: he had no criminal record and had been brought by his parents to the United States when he was 7. But immigration agents denied his first requests to be spared from deportation. Then student groups staged protests on Mr. Ali’s behalf in eight cities. On Oct. 28, agents freed Mr. Ali on an order of supervision, also allowing him to apply for a work permit. For Mr. Ali, like Mr. Bartsch, that permit would be life-changing, since it would allow him to obtain a driver’s license and to enroll at resident rates in a state college. Mr. Ali said he felt deeply grateful to the immigration agency. But he wondered: “If I didn’t have all that support, what would have happened to me?” | Immigration and Emigration;Deportation;Illegal Immigrants;Obama Barack;Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US);Morton John;Napolitano Janet;United States Politics and Government |
ny0187152 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2009/04/27 | It’s Still Called PRWeek, but It’s Going Monthly | When the American version of PRWeek was introduced a decade ago, selling a newsletter about public relations each week probably didn’t seem to be such a quixotic goal. Ah, how times have changed. Say it all together now, print media watchers: advertising is dropping and readers are going to the Web. So PRWeek is going monthly. It is now in the embarrassing position of all businesses that choose a too-specific moniker — think of the chef who christens his restaurant “8 Jones” after its street address, only to perplex customers when 8 Jones later moves to 14 Chestnut Street. So may the PRWeek subscribers feel confused when they receive a monthly magazine called PRWeek. “We definitely had a debate about that, but the PRWeek brand is very strong and we’re very attached to it,” said Julia Hood, the publishing director. The new magazine will shrink from the current tabloid format to the size of a regular magazine, and will include 10- to 12-page feature articles, Ms. Hood said, up from the two-page features it runs now. (The June feature is about how public relations executives are faring after corporate budget cutbacks.) The publication will also change its online business, requiring a subscription to read articles, when it once offered them free. The subscription price for American PRWeek, owned by Haymarket Media (it also publishes British, German and Asia-Pacific editions), will stay the same, at $198 a year. “As our traffic has grown, our subscriber base has not, and our subscribers deserve the best content we have,” Ms. Hood said. As for whether the title still fits, Ms. Hood argued that PRWeek was already an inaccurate name, given the publication’s daily Web articles. “PRWeek was, to a certain extent, a bit nostalgic long before this change,” she said. “We might as well have called it PRDaily.” STEPHANIE CLIFFORD | Magazines;Public Relations and Publicity;PRWeek |
ny0149836 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2008/09/06 | U.S. Missiles Killed at Least Six People on Afghanistan-Pakistan Border, Residents Say | ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A missile strike from a remotely piloted United States reconnaissance aircraft killed 6 to 12 people in a group of houses in southern Afghanistan, very close to the border with Pakistan, Pakistani residents of the area said Friday. The strike came after the United States carried out a commando raid by Special Operations forces in South Waziristan in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan on Wednesday. It was the first of what American military officials said could be more raids to attack Taliban insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal region. After the raid on Wednesday, Pakistan lodged a “strong protest” with the American government and said it reserved the right of retaliation. The spokesman for the Pakistani Army, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said the missile strike Friday did not take place on Pakistani territory. “There was no airstrike in Pakistan, or near Miran Shah or in North Waziristan,” General Abbas said. Miran Shah is the capital of North Waziristan, a tribal region in Pakistan that borders Afghanistan. Residents in Miran Shah also said the missile strike on Friday morning hit a target inside Afghanistan, and not inside Pakistan. They said the attack struck two residential compounds in the village of Al Must, less than a mile from the Pakistani border. According to reports from Al Must reaching Miran Shah, 6 to 12 people, including men of Arab descent, were killed, said Ahsan Dawar, a journalist in Miran Shah. Among the dead were two women and three children, Mr. Dawar said. He said three missiles hit the two compounds, which he said belong to two residents of Al Must, Hakeem Khan and Arsala Khan. It is common for families in these areas to rent part of their compound to foreigners, especially Arabs who are involved in planning attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan, residents said. Mr. Dawar said that on Thursday, a pilotless American aircraft struck a large house in another village, Chaar Kehl, about 16 miles west of Miran Shah. In that attack, about 5 p.m. Thursday, seven Arab men were killed, he said. Al Must is on the Afghan side of the border region called Gurwak, which is considered the demarcation line between Pakistan and Afghanistan and is locally known as Ground Zero, Mr. Dawar said. Another local resident, Mahmood Khan, said that pilotless aircraft were seen over Al Must at 9 a.m. Friday. The strikes on Friday appeared to indicate that the United States was forging ahead with a tougher strategy to curb the escalating numbers of Taliban fighters crossing from Pakistan to attack American and NATO soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of American forces in eastern Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon by teleconference on Friday that attacks against allied forces in Afghanistan had increased by 20 to 30 percent in the first eight months of this year, compared with the same period last year. “The people that they’re killing, first and foremost, are innocent civilians, and then Afghan national security forces, predominantly police, Afghan National Army less so, and then the coalition forces even less after that,” General Schloesser said. “They’re going to continue to drive a wedge between our international partners by deliberately causing civilian casualties, as well as attempting to weaken international resolve by targeting our alliance partner nations, their forces here,” he said. The general said attacks on symbols of government authority were up 40 percent over last year, a trend he expected to continue. Top American military commanders have warned Pakistan that they would start attacking Taliban havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas if the increased Taliban infiltration into Afghanistan did not stop. The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, told Parliament on Thursday that the American commando raid into South Waziristan on Wednesday violated national sovereignty and failed to attack militants. No “high value target or known terrorist was among the dead,” he said. “Only innocent civilians, including women and children, have been targeted.” Although the foreign minister used strong language, there was a growing belief that Pakistan was sharing more intelligence with the United States that allowed for more accurate targeting of Arab and other foreign militants who live among civilians in South and North Waziristan. The Pakistani government summoned the American ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, to the foreign office on Thursday and formally complained about the commando raid on Wednesday. The raid by the Special Operations forces, which killed at least 20 people in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan on Friday, was broadly criticized in the Pakistani press. “A go-it-alone strategy by the U.S. inside Pakistan will spell nothing but trouble for everyone,” said an editorial in the Friday edition of Dawn, an English-language newspaper. Reuters reported on Friday that health officials were seeing an outbreak of cholera in refugees in northwest Pakistan. An estimated 300,000 people have fled the fighting in the area, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Pascal Cuttat, an agency official, said Friday at a news briefing: “The most immediate need remains access to clean water and sanitation. No food, health care or shelter is going to be of any good if people get water-borne diseases,” Reuters reported. Three Judges Reinstated ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s Supreme Court has reinstated three judges ousted by former President Pervez Musharraf. The judges — Tassadiq Hussain Jillani, Shakirullah Jan and Syed Jamshed Ali — were sworn back in at a ceremony on Friday. Mr. Musharraf’s purge of the court last year deepened his unpopularity and helped his political foes win in February elections. Mr. Musharraf resigned the presidency under pressure last month. Political divisions remained over the fact that an ousted Supreme Court justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had not been reinstated. | Taliban;United States Armament and Defense;Waziristan (Pakistan);North-West Frontier Province (Pakistan);Pakistan |
ny0188931 | [
"sports",
"othersports"
] | 2009/04/25 | Olympic Champion Wanjiru Leads a New Wave of Marathoners | LONDON — One by one, Sammy Wanjiru left his opponents behind in August as the Olympic marathon snaked around the streets of Beijing, through Tiananmen Square and past Tsinghua University. And when he stormed into the Bird’s Nest for the final quarter-mile, he left decades of the marathon’s common wisdom in his wake, too. At age 21, Wanjiru, a Kenyan running only his third marathon, was about to obliterate an Olympic record three years older than he was. And by lowering that time by nearly three minutes, he shot to the top of a new class that is proving that the 26.2-mile race is no longer the preserve of older runners who build up their bodies through a career in track. “It’s a real change of mentality to not fear the marathon,” said Wanjiru’s manager, Federico Rosa . Until two decades ago, he added, many Kenyan runners even believed that marathons were a cause of infertility. But when Wanjiru approached Rosa in 2006 and told him he wanted to run a marathon, that myth was the furthest thing from his mind. “I said that I just wanted him to let me try,” Wanjiru, now 22, said Friday. Three years later, ahead of the London Marathon on Sunday , he will still just be having a try, but this time it will be for a world record. Wanjiru, who uses his sheer power and relentless speed to keep the field at bay, plans to set off at a breakneck pace and hopes to cross the halfway point in 61 minutes 30 seconds. That would put him on course to finish in 2 hours 3 minutes, 59 seconds better than the record Haile Gebrselassie set in September in Berlin. Right there with Wanjiru will probably be the same runners he shared the podium with at the Olympics, Jaouad Gharib of Morocco and Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia. “Last year Beijing was really fast and I like that pace,” Wanjiru said. “That is how I always prepare to run.” As it was for so many other Kenyan distance runners, the sport was never a choice for Wanjiru. The 10 kilometers between his home and his school in the Rift Valley village of Nyahururu seemed an awfully long way to walk. By the time he reached high school, home would seem even farther. Spotted by a Japanese scout at age 14, Wanjiru received a scholarship to attend Sendai Ikue high school. Kenyan runners were highly sought after to anchor teams that competed in the Japanese distance relay, known as ekiden, in which 10 runners often combine to cover more than 200 kilometers. It was soon clear that Wanjiru’s talent had survived the 6,400-mile trip. Everything else, however, became an instant shock. A diet of rice, fish and ramen was the first sticking point. “I could not get used to the food,” he said. “For me, it was not good. And my family was in Kenya, and I sometimes got the homesickness. It was a very hard life for the first year.” But by Wanjiru’s second year in Japan, having weathered the first harsh winter of his life, things improved — including his language skills. Now, he said, his Japanese is better than his staccato English. Since graduating from high school and being taken under the wing of Rosa, the marathon world’s equivalent of Scott Boras, Wanjiru has returned to Kenya. He splits his time between two coaches, one Japanese and one Italian — an issue that Rosa said would need to be resolved in the long term. “Of course,” Rosa said, “we can’t say that he didn’t train well the last two years because he achieved everything.” Throughout Wanjiru’s meteoric rise, the one opponent he has not yet managed to shake is his fellow Kenyan Martin Lel, 30. In Beijing, a bout of malaria meant that Lel had to settle for fifth place. But last April in London, Lel delivered a devastating kick to snatch the lead and relegate Wanjiru to second place. Best known as a master tactician, Lel has already said that he is prepared to stay with Wanjiru and stalk him until the right moment again. “I’m ready to go with the pace,” said Lel, who has a minor hip injury. “Especially if my friend Wanjiru tries something, I’ll be there.” Although Wanjiru and Lel share a coach, they seldom train together. Based in different sections of Kenya, they have left plenty of room between them for their rivalry to grow and for a bit of civil trash-talking to develop. “This year, I told him I would beat him here,” Wanjiru said of Lel. “He answered, ‘Just try.’ ” It is exactly what Wanjiru has spent his short career doing. | Wanjiru Sammy;Marathon Running;Records and Achievements;Olympic Games (2008);Running;Gebrselassie Haile |
ny0068944 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2014/12/30 | Europe Braces for Economic Fallout as Greece Heads to Early Elections | ATHENS — Governments and investors across Europe braced for renewed economic upheaval on Monday after the Parliament in Greece failed to avert an early general election, reviving the toxic debate over austerity as the way to cure the Continent’s economic woes. Senior European Union officials immediately urged Greek voters — now headed to the polls on Jan. 25 — to focus on continuing the policies that have enabled the country to ride out its previous monetary crisis and remain part of the eurozone, and that have begun to restore the country’s battered reputation for fiscal management. But with household incomes down by a third from what they were before the policies were adopted, and unemployment higher than 25 percent, polls have indicated support for Syriza, a leftist party that opposes the deep budget cuts Greece has made in recent years as a condition of financial bailouts. Syriza has said it wants to renegotiate the two bailouts, worth 240 billion euros, or about $292 billion, obtained from Greek’s so-called troika of lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — since 2010, and get its creditors to write off some of Greece’s crippling debts. Greece’s prime minister, Antonis Samaras, has been working with the lenders on a precautionary credit line next year, but negotiations on a tough economic program have been dragging as opposition to austerity has risen. European leaders immediately began to warn of the possible consequences of a shift in Greek policies. The European Union’s economic commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, warned that a “strong commitment to Europe and broad support among the Greek voters and political leaders for the necessary growth-friendly reform process will be essential for Greece to thrive again within the euro area.” And a top German official warned that continued European aid would be conditional on Greece’s continuing to make major cuts in public services and other changes to control spending. “We will continue to help Greece to help itself on its path of reforms,” Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said in a statement. But he added, “If Greece embarks on a different path, it could be difficult.” The possibility of a new confrontation over the policies of the last decade was set off by Parliament’s failure on Monday to elect a new president in a third and final round of voting. Though the coalition government lobbied furiously for its candidate — Stavros Dimas, a former European commissioner — he received only 168 votes in the 300-seat house, 12 short of the 180 votes required for election. That was the same number he received in the second ballot last week , and eight more than in the first vote on Dec. 17. That set in motion constitutional procedures to hold early elections. Mr. Samaras said he would visit the current president, Karolos Papoulias, on Tuesday and ask him to dissolve Parliament immediately so that an early general election could be held on Jan. 25. “The country has no time to lose,” Mr. Samaras said. “We did what we could to elect a president and avert early elections and the dangers they entail. Now, what Parliament failed to do, the people must do.” Image Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the opposition Syriza party, called it “a historic day for Greek democracy.” Credit Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters The development inspired jubilation among Syriza’s members. After the vote, Alexis Tsipras, the party leader, called it “a historic day for Greek democracy.” “Greek M.P.s showed that democracy cannot be blackmailed, however much pressure is exerted,” he said. “Today the government of Mr. Samaras, which has looted society for the past two and a half years, belongs to the past.” Opinion polls show the leftists firmly ahead of Mr. Samaras’s conservative New Democracy party, although Syriza’s lead has narrowed in recent weeks with growing concerns about protracted political and financial uncertainty. The prospect of more upheaval in Greece and thus in the eurozone has loomed for several weeks, but politicians and markets alike have kept most fears to themselves. The worries are likely to resurface strongly once the New Year’s holiday is over, exacerbating other continental differences over economic policy. Most notably, the European Central Bank faces a dilemma of whether to do more to stimulate Europe’s wilting economy at the same time as bracing for more trouble for the euro. The election outcome battered financial markets in Greece, though the worst of the damage faded as the day wore on. Stocks plunged more than 10 percent on the Athens bourse after the vote, but regained more than half of the lost ground in late trading. The yield on the 10-year government bond, which moves in the opposite direction of the price, spiked nearly one full point to 9.3 percent as investors sold off. But, in keeping with predictions that the eurozone was better equipped to handle Greek turmoil than it was at the start of the currency crisis, there was little impact on the broader market. Both the Euro Stoxx 50 blue-chip index and the euro ended the day almost unchanged. Still, larger ripples may yet be felt in some of the bigger states using the euro if Greece radically alters the policies that have largely been favored by the more prosperous north. “In this period we believe the euro’s second and third largest members — France and Italy — will be the most vulnerable to contagion, rather than Greece’s neighbors in the southern periphery,” Mujtaba Rahman, the director for Europe for Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, wrote in a research note on Monday. France and Italy, wrote Mr. Rahman, “have done the least in terms of reform since the days of the debt crisis and therefore remain the most vulnerable economically.” On the other hand, he wrote, Portugal and Ireland “look stronger as a result” of thoroughgoing reforms and were benefiting economically from lower oil prices and the depreciation in the value of the euro. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a center-right daily, summed up what is likely to be a widespread feeling among politicians in Berlin and bankers in Frankfurt. “Is all that going to start up again?” said the headline on a commentary by the newspaper’s foreign editor, Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger. Greece had seemed to be on a hopeful, if difficult, road to recovery, Mr. Frankenberger said, and “right at the turn of the year, we could have done without this.” | Greece;Europe;Stavros Dimas;Election |
ny0099488 | [
"us"
] | 2015/06/13 | Indianapolis Rallies Around Its Gay Citizens After a Law Sets Off a Flood of Support | INDIANAPOLIS — In a state perhaps best known for its hallowed speedway and lean-to-the-right politics, the pageantry of the past week might have seemed unexpected. On Wednesday, a standing-room-only crowd snacked on rainbow-colored fruit skewers at a forum on transgender issues. On Thursday, men donned blond wigs and high heels at a drag show to raise money for charity. And on Saturday, gay men and women were expected to turn out by the thousands for the annual pride parade and festival. The mayor, a Republican, will serve as grand marshal, and several same-sex couples plan to exchange marriage vows. It was all part of a nine-day pride celebration of Indiana’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population. And it came against a backdrop of events that have suggested that Indiana is not of one mind in its views about sexual orientation as might have been thought. Less than three months ago at the green-domed State Capitol here, the Republican-dominated state legislature passed, and Gov. Mike Pence, a Republican, signed, a religious exceptions law that many believed would allow business owners to refuse service to gay couples on religious grounds. The law, officially called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, was viewed by critics as a license to discriminate. But it set off a furious backlash not only from the gay community but also from corporate interests that pressured lawmakers to clarify that the measure could not be used to justify discrimination. For many of the gay and lesbian Indiana residents gathered here for pride week, the rapid revising of the law marked a turning point, suggesting perhaps a budding tolerance for their community — as well as their growing political clout in this politically conservative state. Image Gay pride flags were flying outside businesses on Massachusetts Avenue in downtown Indianapolis during pride celebrations this week. Credit Aaron P. Bernstein for The New York Times “We hate that we had to go through that,” said Chris Morehead, president of Indy Pride Inc., a local gay rights group that organized this week’s events. “But on the back side of it, we saw support from places we never imagined.” Mr. Morehead said new corporate sponsors signed on for this year’s pride festivities, and many straight people became more vocal in their support for gay rights. Even Mr. Pence, who has said that he abhors discrimination and that the intent of the religious exceptions law was misunderstood, wrote a brief letter welcoming pride week attendees to Indiana. Dr. Eric Doerr, 28, an Indianapolis resident who is gay, said Mr. Pence signing the first version of the law “definitely incited a lot of emotions and motivated more people.” “I wish that could have been done without the legislation,” he said, “but I’m more than happy to see supporters.” Dr. Doerr, a native of Terre Haute, Ind., has a life story that shares common threads with many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people here. He rarely saw same-sex couples when he was growing up, and he did not come out as gay until leaving the state for college. But since moving to Indianapolis, the state’s largest city, Dr. Doerr says he has found a welcoming atmosphere and vibrant gay community. Just days ago, Dr. Doerr and his boyfriend got engaged. ( Same-sex marriage became legal here last year after a federal appeals court struck down Indiana’s ban.) On Wednesday night, more than 100 people crammed into a used book store for the discussion on transgender issues. The store was at the end of Massachusetts Avenue, a center of Indianapolis gay culture, where rainbow flags flutter outside many storefronts. Interest was so high that there were not enough seats, and dozens watched a simulcast at gathering spots across town. After the event, Aundrea Lacy, a transgender woman better known here by her stage name, Tia Mirage Hall, questioned whether a discussion of transgender issues would have found such an audience even five years ago. Image Indianapolis celebrates gay pride this week as businesses publicly declare their support for gay customers, spurred by the state’s religious exceptions law. Credit Aaron P. Bernstein for The New York Times “Indiana is a strict, Republican, old-school, man-woman-children” place, said Ms. Lacy, who has lived in the state her whole life. “Everything that is not of the norm is always not talked about, it’s pushed to the side, and we have to fight for it.” But at least here in Indianapolis, those dynamics have started to change. Mayor Greg Ballard, a Republican, who will serve as grand marshal at the parade on Saturday, spoke out against the religious exceptions law from the start. He warned that it could be seen as discriminatory and hurt local companies’ ability to attract new employees. When the law’s signing prompted threats of economic boycotts, Mr. Ballard condemned the legislation and sought to calm the seas. “There were some major, major conventions who were saying, ‘What’s going on?’ Our board of directors, our sponsors are telling us to pull out,’” Mayor Ballard recalled in a telephone interview Thursday. “We had to work very quickly.” The days after Mr. Pence signed the religious exceptions law are recalled in gay circles here with dread. Vanessa Enos, an Indianapolis resident who is gay, said she contemplated what she would do if she were denied service by a business because of her orientation. “For me, as a white female, I had never been very afraid of being discriminated against in a way that was very outright and vocal,” Mrs. Enos said. But the day the religious exceptions law passed, she said, “I was out to dinner with my wife, and for the first time ever, I was afraid that someone would ask me to leave their restaurant.” But this week, as Indiana residents arrive in the capital for pride week events, she said the feeling has been different than it was a year ago, before gay marriage was legal, and before the outpouring of support after the religious exceptions law passed. “I feel like there is more excitement from people outside the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” Mrs. Enos said. “And I think us as a community, it feels a little more electric.” | Indiana;Gay and Lesbian LGBT;Indianapolis;Freedom of religion;Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage;Transgender,Gender Dysphoria;Discrimination;Mike Pence |
ny0032669 | [
"us"
] | 2013/12/18 | Nebraska: Nuclear Power Plant Allowed to Reopen | A Nebraska nuclear plant that has been idle for nearly three years because of flooding and a series of safety concerns has been cleared to begin operations again. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that the facility, the Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun nuclear plant, is safe to restart. Fort Calhoun, which is on the Missouri River about 20 miles north of Omaha, has been closed since April 2011. | Nuclear energy;Nuclear Regulatory Commission;Nebraska |
ny0270314 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2016/04/01 | Robbie Keane Has Knee Surgery | Robbie Keane, the captain of the Los Angeles Galaxy, will be sidelined for four to six weeks after having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. Keane, the 2014 M.L.S. most valuable player, has two goals in the Galaxy’s first three games this season. | Soccer;Robbie Keane;Los Angeles Galaxy |
ny0268581 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/04/02 | Thousands Could Lose Food Stamps as States Restore Pre-Recession Requirements | WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of people could soon lose food stamps as states reimpose time limits and work requirements that were suspended in recent years because of high unemployment, state officials and advocates for the poor said Friday. Liberal groups said that many unemployed childless adults with low incomes could be cut off, starting this month, as a result of the time limits, which date back to the 1996 welfare law. About 45 million people receive benefits in the food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning research and advocacy group, estimates that 500,000 to a million people will lose benefits this year. The federal Food and Nutrition Service said many adults would need to take steps to meet work requirements or risk losing aid. “Able-bodied adults without dependents are eligible for SNAP for only three months in any three-year period unless they are working or participating in qualifying education and training activities,” said Kevin W. Concannon, the under secretary of agriculture in charge of food assistance programs. During and after the latest recession, which ended in mid-2009, most states qualified for waivers from the time limits. But the time limits will be in effect this year in more than 40 states. In 22 states, the limits are coming back for the first time since the recession. As the economy improves, the Food and Nutrition Service said, many places no longer qualify for time limit waivers. Dorothy Rosenbaum, a food policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that people could be particularly hard hit in Southern and Southeastern states, including Arkansas, Florida and Mississippi. In many states, she said, the time limits took effect in January, and the first people will be cut off this month. Ellen M. Vollinger, the legal director of the Food Research and Action Center, an advocacy group, noted that the poet T.S. Eliot had described April as “the cruelest month,” and for people losing SNAP benefits, she said, that description is appropriate. “Many thousands of jobless adults without dependents will lose all their SNAP benefits even though they are seeking work,” she said. The people at risk of losing food aid are 18 to 49 years old. People under 18 or over 49, pregnant women and people who are medically certified as “unfit for employment,” because of a disability, are generally exempt from the time limits. In 2016, Ms. Rosenbaum said, the three-month time limit will be in effect in areas with about 65 percent of the United States population while the rest of the country can qualify for waivers because of high and persistent unemployment, and officials in those states have requested a continuation of the waivers. By contrast, Ms. Rosenbaum said, the 2015 time limits were in effect in areas with about 30 percent of the country’s population. The Labor Department reported Friday that the national unemployment rate was 5 percent, just half of what it was in late 2009. “Although the overall jobless rate has been slowly falling,” Ms. Rosenbaum said, “other labor market data indicate that many people who want to work still cannot find jobs. Cutting off food assistance does not enable them to find employment or secure more hours of work.” People likely to lose benefits because of the time limits have monthly incomes averaging from $150 to $170 a person, or 17 percent of the official poverty level for individuals, Ms. Rosenbaum said. Congressional aides and food policy experts said they saw no immediate prospect that Congress would step in to extend any relief. In any event, states have discretion over whether to seek a waiver of the time limits, and some have chosen not to do so, even though they could qualify. Mr. Concannon, the federal official, said it was unwise for states to reimpose time limits in places where adults seeking work could not find jobs because of economic conditions. More than a million people received assistance last year in an employment and training program for SNAP recipients. But some states returned federal money to the government, and 21 states did not use any of the federal funds that were available to them in the program, federal officials said. In a recent notice to childless adults subject to the time limits, the Obama administration said, “To keep getting SNAP benefits, you must work halftime or do 80 hours per month of educational or training activities.” Participation in the SNAP program more than doubled from 2003 to 2012. In December of last year, 45.2 million people were receiving SNAP benefits. The number has fallen by 2.6 million since reaching a peak in December 2012. | Food Stamps;US states;Unemployment;Food;Welfare in the US;Center on Budget and Policy Priorities |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.