id
stringlengths 9
9
| categories
sequence | date
stringlengths 10
10
| title
stringlengths 3
232
| abstract
stringlengths 4
42.4k
| keyword
stringlengths 6
360
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ny0150187 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/09/13 | As Financial Empires Shake, City Feels No. 2 on Its Heels | Early last year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Senator Charles E. Schumer sounded the alarm that New York City was in danger of losing its status as the world’s pre-eminent financial hub to London. And that was before one of the biggest investment banks on Wall Street, Bear Stearns , collapsed and a second, Lehman Brothers , teetered on the brink of failure. Now New York City officials and economists are worrying even more about the future of the city’s financial sector. New York City will surely remain a leading center of global finance when the current crisis is over, they say, but its days as the clear leader may be ending. “This is the worst financial-services crisis of our lifetime,” and Wall Street is its epicenter, said Robert N. Sloan, who heads the financial-services executive recruiting practice at Egon Zehnder International in Manhattan. “You have major firms that have imploded or are at risk of imploding. It is a deconstruction — and a reconstruction to follow — of the financial-services industry as we know it.” Many analysts point out that the resources of big financial companies were migrating toward London well before the current crisis. The banks reoriented themselves to capitalize on the rapid growth in Asia, “which left London as really the springboard to conducting business looking east,” Mr. Sloan said. London’s ascendance threatens more than egos and bragging rights. Wall Street is widely regarded as the most important sector of New York’s economy. While it is not the biggest employer, it has provided about one-fourth of all the personal income earned in the city in recent years and about 10 percent of the city’s tax revenue. Lehman Brothers alone could be the source of as much as $100 million in annual income tax in the city, estimated Marcia Van Wagner, a deputy city comptroller. The rivalry became more heated after 2005, when companies making their first sale of stock raised more money in London than in New York. Although that shift may have been only temporary, it spurred American officials to call for regulatory changes to make Wall Street more attractive to foreign companies seeking to raise money. Mayor Bloomberg and Senator Schumer used a study conducted at their direction by McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm, to argue that “if we do nothing within 10 years, while we will remain a leading regional financial center, we will no longer be the financial capital of the world.” In a report issued this week, the World Economic Forum also ranked the United States just barely ahead of Britain in an assessment of global financial development. The report ranked the United States first for the size and efficiency of its banks but second to Britain when it came to investment banks, brokerage firms and other financial companies. Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at New York University who was one of the study’s authors, said the two countries were quite similar in their strengths and weaknesses. Both, he said, are suffering in the current crisis and may deserve even lower marks for financial stability when it is over. “This is a very severe economic and financial crisis where hundreds of banks are going to go bust,” Mr. Roubini said, adding that the damage would not be confined to the United States. “Swiss banks like UBS have lost as much as Citigroup,” he said. Facing its biggest quarterly loss ever, Lehman, one of the six largest firms on Wall Street, said on Wednesday that it would unload many of its assets and shrink significantly. The firm, which employed more than 28,000 people at the start of this year, has lost about 95 percent of its stock-market value in less than two years. Lehman’s throes, coming just half a year after Bear Stearns collapsed suddenly, rattled city officials who already were concerned about the depth and breadth of the damage on Wall Street. This year, banks and brokerage firms have announced 83,000 job cuts worldwide, and most of those were in New York. “There’s going to be a lot of realignment of the financial sector, and this is just the beginning of it,” Ms. Van Wagner said. “We certainly seem to be going in the direction of fewer firms. It could be a smaller industry.” But how much of New York’s loss will be London’s gain — or Hong Kong’s or Dubai’s — is a sensitive topic with the city’s officials and business leaders these days. Foreign investors may shy away from investing in American companies and American markets, said Kathryn S. Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, an association of large employers. She was quick to add that global financial markets were linked and that the big Wall Street firms were also some of the biggest in other countries. “It’s important to remember that Lehman is a London firm as well,” Ms. Wylde said. “This stuff hurts London just like it hurts New York.” It is true that like the United States, Britain is suffering through a housing slump that has hurt its market for mortgages and other forms of debt, but New York firms pioneered and dominated the sales and trading of bundles of risky mortgages. The report Mayor Bloomberg and Senator Schumer released last year cited Wall Street’s dominance of the market for subprime loans as one that European banks could cut into by adopting “U.S.-style” lending practices. Now, that subprime market is often called the sickest segment of the American financial market, and is a major cause of the current crisis. London, on the other hand, has become a much bigger magnet for the sales and trading of various types of derivatives, securities that companies buy or sell to hedge against certain risks, such as fluctuations of interest rates or currencies. Some of those lines of business have remained profitable through the recent bond-market crisis. And that has potentially strengthened London’s hand in its rivalry with New York: Indeed, the biggest Wall Street firms have moved entire derivatives-trading operations to London in the last several years. Still, some city officials were loath to accept that Wall Street’s influence might be diminished by the disappearance or drastic downsizing of some of its most prominent firms, like Lehman. Seth W. Pinsky, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said that city officials would do what they could to help Lehman but that the firm was grappling with some issues that were “outside of the scope and authority of the city government.” He said he was unaware of any discussions between Lehman executives and city or state officials about what might be done to prevent a complete collapse of the firm. (On Friday, Lehman was courting buyers as its stock continued to fall.) Mr. Pinsky said he would not speculate about Lehman’s prospects but added that after past periods of upheaval on Wall Street, new firms had emerged to replace those that did not survive. “New York remains the world’s financial capital, and we think the financial institutions in the city are sufficiently broad and deep that once we emerge from the current environment that New York will still be in the same position,” he said. | Wall Street (NYC);Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc;Economic Conditions and Trends;New York City;Investment Banking;Great Britain;Finances;Bear Stearns Cos |
ny0279208 | [
"science"
] | 2016/11/25 | For Monkeys, Lower Status Affects Immune System | Researchers have long known that social class is one of the most powerful predictors of health, more powerful than genes, smoking, alcohol intake, or other health risks. The lower a person is on the social ladder — as measured by income, education and other markers of relative status — the higher the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, psychiatric disorders and a host of other illnesses. One recent study based on income data from 1.4 billion tax records found that people in the top 1 percent income bracket had life expectancies that were as much as 10 to 15 years longer than those in the bottom 1 percent. But investigators do not know for sure whether lower social status, which often comes with less access to health care, a lack of control over one’s life circumstances and a variety of other stresses, causes people to end up sicker, or whether being less healthy leads to lower social status. And although researchers have speculated how social class might influence health, they still have little evidence for what those mechanisms might be. The answers to these questions are unlikely to come from studies of humans, since human subjects cannot be randomly assigned to a social class or moved up and down the social ladder to see what happens. Nonhuman primates, however, are a different story. In the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science, a team of researchers reports that for 45 female rhesus monkeys , their relative position in the dominance hierarchy altered the functioning of their immune systems, with lower ranked monkeys showing lower levels of some types of disease-fighting cells. The shift in immune system functioning, the researchers found, was mediated by the turning on and off of immune cell genes. And when a monkey moved up or down — artificially manipulated in the study by reorganizing the animals into different groups — the pattern in which the genes were turned on and off changed as well. “There was nothing intrinsic about these females that made them low status versus high status,” said Noah Snyder-Mackler, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University who lead the study. “But how we manipulated their status had pervasive effects on their immune system.” In particular, a lower position in the dominance hierarchy, which exposed a monkey to harassment by higher status animals, was associated with genes responsible for immune cells that produce inflammation. The lower a female monkey’s rank, the more inflammation-related genes were turned on. Cells taken from lower status females in the study were also more likely to show an inflammatory response when they were exposed to a bacterial compound than those from high status monkeys. In humans, chronic inflammation has been associated with chronic stress and is suspected of increasing a person’s risk for illnesses from heart disease to Alzheimer’s. Inflammation is normally the body’s way of trying fight off disease-causing organisms, said Jenny Tung, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke and the study’s senior author. “But inflammation can be there even when it’s not supposed to be,” she said, “and that’s when a weapon that used to fight disease becomes a problem for your own cells.” In the study the monkeys were placed in groups of five for a year, during which they established a firm dominance hierarchy. The groups were then shifted around, and the monkeys established new hierarchies, where their relative positions were higher or lower than before. The new findings add support to the idea that the chronic stress that attends lower status may play a role in predisposing people to illness. In monkeys, “a low ranking individual has to be vigilant in a way that a high ranking individual doesn’t,” Dr. Tung said. In humans, lower social status is often associated with financial pressures, a lack of control over one’s life and other stresses. Interestingly, the researchers noted, grooming by other monkeys seemed to buffer stress for lower status animals. Monkeys that were more frequently groomed were less likely to show an inflammatory response, the study found. “In effect, although the misery of harassment can be inflaming, lacking a shoulder to cry on afterwards is worse,” wrote Robert M. Sapolsky, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford who wrote an editorial accompanying the study . Dr. Sapolsky added that in humans, social rank often shifts depending on context, suggesting that the study’s findings in monkeys might also apply to people. “Think of a mailroom clerk acquiring prestige as the captain of the company softball team,” Dr. Sapolsky wrote. If so, it raises the possibility that people’s vulnerability to illness that accompanies low status might also shift if their social circumstances changed. “I think there’s a really positive social message,” Dr. Snyder-Mackler said. “If we’re able to improve an individual’s environment and social standing, that should be rapidly reflected in their physiology and immune cell function. “ | Monkeys and Apes;Immune system;Science Journal;Medicine and Health;Noah Snyder-Mackler |
ny0114664 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2012/11/09 | Syria Opposition Meets to Seek Unity | DOHA, Qatar — The quarrelsome Syrian opposition was locked in extended bartering here in Doha on Thursday over the creation of a more diverse yet unified umbrella organization that its foreign backers hope will become a credible alternative to the Damascus government. The goal was to create an executive body, including members within Syria and abroad, that could channel aid to nascent local governments in opposition-controlled areas, bolstering their hold over territory wrested from the Syrian government. If the plan works, supporters say, it will help push back against the chaos in which jihadi organizations thrive and persuade foreign governments — particularly a second Obama administration — to get invested more directly in the opposition’s success. “We have to find a way out of the cul-de-sac that we are in,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, a former confidant of President Bashar al-Assad ’s turned opposition activist. “We need to find a solution so that the Syrian opposition can deal with the international community through one executive body, rather than everyone with his own opinion, his own agenda and his own allies.” The meeting in Doha represented a shift in tactics after expectations were not met that the Syrian National Council would become a sort of government in exile. The change was pushed by the United States and Qatar, which have called for Mr. Assad to step down and pledged material support for the rebels. Without a unified opposition, various foreign supporters — Qataris, Saudis, Turks, French, Americans — have fostered different groups, allowing them to survive but without the critical mass needed to create an effective counterweight to the Syrian government. If the opposition needed a reminder of the stakes, Mr. Assad provided one in a rare interview on Thursday, telling the satellite channel Russia Today that he was not leaving the country. “I am not a puppet,” he said in excerpts published on the channel’s Web site. “I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country. I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.” Asked about possible armed intervention, Mr. Assad said he did not expect the West to invade, “but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next.” The price of an invasion “if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can afford,” he said in an excerpt. The station said the full interview would be broadcast Friday. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pronounced the Syrian National Council a failure last month. She said the United States and its partners would help the opposition unite “behind a shared, effective strategy that can resist the regime’s violence and begin to provide for a political transition that can demonstrate, more clearly than has been possible up until now, what the future holds for the Syrian people once the Assad regime is gone.” Members of the Syrian National Council fought back like a fish on a hook, maneuvering to avoid what members feared would be marginalization. Members gathered in Doha this week to introduce changes — including doubling the group’s membership to more than 400, with about 33 percent of members from inside Syria, up from 15 percent. But some attempts to prove its diversity backfired; for example, not a single woman won in the elections for a 40-member secretariat. The main criticism of the council, founded last fall, is that it has failed to attract the support needed to shift the balance of power away from Mr. Assad, instead spending months jockeying over internal positions. The council lacks significant support from Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect, as well as other minorities, tribal elders, religious figures and business groups. “We will not have a vehicle for the future of Syria without those,” said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center, which helped lead the process of reshaping the opposition. “They don’t trust it.” Syrian National Council members argue that they never got the financial or military support needed to attract a wider membership. But the group’s foreign backers calculated that with no end in sight to the fighting that has claimed nearly 40,000 people, by opposition estimates, it was time for a new approach. The longer-term goal is to convince Moscow of a credible alternative to Mr. Assad. Participants here, meanwhile, made no secret of the fact that they want to get Washington more involved. The Obama administration, extracting itself from long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , has been adamant that it would not do more than provide nonlethal aid to the Syrians. David Cameron , the British prime minister, said this week that he would work with the administration to make the opposition more effective. “We are all waiting for Mr. Obama,” Mr. Shaikh said. While the opposition has reached a certain consensus about the need for more unity, they have been bickering about how to achieve it for months. Prodded on Thursday by various officials, including Ahmet Davutoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey , and Nabil Elaraby, the secretary general of the Arab League , about 60 representatives of various factions started talks that were scheduled to last just a day but were extended by at least another day. Participants said much of Thursday was spent on flowery speeches about nationalism rather than addressing unity. But after a marathon session that went past midnight, they said they had made progress, spurred not least by the fact that their Qatari hosts told them they must stay in Doha until they reached an agreement. Mazem Arja, the head of the Revolutionary Council in Idlib, in northern Syria, said that haphazard financing coming from abroad was demoralizing, especially because it was distributed on a political basis rather than for important needs like ambulances. He also noted that the Syrian National Council had appointed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in his 60s as the youth envoy for Idlib. “The guy had not been there for 32 years,” he said. “If you dropped him at the edge of town, I doubt he could find his old house.” | Syria;Military;Bashar al-Assad;Arab Spring |
ny0039620 | [
"us"
] | 2014/04/26 | Infertility, Endured Through a Prism of Race | WASHINGTON — Like many single women, Heather Lawson hoped she would meet the right man with enough time to get married and have a child. But a failed relationship at 38 changed her plans, and Ms. Lawson realized that if she wanted to be a mother, she might have to explore other options. It has not been an easy process. Over the past two and a half years, Ms. Lawson, a lawyer, has spent about $20,000 on several rounds of intrauterine insemination and associated costs to try to conceive a child on her own. A pregnancy at age 40 resulted in a miscarriage after eight weeks. While finding a partner has been a challenge, Ms. Lawson, now 42, said she had never expected the biological process of having a child to be so difficult. “In families of color, there’s an assumption that when you want to get pregnant, you get pregnant,” she said. “There’s a lot of finger-pointing that women of color feel when we’ve gotten to a certain age and we haven’t had children.” Adding to the pressure, Ms. Lawson, who is black, noticed something as she visited fertility clinics. “Nine times out of 10, I am the only person that looks like me,” she said. “And these offices are packed.” Women who have used fertility services are likely to be married, white and older, with higher levels of income and education. Fifteen percent of white women ages 25 to 44 in the United States have sought medical help to get pregnant, compared with 7.6 percent of Hispanic women and 8 percent of black women, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services and from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is despite the fact that married black women face infertility more often than married white women. According to the National Survey of Family Growth , conducted from 2006 to 2010 by the National Center for Health Statistics, married black women had almost twice the odds of infertility. In the past, this was a topic that black and Hispanic women tended to avoid. But increasingly, they are reaching out to medical professionals and to one another to deal with a problem that is wrenching for any woman, but complicated for them by cultural as well as medical issues. Image Heather Lawson, 42, center, is trying to conceive through intrauterine insemination and helped start the Washington chapter of Fertility for Colored Girls. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times Regina Townsend, who writes about her experience with infertility at thebrokenbrownegg.org , said she created her blog to address the specific fertility-related issues that women in minority groups face. “With women of color, specifically Hispanic and African-American women, the stigma attached to us is that it’s not hard to have kids, and that we have a lot of kids,” she said. “And when you’re the one that can’t, you feel like, ‘I’ve failed.' ” Experts say part of the disparity in who seeks treatment has to do with paying for procedures that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Dr. Camille T. C. Hammond, chief executive of the Tinina Q. Cade Foundation , which provides grants to people struggling with infertility, said poor white women faced some of the same issues as poor minority women. And while the foundation has given grants to blacks, Hispanics and Asians, she said, a majority of applicants and recipients have been white. Dr. Hammond attributed that to a “knowledge gap” that black women in particular have about infertility options. “It’s not just family building — it’s knowing how to go about paying for it, where to get support,” she said. “It’s a lack of information across the board.” Even in states where infertility treatments are covered by insurance, black women seek them out less, said Dr. Frank E. Chang, a senior physician at Shady Grove Fertility Center in Rockville, Md. Both medical and cultural issues play a role. Dr. Mark V. Sauer, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Columbia University Medical Center, said that black women were more commonly affected by fibroids — benign tumors in or around the uterus that can play a role in infertility — and that their fibroids tended to be larger and more persistent than white women’s. Dr. David B. Seifer, co-director of Genesis Fertility and Reproductive Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center and a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University, said fibroids were just one of various “cultural issues, biological issues and social issues” black women face that can affect their fertility. He said black women often waited longer to seek a diagnosis of or treatment for infertility, which “gives all of these other biological factors more time to become more severe.” Increasingly, minority women are trying to raise awareness. Shelynda Brown, 40, is a vice president at a nonprofit affordable housing developer in Washington who, along with her husband, has spent $62,000 trying to have a baby. She and Ms. Lawson have found solace, in part, by helping to start a local chapter of Fertility for Colored Girls , a support group that recently expanded from Chicago to Washington and Virginia. “Fertility is the new mental health issue for black communities,” Ms. Lawson said. “It’s something that is there, but we don’t talk about it.” Image Information packets were available at the chapter’s first meeting in February. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times Doctors, it appears, are not talking to black women enough about it, either. “This discussion about reproductive options, in women who don’t have partners especially, is not coming up at the annual visit to the gynecologist,” said Dr. Nataki C. Douglas, an assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Columbia University Medical Center, who is black. Often, Dr. Douglas said, the conversations black women have with their gynecologists focus more on sexually transmitted diseases and birth control than on reproductive options. That issue is even more acute with low-income women of color, Dr. Sauer said. Cariesha Tate Singleton, 33, who recently lost her $21,000-a-year job and lives in a low-income neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, has been married for seven months. Her husband, a taxi driver, makes about $30,000. Ms. Singleton, who also lost her insurance when she lost her job, has often relied on public health clinics, including for gynecological exams. When she found out at age 17 that she had fibroids, she said, she was not given much information about how to deal with them or about the impact they could have when she wanted to have children. Since then, she has struggled to get advice from doctors. Mainly, she said, they tell her to take birth control pills, with the expectation that the pills will regulate her menstrual cycle and perhaps stimulate her hormones, or to lose weight, a common recommendation from doctors who say obesity harms fertility. Ms. Singleton, who is 5-foot-10 and weighs 227 pounds, said black women faced a stereotype of being “baby-producing machines.” Doctors at public clinics, she said, “see so many patients that are coming because they are pregnant, maybe they don’t feel like dealing with another person who is pregnant.” She said she had also tried without success to get a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist. Part of the problem, said Arthur L. Greil, a sociologist at Alfred University in western New York who has studied infertility and women of color, is that middle-class white women tend to have the confidence and connections to navigate the health care system better than less affluent minority women. Religious beliefs can also affect the way black women, in particular, think about fertility. “Sometimes we use the language that ‘God is going to allow it to happen,' ” said the Rev. Stacey L. Edwards-Dunn, the founder and president of Fertility for Colored Girls. “They believe God has cursed them because they can’t have a child.” For Ms. Townsend, the blogger, getting more minority women to talk about infertility is an important step toward demystifying the issue. “I think things will turn around for women of color once we start being honest about how we feel,” she said. “This is not a rich white woman thing.” | Infertility;Minorities;Black People,African-Americans;Women and Girls;National Center for Health Statistics;Health Insurance |
ny0288556 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/08/24 | Rodrigo Duterte’s Police Chief Blames Suspects for Toll in Philippine Drug War | MANILA — The soaring number of killings by the police in the Philippines is being caused by drug suspects who choose to battle officers instead of surrendering, the nation’s top police official told lawmakers on Tuesday. “If they did not fight it out with police, they would be alive,” said the national police chief, Ronald dela Rosa , who is heading the country’s deadly antidrug war. He said the number of deaths since the campaign began on July 1 had jumped to 1,916 — 137 more than the figure he gave senators on Monday, the first of two days of hearings devoted to the killings. He said on Tuesday that reports of killings came in daily from police units around the country. “As I was presenting yesterday,” he said, “there were people killed.” Of the total dead, he said, 756 were suspects killed by the police and 1,160 were killed “outside police operations,” many of them by vigilantes. Eighty bodies have been found with cardboard signs proclaiming them to be drug dealers, he said. Not all the killings were drug-related, he said, and the police are investigating. The campaign to eradicate drugs, mainly methamphetamine, was started by the Philippines’ new president, Rodrigo Duterte , who has made going after drug dealers and users his highest priority since taking office on June 30. He has repeatedly called for eliminating drug sellers and addicts, and gave the police shoot-to-kill orders when facing suspects who resist. The president’s campaign against drugs has broad public support, and Chief dela Rosa said members of the public were pleased by what he asserted was an immediate reduction in all categories of crime once the police effort began. The wave of killings, however, has come under attack from human rights advocates and some elected officials who contend that those accused of a crime should have a chance to defend themselves in court, not be gunned down in the street. In addition, some family members of victims have challenged the police version of events and say their loved ones were not resisting arrest when they were killed. The two days of hearings on the killings were held by the Senate’s Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs. The Human Rights Committee has identified witnesses and relatives in at least 11 suspected wrongful killings, but most of them were not called to testify. Image The national police chief, Ronald dela Rosa, center, who is heading the Philippines’ antidrug war, at the wake of a fallen police officer in Antipolo City. Credit Leonito Navales/Philippine National Police, via European Pressphoto Agency One senator, Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief, said the antidrug campaign was both “impressive and alarming,” and he asked whether the police were following standard operating procedures. Chief dela Rosa called the drug eradication program “a total war” but said the police were following established procedures. Officers have not been ordered to kill drug dealers, he said, but have become more aggressive because they know they have Mr. Duterte’s support. “We are not butchers,” he said. Before becoming president, Mr. Duterte was mayor of Davao City , where a similar wave of killings starting in the 1980s reduced drug dealing and other crime. Chief dela Rosa was the police chief in Davao, the Philippines’ largest city outside metropolitan Manila, before Mr. Duterte named him to head the national police. The police also are trying to eradicate drugs and criminal behavior within their own ranks, the chief told the senators. Eleven rogue police officers have been killed in police operations, 130 officers have tested positive for drug use and 20 have been arrested, he said. Fatalities outside police operations in the recent spate of deaths have included two police officers, eight soldiers, 29 elected officials and 10 government employees, he said. The deaths are under investigation. Lawmakers heard testimony on Monday from Mary Rose Aquino, who said her parents were police informers and were killed by corrupt officers who took drugs for themselves and feared being identified. On Tuesday, Chief dela Rosa said he had suspended five officers connected with that case, pending an investigation. Lawmakers also heard on Monday from Harra Kazuo, whose husband, Jaypee Bertes, and his father, Renato Bertes, were killed by officers inside a jail cell at the Pasay City police station. The chief said on Tuesday that the two officers involved would face murder charges. “It pains us to file a murder case against them,” he said. “Otherwise, people will say we are covering up for them.” During a news conference on Sunday in Davao City, Mr. Duterte responded to criticism about his human rights record from American officials by citing police shootings of black men in the United States. “Why are you Americans killing the black people there, shooting them down when they are already on the ground?” he asked. “Answer that question, because even if it’s just one or two or three, it is still human rights violations.” Mark Toner, a spokesman for the State Department, said the United States was “by no means perfect, but we strive to have in place a justice system that treats all people with respect and respects their human rights.” | Rodrigo Duterte;Philippines;Drug Abuse;Targeted Killings;Murders and Homicides;Crime;Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings;Police |
ny0263669 | [
"technology"
] | 2011/12/26 | For Start-Ups, Sorting the Data Cloud Is the Next Big Thing | SAN FRANCISCO — The idea of big data goes something like this: In a world of ever-increasing digital connectivity, ever larger mountains of data are produced by our cellphones, computers, digital cameras, RFID readers, smart meters and GPS devices. The huge quantity of data becomes unwieldy and difficult for companies and governments to manage and understand. “My smartphone produces a huge amount of data, my car produces ridiculous amounts of really valuable data, my house is throwing off data, everything is making data,” said Erik Swan, 47, co-founder of Splunk, a San Francisco-based start-up whose software indexes vast quantities of machine-generated data into searchable links. Companies search those links, as one searches Google, to analyze customer behavior in real time. Splunk is among a crop of enterprise software start-up companies that analyze big data and are establishing themselves in territory long controlled by giant business-technology vendors like Oracle and I.B.M. Founded in 2004, before the term “big data” had worked its way into the vocabulary of Silicon Valley, Splunk now has some 3,200 customers in more than 75 countries, including more than half the Fortune 100 companies. Customers include the online gaming company Zynga, the maker of FarmVille and Mafia Wars, which uses the software monitor game function to determine where players get stuck or quit playing, allowing Zynga to tweak games in real time to retain players. Macy’s uses Splunk’s software to observe its Web traffic in order to avoid costly down times, particularly during peak holiday shopping. Edmunds, an automotive research Web site, started using Splunk to troubleshoot its information technology infrastructure and now uses the software to analyze all its customers’ online actions. Hundreds of government agencies use Splunk to monitor suspicious activity on secure sites, and a Japanese tsunami relief organization used it to track aid and monitor road and weather conditions. The amount of data being generated globally increases by 40 percent a year, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, the consulting firm’s research arm. And while Splunk has a lead in selling software to analyze machine data, big data is big enough to create new opportunities for a multitude of start-ups, many of them using the open-source software Hadoop. “ Venture capital is absolutely foaming at the mouth over big data,” said Peter Goldmacher, an analyst and managing director at Cowen & Company. “The volume of data being created now is not 10 times bigger, it is like a thousand times bigger.” While skyrocketing valuations for social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook have kept Silicon Valley investors betting heavily on the next social start-up, investors are increasingly looking at companies that build software for other companies. Worldwide revenue from enterprise software reached $244 billion in 2010, according to the research firm Gartner. Splunk is seen by some investors as proof that a wily start-up can chip away at some of that market. “For a while there, people felt like everything that needed to be solved had been solved and that big companies would inevitably find all of the white space in enterprise,” said David Hornik, an investor at August Capital, which invested $3 million in Splunk in 2004. “Splunk is really the poster child for thinking differently about an enterprise challenge and creating a platform that ends up really being disruptive and valuable.” The start-up got a total of $40 million in venture capital at that time from August Capital, Ignition Partners, JK&B Capital and Sevin Rosen Funds. From the start, Splunk’s founders — Mr. Swan and Rob Das, 52, who is the company’s chief architect — set out to shake up what they saw as the stodgy, top-down world of enterprise software. “Big software is sold on the golf course, not sold to the people who actually use it,” said Mr. Das. Instead of aiming at the golf-playing chief information officer, the company took a quirky name that sounded like “spelunking” and zeroed in on the culture and tastes of everyday I.T. employees, the ones who actually had to use, and program around, enterprise software. In 2005, when Splunk unveiled the first version of its software at the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, its booth was in an obscure corner, hidden by “rows and rows of vendors plastered with stock art of guys in suits and ties,” remembered Mr. Das. Nothing about enterprise software seemed hip or even vaguely playful, said Mr. Das, who spent more than a decade working in I.T. at companies like Lotus and Sun Microsystems. “We wanted to make enterprise software cool again.” So they decorated Splunk’s booth in all black and gave away T-shirts that said, “Take the SH out of IT.” “People were stacked up 10 deep,” said Mr. Swan. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a T-shirt. “Our customers, especially at the start, were I.T. people,” said Mr. Swan, who had worked at Apple and Disney Online, before becoming a co-founder of Splunk. “We’re talking about the guys in the basement, the guys in kilts and Mohawks. Those are our people.” The company says it has been profitable for two years, and though executives will not comment on its exact plans to go public, Mr. Swan says, “We will be the first one to get shot out of this big data thing like LinkedIn got shot out of the social media space first.” In another sign of an impending initial public offering, in 2008, the company hired Godfrey Sullivan, formerly of enterprise software companies like Hyperion, as its chief executive. “There is a lot of money chasing this new world of unstructured data,” said Mr. Sullivan. “I would call Splunk the first mover in big data because we have been at this for years now.” | Splunk Inc;Start-ups;Computers and the Internet;Swan Erik;Enterprise Computing;Entrepreneurship;Cloud Computing |
ny0152055 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2008/08/30 | Fabled Bar Will Reopen Soon, but ‘Soon’ Keeps Being Pushed Back | It began as a substantial but straightforward building repair job. It dragged on as another problem turned up, and then another and another. All the while the architects and engineers scrambled to come up with solutions, directing the contractors to put new floor joists here, a new wall there, a new foundation out front. A complicated cast of characters watched and waited and gave approvals: a landlord, the man who bought the lease on the storied bar in the building, and the two firefighters who started as part-time bartenders and say they ended up as partners with him. That is where things stand at Chumley’s, the famed bar on Bedford Street that was a speakeasy during Prohibition and, more recently, a beery place that was clean enough but never well lighted. It was a hangout for writers like Ernest Hemingway and E. E. Cummings and a coming-of-age destination for generations of New York University students. It was, and is, a destination for tourists whose guidebooks tell of its secret passageways and its back-alley entrances. Once, the tourists wondered if they were in the right place, because Chumley’s never had a sign out front. Now they wonder because, despite what their guidebooks say, Chumley’s is closed. There has been no bar to belly up to since a wall collapsed in April 2007. After the collapse, Chumley’s owners said the taps would be open again — soon. They said the booths and tables and the photographs that had lined the walls, all removed and carefully packed up after the collapse, would be back in place — soon. But weeks went by, and then months. Now some Chumley’s regulars walk down the leafy block on Bedford Street and see that construction-zone signs are still posted outside. They notice the new wall at the front of the building and the workers in hard hats inside. They wonder how long it will take Chumley’s to reopen and, by the way, how long it will take for that unforgettable stale-beer smell to come back, or if it ever will. “It’s been a little bit like peeling a bad onion,” said Jim Miller, one of the firefighter-partners. “Every three months, we thought we were three months out, but as they moved around the building, they encountered problems.” The landlord, Margaret Streicker Porres, chose simple words that anyone who has ever been sucked into a renovation-from-hell could surely echo: “This has been an unfolding process.” She said the most recent timetable called for the work to be completed in “midfall of this year.” But the contractors discovered still more problems earlier this month, and she said the architects and engineers had been conferring with the Buildings Department. Mr. Miller said he now hoped Chumley’s would reopen early next spring — “or, if we’re lucky, late winter.” “They were always going to put up a new facade,” he said, standing across Bedford Street, looking at the new front wall. The old facade “was always in bad enough disrepair that it needed to go down and come back up.” But far more work turned out to be necessary, including a new roof and a second wall. “When you step back and realize the problems that they’ve encountered — look, I don’t do this for a living, all I can do is tell you it’s been explained to us every step of the way and we’ve never had cause to doubt,” Mr. Miller said. “If somebody takes you up to a wall and says, ‘Look, you can put your hand through it,’ you just take what they’re saying and accept it.” There was also asbestos that had to be removed, Ms. Streicker Porres said, and a part of the basement that that had to be rebuilt. The foundation in the front, below the new facade, had to be replaced. And that was just in the front of the building. Ms. Streicker Porres said structural integrity had turned out to be a problem in the middle and the rear sections. “The conditions there are as bad or worse than what happened in the front of the building,” she said. She said her engineers had given Buildings Department officials information on structural tests of the middle and rear parts of the building. A spokeswoman for the department, Kate Lindquist, said that permits were issued last November for the building’s reconstruction. “It was in rough shape,” she said, “but the owner has a team in place, and they’re working and we’re working to make sure it’s done safely.” But that only means more waiting for Mr. Miller and the other firefighters from Engine 24 and Ladder 5 of Battalion 2 on the Avenue of the Americas at West Houston Street. They arrived in 1994, not long after three men from the company were trapped in a burning apartment at 62 Watts Street. One died in the flames. Another died the next day. The third, Capt. John J. Drennan, died after nearly six weeks in a hospital burn unit. Captain Drennan had been an off-duty regular at Chumley’s, Mr. Miller said, and had been close to Steve Shlopak, who he said had taken over the bar in the 1980s. “We grew close to Chumley’s,” Mr. Miller said, “and Steve asked a few guys to come by and cover some bartending shifts while he moved some personnel around and filled some holes. We said sure, it sounds like fun.” At first, a handful of firefighters moonlighted as bartenders. In time, the roster grew to as many as 10. “We filled the holes” in Chumley’s schedule, Mr. Miller said, “and we found a home there, and we never left.” Mr. Miller said he did the scheduling himself, figuring out which firefighters would be off duty when Chumley’s needed someone. One of them was Firefighter Robert Beddia, whom Mr. Miller called “the original happy fireman-bartender at Chumley’s.” Firefighter Beddia spent more than 20 years at Engine 24 and Ladder 5 and was one of two firefighters from the company killed in the fire at the former Deutsche Bank building a year ago. Chumley’s is a 10-minute walk from the firehouse. Mr. Miller went by the other day and said that from the look of things, much work remained to be done. “The chef, he’s here 47 years; he calls me weekly: ‘When do you need me to come back?’ ” he said. “Everyone’s anxious to come back to work, but the public’s more anxious than we are.” | Chumley’s (NYC);Bars;Building (Construction);Manhattan (NYC) |
ny0137072 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/05/11 | Musical Goes Silent, Its Star Felled by Illness | RUTH WILLIAMSON could tell something was wrong. On Friday night, May 2, when she went onstage at the Emelin Theater for the second performance of “Pure Heaven: A Party With Kay Thompson,” she said, she felt definite problems with her voice. “It was very difficult to hit the notes that are normally not so difficult to hit,” she said in a telephone interview four days later. “I knew I was in trouble.” When she woke up on Saturday morning she had “no voice at all,” she recalled. The weekend’s performances were canceled. Two days later Ms. Williamson had a diagnosis (a virus that had spread to her vocal cords and caused some nerve damage) and a prescription (six weeks of rest for her voice, followed by work with a vocal therapist) and the Emelin had made a decision. The world premiere run of “Pure Heaven,” which was to have continued through May 18, would be cut very short. It would, however, be rescheduled for November 6 to 23, ideally with Ms. Williamson in the leading role, which she wrote for herself. Meanwhile Michael Bush, the Emelin’s artistic director, had to meet with the theater’s board chairman, look for and rehearse a possible understudy, tell the cast the bad news, see what could be done about the subscription brochure that was going into print, head for New Rochelle, where the sets and costumes would be put in storage, and of course arrange for ticket refunds. He would not put a figure on the financial loss, which he likes to consider “deferred income.” “I’ve been in the theater 30 years,” Mr. Bush said on Tuesday, “and you think you’ve seen everything and then this happens.” The cast took the news well, at least on the surface. “Their reaction was all concern for her,” Mr. Bush said, referring to Ms. Williamson, who left on Thursday to recuperate at her home in Los Angeles. “They were happy to hear that I was going to continue. I made them all offers on the spot.” As for the understudy, that sort of luxury is generally for Broadway, Off Broadway and their equivalents in other big cities. “You’re not required to put on an understudy, and regional theaters can’t afford them, but I was trying to save the show,” Mr. Bush said. He also mentioned that he was looking into having a standby next time for this particular part “from the get-go.” “It’s just a gargantuan role,” he said. “At one time we had 6 musical numbers; now there’s 12. She’s onstage for an hour and 40 minutes.” Playing Thompson means introducing her to many audience members, who either have never heard her name or know her only as the author of the “Eloise” books, about a spoiled little rich girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel. Thompson, who died in 1998, was also known for one of her few screen appearances, as the daunting fashion-magazine editor who decrees “think pink” in the 1957 film “Funny Face.” Thompson was also MGM’s music arranger, doing 1940s movies like “Ziegfeld Follies,” “Broadway Rhythm,” “Good News” and “The Harvey Girls.” She was Lena Horne’s and Judy Garland’s vocal coach. She was Liza Minnelli’s godmother. Then she got sick of show business and ran away to Rome. But Thompson’s glamour and sophistication aren’t the only reasons Mr. Bush is so attached to “Pure Heaven.” Beyond being the theater’s artistic head and the show’s director, he has a longtime emotional investment. He and Ms. Williamson met 11 years ago, when he was associate artistic director of Manhattan Theater Club and she was appearing in one of its Off Broadway productions, Charles Busch’s comic musical “The Green Heart.” Reviewing the show in The New York Times, Ben Brantley described Ms. Williamson’s character as “a sinister housekeeper who suggests Mrs. Danvers (of ‘Rebecca’) as played by Kay Thompson (of ‘Funny Face’).” Ms. Williamson recalled what happened next. “My phone started ringing,” she said. “My friends started saying: ‘That’s a great idea. You should do a show about Kay Thompson.’ ” And so she did. It took considerable research and about a year to write the first draft, she remembered. “About five or six drafts later,” she said, her voice cracking a bit after 10 minutes or so of answering questions, “I gave it to Michael Bush.” In 2005 they did readings of an early version of the show at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn. Three years later the Emelin production of the show’s newest incarnation was ready to go. And then it wasn’t. “It was like seeing a beautiful crystal goblet fall from your hands,” Mr. Bush said of his first reaction to the news. But as the days passed, he became more philosophical. Now he chooses to think of recent events as “a glorious out-of-town tryout that lasted for two days.” | Theater;Williamson Ruth;Emelin Theater |
ny0056743 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/09/19 | New York City ID Cards Coming With Cultural Benefits | The municipal identification cards that New York plans to start issuing next year in an effort to make life easier for undocumented immigrants will come with an added benefit so enticing that many others may sign up for them too: an offer of free tickets or discounts at 33 of the city’s leading cultural institutions. Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall; the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden; the American Museum of Natural History, the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and many others will offer a variety of perks — most of them equivalent to a basic one-year membership — to holders of the new ID cards, which are expected to be made available to any city resident over age 14, regardless of their legal status. The incentives are meant, in part, to encourage cultural activity among immigrants and other New Yorkers who may feel they cannot afford to visit the symphony or ballet. That anyone can sign up is by design: The de Blasio administration clearly hopes the cards will be embraced by a wide swath of residents, reducing any potential stigma they may carry. Among the deals are a one-year membership at the Bronx Zoo (a $79 value), $5 off the price of a movie ticket at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and discounted admission to plays at the Public Theater. For food lovers, there is a 10 percent discount at M. Wells Dinette, the quirky culinary outpost at MoMA PS 1 in Long Island City, Queens. But the fine print includes many caveats. The City Ballet, for instance, is offering access to rehearsals and seminars, but not to regular performances. Some of the museums offering no-cost admission, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are already technically free. And some of the city’s higher-priced sites, like the Museum of Modern Art, the Neue Galerie and the Whitney Museum of American Art, are not part of the initial group of participating institutions, all of which operate in city-owned buildings or on city-owned land. Still, the benefits are likely to attract working- and middle-class New Yorkers who might not otherwise have considered signing up for an additional form of identification, which is just what occurred in San Francisco when it offered similar discounts to local attractions as part of its municipal ID program. The possibility that thousands of residents might rush to take advantage of the programs initially caused concern among some museum directors, who are keenly sensitive to their institutions’ financial needs. That reluctance seems to have eased, at least judging by the feel-good attitude during a news conference at the Bronx Zoo on Thursday, where Mayor Bill de Blasio and leaders of several of the participating cultural institutions congratulated one another on the program’s creation. “We’re looking at this as an investment in the future,” said Arnold L. Lehman, the director of the Brooklyn Museum, who has acted as a key liaison between the de Blasio administration and the city’s museums. “There was talk about what this will cost to individual members and potential lost revenue,” Mr. Lehman added. “But everybody came together around the idea that this is about the future. It really broadens the base.” Current plans call for the memberships to last a year, and museums hope that those taking advantage of the program will be willing to pay for a renewal. New Yorkers who already have an active membership at a museum will not be eligible for the discounts offered there, and neither will those whose memberships lapsed after Jan. 1, 2012. “In the long run, it’s going to be a proposition that could actually improve the membership quantities at these institutions,” said Tom Finkelpearl, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs, when asked at the news conference if institutions could afford to provide the benefits. The question, and Mr. Finkelpearl’s financially focused reply, stirred something in Mr. de Blasio, who quickly took back the microphone and dismissed concerns about what he deemed “narrow economics.” “I think we have to remember what these institutions are here for,” the mayor said, adding, “From my point of view, this is about the mission to expose this entire city to our cultural assets.” The exchange summed up the current dynamic between Mr. de Blasio and some of New York’s major cultural institutions, which rely in part on the city’s largess to receive public funds. Some museum leaders, accustomed to the friendly tone of the previous mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg — himself a lavish benefactor to many of the same institutions — have taken pains to develop a relationship with Mr. de Blasio, whose populist campaign rhetoric left them uneasy. The municipal identification program, and the event on Thursday, offered those cultural leaders a chance to show they could be active partners in Mr. de Blasio’s focus on fighting social inequality. “The value for all of us, as the mayor says, is in our accessibility, and maximizing our accessibility for those people who have not have crossed our thresholds,” said Emily K. Rafferty, the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “For us, we look at it as an expansion of our audiences, which is something that is a core part of all of our missions.” | ID;NYC;The arts;Bill de Blasio;Museum;Bronx Zoo;Metropolitan Museum of Art;Lincoln Center;New York Botanical Garden;Tom Finkelpearl |
ny0226129 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/10/21 | Afghan Election Panel Praised in Spite of Tainted Voting | KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite rampant fraud in the parliamentary elections last month, whose preliminary results were announced Wednesday, the Afghan Independent Election Commission appears to have tried to do an honest job of counting the ballots, an effort that was lauded by the United Nations and even by some losing candidates. The voting itself, however, was so tainted — by ballot-box stuffing and armed intimidation of voters, among other tactics — that many candidates are appealing the vote totals to a second electoral body, and in some cases a political solution may have to be found to deal with the inequities. In one province with many Pashtuns, not one was elected to the Parliament because Pashtun-dominated areas were so insecure that people were afraid to vote. “The number of votes invalidated and identified by the I.E.C. point to considerable fraud and electoral irregularities on election day,” said Staffan de Mistura, the special representative for Afghanistan to the United Nations secretary general. Mr. de Mistura, however, praised the commission’s efforts, saying it “has shown significant improvements in the management of the post-polling-day process.” President Hamid Karzai appointed two new leaders to the commission last spring, and several Western observers, as well as Afghan leaders, praised his choices. Commission officials and others closely involved in the vote counting said Wednesday that neither Mr. Karzai nor members of his inner circle had pressured them, but privately they said that other senior government figures and provincial power brokers did try to influence the election’s outcome. In all, 1.3 million votes from 2,543 polling stations were invalidated because of fraud, about the same number that were disqualified in the presidential election last year, and 224 candidates were referred to a second electoral body, the Electoral Complaints Commission, for review, said the Independent Election Commission’s chairman, Fazal Ahmad Manawi. The Independent Election Commission has authority to exclude polling stations where voting appears to have been fraudulent. For example, if a polling place recorded more ballots than it was issued, the commission could throw out all the ballots after an investigation. The same thing would be likely to happen at a polling station where the votes were evenly divided between two candidates. The commission does not throw out votes for an individual candidate based on allegations of voter bribery or intimidation; that is the responsibility of the Electoral Complaints Commission. Most observers expect that vote totals for some candidates will change once the complaint commission weighs in. As of Sunday, the complaint commission had nearly 2,300 “category A” complaints — those that could change the outcome of the election — from individual candidates, said Ahmad Zia Rafat, a commission member. The large number means that the final election result is likely to be delayed at least until the end of the first week in November. It remains to be seen if the Afghan people will perceive the election as fair. After the presidential election last year, which was tainted by widespread fraud, most Afghans appeared to accept President Karzai as the winner. Many reasoned that even after the fraudulent ballots were discarded, he had still received the most votes. It is unclear, though, that the results of the parliamentary elections will be similarly accepted. “The general feeling among Afghans if they see lots of commanders win is that the election was hijacked,” said Martine van Bijlert, a co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network, who has tracked Afghan elections for several years. “And that is despite the disqualification of a large number of votes.” People will be closely watching the outcome of the appeals process in Ghazni, Kandahar and Nangarhar, all populous provinces with a number of seats. In Ghazni, a majority Pashtun province with a couple of districts where members of the Hazara ethnic group predominate, hardly a vote for a Pashtun candidate was cast because it was too dangerous in Pashtun areas for people to go to the polls. “People won’t sacrifice their lives to vote for you,” said Khalid Mohammed Khan, a Pashtun incumbent Parliament member from Ghazni. “The election commission did its part, but the security forces failed to provide security.” “I won’t call these elections legal and legitimate,” Mr. Khan added, “because even though we have a majority of Pashtun people in Ghazni, we do not have any Pashtun representative.” In Kandahar Province, where President Karzai’s half-brother is chairman of the provincial council, most candidates who appear to have won seats in Parliament are either members of Mr. Karzai’s tribe or are his allies. The candidate with the greatest number of votes was a cousin, Hashmat Karzai, who lived in the United States for several years. Several candidates who are not close to Mr. Karzai appear to have lost and they say their votes were discarded. “I don’t want to talk about fraud, but my ballots have been stolen,” said Khan Mohammed Mujahid, a candidate from the Arghandab District of Kandahar Province. “I had 15,000 votes from all over, especially from Arghandab, but now the election commission announced that they counted only 1,500.” In Nangarhar, almost every winning candidate was a former local commander, and some still have gunmen under their control, none of which gives people confidence in the legitimacy of the vote there. “The clean votes were almost none in Nangarhar Province,” said Babrak Shinwari, who is an independent and lost his seat in the election last month. “Those votes which were cast on election day,” he said, “were all bought.” | Elections;Afghanistan;Afghan Independent Election Commission;Frauds and Swindling |
ny0278061 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2016/11/26 | Penn State Rallies to Beat Michigan State and Advances to Big Ten Title Game | Trace McSorley completed 17 of 23 passes for 376 yards and four touchdowns, and No. 8 Penn State thumped Michigan State, 45-12, in State College, Pa., on Saturday to win the Big Ten’s East Division. Penn State (10-2, 8-1) edged No. 2 Ohio State for the East title, setting up a conference championship game against the West winner, Wisconsin, next weekend in Indianapolis. The Nittany Lions beat the Buckeyes, 24-20, at home on Oct. 22. “It’s been special,” Penn State Coach James Franklin said. “I think this team, the connection and the bond they have for each other, we’ve overachieved, and we keep overachieving.” McSorley set a single-season team record for total offense and led the Nittany Lions with multiple deep passes in the second half, in which they outscored the Spartans, 35-0. He threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Chris Godwin down the sideline on Penn State’s first possession of the third quarter, and he followed it with a 45-yarder to Mike Gesicki on the Nittany Lions’ next drive. Godwin broke loose up the middle minutes later, and McSorley hit him in stride for 59 yards to give Penn State a 31-12 lead and cap a 21-point quarter. Andre Robinson added 14- and 40-yard touchdown runs in the fourth quarter for Penn State, and Saquon Barkley scored on a 1-yard run in the second. Barkley appeared to injure his right leg in the third quarter and did not return. Michael Geiger kicked four field goals for the Spartans (3-9, 1-8), the final one giving them a 12-10 halftime lead. WISCONSIN 31, MINNESOTA 17 Corey Clement ran for two fourth-quarter touchdowns, a big-play defense pitched a second-half shutout, and No. 5 Wisconsin (10-2, 7-2 Big Ten) pulled away from visiting Minnesota (8-4, 5-4) for its 13th straight win in their annual border rivalry. The Badgers again lifted Paul Bunyan’s Axe, the trophy that goes to the victor in the series, which is the longest rivalry in major college football. Wisconsin turned in a strong defensive effort in the second half after being outplayed in the first and falling behind, 17-7, at the break. The comeback served as an exclamation point during a momentous weekend. Wisconsin wrapped up the Big Ten West Division, and clinched a trip to next weekend’s league title game, when Nebraska lost to Iowa on Friday night. CLEMSON 56, S. CAROLINA 7 Deshaun Watson tied his career high with six touchdown passes, three to Mike Williams, and No. 4 Clemson (11-1) took a strong step toward the College Football Playoff by crushing its in-state rival South Carolina (6-6) in Clemson. If the Tigers do not stumble against Virginia Tech next Saturday in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, they should be part of the playoff for a second straight season. Clemson easily dispatched the Gamecocks, jumping to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter on the way to a third straight win in the series. COLORADO 27, UTAH 22 No. 9 Colorado (10-2, 8-1) won the Pacific-12 Conference’s South Division title by surviving against No. 21 Utah (8-4, 5-4) with a senior-laden defense that forced two fumbles by the Utes’ star running back, Joe Williams, in Boulder, Colo. Cornerback Chidobe Awuzie also had a touchdown-saving tackle on a 93-yard kickoff return. The Buffaloes will face No. 6 Washington in the conference championship game next Saturday in Santa Clara, Calif. Image Kentucky running back Benny Snell scored on an 18-yard run against Louisville in the third quarter. Credit Andy Lyons/Getty Images KENTUCKY 41, LOUISVILLE 38 A 47-yard field goal by Austin MacGinnis with 12 seconds left allowed visiting Kentucky (7-5) to upset No. 11 Louisville (9-3), a result that may have opened up the race for the Heisman Trophy, in which Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson has been a favorite. Louisville appeared to be headed for a go-ahead score late in the game before a Jackson fumble at Kentucky’s 10-yard line was recovered by the Wildcats’ Courtney Love with 1 minute 45 seconds left. Stephen Johnson then led Kentucky downfield and into position for MacGinnis’s game-winning kick, which ended a five-game losing streak for Kentucky in the series. Jackson’s desperation heave from deep in Louisville territory was snagged by Mike Edwards, his second interception of the game. Despite the loss, the Cardinals’ second straight, Jackson, a sophomore, might have wrapped up the Heisman. He recorded a team-record eighth 100-yard rushing game and broke the single-season team mark for rushing yards. His four scores (two passing, two rushing) also pushed him to the A.C.C.’s single-season record for total touchdowns, at 51. Image Notre Dame quarterback DeShone Kizer was sacked by linebacker Uchenna Nwosu of No. 12 Southern California. Credit Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press U.S.C. 45, NOTRE DAME 27 Adoree Jackson returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns and also caught a scoring pass to propel No. 12 Southern California (9-3) to its eighth consecutive victory, this one over visiting Notre Dame (4-8) in the 88th edition of their famed intersectional rivalry. Jackson, the Trojans’ do-everything cornerback, put on a dazzling display in perhaps his final home game as U.S.C. persevered through rain at Los Angeles Coliseum to claim the Jeweled Shillelagh for the 11th time in 15 years. Josh Adams rushed for 180 yards for the Fighting Irish, who finished their worst season since 2007 with their largest margin of defeat this year. FLORIDA ST. 31, FLORIDA 13 Dalvin Cook rushed for 153 yards and a touchdown as No. 15 Florida State (9-3) won at home, defeating No. 13 Florida (8-3) for the fourth straight year. Cook’s 17-yard score in the first quarter was his 45th career rushing touchdown, which broke Greg Allen’s 32-year-old team mark. Cook, a junior, is also the first Seminoles running back since Sammie Smith (1986-88) with three straight 100-yard games against the Gators. Florida State rushed for 249 yards. W. VIRGINIA 49, IOWA ST. 19 Skyler Howard threw for 330 yards and tied a career high with five touchdowns, and No. 19 West Virginia (9-2, 6-2 Big 12) rolled past host Iowa State (3-9, 2-7). The freshman Martell Pettaway burned his redshirt and ran for 181 yards in his debut for the Mountaineers, who outscored the Cyclones, 28-3, in the second half. “There have been three or four times where we’ve been real close to putting him in,” West Virginia Coach Dana Holgorsen said of Pettaway, who had 30 carries. “He was ready. He’s a smart kid. He looked good, too.” VANDERBILT 45, TENNESSEE 34 Kyle Shurmur threw for 416 yards, and host Vanderbilt (6-6, 3-5 Southeastern Conference) scored the final 21 points in an upset of No. 24 Tennessee (8-4, 4-4). The Commodores earned a bowl berth for the first time since 2013 because of their Academic Progress Rate score before kickoff. Then they turned in a stellar offensive performance. EAST PITT 76, SYRACUSE 61 Nate Peterman threw for four scores and ran for one to lead host Pittsburgh (8-4, 5-3 A.C.C.) to a wild victory over Syracuse (4-8, 2-6). James Conner ran for 115 yards and two touchdowns and caught a 35-yard pass for a score to extend his A.C.C. career touchdown record to 56. Pitt needed them on a day when each defense put up little resistance. The combined point total of 137 broke the F.B.S. record of 136, set in 2007 when Navy edged North Texas, 74-62. The Orange backup quarterback Zack Mahoney threw for 440 yards and five scores, all of them to Amba Etta-Tawo. MARYLAND 31, RUTGERS 13 Ty Johnson ran for 168 yards, Teldrick Morgan returned a punt 83 yards for a score, and Maryland (6-6, 3-6 Big Ten) became bowl eligible by defeating Rutgers (2-10, 0-9) at home. NAVY 75, S.M.U. 31 Will Worth accounted for four touchdowns while becoming the first Navy quarterback to finish with more than 100 rushing yards and 100 passing yards in three consecutive games, and the Midshipmen (9-2, 7-1 American Athletic Conference) thrashed Southern Methodist (5-7, 3-5) in Dallas. TULANE 38, UCONN 13 Running backs Lazedrick Thompson and Josh Rounds combined for five touchdowns, and visiting Tulane (4-8, 1-7 American) halted a six-game losing streak by pounding Connecticut (3-9, 1-7). The Green Wave ended a 14-game conference losing streak. | College football;Penn State;Michigan State |
ny0195462 | [
"business"
] | 2009/10/03 | 4 Madoff Relatives Sued; Trustee Seeks $199 Million | For months, the luxurious life once enjoyed by Bernard L. Madoff ’s family was a bitter pill for the thousands of victims who lost their own wealth and comforts in his long-running Ponzi scheme . Now, the business dealings that paid for that luxury — the beautiful homes, the well-tended boats, the first-class travel, the shopping — have come under a blistering attack from Irving H. Picard, the court-appointed trustee seeking to recover assets for the victims. On Friday, Mr. Picard sued four members of the Madoff family for almost $200 million they received over the years, asserting that the money represented excessive paychecks, improper use of company cash and fabricated investment profits that should have alerted them to the underlying fraud. The action, filed two months after a similar suit against Mr. Madoff’s wife, Ruth, named his younger brother, Peter; his two sons, Mark and Andrew; and his niece, Shana. All four served for many years as senior executives at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which was wholly owned by Bernard Madoff. Peter Madoff and his daughter Shana, both lawyers, were chief compliance officer and compliance director, respectively. Mark and Andrew Madoff were co-directors of trading. The complaint , filed in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan, does not accuse these family members of actively participating in the Ponzi scheme — lawyers for all four have repeatedly said their clients had no inkling about the fraud until Mr. Madoff confessed to his sons in December, prompting them to turn him in to federal authorities. Rather, the trustee’s complaint says the relatives — all licensed professionals in the securities industry — were “completely derelict” in carrying out their executive duties. “As a result, they either failed to detect or failed to stop the fraud,” the trustee asserted . “Simply put, if the family members had been doing their jobs — honestly and faithfully — the Madoff Ponzi scheme might never have succeeded, or continued for so long.” John R. Wing, a lawyer for Peter Madoff, did not respond to requests for comment. Martin Flumenbaum, a lawyer for the Madoff sons, noted that his clients had actually halted the fraud by quickly turning their father in, and had continued to cooperate fully with the investigation. The two men have “suffered substantial economic losses as a result of their father’s crimes,” he continued, “and we believe it is legally appropriate that these losses be taken into account.” Eric Starkman, a spokesman for Shana D. Madoff, said that Ms. Madoff “intends to cooperate with the trustee and hopes that they can reach a satisfactory resolution.” Mr. Picard’s earlier lawsuit against Ruth Madoff seeks almost $45 million that he claims she received from the firm improperly. There, too, he made no accusations of criminal behavior, and Mrs. Madoff’s lawyers have denied that she knew anything about the long-running fraud. In his latest complaint, Mr. Picard details the paychecks and perquisites the four family members received over the years, claiming that the firm “operated as if it were the family piggy bank.” The complaint asserted that money from the firm financed family homes, cars, boats, travel, clothing, cosmetics and personal business ventures, including a hair salon and a sporting supply shop. The money that Mark Madoff got from the firm “paid for all aspects of his lavish lifestyle, from the purchases of his high-end homes to the mattress and box spring he slept on, the television he watched in his home gym, and the outdoor shower in his home,” the trustee asserted. All the defendants had investment accounts with Mr. Madoff and saw their reported balances wiped out when the scheme collapsed. But the complaint claims they drew out far more than they invested and profited enormously from the firm’s fraudulent operations. Under federal and New York State bankruptcy law, the trustee can sue to retrieve money a firm paid out within six years of bankruptcy, or longer if he can prove some degree of responsibility. In this case, he is seeking a total of $198.7 million — $141 million paid in the last six years and $57.7 million paid earlier. When he pleaded guilty in March, Mr. Madoff acknowledged pumping millions from customer accounts into his brokerage business by laundering it through a London affiliate. Now, the trustee reports that the Madoff firm would have been in the red for the last two years without stolen cash disguised as “commissions.” These transfers amounted to approximately $103 million in 2007, or about 60 percent of the firm’s revenue, and roughly $86 million in 2008, or 70 percent of revenue — sums so significant that the defendants “knew or should have known” the origins of the money, the trustee said. The complaint details several fabricated trades in accounts maintained by Peter, Mark and Andrew — accounts that the trustee said had never received a penny from the defendants but still reported millions in profits from nonexistent trades in shares of Microsoft, Dell and Lucent Technologies. The trustee is seeking more than $60 million from Peter, including more than $16 million in profits from such spurious trades; $66.9 million from Mark, including almost $30 million in compensation since 2001; and about $60.6 million from Andrew, including $31 million in salary and bonus. Mr. Picard also is trying to recover about $10.6 million that Shana Madoff received since 2000, including more than $6 million of what he called “fraudulently diverted funds.” | Madoff Bernard L;Ponzi Schemes;Madoff Bernard L Investment Securities;Frauds and Swindling;Suits and Litigation |
ny0160846 | [
"business"
] | 2006/04/03 | As Magazine Readers Increasingly Turn to the Web, So Does Condé Nast | Correction Appended Getting married and wondering how you would look in a mermaid-style sheath? Brides.com, a new Web site, takes you to a virtual fitting room, lets you pick from one of four body types and examine how each would look in six different styles of gowns. Brides.com, an upgraded bridal site combining content from three different magazines, comes from Condé Nast, which, like many magazine publishers, is trying to build its Web presence to keep up with a generation of readers who automatically turn to the Internet instead of the printed page. In addition to brides.com, Condé Nast is preparing another new site, still unnamed, for teenage girls. And its new business magazine, which is to begin publishing next year, will have a large Internet component with original content. These investments mark a new level of commitment to the Web by Condé Nast, the nation's second-biggest magazine publisher after the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, and reflect the new reality in the magazine industry: The Internet is an indispensable companion to print. "You gain a broader audience and more loyalty from your subscribers if you extend the experience into the Web," said Steven Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net, which oversees the local Web sites of the Newhouse newspapers and the Web sites of Condé Nast, all of which are owned by Advance Publications. While newspapers, their cousins in print, have been forced to confront the shifting appetite for news online and have watched their advertisers migrate to cyberspace, magazines have felt less of a need to reorient themselves. For one thing, the drops in circulation for magazines have been less drastic than for newspapers. For another, magazines have always had a more relaxed, if not intimate, relationship with their readers, who tend to set aside precious leisure time to read them. "They still think in terms of pages and ink," Mike Neiss, a senior vice president of Universal McCann, the advertising and marketing firm in New York, said of magazine editors. "They look at it the way you'd look at Nixon doing standup -- you can't really stretch the brand as far as you think you can." But having seen the newspaper business staggered by a defection to the Internet, and with their own circulation figures flat, magazine companies are making new investments in the Web. The undertaking appears significant at Condé Nast, which is freer than most with its spending. (The company is private and its finances closely held.) Condé Nast's new bridal site is instructive. The company watched the circulation of its bridal magazines be drained away by a Web site called theknot.com, a wedding resource that began online in 1996. At stake: millions of young, love-struck eyeballs desperate for tips and ideas in what has become a $160-billion-a-year wedding industry. Condé Nast has now hired two dozen people to manage brides.com. It is also hiring Web editors for all of its 29 consumer magazines, about half of which have such editors now. "The sense of urgency, the sense of moment, has arrived," said David Remnick, editor in chief of The New Yorker, and among those at Condé Nast searching for a Web editor. Thomas J. Wallace, Condé Nast's editorial director, said his mantra to editors was to "enrich" the Web experience, and the company was prepared to foot the bill. "Tell us the cost and benefit, and if the return on investment is great enough, you get the money," he said. He added that the sites, which are all free to users, were works in progress. "We're in the process of figuring it out and will be in the process of figuring it out for the rest of my working life," he said. "Our spending may have to be ahead of our ability to make money." Six months ago, for the first time, the company started giving its advertising sales force incentives to sell space simultaneously online and in print, said Sarah Chubb, president of CondéNet, the company's online division. In December, she said, the company created an Internet specialist team to handle large corporate ad accounts. Condé Nast jumped into the Web a decade ago with a decision to build a "destination" site, epicurious.com. It used some content from two of its magazines, Gourmet and Bon Appétit, but without using those brand names. It has subsequently built other destination sites, such as style.com, with content from Vogue and W; and concierge.com, from Condé Nast Traveler. Ms. Chubb said that not using the magazine names allowed the company to cast a wider net for readers beyond those already buying the magazines. She said the decision proved right: epicurious.com and style.com are both profitable. Moreover, having sites unattached to a magazine brand allowed the sites to be more playful. "The brands are so strong, they require living within their identity," she said. "We felt that to be a really good Web property, we needed to be flexible." Still, the Condé Nast sites draw relatively little traffic compared with the most popular mass-market magazine sites, according to comScore Networks, which measures Web traffic. The three most popular magazine sites, as of February, were those for Entrepreneur, Forbes and Sports Illustrated. Entrepreneur.com drew more than 6 million unique visitors that month, according to comScore; epicurious.com, Condé Nast's most popular site, drew 1.6 million. But even epicurious.com drew nearly five times the traffic of Condé Nast's most popular single magazine site, which in February was vanityfair.com, with 346,000 visitors (more about them later). The destination sites are the models for brides.com, which combines material from the company's three bridal magazines, Bride's, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride, and adds original online features. Many top managers at brides.com came from epicurious.com and concierge.com. The company's bridal magazines and their old Web sites had lost considerable ground to theknot.com over the last few years. Theknot.com draws 2.1 million unique visitors a month, or about 14 percent of all bridal site traffic, according to Hitwise, an Internet research firm. The old sites for Bride's and Modern Bride drew a little more than 1 percent of that traffic each, and their combined print circulation as of December was less than 700,000. "One hundred percent of the people who are getting married for the first time are people who grew up on the Internet," said Marshal Cohen, who is chief analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm. "A magazine can spark an idea but the Internet will provide the real vehicle for deep research, the purchase of products and the referral system to friends. So you can say, 'I saw this great dress, you should see it, you've got to go online.' " For magazines that are not absorbed into a larger destination site, the model, if not the inspiration, at Condé Nast is Self magazine. Its Web site, self.com, which features a popular fitness challenge, generated more than 100,000 subscriptions last year, according to Mr. Wallace. The print circulation was 1.4 million last year. "What happened at Self is very important for Condé Nast," Mr. Wallace said, adding that while self.com had drawn only a fraction of the traffic of style.com, it had generated more than twice the subscriptions. Lucy S. Danziger, editor in chief of Self, said that the keys to the site's success were its interactivity ("Find your ideal weight and more! Crunch your numbers with our cool tools.") and the forums for like-minded readers, who are, say, training for a marathon or trying to lose weight after having a baby. "We've generated new types of content that lend itself to this medium," she said. The company is encouraging its other magazines to do the same. At Jane, for example, Brandon Holley, the new editor in chief, uses extensive video on her site, which was redesigned last month. Film students regularly visit the magazine's offices and take short videos of the staff at work. "Our beauty editor will show people how to cover up a zit on a fellow staffer," she said. Every editor is supposed to post blogs two or three times a week. For monthly magazines, it is a challenge to keep a Web site feeling fresh. Vanity Fair, for one, provides links to various celebrity-oriented and party sites, which keep things current, and it gives readers sneak peeks of the upcoming issue. Vanity Fair is also using more video, showing outtakes from its cover photo shoots. While the site normally draws about 6,000 viewers a day, Mr. Wallace said, a recent video of a much-discussed cover shoot of Tom Ford, the fashion designer, and two naked actresses, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley (and nice product placement for Poland Spring water), drew nearly 350,000 people in one day. "Think of that," Mr. Wallace exclaimed. "How do we do it again?" he asked, then quickly added, "And is this the direction we want to go?" Correction: April 10, 2006, Monday A credit was omitted in Business Day last Monday for a picture of two executives with an article about efforts by Condé Nast to expand the online portion of its business. The photographer was Ting-Li Wang of The New York Times. | CONDE NAST PUBLICATIONS INC;MAGAZINES;COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET |
ny0167930 | [
"politics"
] | 2006/01/24 | Leader Who Worked to Reshape Agency's Image Is on the Defensive | WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - On a rainy night in August, a black-tie crowd gathered at the National Security Agency for a tribute to Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who had led the eavesdropping agency for six years. The corridor to the banquet room at agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., was lined with favorable press clippings, in part the results of his courting of writers who covered the secret world of intelligence. But now General Hayden finds himself on the defensive. With the vocal backing of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, General Hayden, now the principal deputy director of national intelligence, has been speaking out on why the agency has conducted eavesdropping on American soil without court warrants. On Monday, General Hayden, a 60-year-old Air Force general, addressed the National Press Club, trying to explain the highly classified program without revealing too many details. He even stuck around for a half-hour of questions, listening to a pastor who said that "the faith communities are outraged" by the N.S.A. program and an anti-Bush activist who demanded to know whether his group's telephone calls and e-mail messages were a target. (The general offered an indirect reply, saying the program was narrowly focused on terrorism suspects: "This is about Al Qaeda.") Among those present at the press club was the author of two major books on the agency, James Bamford, whose shifting view of the speaker captured the difficulty of General Hayden's position. Mr. Bamford faced only hostility from the agency when he researched his first N.S.A. book, "The Puzzle Palace," published in 1982. But for his second book, "Body of Secrets," General Hayden offered extensive assistance, granting multiple interviews and even arranging for a book signing on agency grounds. When the book was published in early 2001, Mr. Bamford listed General Hayden first in his acknowledgments, thanking him for "having the courage to open the agency's door a crack." In public appearances, including 2001 testimony before the European Parliament, he defended General Hayden and the N.S.A. against those who believed it was a rogue agency operating outside the law. But last week, Mr. Bamford joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the program's legality and asking the courts to shut it down. "I'm sort of mystified by Hayden at this point," Mr. Bamford said in an interview. "It was a big shock to me to find out that he was doing eavesdropping without warrants." If Mr. Bamford takes the issue personally, General Hayden suggested in his remarks Monday, so do he and N.S.A. employees who feel accused of spying on their fellow citizens. "I'm disappointed, I guess, that perhaps the default response for some is to assume the worst," General Hayden said. "I'm trying to communicate to you that the people who are doing this, O.K., go shopping in Glen Burnie and their kids play soccer in Laurel," he added, referring to suburbs near N.S.A. headquarters in Maryland. "And they know the law," he continued. "They know American privacy better than the average American, and they're dedicated to it." Charles G. Boyd, a retired Air Force general who has known him for years, said he thought General Hayden was speaking out on the N.S.A. program "because he believes what he did was right. He's under tremendous pressure, because he's being targeted for what he did to support his president, and with the assurances of the Justice Department that it was legal." For a man who has devoted his career to secret work, General Hayden has always been strikingly unafraid of the limelight. Son of a blue-collar family in Pittsburgh -- the Steelers' playoff triumphs are a bright spot in a bleak season for him -- he has a knack for reducing the complexities of intelligence to straightforward English that has served him well on Capitol Hill and at the White House. Appalled at the portrayal of the N.S.A. as a lawless, even murderous agency in the 1998 film "Enemy of the State," General Hayden set out after becoming director the next year to reshape that image. He granted a few television crews the rare opportunity to film behind the agency's barbed-wire fences, granted numerous interviews and even invited some reporters to dinners at his house. The resulting coverage countered the notion that the N.S.A. was a shadowy menace to ordinary citizens. General Hayden's efforts to modernize the agency got generally sympathetic coverage, despite cost overruns and other setbacks. His message that the agency scrupulously avoided invading Americans' privacy won plaudits from members of Congress. After The New York Times disclosed the eavesdropping program last month, General Hayden quickly took a prominent role in defending it. His previous success in persuading outsiders that the N.S.A. operated strictly in accordance with laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants for eavesdropping in the United States, caused the revelations to resound with particular force in Washington. Polls on the program show mixed views among Americans. But if General Hayden is concerned that coverage of the N.S.A. eavesdropping has eroded his image-building efforts, he can take no comfort from last Saturday's television schedule: ABC showed "Enemy of the State" in prime time. | NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY;HAYDEN MICHAEL V;ESPIONAGE |
ny0205495 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2009/01/31 | A Transfer of Power Brings Calm and Relief to the Illinois Capitol | SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — As state legislators convened here Thursday morning to listen to closing arguments in the impeachment trial of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich , a single staff member accompanied the lieutenant governor, Patrick J. Quinn , as he arrived at the statehouse. On Friday morning, the location was the same, but the scene was far different. A field of cameras bore in on Mr. Quinn, 60, from every angle as he addressed reporters on his first full day as the new governor of Illinois . And although Mr. Blagojevich’s name often echoed through the marbled halls of the Capitol on Friday, the building itself bore few signs of the man who had presided over the state for the past six years. By Thursday evening, workers had removed photographs of the disgraced Democratic governor from the Capitol entryway. By Friday, what seemed to be the Capitol complex’s only remaining physical sign of the Blagojevich tenure was a photo in a display case managed by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in the William G. Stratton Office Building. Mr. Blagojevich may have been gone, but as tourists marveled at the Capitol dome, old political hands said he had never really been here anyway. Raised on the Northwest Side of Chicago by Serbian immigrants and ushered into political prominence through his wife’s family connections, Mr. Blagojevich never moved to the governor’s mansion. He conducted much of the state’s business from his Chicago offices and, in recent months, from his home on the North Side, traveling only occasionally to the capital city downstate. “I never saw him one day after he was elected; I have not seen him in six years,” said Jenny Glisson, who supervises tour guides at the Capitol, where she has worked for 27 years. “All the other governors used to leave their doors open so tour groups could look inside. This governor had the doors shut. He didn’t come out for the people.” The people came out Friday for Mr. Quinn, with several state employees calling it a great day for Illinois as they went about the quiet duty of keeping the government running. A purposeful calm settled in on the government complex, in contrast to the tumult that had gripped the Illinois statehouse nearly nonstop after Mr. Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal corruption charges. The legislature did not meet, and Mr. Quinn, hurrying to confer with the state’s constitutional officers, hopped on a plane to Chicago immediately after his morning news conference. Many state workers expressed hope that Mr. Quinn, a populist with a reputation as a political gadfly, would break from the aloofness that marked the Blagojevich administration and run a more transparent government. “He’s a breath of fresh air,” said Rick Millard, 56, an assistant pressroom secretary. Mr. Millard, who has worked at the Capitol for three decades, said that Mr. Blagojevich held fewer than six news conferences during his six years as governor and that, unlike previous governors, he had kept the doors to his administration’s press office locked. “If I needed a press release or something, I’d have to go through the main doors to ask someone to come out,” Mr. Millard said. “Blagojevich had kind of a fortress mentality.” It remains to be seen if Mr. Quinn, a Democrat who has been known to hold regular news conferences, will do so as the state struggles with a $4 billion deficit, a recently downgraded bond rating and a leadership deeply embarrassed by Mr. Blagojevich’s political and legal troubles. “We’ve been dealing with gridlock for so long,” said David Weisbaum, who works in the secretary of state’s index department. “But they are strikingly different people. Blagojevich was bombastic and always seeking the limelight. Pat Quinn is a fairly quiet government operative.” That contrast in style was on full display when Mr. Quinn addressed reporters during his news conference Friday. Avuncular and a bit rumpled, the new governor said that he had eaten and slept at the governor’s mansion on Thursday night and that he enjoyed his steak dinner and “nice bed.” “My predecessor involved himself too much in friction, isolating himself from the public,” Mr. Quinn observed. “We don’t need an imperial governorship in this state.” | Quinn Patrick J;Illinois;Blagojevich Rod R;Governors (US) |
ny0177881 | [
"business",
"yourmoney"
] | 2007/09/30 | As the Dollar Falls, New Doors Open to Currency Bets | THE dollar’s recent swoon is a textbook example of just how volatile foreign exchange markets can be. The new lows for the dollar brought quick profits to many investors, but the “easy money” has already been made, said Ed Yardeni, the president of Yardeni Research. “Trading in currencies is a dangerous game,” he said. Whether the dollar weakens further or begins to rise will largely depend on what the Federal Reserve does next, he said, and that is very difficult to handicap. This month, the central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point, to 4.75 percent; the cut was bigger than Wall Street had expected. The Fed also reduced the rate it charges banks for emergency short-term loans by half a point. “There is some expectation that there will be more rate cuts,” Mr. Yardeni said. “But I think the Fed was aggressive enough in its recent action that it might not have to cut rates again any time soon.” If the Fed keeps rates as they are, the dollar may stabilize and start trading in a narrow range against some major currencies, like the euro and the Japanese yen, in Mr. Yardeni’s view. That could change the fortunes of investors who have been using a spate of new exchange-traded funds to bet that the dollar will keep falling. These E.T.F.’s have made it much easier for individuals to buy and sell the British pound, the Swiss franc or even the Mexican peso. And some E.T.F.’s allow investors to bet that the dollar will rise or fall against a basket of currencies. Many individual investors have been drawn to these funds. Tim Meyer, the E.T.F. business manager at Rydex Investments, estimated that only about 30 percent of the roughly $1.1 billion that has flowed into the company’s eight currency E.T.F.’s this year was from institutional investors, like pension plans and hedge funds. He said 50 percent probably came through financial planners and the other 20 percent from online brokerage accounts. Rydex Investments, based in Rockville, Md., has created many of the new E.T.F.’s. Each holds currency in a bank account at JPMorgan Chase in London. The funds pay interest, which is based on the overnight money market rate in each currency, minus fund expenses. Although the dollar has fallen against a broad range of currencies this year, Mr. Yardeni said the picture might soon become more complex. The dollar could rise against some major currencies over the next six months, while falling against others, he said, depending on economic conditions and interest rates in each country. For example, the Japanese yen, which has been floundering for years, has surprised investors by rallying against the dollar recently. But Mr. Yardeni said the yen could level off — or even reverse course — unless Japan’s central bank raised the country’s razor-thin interest rates. With fresh signs of deflation in Japan, he said, that may not happen soon. As for the euro, which traded above $1.40 for the first time this month, Mr. Yardeni said he could imagine it going as high as $1.45 but not $1.50. And he predicted that the British pound, now trading at more than twice the value of the dollar, could fall to around $1.85 over the next six months. “We might see a little divergence, where the dollar weakens against the euro and strengthens relative to the pound,” Mr. Yardeni said, because Britain’s economy has a lot of the same risk factors that the American economy does now — including a shaky mortgage market. The currencies with the best outlook are the Australian and Canadian dollars, he said, “because they have what the world wants now, which is raw materials.” Earlier this month, the Canadian dollar reached parity with the American dollar for the first time in more than 30 years. But Mr. Yardeni said he thought both the Canadian and Australian dollars might rise an additional 5 percent or so against the American dollar. Michael Metz, the chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer & Company, said it was too late to buy the British pound or the euro, calling both currencies “grossly overvalued.” He said the Japanese yen was still attractive but not as much as it was in February, when Rydex introduced the CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust. “When that E.T.F. was created, the yen was the cheapest currency around,” Mr. Metz said. “But if you want an alternative to the dollar now, I think it’s the Swiss franc.” He said that the Swiss currency had not appreciated in tandem with the euro, largely because Switzerland has lower interest rates. Many investors do not want to pick and choose among foreign currencies, said Bruce Bond, the president and chief executive of PowerShares Capital Management in Wheaton, Ill. PowerShares offers two E.T.F.’s that use futures contracts to make bets on the dollar versus a basket of six currencies: the yen, euro, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. If the dollar rises against these currencies, investors in one of the E.T.F.’s, the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Bullish fund, would make money. If the dollar falls, the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Bearish fund would come out ahead. Neither fund uses leverage. The company has also created an E.T.F., PowerShares DB G10 Currency Harvest, intended to allow investors to bet against currencies in countries with low interest rates and to take long positions in those with higher rates. Currently, the fund has long positions in the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar and the British pound, and short positions in the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc and the Swedish krona. THERE are special tax consequences associated with the three PowerShares funds. Investors who own E.T.F.’s that use derivatives, like futures contracts, have to declare capital gains each year — even if they still own the funds — and 40 percent of the gains will be taxed at the higher rate for short-term capital gains. So experts recommend holding such E.T.F.’s in a tax-advantaged account like an Individual Retirement Account. Alternatively, Mr. Metz said that it might be simpler for investors who are worried about a further decline in the dollar to put a small portion of their portfolios into gold. He recommended one of the E.T.F.’s that invest in actual bars of gold, like the StreetTracks Gold Shares fund or iShares Comex Gold Trust. “I think there will be a big move by central banks to build up their gold reserves, which they have really sold off in recent years,” Mr. Metz said. | Currency;Interest Rates;Economic Conditions and Trends |
ny0296490 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/12/23 | Hunt for Berlin Suspect Ends in Gunfire on an Italian Plaza | SESTO SAN GIOVANNI, Italy — It was a routine identity check, the kind Italy has relied on to stem the flow of illegal migration deeper into Europe. But the man stopped by two police officers around 3 a.m. Friday outside the northern city of Milan was anything but an ordinary drifter. He turned out to be perhaps Europe’s most wanted man, Anis Amri , the chief suspect in the deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 people. Asked to show his papers and empty his backpack, he pulled out a gun, shot one officer, and in turn was shot and killed by another. “Police bastards,” Mr. Amri, who turned 24 this week, shouted in Italian before dying, according to the account given by Antonio De Iesu, director of the Milan police, at a news conference. For Italy, the shooting death of Mr. Amri, a Tunisian who had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State’s supreme leader in a video released by the group on Friday, spurred a moment of national pride and some reassurance that its security measures were working. For Germany, it brought a sense of palpable relief after a week of national anguish. “Now I can wish you all a really peaceful Christmas,” the German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, told reporters Friday afternoon, as he thanked his Italian counterparts. But the death also raised numerous questions about Mr. Amri’s movements and motivations, as well as about the potential gaps in the security of a Europe with open borders. Law enforcement authorities issued a Europe-wide warrant on Wednesday for Mr. Amri, who migrated to Italy in 2011 and was imprisoned for four years in six different prisons in Sicily before making his way to Germany in 2015. Italy officially classified Mr. Amri as a terrorism risk after he threatened to decapitate a Christian cellmate in prison in Palermo in 2014, according to Lorenzo Vidino, who chairs an Italian commission of experts on radicalization that was formed this fall. “He was basically a troublemaker, very aggressive and very violent. And then from there, he starts a whole trajectory,” said Mr. Vidino, who said that the Tunisian migrant was arrested soon after his arrival by boat on the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2011, after back-to-back arson episodes. “He establishes a track record of bad behavior, which at the beginning was just aggressive and threatening and disrespectful. But in the last place, where he was held in a high-security prison in Palermo, he showed signs of radicalism.” The Trail of the Suspect in the Berlin Attack Maps and photos of the manhunt for the attacker at a Christmas market in Berlin. The threat to his cellmate was considered serious enough that officials added him to Italy’s database of radicalized individuals, a list that includes only a few hundred names, said Mr. Vidino, who is also the director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Both Italy and Germany tried to deport him to Tunisia but were thwarted by a lack of documents and cooperation from his home country. Even after Mr. Amri was named as the prime suspect in the attack in Berlin, he was able to roam freely around Europe, his face plastered across the news media and a reward of more than $100,000 on his head. “This mobility is great for the law-abiding and equally great for the non-law-abiding,” said Douglas H. Wise, a former senior C.I.A. officer, of the borderless travel within the European Union. What Mr. Amri did in the four days between the attack in Berlin and when he was ultimately killed in Sesto San Giovanni, a suburb north of central Milan, is not clear, but that is now the subject of an intense investigation that the authorities remain reluctant to discuss. Asked on Friday when exactly the authorities began to view Mr. Amri as a suspect, the head of Germany’s federal criminal police, Holger Münch, restated in general terms that it was on Tuesday, after investigators found an identity document in a wallet in the cab of the tractor-trailer used in the attack. The police have not said why the wallet was not discovered on Monday, when the attack occurred and a murdered driver was found in the cab. On Friday, Mr. Münch for the first time mentioned that an alias was involved, but he said the police had quickly linked it to Mr. Amri. In Italy, Mr. Vidino said that a train ticket found on Mr. Amri’s body showed that he had traveled by train to Turin in Italy from the French town of Chambéry, near the border between the two nations. But there is no trail suggesting how he got from Berlin to Chambéry. A senior European counterterrorism official said that the delay in identifying Mr. Amri probably gave him a crucial head start of several hours to flee Germany, and that he would have been able to buy a train ticket to France and Italy without showing identification papers. Image Anis Amri was wanted by the police in connection with the Christmas market attack in Berlin this week. Credit German Federal Police Facial-recognition software on surveillance cameras in Europe is still in rudimentary form in most places, the official said, so even after Mr. Amri was identified, he could have slipped through the train stations undetected, especially if he was wearing a hat or hood. Mr. Amri’s ability to hide through the week and make his way from Germany, through France, to Italy also raised questions of whether he had the help of a broader network, particularly one possibly linked to the Islamic State. The group called Mr. Amri “a soldier” in the video released on Friday, in which Mr. Amri proclaimed loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and declared that the attack in Berlin was intended to avenge coalition airstrikes in Syria that have killed civilians. The video was evidently filmed in the Moabit district of northern Berlin, on the Kieler bridge. The autumn foliage seen on trees suggested it was filmed in fall or even early December. In Germany, Mr. Amri came on the radar of the authorities in part for suspected ties to a 32-year-old Iraqi-born Salafist preacher who went by the name Abu Walaa and who was jailed just weeks ago on suspicion of recruiting fighters to join the Islamic State. “There is high suspicion that he was behind the departure of a number of Germans to Syria — as many as two dozen — but the intelligence is not clear as to his exact role, whether in radicalization, recruitment or terror financing,” said Laith Alkhouri, a director at Flashpoint, a business risk intelligence company in New York that tracks militant and cyber threats. In a telephone call from the suspect’s hometown in Tunisia, Mr. Amri’s older brother, Walid, said that the family wondered whether he became radicalized while in jail in Italy. After his brother was released, he informed the family that he was leaving for Germany “with friends he had made in jail,” Walid Amri said. Also unknown is whether Mr. Amri had any accomplices in the Berlin attack — a question that Peter Frank, Germany’s top federal prosecutor, identified as a priority for investigators. “It is very important now to determine if there was a network of cooperators, a network of supporters, accessories or assistants helping him to prepare the attack, execute the attack and also to escape,” he said at a news conference on Friday in Karlsruhe, Germany. Image Cristian Movio, the Italian police officer who was shot and wounded by Mr. Amri, was hospitalized on Friday. Credit Italian Police The only uncertainty that seemed to be settled on Friday was that the man killed was indeed Mr. Amri. “There is absolutely no doubt that the person who was killed was Anis Amri, the suspect in the terrorist attack in Berlin,” the Italian interior minister, Marco Minniti, said at a news conference. “As soon as this person entered our country, he was the most wanted man in Europe, and we immediately identified him and neutralized him,” Mr. Minniti said. “This means that our security is working really well.” Some analysts, however, said that Mr. Amri’s flight over the past 72 hours from German to Italy through France underscored Europe’s porous border controls. “Terrorists with multiple false identification documents are able to exploit Europe’s open borders. Just as Amri arrived in Europe and moved almost seamlessly around the continent before the Berlin attack, he was able to do the same after it,” said Seth G. Jones, a terrorism specialist at the RAND Corporation. Mr. Amri traveled from Turin to Central Station in Milan, where he arrived around 1 a.m. Friday. Surveillance cameras in the Milan train station recorded Mr. Amri’s movements, Italian investigators said. It was not clear how Mr. Amri made his way to Sesto San Giovanni, about four miles away. “How he traveled there and what he was doing there are subject to delicate investigations,” Mr. De Iesu, of the Milan police, said at the news conference. “We have to understand whether he was in transit or was awaiting someone.” Sesto San Giovanni is a “a strategic hub for transportation,” the town’s deputy mayor, Andrea Rivolta, said in an interview at city hall. “Sesto is a junction for the railway system, the Milan metro, municipal buses and buses that reach all of Europe,” as well as southern Italy. According to the account provided by Mr. De Iesu, Mr. Amri was standing alone on a piazza in Sesto San Giovanni, next to the northern terminus of a subway line. When the officers stopped him and asked for identification, he responded, in good Italian with a North African accent, that he was not carrying any documents on him. They asked him to empty his pockets and backpack. He was carrying a small knife and the equivalent of a few hundred dollars, but no cellphone. But then he pulled out a pistol, Mr. De Iesu said. “It was a regular patrol, under the new system of intensified police checks on the territory,” he said. “They had no perception that it could be him, otherwise they’d have been more careful.” The officer whom Mr. Amri shot, identified as Cristian Movio, was wounded in the shoulder and had surgery on Friday. The other officer, who shot Mr. Amri, was identified as Luca Scatà. | Anis Amri;Berlin;Milan;Terrorism;Attacks on Police;Fugitive;Italy;Germany |
ny0026510 | [
"world",
"africa"
] | 2013/01/05 | Leaders of Sudan and South Sudan in Ethiopia for Talks | KHARTOUM, Sudan — The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan, two nations that have been locked in a tense dispute over borders, territory and oil since the south split off and became its own country 18 months ago, arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Friday for a summit meeting intended to speed up an agreement signed between both sides last September. Both presidents were scheduled to meet Friday afternoon, but a report by a Sudanese television channel said the summit meeting was postponed, without giving a reason. The official Sudanese News Agency reported on Friday that a closed meeting was held between President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia and Thabo Mbeki, chairman of the African Union panel facilitating the talks. The meeting was to be followed by a similar closed meeting with President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, the news agency said. In a statement on Thursday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations welcomed the talks. “The secretary general encourages both presidents to address decisively all outstanding issues between Sudan and South Sudan regarding security, border demarcation and the final status of the Abyei Area, to urgently activate agreed border security mechanisms, and implement all other agreements signed on 27 September 2012,” the statement by Mr. Ban’s office read. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — along with the Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, and the British foreign secretary, William Hague — issued a joint statement in support of the talks emphasizing the “full implementation of all agreements on their own terms and without preconditions or linkages between them, will help build confidence and benefit the people of the two countries.” South Sudan became independent from Sudan in July 2011, but a number of issues between both states, including how to share oil wealth, the demarcation of borders and the disputed district of Abyei, remained unresolved. In January 2011, South Sudan shut down oil production, which flows from oil wells in the south through pipelines and a refinery for export in the north. Both countries nearly came to all out war in April 2012 after the south took brief control of the border town of Heglig in the north. Under international pressure and the threat of United Nations sanctions, however, both sides signed an agreement in Addis Ababa in September 2012 outlining solutions for unsettled issues. Carrying out the agreement, however, has gone slowly, with Sudan putting a precondition that South Sudan first end its support for rebels inside Sudanese territory, an accusation South Sudan denies. The rebels are active in the Sudanese states of Blue Nile state and South Kordofan, which border South Sudan. The rebels also fought alongside the South. South Sudan accuses Khartoum of carrying out areal bombardments along the border, the last being on Thursday, a day before the scheduled summit meeting. Faisal Muhammad Salih, a Sudanese columnist, believes that despite what appeared to be a lack of political will and the existence of what he described as “extremists on both sides” who want to derail the implementation of the cooperation agreement, a compromise will be reached at the summit meeting. “Thabo Mbeki was able to convince the U.N. Security Council to give him more time,” he said. “But if his patience runs out, and the issue returns to the Security Council, that means sanctions for both countries.” “So I think we will see concessions,” he added. | South Sudan;Sudan;Ethiopia;Omar Hassan Al- Bashir;Salva Kiir Mayardit;Ban Ki moon;Thabo Mbeki |
ny0218728 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/05/21 | China Aims to Stifle Tibet’s Photocopiers | BEIJING — The authorities have identified a new threat to political stability in the restive region of Tibet: photocopiers. Fearful that Tibetans might mass-copy incendiary material, public security officials intend to more tightly control printing and photocopying shops, according to reports from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. A regulation now in the works will require the operators of printing and photocopying shops to obtain a new permit from the government, the Lhasa Evening News reported this month. They will also be required to take down identifying information about their clients and the specific documents printed or copied, the newspaper said. A public security official in Lhasa, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the regulation “is being implemented right now,” but on a preliminary basis. The official hung up the phone without providing further details. Tibetan activists said the new controls were part of a broader effort to constrain Tibetan intellectuals after a March 2008 uprising that led to scores of deaths. Since the riots, more than 30 Tibetan writers, artists and other intellectuals have been detained for song lyrics, essays, telephone conversations and e-mail messages deemed to pose a threat to Chinese rule, according to a report issued this week by the International Campaign for Tibet , a human rights group based in Washington. “Basically, the main purpose is to instill fear into people’s hearts,” said Woeser , an activist who, like many Tibetans, goes by one name. “In the past, the authorities tried to control ordinary people at the grass-roots level. But they have gradually changed their target to intellectuals in order to try to control thought.” Ms. Woeser said she was also a target of the authorities for her views . She lost her job in Lhasa after her book “Notes on Tibet” was banned in 2003. She now lives in Beijing, but she said she was carefully watched by the authorities. China ’s leaders contend that their only goal is to guarantee stability, ethnic unity and better living standards for Tibetans. Officials say that as long as separatist leaders are kept firmly in check, continued economic development will win Tibetans over to Chinese rule. But the International Campaign for Tibet’s report contends that the authorities are not merely punishing separatists, but also dissidents of all stripes who dare to criticize the government and defend Tibetans’ cultural and religious identity. A 47-year-old writer named Tragyal was arrested in April after he published a book calling on Tibetans to defend their rights through peaceful demonstrations, the report states. His current whereabouts is unknown, it said. A popular Tibetan singer, Tashi Dhondup, was sentenced to 15 months at a labor camp in January after he released a new CD with a song calling for the return of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, according to the report. He had been arrested on suspicion of “incitement to split the nation,” the report states. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against the Chinese authorities. He says he supports greater autonomy for Tibet but not secession. China says the Dalai Lama’s goal is an independent Tibet. The authorities in Tibet apparently see printing and photocopying shops as potential channels through which unrest can spread. One Chinese print shop operator in Lhasa, who is of the majority Han ethnicity rather than Tibetan, said that her husband had been summoned to a meeting last week on the new requirements. “You know sometimes people print documents in the Tibetan language, which we don’t understand,” said the woman, who gave her last name as Wu. “These might be illegal pamphlets.” Tanzen Lhundup, a research fellow at the government-backed China Tibetology Research Center , which typically follows the government line on Tibet, said in an interview that “the regulation itself is not wrong.” But he said that it should have been put before the public before it was put in place. “They have never issued such a regulation before,” he said. “On what grounds do they want to issue it? I think citizens should be consulted first.” | Tibet;Copying Machines;China;Freedom of Speech and Expression |
ny0042863 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2014/05/07 | Sterling’s Right-Hand Man Is Placed on a Leave of Absence | OKLAHOMA CITY — The N.B.A. took another step in trying to clean up from the Donald Sterling scandal, announcing Tuesday that Andy Roeser, the Los Angeles Clippers’ president and Sterling’s longtime lieutenant, had been put on an indefinite leave of absence. The move was not surprising, given Roeser’s deep ties to Sterling and his statement, which infuriated many inside the organization, attacking the credibility of the woman in the audio recording that captured Sterling’s racist remarks. When the N.B.A. announced Friday that it would soon appoint a new chief executive for the Clippers, it was apparent that Roeser’s time with the organization was nearing an end. “That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said of Roeser’s statement, which was the Clippers’ initial response to the TMZ.com report of the recordings. “And Andy right away said that’s the wrong statement, so he apologized for that and then we moved on.” Roeser and the former director of communications, Joe Safety, who resigned last year, had fiercely defended Sterling over the years. Roeser joined the Clippers as executive vice president when they moved from San Diego in 1984, leaving the accounting firm Ernst & Young. He became the president two years later. He is the second-longest tenured employee of the organization behind Ralph Lawler, who began broadcasting the team’s games in 1978. Sonny Vaccaro, a former sneaker company executive, said he had known Roeser for 30 years and described him as the exceedingly rare sports executive who had remained in the same position, under the same boss, for decades. It was unusual, especially given the Clippers’ absence of success. But winning never seemed to be of utmost importance to Sterling. “You can look at Roeser and wonder how it happened,” Vaccaro said. “And the only way it happened is because he was bright enough to stay out of the way.” Vaccaro added, “He’s the invisible person who sees and hears everything at the office, and conveys all that information to the owner without altering anything.” For years, the Clippers’ website advertised Roeser as a “salary-cap expert” — though the Clippers seldom, if ever, were in danger of exceeding the cap. Owing to their terrible records, the Clippers had lottery pick after lottery pick in the N.B.A. draft but almost never retained those young players once their initial contracts expired, simply because Sterling did not want to pay them. Two years ago, the Clippers landed Chris Paul shortly after the lockout ended when the N.B.A. stepped in to void a deal sending him to the Lakers. It was seen as a transformative moment for a woebegone organization. “A curse?” Roeser said, repeating a question. “I’m not a believer in a curse, but I believe in karma.” | Basketball;Clippers;NBA;Andy Roeser;Donald Sterling |
ny0215306 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2010/04/05 | Butler’s Matt Howard Accepts Changed Role | INDIANAPOLIS — Matt Howard’s arrival at Butler three years ago was as ballyhooed as any in the university’s history. The Bulldogs’ first recruit to be ranked among the nation’s top 100 high school players, Howard led Indiana in rebounding his senior year at Connersville High School, but turned down scholarship offers from Indiana and Purdue to play for Butler. And for his first two seasons, Howard, now a 6-foot-8, 230-pound junior forward with a wispy mustache, lived up to his billing. He was the Horizon League’s newcomer of the year as a freshman and was the conference’s player of the year last season. “Matt was really the face,” the redshirt freshman forward Emerson Kampen said. But with the emergence of the sophomore forward Gordon Hayward as a potential N.B.A. lottery pick and the sophomore point guard Shelvin Mack’s making his mark as the captain of the gold-medal-winning United States 19-and-under team last summer, Howard has become third musketeer for Butler (33-4). But he is still the Bulldogs’ best post player and despite career lows in both scoring (11.6 points per game) and rebounding (5.2), he may just be the biggest factor in Monday night’s national championship game against Duke (34-5). The Blue Devils grab 6.4 more rebounds a game than their opponents and are anchored by the 7-foot-1, 260-pound senior center Brian Zoubek, who is averaging 7.2 points and 10 rebounds a game in the N.C.A.A. tournament. He is so physical that his own teammates have received more than 100 stitches from blows that he has doled out in practice. Whether Howard plays Monday night will not be known until a game-time decision is made because of a mild concussion that he sustained Saturday in his team’s victory against Michigan State. He hit his head on the floor during a nasty collision with two other players in the second half. Later, he took an elbow to the head, and did not return, finishing the game with 4 points on 1-of-7 shooting from the field. Howard did not practice Sunday. He will be re-evaluated Monday morning, Butler’s head athletic trainer, Ryan Galloy, said. “We’re hoping he’s O.K.,” Butler Coach Brad Stevens said. “He did have a good night’s sleep. He’s feeling a little bit better. One thing is his health is numero uno. If he can’t play, he can’t play.” Howard, who is Butler’s third-leading scorer and No. 2 rebounder, was not made available to the news media on Sunday, but he smiled and talked with his teammates as he walked into Lucas Oil Stadium wearing his practice jersey. The Butler junior guard Zach Hahn, Howard’s best friend on the team, said Howard told him Sunday morning that he was feeling better. He expected Howard to play against Duke. “It’s very important,” Hahn said. “And not just that he plays, but that he plays well. Obviously, Duke is huge. We haven’t really played against size like that yet in this tournament with how big Zoubek is and how athletic their guys that come off the bench are.” Howard has struggled with foul problems in the N.C.A.A. tournament and has not scored in double figures in the last four games. He has almost had as many turnovers and fouls (20) as points (24) during that time. Still, Hayward praised Howard for his weak-side defense and altering opponents’ shots. Offensively, many of Butler’s open shots come from opponents double-teaming Howard, he said. “It’s kind of hard to describe all the things that he does because he does so many things that people don’t even notice,” Hayward said, adding: “A lot of times, he’s the key for us. He’s a very big part of us and the reason why we’ve been successful.” One of 10 children, the fun-loving Howard has embraced taking a backseat role, according to his teammates. He enjoys jokes that use wordplay, and has an continuing game with Hahn in which each will hide an ugly green shirt in the other’s room. He and Hahn are the only Butler players to have followed through on a team pledge to grow mustaches before the Horizon League tournament. “Matt is the ultimate team player,” Hahn said. “It doesn’t matter to him if he scores 2 points or if he scores 20. Obviously, he’s capable of scoring 20 at any time if we pass the ball down low or try and find him.” A finance major, Howard also prides himself on being the leader of an investment simulation in a class in which he picks stocks. Howard received the Elite 88 award, which the N.C.A.A. gives to the athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the site of each of its 88 championships. His grade-point average is 3.795. He plans to intern this summer at Merrill Lynch, guard Alex Anglin said. “Don’t think he’s Warren Buffett,” Anglin said. Just do not forget that Howard’s reputation has preceded him before. | NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men);Butler University;Howard Matt;Hayward Gordon;Stevens Brad (1976- );Basketball (College) |
ny0236468 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/06/05 | New York’s Cuts to Hit One Neighborhood Very Hard | Christina Nieves’s life revolves around a handful of blocks in Brooklyn: Drop off her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son at the Strong Place day care center. Make sure her 75-year-old grandmother, who uses a wheelchair, makes it to lunch at the Gowanus Senior Center. Then, on too many occasions to count, take her son, who is asthmatic and prone to seizures, to the Wyckoff children’s clinic. And with warm days now here, watch her children frolic at the Douglass and DeGraw pool. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to close all four places. “My doctor, my school, my grandmother’s senior center — wow, what else is left?” said Ms. Nieves, 25, who sometimes volunteers at the day care center. “I understand one thing — but come on, all these things happening at the same time? This is crazy. Crazy.” When Mr. Bloomberg unveiled his budget a few weeks ago, he warned that no neighborhood would be spared in his struggle to plug a $5 billion gap. But in making steep across-the-board cuts to dozens of agencies and programs, it was almost inevitable that they would fall heaviest on some neighborhoods. And if there is one place that for sheer density and variety of affected services is the epicenter of budget pain, it is a tiny slice of Brooklyn covering six blocks by eight blocks, straddling Gowanus, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill, according to an analysis by The New York Times of the location of the facilities already singled out for closing. Within a 10-minute walk, three day care centers, one senior center, one swimming pool, one after-school program and a health clinic are to close. Venture 20 minutes more, and six additional facilities — two day care centers, two after-school programs, a senior center and a health clinic — are also to shut down on July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Making matters worse, the nearest public transit option — the B37 bus along Third Avenue — is being eliminated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. How dire the final picture ends up being is murky, because the City Council must weigh in on the mayor’s proposal, and a new state budget that could yield more money for New York is nowhere in sight. But with the city and the state in their worst financial shape in decades, the Bloomberg administration says there may be no way to avoid carrying out its menu of cuts. “Budget choices are made in each area through this lens: how can we reduce spending while having the smallest impact on the most essential services, and impact the fewest number of New Yorkers, particularly the fewest number of vulnerable New Yorkers,” said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg. Advocates for programs whose survival is threatened acknowledge the city’s dilemma, but they argue that the Bloomberg administration failed to truly appreciate how cutting a potpourri of programs might damage individual neighborhoods. “I worry that the various agencies are making their decisions in a vacuum, and I worry that there could be a domino effect for families,” said Allison Sesso, deputy executive director of the Human Services Council of New York City, an umbrella group of nonprofit social service agencies. “People get used to these services being in their community, and these services have connections to other services in their community, and once they disappear, people don’t know where to be referred to.” But city officials defended their decisions, arguing that the lingering economic downturn coupled with the budget stalemate in Albany left them no option. They said they tried to spread the pain as evenly as possible while taking into account changes in the neighborhood, like gentrification, that may affect local needs. Still, even more alarming to advocates is that the city has yet to identify the dozens of libraries and the fire companies it plans to close. Beyond ending programs wholesale, the city is also considering steep cuts to adult literacy programs, child welfare services and the corps of school nurses. In Brooklyn, the streets around Gowanus bustle with chic restaurants like the Black Mountain Winehouse and handsome brownstones with immaculate gardens. But the area also features two large public housing complexes, rising numbers of food stamp recipients and five public schools that provide free or reduced-cost lunches to most of their students. The Gowanus Senior Center, one of 50 scheduled to close, serves 30 meals a day in a room painted bright yellow and orange, its walls adorned with masks made by the people who use it. The clients — 60 percent of them Latino, and 40 percent African-American — are fiercely loyal, and are worried about relocating to the next-closest center, a walk of 20 to 25 minutes even for the most able-bodied. Carmen Zayas, 58, a nurse’s aide who is retired, spends several hours a day at the center and helped paint the room and hang the flags of a dozen countries from Latin America and the Caribbean on the wall. “This is a happy place because we’re like family here, so if Bloomberg shuts us down, it would be like me losing a child,” she said. Ms. Nieves’s grandmother, Rose Garcia, is another regular. “She’s been going there ever since my grandfather died,” Ms. Nieves said. “It’s like she gets her mind occupied. “But what’s she going to do now? It’s not like these streets are O.K. all the time,” Ms. Nieves said, noting the fatal shooting in May of a 16-year-old girl a couple of blocks away. Visiting the center, on Baltic Street, Councilman Stephen Levin, who represents the neighborhood, said, “When I saw this center on the list, it broke my heart.” Around the corner, the Bethel Baptist and Strong Place day care centers on Hoyt Street are 2 of 16 around the city that are closing. Housed in the same building, they serve 95 children, ages 2 to 5, from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Parents, many of whom are single mothers, rave about the academic preparation (the children are currently studying Langston Hughes) and artistic inspiration (Miró and Pollock are in vogue), and alumni have gone on to colleges like Barnard and the University of Pennsylvania. But city officials say that the annual rent of $624,000 is too high and that the increasingly upscale neighborhood no longer needs as many slots for children from low-income families. Families pay a minimum of $5 a week, based on a sliding scale of income. But Joan Morris, director of the Bethel Baptist day care center, said city officials misunderstood the neighborhood’s dynamics. “We have families in shelters, homeless,” she said. “For the city to snatch things without — I don’t know, due process? — is a callous disregard for families.” Stephanie Barry was so impressed by the academic program and fresh meals at Strong Place that she kept her 3-year-old daughter, Zya, home until a slot opened up in January. “It’s been great,” said Ms. Barry, 36. “She’s around other kids, socializing; she’s doing great art projects; she’s learning so much.” About four blocks away, an after-school program at New Horizons Middle School 442, run by Good Shepherd Services, is closing, as well. Carline Clerge, a social worker employed by the city’s Human Resources Administration, credits the program with giving her son, Sharod, 14, structure and nurturing, with sports, drama, financial literacy and other programs. Never was that support more vital, she said, than in 2008, when her daughter, Sashanna, spent the last months of her life hospitalized with bone cancer. As Sharod chooses a high school next year, one factor, Ms. Clerge said, is proximity to the middle school, because he wants to be a counselor in the after-school program. Ms. Clerge worries about what he might do if it closes, and where he might go once classes end. “My heart will not be still,” she said. “Maybe he can go to the library. If the library is still open.” | Day Care Centers;Budgets and Budgeting;Shutdowns (Institutional);City Council (NYC);Carroll Gardens (NYC);Boerum Hill (NYC);Brooklyn (NYC);Gowanus (NYC) |
ny0187031 | [
"business"
] | 2009/04/20 | Internet Providers Try to Charge More as Costs Fall | Internet service providers want to end the all-you-can-eat plans and get their customers paying à la carte. But they are having a hard time closing the buffet line. Faced with rising consumer protest and calls from members of Congress for new regulations, Time Warner Cable backed down last week from a plan to impose new fees on heavy users of its Road Runner Internet service. The debate over the price of Internet use is far from over. Critics say cable and phone companies are already charging far more than Internet providers in other countries. Some also wonder whether the new price plans are meant to prevent online video sites from cutting into the lucrative revenue from cable TV service. Cable executives say the issue is not competition but cost. People who watch or download a lot of movies and TV shows use hundreds of times more Internet capacity than those who simply read e-mail and browse the Web. It is only fair, they argue, that heavy users should pay more. “When you go to lunch with a friend, do you split the bill in half if he gets the steak and you have a salad?” Landel C. Hobbs, the chief operating officer of Time Warner Cable, asked recently in a blog post defending the company’s now abandoned plan. Still, critics say the image of Internet providers as restaurants about to go broke serving an endless line of gluttons simply does not match the financial or technological realities of the industry. They point out that providers’ profit margins are stable, and that investment in network equipment is generally falling. These plans to charge for above-average Internet use “are unjustifiable for almost everywhere in the country except for rural America,” Richard F. Doherty, the research director of the Envisioneering Group, a consulting firm that studies cable technology. Cable or telephone networks have little in common with a restaurant, the critics say, because there is no electronic equivalent of food to buy. If all Time Warner customers decided one day not to check their e-mail or download a single movie, the company’s costs would be no different than on a day when every customer was glued to the screen watching one YouTube video after another. That is because their networks are constantly being expanded to handle ever-greater peak periods. It is the modern equivalent of how the old AT&T was said to have built the long-distance network to handle the number of calls expected on Mother’s Day. “All of our economics are based on engineering for the peak hour,” said Tony Werner, the chief technical officer of Comcast . “Just because someone consumes more data doesn’t mean they drive more cost.” Yet even as the providers continually upgrade their networks, the cost of the equipment needed to do so is shrinking steadily, reflecting the well-worn economics of computing. Indeed, the equipment needed to add capacity to any household costs a fraction of one month’s Internet service bill. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, has told investors that doubling the Internet capacity of a neighborhood costs an average of $6.85 a home. The cost of providing Internet service is about to fall even more, as cable companies install new technology, called Docsis 3, that will both increase their capacity and allow them to offer much faster download speeds. So far, however, companies in the United States have chosen to use Docsis 3 as an opportunity to offer far more expensive Internet plans. Comcast has introduced a new 50-megabit-per-second service at $139 a month, compared with its existing service that costs about $45 a month for 8 megabits per second. Time Warner just announced it will charge $99 for 50 megabits per second. By contrast, JCom, the largest cable company in Japan , sells service as fast as 160 megabits per second for $60 a month, only $5 a month more than its slower service. Why so cheap? JCom faces more competition from other Internet providers than companies in the United States do. Cable systems in the United States use the same technology and have roughly the same costs. Comcast told investors that the hardware to provide 50-megabits-per-second service costs less than it had been paying for the equipment for 6 megabits per second. Questions about the speed, availability and affordability of Internet service in the United States will be central to the study Congress has required from the Federal Communications Commission next year. And cable and phone executives are worried that the commission may call for more regulation of Internet service, which currently is free from any government price controls. Time Warner Cable abandoned its plan to expand a test of what it called “usage-based pricing” in four cities after Senator Charles E. Schumer , Democrat of New York, announced his opposition to the idea in a meeting with Glenn A. Britt, the company’s chief executive. | Telecommunication;Computers and the Internet;US Politics;Regulation and Deregulation;Price |
ny0272209 | [
"sports",
"autoracing"
] | 2016/05/28 | A Legendary Short and Winding Road in Monaco | Run on a temporary circuit in the streets of a principality overlooking the Mediterranean, the Monaco Grand Prix is unique among Formula One races. Given its anachronistic character, it’s also an event that, were it not for its illustrious history and its continuing ability to attract heads of state, movie stars, entrepreneurs and executives of the world’s biggest companies, would certainly no longer exist. So what exactly sets the Monaco race and track apart, and what effect does the location have on just about everyone involved: the drivers, the spectators, the mechanics working on the cars? Because of the Monaco track’s unusual characteristics, probably no other track on the Formula One calendar better illustrates the intricate relationship of cars, drivers, fans and circuit. To maintain the Monaco jewel in its elite racing crown, Formula One, with the local organizers, has made huge efforts over the years to accommodate a constantly growing and transforming racing series within the confines of a virtually unchanging city circuit. The track layout has barely changed since it was first featured on the Formula One calendar in 1950, and even since the first running of a Grand Prix in Monaco, in 1929. At just 2.07 miles in length, with the surrounding walls close to the cars and the bumpy, slippery surface of the track, Monaco is the most challenging circuit of the season, even if it is the slowest and shortest track. “A lap around this circuit requires inch-perfect positioning of the car at every corner — each of which leaves no room for error,” said Paddy Lowe, the technical director of the Mercedes team. “It’s a track where driver skill very much comes to the fore,” he added, “although, as always, the team plays a crucial role in ensuring the car is adapted to the specific demands of the circuit and gives the driver confidence to find the limits.” The pit lane and garage area for Sunday’s race were recently renovated to give the mechanics more room to work, but the Monaco track’s work area still remains the smallest in the series. “It’s a bit more challenging, as everything is a lot tighter — the garages are small, the offices are tight, the tires are kept at the back, and everything is narrow,” said Nick Chester, technical director of the Renault team. “But it isn’t that bad in reality, compared to years ago, when we used to work at the harbor and move the cars and all the kit into the pit lane for each session. “So yes, the venue is different to anywhere else, but we are well used to it,” he said. The drivers must drive to within millimeters of the walls and other trackside limits and barriers to attain fast lap times. Even the slightest error can result in an accident. The track is not a challenge just for drivers. The engineers must make changes to the car that are specific to Monaco. For example, the narrow hairpin curve known as Loews turns back on itself at almost 180 degrees. So engineers must increase the steering angle of the car to allow it to make that turn. In terms of aerodynamics, the Monaco track requires a greater amount of downforce than any other. The teams therefore create special wings that are used only for the Monaco circuit. Without them, the cars could not compete. Because the cars need considerable grip on the street track, there is no debate about which tires to use: The Pirelli tire manufacturer provides the teams with the softest version. And because of the bumpy surface of the track, the car’s suspension has to be set much softer than at other circuits to absorb the shocks. One of the greatest paradoxes of the Monaco circuit is that while it may be the slowest of the year, for the drivers it feels extremely fast, because they race so close to the side barriers on narrow streets. For the spectators, too, the proximity of the cars to the grandstands can make it seem as if the cars are faster than at any other circuit. Another paradox is that even though Monaco is the circuit where it is most difficult for drivers to pass one another, because of the narrowness of the track in the urban confines, there is almost always some kind of racing excitement, usually a result of an accident caused by a driver’s error. “Racing at Monaco is an incredible challenge,” said Jenson Button, who drives for the McLaren team. “Being precise on turn-in, hitting the apex and balancing the throttle, while being as patient as possible to get the best exit, is a real art.” He added, “Monaco always produces great drama, which just adds to its legendary status as one of the best Grands Prix on the calendar.” | Car Racing;Formula One;Monaco Grand Prix |
ny0079935 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2015/02/07 | In Patz Case, 2 More Testify to Defendant’s Confession in 1979 | It was the last thing any of the men in the prayer circle were expecting to hear. They had gathered on a New Jersey farm for a religious retreat in the summer of 1979, all working-class Puerto Ricans from Camden, all seeking spiritual solace. Instead, as they prayed together one last time, they heard a young man confess to murdering a child. Two former members of the prayer group testified on Friday that Pedro Hernandez, the man on trial for murder in the Etan Patz case, broke down in tears and confessed to committing a similar crime during the prayer circle, just months after the 6-year-old boy had disappeared. The accounts the witnesses gave differed from each other in some respects. Some details were also inconsistent with what the witnesses had earlier told investigators, a fact defense lawyers brought out during cross-examinations. Still, the testimony generally confirmed the story that Mr. Hernandez told the police when he was arrested in May 2012: that he had lured Etan into a bodega basement with the promise of a soda, and strangled him there. Paito Concepcion, 79, a former factory worker from Isabella, P.R., said he remembered that Mr. Hernandez started weeping as about six men were praying in a circle. The men were members of a charismatic group from St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Camden, and they were at a friend’s farm in Hamilton, N.J. . “He said that he worked in a bodega in New York,” Mr. Concepcion recalled on the witness stand. “He grabbed a child. He gave him a soda, took him to the basement and in the basement he said he abused him.” The witness, speaking in Spanish, went on to say Mr. Hernandez had said he asphyxiated the boy, then “cut” the body. “He said he cut him,” Mr. Concepcion said. “He said he put him in a plastic bag and, ‘I threw him in the garbage.’ And that’s it.” A second witness, Neftali Gonzalez, 77, a former school janitor from Arecibo, P.R., testified that he also recalled that Mr. Hernandez said he tried to “abuse” the child, using a Spanish verb often employed to mean sexual abuse. “The child didn’t let him,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “He strangled him and placed him in the garbage.” Both men said they never told the authorities about Mr. Hernandez’s outburst and kept it to themselves until detectives from New York contacted them in 2012. Asked why he did not report such an terrible confession, Mr. Concepcion said he thought Mr. Hernandez “wasn’t too well” and twirled his finger beside his head to indicate insanity. Mr. Gonzalez said he had kept the incident to himself, “because I was afraid — I didn’t want to confront a court.” On Thursday, Ramon Rodriguez, 75, a former worker for the Campbell Soup Company in Camden who was on the retreat, also testified that Mr. Hernandez had admitted having killed a child. Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, while walking from his parent’s loft on Prince Street to a school bus stop two blocks away. His mother said he had a dollar in his hand and intended to stop at a bodega at West Broadway and Prince Street, which was near the bus stop. That month, Mr. Hernandez was working as a clerk in the bodega. The police arrested Mr. Hernandez, 54, a former factory worker from Maple Shade, N.J., in May 2012, after his brother-in-law, Jose Lopez, who was also in the prayer group, tipped detectives. He told the police that Mr. Hernandez had talked to friends and family about killing a child in New York City in the late 1970s. Mr. Hernandez eventually confessed to the murder, but he now denies the charges, and his lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said the confessions were fictional stories invented by a mentally ill man of limited intelligence. During cross-examination, Mr. Fishbein pointed out that Mr. Concepcion had added details to his story since June 2012. At that time, he said nothing about Mr. Hernandez abusing the child sexually, though he said Mr. Hernandez had “strangled him and cut him in pieces.” Mr. Gonzalez, who could not remember the year of the prayer circle, acknowledged on cross-examination that the first two times he was contacted by detectives in 2012, he told them he did not remember Mr. Hernandez saying anything about killing a child. But he said his conscience bothered him and he “decided to tell the truth” the third time the police contacted him. “I felt depressed for not telling the truth,” Mr. Gonzalez said. | Etan Patz;Pedro Hernandez;Murders and Homicides;Confessions |
ny0065889 | [
"us"
] | 2014/06/08 | Cleveland Clinic Chief Out of Running for V.A. | WASHINGTON — Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, the chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic, said Saturday he had been considered by President Obama for the job of secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but had withdrawn his name and would stay at the clinic. The statement by Dr. Cosgrove came as the White House searches for a successor to Eric Shinseki to lead the troubled department. Mr. Shinseki resigned on May 30 after reports that health care officials had concealed long waiting times for veterans seeking medical care at some veterans hospitals and clinics. Finding a new secretary and cleaning up problems at the department have become urgent political matters for the president, who pledged in 2008 and 2012 to make the government more efficient. Administration officials said the discussions with Dr. Cosgrove were still at an early stage when he withdrew from consideration. Dr. Cosgrove, a heart surgeon, is a Vietnam veteran. Experts on military health care said it would have taken him months to master the sprawling bureaucracy of the veterans agency, which they said needs huge cultural changes and a management shake-up to solve its deep-rooted problems. The department runs one of the nation’s biggest health care systems, a far-flung operation that treats 6.5 million people a year at 151 hospitals and 820 outpatient clinics. It has more than 18,000 doctors and an annual budget of more than $57 billion. Dr. Cosgrove said he was “humbled and honored to have been considered for the opportunity to help veterans” across the nation. “This has been an extraordinarily difficult decision,” Dr. Cosgrove said, “but I have decided to withdraw from consideration from this position and remain at the Cleveland Clinic, due to the commitment I have made to the organization, our patients and the work that still needs to be done here.” Dr. Cosgrove joined the Cleveland Clinic in 1975 and has been its president and chief executive since 2004. “As a physician, veteran and hospital chief executive,” he said, “I have great respect for the care provided to the veteran community and for those who work to care for them.” In his current job, Dr. Cosgrove presides over a $4.6 billion enterprise that includes the Cleveland Clinic, nine community hospitals and more than a dozen family health and outpatient surgery centers, as well as a hospital in Florida and a hospital being built in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In the Republicans’ weekly radio address on Saturday, Representative Jeff Miller of Florida, the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, called on Mr. Obama to outline “a long-term vision for fixing what is clearly a broken system.” “This is the biggest health care scandal in the V.A.’s history,” Mr. Miller said. “While the House and Senate work together to address these crises, we will also hold the president accountable.” | Veteran Affairs;Cleveland Clinic;Barack Obama;Veteran;Delos Cosgrove |
ny0288635 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2016/08/23 | Fake ISIS Attack in Prague, Intended as Protest, Causes Panic | Sporting detachable beards, the men drove a Humvee onto Old Town Square in Prague on Sunday, wielding fake submachine-style BB guns and waving an Islamic State flag. Accompanied by a camel and a goat, they shouted “Allahu akbar” and fired guns without pellets. “We are bringing you the light of true faith,” the leader of the men, Martin Konvicka, who was dressed as an imam, told the crowd. Mr. Konvicka is an anti-immigration activist, and his stunt — which had been preapproved by City Hall — was intended to sound the alarm about what he views as the threat posed by Islam to the Czech way of life. But he evidently did not anticipate how it would be received. Prague is one of Central Europe’s most visited destinations; tourists throng the medieval Old Town and neighboring Josefov, the historic Jewish quarter, and nearby landmarks like the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle. The faux occupation stirred panic among tourists, including a group of visitors from Israel. Dozens of onlookers, including some with children, ran for cover, knocking over chairs at restaurants. Several tourists suffered bruises. “I was entering Old Town Square from a far corner and heard gunshots,” said Andrea Steinova, a Prague resident. “Then I saw a group of about 40 people, some of them yelling in Hebrew, running toward me. A couple of them tripped and fell, and others ran over them.” Kristyna Vinsova, a server at Kotleta, a restaurant on the square, said about 80 people charged through the doors. “They knocked over tables and chairs, they were absolutely terrified and there were many families with children,” she said. “After about 15 minutes, one man went to see what was going on and came back to tell us it was a ‘theatrical performance.’ But it took many of the people around an hour to actually calm down and leave.” Aaron Gunsberger, who owns a kosher restaurant in the Jewish quarter, grabbed his gun and ran to the square, fearful that an attack was taking place. “When I figured out what was happening, I told some puzzled American tourists that this was just our local clown, but that I didn’t think it was funny,” he said. “If they had shown up like this in front of my restaurant, I’d be in jail now because I would have shot them.” Gun laws in the Czech Republic are generally less restrictive than in most other parts of Europe, and Josefov — whose synagogues and cemetery survived World War II because the Nazi occupiers intended for the quarter to become a museum of the extinct Jewish race — is, like many Jewish neighborhoods in Europe, carefully guarded. The act over the weekend was halted before it got to its planned end: The simulated killing of a prisoner, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, in the square. The Czech interior minister, Milan Chovanec , was not amused. On Twitter , he called the protest a sign of “idiocy.” Not all tourists were sent into panic. Footage showed some onlookers taking photographs or videos, and even giggling. Other people taunted the protesters; one woman shouted at the men, “Xenophobe! Xenophobe!” Mr. Konvicka, an entomologist at University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, in the country’s south, founded a group called “We don’t want Islam in the Czech Republic.” He had called the protest “The Occupation of Prague” and scheduled it for Sunday, the 48th anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. On his Facebook page , he called the operation a success. “Until a few Muslims started shouting aggressively and pushing toward the performers, everything was going very peacefully,” he wrote. In a telephone interview, Mr. Konvicka said it was obvious that the mock attack was a stunt, adding, “The police checked our air guns and even counted how many bearded guys were in our group, to make sure we didn’t deviate from what we told City Hall we would do.” A spokesman for the Prague police, Tomas Hulan, said the department had no power to ban the event as it had been approved by City Hall. He said officers had questioned eight people and were looking into whether anyone could be charged for disturbing the peace. City Hall officials defended their decision to allow the protest but acknowledged that they had not fully understood what would unfold. “We only had very basic information of what the spectacle would be like,” said Vit Hofman, a spokesman for City Hall. “Had we known what was going to transpire, we would certainly have banned it.” The Czech Republic, like other countries in Europe, has been grappling with fears about Islamic terrorism that are being exploited across the political spectrum. This month, a 25-year-old mechanic and loner from a small Czech town, who tried to travel to Syria in January, was charged with attempted terrorism , in what the authorities said was the first known case of a Czech citizen’s trying to join the Islamic State. The case stirred anxieties that homegrown Islamic radicalism may have migrated to Eastern and Central Europe. In the Czech Republic, such concerns have been fanned by President Milos Zeman , who warned last year that Islamic State jihadists must be crushed to prevent a “ super Holocaust ,” and who suggested that Czechs might want to arm themselves. The country has about 10.5 million people, with roughly 20,000 Muslims. | Prague;ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State;Martin Konvicka;Civil Unrest;Czech Republic |
ny0210808 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2017/01/05 | Stop Punching Me, Darth Vader | I had a yen for some really delicious nachos the other day, so I decided I would go to my local multiplex. Joke! Just messing with you. What I was really after was an escape from a gray, slushy New York day, not that the snow isn’t lovely after a few thousand cabs have driven through it. I buy a ticket at the Regal Union Square to the next movie that’s starting, which turns out to be the new “Star Wars” movie, “Rogue One.” It’s an expensive ticket, $25, which I assume is because they are doing some dopey 3D thing. The trouble begins even before the feature starts. Somebody kicks the back of my chair so hard it shakes. When I turn around to give him the N.Y.C. death stare, nobody is there. Obviously some teenager, dragging his extra-large tub of popcorn in a U-Haul, has hit my chair walking by. These chairs, now that I think about it, are kind of weird. They’re as big as the lounge chairs in the renovated chains, but they don’t recline; they have footrests like barbershop chairs, and you have to sort of climb into them. I put on my 3D glasses and settle in. There are, I might as well tell you, gaps in my “Star Wars” knowledge. I know that if you see someone in a galaxy far, far away, it is polite to say, “May the Force be with you” before telling him to shut off his damn cellphone. I know that if something awful has happened, it has to do with Darth Vader being a jerk again or with an absence of the Force. “Did you hear about Obi-Wan Kenobi? He was on a seniors’ singles cruise, and they ran into bad weather, and he fell and broke four ribs and a hip. Now he’s doing a month of rehab at Rusk. The Force was not with him.” “How awful. That’s why I’m so worried about this incoming administration. It seems really determined to take away the Force.” The movie begins. On the screen, we’re moving through space. Off screen, my chair rumbles and the leg rest vibrates. Are we this close to the subway? This theater is two stories up. Concentrate on the movie. There’s a farm with two adults and their kid, which in deep space means one thing: Something really bad is going to happen that will have the kid talking to a therapist for years. (“They put me in a rocket that was only big enough for me. Who does that to a kid?”) Sure enough, within moments, an ominous spacecraft, registered no doubt to someone in the Galactic Empire, appears in the sky and begins its descent. What’s weird here is that as the spacecraft banks to the right, it feels as if my chair is tilting to the right; as it banks left, it feels as if my chair is tilting left. Then it hits me: My chair is tilting. I have stumbled into a theater in which the special effects are physical. The technology, I will later learn, is 4DX ; it involves not merely motion but also wind, scent, rain, snow — “an all-five-senses absolute cinema experience,” the company website says — and it’s available in only two movie houses in New York. The problem is, when it comes to flying, I don’t want all my senses involved. I hate flying; banking planes make me queasy. I thought that was because I am a nervous flier, but now, with my seat tilting and diving, I realize it’s because of the motion. It makes me think of my last boyfriend, a two-timing skunk who could not watch conventional 3D because it made him physically ill. How I wish he were here with me now. And banking and diving are just a small part of what my seat can do. When there’s gunfire on screen, two jets of air shoot out of my chair, past my neck — something, certainly, the combat vet in your household would enjoy. When somebody gets jostled in the shoulder in a crowded market, the seat pokes me in the same shoulder. When someone slugs somebody, the seat mimics the one-two, punching me twice in the back. The action isn’t limited to the chairs either. When there’s a rainstorm on screen, drops of water fall on my head, and I, astonished, have the only thought a mature person can have: I wonder what they could do with porn? But silly me, here we have a new “Star Wars” movie and I’ve told you practically nothing about the plot: A planet is threatened. I hope I didn’t give too much away. You know one peculiar thing about this 4DX universe? When there’s a tender scene, like a doomed mother presenting her Force Be With You necklace to her young daughter, always a special moment in a girl’s life, there is not one special effect. The chair could be doing all sorts of touchy-feely stuff, getting warm and poufy, purring like a kitten. But it just sits there, impassive and resentful, as if it’s been dragged to the opera. This technology, 4DX, is about conflict. My heart sinks when I see a tank because I know I’m going to be in it. (BOUNCE! JOLT! SHAKE!) It’s worse when a spacecraft dives into battle, past jagged cliffs and canyons (TILT!), through a violent thunderstorm (SPLATTER, SPLATTER!), then banks spectacularly to evade enemy fire (TILT, WHOOSH, TILT!) and comes in with a hard landing (WHAM!). It was that landing that finished me. It was like coming into St. Bart’s. Then there was an endless battle, with me getting pummeled in the back by my seat. It was really starting to annoy me. If I’d stayed, I would have turned around and gone all Travis Bickle on it, and that would not have ended well — my seat had a left that could flatten Frazier. I leave the theater, my scarf damp, my glasses dotted with 4DX rain, and walk out to Union Square, where taxi cabs are tossing up grimy slush, and tourists are putting out one another’s eyes with selfie sticks. Sometimes you just need an escape. And I’m not paying $25 for it. | Movies;Union Square Manhattan;Rogue One |
ny0268968 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2016/04/11 | Englishman Rises in the Late-Afternoon Augusta Sun | AUGUSTA, Ga. — It had been two weeks of joyful, life-changing whirlwind and with one short putt left to finish off his sparkling 67 in the late Sunday sunshine, Danny Willett removed the white sweater he had worn all day to reveal a green shirt. That was fine foreshadowing, because he would soon be sporting the green jacket as well. It would have taken quite a soothsayer late last month to predict that situation when Willett and his wife, Nicole, were awaiting the birth of their first child in England and wondering if Willett would make it to Augusta at all. Plenty more clairvoyance would have been required at 5 p.m. Sunday to predict that Willett would be the low-profile man to end the 20-year British drought at the Masters. At that hour, Jordan Spieth was proceeding (slowly) toward the 10th hole with a five-shot lead as thousands of spectators — laden with merchandise and stacked Masters souvenir cups — were streaming toward the exits with the understandable sense that the suspense was over. But golf can be a most surprising game (search Jean van de Velde and the 1999 British Open). And Augusta National — all golden light and soft breezes on Sunday after a blustery week — can be as cruel as it is beautiful. Cue Spieth’s quadruple bogey on the par-3 12th hole. Cue Willett’s birdie on the 16th and pressure-proof performance on the final two holes to close out his bogey-free round. “It’s just crazy, just surreal,” said Willett, a 28-year-old from Yorkshire. “You know words can’t really describe the things and the emotions.” Willett used the same word, “surreal,” at last year’s British Open at St. Andrews when he was the surprise second-round leader. But winning a major certainly trumps leading a major, as Spieth could surely and sadly confirm. “Them things happen in golf,” Willett said of Spieth’s collapse. “You don’t want it to happen in the situations that it happened in for himself. It was one of them. I just feel fortunate that I was in the position to pounce on the opportunity to accomplish it. If I had been five over par, then it wouldn’t have mattered what Jordan had done.” There was symmetry to the way Willett’s victory transpired. The last Englishman to win the Masters was Nick Faldo, who won it for the third time in 1996 after Greg Norman blew a six-shot lead in the final round. Twenty years later, Willett was the beneficiary but also the survivor, given how many tough shots and ill winds Augusta conjured this year. Willett’s winning score of 283 was quite a contrast with Spieth’s winning 270 in 2015. “It’s a gut-wrenching thing for Spieth,” Paul Azinger, the former United States Ryder Cup captain, told the BBC. “It will stay with him his whole life, but somebody has to grab the bit, and while Jordan spit the bit — it was almost Normanesque there, hard to watch — Danny Willett stepped up there.” It was not quite as big a leap as casual golf fans might suspect. Willett arrived at the Masters ranked 12th in the world after winning his fourth PGA European Tour title at the Dubai Desert Classic in February. Even before Sunday, he was considered a lock to make his first European Ryder Cup team, and Darren Clarke, the former British Open champion who is also managed by Chubby Chandler, had predicted that Willett was the future of European golf. As it turned out, he was the present, and though he had never won a tour event in the United States, he has played plenty of golf here, including two college seasons at Jacksonville State in Alabama. His mother comes from Sweden. His father is a vicar, and Willett was the world’s top-ranked amateur in 2008, playing on the same Walker Cup team as Rory McIlroy. And though McIlroy was the first to soar to fame and fortune, Willett ended up beating him to a first Masters title. “I don’t know how much it would have changed Jordan Spieth’s life if he’d won, but it will certainly change Danny’s life forever,” Azinger said. “Good for him. To win here at the Masters, you have to be a complete player.” To win the Masters, you also have to play the Masters, and with Nicole Willett originally due to give birth to their first child on April 10, it appeared highly likely that her husband would be watching this major from afar. But she gave birth to a boy named Zachariah by cesarean section on March 29, and Willett was able to board a flight for the United States, arriving last Monday. “I was just at home making sure she was all right,” he said. “Changing nappies, making bottles, doing everything normal that a dad with a new son does, making sure that everything at home was fine so that I could come here with a clear mind, knowing that I had done enough back home and Nic was going to be all right this week.” Willett was the last of the 89 Masters participants to arrive — perhaps another bit of foreshadowing. “Someone told me Nicklaus was 89 the year he won in 1986,” Willett said. And though other players had much more practice time on the Augusta National course, Willett was able to rely on his notes and memories from his first appearance in 2015. “Fortunately, I had done my homework last year,” he said. He also got some sage advice during a practice session last week with the two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer, the 58-year-old who ended up having a pretty fair tournament himself, even if he closed with a 79 on Sunday. But this would ultimately be a Masters defined by much younger men: by Spieth’s unexpected implosion and grim-faced grace in defeat; by Willett’s wide-eyed look of delight when, in the midst of a video chat with Nicole in the clubhouse, he was tackled by his caddie Jonathan Smart. Spieth’s final bogey on 17 had just guaranteed Willett’s victory. “I’ll call you back,” he said to Nicole. There will be a great deal to discuss. | Golf;Danny Willett;Jordan Spieth;Masters Golf,Masters |
ny0132604 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2012/12/06 | Lakers’ Kobe Bryant Becomes Youngest With 30,000 Points | Kobe Bryant scored 29 points, becoming the fifth player in N.B.A. history to eclipse 30,000 career points, and the Los Angeles Lakers ended a two-game skid with a 103-87 win over the host New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night. Bryant entered the game needing only 13 points to reach the milestone and passed it with a short jumper late in the first half. The Lakers trailed by a point at halftime but seized control with a 13-0 run to open the third quarter. Bryant is 34. Wilt Chamberlain was 35 when he hit the mark, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone were each 36, and Michael Jordan was 38. JAZZ 87, MAGIC 81 Al Jefferson scored a season-high 31 points and grabbed 15 rebounds to lead Utah at home. Jefferson was hurt while corralling his final rebound. He went down clutching his back with 1 minute 29 seconds left and had to be helped off the court. Team officials said he had back spasms. BULLS 95, CAVALIERS 85 Marco Belinelli scored a season-high 23 points, and Chicago took control early in Cleveland. Belinelli was starting for a second straight game in place of Richard Hamilton, who Bulls Coach Tom Thibodeau said could miss two weeks because of a left plantar fascia tear. CELTICS 104, TIMBERWOLVES 94 Kevin Garnett scored 18 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and remained unbeaten against his former team as Boston won at home in Rajon Rondo’s return from a two-game suspension. HAWKS 108, NUGGETS 104 Josh Smith’s steal, jam and free throw with 31 seconds left extended Atlanta’s lead as the Hawks held on at home. Smith had 16 points and 13 rebounds on his 27th birthday. IN OTHER GAMES Paul George scored 22 points to help Indiana beat Portland, 99-92, at home. ... Klay Thompson scored 19 of his 27 points in the third quarter of visiting Golden State’s 104-97 win over Detroit. ... Tony Parker had 22 points and 10 assists as San Antonio beat Milwaukee, 110-99, at home. STERN EXPLAINS SPURS FINE Commissioner David Stern said the San Antonio Spurs’ $250,000 fine was justified because the club went beyond what owners agreed was a reasonable approach to resting healthy players. Stern said that coaches should have the authority to rest players at the end of the season but that teams should not rest four regulars a little more than a month into the season. He said the team made matters worse by not notifying the league beforehand. NET IS FINED FOR A FLOP Nets forward Gerald Wallace was fined $5,000 for flopping, joining his teammate Reggie Evans as the only repeat offenders under the league’s new penalty system. Defending a driving LeBron James on Saturday in Miami, Wallace went tumbling backward. Wallace had been warned for a flop against the Knicks on Nov. 26. | Basketball;Los Angeles Lakers;Bryant Kobe;New Orleans Hornets;Records and Achievements |
ny0159572 | [
"us"
] | 2008/12/13 | After 15 Years, North Carolina Plant Unionizes | After an expensive and emotional 15-year organizing battle, workers at the world’s largest hog-killing plant, the Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, N.C., have voted to unionize. The United Food and Commercial Workers, which had lost unionization elections at the 5,000-worker plant in 1994 and 1997, announced late Thursday that it had finally won. The victory was significant in a region known for hostility toward organized labor. The vote was one of the biggest private-sector union successes in years, and officials from the United Food and Commercial Workers said it was the largest in that union’s history. The union won by 2,041 votes to 1,879 after two years of turmoil at the plant. As a result of a federal crackdown on illegal immigrants, more than 1,500 Hispanic workers have left the plant. Its work force is now 60 percent black, up from around 20 percent two years ago. After the results were announced, Wanda Blue, a hog counter, was among the many workers who were celebrating. “It feels great,” said Ms. Blue, who makes $11.90 an hour and has worked at Smithfield for five years. “It’s like how Obama felt when he won. We made history.” “I favored the union because of respect,” said Ms. Blue, who is black. “We deserve more respect than we’re getting. When we were hurt or sick, we weren’t getting treated like we should.” “The union didn’t win by a big margin, but it’s an important positive sign for labor,” said Richard Hurd, a professor of labor relations at Cornell University. “They may be able to use it as leverage to organize other meatpacking plants in the South. The victory may be tied to the political environment. The election of Barack Obama may have eased people’s concerns about speaking out and standing up for a union.” The United Food and Commercial Workers maintained that it lost the 1997 election because Smithfield broke the law by intimidating and firing union supporters. In 2006, after seven years of litigation, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Smithfield had engaged in “intense and widespread” coercion. The court ordered Smithfield to reinstate four union supporters it found were illegally fired, one of whom was beaten by the plant’s police on the day of the 1997 election. The court also said Smithfield had engaged in other illegal activities: spying on workers’ union activities, confiscating union materials, threatening to fire workers who voted for the union and threatening to freeze wages and shut the plant. The unionization campaign this year was conducted under unusual conditions and rules, intended to reduce the vitriol. In October, the company and the union reached a settlement under court supervision in which the union agreed to drop its nationwide campaign intended to denounce and embarrass Smithfield and the company agreed to drop a lawsuit asserting that the union’s denunciations and calls for a boycott violated racketeering laws. The union’s pressure campaign had been intended to persuade the company to let the workers decide on unionizing not through secret balloting but through having a majority of workers sign pro-union cards. Under the settlement, the two sides could campaign in a limited fashion, and they could not denounce each other. The agreement also allowed union organizers on the plant’s property; union organizers are generally barred from setting foot on company property, even a parking lot, unless management consents. “We won because that gave us more of a level playing field,” said Joseph Hansen, the union’s president. “That was probably the major thing.” Dennis Pittman, a Smithfield spokesman, said: “It was close, and the people had a chance to do what we wanted all along, to speak their voice in a secret ballot, and they spoke. As we said all along, we will respect their decision.” Mr. Pittman said he expected that the two sides would begin negotiations early next year. Many unions are pushing Congress to pass legislation that would enable unions to organize workers by having them sign pro-union cards. “I would say in this case, it shows that the union can win without a card check,” Mr. Pittman said. But Mr. Hansen said the 15-year unionization fight showed how hard it was to win under the normal system. To win the election, union organizers pushed for the cooperation of the plant’s black and Hispanic workers. At lunchtime, outspoken workers sometimes wore T-shirts saying “Smithfield Justice” and gave speeches to hundreds of workers. Several workers said that in the days leading up to the vote, some 2,000 workers had “Union Time” written on their hard hats. Professor Hurd said one factor that helped the union was the growing percentage of black workers at the plant. “African-Americans are the strongest supporters of unions,” he said. Lydia Victoria, who helps cut off hog tails at the plant, acknowledged that many Hispanic workers were afraid of being seen as union supporters. Illegal immigrant workers are especially worried because they fear deportation. “A lot of Hispanic people,” Ms. Victoria said, “were scared to support the union, sometimes because of the language, and sometimes because they feel they don’t get the same treatment like the people who speak English.” “But people came together,” she said. “People wanted fair treatment. We fought so long to get this, and it finally happened.” | Organized Labor;Smithfield Foods Inc;United Food and Commercial Workers;North Carolina |
ny0228287 | [
"world",
"middleeast"
] | 2010/07/28 | Student Injury at Protest Leads to Battle in Israel | JERUSALEM — A macabre legal wrangle is under way over who should pay the hospital bill for an American art student who lost an eye after being struck by a tear-gas canister fired by an Israeli border police officer at a Palestinian -led protest in the West Bank . The student, Emily Henochowicz , 21, was injured on May 31 after she joined Palestinian and foreign activists protesting that morning’s deadly raid by Israeli naval commandos on a Turkish boat trying to breach the blockade of Gaza. Israeli security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstration after a few Palestinian youths threw rocks. Witnesses at the protest, by the Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah, said that a border police officer had fired the tear-gas directly at the demonstrators, rather than into the air in line with regulations. The Israeli police have begun a criminal investigation. But the lawyer representing Ms. Henochowicz, Michael Sfard, recently received a letter from the Israeli Ministry of Defense rejecting any demand for compensation or payment of hospital costs. The reason, the ministry stated, was that the protest was violent and that the tear-gas canister was not fired directly but had ricocheted off a concrete barricade. Ms. Henochowicz, who is Jewish and is a student at the Cooper Union in New York, arrived in Israel in February for what was supposed to be a six-month student exchange. Her father was born in Israel to Holocaust survivors whom he described as “ardent Zionists.” Speaking by telephone from her home in Potomac, Md., this week, Ms. Henochowicz said it was “upsetting, when someone gets an injury, not only to have to deal with the physical consequences of something you did not do to yourself, but the economic consequences as well.” Ms. Henochowicz, who was treated at Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem, had her left eye removed and suffered fractures that required the insertion of titanium plates. She returned to the United States in early June, where she is continuing to visit doctors and specialists. But more than the cost of the treatment in Israel, which amounted to about $10,000, there are clearly legal principles and interests at stake. The student’s father, Dr. Stuart Henochowicz, said by telephone that he had not yet explored the question of whether his daughter’s insurance would cover the bill, because he was under the impression that it would be paid by the Ministry of Defense. On Tuesday, the ministry stated that according to preliminary checks, the border police dealt lawfully with the “violent protest at Qalandiya,” and that the firing of tear gas was justified. While expressing sorrow over Ms. Henochowicz’s injury, the ministry added that it did not cover hospitalization expenses in circumstances such as these. The ministry said it had acted similarly in the case of Tristan Anderson , an American severely wounded by a tear-gas projectile in 2009. The ministry said that Mr. Anderson had filed a suit in the Tel Aviv District Court, where the issue of hospital expenses would be settled. Mr. Sfard, the lawyer, said that from the start he told Dr. Henochowicz, who flew to Israel from the United States to be at his daughter’s bedside, “not to touch his wallet or to sign any check.” In a letter to the ministry, Mr. Sfard wrote, “It is insolent and preposterous to expect someone who was shot by the security forces, whether unintentionally, negligently or with criminal intention, to fund her own medical treatment.” Yuval Weiss, the director of the medical center in Ein Kerem, said the hospital was “not a party to the argument.” “It makes no difference to us who pays, as long as somebody does,” he said. “We cannot work for free.” After her arrival in Israel, Ms. Henochowicz, who came to Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, got involved with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement after meeting activists at a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah, an East Jerusalem neighborhood where settlers have won court cases and evicted several Palestinian families from their homes. From Sheikh Jarrah, Ms. Henochowicz frequented the regular Palestinian protest spots in the West Bank like Bilin, Nilin and Nabi Saleh. The late May protest was her first at Qalandiya. “I did not know what it would be like,” she said. The demonstration came hours after Israel’s raid on an aid flotilla. Violent clashes broke out on the Turkish boat and nine activists — eight Turks and an American-Turkish youth — were killed. Ms. Henochowicz said she was not standing near the stone throwers. She was holding a Turkish and an Austrian flag when she was struck. Avi Issacharoff, an Israeli journalist from the newspaper Haaretz, was watching the demonstration. “The police fired a tear-gas grenade, and then another and another,” he wrote in June “I remember that what surprised me was the volley of grenade fire directly aimed directly at the demonstrators, not at the sky. After the fourth grenade, if I am not mistaken, a shout was heard about 100 meters away.” Unusual for a foreign activist in a conflict where battle lines are often starkly drawn, Ms. Henochowicz says she feels a certain affinity with both sides. She said she had wanted to help the Palestinians, but because of her background, she said she also felt “very attached” to Israel “in lots of ways.” She added, “If I did not really care about what was happening in the country, I would have hung out on the beach all day.” Dr. Henochowicz said he found the whole episode “hurtful,” and was upset that no Israeli officials made any contact with him or his daughter during the five days they were at the hospital. Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael B. Oren, has since visited the family’s home in Maryland, Dr. Henochowicz said. If it was an accident, “Why didn’t they come to the hospital and talk to me?” he asked. | Israel;West Bank;Demonstrations and Riots;Accidents and Safety;Palestinians;Suits and Litigation;Americans Abroad |
ny0025145 | [
"sports",
"soccer"
] | 2013/08/31 | Bayern Wins Super Cup, Beating Chelsea in Shootout | Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer saved a penalty by the substitute Romelu Lukaku to give Champions League winner Bayern Munich a 5-4 victory over Chelsea in a shootout to claim the UEFA Super Cup in Prague, after the game finished, 2-2, following extra time. All nine players converted their penalties before Lukaku stepped up, and Neuer dove to his left to keep the shot out. Bayern won its first Super Cup in the club’s fourth attempt, earning a first trophy with the team for the new coach Pep Guardiola. | Soccer;UEFA Champions League;Bayern Munich Soccer Team;Chelsea Soccer Team |
ny0115427 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2012/11/12 | BBC Chairman Says Network Needs Radical Overhaul | LONDON — The BBC ’s chairman said Sunday that the broadcasting organization was in a “ghastly mess” as a result of its bungled coverage of a decades-old sexual abuse scandal and in need of a fundamental shake-up. “Does the BBC need a thorough structural overhaul? Of course it does,” the chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, said on “The Andrew Marr Show,” the BBC’s flagship Sunday morning talk show, after the resignation of the broadcaster’s chief executive. But although Mr. Patten has said that the BBC’s handling of the scandal was marked by “unacceptably shoddy journalism,” he pushed back on the Marr show against suggestions that the crisis could lead to a dismantling of the BBC as it now exists, with 23,000 employees, a $6 billion annual budget and a dominant role in British broadcasting. Mr. Patten, 68, a former Conservative cabinet minister who gained a reputation for feisty independence when he was Britain’s last colonial governor in Hong Kong, said critics of the BBC should not lose sight of its reputation at home and abroad for trustworthy journalism. “The BBC is and has been hugely respected around the world,” he said. “But we have to earn that. If the BBC loses that, then it is over.” Public confidence in the broadcaster has slumped further in opinion polls in the wake of its coverage of a scandal involving allegations of abuses by a senior politician at a children’s home in Wales in the 1970s and ’80s. But the British public would not support breaking up the BBC, Mr. Patten said, adding, “The BBC is one of the things that has come to define and reflect Britishness, and we shouldn’t lose that.” Barely 12 hours earlier, Mr. Patten stood outside the BBC’s new billion-dollar London headquarters with George Entwistle, the departing director general, as Mr. Entwistle announced his resignation, after only eight weeks in the post, to atone for his failings in dealing with what he called “the exceptional events of the past few weeks.” Mr. Entwistle’s resignation was prompted by outrage over a Nov. 2 report on “Newsnight,” a current affairs program, that wrongly implicated a former Conservative Party politician in the scandal. Responding to reports that the “Newsnight” segment was broadcast without some basic fact-checking that would have exculpated the 70-year-old retired politician it implicated, Alistair McAlpine, Mr. Entwistle said it reflected “unacceptable journalistic standards” and never should have been broadcast. That episode, which Mr. McAlpine’s lawyers have said would be the subject of a defamation lawsuit, compounded the problems facing the network since revelations last month about a longtime BBC television host, Jimmy Savile , who died at 84 in 2011. Mr. Savile was suspected of having sexually abused as many as 300 young people over decades in the BBC’s studios and in children’s homes and hospitals where he gained ready access as a campaigner for children’s charities. The BBC has been accused of covering up the Savile matter by canceling a “Newsnight” report on the accusations against him last December and going ahead with several Christmas specials that paid tribute to Mr. Savile. The producer of “Newsnight” told his staff members that the Savile investigation was not adequately substantiated by their reporting, but at least one “Newsnight” staff member noted that the producer said that he had come under pressure on the issue from BBC managers. At that time, Mr. Entwistle was in charge of all the BBC’s television productions and was seeking to succeed Mark Thompson, who stepped down in September after eight years as director general. Mr. Entwistle has said that he was not informed beforehand of the nature of the “Newsnight” investigation or the reasons for its cancellation. On Monday, Mr. Thompson will begin his new post as president and chief executive of The New York Times Company. He has said he knew nothing beforehand about the “Newsnight” investigation of Mr. Savile or the decision to scrap it — not even that it involved allegations of pedophilia — and that he had never met Mr. Savile. But Mr. Thompson has said that he is willing to answer any questions put to him by a parliamentary inquiry or a raft of other investigations now under way. Mr. Patten said Sunday that he expected a new director to be appointed within weeks. On Saturday, he announced that Tim Davie, 45, an executive with a background in marketing who is director of the BBC’s radio operations, would serve as the acting director general. But British commentators say that finding a new chief executive is only part of the wider crisis confronting the BBC in the wake of the departure of Mr. Entwistle, 50. They are also asking whether Britain needs such a huge public-service broadcaster in an age of expanding media choices, and whether the BBC should retain the advantages granted to it under its royal charter and continue to be financed by the mandatory $230-a-year license fee for owners of television sets. Effectively, these questions are already being asked as part of a long-running governmental review of the BBC’s role that was under way before the current crisis. The BBC’s harshest detractors have pressed for a radical downscaling of the broadcaster, and for its return to a narrower range of public-service programing, leaving much that it now does in entertainment, sports, reality TV and other fields to its commercial competitors. More immediately, the BBC has to deal with a rebellious mood in its own ranks. Over the past couple of days, many of the BBC’s top journalists and presenters have unleashed angry outbursts against the broadcaster’s management, mainly directed at Mr. Entwistle and Mr. Thompson for what the employees have called a pattern of failed leadership. A persistent complaint has been that reforms initiated in the 1990s have created a vast hierarchy of overpaid managers who were insulated from programming decisions. It was a critique Mr. Patten endorsed in his remarks on the Marr show, saying at one point that “there are more senior leaders in the BBC than in the Chinese Communist Party.” Jonathan Dimbleby, a well-known presenter, said on the same show that because of the layers of bureaucracy between Mr. Entwistle and the “Newsnight” producers, “George was at the receiving end of nothing, when he should have known everything.” | British Broadcasting Corp;Patten Christoper F;Savile Jimmy;Entwistle George E;Child Abuse and Neglect;Television;Sex Crimes |
ny0181746 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/12/04 | A Bouncer Tells Jurors Assassins Framed Him | On trial for three killings connected to a strip parlor in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a bouncer told jurors yesterday that he was being framed by a squad of police assassins acting on orders from a corrupt detective who was out to shake down the bouncer’s private security business while his martial arts students conducted countersurveillance black ops against the Police Department. He vowed to prove this just as soon as his mother arrived at the courthouse with a secret notebook of evidence. Then it turned out his mother was already sitting in the courtroom. She was wearing a floppy brown hat. She did not seem to have a notebook, secret or otherwise. “He didn’t recognize the hat,” called out the bouncer’s mother, Carmen Troutman, explaining her son’s oversight and not much else. The bouncer, Stephen Sakai, 32, fixed his gaze on the middle distance. If vexed by this turn, he was undeterred. The trial will not be Mr. Sakai’s last. He was arrested last year on charges of firing into a crowd of Chelsea nightclub patrons, killing one and injuring three. That case awaits trial. In Brooklyn, prosecutors have charged Mr. Sakai with murdering three men associated with the Sweet Cherry, a nightclub where he worked. The victims were a disc jockey, a sometime patron and a security coordinator. On the strength of forensic evidence, signed confessions and documents taken from Mr. Sakai’s apartment, prosecutors rested their case yesterday. A defense lawyer, Kleon C. Andreadis, stood and told the judge he had told Mr. Sakai the consequences of opening himself to cross-examination. Dressed in a dark suit, his head shaved bald, Mr. Sakai was led to the witness stand. In his opening statement last month, Mr. Andreadis admonished the jurors to keep their minds open. Mr. Sakai, who was born and raised in Queens as Stephen Sanders before legally changing his name in 1998, spoke in an accent that recalled Mr. Sulu of “Star Trek” and that seemed to come and go as his pace accelerated. He told of studying martial arts overseas and of training one of the victims, Wayne Tyson, 56. At Mr. Tyson’s apartment in Brooklyn, he said, they had taken turns pounding buckets of gravel for hours on end to develop calloused knuckles. Those sessions, he said, explained why his blood was later found in the apartment. Then his lawyer asked about signed confessions. Mr. Sakai said the detectives had taken his glasses, had obscured the text of the written statements and had threatened his family. One of the detectives, Mr. Sakai said, had been following him for weeks before his arrest, seeking work in his private security practice. In response to the harassment, Mr. Sakai said, he had sent another victim in the case, Irving Matos, 42, to spy on the police. A third victim, Edwin Mojica, 41, had been a target of extortion by the same officers, Mr. Sakai claimed. Anything to add? Mr. Andreadis asked him. “These two people died because they supported me in collecting evidence against a dirty cop,” Mr. Sakai said. He told the jury he had taken notes of his meetings with the police, leaving a copy in the open for investigators to find and hiding a second. “When they think they have everything,” Mr. Sakai said, “they get cocky.” A prosecutor, Timothy G. Gough, regarded Mr. Sakai quizzically. By way of opening, he asked a few questions “just so that we’re all reasonably on the same page here.” Asked about his adopted name, Mr. Sakai said he had taken it “as an honor toward my family members.” Moving right along, Mr. Gough asked: “You don’t have a passport. How did you go overseas?” By private jet, Mr. Sakai said, courtesy of a businessman who trains young fighters. He told of competing in Cambodia and Vietnam, most recently in the five months before his arrest. Then Mr. Gough asked about the secret journal. “The journal that I have was given to a friend,” Mr. Sakai said, “and it’s on its way here.” “Really?” Mr. Gough asked. Actually, Mr. Sakai said, his mother was bringing the journal to court. “Isn’t she in the courtroom?” Mr. Gough asked. Mr. Sakai said she was not. Mr. Gough pointed out Ms. Troutman in the gallery. From her position by the center aisle, Ms. Troutman spoke up in a clear, unaccented voice. “It’s a new hat,” she said. From the witness stand, Mr. Sakai accused his lawyer of taking part in a conspiracy against him. Justice John P. Walsh, who is presiding over the trial in State Supreme Court, called the lawyers out for a private conference. Mr. Sakai gazed off. The jurors stared down at their feet. Several minutes passed. Later, Mr. Sakai was asked to explain the martial arts skills listed on his résumé, including ninjitsu. Mr. Gough asked whether he meant ninjitsu as in ninja training to become an assassin. “Yes and no,” Mr. Sakai said. “Upon the training of the ninja, you have to be more, how can I say, more in tune with yourself. More in tune with yourself.” | Murders and Attempted Murders;Courts;Brooklyn (NYC) |
ny0035130 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2014/03/04 | Deal Is Reached on Redevelopment of Brooklyn Sugar Refinery | A waterfront-altering redevelopment of the Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is poised to be approved by the city this week after the de Blasio administration struck a deal Monday to include more affordable housing units in the project. The compromise signaled the end of a temporary impasse on the high-profile plan, which was abruptly held up last month by aides to Mayor Bill de Blasio, a left-leaning Democrat keen to demonstrate that he takes a different attitude toward real estate from his development-oriented predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg. The $1.5 billion project, which includes several slim and architecturally distinctive residential towers, office space for tech firms and an expansion of riverfront parkland, had been years in the making. But City Hall officials felt the number of affordable apartments set aside in the project — 660 units out of 2,300 total — was too little. The negotiations had been viewed as a test case both for Mr. de Blasio, who turned his pledge to expand affordable housing into a populist rallying cry, and the city’s real estate establishment, which is wary about just how aggressively the mayor plans to negotiate with developers in order to keep that promise. In the deal struck Monday, the developer, Jed Walentas, agreed to reserve about 700 units for low- and moderate-income residents. He will also increase the proportion of affordable units that are configured as two- and three-bedroom apartments, considered more suitable for families than studios and one-bedrooms. In exchange, Mr. Walentas and his firm, Two Trees, are expected to receive a zoning change allowing their towers to rise up to 55 stories above the East River, about 20 stories higher than current regulations permit. Mr. Walentas will also be able to charge higher rents for some of the affordable units in the project than he would have previously. Aides to Mr. de Blasio praised the deal as a victory, calling it a template for how the new administration planned to approach large-scale developments in the future. Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, noted that the city had insisted affordable units in the project remain that way, instead of reverting to market-rate rents at a later date. “Buildings don’t get shorter over time,” Ms. Glen said in an interview. “Just like the buildings are permanently taller, the affordable units will be permanently affordable.” Still, there was much incentive for Mr. de Blasio to find a solution on the project. A collapse of the Domino plan, on a former industrial site just north of the Williamsburg Bridge, could have had a chilling effect on other developers already leery of dealing with a new mayor who has vocally criticized the construction of luxury condominiums and other profitable totems of gentrification. And the plan proposed by Mr. Walentas, whose family’s firm previously transformed Brooklyn’s industrial Dumbo neighborhood into a luxe residential enclave, was already relatively generous in the affordable housing he promised to build. Had Mr. Walentas’s plan fallen through — the developer had threatened as much in recent days — the city could have ended up with fewer affordable units than first offered. Creating more affordable units at a development means that real estate companies cannot build as many lucrative market-rate apartments, whose profitability pays for the project and any related amenities; Mr. Walentas’s plan for Domino, for instance, includes a school, park space and a revamped esplanade along the East River. Negotiations between Mr. de Blasio’s team and Mr. Walentas’s firm took place over the last few days. The two men share a mutual adviser: Jonathan Rosen, one of the mayor’s top political hands and the chief executive of a public affairs firm, Berlin Rosen, that counts Mr. Walentas’s company as a client. Mr. de Blasio’s newly appointed planning commissioner, Carl Weisbrod, who was also co-chairman of his mayoral transition team, was also closely involved in the talks. The proposal is expected to be voted on at a meeting of the City Planning Commission on Wednesday. | Domino Sugar;Williamsburg Brooklyn;Affordable housing;Urban Planning;Jed Walentas;Bill de Blasio;Real Estate; Housing;Historic preservation |
ny0025760 | [
"us"
] | 2013/08/15 | A Chance to Own a Home for $1 in a City on the Ropes | GARY, Ind. — As a tower of black smoke rose above this blighted city last week, a group of neighbors huddled across the street from a burning house, trying to guess which other vacant properties on their block would be arsonists’ next target. “There’s so many,” said Tasha McMiller, 50, a resident dismayed by the estimated 10,000 abandoned homes here. “They’re a burden.” Image Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson spearheaded the Dollar Home economic development strategy. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times Officials say that a third of the houses in Gary are unoccupied, hollowed dwellings spread across a city that, like other former industrial powerhouses, has lost more than half its population in the last half-century. While some of those homes will be demolished, Gary is exploring a more affordable way to lift its haggard tax base and reduce the excess of empty structures: sell them for $1. The program, announced in June, will offer Gary residents a chance to pay less for a house than for their morning coffee, as long as they meet a minimum income threshold (starting at $35,250 for one person) and demonstrate the financial ability to bring the neglected property up to code within six months. Those selected would have to live in the home for five years before receiving full ownership. Image A vacant home burned last week. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times Nearly 400 people picked up applications on the first day they were available. After an extensive preselection process, the city will choose 12 out of 25 finalists in a lottery next month. “My target would be to sell 50 houses a year,” Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said. “We’re getting these people to contribute as taxpayers. They can be part of the group that moves out, or they can be part of the group that invests.” Efforts to revive distressed postindustrial cities across the country are being watched closely since last month when Detroit became the largest American municipality to file for bankruptcy . Indiana is one of 21 states that does not allow its cities to file for bankruptcy protection, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. While Gary does not carry the same debt load that led the Motor City into bankruptcy court — officials say its liabilities are around $8.4 million compared with Detroit’s estimated $18 billion — the decline of both manufacturing hubs are strikingly similar. Image Felicia Goodman of Gary, Ind., has applied to the city’s Dollar Home program, which includes the house behind her. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times Just 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, Gary was once a vibrant steel town with close to 180,000 residents in the 1960s. It is now home to less than 80,000 people and battered by decades of industry layoffs and racial friction that caused waves of suburban flight, shrinking city coffers drastically. Gary, which is 85 percent black, has since wrestled with high rates of unemployment, crime and fleeing businesses, as well as fewer resources to invest into 50 square miles of infrastructure that continues to decay. The city department that handles road repair, snow removal and other public maintenance has reduced its staff to 17 employees from 100 employees in 2006. A graduate of Harvard Law School and former attorney general of Indiana, Ms. Freeman-Wilson is seen as taking a different approach to saving Gary, coming on the heels of her recent predecessors, whose plans for urban revival hinged primarily on blockbuster projects like building an independent league baseball stadium and hosting Miss USA beauty pageants. A proposed museum dedicated to Michael Jackson, who grew up here, has yet to become more than a pipe dream. Image Gary has liabilities of about $8.4 million. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times Ms. Freeman-Wilson has some big projects, too. She has invested heavily in the city’s airport to attract more commercial and freight traffic. But other initiatives, like the $1 housing program, have also put a strong emphasis on smaller neighborhood stabilization projects that she hopes will slowly increase property values and local ownership in the city’s future. “It’s not flashy,” S. Paul O’Hara, a historian and author of “Gary: The Most American of All American Cities,” said about the so-called Dollar Home program. “It doesn’t come with promises, but it does come with possibilities.” The effort was modeled after a similar program by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development that sells foreclosed homes to local governments. Not all of those were resold to residents, but Mayor Freeman-Wilson did get her first home as a result of that program decades ago for $1. Image Credit The New York Times Critics say Gary’s problems are too great for the approach to make a noticeable dent. Many of the people who could afford to fix up a dilapidated home have already left the city, said Maurice Eisenstein, a political scientist at Purdue University Calumet. “Nobody wants to live there.” Felicia Goodman does. A lifelong Gary resident, Ms. Goodman, 50, has rented the same two-bedroom apartment in the city for 13 years and only seriously considered buying a home when she heard about the Dollar Home program, which she applied for last month. She said her brother and his son have been living with her since an injury left him unemployed two years ago. He owes around $35,000 in medical bills, which Ms. Goodman wants to help him pay with the money she would save by buying a $1 house. “You have no mortgage,” she said. “All you to do is pay the taxes, utilities. It’s the American dream.” | Gary Indiana;Real Estate; Housing;Abandonment;Karen Freeman-Wilson;Indiana;Local government |
ny0188953 | [
"nyregion",
"thecity"
] | 2009/05/03 | In Room 100, a Second Life for Sid and Nancy | BY consensus, the Hotel Chelsea is not the hub of bohemian life it used to be. Two summers ago, Stanley Bard, the beloved longtime manager, was replaced by a corporate management team . Rents rose, artists left. Those who managed to stay were confronted by a battery of disturbing changes: The pigeonhole mailboxes behind the front desk were removed, and Bob Dylan’s old room underwent renovations. But now, thanks to Second Life, a 3-D virtual world on the Internet, the hotel’s spirit lives on. Second Life is a multiuser virtual environment, a computer program that lets online users construct settings and hang out in them, using video-game-like characters called avatars. One of the settings on Second Life is a replica of the Chelsea that was created three weeks ago by Michael Brown, an Internet technology support manager and singer-songwriter living in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. Mr. Brown, 42, learned about the Chelsea while growing up in a small town and listening to punk rock, and he has fantasized about living there ever since. When he visited New York last year, he spent a weekend at the hotel, and when he got home, he used photographs he had taken to construct a version of the building in Second Life. Two weeks ago, he notified Ed Hamilton, a resident of the hotel who runs chelseahotelblog.com , of his creation. A few days later, Mr. Hamilton posted on his blog a description of the virtual hotel. At Mr. Brown’s Chelsea, Mr. Hamilton happily reported, it was as if the upheaval of the past few years had never taken place. “The old mailboxes are still here,” he wrote. And Mr. Bard, he added, is “firmly installed behind his desk.” One recent evening, a visitor logging on to Second Life was greeted by Mr. Brown, or rather, his online avatar, Mykal Skall, wearing a black blazer and matching goatee. After pointing out the hotel’s red-brick exterior, Mykal proceeded into the ground-floor lounge, where several dozen hip-looking avatars had gathered for a poetry reading. In reality, there is no official performance space on the ground floor. But Mr. Brown says, “The rest of this hotel is as close to real life as I could make it.” After listening to a few poems, Mykal headed into the lobby, where abstract paintings hung on the walls. Though Mr. Bard wasn’t around, a Bard family photograph made it clear that the former manager was still in charge. Mykal then climbed a flight of stairs and opened the door to Room 100. There was a bloodstain on the bed, and a bass guitar leaned against a wall. “This is where Sid and Nancy stayed when Nancy was killed,” Mykal noted, in an allusion to Sid Vicious, the Sex Pistols’ bassist, and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. After Ms. Spungen’s death, in 1978, the hotel divided Room 100 into two rooms. “They didn’t want it to become a shrine,” Mykal said, “but I decided to leave it as a crime scene.” | Hotel Chelsea;Virtual Reality (Computers);Computers and the Internet;Chelsea (NYC) |
ny0220338 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2010/02/18 | Fire Took Queens Merchants’ Businesses, and Maybe Their Bonds | There were a Russian liquor seller, an Ecuadorean manicurist and a Dominican barber. There was Thomas Kourakos, 83, who is from Greece and who opened his shoe-repair shop in 1956. And there was Maria Solano, 54, who is from Peru and who opened her party-favor store in 2006. Along 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, from 84th Street to 85th Street, a diverse global cast toiled every morning in an equally diverse collection of neighborhood stores. They could count on the Uruguayan furniture salesman to shovel the sidewalk after snowstorms, on the Ecuadorean accountant for financial advice and on one another for companionship. Yolanda Mitsis, 59, a Colombian aesthetician who had a skin-care clinic on the block, described their relationship as “una cadenita,” or a little chain. But that chain was broken Saturday morning when flames, water and smoke pulverized 8 of the 15 stores on the block. “I used to say hi every morning, when they walked by,” Alex Chin, 59, a Chinese dry cleaner whose shop was spared by the fire, said of the people whose businesses were destroyed. “It feels very lonely without them.” A malfunctioning boiler inside a furniture store between Mr. Chin’s and Mr. Kourakos’s shops sparked a blaze that raged for four hours, forcing the evacuation of a neighboring apartment building and requiring 168 firefighters to bring under control, officials said. No one was seriously injured, but the flames left a crater of mangled metal and charred brick in the heart of a commercial strip that has offered many immigrants a foothold in a new city. For the lucky ones, like Mr. Chin and Abdul Rahim, an Afghan who owns a fabric store on the block, life goes on. Those not so lucky lost pretty much all they had. “Everything I had saved I invested in this store,” said Robinson Valderrama, 30, who is from Colombia and who last year opened a clothing shop, Stylus Boutique, in a storefront facing 84th Street. He has a 9-year-old son, a 21-month-old daughter and a 7-year-old stepdaughter. His wife is unemployed, and the store was their only source of income, he said. Mr. Valderrama did not have insurance. Ms. Mitsis thought she had insurance, but said that when she called to check on Tuesday, she found out that her policy had lapsed. Ms. Solano had coverage but said it would not offset her losses. Then there are people like Amada Sánchez, 51, the manicurist from Ecuador, who rented a work station at La Pelukeria, a hair salon. She accepted only cash and kept it at work, in a small cardboard box that she emptied every Saturday at the end of her shift, she said. “I had worked like crazy all week because of Valentine’s Day , but the fire burned my money,” Ms. Sánchez said dejectedly, estimating that she probably had $1,000 in the box. She said the fire also burned her nail polishes, nail drying machines and the rest of her equipment. Very little has been recovered from the debris. A contractor in charge of the demolition said his crew had salvaged seven helium tanks and a cash register from Ms. Solano’s party-favors store, Lalita’s, with $1,400 inside. They also retrieved a filing cabinet and a safe from the liquor store, facial vaporizers from Ms. Mitsis’s clinic and a pair of pedicure chairs from the hair salon. “I would love to have the businesses that were destroyed come back, but to be honest, I don’t know if it’s going to happen,” said Councilman Daniel Dromm , who represents the neighborhood and who spent much of the weekend at the fire scene. “This was devastating to people’s lives.” Their loss is more than just material. Mr. Kourakos, the cobbler, was working in the back of his shop when flames erupted next door. Because he is hard of hearing, he did not know that Ms. Solano and her husband, Julio Aragón, had been calling out his name, unsure if he was still inside. Ms. Solano said Mr. Aragón visited Mr. Kourakos every morning after he had helped her roll up Lalita’s gates. If a Spanish-speaking client needed Mr. Kourakos’s services, Mr. Aragón helped translate. If Mr. Kourakos had to bring a heavy box into his shop, Mr. Aragón would carry it. If Mr. Kourakos had trouble pulling nails from the heels of a shoe, Mr. Aragón would do it for him. Mr. Aragón dashed inside Mr. Kourakos’s shop, Tom’s Shoe Repair, even as smoke and flames threatened to overpower him. Mr. Kourakos emerged wearing an apron smeared with shoe wax. His winter jacket, keys and all the machines and memories he had amassed in more than five decades had been left behind. “I don’t know what he’s going to do,” his daughter Jeannie Kourakos said. “He went there to work, but he had a social life with the people who worked around him. They’d come in, bring him a doughnut; they stopped by to say hello. He’s going to miss his friends.” | Jackson Heights (NYC);Fires and Firefighters;Immigration and Emigration |
ny0131872 | [
"sports",
"basketball"
] | 2012/12/26 | With Steve Nash Back, Lakers Get Even With Knicks | LOS ANGELES — All the Lakers have wanted for weeks was their team back, and here it was, just in time for Tuesday’s high-profile rematch against the Knicks . In the teams’ previous meeting, the Knicks led by 23 points after 12 minutes. This time, the Lakers had Steve Nash, who scored 16 points with 11 assists, and Pau Gasol, whose dunk with 12 seconds left put the game away in a 100-94 victory. As entertainment, it was sparkling, as Carmelo Anthony (decked out head to toe in orange) and Kobe Bryant (in an all-white uniform as part of the same Christmas Day promotion) shot it out. Each finished with 34 points. “They just were a little bit more aggressive,” Anthony said. “Kobe got it going and Steve Nash hit some big shots down the stretch. When you have a guy like Nash doing that, it’s kind of tough. Those guys know how to play. They’ve been waiting for Steve Nash to get back, so it’s just a matter of them sticking it out until he did.” For the Knicks (20-8), who started 18-5, it was the third loss in five games. In those games, their 3-point shooters cooled, from making 12 a game while shooting 40.9 percent to 8.6 a game while making 29 percent. For the Lakers, it was the fifth win in a row, moving them back to .500 (14-14). They had fallen into a 9-14 hole with a loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 13, but the return of Nash, who played nearly 38 minutes Tuesday in his second game since a long injury layoff, is the latest sign that things may be coming together under Coach Mike D’Antoni. “It was an important win for us, as we were a little bit desperate,” Nash said. “We’ve gone through a lot — new coach, new offense. It’s been a difficult transition.” Nash went out with a fracture in his left leg in the season’s second game, three games before the firing of Coach Mike Brown. With no established point guard, D’Antoni, the former Knicks coach who succeeded Brown, lost 9 of his first 13 games. The last was in New York, against a Knicks team that bore little resemblance to the one that was 20-23 when he resigned in March. “To me, they have really smart players,” D’Antoni said before the game. “Adding Raymond Felton and Jason Kidd, two point guards — I thought that was great. Melo’s Melo. He’s uncontainable sometimes and he’s having a great year, shooting unbelievable from 3s, which he hasn’t in the past. “And Tyson Chandler’s one of the best players in the league. I don’t think he gets enough credit for his ability to control the game defensively, his ability to run the pick-and-roll, just his presence in the locker room.” Unfortunately for the Knicks, Felton shot 5 for 19 from the floor Tuesday, Chandler fouled out and Anthony, who had 27 points in the first three quarters, took only three shots in the fourth. The Knicks led, 71-62, with 4 minutes 35 second left in the third period, but the Lakers closed it on a 15-7 run. Bryant scored 9 of those points, driving the lane for a layup to cut the deficit to 78-77. The fourth quarter featured D’Antoni’s old offense, as Mike Woodson played three guards with Anthony at power forward and Chandler at center, against D’Antoni’s new offense, with the 6-foot-11 Dwight Howard playing alongside the 7-foot Gasol. This led to strange matchups late in the game, like Gasol trying to guard Kidd at one end, and the 6-8 Anthony trying to guard Gasol at the other. The mismatch went to the Lakers, as Gasol, who missed 8 of his first 12 shots, drove the vacated lane on an inbounds play as half the Knicks defense reacted to Bryant. Gasol threw down the dunk that put the Lakers ahead, 99-94. “It was a misread in terms of our defense,” Woodson said. “We couldn’t get back to Gasol. The defense didn’t shift fast enough and he was able to take it right down the middle.” Or the defense shifted in the wrong direction. “I wanted to get a steal,” said Kidd, the defender who left Gasol. “At that point, we needed a steal. I thought if Gasol got the ball, maybe we could get it, but I couldn’t get it.” The Lakers remain a work in progress, with Gasol averaging 10 points and shooting 34 percent this month and looking like an odd fit for D’Antoni, who has always preferred smaller teams that spread the floor against bigger opponents. On Tuesday, Gasol and his teammates looked to be hitting their stride. “It’s so early in the season to have turned a corner,” Bryant said. “We have everybody in the lineup, and we’re starting to see how we want to play.” | Basketball;New York Knicks;Los Angeles Lakers;Nash Steve |
ny0082885 | [
"sports"
] | 2015/10/16 | Legacy and Remembrance | HAMILTON, Bermuda — It has been more than two years since Iain Percy’s closest friend and teammate, Andrew Simpson, died in San Francisco Bay. They grew up together, won an Olympic gold medal together and raised many a glass together. But Percy and the America’s Cup syndicate Artemis Racing have had to sail on without Simpson, who was struck in the head and then drowned after the team’s 72-foot catamaran capsized and broke apart in a training accident in May 2013. Percy, the Artemis skipper, was on board that day. He held Simpson in his arms after his friend, nicknamed Bart, was pulled from the water. Percy was also the one who informed Simpson’s wife, Leah, of his death. Artemis, a Swedish team with a multinational lineup, later competed in the 2013 America’s Cup challenger series, and it will be back to challenge for the 2017 edition in Bermuda with Percy, now 39, still on board and in the role of team manager. A Briton, he has a thick beard and strikingly thick forearms from years of grinding sails into place. Before this week’s Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series in Bermuda, he spoke with Christopher Clarey of the International New York Times in Hamilton about the challenges facing Artemis and about Simpson’s legacy, including the now annual charity sailing event Bart’s Bash, which was held last month. The interview has been edited and condensed. Q. How did Bart’s accident change you? A. I think for a couple years there it did quite a lot. I did go into my shell quite a bit. I think I probably became quite a workaholic for quite a long time. I was probably a bit of an emotional void: I don’t want to think about life. I just want to think about something else. Work will do. And I channeled my energies. I’m coming through it, I must admit, a little bit now. I’m starting to enjoy things more and not take life quite so seriously, which I kind of did on purpose for quite a long time. Longer term, I hope it doesn’t change me too much negatively, but Bart as a person was changing me when he was alive. He still changes me now in a positive way. Q. After the disaster of 2013, was there ever any question in your mind whether Artemis’s owner and backer, Torbjorn Tornqvist, would want to challenge again? A. No, he’s very passionate about the America’s Cup, winning it and supporting the sport as well. It’s something that’s important to him. You notice over the years, he’s always been supportive of the holder of the Cup. He doesn’t get involved in these petty games. He wants to win but he wants to win fair and support it to become a bigger event as well. Q. In what way does this challenge feel different after having to fight through the loss of Bart last time just to get to the starting line? A. I think the switch came when we did start a new campaign. The two things became separate at that point, so we’ve been focusing on 2017. It really is good fun working with the teammates we have at Artemis. Everyone is incredibly passionate, very technically minded developing the equipment, and that has been going very well in training here. Losing Bart was a personal thing as losing a friend would be to anyone else and work now is trying to win the America’s Cup, which is enjoyable. I still hear his voice on a personal level guiding me in my work decisions, but yes obviously still sad not to have him himself. Image Iain Percy with Andrew Simpson at the 2012 Olympics in Weymouth, England. Credit Gerry Penny/European Pressphoto Agency From a purely professional standpoint, this is a fresh campaign, no excuses. And we’ve put together a winning campaign. It’s great fun, really motivating and after the accident, it was just a very different thing. It was a scramble. It wasn’t a competitive race. And I like being back to the purity of what we are now. We are concentrating on winning 100 percent. We have no distractions, and I’m back to what I know, if you like, which is just focusing in on winning. Q. How do you see Bermuda as a Brit? A. I find it so completely halfway between the U.S. and the U.K. that it’s hilarious. There are some real quirky British things, like where we are sitting right now in the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. And I’m sure they even wore Bermuda shorts and long socks at some point in the U.K. a hundred years ago. But at the same time obviously there is a big U.S. influence, through tourism really and I think through the business community. Sometimes you feel you’re in a country town in the U.K. and the next time you feel like you’re in the U.S. in one of the cities. So it sits in the middle and it’s culturally in the middle. Q. Russell Coutts, head of the America’s Cup event authority, told me that no team spent less than $100 million on the Cup last time and that this amount was ridiculous. A. Agree and agree. Q. Coutts also said that with the change to a smaller boat and smaller crews this time, a team could mount a competitive campaign for as little as $30 million. A. It will cost our team more than that. That’s for sure. But I think it is safely south of $100 million, and that is important. I do agree that our sport cannot sustain that. The event’s got a huge value, and I think there’s a growing interest and a spectacular product. But it’s not at a rate where a team can compete almost at the same cost as a Formula One team that has at this stage obviously a lot more viewers and maybe will for quite a few years. Q. Ben Ainslie has launched a British challenge for this Cup. You are in charge of Artemis. Chris Draper is with Team Japan. There’s a lot of British flavor to this edition. What might this do for sailing in your country? A. I think it does increase the interest back home. Most of all, of course, it’s Ben having the team which has been fantastic. It’s really not easy to start an America’s Cup team. He has a collection of backers to help him underwrite it, and Ben has gone out and found commercial money and is frankly doing a really good job on the sporting side, too. So as ever, Ben, a friend of mine, continues to impress me how he manages to pull things off. He’s a very capable guy. So that’s going to be the main difference for the U.K. It has a team to get behind and that’s really exciting. Q. I understand you’ve stayed very involved with Bart’s family, supporting his wife and two young sons. A. They are amazing boys. His wife is really fantastic. It’s a testimony to her really and him living through the boys that they still have this positive outlook. They really want to be involved in sailing with the charity, with Artemis, things that could have been something you almost could want to run away from. But on the contrary they really have involved themselves with the sport. Q. What did you do for the second edition of Bart’s Bash last month? A. We started a sailing center for Bart in Weymouth, the Olympic venue, called the Andrew Simpson Sailing Center. So I went back there and sailed with his son Freddie again. Amazing the difference between age 4 and age 5. Last year, all he did was moan about the splashes, and I kept telling him, ‘Your dad never moaned.’ But that didn’t help. This year, he didn’t seem to mind. He was all over the waves, so it was really nice to see him starting to love sailing. I think we finished about 12,000th again, but he thought we won. So that’s all that matters. | America's Cup;Bermuda |
ny0189571 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2009/05/16 | Bloomberg Spending at Twice the Rate as in 2005 | Despite a commanding lead in the polls, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has already spent $18.7 million on his re-election campaign, nearly twice as much as he had spent at this point in the 2005 race, according to documents released on Friday. The spending — much of it on unusually early television and radio advertising — was at least nine times the amount spent by the mayor’s Democratic opponents, and it drew howls of protest from their campaigns. In just two months, from March 11 to May 11, the mayor spent $15.7 million — more than his general election opponent in 2005, Fernando Ferrer, spent during the entire campaign. “It’s a shock-and-awe approach,” said Steven A. Cohen, a professor of public affairs at Columbia University. “He’s making it very hard for the opposition to gain any traction.” So far, William C. Thompson, the city’s comptroller, has spent $1.7 million; Representative Anthony D. Weiner of Queens, $963,000; and Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, $117,000 . All three are participating in the city’s campaign finance program, which imposes a spending limit of $6.2 million for the primary. Mr. Bloomberg, as in the past, is not participating in the program. Anne Fenton, a spokeswoman for Mr. Thompson, called the mayor’s spending “obscene.” “Mike Bloomberg is spending almost $19 million to try to convince New Yorkers that they need four more years of higher taxes, rising unemployment, record homelessness and overcrowded schools,” she said. Mr. Bloomberg’s spending was so lopsided, political consultants said, that it suggested the campaign was focused on securing not just a triumph at the polls in November but a landslide. Most of the mayor’s advertising, from well-produced television commercials to polished mailings, is focused on the city’s ailing economy. A television ad, for example, shows the mayor on a Brooklyn rooftop, trumpeting a plan to create green jobs, and a glossy brochure details a plan to stem home foreclosures. Aides said the ads were meant to inoculate Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, against the kind of backlash that has eroded support for other popular incumbents in times of financial turmoil. The filings show that Mr. Bloomberg paid $8.3 million for political advertising, $1.5 million for polling and $225,000 on rent for the campaign’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. The bill for refreshments? About $18,000. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the mayor’s re-election campaign, defended the pace and scope of spending. “Every campaign is about engaging voters in a dialogue,” Mr. Wolfson said. “This campaign has begun a conversation with New Yorkers about the economy and the mayor’s plan to create or save 400,000 jobs. “As recent polling makes clear,” he added, “voters are responding favorably when they learn about the mayor’s initiatives, and we are very pleased about that — but we are not taking anything for granted.” At the start of the campaign, aides to the mayor hinted that he would put his campaign on a budget this time, after spending $81 million in 2001 and $84 million in 2005. But talk of spending limits has evaporated. Some of his biggest bills so far: $8.3 million to Squier Knapp Dunn, which produces television ads; $655,473 to Connections Media for Internet ads; and $375,000 to Strategic Telemetry, which researches voters. The filings offered a glimpse into the sometimes glamorous, other times more mundane conditions faced by those who work on the mayor’s campaign. Staff members have stayed at the Bryant Park Hotel ($349.83), dined at Morton’s steakhouse in Brooklyn ($362.64) and used private car services (at $30 an hour). They have also dined on fare from Dunkin’ Donuts, Ruby Tuesday and McDonald’s. Political consultants said the mayor ran the risk of alienating voters with his spending in the middle of a deep recession. But it may not influence how New Yorkers vote. They are used to his wealth, Mr. Cohen said. “There appears to be very little downside to this kind of spending.” | Bloomberg Michael R;Campaign Finance;Political Advertising;Elections;New York City |
ny0107415 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/04/15 | A Review of ‘Red’ in Hartford | Jonathan Epstein makes an almost melodramatic entrance in John Logan’s “Red.” Playing the angry Abstract Expressionist artist Mark Rothko at TheaterWorks Hartford, he first appears upstage, walking, deliberately and very slowly, toward the audience. He lights a cigarette (the floor of his studio will soon be covered with crushed butts) and smiles inscrutably out into the lights. That opening tells us a lot about this very serious production directed by Tazewell Thompson with an interesting hit-and-miss energy. When “Red” was on Broadway two years ago — straight from Donmar Warehouse in London with its stars, Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, and its director, Michael Grandage, along for the ride — it didn’t begin the same way. Mr. Molina was first seen with his back to the audience, communing with one of his canvases. (Maybe the audience is meant to stand in for the canvas at TheaterWorks, but his gaze didn’t feel like love.) The play, which won six Tony Awards , was clearly about an artist’s passionate relationship with his work. That is still suggested in the TheaterWorks production, but the story now focuses more intensely on Rothko’s evolving relationship with his new assistant and the very lucrative commission that Rothko has just accepted. When the elegant Four Seasons restaurant in New York opened in 1959 in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson’s Seagram Building, Rothko, famous for his color-field work, was paid $35,000 (about seven times the average American’s annual salary at the time) to do a series of paintings for its walls. In “Red,” he hires the somewhat shy Ken (Thomas Leverton at TheaterWorks) to assist him on the project. Insisting that he is not the younger man’s teacher, Rothko proceeds to lecture and bellow, but eventually the relationship changes. This Rothko is a complicated man who relishes the role of the temperamental artist and does not respond simply to anything. Told that the Chinese restaurant nearby is closing, he begins a speech about life’s cycles of cessation. Over the two years he works with Rothko, Ken (the character, who is fictional, is given no surname) turns from timid underling to brash upstart. Under Mr. Thompson’s guidance, this is not a gradual transformation but a jumpy one. One minute, it seems, Ken is amazed and flattered that Rothko would ask his opinion about anything; the next, he is disdainfully declaring the older man’s art superfluous and saying things like “At least Andy Warhol gets the joke.” But then there had already been a hint of conflict in their first scene together. When Rothko asks his new employee to name his favorite artist, Ken says, “Jackson Pollock.” This is a competently entertaining, intelligent 90 minutes of drama, but neither of the two big scenes makes the impact it should. The first, when the two men rapidly and energetically prime a canvas with red paint, had a frenzied sexual quality on Broadway. In this production, their zeal feels a little forced. A later scene in which Ken confides in Rothko about his parents’ death was a showstopper in the New York production, perhaps because the delivery was so matter-of-fact. In Hartford, the emotions don’t ring true; Ken tells the story with unnecessary fervor when the bare facts are tragic enough. And Rothko seems far too concerned about Ken’s story. Or at least he shows his kindness too soon. What is missing in both these performances is any indication that the characters are hiding behind their words or their pride or using any of the other defenses humans employ in such situations. But as Rothko, Mr. Epstein creates an intriguing, occasionally avuncular character, and he has the advantage of bearing a strong physical resemblance to Rothko at the time of these events, when he was in his mid-50s. Mr. Leverton’s performance as Ken is often thoughtful and expressive. (With his delicate looks and fragile demeanor he can surely look forward to a role as a boyish lover in some Oscar Wilde biopic.) He nails the scene in which Ken ridicules Rothko’s blindness to the moral compromise the Four Seasons job represents. Rothko reconsidered and abandoned the Four Seasons project and returned the $35,000. He committed suicide 11 years later, at the age of 66. “The Seagram Murals” are in museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington. | Theater;Hartford (Conn);Red (Play);Rothko Mark;TheaterWorks;Logan John;Epstein Jonathan;Thompson Tazewell;Leverton Thomas |
ny0083699 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2015/10/09 | N.L. Division Series Preview: Mets vs. Los Angeles Dodgers | When the Los Angeles Dodgers hired Andrew Friedman to run their baseball operations last fall, his grasp of analytics was part of the attraction. It was only logical, then, that Friedman would cite percentages in explaining whether a front office can actually engineer a roster for October success. “It’s difficult,” Friedman said last month, before a game at Dodger Stadium. “In the regular season, the best team wins roughly 60 percent of the time and the worst team wins roughly 40 percent of the time. That’s only a 20 percent spread between the best and the worst. You get to the playoffs and obviously that shrinks even more. “And so much of it’s how you’re playing at the time and if you catch more breaks and the depth of your roster for different things that come up. There are a lot of different factors that go into it, but I don’t know that we have put our finger on exactly one or two things.” Of course, the Dodgers have two very important things they hope will carry them to their first championship since 1988: the pitching arms of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. Yet in their two years together, they have not lifted the Dodgers out of the N.L. playoffs. In 10 combined starts in the last two postseasons, they are 2-5 with a 3.53 E.R.A. Kershaw, who starts Game 1 against Jacob deGrom on Friday, has flashed his usual overpowering stuff in that time, with 47 strikeouts in 35⅔ innings. But ill-timed mistakes have doomed him to lose his last four starts. Greinke, who starts Game 2 against Noah Syndergaard on Saturday, has been much better, with a 1.93 E.R.A., if only about half as many strikeouts. Image Jacob deGrom will face Kershaw in Game 1 on Friday night. Credit Noah K. Murray/USA Today Sports, via Reuters The Mets’ young starters have similarly dominant stuff, without the track record of working deep in games. Doing so will be especially important for the Dodgers, who have a star closer in Kenley Jansen but a less imposing group of setup men. The Mets have won games started by Kershaw and Greinke this season, and that was while David Wright was injured and before their trade for outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. Then again, the Mets have never faced Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager, who unseated the veteran Jimmy Rollins by hitting .337 with four home runs after his promotion in early September. The Mets are starting right-handers in the first three games, and Seager hits left-handed. So does Adrian Gonzalez, who has only 22 career at-bats off deGrom, Syndergaard and Harvey, but has hit a homer off each of them. Bright Lights, Big Citi: When Citi Field hosts its first postseason game Monday, with Matt Harvey opposing Brett Anderson in Game 3, it will make Marlins Park in Miami the only current stadium to never host the playoffs. The Mets reached the postseason in their seventh season at Citi Field, and only six teams waited longer to host a playoff game in their current home: the Tigers, the Brewers, the Reds, the Rays, the Pirates and the Angels. Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, and the home team won the World Series the next season. Image Jeurys Familia, right, humbles major league hitters with his cutter. Credit Aaron Doster/Associated Press Nasty Pitches: Each team’s closer throws a pitch that is among the toughest to hit in the major leagues. According to Fangraphs, the Mets’ Jeurys Familia threw his splitter at 93.1 miles an hour, the highest average speed in the majors for pitchers with at least 50 innings. Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ Kenley Jansen dominates the way Mariano Rivera once did, with heavy reliance on a devastating cutter. Jansen said he simply throws a four-seam fastball, and it cuts naturally at just the right moment to fool the hitter. Image The only pitcher with a higher ratio of strikeouts to innings than Kershaw was the Hall of Famer Randy Johnson. Credit David J. Phillip/Associated Press That’s Kershaw, With a K: Clayton Kershaw struck out 301 hitters in 232⅔ innings this season, an average of 11.64 strikeouts per nine innings. Only one other pitcher with that many innings has had a higher ratio of strikeouts to innings: the Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, who did it each season from 1998 through 2001. A Trojan Returns: Lucas Duda led the Mets in homers, with 27, but he did not hit many at the University of Southern California. Duda, who went to high school in Riverside, Calif., hit only 11 home runs in three seasons for the Trojans. The Mets still saw enough to draft him in the seventh round in 2007. “Early on, he was an inside-out guy,” the former Mets general manager Omar Minaya said a few years ago, referring to Duda’s swing. “He hit the ball to left field a lot, mostly a singles hitter. But you had to like the size, and he always had good balance. He used to lock himself off, and he wasn’t able to use his hips. But that can be taught.” As well as Duda has turned out, he is hardly the most accomplished Met from U.S.C. That title belongs to the Hall of Famer Tom Seaver. Image Enrique Hernandez has great versatility but the rally banana might be his most important contribution to the Dodgers. Credit Icon Sportswire, via Associated Press Six Positions, Plus Banana: If things get desperate for the Dodgers, don’t be surprised to see a utility man in a banana suit. Enrique Hernandez started at six positions and hit .307 for the Dodgers, and he also conjured the magic of the rally banana. On May 23, when the Dodgers’ hitters tied a franchise record for scoreless innings, at 35, Hernandez reached for a banana on the bench and the team scored to break the drought. He proclaimed it a “rally banana” on Twitter, and on Sept. 1, in a 14-inning game, he wore a banana suit in the dugout — on orders from Andrew Friedman. The Dodgers promptly won the game. No Hits, No Problem: Both the Mets and the Dodgers were no-hit twice this season. The Dodgers fell victim to Houston’s Mike Fiers and the Chicago Cubs’ Jake Arrieta in August, while the Mets went hitless against San Francisco’s Chris Heston in June and Washington’s Max Scherzer last Saturday. Only two other postseason teams have been no-hit twice during the regular season: the 2010 Tampa Bay Rays, who lost in the first round, and the 1917 Chicago White Sox, who won the World Series. Common Alumni: Oh, there have been a few, and that’s not even counting John Franco, who began his career in the Dodgers’ farm system, or Terry Collins, who managed there for years. Name a famous player from one team, and there’s a good chance he also played for the other: Duke Snider, Mike Piazza, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Orel Hershiser, Gil Hodges, Bobby Valentine, Sid Fernandez, Jesse Orosco, Roger McDowell, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Pedro Martinez, Hideo Nomo, Bobby Ojeda, Rickey Henderson, Roger Craig, Clem Labine, Gary Sheffield, both Mike Marshalls — and the late, great Don Zimmer. Image Don Zimmer was one of a long list of players to wear both the Dodgers and Mets uniforms. Credit Jim Kerlin/Associated Press; Harry Harris/Associated Press Postseason History: The Mets and the Dodgers staged an epic N.L. Championship Series in 1988. The Mets stopped Orel Hershiser’s record scoreless-inning streak, at 67, in winning Game 1, and also won in his next start in Game 3. But Mike Scioscia’s clutch homer off Dwight Gooden turned the series in Game 4, which ended with a save by Hershiser, who spun a five-hit shutout to win Game 7. The teams also met in a 2006 division series, a three-game sweep by the Mets that is best remembered for the moment in Game 1 in which catcher Paul Lo Duca tagged out two Dodgers at the plate on the same play. Said Lo Duca: “It was like that movie — ‘Major League.’ ” | Baseball;Playoffs;Mets;Dodgers |
ny0206389 | [
"business"
] | 2009/01/25 | Microsoft Songsmith Is Easy (if Painful to Hear) | CALLING all novice songwriters: Microsoft is pitching software designed for you, no musical training required. You sing the words as best you can, and its Songsmith software supplies computer-matched musical accompaniment. How satisfying are the musical results? Microsoft lets you hear for yourself in a promotional video titled “Everyone Has a Song Inside.” The video is getting more attention than the software because it’s awful, in unintentional ways. “Notes on ‘Camp’, ” the 1964 essay by Susan Sontag, identifies a category of art that isn’t campy, just “bad to the point of being laughable, but not bad to the point of being enjoyable.” The Songsmith video is exactly that. Regardless of whether Songsmith sells well, the software will not have a material effect on Microsoft’s earnings. But its marketing is of interest, because any time that Microsoft tells its own story clumsily, it calls attention to its inability to match the creativity of its smaller, nimbler rival, Apple. Songsmith was released on Jan. 8, but hundreds of thousands of viewers have already sampled the Songsmith promotional video on YouTube, alerted by bloggers. “Nothing Can Prepare You for the Microsoft Songsmith Commercial” warns Videogum. “Microsoft Songsmith: So Wonderfully Bad It Hurts” enthuses The Click Heard Round the World. “Worst Microsoft Video Promo Ever” is one description at TechCrunch. The video consists of a minimusical whose soundtrack sounds as if it were generated by an inexpensive electronic keyboard. The story opens with a father, who — singing — says he needs to come up with an advertising campaign for glow-in-the-dark towels. Then we meet his daughter, who, while singing and typing on her laptop, shows him Songsmith, “the cool new thing.” Dad then absconds with her laptop and introduces Songsmith to another adult, who speaks the words you will not want to miss: “Microsoft, huh? So it’s pretty easy to use?” The line is delivered without an I-know-you-know wink acknowledging that Microsoft is not the company likely to come first to mind when ease of use is mentioned. Songsmith works only on Windows, but the laptop in the video running Windows is a MacBook Pro , adorned with decorative stickers that obscure the Apple icon in the center. The actor turns out to be Sumit Basu, a Microsoft research scientist, whose colleague, Dan Morris, another scientist, plays the role of the father. The two developed the software, along with Ian Simon, a graduate student at the University of Washington. The two also wrote the lyrics that they sang in the video — Songsmith supplied the rest of the music — and the production company wrote the dialogue, Mr. Morris said. The pair had no intentions of producing satire. “We just wanted to make a fun video,” Mr. Morris said. He and Mr. Basu are computer scientists, not professional writers or actors. They relinquished their amateur status, however, when they decided to commercialize Songsmith themselves. That they did so is highly unusual. At Microsoft Research, technology that seems to have some commercial application is typically moved elsewhere in the company, to a product group, so it can be converted into a saleable product and overseen by professional marketers. I asked Mr. Morris if Songsmith had been turned down by Microsoft product groups outside of his division. He declined to answer, saying only that the core technology might still be used elsewhere in the company. The researchers eschewed the various open-source licensing models that would seem well suited to a project like this and instead released it as a commercial package: $29.95 in the United States, 29 euros in the European Union. Mr. Morris said the revenue would help to recoup development costs. If it had remained as it was — a research project called MySong that was the subject of academic papers — it would not have drawn derision. But once it was placed on sale in Microsoft’s own online store, the whole world could weigh in with reviews. The most devastating form of ridicule has been constructed by using the musical output of Songsmith itself. YouTube is now filling with hilarious videos in which the vocal tracks of rock classics have been fed into Songsmith and the ghastly computer-generated accompaniment has been recorded. One example was described by the blog Gizmodo: “David Lee Roth + Microsoft Songsmith = Pure Horror.” When TechCrunch’s gadget blog first reported on the Songsmith video — “Microsoft Relinquishes ‘Worst Promo Video Ever’ Award to Another Department Within Microsoft” — it referred to a Microsoft-produced video made last April, when Vista Service Pack 1 was released. More than a million YouTube viewers have looked at this video , “Rockin’ Our Sales,” an homage to the “Born in the U.S.A.” album of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I must speak up in defense of that Vista video. It was made only for internal purposes, to fire up the Microsoft sales force to sell more copies of Vista (“Quota is where your focus is; got-ta get those bonuses”). It is so self-conscious in its ridiculousness that it’s impervious to external scorn. Ms. Sontag also wrote that “when something is just bad (rather than Camp), it’s often because it is too mediocre in its ambition.” Not this video. Hearing Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band sing at full voice, one is treated to pure camp. I can’t offer the same apologia for Songsmith’s output when it transmutes the rock canon into synthetic treacle. The most excruciating Songsmith output I’ve run across on YouTube is a result of feeding the software vocals of the Beatles song “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Listening to it , I wonder if software is now capable of thinking like a human being and can enjoy its own private jokes at our expense. If so, I suspect that Songsmith is snickering. | Microsoft Corp;Software;Music;Recordings and Downloads (Video) |
ny0230736 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2010/09/26 | Bears Are a Surprise, Not That Coach Shows It | If I knew what makes Lovie Smith tick, I’d say it took all the self-control he could muster not to stick out his tongue or waggle a finger or have Mike Martz improvise a cool way to show his disdain for the Chicago news media in the wake of the Bears’ stirring victory over the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday. Nobody had the Bears at 2-0 after the first two weeks of a season many figured would be Smith’s last — especially after an 0-4 preseason in which the team looked comically inept at times while the coach blithely maintained that all was well. Yet here they are. They were lucky to get out alive against Detroit in the opener, true. But they were resourceful and resilient in a convincing victory over a supposedly good Cowboys team in Dallas. Martz is being hailed as the genius who made it happen, but Smith is entitled to a bit of satisfaction. Now the Green Bay Packers come to Soldier Field on Monday night. They’re also 2-0, and nothing gets Chicago’s sports blood pumping like a meaningful Bears-Packers game. They could play it on Memorial Day , and it would draw Second Coming coverage. But I can only guess what Lovie Smith would have liked to say to a skeptical Chicago news media this week because I have no idea what makes Lovie Smith tick. Words like “circumspect,” “reticent” and “determinedly bland” only hint at the effort he has made to reveal nothing of himself in the seven years he has coached the Bears. The people who cover Smith aren’t so much hostile toward him as they are frustrated with him, which makes for uneasy news media relations. Does it matter? Only in the sense that news media coverage helps form the public perception of the Bears’ coach. Like it or not, he’s the city’s highest-profile sports figure because he’s coaching the city’s most storied, avidly followed sports team. A certain bellicose, mustachioed predecessor embraced the role, revels in it still. Smith shuns it. He’s not paid to be an entertainer, and making clever quips isn’t part of the job description — Jerry Glanville, you might remember, was a lot funnier when he was winning. But Smith has a C.I.A. operative’s obsession with secrecy as it pertains to Bears football. He offers no information, and he can be a bit condescending when pressed to explain or interpret what reporters have gleaned from watching or have heard from others. So it’s not surprising that some of those who cover the Bears seem weary of Smith’s act, along with the zealots who live and die with the team. Aloof monotony is a tough sell in a town that expects passion, a town that worships Mike Ditka and embraces Ozzie Guillen — both of them live wires, all exposed nerves and rough edges. Mike Singletary’s samurai rants would be saluted here. Lou Piniella’s standing faded along with his fire. Smith? A gentleman coach, a Jerry Manuel. He’s also three years removed from a playoff berth. Super Bowl XLI seems like a long time ago. Smith likes to divide each season into quarters, and he pointed out that being undefeated midway through the first of four quarters is not a big deal. It’s sort of like a 10-0 lead in the first period of an N.F.L. game — it’s nice to have, but it guarantees nothing. Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Miami are also 2-0, and nobody has them cavorting under Jerry Jones’s planet-sized scoreboard in the Super Bowl come February. But being 2-0 beats any alternative, as the 0-2 Cowboys and the 0-2 Minnesota Vikings will attest. Dallas looks like it’s still in training camp. Brett Favre looks like a creaky 40-year-old who could have used a little training camp. New Orleans might slip from excellent to very good without Reggie Bush. Losing Ryan Grant is even costlier to the Packers. It’s too early to tell if the herd of N.F.C. contenders has thinned, too early to say if the Bears have joined it. But with Brian Urlacher healthy enough to play lights-out and Jay Cutler apparently simpatico with Martz, they have difference-makers on both sides of the ball, and enough complementary talent to be dangerous. Against Dallas they were atypically sharp and purposeful. In-game adjustments to the passing scheme found and exploited vulnerabilities when the Cowboys brought everybody but the trainer on the pass rush. Wide receiver Devin Aromashodu found himself with a seat on the bench after failing to exert himself on a couple of routes the previous week. If accountability has been added to the playbook, it’s about time. Sure, it’s early, but a 7-point victory over a marquee team on the road is an accomplishment. Even Dan Hampton, the crankiest and most tortuously outspoken of the dozen or so ’85 Bears still living off that season, gave praise, though he pointedly refrained from crediting Smith. Conventional wisdom has Lovie coaching for his future. If so, he’s off to a promising start. If he beats the Packers to get to 3-0, speculation will shift to the date and time for a Super Bowl parade. Such is life in a Bears town. | Chicago Bears;Smith Lovie;Football |
ny0200568 | [
"us"
] | 2009/09/29 | 4 Teenagers Charged in Youth’s Beating Death | CHICAGO — The videotaped beating death of a student last week has drawn renewed outrage over the level of violence facing students in Chicago, where 34 public school students were killed last school year. Four teenagers were charged Monday with murder in the death of the student, Derrion Albert, 16, who the authorities said had unknowingly walked into the path of a brawl between rival groups. Derrion, whose beating was captured by a passer-by on a widely broadcast amateur video that the police are studying, is the third student killed since the school year began, school officials said. Prosecutors said Derrion, an honor roll student, was pummeled with wooden planks and kicked in the head after he found himself in the midst of a large fight on Thursday afternoon between two groups of youths a few blocks from his school, Christian Fenger Academy High School, on the South Side. Prosecutors said the fight followed a shooting earlier in the day outside the school, involving the two groups. Silvonus Shannon, 19; Eugene Riley, 18; Eugene Bailey, 17; and Eric Carson, 16, were charged with first-degree murder on Monday and held without bail. The police said the video helped them identify the suspects. School officials here are starting a new anti-violence plan this fall and plan to provide extra counseling and assistance to schools and students seen as most likely to be involved in violence, said Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Public Schools. Officials were focusing on 38 schools with the most problems, including Fenger. “This incident tells us that we have a lot of troubled youth that need help, and we need to figure out a way to give them the help that they need,” Ms. Bond said. At least 290 students were injured last year in shootings, she said, the most common form of violence against students. On Monday, school officials met with dozens of leaders in Derrion’s neighborhood, Roseland, to discuss how they could protect students. They joined hundreds of people at an afternoon prayer vigil with his family outside a community center near where he was attacked. Tio Hardiman, the director of the violence prevention group CeaseFire, met with the family of Derrion, who played on the football team. “We have to do our best to make sure these kids are not living in fear,” Mr. Hardiman said. “They are living in danger zones, and they don’t know who they can talk to when something comes up.” | Education and Schools;Murders and Attempted Murders;Teenagers and Adolescence;Chicago (Ill) |
ny0145204 | [
"business"
] | 2008/10/06 | Financial Crises Spread in Europe | This article was reported by Carter Dougherty , Nelson Schwartz and Floyd Norris and written by Mr. Norris. European nations scrambled on Sunday night to prevent a growing credit crisis from bringing down major banks and alarming savers as troubles in financial markets spread around the world, accelerating economic downturns on three continents. The German government moved to guarantee all private savings accounts in the country on Sunday, hoping to reassure depositors who had grown nervous as efforts to bail out a large German lender and a major European financial company failed. Late Sunday, it was disclosed that new bailouts had been arranged for both of those companies, Hypo Real Estate, the German lender, and Fortis, a large banking and insurance company based in Belgium but active across much of the Continent. The spreading worries came days after the United States Congress approved a $700 billion bailout package that officials had hoped would calm financial markets globally. The moves came as federal regulators were trying to help resolve a merger fight in the United States that could make investors more uneasy. Court hearings were under way in New York on Sunday over competing efforts by Citigroup and Wells Fargo to acquire Wachovia, a large bank that nearly failed a week ago. In Europe, meanwhile, the crisis appears to be the most serious one to face the Continent since a common currency, the euro, was created in 1999. Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel research group in Brussels, said Europe confronted “our first real financial crisis, and it’s not just any crisis. It’s a big one.” The European Central Bank has aggressively lent money to banks as the crisis has grown. It had resisted lowering interest rates, but signaled on Thursday that it might cut rates soon. The extra money, aimed at ensuring that banks would have adequate access to cash, has not reassured savers or investors, and European stock markets have performed even worse than the American markets. In Iceland, government officials and banking chiefs were discussing a possible rescue plan for the country's commercial banks. In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, appeared before television cameras to promise that all bank deposits would be protected, although it was not clear whether legislation would be needed to make that promise good. Mindful of the rising public anger at the use of public money to buttress the business of high-earning bankers, Mrs. Merkel promised a day of reckoning for them as well. “We are also saying that those who engaged in irresponsible behavior will be held responsible,” she said. “The government will ensure that. We owe it to taxpayers.” Stock markets fell sharply in early trading on Monday in Asia on growing fears about the health of European banks and the resilience of the global economy. The Nikkei 225 index dropped 3.4 percent in Tokyo on Monday, the Kospi index in Seoul fell 3.7 percent and the Standard and Poor’s/Australian Stock Exchange 200 index in Sydney declined 3.3 percent. The events in Berlin and Brussels underscored the failure of Europe’s case-by-case approach to restoring confidence in the Continent’s increasingly jittery banking sector. A European summit meeting Saturday did little to calm worries. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and his counterparts from Germany, Britain and Italy vowed to prevent a Lehman-like bankruptcy in Europe but they did not offer an American-style bailout package. The crisis has underlined the difficulty of taking concerted action in Europe because its economies are far more integrated than its governing structures. “We are not a political federation,” Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, said. “We do not have a federal budget .” Last week, Ireland moved to guarantee both deposits and other liabilities at six major banks. There was grumbling in London and Berlin about the move giving those banks an unfair advantage. But Germany proposed its deposit guarantee Sunday after Britain raised its guarantee to £50,000, or almost $90,000, from £35,000. Unlike in the United States, where deposits are fully guaranteed up to a limit of $250,000 — a figure that was raised from $100,000 last week — deposits in most European countries have been only partially guaranteed, sometimes by groups of banks rather than governments. In Germany, the first 90 percent of deposits up to 20,000 euros, or about $27,000, was guaranteed. The Paris meeting produced a promise that European leaders would work together to halt the financial crisis and reassure nervous investors, but even before the meeting began it was becoming clear that two bailouts announced the week before had not succeeded and that a major Italian bank might be in trouble. That bank, Unicredit, announced plans on Sunday to raise as much as 6.6 billion euros, or $9 billion, in capital. Fortis, which only a week ago received 11.2 billion euros from the governments of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, was unable to continue its operations. On Friday, the Dutch government seized its operations in that country, and Sunday night the Belgian government helped to arrange for BNP-Paribas, the French bank, to take over what was left of the company. In Berlin, the government arranged a week ago for major banks to lend 35 billion euros to Hypo, but that fell apart when the banks concluded that more money would be needed. Late Sunday, the government said a 50 billion euro package had been arranged, with the government and other banks participating. The credit crisis began in the United States, a fact that has led European politicians to claim superiority for their country’s financial systems, in contrast to what Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, called the “speculative capitalism” of the United States. On Saturday, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said the crisis “has come from America,” and Mr. Berlusconi bemoaned the lack of business ethics that had been exposed by the crisis. Many of the European banks’ problems have stemmed from bad loans in Europe, and Fortis got into trouble in part by borrowing money to make a major acquisition. But activities in the United States have played a role. Bankers said Sunday that the additional need for funds at Hypo came from newly discovered guarantees it had issued to back American municipal bonds that it had sold to investors. The credit market worries came on top of heightening concerns about economic growth in Europe and the United States. Many economists think there are recessions in both areas, and one also appears to have started in Japan, where the Nikkei newspaper reported Monday that a poll of corporate executives found that 94 percent thought the country’s economy was deteriorating. “Unless there is a material easing of credit conditions,” said Bob Elliott of Bridgewater Associates, an American money management firm, after the retail sales figures were announced, “it is unlikely that demand will turn around soon.” Almost unnoticed as the United States Congress approved a $700 billion bailout for banks last week, it also agreed to guarantee $25 billion in loans for America’s troubled automakers. European automakers said Sunday they would seek similar aid from the European Commission. Henry M. Paulson Jr., the United States Treasury secretary, hoped that approval of the American bailout, which will involve buying securities from banks at more than their current market value, would free up credit by making cash available for banks to lend and by reassuring participants in the credit markets. But that did not happen last week. Instead, credit grew more expensive and harder to get as investors became more skittish about buying commercial paper, essentially short-term loans to companies. Rates on such loans rose so fast that some feared the market could essentially close, leaving it to already-stressed banks to provide short-term corporate loans. Altria, the parent company of the cigarette maker Philip Morris, said lenders wanted it to delay its planned $10.3 billion acquisition of UST, another tobacco maker, until 2009, but promised it would complete the deal. Europe’s need to scramble is in part the legacy of a decision to establish the euro, which 15 countries now use, but not follow up with a parallel system of cross-border regulation and oversight of private banks. “First we had economic integration, then we had monetary integration,” said Sylvester Eijffinger, a member of the monetary expert panel advising the European parliament. “But we never developed the parallel political and regulatory integration that would allow us to face a crisis like the one we are facing today,” he added. In Brussels, Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies, agreed. “Maybe they will be shocked into thinking more strategically instead of running behind events,” he said. “The later you come, the higher the bill.” While the European Central Bank has power over interest rates and broader monetary policy, it was never granted parallel oversight of private banks, leaving that task to dozens of regulators across the Continent. This patchwork system includes national central banks in each of the euro-zone’s 15 members and they still retain broad powers within their own borders, further complicating any regional approach to problem-solving. The European economic landscape today bears little resemblance to the 1990s, when the groundwork for the euro was laid. Back then, Mr. Pisani-Ferry recalled, few banks in Europe had cross-border operations on a significant scale. A wave of mergers over the last decade created giants like HSBC and Deutsche Bank, which straddle continents and have major American exposure. “The European banking landscape was transformed fairly recently,” Mr. Pisani-Ferry said. “When the euro was first introduced, the question of cross-border regulation didn’t really arise.” Optimists say one potential long-term benefit from the current turmoil is that it often takes a crisis to propel European integration forward. “Progress in Europe is usually the result of a crisis,” Mr. Eijffinger said. “This could be one of those rare moments in E.U. history.” | Subprime Mortgage Crisis;European Union;Economic Conditions and Trends;Banks and Banking;United States Economy;Germany;Belgium |
ny0115958 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2012/10/04 | South Koreans Push Back Against Giant Hypermarkets | BUPYEONG, South Korea — When sales at his clothing shop began sliding several years ago, In Tae-yeon first attributed the drop to a bad economy. But he said he soon realized that the real culprit was something else: hypermarkets crowding into busy commercial districts, attracting shoppers with their easy-to-use parking lots, flashy signs and cutthroat discounts and, as Mr. In put it, “sucking the life out of small-business men like me, like vampires.” The arrival of hypermarkets — vast department stores that also contain supermarkets — is relatively new in South Korea; a few began opening two decades ago. But they are unique in the country because most are owned by chaebol, the family-controlled conglomerates whose dominance in large and increasingly diverse swaths of the economy is prompting many in South Korea to refer to the country as the Republic of Chaebol. Rapidly expanding nationwide chains of hypermarkets, supermarkets and 24-hour-a-day convenience stores are the latest and perhaps most visible examples of the penchant among the chaebol for seemingly relentless growth. Total revenue at hypermarkets grew to 33.7 trillion won, or $30.3 billion, in 2010 from 23.7 trillion won in 2005, according to Statistics Korea, the national statistical agency. During the same period, sales at traditional markets, where individual dealers sell products as varied as manufactured goods, meat and farm produce, declined to 24 trillion won from 32.7 trillion won, according to the government’s Agency for Traditional Market Administration. So when owners of small stores, like Mr. In, began pushing back, picketing hypermarkets and lobbying lawmakers, they started a South Korean version of the “We are the 99 percent” campaign — a movement in support of what is called “economic democratization.” The chaebol are widely credited with leading South Korea’s economic growth, exporting goods as diverse as computer chips, cellphones, cars and ships. The number of subsidiaries of the top 30 conglomerates jumped to 1,150 last year from 731 in 2007. The five biggest chaebol — Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG and Lotte — generated 653 trillion won in sales in 2010, the equivalent of 55.7 percent of South Korea’s gross domestic product. But at home, the sprawling corporate empires are also seen as predators — so much that protecting smaller businesses from them has become a prominent slogan for both the governing party and the opposition before the December presidential election, which is approaching amid growing discontent about a widening gap between rich and poor. The anti-chaebol rallying cry is a reference to the country’s 1948 Constitution, which requires the state to “prevent the domination of the market and the abuse of economic power and to democratize the economy through harmony among the economic agents.” For several years, store owners in the traditional shopping street where Mr. In keeps his shop have suffered declining sales because of competition with three hypermarkets and a department store, all within about two kilometers, or 1.2 miles, and all owned by Lotte. “We only ask chaebol to let us live together with them,” Mr. In, now the leader of a nationwide network of 5,000 independent shop owners, said in an interview at his shop in Bupyeong, a bustling town east of Seoul. “Currently they are behaving like giant serpents gobbling up everything.” Other countries have found their mom-and-pop retailers squeezed out by hypermarkets, like Wal-Mart in the United States or Tesco in Britain, but to understand how the chaebol operate is to understand how the South Korean economy works. A typical chaebol comprises dozens of subsidiaries that its chairman controls through a web of cross-shareholdings. Armies of subcontractors depend on the chaebol through patron-client relationships. Big companies often dictate a profit margin for subcontractors, no matter how innovative their work, and unilaterally impose a cut in the suppliers’ prices, said Hong Jang-pyo, an economist at Pukyong National University. In July, the country’s Fair Trade Commission said that the nation’s six main hypermarket and department store chains had forced their domestic suppliers to sign and submit “blank contracts” so that the chains could determine their own share of profit “as they pleased.” Meanwhile, the hypermarket and department store chain run by the Shinsegae chaebol has guaranteed unfairly high profit margins for a bakery and pizza supplier controlled by the chairman’s family, the commission said Wednesday, imposing a financial penalty on the conglomerate. “In South Korea, they say no matter what you do, the winner is already decided and he takes it all,” Kim Byoung-kweon, an economist at the Corea Institute for New Society, said during a recent forum, referring to the chaebol. To ordinary South Koreans, never was the hunt by the chaebol for new sources of profit felt more acutely than when they saw the chaebol opening shops in their neighborhoods. First, hypermarkets sprouted, and there are 448 of them now. Then they branched out into “super supermarkets,” smaller than hypermarkets but bigger than traditional supermarkets. There are 1,116 of those now. Most are owned by local chaebol like Shinsegae and Lotte, or by Tesco, which took over the Home Plus hypermarket chain it had started as a joint venture with Samsung. Samsung and other chaebol opened chains of bakeries or coffee shops. CJ opened a restaurant chain that specializes in bibimbap, a popular rice and vegetable bowl. Some hypermarkets sell tteokbokki, a snack made of rice cake slathered with chili pepper. LG, an electronics conglomerate, sold a Korean blood sausage. These are the foods some of the poorest South Koreans make a living selling. When one of the hypermarket chains, Lotte Mart, recently sold fried chicken at half the price of mom-and-pop sellers, it set off not only a stampede but also outrage at how such marketing would destroy smaller shops. Under public pressure, Lotte canceled the discount. “The government repeatedly told us that if chaebol grow, so will employment, exports and our country’s credit ratings, and the benefit will trickle down to us,” said Hong Ji-gwang, 47, owner of a cosmetics shop who is leading a campaign to drive a Home Plus hypermarket out of the Hapjeong district in Seoul. “That’s a lie. Instead of innovation and going abroad for tough competition, they make easy money by taking rice bowls from smaller people.” At Parliament, rival political parties have submitted a number of “economic democratization” bills, calling for various restrictions aimed at checking the unruly behavior of the chaebol. Huh Chang-soo, chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, which speaks for the chaebol, said in July that he could not “understand what they meant by ‘economic democratization.’ ” When the chaebol came under pressure to “share profit” with their subcontractors last year, Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung, said he had never heard of the concept and did not know “whether it’s used in a socialist, capitalist or Communist country.” And while accusing politicians of populist “election-year chaebol bashing,” the conglomerates vowed to increase the number of new employees this year by 3.4 percent. They also distributed gift coupons that their employees could use in traditional markets. That is unlikely to placate small retailers like Mr. In. “We reject a life of living on little crumbs the chaebol throw to us,” he said. | South Korea;Shopping and Retail;Small Business;Corporations;Samsung Group;Tesco PLC |
ny0169779 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2007/04/24 | Manhattan: Riding Academy to Close | The Claremont Riding Academy on the Upper West Side will shut down at 5 p.m. on Sunday, the owner, Paul Novograd, said yesterday. The academy, which opened as a livery stable in 1892, has been a riding academy since the 1920s, Mr. Novograd said. He said the increased popularity of the park’s bridle path among pedestrians had made it very difficult for riders. The closing of the academy, which is on West 89th Street, was first reported in The New York Post. Homes will be found for the approximately 45 horses that are stabled there, Mr. Novograd said. | Claremont Riding Academy;Parks and Other Recreation Areas;Central Park (NYC) |
ny0178778 | [
"technology",
"circuits"
] | 2007/08/02 | 2 Laptop Bags That Also Hold the Kitchen Sink | When you think of Logitech you think of computer accessories — the electronic kind. But next month the company will add the Kinetik line of computer bags: a backpack, shown here, and a briefcase. The line follows Logitech’s practice of jumping into a crowded field but adding some feature to set it apart from rivals. Both bags have a shell of ballistic nylon and polyurethane, which adds strength but not weight. Both units will hold a 15.4-inch PC laptop, or a 17-inch Macbook Pro. The bags will sell for less than $100 at www.logitech.com and major retailers. Logitech says it learned that most laptop bags do a great job of carrying the laptop, but that it is the other stuff that laptop owners pack into the bag that make them look lumpy and unsightly. These bags have extra room inside for all that road warrior gear: extra batteries, cellphone chargers and various cords — not to mention MP3 players and miscellaneous metal objects dumped in just ahead of the scanner at the airport. They’re like that tent in the Harry Potter book: much bigger on the inside that on the outside. | Computers and the Internet;Laptop Computers;Logitech International SA |
ny0282344 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/07/29 | Want to Drive in Beijing? Good Luck in the License Plate Lottery | BEIJING — Hoping to please his future in-laws, Larry Li fought the snarling Beijing traffic one recent spring day to chauffeur them from the train station to his home in the city in a white Volkswagen he had bought just a month earlier. The good will came with a cost: a fine of 200 renminbi, or $30, and a points penalty. Mr. Li, 28, a financial worker, said he and his fiancée were getting married and had just bought a car. “I felt obliged to pick her family up at the train station,” he said. “We took some detours, but we were still videotaped.” The transgression: He had no local license plate, just an out-of-town one. Mr. Li has had a long struggle with the city government over its attempts to limit congestion by rationing license plates. In the past five years, he has applied 47 times for a Beijing license plate through a lottery-like online registry. But each time, the response has been a terse line: License plate not granted. Beijing is one of a handful of Chinese cities that limits car license plates by official decree. The competition for a license plate in Beijing is ferocious. In the June lottery, only about one in 725 out of the 2.7 million applicants was granted a license plate, according to official data, making the system one of the most selective in the country. Image Traffic in Beijing has caused gridlock and is believed to have contributed to pollution. The city is one of a handful in China that restricts the availability of local license plates. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times As China has urbanized and the Chinese have become more affluent, owning a car has become a way of life for many middle-class citizens. Even in Beijing, a city plagued by gridlock, the desire for cars remains strong. Troubled by crowded public transportation systems, the middle class has come to associate cars with the freedom to travel. The city, with a population of about 21 million, now has 5.6 million cars, more than double what it had 10 years ago. The glut of cars is believed to cause about 30 percent of the air pollution in Beijing, according to the city’s environmental watchdog. Not only are cars clogging the city’s streets, they also encroach on public spaces like sidewalks and bike lanes because of a lack of parking. Faced with the problems brought on by the growing number of cars, city officials decided to take action. This month, Beijing’s transportation authorities said they would keep the number of cars under 6.3 million by the end of 2020 by further tightening the annual quota for license plates. The quota this year is set at 90,000, down from 120,000 a year earlier. City officials are also considering traffic congestion fees based on driving radius and number of trips. China is the world’s largest car market. In big cities, along with a house, a car is widely seen as a must-have before marriage. So as Mr. Li’s wedding date drew near, his patience ran out: After buying the Volkswagen in April, he drove more than 620 miles to his fiancée’s home province, Jilin in northeast China, to register his car. Image Larry Li, a financial worker, has a police-issued permit, which must be renewed weekly, allowing him to drive in Beijing with certain restrictions on time and place. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times With an out-of-town license plate, Mr. Li is turning to a decades-long policy called “jinjingzheng,” which translates as the “enter Beijing certificate.” The police-issued permit, which must be renewed weekly, allows people like him to drive in Beijing, but it bans driving during morning and evening rush hours throughout the city, and from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on several major roads. Jinjingzheng now helps people like Mr. Li circumvent the city’s license plate rationing, which was created in the late 1970s to monitor traffic inflows from nearby provinces. (Mr. Li got his permit after the police fine.) Zhou Pei, a 39-year-old engineer and city resident, tried a different approach after his unsuccessful application for a local plate in the lottery. Through a used-car salesman functioning as a middleman, he rented a plate for 5,800 renminbi a year (about $870) in 2013. Mr. Zhou and the owner of the plate, whom Mr. Zhou had never met, signed a contract. After his mother-in-law sold her car in 2014, she was free to legally match her plate to another vehicle within six months. Mr. Zhou thought it would be safer to drive a car under the name of his relative. But when he tried to terminate the contract with the unknown owner of the plate, he found that the man had died. “Technically speaking, my car was under his name, so it was his asset,” Mr. Zhou said. “I ended up going through a lot of hassle to solve the problem.” The city’s mandate to control vehicle congestion has created a thriving, and illegal, underground market for license plates, said Nie Huihua, a professor of economics at Renmin University in Beijing. It is against the law to lease a plate obtained through the lottery system, and those who do risk revocation. Not to mention liability. Because the owner of a license plate is assumed to also be the owner of a car, those who rent plates worry that the owner could go behind their back to “sell” the car or use it as collateral in times of financial difficulties. And license plate owners fear that they will be held responsible if the renters get into serious traffic accidents. “The reality is that many families who already have a car still have family members registering for the lottery system,” Professor Nie said, “whereas many people who need cars can’t get a license plate. This is not fair at all.” Nowadays, such dealings have largely migrated online, and prices have shot through the sunroof. Discussion forums devoted to cars and classified advertisement sites like 58.com are flooded with advertisements offering to rent car license plates for Beijing, with prices ranging from 10,000 renminbi (about $1,500) to 13,000 renminbi ($1,950) a year. The Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, which is responsible for the management of license plates, did not respond to a request for comment. Its former head, Song Jianguo, was sentenced to life in prison this year for handing out license plates in exchange for bribes. So all that Mr. Li, the Beijing financial worker, can do now is wait for luck to turn his way in the license plate lottery. He and his wife take public transportation to work. But the car always comes in handy for a quick weekend escape from the city, to buy furniture for their new home and to visit their parents, now a 30-minute drive away. “Owning a car is very important for my family,” he said. | Beijing;License Plates;Air pollution;Roads and Traffic;China |
ny0024669 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2013/08/19 | A Summer of Troubles Saps India’s Sense of Confidence | NEW DELHI — For the last 10 years, India seemed poised to take its place alongside China as one of the dominant economic and strategic powerhouses of Asia. Its economy was surging, its military was strengthening, and its leaders were striding across the world stage. But a summer of difficulties has dented India’s confidence, and a growing chorus of critics is starting to ask whether India’s rise may take years, and perhaps decades, longer than many had hoped. “There is a growing sense of desperation out there, particularly among the young,” said Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s leading historians. Three events last week crystallized those new worries. On Wednesday, one of India’s most advanced submarines, the Sindhurakshak, exploded and sank at its berth in Mumbai, almost certainly killing 18 of the 21 sailors on its night watch. On Friday, a top Indian general announced that India had killed 28 people in recent weeks in and around the Line of Control in Kashmir as part of the worst fighting between India and Pakistan since a 2003 cease-fire. Also Friday, the Sensex, the Indian stock index, plunged nearly 4 percent, while the value of the rupee continued to fall, reaching just under 62 rupees per dollar, a record low. The rupee and stocks fell again on Monday. Each event was unrelated to the others, but together they paint a picture of a country that is rapidly losing its swagger. India’s growing economic worries are perhaps its most challenging. “India is now the sick man of Asia,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at the financial information provider IHS Global Insight. “They are in a crisis.” Image Last week, Indian Navy divers were recovering bodies from the Sindhurakshak after an explosion sank the submarine in port in Mumbai. Credit Ministry of Defence, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In part, the problems are age-old: stifling red tape, creaky infrastructure and a seeming inability to push through much-needed changes and investment decisions. For years, investors largely overlooked those problems because of the promise of a market of 1.2 billion people. Money poured into India, allowing it to paper over a chronic deficit in its current account, a measure of foreign trade and investment. But after more than a decade of largely futile efforts not only to tap into India’s domestic market but also to use the country’s vast employee base to manufacture exports for the rest of Asia, many major foreign companies are beginning to lose patience. And just as they are starting to lose heart, a reviving American economy has led investors to shift funds from emerging-market economies back to the United States. The Indian government recently loosened restrictions on direct foreign investment, expecting a number of major retailers like Walmart and other companies to come rushing in. The companies have instead stayed away, worried not only by the government’s constant policy changes but also by the widespread and endemic corruption in Indian society. The government has followed with a series of increasingly desperate policy announcements in recent weeks in hopes of turning things around, including an increase in import duties on gold and silver and attempts to defend the currency without raising interest rates too high. Then Wednesday night, the government announced measures to restrict the amounts that individuals and local companies could invest overseas without seeking approval. It was an astonishing move in a country where a growing number of companies have global operations and ambitions. The Indian stock markets were closed Thursday because of the nation’s Independence Day, but shares swooned at Friday’s opening. Stocks lost another 1.5 percent Monday, and many analysts predicted that the markets will continue to decline. “I think things will get much worse before they get better,” said Sonal Varma, an India economist at Nomura Securities in Mumbai. “The government is between a rock and a hard place.” The problem for India, analysts say, is that the country has small and poorly performing manufacturing and mining sectors, which would normally benefit from a weakening currency. Meanwhile, India must buy its oil, much of its coal and other crucial goods like computers in largely dollar-denominated trades that have become nearly 40 percent more expensive over the past two years. That is helping feed inflation, which jumped in July to an annual rate of 5.79 percent from 4.86 percent in June, far above what analysts had expected. Image The Bombay Stock Exchange in February. Credit Divyakant Solanki/European Pressphoto Agency The Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, has recently responded to the rupee’s weakness by raising interest rates, but those moves have already begun to hurt a huge swath of India’s corporate sector. Growth rates had already slowed to 5 percent in the most recent quarter, and India now has a far harder time meeting its current-account deficit. Analysts fear that higher inflation, softening growth, a falling currency and waning investor confidence could spin into a vicious cycle that will be difficult to contain. “There’s a risk of a spiral downward,” said Mr. Biswas, the IHS Global economist. “It will be very hard to break.” The submarine explosion revealed once again the vast strategic challenges that the Indian military faces and how far behind China it has fallen. India still relies on Russia for more than 60 percent of its defense equipment needs, and its army, air force and navy have vital Russian equipment that is often decades old and of increasingly poor quality. The Sindhurakshak is one of 10 Russian-made Kilo-class submarines that India has as part of its front-line maritime defenses, but only six of India’s submarines are operational at any given time — far fewer than are needed to protect the nation’s vast coastline. Indeed, India has fewer than 100 ships, compared with China’s 260. India is the world’s largest weapons importer , but with its economy under stress and foreign currency reserves increasingly precious, that level of purchases will be increasingly hard to sustain. The country’s efforts to build its own weapons have largely been disastrous, and a growing number of corruption scandals have tainted its foreign purchases, including a recent deal to buy helicopters from Italy. Unable to build or buy, India is becoming dangerously short of vital defense equipment, analysts say. Meanwhile, the country’s bitter rivalry with Pakistan continues. Many analysts say that India is unlikely to achieve prominence on the world stage until it reaches some sort of resolution with Pakistan of disputes that have lasted for decades over Kashmir and other issues. | Indian rupee;Economy;International trade;India |
ny0040731 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2014/04/12 | President Nominates Sylvia Mathews Burwell to Lead Health and Human Services | WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he was nominating his budget director, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, as the administration tries to move beyond its early stumbles in carrying out Mr. Obama’s health law. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Burwell would succeed Kathleen Sebelius, whose five-year tenure was marred by the disastrous rollout of the federal insurance marketplace that is a centerpiece of the law. Ms. Sebelius’s legacy, though, may well depend on whether Ms. Burwell and her successors can elevate public opinion of the law to a level matching programs like Medicare. “What Kathleen will go down in history for is serving as the secretary of health and human services when the United States of America finally declared that quality, affordable health care is not a privilege but it is a right for every citizen,” Mr. Obama said in a Rose Garden ceremony that featured several standing ovations for the embattled departing health secretary. The nomination of Ms. Burwell was expected . Ms. Burwell, 48, spent much of the last year mired in Washington’s fiscal fights, including the standoff that led to a 15-day government shutdown last fall. She also handled health policy as part of her job as Mr. Obama’s budget chief. Video The White House correspondent Michael D. Shear on what’s next for the Obama administration with Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, ending her five-year tenure. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Ms. Burwell, a West Virginia native with degrees from Harvard and Oxford, had several jobs in the Clinton administration, including deputy budget director. Before joining the Obama administration, she worked for charitable organizations including the Walmart Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She was also on the board of directors of MetLife, the insurer. Mr. Obama praised Ms. Burwell’s work in the budget office, pointing to declining budget deficits and the divided politics of government that defined her short tenure. “When the government was forced to shut down last October, and even as her own team was barred from reporting to work, Sylvia was a rock, a steady hand on the wheel who helped navigate the country through a very challenging time,” Mr. Obama said. In her confirmation hearings, Ms. Burwell will almost surely have a tougher time than she had last year, when the Senate voted 96 to 0 to confirm her appointment as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Republican lawmakers remain fiercely opposed to the health law, despite the administration’s claim of success in signing up more than 7 million people for health insurance, and they are expected to use the hearings to press their case for a repeal of the law. Democrats running for re-election in the coming midterm elections have faced blistering attacks for their support of the legislation. Video President Obama, the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, right, and the nominee to succeed her, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, discussed the new administration changes. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and a frequent critic of the health care law, issued a statement hinting at how Republicans would approach the confirmation hearing for Ms. Burwell. “I hope this is the start of a candid conversation about Obamacare’s shortcomings and the need to protect Medicare for today’s seniors, their children and their grandchildren,” Mr. McConnell said. Mr. Obama accepted Ms. Sebelius’s resignation this week, most likely ending her long political career that stretches back to the Kansas legislature in the 1980s. She has been Mr. Obama’s only health secretary. Before that she was governor of Kansas and had been mentioned as a possible running mate for Mr. Obama in 2008. Ms. Sebelius, in her farewell speech, called the Affordable Care Act the “most meaningful work I’ve ever been a part of. In fact, it’s been the cause of my life.” “Throughout the legislative battles, the Supreme Court challenge, a contentious re-election and years of votes to turn back the clock, we are making progress, tremendous progress, and critics and supporters alike are benefiting from this law.” | Barack Obama;Kathleen Sebelius;Sylvia Mathews Burwell;Appointments and Executive Changes;Health and Human Services;Obamacare,Affordable Care Act |
ny0176049 | [
"us"
] | 2007/07/27 | National Briefing | West | California: Explosion Kills Two | Two people were killed and four others were injured in an explosion at the company that developed SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed human spacecraft. Roberto Figueroa, a spokesman for the Kern County fire department, said a hazardous materials team was investigating the cause of the explosion at Scaled Composites, the Mojave, Calif., company founded by Burt Rutan, a renowned aircraft designer. Mr. Rutan, above, said the explosion at the test facility involved nitrous oxide, which is used in the engine for SpaceShipOne and in SpaceShipTwo, the successor craft being designed for Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture. Mr. Rutan was not at the site when the blast occurred, and said he was rushing back to his company. “It’s not a good day,” he said. “This looks like the equivalent of the Apollo 1 fire here.” | Explosions;California |
ny0280168 | [
"business"
] | 2016/10/17 | Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Oct. 17 | The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.31 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.46 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.25 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida Board of Education, $140.4 million of general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Florida Department of Transportation Turnpike Enterprise, $137.3 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. Meriden, Conn., $68.2 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. TUESDAY California, $255 million of general obligation unlimited tax taxable bonds. Competitive. California, $575.8 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. California, $815 million of general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Minnesota, $92.2 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Competitive. Osseo Area, Minn., Independent School District No. 279, $51.7 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. Suffolk County, N.Y., $53 million of general obligation limited tax bonds. Competitive. Suffolk County, N.Y., Water Authority, $56.4 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Competitive. Suffolk County, N.Y., Water Authority, $78.3 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. University of Alabama Medicine Finance Authority, $65.2 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. Wake County, N.C., $162.2 million of general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. WEDNESDAY Cincinnati, $54.9 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. Georgia, $376.8 million of series E general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Georgia, $504.2 million of series F general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. San Francisco County, Calif., $76 million of general obligation unlimited tax taxable bonds. Competitive. THURSDAY Charleston County, S.C., School District, $75.4 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. Monroe County, N.Y., $95.5 million of general obligation limited tax bonds. Competitive. Orange County, Calif., Sanitation District, $107.4 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Competitive. Virginia, $114.1 million of general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Virginia, $70.8 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Alaska Municipal Bond Bank, $84.5 million of general obligation and refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Calhoun County, Mich., Hospital Finance Authority, $73.7 million of Oaklawn Hospital revenue and refinancing bonds. Barclays Capital. Carmel, Ind., Local Public Improvement Bond Bank, $55 million of special program bonds. Piper Jaffray. Chesterton, Ind.; Toledo-Lucas County, Ohio, Port Authority; $62 million of StoryPoint Chesterton Project economic development bonds; StoryPoint Waterville Project revenue bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Connecticut, $650 million of general obligation bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Dallas County Utility and Reclamation District, $155.8 million of unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Barclays Capital. Glen Cove, N.Y., $126 million of local economic assistance revenue bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Illinois Finance Authority, $175.1 million of University of Chicago Medical Center revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Iowa Student Loan Liquidity Corporation, $188.8 million of student loan revenue bonds. RBC Capital Markets. King County, Wash., Public Hospital District No. 1, $189.7 million of Valley Medical Center limited tax general obligation refinancing bonds. Morgan Stanley. Maricopa County, Ariz., Industrial Development Authority, $66 million of Christian Care Surprise Inc., debt securities. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Maryland Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority, $91.1 million of revenue bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, $51.1 million of homeownership finance bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Montebello, Calif., Public Financing Authority, $53 million of Home2 Suites by Hilton Hotel Project lease revenue bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Montgomery County, Pa., Higher Education and Health Authority, $70.9 million of Holy Redeemer Health System revenue bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Nebraska Public Power District, $113.3 million of general revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. Nebraska Public Power District, $56.6 million of taxable general revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. New Hope, Tex., Cultural Education Facilities Finance Corporation, $62.8 million of retirement facility revenue bonds. Ziegler. New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority, $1 billion of Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health Obligated Group revenue and refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, $627.1 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Jefferies. New York State Dormitory Authority, $58.4 million of school districts and financing program revenue bonds. Raymond James. Norman, Okla., Regional Hospital Authority, $157.7 million of hospital revenue refinancing bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. North Carolina Capital Facilities Finance Agency, $319.5 million of revenue refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, $191.8 million of homeownership revenue refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. North Oaks, Minn., $73.5 million of Waverly Gardens Senior Housing revenue refinancing bonds. Piper Jaffray. Ontario, Calif., International Airport Authority, $52.5 million of revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. Oregon, $280 million of Oregon Facilities Authority revenue bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Pennsylvania Commonwealth Financing Authority, $758.8 million of revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. Pennsylvania Public School Building Authority, $561 million of Philadelphia School District Project school lease revenue refinancing bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, $186.3 million of turnpike subordinate revenue bonds. Loop Capital Markets. Pennsylvania, $57.2 million of Pocono Medical Center revenue bonds. PNC Capital Markets. Philadelphia School District, $817 million of general obligation bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. San Diego Community College District, $612 million of general obligation election and refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Skagit County, Wash., Regional Public Hospital District No. 1, $60 million of hospital revenue improvement refinancing bonds. Piper Jaffray. South Regional Joint Development Authority, Ga., $88.1 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency of Stockton, Calif., $72.9 million of tax allocation refinancing bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Tampa, Fla., $137.1 million of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center Project cigarette tax allocation and hospital revenue refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Texas Transportation Commission, $600 million of state highway improvement general obligation bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Twin Rivers, Calif., Unified School District, $50 million of series B general obligation refinancing bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Twin Rivers, Calif., Unified School District, $141 million of general obligation and series A general obligation refinancing bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. University of Alabama Medicine Finance Authority, $273 million of revenue bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. University of Washington, $202 million of general revenue and refinancing bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Utah Board of Regents, $131.1 million of general revenue and refinancing bonds. Morgan Stanley. Washington State Housing Finance Commission, $67.1 million of single-family program bonds. RBC Capital Markets. | Stocks,Bonds;Municipal bond;Government bond |
ny0123035 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/09/09 | Sy J. Schulman, Planner Who Oversaw New York City Parks, Dies at 86 | Sy J. Schulman, who smoothed the way for a controversial sewage plant in Harlem by offering state financing for a park with playgrounds and ball fields atop the structure, now known as the popular Riverbank State Park, died on Sept. 1 at his home in White Plains, where he once served as mayor. He was 86. The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son Ethan said. Tempers had been running high in the spring of 1968, when New York City gave the go-ahead for a sprawling sewage-treatment plant running along the Hudson River from 137th Street to 145th Street. Few had disputed the need for the plant; the city was still dumping raw sewage in the river. But Harlem residents argued that their neighborhood had been singled out because it was poor and black. After the city, to placate them, hired the modernist architect Philip Johnson to design the plant, their anger was further inflamed when they learned that his plans called for a giant fountain on top of the building. Rumors spread that sewage water would be used in the fountains. By November the city had abandoned Mr. Johnson’s idea, promising instead to build a park on top of the plant. Mr. Schulman, who was general manager of the State Council of Parks for New York City at the time and was eager to promote more green spaces in the city, floated the idea of using state financing to build a park with ball fields and a skating rink. After hiring an architecture firm to do an early study, he offered his proposal. Harlem leaders were eventually sold on the idea. Mr. Schulman described his role in an article as “helping the community decide what it wished to do with the area.” Three more architects and three decades later, at a cost of more than $120 million, Riverbank Park opened in 1993, its 28 acres sitting 69 feet above the river. With a baseball diamond and other playing fields, an Olympic-size lap pool, a skating rink and picnic areas, the park is one of the most popular in the state. The state parks Web site says it is the only park of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. Seymour Jerome Schulman was born on May 31, 1926, in Brooklyn to Elias and Sarah Schulman, immigrants from Russia. He served in the Navy at the end of World War II , then earned a degree in civil engineering from Cooper Union and a master’s in city planning from Columbia in 1954. In the early 1960s, Mr. Schulman became the head of planning for Westchester County, where he helped acquire land to expand parks. He entered public planning at a time when such positions were often given out as political patronage, said Henry J. Stern, the former New York City parks commissioner. Mr. Schulman, he said, “was a straight guy who did things based on their merits.” Laurance S. Rockefeller , the head of the State Council of Parks and the brother of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, asked Mr. Schulman to oversee state parks in the city in 1968. He left government in 1973 to become chief operating officer of the Westchester County Association , a business advocacy group, and remained with it for two decades. After he retired at 65, he ran for mayor of White Plains and won. He was elected in 1993 and served until 1997. In addition to his son Ethan, he is survived by his wife of 64 years, the former Rosalind Jordan; another son, Dan; two grandchildren; and a brother, Irwin. | Schulman Sy J;Deaths (Obituaries);Riverbank State Park (NYC) |
ny0136585 | [
"nyregion",
"nyregionspecial2"
] | 2008/05/04 | A Career Born of a Love for Guitars | Copiague CRISTIAN MIRABELLA was 10 years old when he walked into a guitar shop here and fell in love. He had started learning to play the instrument and was fascinated with how it was made. With his mother’s help, he persuaded the owner of the shop, DeMarino’s Musical Instruments (since closed), to let him work there after school and on Saturdays, sweeping the floor, polishing guitars and eventually becoming an apprentice in the luthier’s craft. Now, Mr. Mirabella, 36, owns his own showroom for stringed instruments, near where DeMarino’s used to be, as well as a workshop in St. James. Repair work helps pay the rent: he has reassembled a guitar that once belonged to Pete Townshend and that was tossed from a seventh-story window and retrieved by fans. He has also done restoration work for Brian Setzer, and, earlier this year, he made a pickguard for a guitar belonging to Keith Richards. In recent years, he has been spending more and more time building his own instruments. As an apprentice, he watched masters like Jimmy D’Aquisto carve full-bellied archtop guitars, whose rich, full sound is favored by jazz musicians. The archtop was invented by Orville Gibson, the founder of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, and modified by Lloyd Loar. Mr. D’Aquisto, who had shops in Farmingdale and Greenport, died in 1995. As a guitar maker, Mr. Mirabella focuses on building $18,000 archtops and custom laminate electric guitars, which sell for $5,000 to $6,000; he has also made flat-top guitars, upright basses and mandolins. With more than 40 instruments completed and 40 on order, he has a two-year waiting list. His sister, Annamichelle Mirabella, runs the office; his brother-in-law, William Langdon, helps with prep work. Each instrument has to be “a piece of art” as well as “a usable tool,” Mr. Mirabella said. Using a bending iron, he shapes the sides from European flame maple to give them a striped appearance. The tops are usually of air-dried spruce because of its tight grain, he said. The final product “is a great-sounding guitar that will make the guys hold on to the guitar,” he said, but also “a pretty guitar that is going to make the guys pick it up in the first place.” Last October, Peter Coco, 28, a professional bassist who has played with the jazz guitarist Frank Vignola, got an $8,500 upright bass made by Mr. Mirabella. “It plays so beautifully,” said Mr. Coco, who, with his twin brother, John, also a guitarist, teaches at their music studio in Garden City. “It feels like an extension of my body.” Mr. Mirabella said his “modern” archtop guitar is a “trap-door” model designed “to push every possibility acoustically.” Based on the 1995 Side-Sound model of John Monteleone, a renowned Islip guitar maker, it has doors on the sides that open and close, attenuating the sound. Mr. Mirabella said that when his trap-door model is played with doors closed, it has the “more direct, punchy sound” of a flat top. Mr. Monteleone, 60, who has made 400 guitars — they fetch $20,000 to $60,000 — said he did not mind that Mr. Mirabella used his models as a point of departure to create his own. “We all learn from other people,” he said. “We borrow from other people.” Mr. Monteleone credited Mr. Mirabella with “a unique sense for design” and said he showed “a lot of promise.” Meanwhile, Mr. Mirabella continues doing repairs for clients like Laurence Wexer, a Manhattan-based dealer of high-end vintage collectible guitars. Mr. Wexer described Mr. Mirabella as “a very fine restoration person” with “a real love for the guitar and a real feeling of responsibility of maintaining the musical heritage of the fine vintage instruments.” On a recent Saturday afternoon, Mr. Mirabella’s showroom, which he opened 10 years ago, attracted several of the regulars who hang out there. One of them, David Feinman, 55, of Farmingdale, owns a wholesale candy business but dreams of selling it to pursue a career as a professional guitarist. He owns the sixth archtop guitar Mr. Mirabella built and has ordered a custom-made bass and a solid-body electric guitar. “The craftsmanship is impeccable, and he has a very refined eye for the aesthetics,” Mr. Feinman said. Because people bring their vintage instruments to Mr. Mirabella to have the bridges or necks reset or headstocks grafted back on, the shop sometimes resembles “Antiques Roadshow,” Mr. Feinman said. Mr. Mirabella and his wife, Jeannette, 36, a special-education teacher for the Children’s Learning Center of United Cerebral Palsy in Roosevelt, live in Smithtown with their three young children. The couple met through a friend when they were both 16. “All my girlfriends went through the guitar shop,” Mr. Mirabella said, “and Jeannette was the one girl, when I told her I wanted to be a guitar maker, who said, ‘Wow, that is cool,’ as opposed to ‘What are you really going to do?’ ” He decided: “She might be the keeper.” | Music;Guitars;Musical Instruments |
ny0123704 | [
"us"
] | 2012/09/15 | Colleges in Three States Report Bomb Threats | Three college campuses in North Dakota, Ohio and Texas were evacuated on Friday after receiving bomb threats. The false alarms forced students and staff members to flee in the middle of classes at the University of Texas, Austin; North Dakota State University, Fargo; and Hiram College in northeast Ohio. In Austin, Rhonda Weldon, a spokeswoman, said a man called claiming “to have placed bombs all over campus” that would detonate in 90 minutes, and officials decided to order the university’s 51,000 students and 24,000 staff and faculty members to evacuate “out of an abundance of caution.” Classes were canceled for the day. At North Dakota State, which has 14,000 students, officials ordered an evacuation after receiving a bomb threat, but the campus was reopened by 1 p.m., officials said. At Hiram, with 1,300 students, crews with bomb-sniffing dogs checked all of the buildings. It was not clear who made the threats or whether they were connected, officials said. | Colleges and Universities;Bombs and Explosives;Threats and Threatening Messages;Evacuations and Evacuees;North Dakota University;Hiram College |
ny0151870 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2008/08/07 | Rice to Play First Game in the Pros as a Starter | Ray Rice has never attended an N.F.L. game. Now he is poised to start in one, at running back against the defending American Football Conference champions, the New England Patriots, in the Baltimore Ravens ’ preseason opener on Thursday. “I know I’ll get the jitters a little bit when I go out there because this is my first experience,” Rice said Wednesday. Rice was drafted with the 55th overall pick after rushing for a team-record 4,926 yards in 910 carries during three seasons at Rutgers. He is expected to be a backup this season, but will start Thursday because Willis McGahee has a knee injury. At Rutgers, the 5-foot-8 Rice averaged 142.2 yards rushing and scored six touchdowns in five games against teams ranked in the top 15. After running for 280 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 52-30 rout of Ball State in the International Bowl, Rice decided to skip his senior season and enter the draft. “He’s a rookie, but gosh he’s had a lot of carries his whole career; as a running back, he’s a veteran,” Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said. “It will be new for him playing against an N.F.L. defense, particularly that defense. It will be interesting to see how he’ll do, but I would be surprised if he’s not up to it.” WHITHER PACMAN? When it comes to Pacman Jones’s status, the Dallas Cowboys’ owner, Jerry Jones, is treading lightly. The still-suspended Jones can play in the preseason for the Dallas Cowboys, who open Saturday night at San Diego. But the team still does not know when it will find out if he will be fully reinstated by N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell for the regular season. “I don’t want to do or say anything that would imply that I’m getting anxious or pushy about it,” Jerry Jones said Wednesday. Goodell has said only that a decision would come before the regular season, and it could come as late as the week of the Cowboys’ opener Sept. 7 at Cleveland. Jerry Jones would not speculate on when he expected to hear from Goodell, acknowledging that the decision “probably will be very late in the preseason.” “I’m just guessing that,” Jones said. ORTON GETS THE NOD The Chicago Bears named Kyle Orton the starter for their preseason opener against the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday night. But picking a winner in his derby with Rex Grossman will take more time. “In a perfect world, before the regular season starts,” Coach Lovie Smith said. A year ago, the Bears seemed poised to make a run for the Super Bowl . But injuries and sloppy play on both sides of the ball derailed their season. While a healthy defense could rank among the league’s best, there are questions about the offense. Grossman has been erratic in his five seasons. Orton was 10-5 as a starter as a rookie in 2005 after Grossman was hurt. 2 BILLS INJURED The starting strong safety Donte Whitner will miss the Buffalo Bills’ preseason opener at Washington on Saturday because of a sore left ankle. Receiver Josh Reed is also expected to miss the game because of a sore lower back. The good news was that receiver James Hardy, a rookie drafted in the second round, returned to practice Wednesday after missing nearly a week with a sore left hamstring. BENGAL ENDS HOLDOUT Linebacker Keith Rivers joined the Cincinnati Bengals at training camp after ending a 10-day holdout. Then he promptly made a rookie mistake. Rivers, the team’s top pick, did the wrong exercise — jumping jacks — at the end of calisthenics, drawing boos from teammates. “It shows I haven’t been here for a while,” said Rivers, who participated in a mandatory minicamp in June but missed 12 practices. Rivers, the ninth pick out of Southern California, signed a five-year contract Tuesday night. BEARS BAN TAILGATING The Chicago Bears will no longer allow tailgating during the games at the parking lots outside Soldier Field. For years, fans have watched the games on televisions in the parking lots, where they enjoy food and drinks. But starting with Thursday night’s exhibition game against Kansas City, they will no longer be able to remain in the parking lots. The Bears said the move was part of a crackdown on unruly behavior. | Rice Ray;National Football League;Baltimore Ravens;Football |
ny0256694 | [
"sports",
"golf"
] | 2011/08/06 | Jay Haas Shares Lead on Champions Tour | Jay Haas aced the fourth hole and finished with four straight birdies en route to an eight-under-par 64 to share the lead with John Huston after the first round of the Champions Tour’s 3M Championship in Blaine, Minn. Huston birdied five of his last nine holes. Gary Hallberg, Tom Lehman, Peter Senior and Rod Spittle were a shot back. | Golf;Haas Jay |
ny0104386 | [
"science"
] | 2012/03/09 | Feather Cells Tell of Microraptor’s Crowlike Sheen | Sexual drive, not flight, may have been the main reason for the feather color and pattern of Microraptor, a four-winged dinosaur that lived some 130 million years ago in what is now northeastern China. New research by American and Chinese scientists shows that the animal had a predominantly glossy iridescent sheen in hues of black and blue, like a crow. This is the earliest known evidence of iridescent color in feathers. The animal also had a striking pair of long, narrow tail feathers, perhaps to call attention to itself in courtship. In the study, published online Thursday in the journal Science, the researchers compared the patterns of pigment-containing cells from a Microraptor fossil with those of modern birds. The shape and orientation of these cells, known as melanosomes, were narrow and arranged in a distinctive pattern, as in the case of living birds with glossy feathers. Only recently has it become possible with scanning electron microscopes to examine well-preserved fossil remains of melanosomes, so tiny that a hundred can fit across a human hair. Such pigment agents in many birds are generally round or cigar-shaped, but these were especially narrow, like those of blackbirds. The iridescence arises when the melanosomes are organized in stacked layers. Matthew D. Shawkey, a biologist at the University of Akron in Ohio who conducted some of the most telling analysis of the melanosome-iridescence relationship, noted that modern birds use their feathers for many different things, including flight, regulation of body temperature and mate-attracting displays. Hypotheses concerning the function of iridescent colors in birds have centered on their role as visual social signals. “Iridescence is widespread in modern birds, and is frequently used in displays,” Dr. Shawkey said in a statement. “Our evidence that Microraptor was largely iridescent thus suggests that feathers were important for display even relatively early in their evolution.” In the journal article, Quanguo Li of the Beijing Museum of Natural History and his team drew the cautiously worded conclusion that “although we cannot assign a definitive function to iridescence in Microraptors, a role in signaling aligns with data on the plumage” of the specimen discovered in 2003. Eight other specimens were also examined in describing the likely role of their tail feathers in the mating game, like a peacock’s today. A year ago, Canadian paleontologists described some of the first examples of feather coloring in the age of dinosaurs. They were found in 70 million-year-old amber preserving 11 specimens with a wide variety of feather types, some in bright colors. A different pigmentation method produces the brighter-colored features of, say, cardinals. Mark A. Norell, a dinosaur paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the findings give “an unprecedented glimpse of what this animal looked like when it was alive.” One result, he added, was to contradict previous interpretations that Microraptor was a nocturnal creature; dark glossy plumage is not a trait found in modern nighttime birds. Though its anatomy is similar to that of birds, and some dinosaurs are considered ancestral to living birds, Dr. Norell said, Microraptor is thought to be a non-avian dinosaur in a group called dromaeosaurs that include Velociraptor. The size of a large pigeon, Microraptor had two sets of wings, one on its arms and the other on its legs. Dr. Norell doubted that Microraptor could fly like living birds. Perhaps it could glide between trees or parachute to the ground, but it was more primitive than Archaeopteryx, often considered the early bird, and not capable of true powered flight. Julia A. Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the research team, noted that many experts continue to interpret dinosaur feathering in aerodynamic terms, and so it probably was to some extent. “But as any birder will tell you,” Dr. Clarke said, “feather colors and shapes may also be tied with complex behavioral repertoires and, if anything, may be costly in terms of aerodynamics.” | Dinosaurs;Paleontology;Feathers;Science and Technology;Science (Journal);Reproduction (Biological) |
ny0202611 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2009/08/27 | San Antonio Eliminates Staten Island | SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — Steven Cardone escaped three bases-loaded threats with double plays and John Shull batted in two runs as San Antonio advanced in the Little League World Series with a 4-1 win over Staten Island on Wednesday night. Texas will play Saturday in the United States final against Georgia or California, with Staten Island eliminated. Staten Island loaded the bases in the first, third and fifth innings but scored only one run as sharply-hit bouncers right at fielders were turned into double plays. Anthony Scotti, hobbling with a bad hamstring, grounded into two double plays, including one to end the fifth with Staten Island trailing by three runs. Shull came in to relieve in the final inning and got two strikeouts to end the game. Earlier, Raul Rojas hit a two-run homer and got five outs in relief to finish a one-hitter, helping Reynosa, Mexico, beat Chiba City, Japan, 6-0, and advance. Mexico will face Curaçao or Taiwan in the international final Saturday. | Baseball;Little League World Series;Mexico;Japan |
ny0195629 | [
"world",
"americas"
] | 2009/10/05 | To Protect Galápagos, Ecuador Limits a Two-Legged Species | PUERTO AYORA, Galápagos Islands — The mounds of reeking garbage on the edge of this settlement 600 miles off Ecuador ’s Pacific coast are proof that one species is thriving on the fragile archipelago whose unique wildlife inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution : man. Tiny gray finches, descendants of birds that were crucial to his thesis, flutter around the dump, which serves a growing town of Ecuadoreans who have moved here to work in the islands’ thriving tourism industry. The burgeoning human population of the Galápagos, which doubled to about 30,000 in the last decade, has unnerved environmentalists. They point to evidence that the growth is already harming the ecosystem that allowed the islands’ more famous inhabitants — among them giant tortoises and boobies with brightly colored webbed feet — to evolve in isolation before mainlanders started colonizing the islands more than a century ago. The growth has become enough of a threat to the environment that even the government, which still welcomes growth in the tourism industry, has expelled more than 1,000 poor Ecuadoreans in the past year from a province that they feel is rightfully theirs, and it is in the process of expelling many more. By limiting the population, officials hope to preserve the natural wonders that bolster one of Ecuador’s most profitable sectors: tourism. But the measures are feeding a backlash among unskilled migrants who say they are being punished while the country continues to enjoy the many millions of dollars tourists bring to Ecuador, one of South America ’s poorest nations. “We are being told that a tortoise for a rich foreigner to photograph is worth more than an Ecuadorean citizen,” said María Mariana de Reina Bustos, 54, a migrant from Ambato in Ecuador’s central Andean valley, whose 22-year-old daughter, Olga, was recently rounded up by the police near the slum of La Cascada and put on a plane to the mainland. The first settlers came to the islands to live off the land, working as fishermen, ranchers and farmers. Now, most of those who make the short flight from Quito , the capital, or sneak on the islands in boats are lured by different sorts of riches: the relatively high wages they can earn as taxi drivers and hotel maids or workers in the islands’ growing bureaucracy. For decades, the country’s leaders did little to prevent people from coming here, partly to build the tourism industry and then to ensure the government had a presence among the pioneers. There seemed to be something of a natural limit on growth: the country had put aside 97 percent of the archipelago as a park. But as tourism and migration grew over the last decade, pressure began building within the archipelago’s scientific and environmental community and abroad for Ecuador to act on curbing the islands’ population. The United Nations put the Galápagos on its list of endangered heritage sites in 2007. Scientists here said people had already done significant damage, pointing to fuel spills, the poaching of giant tortoises and sharks and the introduction of invasive species — including rats, cattle and fire ants — that threaten animals endemic to the Galápagos. Even seemingly benign human activities like owning a pet can have outsize consequences here. “With people come cats, and with cats come threats to other animals found nowhere else in the world,” said Fernando Ortiz, coordinator of the Galápagos program for Conservation International. Conflict is built into the rules that allowed the Galápagos to be colonized in the first place, despite a lack of fresh water in the archipelago. Technically, residency is granted to a limited number of people, including those born here and their spouses, people who arrived before 1998 and those with temporary work permits. The police, known in local slang as the “migra” for their role in tracking down illegal migrants, set up impromptu checkpoints throughout the islands. But the same government that oversees the expulsions also offers subsidies to people living on the islands. One subsidy allows gasoline to cost about the same here as on the mainland. Another allows residents to fly between the islands or to Quito for a fraction of what foreigners pay. Loopholes also flourish. For instance, a black market in residency thrives in which migrants marry established residents to obtain coveted identity cards. The result: Puerto Ayora’s streets beckon with discos, food stands and souvenir shops. On the outskirts, a billboard with the image of Leopoldo Bucheli, the pro-development mayor, celebrates a project called El Mirador that is clearing an area on the edge of town to build 1,000 new homes. “All we want, like people anywhere on this planet, is a dignified existence,” said Yonny Mantuano, 36, who bought a lot to build a home at El Mirador. He heads the teachers union here, whose 600 members have chafed at one of the government’s new attempts to limit subsidies: a measure this year cutting their cost-of-living bonus. The government’s somewhat schizophrenic view of life here is echoed by the sentiments of the people. Margarita Masaquiza, 45, an Indian from Ecuador’s highlands who arrived here at the age of 14, abhors the government’s expulsions. “We built this province with our own hands, so, yes, it pains us to see our countrymen deported like animals,” Ms. Masaquiza said. “After all, we are indigenous Ecuadoreans, how can we be illegal in our own country?” But when asked how she felt about the impact of new migrants on her four children and four grandchildren, Ms. Masaquiza adopted a different tone. “We must preserve opportunities for our families,” she said. Most people in the Galápagos live on San Cristóbal, an island where a penal colony functioned decades ago, and Santa Cruz, where Puerto Ayora is located. Development is spreading to other parts of the archipelago, as well. Isabela, the largest of the islands, offers a glimpse into the Galápagos frontier. Despite its streets of sand, Puerto Villamil, Isabela’s main town, looks not unlike a Phoenix subdivision around 2007. Laborers work feverishly on 200 new cinderblock homes on the town’s edge. Only about 2,000 people live in the town, but it has one of the Galápagos’s highest rates of population growth, about 9 percent a year. “I earn $1,200 a month here, while I could only earn $500 a month on the continent,” said Bolívar Buri, 26, a construction worker born in Puerto Villamil who made a small fortune this year when he sold an empty lot for $8,000 that he bought six years ago for $600. But even in the archipelago’s less spoiled areas, there is little doubt that man’s intrusion has altered life on the islands that enraptured Darwin. On the road from Puerto Villamil to the drizzle-shrouded crater of the Sierra Negra volcano, subsistence hunters on horseback scan the forest for wild pigs, a species introduced by mariners over a century ago. White cattle egrets, another introduced species, fly overhead. One recent day, Manuel López, a cowboy and migrant from the mainland who tends a herd under the volcano’s mist, emerged from a forest thick with guava trees. He paused under the equatorial sun; his gaze narrowed. “If it is God’s will, I’m on this island to stay,” said Mr. López, 36. “We must be in Galápagos for a reason,” he said, prodding a visitor to reply. “Yes or no?” | Galapagos Islands;Environment;Population |
ny0262257 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2011/06/14 | Pelosi, Urging Weiner to Quit, Is Back in Limelight | WASHINGTON — Less than a year ago, Representative Nancy Pelosi was one of the most powerful figures in Washington, an agenda-setting House speaker able to impose her will on a notoriously fractious Democratic caucus. In making a difficult transition to House minority leader, she has been largely relegated to the sidelines as President Obama seeks to cut legislative deals with House Republicans. Now she is suddenly back in the spotlight by virtue of a standoff with a Democrat defying her wishes. Despite a very public push by Ms. Pelosi, Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York has refused to surrender his House seat after disclosures that he sent lewd personal images over the Internet, admissions that have caused a national sensation that threatens to overwhelm the party’s political message. Her call for Mr. Weiner to resign, echoed Monday by President Obama in an interview with NBC, is the toughest test of authority she has faced since she lost the speakership in last year’s elections and then fought to remain Democratic leader when some party members argued that it was time for a change. On Monday, Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia and majority leader, urged House Democratic leaders to do more to show Mr. Weiner that he was unwelcome by eliminating some privileges of membership, like his seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee. “I’m hoping that they will begin to move, if he does not resign, toward things like perhaps stripping of his committees and others,” Mr. Cantor said. “I mean, I don’t think that we have time for this.” Supportive House Democrats and aides to Ms. Pelosi have strongly defended her, saying there is little that can be done short of an expulsion vote to oust a House member who is determined to stay. Ms. Pelosi made the same point Monday night, saying she hoped that with the president’s joining her and other leaders in urging him to resign, Mr. Weiner would take heed. “None of us, not anybody here, has the power to force somebody out of office,” she told reporters. “That person has to decide himself as to whether he will stay or he will go.” Her supporters say Ms. Pelosi moved forcefully to show Mr. Weiner the House door in calling for an ethics investigation immediately after his initial news conference admitting misconduct and lies. She then urged him outright to resign on Saturday. Aides said she spoke with him regularly throughout the past week, trying to make him aware of the negative consequences of staying on. As for her overall record in the minority, allies said Ms. Pelosi remained a prodigious fund-raiser and had driven the party’s political message attacking Republicans for their plans to overhaul Medicare . “Being minority leader is a different job than being speaker and has different responsibilities,” said Jennifer Crider, a top aide, noting that Ms. Pelosi had hosted 129 fund-raisers that had taken in nearly $11 million through May. “There is no House Democrat who is harder working or is more effective than Nancy Pelosi.” Some analysts say that if Ms. Pelosi seems diminished now in her role as minority leader, it is mainly because she was such a high-profile speaker. “She really was a notable speaker and rather successful in leading the House, albeit for a short run,” said Thomas E. Mann, a Congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. “She demonstrated her moxie and toughness in running for re-election as Democratic leader.” Since dropping into the minority, Ms. Pelosi has turned her attention more inward to her caucus, plotting strategy on how to retake the House. Her profile in the news media has slipped, mainly because the spotlight has naturally shifted to Speaker John A. Boehner and the House Republicans. There has also been some tension with the White House over a perceived lack of policy consultation with House Democrats. Ms. Pelosi was visibly cut out of the talks this year when the White House and Senate Democrats dealt exclusively with Mr. Boehner over 2011 spending bills. Ms. Pelosi also kept a low profile in the party’s biggest political triumph this year, in the special election for a House seat in western New York last month. She raised money for the campaign but stayed out of the district during the race to prevent Republicans from making her a major issue in the contest caused by the resignation of Representative Christopher Lee, a Republican. Republicans note that in contrast to the situation with Representative Weiner, Mr. Lee, who sent a shirtless photo to a woman via the Internet, was gone within hours of the incident. As evidence that Ms. Pelosi has not always followed up on her tough talk against misconduct, they cite her decision not to remove Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, from his position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee during an ethics inquiry that led to his censure. Ms. Pelosi also has to contend with some House Democrats who privately suggest she has been too aggressive in urging one of her own to resign without due process, worrying it will set a precedent in which lawmakers can be summarily pushed out for what is judged embarrassing and politically detrimental conduct. Still, her allies say that she has a firm hold on her position and that her approach in Mr. Weiner’s case will be validated. “There is no question, whether it is at a fund-raiser in Arizona or a leadership meeting in Washington, that she is still the leader of House Democrats,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “And she will continue to be the leader of the House Democrats.” | Pelosi Nancy;Weiner Anthony D;Democratic Party;House of Representatives;Ethics (Institutional) |
ny0230726 | [
"sports"
] | 2010/09/26 | Busch Sets Nationwide Record | Kyle Busch has set a single-season record for wins in Nascar ’s Nationwide Series, taking the checkered flag for the 11th time in 23 races. He led for 192 of the 200 laps at Dover International Speedway in Delaware. Danica Patrick ran into the wall early in the race and finished 94 laps down in 35th place. During practice runs, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick tangled on the track, then got into a heated exchange in the garage. Hamlin and Harvick made contact when Harvick damaged the right rear of Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota. | Busch Kyle;Patrick Danica;National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing;Automobile Racing |
ny0002343 | [
"business"
] | 2013/03/23 | Genachowski Announces Resignation as F.C.C. Chairman | The resignation on Friday of Julius Genachowskiafter four years as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission again raises a thorny issue forPresident Obama: whether it will be possible to get the F.C.C. or Congress to help him fulfill a campaign promise to guarantee that the Internet remains free and open to businesses and users. Mr. Genachowski, who said on Friday that he would leave the commission “in the near future,” pushed it in the direction of embracing rules against discrimination by Internet service providers in what content they carry or how fast they transmit it, an issue known as net neutrality. But he has faced opposition on that front from the federal courts and some telecommunications companies, while consumer advocates have complained that Mr. Genachowski was not bold enough in his efforts. A law school friend of Mr. Obama and an investor in technology and telecommunication start-ups before coming to the F.C.C., Mr. Genachowski set ambitious goals during his tenure and accomplished some of them, including expanding broadband Internet service and beginning to free up additional airwaves for sale to mobile phone companies. He also successfully opposed the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, a move that he said “revitalized competition” and “led to more spectrum and more capital” for the wireless industry. But his commission also approved the purchase of NBC Universal by Comcast, angering many consumer groups. Mr. Genachowski announced no immediate plans, although people close to him said it was more likely he would move to a Washington research institute rather than to a telecommunications company or an industry trade group. Thanking Mr. Genachowski for his service, Mr. Obama said he “has brought to the Federal Communications Commission a clear focus on spurring innovation, helping our businesses compete in a global economy and helping our country attract the industries and jobs of tomorrow.” “Because of his leadership,” Mr. Obama added, “we have expanded high-speed Internet access, fueled growth in the mobile sector, and continued to protect the open Internet as a platform for entrepreneurship and free speech.” No one has emerged as a favorite for the chairmanship, although people in the industry have been talking about Tom Wheeler, a venture capitalist and former head of the wireless and cable industry trade groups, as a possible successor. Other possibilities include two previous Obama appointees: Karen Kornbluh, a former Senate aide to Mr. Obama who is now ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and Lawrence E. Strickling, an assistant Commerce Department secretary who oversees the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The F.C.C. has never had a female at its head; that has led some people to expect that Mr. Obama will name Mignon Clyburn, the Democratic commissioner with the most seniority, as interim chairwoman. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on a possible successor. Mr. Genachowski oversaw the commission during a period of rapid change in technology, characterized by the explosion of smartphones and an increase in the speed of wireless and broadband Internet connections. He also leaves a number of his highest priorities unfinished, if well under way, at the F.C.C. The agency is in the process of drawing up an ambitious plan to make additional high-value airwaves, or spectrum, available for sale to mobile phone companies for use in wireless broadband Internet service. The plan hinges on the F.C.C.'s ability to get television broadcasters to voluntarily give up some of their airwaves in exchange for receiving some portion of the sale proceeds, a process known as an incentive auction. Most broadcasters have strongly resisted that plan and an associated proposal to move stations that do not give up their airways to other frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. That process, known as repacking, would also vacate bands of airwaves by allowing television broadcast signals to be packed closer together. The F.C.C. is currently reviewing public and industry comments on its plans for the incentive auction, which it hopes to conduct in 2014. Finalization of those plans will almost certainly await a new chairman, however. The Internet has thrived over the last four years; technology and telecommunications is one sector of the economy that the recession that began in 2007 left unscathed. The next chairman of the F.C.C., however, will face an uphill battle convincing members of Congress, backed by the strength of the telecommunications lobby, that more rules and regulations are needed for that rapidly changing part of the economy. Consumer advocates have pushed particularly hard for net neutrality rules, which would guarantee that Internet service providers cannot give a faster channel through their pipes to their own content or products or those of a company that pays them for it. Senator Obama embraced net neutrality during his 2008 campaign. The agency’s initial rules for net neutrality, adopted before Mr. Genachowski took over, were successfully challenged in court; a second set of guidelines, known as the Open Internet Order, was put in place during his tenure but is also now the subject of a lawsuit in federal appeals court. At the heart of the matter is a philosophical debate over whether Internet service is a utility akin to telephone service, and should be governed by the same type of open access rules, or whether Internet service is an information service subject to little or no federal regulation. Mr. Genachowski also oversaw the conversion of an $8 billion federal program to provide telephone service to rural and low-income Americans, known as the Universal Service Fund, into one that used the same money to expand broadband Internet service. The fund has now been renamed the Connect America Fund . As chairman, Mr. Genachowski drew criticism from both industry and consumer groups, although each also supported some of his actions. Public Knowledge, a consumer group, said in a statement that the chairmanship was best characterized as “one of missed opportunities.” Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said that the chairman deserved credit for defending the rules on data roaming, which allow smartphone users to use their phones outside their provider’s service area, and for promoting unlicensed spectrum, which allows functions like Wi-Fi, television remotes and keyless automobile entry systems to function. “But it remains to be seen whether those positive steps will mitigate the enormous consolidation that has taken place in the broadband marketplace under his watch,” read a statement from Public Knowledge. Several members of Congress, including Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who has been active in telecommunications legislation, praised Mr. Genachowski’s tenure. Michael Powell, a Republican who served as F.C.C. chairman under PresidentGeorge W. Bushand who now leads the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a cable industry trade group, also praised Mr. Genachowski. “Chairman Genachowski wisely believed that ubiquitous Internet connectivity would be the defining technology of our day,” Mr. Powell said, “and his leadership has ensured that America’s robust wired and wireless broadband networks are world class.” | FCC;Julius Genachowski;Computers and the Internet;Tech Industry;Net Neutrality |
ny0228111 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2010/07/29 | Obama Trumpets Democrats’ Small-Business Bona Fides | WASHINGTON — At the core of some of the major policy fights in Washington these days is a ferocious competition between Republicans and Democrats over which party is the champion of America’s small businesses — a mantle that each side views as crucial to shaping economic policy and winning the November elections. The battle was on full display on Wednesday as Senate Democrats pushed ahead with efforts to pass a bill that would increase lending to small businesses and provide tax breaks, and President Obama visited the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, N.J., where he ordered a “super sub with everything,” to highlight his party’s small-business agenda. The two sides agree that the nation’s 27 million small businesses will be a big factor in the economic recovery. Beyond that, however, the gloves come off, as Democrats say Republicans are stalling the small-business bill and Republicans say that Democrats will strangle small businesses with higher taxes and heavy-handed regulation — though Mr. Obama, in New Jersey, emphasized that he had cut taxes for small businesses eight times. At the sandwich shop, Mr. Obama said there should be no argument. “Surely, Democrats and Republicans ought to be able to agree on this bill,” he said. “Helping small businesses, cutting taxes, making credit available. This is as American as apple pie. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They are central to our identity as a nation. They are going to lead this recovery.” But the tug of war for the affection of small-business owners was a central issue in the year-long debate over major health care legislation, and it stands to be an even bigger issue in the battle this fall over extending the Bush tax cuts. Republicans, with support from the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business , have begun making the case that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for the top two income brackets would harm small-business owners, impede the recovery and perhaps even lead to a double-dip recession . Democrats counter that just 3 percent of tax returns in the top two brackets show any business income, meaning that most small-business owners stand to benefit from the Democrats’ push to continue the tax cuts for individuals earning less than $200,000 and families earning less than $250,000. And then there is the small-business bill itself, which has languished in the Senate for weeks. With the midterm elections just three months away, Senate Republican leaders see little reason to hand Mr. Obama another legislative achievement, let alone one that would bolster the Democrats’ efforts to debunk the image that the Republican Party has long cultivated as the primary champion of small businesses. Democrats on Tuesday evening introduced yet another version of the legislation aimed at winning over Republican supporters. But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Democrats should only blame themselves for the delay in passing the bill, noting that it was repeatedly shelved to deal with other issues. Mr. McConnell also sharply criticized the Democrats’ economic policies. “Spending, debt, regulations, more government — none of it has worked,” he said. “And now they want to raise taxes on the very small businesses that are trying to create jobs.” To counter the Republican opposition, Democrats are turning to groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the independent business federation — traditionally Republican allies — in hopes that they will help twist the arms of some Republican senators into voting for the bill. The House has already approved a package similar to the one in the Senate, which would extend and expand tax cuts for small businesses to invest and hire, and create a $30 billion lending program within the Treasury Department, to be administered through community banks. In a crucial test vote last week, two Senate Republicans, George LeMieux of Florida and George V. Voinovich of Ohio, voted with Democrats in favor of the $30 billion lending program, even as other Republicans denounced it as a mini “bailout” that would encourage community banks to make risky loans. Buoyed by that vote, Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana and chairwoman of the small-business committee, continued to make a forceful case for the bill on the Senate floor on Wednesday even as Democratic leaders struggled to resolve procedural disputes with the Republicans that threatened to kill the measure. “Eighty-one percent of the jobs lost in America were from small business,” Ms. Landrieu said. “If we do our job right,” she added, “this is the bill that will jump-start, jolt, be a catalyst.” Ms. Landrieu met Wednesday morning with a number of advocacy groups who are supporting her bill and urged them to press Republicans to support the measure. The bill’s fate seemed likely to be decided in a procedural vote on Thursday. Democrats say that the Republicans’ reputation as an ally of small business is undeserved, and that advocacy for small businesses is really a way of cloaking efforts to help big, wealthy corporate interests. “The American people know one thing: They are the party of big business,” the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in an interview. “All you have to do is look at what they voted against here in the United States Senate. I have nothing against big business, but to think that they are good for small business is a stretch of the imagination.” Mr. Obama sought to take the fight out into the country on Wednesday with his visit to the tiny but popular Tastee Sub Shop, which was cleared of customers as counterterrorism agents patrolled its low roof. Mr. Obama ordered a six-inch “super sub” — he declared that at nearly 49 he can no longer eat the 12-inch variety — and sat down at a table with the owner, Dave Thornton, and the owners of three businesses in nearby towns. “We’ve weathered the storm well here at Tastee,” Mr. Thornton told the president. According to administration officials the other business owners — of an Italian restaurant, a paper manufacturer and a home energy services company — had benefited from lower-cost government loans and tax cuts. | Small Business;Obama Barack;Democratic Party;Republican Party;United States Politics and Government;Taxation;United States Economy |
ny0241507 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2011/03/05 | Vanderbilt and Belmont Coaches Build a Basketball Bond | NASHVILLE — Belmont’s Rick Byrd and Vanderbilt’s Kevin Stallings hold the same job, in the same city, their offices separated by a five-minute drive. Both coach basketball. Both run motion offenses. Both consider the country singer Vince Gill a close friend. Together, they account for 48 years of head coaching experience (37 in Nashville), 965 victories, 540 defeats, nine N.C.A.A. tournament appearances and two nearly unblemished graduation rates. Despite their proximity, longevity and shared history, neither would describe their relationship as a rivalry, not even a friendly one. Instead, Byrd and Stallings remain close friends, confidants, basketball bosom buddies. Continuing in perfect symmetry, both could enter the N.C.A.A. tournament with their deepest, most talented teams. “The friendship has been immeasurable for both of them,” said Gill, the third amigo. “To have someone five minutes away, who knows your struggles, what you’re going through — well, it’s perfect.” Byrd arrived at Belmont 25 years ago. His team played in the N.A.I.A., a country mile from Division I. His gym seated a few thousand. As guard Jordan Campbell noted, Gill is to Belmont what Spike Lee is to the Knicks, and Gill recalled the handful of fans present at his first game. To dispute one call, Gill ran the length of the bleachers. Early on, Byrd recognized a fertile recruiting ground in Nashville and nearby. He watched enrollment double, watched the university literally rise around him, and he decided that “some things were more important than trying to climb the ladder.” He won games, lots of them. He won 37 games in one season. He won more than 500 games at Belmont and more than 600 games in his career. He won so much, in fact, that Belmont moved up to Division I in 1996-97. Finally, Byrd had the Division I job he had long coveted at the university he had grown to love. It felt perfect, until the losses, sometimes by 40 or 50 points, accumulated. Eventually, Belmont joined the Atlantic Sun Conference and opened the Curb Event Center , the two most important elements in its successful jump. While Byrd struggled, Vanderbilt hired its current coach in 1999. His name? Kevin Stallings. His first opponent ? Belmont, of course. Byrd knew nothing about Stallings but placed a courtesy call anyway. Their initial conversation centered on golf, courses played, best rounds. The more they talked, though, the more they realized just how much they had in common. “We’re both a touch on the conservative side,” Stallings said. “We like humility, sportsmanship, small egos, country music. We both play golf.” From similar interests, their friendship bloomed. They met regularly for lunch, at Pancake Pantry or Las Palmas, where they diagrammed plays using salt and pepper shakers, forks and spoons. They took golf trips (Byrd drilled two holes in one with Stallings) and advised each other in recruiting. They went to concerts on Gill’s tour bus, with Stallings, a guitar player, breaking down music instead of inbounds plays. Byrd says he seeks advice from Stallings more than any coach outside his staff. During the move to Division I, Stallings taught Byrd defensive principles he learned from the longtime coach Dick Bennett. Even now, Stallings and Byrd bounce plays back and forth, send text messages on game days, console each other after losses and commiserate about the grind. Both are perfectionists. Both are regarded as innovative offensive minds. Both struck Gill as beyond intense. “What’s really fun is to watch them play Ping-Pong against each other,” Gill said. “They’re diving all over the place. They’re sweating.” Stallings played in college at Purdue, became an assistant there, apprenticed at Kansas under Roy Williams and took his first head coaching job at Illinois State. The Vanderbilt team he inherited held a scattered history of tournament appearances. The junior Lance Goulbourne said he knew more about the women’s team before he came to Vandy. With his rumpled suits and horseshoe hairstyle, Stallings bears little resemblance to his slick coaching compatriots in the Southeastern Conference. In a year of scandal all around him (Bruce Pearl at Tennessee, Cam Newton at Auburn, among others), Stallings has followed the blueprint that produced two previous Round of 16 appearances, with smart players steeped in fundamentals. Each of the Commodores’ eight losses came in close games, three in overtime. They also overcame a series of injuries with a typically international roster. Forward Jeffery Taylor grew up in Norrkoping, Sweden, a place, he said, known for fishing and scenery. Goulbourne played tennis in Brooklyn, even served as a ball boy at the United States Open for five years, before he chose basketball instead. Forward Steve Tchiengang played soccer in Cameroon before he moved to Houston in high school, and sometimes, he and Goulbourne communicate in French. Their best player, though, is a local, guard John Jenkins, from Hendersonville, Tenn. The first time Stallings watched Jenkins in high school, he made eight straight 3-pointers. Now, Stallings calls Jenkins, a conference player of the year candidate, “the best pure shooter I’ve ever coached.” Belmont recruited Jenkins, until it became clear he would attend a bigger college. Such is life for Byrd at Belmont, where his two favorite memories hang on the walls in the athletic offices. One is a picture of the associate head coach Casey Alexander, a former captain, the minute after the Bruins clinched their first N.C.A.A. appearance, his mouth agape, jubilant. The second is a framed newspaper article of Belmont’s seminal moment, a near upset of second-seeded Duke as a No. 15 seed in the 2008 tournament. Even now, Byrd says someone asks him about that game every two or three days, and Gill still remembers how the arena showered Belmont with an ovation — for a game it lost. That game keeps Byrd awake at night. Campbell said Belmont outplayed Duke that day. Byrd wished he called a better inbounds play, or picked a better defense. “But it was a great moment,” he said. “One that, even though we lost, none of us will forget.” The Duke game, and consecutive N.C.A.A. appearances from 2006 to 2008, landed Byrd the players on his current team, which, at 29-4, represents “easily the best performance in school history,” he said. “Coach Byrd is a loyal person,” guard Ian Clark said. “I’m sure he could have gone other places. He had a vision for this school, and we want to help him realize it. We want to win games in the tournament.” When Byrd was honored for career win No. 600 in February, Stallings and Gill sat in the stands, heckling the referees. (“I yell all the stuff he can’t,” Gill said.) Stallings enjoyed that more than coaching against his friend. Should Belmont qualify for the N.C.A.A. tournament by winning its conference tournament this week, it will join Vanderbilt. Belmont could be seeded 12 to 14; Vanderbilt (21-8) is closer to a 6. Stallings described some players as “not as confident as they deserve to be” but took solace in the close nature of Vandy’s losses. Byrd rotates 11 players with little drop-off, the perfect recipe for pulling off an upset. Both teams, Byrd said, are “peaking at the right time.” Both were also “built gradually, the right way, we like to think.” In the coming weeks, Byrd and Stallings will discuss strategy, anxiety and opponents. Because their relationship is not a rivalry. Unless they meet in table tennis. | Basketball;Vanderbilt University;Belmont University;Coaches and Managers;Stallings Kevin;Byrd Rick;Gill Vince;College Athletics;Basketball (College) |
ny0290339 | [
"sports",
"hockey"
] | 2016/01/10 | Rangers Take Unlikely Lead but Are Still Seeking a Turnaround | After Derek Stepan came agonizingly close to sending the Rangers to their most thrilling win of the season, Alex Ovechkin went to work. Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals’ 30-year-old scoring machine, corralled the puck behind his net and then propelled himself the length of the Madison Square Garden ice before beating Henrik Lundqvist with a perfectly placed shot for his second goal of the game, his 24th of the season and the 499th of his career. Ovechkin’s goal, 1 minute 25 seconds into overtime on Saturday afternoon, lifted the Capitals past the Rangers, 4-3. Besides depriving the Rangers of an extra point, it also signaled Washington’s superiority. “I used my speed, made a move and put it in,” Ovechkin said. “I think we deserved at least a point today, and we got 2. Good job by everybody.” Ovechkin’s stirring finish would not have been possible if his linemate Nicklas Backstrom had not tied the score with 5.7 seconds left in regulation. With goaltender Braden Holtby on the bench for an extra attacker, Backstrom knocked in the rebound of a Justin Williams shot for his 13th goal of the season. Image The Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin after his game-winning overtime goal against the Rangers. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Backstrom’s goal stunned the crowd, which was poised to celebrate a remarkable turnabout victory. The Rangers trailed by 2-0 entering the third period before scoring three goals in a span of just over seven minutes. Backstrom gave credit to Ovechkin, who has compiled more goals and points since 2005-6 than any other N.H.L. player but has yet to lead his team past the second round of the playoffs. “Moments like this, he just shows up,” Backstrom said. “It’s amazing.” The Rangers (22-14-5) have struggled since late November and are seeking any shred of confidence-building momentum as the season’s second half starts. They trailed after Ovechkin scored in the closing seconds of the first period, and Williams scored early in the second. Ovechkin took advantage of an opportunity in the first. With the Rangers short-handed, defenseman Dan Girardi tried a soft clearing pass from behind his net, but instead he put the puck directly on the stick of Ovechkin, who scored on an easy tap-in at 19:45. Midway through the third period, Kevin Hayes, who had not scored since Nov. 23 and had been benched for two recent games by Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault, tapped in a rebound at 9:48 to tie the game at 2-2, finally bringing life to the somnolent crowd. Oscar Lindberg had put the Rangers on the board earlier in the third with his 11th goal at 5:54. Hayes then helped set up a goal by Viktor Stalberg at 13:11 as the Rangers went ahead, 3-2. That almost brought about a rare regulation loss for the Capitals and their goaltender, Holtby. But the composed and confident Capitals did not yield, impressing their coach, Barry Trotz. “I thought it was a good learning lesson for us,” he said of his team, which improved to 31-7-3, 16 points ahead of the Rangers in the Metropolitan Division. “We didn’t hang our head. We just said, ‘Let’s get this thing tied up.’ ” Despite the defeat, Lundqvist sought to find a bright side in the rally. “We really battled back,” he said. “We came really close to beating a really good team. I think they are the best team in the league right now and play with a lot of confidence. It’s just extremely frustrating to be that close.” The Rangers dominated Western Conference-leading Dallas on Tuesday and had won three of their last five games entering Saturday’s contest. The Rangers were also eager to eradicate memories of Washington’s six unanswered goals in a 7-3 win at the Garden on Dec. 20. As the Rangers tried to generate some energy early in the second period, their third power-play chance was snuffed out. Williams then skated in on a breakaway and tucked the puck under a prone Lundqvist and into the net at 3:56. A veteran right wing with three Stanley Cups on his résumé, Williams is a newcomer to the Capitals this season. He is the type of player the team will need to reach the conference finals for the first time in Ovechkin’s career. The goal was Williams’s 12th this season, and he is one of seven Capitals with a double-digit total. Ovechkin, not surprisingly, leads the team with 24 goals. Holtby made 23 saves to continue his astonishing run, improving to 19-0-2 in his last 21 games and 27-4-2 over all. The Capitals are 19-2-2 over their last 23 games. Despite missing the injured defensemen Brooks Orpik and John Carlson and center Marcus Johansson, who was serving the first game of a two-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of Islanders defenseman Thomas Hickey on Thursday, the Capitals kept rolling, thanks largely to Ovechkin. Playing in his 800th N.H.L. game, Ovechkin scored for the 19th and 20th times of his career against Lundqvist, his highest goal total against any goalie. Lundqvist, who made 27 saves on Saturday, has not looked like himself in recent weeks. He has given up five goals four times, and he was replaced by the rookie Magnus Hellberg after two periods of the lopsided loss to Washington late last month. Lundqvist made strong saves late to keep the Rangers ahead on Saturday, but Backstrom slid the puck past him, and Ovechkin found a way yet again in overtime. “You don’t really see the puck when he shoots it through the legs like that,” Lundqvist said of Ovechkin’s hard-to-handle shot. “He’s done it a lot of times. He’s pretty good at it.” | Ice hockey;Rangers;Washington Capitals |
ny0250190 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2011/02/11 | Search Engine Optimization to Lure Readers | The Huffington Post has hired veteran journalists to beef up its news coverage. But a significant chunk of its readers come instead for articles like one published this week: “Chelsy Davy & Prince Harry: So Happy Together?” The two-sentence article was just a vehicle for a slide show of photographs of the couple and included no actual news. But “Chelsy Davy” was one of the top searches on Google that day, and soon after the article was published it became one of the first links that popped up in Google’s search results . It was an example of an art and science at which The Huffington Post excels: search engine optimization, or S.E.O. The term covers a wide range of behind-the-scenes tactics for getting search engine users to visit a Web site, like choosing story topics based on popular searches. Because Google is many Internet users’ front door to the Web, S.E.O. has become an obsession for many Web publishers, and successful ones use the strategies to varying degrees. But as newspapers, magazines, blogs and online-only news sites increasingly compete for readers, they are making it more of a priority than ever and adopting new techniques, like trying to maximize pass-alongs on social networks. The Huffington Post’s skill at using these tactics to increase readership and revenue was one of the ways it made itself worth $315 million to AOL , which acquired it this week. And Demand Media, which runs sites like eHow and Answerbag.com and values search engine optimization perhaps more than any other publisher, raised $151 million in a public offering in January. Models like these could pave the route toward profitable journalism in a postprint world, some analysts say — or, others worry, drive online media to publish low-quality articles that are written to appeal to search engines instead of people. S.E.O. is “absolutely essential,” said Rich Skrenta, chief executive of the search engine Blekko. Still, he said, it can turn into a “heroin drip” for publishers: “They had this really good content at the beginning, but they realize the more S.E.O. they do, the more money they make, and the pressure really pushes down the quality on their sites.” There is a whole industry of search engine optimization and social media experts, and many of them have found jobs at Web publishers. Their standard strategies include things like filling articles with keywords that people might search for, writing teaser headlines that people cannot help but click on and including copious links to other stories on the same site. In addition to writing articles based on trending Google searches, The Huffington Post writes headlines like a popular one this week, “Watch: Christina Aguilera Totally Messes Up National Anthem.” It amasses often-searched phrases at the top of articles, like the 18 at the top of the one about Ms. Aguilera, including “Christina Aguilera National Anthem” and “Christina Aguilera Super Bowl .” As a result of techniques like these, 35 percent of The Huffington Post’s visits in January came from search engines, compared to 20 percent for CNN.com , according to Hitwise, a Web analysis firm. Mario Ruiz, a spokesman for The Huffington Post, said search engine optimization played a role on the site but declined to discuss how it was used. Though traditional print journalists might roll their eyes at picking topics based on Google searches, the articles can actually be useful for readers. The problem, analysts say, is when Web sites publish articles just to get clicks, without offering any real payoff for readers. “You’re not really crossing the line if you’re creating content for the sake of disseminating information, like HuffPo,” said Vivek Wadhwa, visiting scholar at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. “The problem is these other players producing content based on what people click on.” Those publishers, which many dismissively refer to as content farms, include Demand Media, Yahoo’s Associated Content and AOL’s Seed. Demand Media uses software that looks at activity on search engines, Facebook and Twitter; generates headlines based on it; and assigns freelancers to write corresponding pieces. The result is articles like “How to Lose Weight in Your Face,” which is a top Google result for related searches and includes tips like “drink plenty of water.” But that approach might not be so effective for long. In recent weeks, there has been swelling criticism in technology circles of these types of Web sites, and of Google for listing the articles as top results. Blekko, a search engine that limits results to an edited list of sites, removed all links to eHow and Answerbag. Google said it was working on changes that would push such links lower in search results. “We definitely have heard feedback in the last two weeks that people are concerned about the low-quality content farms in Google, and we’re working on a variety of algorithms to try to address that,” Matt Cutts, a principal engineer at Google who leads the Web spam team, said in an interview. He declined to single out any specific sites. A Demand Media spokeswoman would not comment because the company was in a mandatory quiet period after its stock offering, but Richard Rosenblatt, its chief executive, has said that Google’s planned changes are not directed at its sites and that his company helps Google fill gaps in content. Google blocks or penalizes sites that violate its guidelines, like including hidden text or loading up pages with irrelevant keywords, practices known as black hat S.E.O. (as opposed to the white hat variety). But Mr. Cutts acknowledged that some sites might not qualify as spam but could still annoy users. “One piece of advice I give to S.E.O. masters is, don’t chase after Google’s algorithm, chase after your best interpretation of what users want, because that’s what Google’s chasing after,” he said. The ultimate prize for most Web publishers is loyal readers who go directly to their site, without passing through a search engine. They are more likely to visit on a regular basis and stick around. Some Web publishers say that these days, the most effective way to build that following is to find readers on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, an approach known as social media optimization. That could improve the quality of articles, they say, because the best way to get links on Twitter is to write a story people want to share with friends. “Search is, in my mind, yesterday’s story,” said Lewis Dvorkin, chief product officer at Forbes, which recently redesigned its Web site to make it more social. “You’re finding that today’s audience is much more interested in the filter of their colleagues and friends who they trust than an algorithm produced by someone else.” The Huffington Post also incorporates social media by doing things like running Twitter posts about breaking news alongside the articles. These techniques blend traditional journalistic instincts with an Internet business model, and they are paying off for sites that use them, said Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. “HuffPo went from being extremely focused on tactics that a lot of news organizations didn’t like, but they’ve started making money, built up an audience, and now they’re moving into more sophisticated territory,” he said. “What they’ve been successful at is creating the kind of brand that other sites have or would love to have, so that people want to type in ‘Huffington Post’ in their browser.” | Computers and the Internet;Search Engines;Huffington Post;News and News Media;Demand Media Inc;Google Inc;AOL |
ny0209669 | [
"us"
] | 2009/12/09 | Supreme Court Considers ‘Honest Services’ Law | WASHINGTON — A federal law that is a favorite tool of prosecutors in corruption cases met with almost universal hostility from the justices in Supreme Court arguments on Tuesday. The law, enacted in 1988, makes it a crime “to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” The law is often used to prosecute corporate executives and politicians said to have defrauded their employers or constituents. Justices across the court’s ideological spectrum took turns on Tuesday attacking the law as hopelessly broad and vague. Justice Steven G. Breyer estimated that there are 150 million workers in the United States and that perhaps 140 million of them could be prosecuted under the government’s interpretation of the law. Complimenting the boss’s hat “so the boss will leave the room so that the worker can continue to read The Racing Form,” Justice Breyer said, could amount to a federal crime. The justices heard arguments in two separate cases concerning the law on Tuesday. One involved Conrad M. Black , the newspaper executive convicted of defrauding his media company, Hollinger International. In his Supreme Court briefs, Mr. Black argued that the law should not apply to him because he had not contemplated that Hollinger would suffer “some identifiable economic injury.” But at Tuesday’s argument, Mr. Black’s lawyer, Miguel A. Estrada, spent much of this time urging the court to strike down the law entirely as unconstitutionally vague. That idea seemed attractive to several justices, though Justice Breyer suggested that the court might want to ask for additional briefing on the point. The justices allowed Mr. Estrada to speak for long stretches, which is unusual, and the tone of the argument was more brainstorming session than oral advocacy, with several justices and Mr. Estrada trying to identify the smartest way to fix the law. In the first of the two hour-long arguments, Mr. Estrada was asked only about 25 questions; his adversary, Deputy Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben, was asked more than 60. The second appeal was from a former Alaska legislator, Bruce Weyhrauch, who did not disclose that he had been soliciting work from a company with business before the Legislature. Mr. Weyhrauch argued that the federal honest services law should not apply in public corruption cases where no violation of a state disclosure law was alleged. Some justices seemed uncertain about the wisdom of that particular limiting principle. But that discomfort did not seem to make them any more sympathetic to the law as a whole. The court will hear a third honest-services case in the spring, that one involving Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive officer of Enron Corporation. Mr. Dreeben defended the honest-services law in both arguments on Tuesday, and he was given a rough time by the justices. The law effectively overruled a 1987 Supreme Court decision, McNally v. United States, which limited the federal mail fraud statute to deprivations of tangible property. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented in McNally and was the only justice at Tuesday’s argument who appeared sympathetic to the government. Mr. Dreeben’s argument leaned heavily on judicial decisions before 1987, which he said established “the core understanding of the duty of loyalty” that the 1988 law had restored. That core, he said, includes forbidding kickbacks, bribes and “undisclosed conflicts of interest by an agent or fiduciary who takes action to further that interest.” Mr. Dreeben’s formulation did not seem to satisfy most of the justices, on several grounds. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that “the lower courts were massively confused” before 1987 and so could not have agreed on core concepts. Justice Breyer said the law “covered 6,000 things,” of which the government has now “picked, perhaps randomly, three.” Justice Antonin Scalia added that, in any event, the government’s preferred interpretation cannot be rooted in the actual text of the statute. “You speak as though it is up to us to write the statute,” Justice Scalia told Mr. Dreeben. “That’s not our job.” In quick succession, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Scalia and Breyer recited what they called a fundamental principle: that the public must be able to understand what a criminal law means. “If it can’t,” Chief Justice Roberts said, “then the law is invalid.” | Supreme Court;Ethics;Executives and Management;United States Politics and Government;Black Conrad M;Weyhrauch Bruce |
ny0226834 | [
"business"
] | 2010/10/24 | Kenneth Feld on Hiring: Can You Help the Bottom Line? | This interview with Kenneth Feld , chairman and C.E.O. of Feld Entertainment, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant . Feld Entertainment’s operations include Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus and Disney on Ice. Q. How did you get started in your family’s business? A. In the summers I always worked with my father, and I think my motivation for getting in the business was to work with my dad, because we had an extraordinary relationship. I was fortunate that he was in a business that I loved and had a passion for. He acquired Ringling Brothers in November 1967. I was in college, so my summer jobs for the summer of ’68 and the summer of ’69 were going all over the world, primarily Eastern Europe, hiring circus talent. That was an extraordinary education because, at the time, there were still communist countries, and I spent most of three months in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, East Germany. I would deal with the ministries in those countries because the circus was sort of their art form for the masses. So that was my first exposure to something pretty exotic and unusual. Q. Can you talk about what you learned from your father? A. It’s been an interesting road. In 1971 we sold the circus to Mattel. So we operated and worked for Mattel for about 11 years. And then in 1982, my father and I repurchased the circus from Mattel and it became a privately owned business. And it’s been that way ever since. He passed away in ’84, and I was 34 years old and all of a sudden I have this whole company. We had been extremely close. I always say he taught me everything I know and then everyone else taught me everything I didn’t know. What I mean by that is I sort of learned on the job at dinner. We’d be traveling four or five days a week, and he would rehash the whole day over a three-hour dinner. And he would smoke two or three cigars and have a Cognac and literally go sentence by sentence about what happened in the day, and what did I think, and here’s why he did what he did. And he would always listen to me, and that was a learning experience. So when he died, because I had no outside experience, it took me a while to figure out who I was, and that I couldn’t think, “Oh, this is what my father would have done.” I had to take a different path and also create a stronger management team. And I knew what I knew and what my skills were, and I had to bring people in who had skill sets that I didn’t have. Q. And what were those? A. My strengths are really in the creative side, coming up with big ideas, knowing how to get them done. But the day-to-day and the administration are something that I wasn’t good at, because I didn’t have the interest. I started restructuring the company around ’94, and I found out that you never stop. And I now have an outside president and chief operating officer who take care of all of the day-to-day, and we have constant communications and meetings. But I don’t get involved in the detail the way I used to. As a result of that, I’ve been able to become a lot more objective in looking at the business — what’s happening today, but more importantly, what do I think is going to happen next year and in the next five years. Q. What else did you learn from your father about leadership and management? A. I learned, more than anything, to listen. From the time I was a kid he would ask me a question and he would listen to my opinion. I’ve always tried to listen to everyone who works in the company. I think that’s more important than talking. Q. What else? A. Another big thing was: make decisions. He said: “You’re a smart guy. You’ll be right 90 percent of the time. But if you don’t make the decision, no one will ever know.” Q. And now your children work for you. A. Yes, I have three daughters and they’re all in the business. My role has changed a lot since they’ve come in. It’s shifted from doing to more of a mentor role. So it’s listening. I can offer the experience, but instead of saying, “Why don’t you do this?” I tend to frame advice in the form of questions because it then stimulates thinking, versus, “This is what I want,” because people are going to do what the boss wants. So I’ll throw out three or four alternatives and then let them think about it. Q. Anything different about the way you work with them, compared with how your father worked with you? A. Before they joined the company, they had to work elsewhere for two years. I worked for Feld Entertainment my whole career, so the perspective that I had was what I learned inside the company. They’ve all worked different places, so they were able to bring to the company something, a real contribution because they were good at what they did. Also, for their own self-confidence, they knew they could go out and make a living and survive and they didn’t need the company. It’s also helped them with the other associates. There’s a different level of respect. And I made them write papers to tell me: “Why do you want to come into the company? What do you think you can contribute? Where are your strengths and what is your passion — and it can’t be about a paycheck.” And they all had very, very different ideas of what they wanted to do. They report to the president and chief operating officer. He negotiates their salary. They will talk to me about creative decisions and we co-produce a lot of the shows together. It’s almost like I’m used as an encyclopedia, which is great because I have 40 years of experience. Q. Running a circus must be pretty complicated. A. It is the most complex entity on the planet. Each show may have people from 14 different cultures. We’re their employer but we’re also the landlord. We know the best and worst about everyone because they’re living on our milelong train. I think that understanding people allows you to understand everything, because you can always learn process. The only way you learn about people is to spend time with them and you have to show everyone respect. Here’s an example: Every year when we do a new show, we bring down to Florida 130 performers who never, for the most part, knew each other beforehand. About 10 days into our rehearsal period, we have Act Night, where everybody performs their act uncut, untouched by us, for every other performer. That is the true test of respect. No matter what anyone thought of a person, if they’re doing an act that is so unbelievable and death-defying, the respect level goes way up. You have earned the respect strictly by what you have done — it’s very pure. It is an absolute lesson in earning respect. Respect does not come from a title. It comes from what you do, and how you do it, and how you work with people, and I think that’s a difficult thing for people to understand. I may say, “You’re hired in such and such a position and you have this title,” but that means nothing. You can be the smartest person in the world and it means nothing if you don’t earn the respect of the people you have to interact with. I’ve tried to teach that to people — that if you come in and act like you know everything, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, people aren’t going to hear your good ideas. Q. How do you hire for a position at the corporate office, a direct report? A. I’ll give you the example of when I hired Mike Shannon, who’s president and chief operating officer. I had been looking for probably 10 months and I walked into the search firm’s office and the guy was sitting there. He was in transition from one position and they said, “Oh, why don’t you talk to this guy?” So I sat down and talked to him. He said to me, “I don’t know anything about putting on a circus.” I said, “I wouldn’t expect that you would.” He said: “I don’t know anything about the entertainment business. I’ve never been in the entertainment business before. What I can tell you is, I love people. I love to mentor people. I love to get the most out of people and I’ll never lie to you. You’ll get the good, the bad, and the ugly.” And about a week later, I hired him and that was it. There’s a trust I have with him that is the same kind of trust that I had with my father and that I have with my daughters, and I think that’s the hardest thing to find — people you can absolutely trust. I don’t need people to give me good news. I mean they’re waiting in line to give you good news. I want people who can deliver the unvarnished truth to me so that I can make proper decisions. There’s no good way to deliver bad news, that’s for sure, so you just want somebody that’s straight out — “Here’s what this situation is.” Q. What about other people where it’s more of a traditional interview? A. For executives, as opposed to directors and creative people, I’ll read their résumé, and then I’ll say to them: “You’re really smart, but do you know how to make money? Tell me some things about how you made money.” And then they have to really think because the party line doesn’t work. It gets beyond just the typical corporate stuff. That’s really a key thing because you want people to really think like that. It’s hard to find today. Q. Do some people have trouble answering? A. Let me tell you, nothing kills an interview like that. So they have to stop and think. “What do you mean?” And I’ll say: “Like when you were a kid growing up, did you have a lemonade stand? What have you done?” And then I try to take them through their career, because I need them to understand that if they’re going to come to work for our company, it’s great that you have all this knowledge, but how can you translate that into something that is absolutely going to make money for us? Can they think unconventionally? Can they think outside the box? Q. What quality are you testing for with this question of, “Tell me how you’ve made money.”? A. It’s a drive I’m looking for. I don’t need to hire college professors in my business. We’re grinding it out and I need to know that the people that we have involved in the business are focused on sales, on the bottom line. How do you make money? How do you take this crazy idea that somebody has and how can you monetize it? And if you’ve done that before in a couple of situations, then there’s a good chance you’re going to be very successful in our company because we’re demanding. We’re out there day in and day out. Q. If you could ask somebody only two or three questions to know whether you might hire them, what would they be? A. It depends, obviously, on the position. But one is: “What is your style of working with people who report to you? How do you work with them? What do you do on a daily basis?” That’s important because you can put the wrong person in a job, and you can take a great department and just decimate it in no time with the wrong person. | Feld Kenneth;Feld Entertainment;Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus;Circuses;Labor and Jobs;Hiring and Promotion |
ny0274763 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2016/02/11 | And Then There Were Four: Phone Booths Saved on Upper West Side Sidewalks | A work crew pulled up to the northwest corner of West End Avenue and 101st Street on Wednesday morning and approached an oblong glass box that looked so anachronistic that a passer-by might have wondered if it simply had dropped out of the sky. It was a walk-in phone booth, of the sort that Clark Kent might have dashed into, only to come out dressed as Superman. Even with its graffitied glass, rusted metal panels and a missing door long ago ripped off its hinges, the booth’s pay phone still functioned. “A lot of people still use it,” said Igor Gakh, the longtime daytime doorman at a building that stands steps away. The crew removed the pay phone and unbolted the booth from the sidewalk, then lifted a replacement booth, slightly larger and sleeker in design, from a truck. “I love it,” declared Lisa Lieberman, a college professor who lives nearby. “All my friends, when they visit me, tell me, ‘Do you know you have an actual phone booth on your corner?’” While some enclosed indoor booths are still sprinkled here and there, only four old-style sidewalk phone booths of this type are left in New York City, and they are all on West End Avenue, at 101st, 100th, 90th and 66th Streets, according to the technology company that operates them. These phone booths have become somewhat famous for being the last of their kind. The one at 100th Street even inspired a 2010 children’s book , “The Lonely Phone Booth.” The boxy, glass-enclosed phone booths that were once ubiquitous on city sidewalks and a staple in films and on television are all but a memory now. Glass booths were steadily replaced in the 1970s by the now familiar pedestal-style pay phones, which are cheaper to buy, easier to maintain and less vulnerable to vandalism. As the proliferation of cellphones has helped make the roughly 8,000 pay phones on city streets all but obsolete, there is an extensive plan underway, called LinkNYC, to convert street pay phones into at least 7,500 sidewalk Wi-Fi kiosks, called Links. The Links would provide high-speed Internet service across much of the city, said officials from Intersection, a technology company that is undertaking the project, along with two other companies, Qualcomm and Civiq Smartscapes. Despite this, Intersection officials decided to keep the four walk-in booths on West End Avenue and had the replacement booths installed this week. Scott Goldsmith, the president of media at Intersection, watched the replacement underway on Wednesday and said he felt an obligation as a historically minded New Yorker to keep the booths as a tribute to their past status. “I grew up in New York and remember using pay phones, and I thought it was important to keep nice historic aspects like this,” Mr. Goldsmith said. A local phone call costs 25 cents, but Mr. Goldsmith said that within a few days those calls would become free, as an amenity at the booths. One reason the booths have survived is, arguably, the persistence of one man, Alan Flacks, a self-described pay phone buff who lives on West 100th Street. Image While some enclosed indoor booths are still sprinkled here and there, there are only four old-style sidewalk phone booths left in New York City. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times Mr. Flacks has been tenacious. Protecting the booths has involved constant calls to officials from Verizon, which has been maintaining the booths, to report problems. When the West 100th Street booth was temporarily replaced in 1996 with a pedestal-style phone, Mr. Flacks kept calling company officials until they replaced it with a glass booth. His preservation tactics have included gathering signatures on petitions and lobbying local elected officials about the importance of the booths, which he considers every bit as worthy of protection as any other New York landmark. “There’s the obvious reason that these are the iconic New York City phone booths, but also, listen: Sometimes you just need a hard-wired pay phone. Cellphones don’t always work,” said Mr. Flacks, who got a cellphone only recently, after his cousin bought him a calling plan. The booths themselves are not so easy to find. In 2003, when the 100th Street booth needed replacing, Verizon had only two glass phone booths left, both of which they rented out to film companies. They used one to replace the battered 100th Street booth; the other was destroyed during the filming of “Phone Booth,” the 2002 thriller. Intersection’s decision to keep the four booths also led to difficulty. The company contacted Clark Specialty, a company in Bath, N.Y., which manufactures and refurbishes phone booths, but there were none left. “They’re hard to come by, these days,” said the company’s owner, James Presley, who had sold the last of his glass booths over 10 years ago to military bases and novelty collectors. Building the booths from scratch would be too expensive, he said, so he began calling around and found a warehouse in Canada that had several, though they were in poor condition. “They had been beat around because they had been sitting in the warehouse for 15 years,” Mr. Presley said. He bought the booths and refurbished them. “We tore them apart, took the glass out, the dings out, and reassembled them,” he said. “The Lonely Phone Booth,” written by Peter Ackerman, is now in its second printing. In the book, a glass phone booth grows lonely as people transfer their allegiances to cellphones. “They’re like mini-theaters,” Mr. Ackerman said of the booths. “You can walk by and see people laughing in there, crying in there, and you couldn’t hear them, so you could project your own stories onto them.” Readers of his book, Mr. Ackerman said, have told him that they take their children on pilgrimages to the booths to make calls. Mr. Ackerman, who lives on the Upper West Side, recalled walking past the 100th Street booth one day when his son, who was 3 at the time, asked, “Why is that phone in a box?” Intersection’s preservation of the booths might seem curious given its project to install kiosks as free public Wi-Fi hubs, but some kiosks have already been installed along Third Avenue north of 14th Street. The Links have tablets and a keypad for making free domestic phone calls, as well as a USB charger for electronic devices, advertising screens and a 911 emergency call button. Intersection says it will have about 4,000 of them running by 2020, with 500 completed by July. The replacement of the booths on Wednesday attracted a crowd of passers-by, most of whom reacted happily. “You’d have some angry people around here, if you removed these,” said Aaron Frucher, a local resident, who asked Mr. Goldsmith if he could buy the one on 101st. | Telecommunication;Upper West Side Manhattan;Wireless;NYC |
ny0102762 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2015/12/14 | St. John’s Finds Shooting Touch in Win Over Syracuse | St. John’s did what it had not been doing most of the season — shoot well and control the boards — and the Red Storm delighted the Madison Square Garden crowd in beating Syracuse, 84-72. The matchup on Sunday was the programs’ first since Jan. 19, 1977, in which Jim Boeheim was not coaching the Orange, a span of 63 games. This was the third game of his nine-game N.C.A.A. ban. The freshman Federico Mussini had 17 points, and four other players scored in double figures for the Red Storm (7-3), who won their third straight. The Orange had won nine of the previous 10 meetings; they lead the series by 51-39. St. John’s had not beaten Syracuse at the Garden since 2007. “This was the best win of my life in the world’s most famous arena,” Mussini said. “Nothing better than this.” Michael Gbinije’s 21 points led Syracuse (7-3), which has lost three of four. The Red Storm shot 30 of 61, including 12 of 24 from 3-point range, well above their season averages. Syracuse shot 5 of 26 from beyond the arc. “The difference in the game today was the shooting,” said Mike Hopkins, Syracuse’s associate head coach. | College basketball;Basketball;St John's;Syracuse University |
ny0109616 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2012/05/31 | A Guide to Apps for Your Smartphone’s Camera | SO your smartphone has a camera; now what? It is probably time to get some apps. Smartphone photography is attractive not because of the quality of the cameras — although they are getting much better — but because of software applications that allow users to stylize and share the images they take. There are many apps, ranging from comprehensive editing suites to tools for putting fake beards on dogs. It is enough to overwhelm anyone, but digging through this haystack will benefit those who plan on taking photos with their phone. Camera + ($0.99 on the iPhone ) replaces the camera application that comes with the iPhone and offers much more control over shooting and editing. The app is better than the native camera in every way. Users can alter what the camera focuses on and which part of the frame it adjusts exposure for. In addition to the flash, there is a flashlight setting for users who are not concerned about running down their batteries. The sliding zoom control also works better than Apple’s pinch-and-zoom system. Camera+ has a host of options to edit photos. A choice of scenes adjusts for different situations, like overexposed photos or portraits. The app has a one-touch clarity option that analyzes a photograph and decides what it needs. The app also has filters that create various nostalgic or bizarre effects. Once the photo is ready, images can be shared via e-mail, text message, Web link, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. For iPhone users who don’t want to part with the dollar, a free app called Camera Awesome offers similar features. It also has one option whose absence from the iPhone’s own camera app is baffling: a setting that allows a user to snap a photo by touching the screen anywhere, rather than touching just the virtual shutter release. Camera Awesome has an enormous number of filters and other effects, but many of them cost extra. For Android users looking for a more complete camera app, ProCapture ($0.99) allows for wide control over focus and exposure. It has a built-in timer and a burst mode, which takes a quick sequence of photographs but does not accommodate video. A free version takes lower-resolution images, so users can test it before they buy it. Almost every app allows users to share photos via established social networks, and some have their own social networks. Instagram (free for Apple and Android) is the standard-bearer for this kind of app, and for good reason. It is not the most full-featured photography app, offering only a handful of filters and some rudimentary editing tools. But it is elegant and easy to use, and perhaps most important for any social network, it already has a lot of users. For those who unhappy with Facebook’s recent acquisition of Instagram, or for general contrarians, there are several other photo-based social networks that serve as solid alternatives. Picplz (free for Apple and Android) offers far more editing options, including the ability to add text and drawings. And there are plenty of people posting beautiful images using the app, so users have something to look at, too. If you want to be more playful, stocking up on apps that are not so straightforward is a good, cheap way to have some fun. Those looking for something silly may like Juxtaposer (free for Apple), which allows users to mix elements from different photographs — putting someone’s face on top of someone else’s shoulders, for instance. One of the neatest is Paper Camera ($0.99 for Apple; $1.99 for Android), which turns photos into a cartoon as they are taken. It is a neat effect for photos and may be even better on video. Of course, the more whimsical apps tend to get old quickly as the novelty wears off. Apps that allow users to make collages, however, may have a longer shelf life. For this task, Frametastic (free for Apple) stands out. (For Android, PicFrame , $0.99, is a reasonable alternative). Frametastic allows users to select different layouts and place images from their photo libraries into collages. Images can be run through various filters, resized and manipulated in ways that any photographer could use to kill gobs of idle time. If the standard options are not enough, additional layouts are available for purchase. Frametastic also makes it easy to share images on social media. And in addition to the standard selection of sharing options, the app also lets users send images as a postcard. You know, through the mail. | Mobile Applications;iPhone;Android (Operating System);Smartphones |
ny0061132 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2014/08/25 | Outhitting Athletics, Angels Take Lead in West | Josh Hamilton homered and drove in three runs, Mike Trout also went deep and the Los Angeles Angels regained the best record in baseball, beating the Oakland Athletics, 9-4, on Sunday night. Erick Aybar had two hits and two runs batted in and Kole Calhoun finished with three hits for the Angels, who ended a five-game losing streak to the A’s in Oakland. Albert Pujols and Howie Kendrick each drove in a run as Los Angeles won for the ninth time in 12 games. Alberto Callaspo and Andy Parrino homered for Oakland, which had won three of four to move into a tie for the top spot in the American League West. CUBS 2, ORIOLES 1 Tsuyoshi Wada allowed Steve Pearce’s leadoff homer in the seventh inning for Baltimore’s only hit Sunday, and host Chicago beat the Orioles for a three-game sweep. The Cubs recorded their first series sweep since one in Boston on June 30 to July 2. BREWERS 4, PIRATES 3 Mike Fiers held Pittsburgh to two hits in seven innings for his fourth straight win since coming up from Class AAA, and Milwaukee avoided a three-game sweep at home by beating the visiting Pirates. TIGERS 13, TWINS 4 Victor Martinez homered and had four R.B.I., leading visiting Detroit to a victory over Minnesota. Rajai Davis also connected for the Tigers, who have won two straight to earn a split of this four-game series. MARINERS 8, RED SOX 6 Dustin Ackley had three hits and scored three runs, and the Mariners beat Boston on the road for the Red Sox’ eighth straight loss. Robinson Cano left the game in the bottom of the third with what the team called “dizziness.” David Ortiz fouled a ball off his right foot in his third plate appearance and had to leave after his single in the sixth. NATIONALS 14, GIANTS 6 Ian Desmond and Bryce Harper each homered and drove in two runs as streaking Washington rallied from a five-run deficit to beat visiting San Francisco. The National League East-leading Nationals, who have won 12 of 13. REDS 5, BRAVES 3 Alfredo Simon pitched seven strong innings to earn his first win in eight starts since the All-Star break, and Todd Frazier homered as host Cincinnati held on to beat Atlanta. RANGERS 3, ROYALS 1 Scott Baker won as a starter for the first time in more than three years, and host Texas beat Kansas City to avoid a series sweep. Adrian Beltre had his fifth straight multihit game. PHILLIES 7, CARDINALS 1 Jimmy Rollins homered and Jerome Williams threw eight strong innings to lead Philadelphia to victory over visiting St. Louis. The Phillies claimed consecutive series wins for the first time since April. RAYS 2, BLUE JAYS 1 Evan Longoria singled home the go-ahead run in the 10th inning, and Tampa Bay beat Toronto on the road. Facing Sergio Santos, recently promoted from Class AAA Buffalo, Ben Zobrist walked to begin the 10th and went to third on Logan Forsythe’s ground-rule double before Longoria’s single. PADRES 7, DIAMONDBACKS 4 Yasmani Grandal drove in four runs, Ian Kennedy won in his second game back at Chase Field, where he used to play, and San Diego beat Arizona. Kennedy struck out six in five and two-thirds innings. ROCKIES 7, MARLINS 4 Christian Bergman pitched into the seventh to earn his first major league win, helping Colorado beat visiting Miami. Bergman returned from the disabled list earlier in the day after missing 51 games with a broken left hand. | Baseball;Orioles;Chicago Cubs;Los Angeles Angels;Oakland Athletics |
ny0228596 | [
"business",
"global"
] | 2010/07/07 | Sri Lanka Loses E.U. Trade Benefit | MUMBAI — The European Union is suspending preferential treatment for Sri Lankan imports because it says the government has not committed to resolving human rights complaints. Sri Lankan imports to Europe will lose “GSP-plus” treatment beginning Aug. 15, which means higher tariffs will apply to imports worth about €1.24 billion, or $1.56 billion, annually. The move, announced Monday, is likely to hurt Sri Lanka’s garment and fisheries industries the most, with some tariffs jumping from zero or near zero to as high as 18 percent. The E.U. has asserted that Sri Lanka has not fully complied with conventions on civil and political rights, torture and rights of children. The Sri Lankan government has previously rejected the E.U. complaints, which stem from the final stages of its war with the Tamil Tiger insurgency. The 25-year war ended last year with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, who were seeking a separate state for their ethnic minority. On Tuesday, a Sri Lankan government spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, said the country had “taken necessary measures to counteract the losses” that businesses would suffer because of the change in tariffs. The E.U. offers the GSP-plus trade benefit to 16 countries that have agreed to comply with certain conventions on human rights, labor rights, sustainable development and good governance. Sri Lanka had enjoyed GSP-plus status since 2005. | Sri Lanka;European Union;International Trade and World Market;Freedom and Human Rights;Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam |
ny0226683 | [
"world"
] | 2010/10/01 | U.N. Says Global Employment Needs 5 Years to Rebound | UNITED NATIONS — It will take five more years before employment around the world rebounds to the point it was before the financial crisis, two years longer than previously predicted, the International Labor Organization said in its annual jobs report on Thursday. To get back to the level of employment in 2007, the global economy needs to create nearly 23 million jobs, including more than 14 million in developed countries, the report said. “The root causes of the crisis have not been properly tackled,” said Raymond Torres, an economist and the lead author of the report. Now that the effects of public stimulus packages around the globe are fading, fiscal policies are not sufficiently focused on job growth, which helps explain the likely delay in improving employment, the report said. Without such changes, there will probably be an increase in social unrest, especially in countries where unemployment remains high. About 25 countries have already experienced strife linked to the economic crisis, according to the report. “We don’t need the poll data to see more social unrest,” Mr. Torres said. “You can see the strikes here in Europe, while in China and other Asian countries you can see social discontent.” Some countries have encouraging signs of jobs recovery, particularly in Asia and Latin America, but in the United States the duration of unemployment has lengthened. One reason the American unemployment rate dropped to 9.6 percent in August from 10.1 percent in the previous October is that 1.2 million people unable to find jobs stopped looking for work, the report said, so they are no longer counted. To increase employment, governments need to focus on measures like training, raise the spending power of those with jobs in emerging economies through wage increases and enact far-reaching financial reform, according to the labor organization, a United Nations agency. Economists generally endorsed the findings of the report, but they noted that if any of the recommendations were simple to achieve, they would have been put in place long ago. Training for new skills does not automatically translate into new jobs, as seen in the fact that vocational training schools and community colleges in the United States are booming, argued Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group , an advisory organization. The fundamental problem, Mr. Baumohl said, “is that job creation during the recovery is going to be a lot slower than in previous cycles.” Austerity measures in Europe, for example, will mean that public and private payroll cuts there will be deep and long. Raising wages in countries like Brazil and India to help stimulate demand can cut both ways, economists noted, because it can also discourage employers from adding workers. In terms of wider financial reform, Mr. Torres argued that re-establishing the walls separating commercial banks and investment banks would help revitalize manufacturing and other businesses that create jobs because commercial banks tend to focus on such industries. Some economists thought that solution might border on the simplistic, though they said unfreezing the credit market for established businesses was essential for the health of the recovery. The labor organization acknowledged that conditions varied from country to country, but it tried to boil down trends according to economic categories. In the 35 most advanced economies, job growth will remain stagnant for the rest of this year. Low- to middle-income countries, by contrast, were the least affected by the crisis, and the jobs they did lose have been largely replaced. But restoring jobs to pre-crisis levels is not sufficient to keep up with demand, Mr. Torres said. Forty-five million jobs need to be created annually around the world to keep pace with new workers entering the market, he said, the bulk of them in the developing world. | United Nations;International Labor Organization;Labor and Jobs;United States Economy;Unemployment;Economic Conditions and Trends;International Trade and World Market |
ny0098772 | [
"science"
] | 2015/06/30 | Review: ‘The Bad Doctor’ and ‘Graphic Medicine Manifesto’ | A small hourglass stands next to the computer on Dr. Iwan James’s office desk. No symbolism is intended — the device is actually a cheap 10-minute egg timer, exactly the length of a routine appointment in Dr. James’s general practice in a small Welsh town. It was donated by an annoyed patient specifically to embarrass the doctor. Dr. James has a habit of fiddling with that hourglass, though, or flipping it repeatedly during a prolonged conversation with a patient. Inevitably, it becomes a subtle reminder of life’s brevity despite all the small triumphs and failures in that room. That egg timer would be a difficult detail for any writer short of Chekhov to pull off. So would many of the other images in “The Bad Doctor,” Dr. Ian Williams’s roman à clef, like the giant black sunglasses worn by a menacing patient in which the doctor sees only a reflection of his own inadequate self, or the many flashbacks to the doctor’s troubled past, or even the doctor himself, a pallid, almost transparent individual who seems at ease only when he is compulsively biking the Welsh hills. But what might have been an ineffective effort at a memoir is actually an unusually affecting little story, and a pioneering one at that: “The Bad Doctor” is a graphic novel, among the first efforts by a health care professional to describe the medical world in comic form. Image Credit Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times Patients discovered the power of the graphic memoir decades ago. Some classics like Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s “ Cancer Vixen ” are the work of professional comic artists, but amateurs have also turned to comic art to analyze an experience with illness. The medium is particularly well suited to a territory complicated by many different versions of the truth, one in which both the said and the unsaid demand equal attention. Dr. Williams gives his alter ego, Dr. James, the mild manner of Clark Kent and an abbreviated version of Jughead’s nose. Dr. James’s workdays are humdrum in the extreme. He counsels patients and writes prescriptions. He tries his best to avoid doing either for an incessantly demanding relative. On house calls he helps the homebound feel a little better. Even his professional heroics are muted: An old man collapses on the road outside Dr. James’s office, and the doctor races to resuscitate him, only to discover that the corpse has recovered and boarded a bus, where he vehemently rejects the doctor’s attentions. The entire episode is recorded on a bystander’s cellphone and posted online to amuse the community for weeks. The real drama in the doctor’s life is all in his head, where one imaginary lurid scenario after another unfolds. Signs and portents, runes and bizarre rituals are everywhere in this parallel universe. It turns out that this doctor is nearly as ill as his patients, struggling to ignore a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder that has threatened his equilibrium for decades. The territory of doctor as patient has been visited before, but Dr. Williams’s iteration and its resolution are as subtle and thought provoking as the best of them, with the always worthwhile message that the roles into which humans sort themselves are as mutable as the rituals they accept and reject, and the calls for help they choose to hear or not. Image Credit Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times Dr. Williams is a physician based in England, one of an international cadre of scholars and health care professionals whose enthusiasm for the graphic depiction of medicine is creating a new scholarly discipline. In “Graphic Medicine Manifesto,” six of them, including Dr. Williams, describe the theory behind its genesis in essays far more absorbing and accessible than the usual academic fodder, thanks to a rich assortment of comic illustrations. The authors explain themselves in both words and pictures (five sketch themselves as standard-issue professionals, and one as a small, cheerful chicken). They each outline what drew them to graphic medicine and append excerpts from favorite works. The casual reader is unlikely to be familiar with any of these, which range from one man’s account of his devastating experience with genital herpes to a few memoirs of an old parent’s decline, similar to Roz Chast’s acclaimed “ Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? ” Among the most intriguing uses they propose for graphic medicine is a role in education. Medical students are now routinely encouraged to examine the complex emotions elicited by their first immersion in the world of illness. Doing so aloud or in prose works for some, but not for all, and it turns out that sketching a set of comic panels can be a powerful alternative. Some of the authors offer samples of student work to prove their point. In one, a student draws herself dressed in tights and a cape: “Have no fear,” she announces smugly, “the medical student is here!! With my power of naïve optimism, I will make emotional connections to all my patients!” Then she meets her kryptonite: one angry, mean little girl on the pediatrics ward. In another set of panels, a student muses on a summer vacation spent working in Africa, where the role of bystander and observer among so much illness made her feel intensely guilty, like a predatory bird “lurking, watching, contributing nothing.” One of these students is a proficient artist, while the other is clearly not too comfortable with a pen. But that makes no difference: The renditions of student as hero and of student as predator are both priceless. | Books;Graphic novel;Doctor;Medicine and Health;Graphic Medicine Manifesto;The Bad Doctor |
ny0232944 | [
"sports",
"ncaafootball"
] | 2010/08/26 | To Enjoy College Football, Just Ignore the Nasty Specters | It’s entertainment. That’s the best way to think about the opening of the college football season a week from Thursday. Fans are hereby advised not to get too sad about the continuing breakdown of the old conferences and not to dwell on the plague of brain damage in former football players, possibly mimicking Lou Gehrig’s disease. And fans would do well not to become attached to the teams and stars on the road to the national championship, inasmuch as they could eventually forfeit their honors , the way Reggie Bush and Southern California have done and will continue to do. It’s best to ignore these specters looming over the sport as Virginia Tech and Boise State risk their undefeated seasons and top-10 aspirations on Sept. 6 — colliding so early because of the network money being proffered to take them to the Washington area. For all the homage to education being pushed on us by college presidents — perhaps with guilty consciences but probably not — the dominant figure in college football is still Bush, now a running back with the Super Bowl champions from New Orleans. Bush was already a bit of a professional in his college days, when he and his retinue shared in some of the largess that floats around programs like U.S.C. But the penalties do not eradicate the night of Jan. 4, 2005, when the Trojans annihilated Oklahoma , 55-19, in the Bowl Championship Series title game. Millions of fans in dens and bars and college dorms witnessed Pete Carroll’s team dominate Oklahoma just as fans watched some of baseball’s greatest players hit home runs and strike out batters in the recent steroids era. Nobody can take away statistics — or memories. But college football does have certain mechanisms for players and institutions that do not play by the rules. Coaches rarely pay. Carroll skipped off blithely to coach Seattle in the N.F.L. (In my mind, this maneuver is called Doing the Calipari.) Carroll was charming and engaging and did a lot of good things, including talking to gang members in Los Angeles when even most coaches might be catching a few hours of sleep. In Carroll’s wake, U.S.C. has been stripped of 14 victories and 30 scholarships and is ineligible for bowl games for two years. The decision may cost U.S.C. a victory or two and some money in the next two seasons, but the university did not have to forfeit any of the money it made by dominating the sport for several years — a total that has been estimated at $42 million to $54 million by Forbes magazine. The university has returned its replica of the Heisman Trophy won by Bush for the 2005 season . The Heisman Trust, which issues the trophy, will not make any judgment until the N.C.A.A. decides the appeal by U.S.C., which is expected sometime in early autumn. U.S.C. could also have its participation in that January 2005 B.C.S. title game voided. The B.C.S. is waiting for the N.C.A.A. decision, said Bill Hancock , the executive director of the B.C.S. Because Southern California cannot appear in a bowl game the next two seasons, it will not be included in two of the three rankings that determine the national champion, Hancock said, but it must be included in the computerized third of the college ratings, starting on Oct. 17. Hypothetically, Hancock said, if U.S.C. were ranked 12th by the computer, it would not be listed, and the 13th team would move into its slot. Still, the games will be played. Players will be looking to impress pro scouts. (The 2011 N.F.L. season could be jeopardized by labor problems, but fans are advised not to think too much about that reality, either.) Alumni will still root for the legendary Perfect Day (a victory by U.S.C. and losses by Notre Dame and U.C.L.A.). Football fans all over the United States will watch U.S.C. on the tube. And fans will swarm to U.S.C. games, where the band will play the rousing “Fight On.” In other words, everything will appear normal. Until the first few days of January, when reality may sink in. But fans will always have Jan. 4, 2005. For now, fans should not brood too much about the shifting lines of the old conferences, with their somewhat logical geographical bonds. These days the conferences are looking to bulk up, like linemen with a terrific new masking agent. In 2011, Utah and Colorado are jumping to the Pacific-10, Nebraska is lumbering into the Big Ten, and Boise State will move to the Mountain West. It would have been worse if Texas and some of its league mates had bolted to the Pacific-10. All of this is being done in the name of higher education, just remember. Finally, fans cannot afford to contemplate the information about brain damage being unearthed by scientists and doctors and reported by Alan Schwarz in The New York Times. Just guessing that broadcasters of college and pro games will not burden fans with the details. Enjoy the spectacle. It’s entertainment. | Football;College Athletics;Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University;Boise State University;Bush Reggie;Carroll Pete |
ny0045612 | [
"us"
] | 2014/02/08 | North Carolina: Coal Ash Leak Is Diverted but Not Contained | Duke Energy said Friday that it was diverting the flow of coal ash away from the Dan River, but the company could not yet declare the huge spill fully contained nearly a week after it was discovered. Meghan Musgrave, a company spokeswoman, said that engineers at the Dan River Steam Station had designed a containment system that is capturing nearly all of the toxic runoff and pumping it back into a storage basin. Duke says up to 82,000 tons of coal ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water have escaped since a drainage pipe collapsed Sunday under a 27-acre waste pond. Officials 20 miles downstream in Danville, Va., said they were successfully filtering arsenic, lead and other toxins from drinking water. | North Carolina;Duke Energy;Water pollution;Dan River NC;Electric power;River;Virginia;Coal;HazMat |
ny0231271 | [
"business"
] | 2010/09/06 | Mark Hurd, Former H.P. Chief, May Move to Oracle | Mark V. Hurd , who was forced to resign as Hewlett-Packard ’s top executive last month after an investigation into a sexual harassment charge found that he had manipulated his expenses, is in talks with Oracle about a top executive position there, according to a person briefed on the matter. Mr. Hurd, who is close to Lawrence J. Ellison , Oracle’s founder and chief executive, was not expected to replace him, though it was uncertain what any role at Oracle might be. Mr. Hurd and Oracle are close to reaching an agreement, but no deal has been completed, said the person briefed on the talks, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were supposed to remain confidential. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Hurd declined to comment. For Mr. Hurd, 53, landing a top role at Oracle would be a quick rebound after his tumultuous exit from H.P. in early August. Mr. Hurd was forced out by the board after he settled charges of sexual harassment brought by Jodie Fisher, a 50-year-old actress who worked as a marketing consultant for the company. Both Mr. Hurd and Ms. Fisher denied having a sexual relationship, and an H.P. investigation failed to find any evidence of sexual misconduct by Mr. Hurd. But the company has said that Mr. Hurd’s resignation was a result of a break in trust caused by his falsifying expense reports possibly to conceal the relationship. Shortly after Mr. Hurd was forced out, Mr. Ellison made an unusual and passionate defense of him. In an e-mail to The New York Times , Mr. Ellison called the H.P. board’s action “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” The talks between Mr. Hurd and Oracle were first reported on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. Oracle, which Mr. Ellison founded 30 years ago, is the world’s largest database software maker; Mr. Ellison has been its only chief executive. For years, the company has been a close partner with H.P., which sells computing systems and services to corporations. But since Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, in a deal that closed early this year, Oracle and H.P. have become competitors in the market for computer hardware. The purchase of Sun caught a number of Oracle’s investors off guard, since the company had avoided the hardware market in the past. At H.P., Mr. Hurd helped steer mammoth computer server, storage and services businesses. Such expertise could come in handy as Oracle continues to try to digest Sun. In particular, Mr. Hurd built a reputation as a cost-cutting whiz and could apply those skills to bringing the Sun business in line. Sun also has a number of large campuses and an extensive research and development operation. At H.P., Mr. Hurd pared back such expenses. While running the company, Mr. Hurd passed on trying to acquire Sun, leaving Oracle and I.B.M. to bid for it. Mr. Ellison remains heavily involved in Oracle, but the day-to-day operations are largely overseen by two presidents, Safra A. Catz and Charles E. Phillips Jr. It was unclear how Mr. Hurd would fit into the existing, crowded triumvirate. Mr. Hurd took over the top job at H.P. in 2005, succeeding Carly Fiorina , who had been unable to increase profitability after the company’s $19 billion acquisition of Compaq in 2002. His tenure was widely seen as a success. Mr. Hurd brought tight fiscal discipline to the computer giant and turned it into one of the most reliable performers in the technology sector. During his tenure, H.P. surpassed I.B.M. as the No. 1 technology company, as revenue increased to $115 billion a year, from $80 billion. | Mark V Hurd;HP;Oracle |
ny0041012 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2014/04/22 | Lawmakers Broadening Their Focus to Fight Against an Array of Sex Crimes | WASHINGTON — As the high-profile congressional fight over military sexual assault recedes, lawmakers are broadening their focus to an array of sex crimes like college campus assaults, preying on child and human trafficking. Unlike the military assault measures, these efforts — almost all bipartisan — have gone largely uncelebrated. But as a group they represent a far-reaching effort to combat sexual abuse. “What’s unusual right now is that there are so many issues getting attention at the same time,” said Scott Berkowitz, the president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. “There is a growing sense that these are winnable fights. We are excited and trying to make the most of it.” The legislative attention comes as the White House is preparing to release, as early as this week, its recommendations on how to stem sexual assaults on college campuses. The actions are in concert with efforts by state legislatures over a variety of law enforcement issues related to sex crimes, like a nationwide backlog of untested rape evidence kits. About half of the states are considering some form of legislation, Mr. Berkowitz said. Further, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York and a central player in the military sexual assault legislation, has asked the White House to direct the Department of Education to streamline the way it handles sexual assault complaints and to require all colleges to conduct standardized, anonymous surveys on campus assaults. “It is simply unacceptable that going to college should increase your chance of being sexually assaulted,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an email. Image Recent efforts by lawmakers, including Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, represent a far-reaching push to combat sexual abuse. Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times The increased interest stems in part, experts and lawmakers said, from a confluence of conspicuous assault cases, such as the conviction of a Pennsylvania State University football coach, Jerry Sandusky, over his sexual abuse of young boys and accusations that a Heisman Trophy winner , Jameis Winston, raped a freshman at Florida State University, along with a growing body of evidence underscoring the prevalence of sexual violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in five women say they have been raped. Among the bills being considered by Congress is a measure offered by Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, that would tighten background checks on people who work in schools and ban the practice of helping to push child molesters out of one school district and into another. A similar bill has passed the House. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, is pushing a bill that targets sex trafficking in the foster care system. “I am not sure Congress really knew how bad this problem is,” said Mr. Hatch, who added that he was inspired to draft legislation after hearing the testimony of a victim at a recent Senate hearing in which it was revealed that 60 percent of child sex-trafficking victims came from the foster care system. “To me, it was heart-wrenching,” Mr. Hatch said. Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, both Democrats, spent last week in Mexico as part of their efforts to address human trafficking across borders. Ms. Gillibrand and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, have turned their attention to sexual assault on campuses. Ms. McCaskill, a former prosecutor, plans to conduct a survey of 350 colleges and universities nationwide to monitor their handling of sexual assault cases. The two are among nearly a dozen senators seeking new federal funding to battle campus sexual assaults. Both senators were leaders on legislation that would make the military more accountable in cases of sexual assault. Ms. McCaskill was successful with some measures this year, while Ms. Gillibrand’s efforts to remove authority over such cases from military commanders failed. While sporadic legislation in response to high-profile assaults has been commonplace on the federal and state levels, the new legislation tends to have broader and more systemic goals. Image Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times “There has been a lot of attention in the last couple of years on child abuse and exploitation,” said Mary G. Leary, a law professor at the Catholic University of America and an expert on the exploitation of women and girls. “But what is different about the most recent wave is this focus on the institutional role,” she said. “With the Sandusky matter, part of what horrified Americans was the institutional response, and that was true again with the military institutional response.” In many cases, lawmakers were inspired by particularly high-profile crimes in their states. For instance, Mr. Toomey and Mr. Manchin came together over the case of a teacher in Pennsylvania who molested several boys; the school then helped that teacher get a new job in West Virginia — a practice known as “passing the trash.” The teacher was later convicted of raping and killing a 12-year-old boy there. The senators’ bill would require that states perform thorough criminal background checks on potential employees who work with children, and ban the practice of recommending a known child molester to a new school. Last year, the House unanimously passed a similar measure . “I think it’s a moral imperative that we do this,” Mr. Toomey said on the Senate floor two weeks ago. Mr. Hatch and Ms. Klobuchar are focused on the exploitation of young girls, often impoverished, who are lured into prostitution and later arrested, essentially dumping them into a criminal justice system from which they have little way to escape, even when they are too young to give sexual consent. Among his provisions, Mr. Hatch seeks to eliminate federal matching money in many cases for some group homes, in an effort to reduce the number of those homes, where Mr. Hatch said predators often sought their young prey. The provision is almost certain to be controversial. Ms. Klobuchar, who traveled to Mexico with Cindy McCain, the wife of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who has a longstanding interest in the sex trafficking problem, is modeling her legislation on Minnesota’s “safe harbor” laws. It would require states to treat child prostitutes as victims rather than as criminal defendants and help victims of sex trafficking participate in the Job Corps program. “One of the things that is nice is when it comes to protecting children from sexual abuse, it is easier to find bipartisan agreements,” said Cathleen Palm, the founder of the Center for Children’s Justice. “We have made great strides in the sense that our politicians are more willing to have their eyes open to child sexual abuse.” | Rape;Legislation;College;House of Representatives;Congress |
ny0092717 | [
"sports"
] | 2015/08/09 | Michael Phelps Betters a Champion | Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly at the national championships in San Antonio. Phelps’s winning time, 50.45 seconds, was faster than Chad Le Clos’s time about eight hours earlier in Kazan, Russia, where Le Clos won the world championship in 50.56. After that race, Le Clos and his father both talked confidently about how they were not concerned with what Phelps was doing in Texas. | Swimming;Michael Phelps;Chad le Clos |
ny0280002 | [
"us",
"politics"
] | 2016/10/16 | Donald Trump Says He’s a ‘Big Fan’ of Hindus | EDISON, N.J. — Donald J. Trump declared himself “a big fan of Hindu” and praised India’s nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, at an Indian-American charity event on Saturday. Mr. Trump spoke at a benefit put on by the Republican Hindu Coalition at a convention center in Edison, N.J., a non-battleground stop that is hardly typical for a presidential nominee three weeks before an election. Still, Mr. Trump seemed thrilled to be there. “I am a big fan of Hindu, and I am a big fan of India,” Mr. Trump said, seeming to entangle the faith with the nation. “Big, big fan.” While polls show that Hillary Clinton draws far more backing from Indian-Americans than Mr. Trump does, his anti-bureaucracy and country-first language closely tracks that of Mr. Modi, who has tapped into the disgust that India’s Hindu majority feels toward its government. This has given Mr. Trump a foothold of support among Hindus in the United States, some of whom are also drawn to his strong talk about Muslims, their longtime adversaries on the subcontinent. Mr. Trump said that Mr. Modi’s view of government was in line with his own. “I look forward to doing some serious bureaucratic trimming right here in the United States,” Mr. Trump said. His remarks were preceded by musical numbers set to Michael Jackson tunes, and by a sketch depicting terrorists attacking a nightclub. Proceeds from the event were to go to victims of terrorism. Mr. Trump also said that India would be the United States’ most significant ally in his administration. “We will stand shoulder to shoulder with India in sharing intelligence and keeping our people safe mutually,” Mr. Trump said. He then blamed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for the rise of terrorism. “This is so important in the age of ISIS, the barbaric threat Hillary Clinton has unleashed on the entire world,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. | 2016 Presidential Election;Hinduism;Indian American;Donald Trump |
ny0131005 | [
"nyregion"
] | 2012/12/20 | Rockefeller Foundation Aims to Push Business Concerns to Forefront of New York Mayor’s Race | For months New York City business executives and civic leaders have fretted about a possible change in the direction of local government after one of their biggest boosters, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg , leaves office at the end of 2013. Now, one notable group, the Rockefeller Foundation , has decided it cannot sit on the sidelines. The foundation announced on Wednesday that it would award the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce a $100,000 grant to come up with ways to compel the candidates in next year’s race for mayor to pay more attention to business issues. The chamber will consider asking the candidates to sign a “bill of rights” for small businesses, based on an assessment of employers’ needs. It will also discuss hosting Democratic and Republican campaign forums at which candidates would be asked to address business concerns. The Rockefeller Foundation, a nonprofit group, does not engage in overt political activity, but it hopes the grant to the Chamber of Commerce will draw attention to business issues and help influence the discussion in a wide-open mayor’s contest that has been dominated, thus far, by Democrats who have not always been friendly to business. The tone of the race could also change if Joseph J. Lhota , the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , steps into the campaign as a Republican . Neither the foundation nor the chamber could recall another instance in which a major institution had offered a grant aimed at influencing a municipal election. “With this transition, and this change in administration, it’s important to us that whoever is coming is in active dialogue with the small-business community,” said Edwin Torres, an associate director at the foundation who credited the Bloomberg administration with doing a “very good job” in the areas of small-business initiatives and job-training opportunities for poor and vulnerable New Yorkers. Carlo A. Scissura, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said the grant recognized “a need to get business issues at the forefront of the 2013 election,” along with other likely campaign issues like education and the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy. “People want to know the positions of these candidates,” he said. Mr. Scissura added, “As we are out there talking to people, there is a fear — not just from the business community at the Rockefeller level, but really among the mom-and-pop stores — regarding what type of regulations, what type of fees, what type of burdens might be placed on businesses in the next administration.” The Rockefeller Foundation has long had a strong relationship with the Bloomberg administration, helping to finance initiatives on poverty, climate change, volunteerism and infrastructure, among others. The foundation’s chief operating officer, Peter J. Madonia, was Mr. Bloomberg’s chief of staff during the mayor’s first term. Mr. Torres said the foundation began mulling the idea of getting involved with the race to replace Mr. Bloomberg more than a year ago. The foundation then approached the chamber, he said. The program will be handled by the chamber’s nonprofit arm, Brooklyn Alliance, and will run through January 2014, when the 109th mayor of New York takes office. | Rockefeller Foundation;Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce;Elections Mayors;Grants (Corporate and Foundation);Small Business;Bloomberg Michael R;New York City |
ny0029508 | [
"us"
] | 2013/06/02 | Chris Kyle, Military Sniper and Author, Leaving His Legacy | On the night of Feb. 2, William Doyle was working on “American Gun,” a book he was writing with Chris Kyle, the retired Navy SEAL who had vaulted to celebrity status with his first book, “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” one year earlier. Mr. Kyle provided the framework and ideas for the new book, the full title of which is “American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms.” Mr. Doyle, an established nonfiction author, did much of the research and writing. Sometime after midnight, Mr. Doyle, sitting at his desk in New York City, finished reading some e-mails from Mr. Kyle, then called up the Huffington Post Web site. “Chris Kyle Dead,” read the headline at the top of the page. Mr. Kyle, 38, and his friend Chad Littlefield, 35, had taken a veteran, Eddie Ray Routh, 25, to a remote shooting range in Erath County. Mr. Kyle had devoted much of his time to helping fellow veterans adjust to civilian life and had taken Mr. Routh there to unwind. According to the authorities, Mr. Routh turned his weapon on the two men, shooting and killing them before fleeing in Mr. Kyle’s truck. “My immediate thought was for his family,” Mr. Doyle said. “But since I happened to be working on the book when I heard the news, I was thinking, what happens to the book?” Peter Hubbard, the editor of “American Gun,” learned of Mr. Kyle’s death later that morning. “It was devastating, and the difficult thing is, it wasn’t like you could escape it for a few days,” Mr. Hubbard said. “There was a huge surge of interest in ‘American Sniper,’ and we were trying to respect Chris’s legacy. We had to put out statements, and then figure out what we were doing with the new book.” For Mr. Hubbard’s employer, HarperCollins, the stakes were high. “American Sniper,” a memoir of Mr. Kyle’s service in Iraq, where he killed more enemies than any sniper in the history of the American military, sold more than a million copies. Though “American Gun” is a very different book, it was expected to be a major release. But the book was incomplete at the time of Mr. Kyle’s death. “It felt right to finish something he started,” Mr. Hubbard said. “But I wanted to get the O.K. from Taya, his widow, before we did anything.” Image Taya and Chris Kyle in Arizona in 2011, two months before his first book was published. Credit Taya Kyle for The Texas Tribune Taya Kyle’s life spun into a blur in the weeks after her husband’s death. She spoke at Mr. Kyle’s memorial service — attended by 7,000 people at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington — and turned to the projects he had been working on. Once she was able to focus on the book, she realized that it needed to be finished. She knew how much Mr. Kyle had enjoyed working on “American Gun,” which is being be published on Tuesday. “He was getting back to his roots, being reflective on guns and the Old West,” Ms. Kyle said of her husband, who grew up in Odessa and Midlothian and dreamed as a child of becoming a cowboy. “There’s a long pistol that Jesse James used, and Chris would walk around the house and do quick draws with replicas and twirl them around his finger. “The quick draw wasn’t easy, because the pistol was so heavy. The gun was designed so heavy because when you ran out of ammo, you could hit someone in the head with it. Chris was fascinated with details like that.” Seeing her husband’s book through to completion, she said, “was like taking care of him.” Even though the book’s trajectory was not affected by the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., or the elementary school killings in Newtown, Conn., Jim DeFelice, a co-author of “American Sniper,” added an epilogue that obliquely addresses the debate over gun control that emerged after those shootings. “There were terrible detours,” he wrote, “injustices, unnecessary violence, and criminals who found a way to use for evil what should have been, what were, instruments of progress.” In an interview, Mr. DeFelice, who was brought in to help finish the book at Ms. Kyle’s urging, said that Mr. Kyle “saw any weapon as something to be respected, as a tool to protect freedom and other people, and as something that can be used for evil.” “That would’ve been in the book no matter what,” Mr. DeFelice said. Nor did Mr. Kyle’s death alter the book’s tone. “No shadow hangs over these pages, despite the circumstances,” Mr. Hubbard wrote in a publisher’s note appended to “American Gun” that is the only acknowledgment of the shooting. “It felt like an elephant in the room,” Ms. Kyle said. “We had to address it, but that definitely isn’t the point of the book.” Instead, she hopes that “American Gun” will move her husband’s legacy beyond the image created by “American Sniper.” Mr. Kyle never wanted to write that book, Ms. Kyle said, but did so because he was told that others would write books about him. He wanted to tell his own story, she said, and give credit to the men he served with. “I didn’t fall in love with a Navy SEAL, I fell in love with Chris,” she said. “He’s a cowboy, and he’s a patriot, and he’s funny and humble. To me, this book is a way he could express that side, instead of the side he felt maybe forced into with ‘American Sniper.’ ” | Chris Kyle;American Sniper;US Military;Navy Seals;Books |
ny0084143 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2015/10/01 | ‘Survivor’ Defies Gravity to Hang On as CBS Ratings Stalwart | On Sunday, “CSI,” the CBS drama starring Ted Danson, quietly ended its 15-year run with a two-hour series finale. Next year, “American Idol,” the talent competition that has been on the air since 2002, will end after years of declining ratings. In television, even the most popular shows have expiration dates. But while these two juggernauts from the early 2000s are finished, there is one franchise player from that era that continues to defy time and seismic shifts in the television industry. The CBS show “Survivor” enters this television season, its 16th year on the air, still locked in on Wednesdays at 8 p.m., and still winning that time slot. The reality show — featuring more than a dozen “castaways,” weekly fireside ceremonies that popularized the phrase “voted off the island” and a $1 million prize — made its season premiere last week. Once again it captured the best ratings of the night from 8 to 9 p.m. (Its premiere was 90 minutes, but the Fox hit “Empire” came on at 9 and conquered all competition.) The mettle of “Survivor” is surprising enough that CBS executives have taken to calling it the “miracle show” and the “marathon show.” “The old dog’s still got some fight left in it,” said Kelly Kahl , a senior executive vice president for prime time at CBS. As television viewing habits change and ratings decline, network executives are scrambling for attention-grabbing shows (ABC brought back “ The Muppets ”) and are sparing no expense in promoting them (Fox unleashed a seven-month marketing blitz in the run-up to its new show “ Scream Queens ”). In that programming environment, a graybeard like “Survivor” provides a welcome respite for CBS. Its ratings are numbingly consistent; in the last three years, the show has averaged 11.5 million viewers, according to data provided by Nielsen. The show’s season premiere brought in almost exactly that number, 11.4 million, according to same-day and three-day Nielsen figures. Episode 2 airs on Wednesday night. The “Survivor” strategy is simple, said Jeff Probst, who has hosted the show since its first season: Appeal to your audience, and you do not need to do a whole lot more than that. “I’m not going to lie and say I wouldn’t love for more people to start watching ‘Survivor,’ but I’m not making it to attract a new viewer,” Mr. Probst, who is also an executive producer, said in an interview. “I’m making it for the people who have kept us on the air.” “We have this amazing format that we never deviate too far from,” he said. “We create the scenario, and that’s contrived. You aren’t really shipwrecked. But beyond that, it’s their story.” Reality shows are generally less expensive to produce than scripted shows, so “Survivor,” which airs two seasons each year (fall and spring) provides CBS with a ratings magnet at a relatively low cost. And its stability affords CBS network executives the room to look for other hit shows, knowing that “Survivor” will take care of itself. (CBS is known for its stability, having ranked as the most viewed network for 11 of the past 12 years.) “It’s the greatest gift you could ever have as a scheduler,” Mr. Kahl said. “It’s the greatest source of comfort knowing you do not even need to worry about it, and it’s that that show still wins its slot in viewers and the demo.” Image A scene from “Survivor: Samoa.” “We have this amazing format that we never deviate too far from,” said Jeff Probst, the show's host. Credit Monty Brinton/CBS “Survivor” is hardly the only veteran reality show that is still delivering. “ The Amazing Race ” also on CBS, has been on for 14 years and continues to collect Emmy nominations, but it is slowly losing viewers, particularly since the network moved it from Sunday night to the relative backwater of Friday night. (It finished its most recent season with fewer than eight million overnight viewers.) ABC’s 10-year-old “Dancing With the Stars” still delivers close to 15 million viewers twice a week, though it has shown signs of fatigue in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic critical to advertisers. “Survivor,” on the other hand, has been consistent not only in its viewership totals but also among people younger than 50. It has scored ratings between 3.1 and 3.5 in that demographic since the beginning of 2012. The most recent episode of “Dancing With the Stars” scored a 2.1 in that age group; “Survivor” got a 3.1. (The rating, in this case, is the percentage of people from 18 to 49 years old who are tuned into that program. Each national ratings point represents a little more than one million households.) The stamina of “Survivor,” especially in recent years, is all the more surprising because, much like “American Idol” and “CSI,” it showed signs of gradual buckling. Its viewership started to plunge, as did its rating in the demographic. Then, suddenly, the decline stopped. The show’s pluckiness is especially gratifying to Mr. Kahl because it is such an important part of Leslie Moonves’s 12-year tenure as chief executive of CBS. When it aired for the first time in 2000, its status as an instant runaway hit signaled that the network was about to climb out of the cellar. Mark Burnett, the reality show impresario and an executive producer of the show, recalled an event where he promoted “Survivor” with Mr. Moonves in its early days. “I said, ‘This is amazing. Season 3, can you believe it?’ ” Mr. Burnett said. “Les turned and looked at me and said, ‘Season 3? We’ll be having this conversation in Season 23.’ It sounded so crazy at the time.” Years later, though, the show was drifting, Mr. Probst said; he said the low point was Gabon, which was broadcast in 2008. He said he felt burned out and was also a little self-conscious about being known as the “Survivor” guy. “My Achilles’ heel for a lot of my life was that nobody saw me as a storyteller, that they saw me as a white guy with dark hair who was just a game show host,” Mr. Probst said. “And that in terms of my own self-image was the thing that could gut me. It was like a kidney punch.” The frustration and exhaustion were enough that in 2009, Mr. Probst went to Mr. Moonves and quit, he said. Mr. Moonves told him to take a break, and Mr. Probst took a few months off, returning to the show re-energized. Some changes were made to the production team, he said, and then he focused squarely on the show’s success formula: serving the loyal audience and not worrying about doing more than that. This season, Mr. Probst and “Survivor” have taken their strategy to perhaps its most extreme. The show features former cast members, but instead of the reality show trope of offering up so-called all-stars, this season’s contestants include many also-rans, people who played previously but did not win. “Survivor” allowed fans to vote for the entire cast this season, after creating a pool of contestants from which to choose. “When I told some producer friends what we were doing, almost every one of them said, ‘You mean pick one contestant?’ ” Mr. Probst said. “I said, ‘No, the entire group.’ They said, ‘You’re trusting an entire season to the fans?’ The answer’s yes, because our fans get it. They’re a part of our longevity.” If Mr. Probst once had some self-consciousness about being the “Survivor” host, it is long gone. “I feel like I’ve been given the greatest gift and no one really realizes it,” he said. “Mark and CBS have given us this great franchise, and they let us go make it. And then we bring them back episodes and they say, ‘Great, go make it again.’ ” | TV;CBS;Ratings;Reality television;Leslie Moonves;Jeff Probst |
ny0181716 | [
"sports",
"football"
] | 2007/12/03 | Manning’s Turnaround Lifts Giants | CHICAGO, Dec. 2 — The Giants needed a comeback, and the ball was in the uneasy hands of the much-maligned quarterback Eli Manning . John Mara, the team’s president and co-owner, paced a hallway outside the press box. His view out the window was of dark Lake Michigan, not brightly lit Soldier Field. It was late in the third quarter, and Manning had continued a disturbing habit from the week before. He was turning the ball over, twice already in this game after four turnovers the game before, hurting his team more than he was helping it. Manning had chances to quiet the critics, to put his team at ease. But with the Giants losing by 9 points and sitting at Chicago’s 1-yard line, Manning spun from a defender and lobbed a pass into the corner of the end zone for Plaxico Burress. It was intercepted. Defeat seemed imminent. Somehow, the chances kept coming. And slowly, if not steadily, Manning clenched them, leading the Giants on two long fourth-quarter touchdown drives and an improbable come-from-behind victory against the Bears, 21-16. “It wasn’t the prettiest,” Manning said, in the same lukewarm tone he uses for victories and losses. “At times it was flat-out ugly. But it’s sweet. It was sweet at the end, the way we did it.” The first scoring drive established a long-lost sense of confidence as it rumbled 75 yards and ended with a 6-yard touchdown pass to a diving Amani Toomer with 6 minutes 54 seconds left. The second drive brought joy, ending after 77 yards when Reuben Droughns scored from the 2-yard line with 1:33 left. It did not bring relief. That came only after the Bears, trailing for the first time, failed at a comeback try of their own. Quarterback Rex Grossman tossed three balls into the end zone from the Giants’ 28-yard line. All fell incomplete. The last landed after the clock ticked to zeros, and sent the Giants’ bench into celebration. “I don’t know what that guy’s built of or what he’s got inside of him,” linebacker Antonio Pierce said of Manning. “But I tell you what, for all the heat he takes and everything that’s been going on the last couple weeks, I don’t know if anybody else could handle the pressure and do what he did the last seven minutes.” Manning’s three turnovers, following his four-interception game a week earlier in a loss to the Vikings, became a worry for another day. The slippery victory, on a damp and breezy evening in a fog-shrouded city, helped the Giants (8-4) regain their balance and erase a measure of doubt after they lost two of their previous three games. They have little hope of catching the Cowboys (11-1) in the National Football Conference East division, but remain in the lead for one of two wild-card slots. Coach Tom Coughlin is fully aware that the fortunes of the Giants, as well has his tenure as their coach, are tied tightly to Manning. A loss would have been the third in four games following a 6-2 start, a slide easily compared to the one in 2006. For most of the game, the Giants reined in Manning’s influence by running the ball with Derrick Ward, who gained a career-high 154 yards before breaking the fibula in his left leg while converting a critical third down on the Giants’ second-to-last drive. But as the Bears gradually extended a lead, one field goal at time, it was apparent that Manning would have to lead the team back. For most of the game, it appeared he could not. Until the final two drives, Manning was 9 of 17 for 82 yards, with two interceptions and a fumble. But he completed 7 of his final 10 passes for 113 yards. Grossman can empathize with Manning and the criticism he has absorbed for the past week. In last season’s road to the Super Bowl, Grossman was considered the weak link in the team’s championship hopes. When he struggled even more in this season’s first three games, he was benched for a few games. But the Bears confidently called for Grossman to throw the ball often and far downfield against a depleted Giants secondary missing the injured safety Gibril Wilson and cornerback Aaron Ross. Grossman completed his first eight passes and threw 26 times in the first half as the Bears took a 13-7 lead. He finished 25 of 46 for 296 yards. Manning started where he ended the week before. After leading the Giants into Bears territory on the game’s opening possession, Manning — on his second throw of the game — threw an interception to linebacker Brian Urlacher. The Bears, using a no-huddle offense and with a dizzying selection of plays, skipped down the wet grass in nine easy plays. Grossman tossed an easy 1-yard pass to tight end Desmond Clark to open the scoring. Momentum shifted like the breezes. In the second quarter, Grossman heaved a ball deep to Devin Hester, the fleet-footed returner for the Bears. But Grossman’s pass bounced off his hands, killing what looked destined to become an 81-yard touchdown. (Hester was held in check by the Giants’ special teams, who kicked away from him, holding him to 35 return yards.) The Bears soon punted and the Giants took possession at Chicago’s 32-yard line. Ward ran 31 yards down the left sideline and, after a pair of runs by Droughns were stuffed, scored from 2 yards away. Just as the Giants looked ready to seize control of the game, it slipped from Manning’s grasp. At Chicago’s 23-yard line, Manning cocked his arm to throw and the ball did not come with it, popping out like a wet bar of soap. The Bears converted the turnover into a field goal by Robbie Gould. He added two more and the Bears carried a 16-7 lead into the fourth quarter. When the Giants got the ball on the first drive after Manning’s end-zone interception, Manning threw three straight incompletions. The Giants punted. But the Giants’ defense, quietly shutting the Bears down with increased frequency, quickly forced a punt. Manning completed an 18-yard pass to Toomer. Ten plays later, the two combined for the touchdown that made the improbable suddenly possible. When the Giants got the ball again with 4:55 left, trailing by 2 points, Manning completed four consecutive passes. Droughns ran around right end for the go-ahead touchdown. The quarterback had helped his team instead of hurt it. The co-owner was watching the field, not the view toward Lake Michigan. For the Giants, everything was back to the way it was supposed to be. | New York Giants;Football;Chicago Bears;Manning Eli;Burress Plaxico |
ny0280123 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2016/10/28 | India to Expel Officer From Pakistani Mission, Calling Him a Spy | NEW DELHI — India announced on Thursday that it was expelling a Pakistani officer at the country’s diplomatic mission in New Delhi, accusing him of using his consular position to develop an espionage ring, a move likely to worsen tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors. The Delhi police said the officer, Mehmood Akhtar, had served for more than two years in the mission’s visa section, which they said had allowed him to recruit Indian citizens to spy for Pakistan. A statement from the Pakistani Foreign Ministry rejected the accusations as “false and unsubstantiated.” In a tit-for-tat announcement Thursday evening, Pakistan announced it would expel an Indian official posted in Islamabad, giving his family 48 hours to leave the country. Mr. Akhtar was detained on Wednesday, during what the police said was a rendezvous at the gate of the Delhi zoo, where two contacts were to provide information about Indian border deployments in exchange for money. The police said they recovered “secret defense-related maps and deployment charts” as well as lists containing details about Indian military personnel. “We made a good recovery from them,” Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of the Delhi police, said at a news conference on Thursday. “In Old Delhi, the zoo, any tourist spot, they would meet there and exchange documents.” Using diplomatic missions as a cover for intelligence-gathering is not unusual, even between friendly nations, nor is it unusual for the host country to discover them, said A. S. Dulat, a former chief of India’s Research and Analysis Wing. He called slipping intelligence officers into consular positions an “old trick.” But the public announcement and media clamor around Mr. Akhtar’s detention on Wednesday was unusual, Mr. Dulat said. “It’s been like that between India and Pakistan of late, everything is getting hyped,” he said. “Let me put it this way: If it was a Chinese or Russian or American, they would not bother too much.” Mr. Akhtar was carrying a forged Indian government identification card with a false name, but during “sustained interrogation,” the police said, he admitted that he was a Pakistani soldier, deployed by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence. Image Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. Tension between India and Pakistan is at its highest point since Mr. Modi took office in 2014. Credit Manish Swarup/Associated Press Bhishma Singh, an investigator on the case, said Mr. Akhtar had been recruited as an intelligence officer three years ago and was living with his family on the embassy compound. “Mr. Akhtar was basically using the visa window for anti-India activities, as it had a public interface,” Mr. Singh said. Among those Mr. Akhtar cultivated were young women, Mr. Singh said, adding that Mr. Akhtar later used them “as honey traps to lure officers.” The police said that they had not ruled out the involvement of additional staff members from the mission. In its Foreign Ministry statement, Pakistan said a staff member had been held for three hours before he was returned to the mission. “This act clearly reflects Indian actions to shrink diplomatic space for the working of the Pakistan High Commission,” the statement said, referring to the mission, the equivalent of an embassy. It added that the detention violated the Vienna Convention, an international treaty that sets parameters for diplomatic relations. Two Indians were also detained on suspicion of spying for Pakistan, Mr. Yadav said. The authorities said the spy ring had been active for the last year and a half. Tension between the countries is at its highest point since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. India claims that Pakistan supported militants as they prepared for major attacks on Indian forces in the disputed territory of Kashmir, in particular a raid in mid-September that killed 19 Indian soldiers. India said last month that it had sent troops across the border to attack militant bases in retaliation , the first time that India had done so publicly. The announcement elated many Indians, frustrated at Pakistan’s failure to stem militant activity. Since then, the countries have exchanged daily allegations of cease-fire violations. In the last week, three Indian border guards and a 1-year-old boy were killed in “intense, constant” cross-border firing, said Dharmendra Pareek, deputy inspector general of India’s Border Security Force, in a telephone interview from the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. He said India had killed seven Pakistani rangers and one militant. Pakistan summoned India’s second-ranking diplomat in Islamabad on Tuesday and Wednesday to lodge protests against cross-border firing that killed four civilians, including a toddler. | Spying and Intelligence Agencies;India;Pakistan;Diplomats Embassies and Consulates;Kashmir and Jammu |
ny0218199 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2010/05/11 | Tigers Salute Ernie Harwell | DETROIT — Comerica Park fell silent before the game as the Tigers paid tribute to their beloved broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, who called Detroit games for 42 years and died last Tuesday at 92. The 15-minute ceremony featured a video montage and the raising of a flag bearing Harwell’s initials up the center-field flagpole. It was the Tigers’ first home game since Harwell’s death. The singer José Feliciano, whom Harwell invited to sing the national anthem at Tiger Stadium before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series, performed a stirring rendition as players from both teams gathered in front of their dugouts. The former Tiger Marcus Thames said of Harwell, “He loved the game of baseball, and he left his mark on the state of Michigan.” | Baseball;New York Yankees;Detroit Tigers;Damon Johnny |
ny0224643 | [
"world",
"asia"
] | 2010/11/25 | Cambodia Stampede Attributed to Bridge’s Swaying | PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Investigators in Cambodia said Wednesday that a stampede that caused the deaths of 350 people who were suffocated or crushed Monday night was probably touched off by the slight swaying of a short suspension bridge packed on the last evening of an annual water festival. The report, carried on Bayon TV, a government-owned station, said 400 people had been injured. Most of the victims were among the millions of rural people who travel to the capital each year for the festival. Earlier estimates of the casualties had been higher. By Wednesday morning, most of the dead had been identified at hospitals and taken in government trucks to their villages, along with grieving relatives. At Calmette Hospital, where 140 bodies had been laid out in white sheets in an outdoor morgue, only three remained unclaimed. Several people wandered the hospital’s grounds holding snapshots of missing relatives, including wedding portraits and holiday photographs. The bridge where the victims died, closed off with yellow tape, remained littered with shoes and bits of clothing that had been torn off in the crush. | Cambodia;Stampedes;Deaths (Fatalities) |
ny0268134 | [
"science"
] | 2016/03/22 | Amid a Graying Fleet of Nuclear Plants, a Hunt for Solutions | The H.B. Robinson nuclear power plant, about 70 miles from Columbia, S.C., has been producing electricity with few interruptions since the Nixon administration. But as of now, its fate is clear: The plant will have to shut down by 2030, when it will be six decades old. The Robinson reactor is one of the oldest still operating in the United States, but others are getting on in years. From 2029 to 2035, three dozen of the nation’s 99 reactors, representing more than a third of the industry’s generating capacity, will face closure as their operating licenses expire. Any shutdowns would be another blow to nuclear energy, which provides 19 percent of the nation’s electricity but has struggled in recent years to compete against subsidized solar and wind power and plants that burn low-priced natural gas. Industry advocates say that by removing sources of clean electricity — a nuclear reaction produces no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases — the closings could affect the government’s ability to fulfill its pledge, made at the Paris climate talks last year, to reduce emissions. And to continue to meet the nation’s electrical load, new generating capacity will have to be built to replace any that is lost. “Some of those plants are going to be retiring,” said Stephen E. Kuczynski, the chief executive of Southern Company’s nuclear subsidiary. “Which means we’re going to need to meet this load with something.” Given the sometimes glacial pace of design, licensing and construction in the nuclear industry, the 2030s are not far-off. Plant operators may be able to buy time by seeking license extensions for another 20 years from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission , or by building more large reactors like four that are under construction. The industry and the Department of Energy are also pinning their hopes on the development of less conventional reactor designs that are meant to be safer and cheaper to build and operate. Yet it is unclear whether any new designs could reach the market in time to make a dent in the generating capacity lost as plants are closed. Some in the industry are bullish, including Southern, which announced in January that it would receive up to $40 million from the Department of Energy to develop an advanced reactor that uses molten salt as a coolant instead of water, which all current designs use. “Our target is — can we really move the process forward and have a commercial option by 2030?” Mr. Kuczynski said. To do that, he and others say, the pace of the design process, and of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review process, needs to be sped up. But some say the shortened timetables are unrealistic, given safety and other concerns and the need to test new designs before seeking approval from the commission. “It’s a 25-year process, no matter what,” said Michael McGough, the chief commercial officer of NuScale Power, which is the furthest along among companies working on less conventional reactors. NuScale’s design, called a small modular reactor , uses water as a coolant, but the units are far smaller than current reactors and have advanced safety features. They could be built largely in a factory, saving money, and up to 12 of them could be installed at one site. Mr. McGough knows all about long timetables; NuScale’s design has been under development since 2000. It has lined up a potential first customer, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or Uamps, which operates in the Intermountain West, and hopes to have 12 of the small reactors operating at a site in Idaho by the mid-2020s. “It’s improbable to me that you will see any new design developed or licensed in a much shorter time frame than the kind we’re on,” Mr. McGough said. NuScale has been testing its design for 13 years, using a nonnuclear prototype. Later this year, it plans to submit an 11,000-page application to the N.R.C. to have its design certified. The commission then has up to 40 months to review the application. The certification process, and a later application by Uamps for a construction and operating license, could be delayed if the N.R.C. asks for more information. But even if all goes smoothly, the plant will produce only about half the electricity of many existing reactors. About 50 of these 12-reactor plants would be needed to replace the generating capacity that could be lost by 2035. Many in the industry hope that extending the licenses of existing reactors will forestall at least some closings. Nuclear plants were originally licensed for 40 years, but almost all have sought and received 20-year extensions. The regulatory commission has begun researching what would be required to extend a plant’s life to 80 years. “We’re asking very basic questions, like how long can a reactor vessel remain acceptable since it’s being bombarded by neutrons,” said Scott Burnell, a spokesman. “The information we have at this point is that those are issues that are not showstoppers.” So far one operator has announced plans to seek such an extension, for two reactors set to close in the early 2030s, but an application and possible approval are still years away. Duke Energy, owner of the Robinson plant in South Carolina, said it was evaluating whether to pursue an extension. Given the relatively poor economics of nuclear power, however, even if a plant could be licensed to operate up to 80 years, the question remains whether it would be financially worthwhile for it to do so, especially if expensive work is required. Skeptics cite two American plants that have been closed for economic reasons since 2012, after their licenses were extended to 60 years. Similar economic uncertainties surround the latest generation of reactors, the Westinghouse AP1000 , a design that is similar in many respects to existing units but has safety improvements and cost-saving features. Four of these are being built in the United States, and there have been lengthy construction delays and ballooning costs. But Mr. Kuczynski of Southern, which is building two of the reactors in Georgia, said the industry was learning from experience, which would lower the cost of subsequent plants. “We’re going to get through the first of a kind,” he said, and any future orders “are going to be just terrific bargains.” Others are not so sure the industry will rush to build more. “What eventually happens with the four AP1000s will be very important,” said Matthew McKinzie, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council . “If the economics of extending the lifetime of a plant to 80 years are poor, then what does that say about the economics of a new plant?” Critics of nuclear power say that novel designs like molten salt reactors raise new issues, especially regarding safety, that will require much time to evaluate. “A regulator can’t accept paper studies saying that a reactor is supersafe,” said Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists . “They need documentation, experimental data.” “The industry and Department of Energy have this fantasy that you can have some general design-neutral licensing process,” he added. But Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist who has invested in two companies working on advanced designs, said time was running out to improve the process. “We’ve got probably a five- to 10-year window,” he said. “If we don’t get this fixed in the next presidential administration or so, we’ve missed it.” | Nuclear energy;Energy Department;Nuclear Regulatory Commission;Electric power;Energy industry |
ny0008714 | [
"world",
"europe"
] | 2013/05/13 | Pope Francis Names Several New Saints | VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday gave the Catholic Church a number of new saints, including hundreds of 15th-century martyrs who were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam, as he led his first canonization ceremony in a crowded St. Peter’s Square. The “Martyrs of Otranto” were 813 Italians who were killed in the southern Italian city in 1480 for defying demands by Turkish invaders who overran the citadel to renounce Christianity. Their approval for sainthood was made by Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, in a decree read at the ceremony in February where the former pontiff announced his retirement. Shortly after his election in March, Francis called for more dialogue with Islam, and it was not clear how the granting of sainthood to the martyrs would be received. Islam is a delicate issue for the church, and Benedict struggled in his relationship with Muslims. Francis, the first pontiff from South America, also gave Colombia its first saint: a nun who toiled as a teacher and spiritual guide to indigenous people in the 20th century. With Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos among the dignitaries watching, Francis held out Laura of St. Catherine of Siena Montoya y Upegui as a potential source of inspiration to the country’s peace process, attempted after decades of conflict between rebels and government forces. He also canonized another Latin American woman. Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, a Mexican who dedicated herself to nursing the sick, helped Catholics avoid persecution during a government crackdown of the faith in the 1920s. Francis prayed that the new Mexican saint’s intercession could help the nation “eradicate all the violence and insecurity,” an apparent reference to years of bloodshed and other crime largely linked to powerful drug trafficking clans. After shaking hands with the prelates and dignitaries in the front rows at the end of the Mass, Francis shed his ceremonial vestments. Wearing a plain white cassock, he climbed into an open white popemobile to ride up and down the security paths surrounding the crowd of more than 60,000. He stopped to pat children on the head, kiss babies and bantered in his native Spanish with some at the edge of the crowd. | Catholic Church;Beatification;Pope Francis;Colombia |
ny0100197 | [
"business",
"media"
] | 2015/12/02 | Columbia Disputes Exxon Mobil on Climate Risk Articles | The dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism published a letter on Tuesday strongly disputing accusations by Exxon Mobil that journalists from the school had produced inaccurate and misleading articles about the company’s knowledge of the risks of climate change . The school had collaborated with The Los Angeles Times and foundations including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund on two articles published in October that examined “the gap between Exxon Mobil’s public position and its internal planning on the issue of climate change.” The articles had helped add momentum to an investigation by the New York attorney general into the matter. And in the days and weeks following publication, the company was subject to criticism from politicians like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Late last month, the company wrote a detailed, six-page letter to Columbia’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, calling the two lengthy investigative reports “inaccurate and deliberately misleading.” In his response, Steve Coll, the dean of the journalism school, said that he had carefully examined the detailed allegations made by Exxon Mobil. “Your letter disputes the substance of the two articles in a number of respects, but consists largely of attacks on the project’s journalists,” Mr. Coll wrote. “I have concluded that your allegations are unsupported by evidence.” Underlying the exchange of letters are complex connections among the people, institutions and companies involved in the pair of articles. The dispute also highlights the possibility that some of the new ways that expensive accountability reporting is being funded can, in terms of perception at least, be called into question. Response From Steve Coll to Exxon Mobil The dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism rebuts suggestions that journalists from the school had produced inaccurate and misleading articles on Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil contended in its letter, written by Kenneth P. Cohen, a vice president for public and governmental affairs, that some of the foundations that supported the reporting of the articles, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, had “a stated position and bias against the oil and gas industry.” The letter also accuses one of the journalists, Susanne Rust, of ignoring information favorable to the company or not giving it proper emphasis, of misrepresenting certain materials and of not giving the company access to documents she cited or adequate time to provide a substantive response. It also accused another reporter of misrepresenting herself in interviews. The articles themselves, Mr. Cohen wrote, “bear no resemblance to the source materials” they cite. And in the final paragraph of his letter, he refers to the “numerous and productive relationships” that Exxon Mobil has with Columbia. (In 2014, according to Exxon Mobil’s own figures, the company donated nearly $220,000 to Columbia University .) Some read that as a subtle hint that Exxon Mobil might review its relationship with the university. The company said on Tuesday that there was no threat intended. In his response, Mr. Coll said he had been troubled to discover that Mr. Cohen had “made serious allegations of professional misconduct” even though “you or your media relations colleagues possess email records showing that your allegations are false.” He went on to rebut many of the detailed points in Exxon Mobil’s letter, writing that Ms. Rust gave the company plenty of time to respond to her questions and that the reporters had clearly identified themselves as journalists. The article was indeed funded, in part, by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Mr. Coll wrote, but that fact was disclosed and the fund had no impact on the articles that were ultimately published. Though the accusations are presented as factual errors, he wrote, “in fact what you dispute is the emphasis of the articles. You have dressed up this rather commonplace criticism of investigative reporting in academic clothing.” “What your letter advocates really is that the factual information accurately reported in the article, and unchallenged by you, be interpreted differently,” Mr. Coll wrote. Alan T. Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, said on Tuesday that the company felt the articles still fundamentally misrepresented the source documents. When it has tried to engage with The Los Angeles Times it has consistently been referred to Columbia, he said, and the company has asked for an opportunity to meet with university representatives to discuss what possible actions remain available, he said. The Los Angeles Times said that its editors had “carefully reviewed Exxon Mobil’s complaints and concluded that the articles we published in collaboration with Susanne Rust and her team at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism were accurate, fair and balanced. We will continue working with the Columbia reporting team to publish journalism on this very important subject.” | College;News media,journalism;Exxon Mobil;Climate Change;Global Warming;Oil and Gasoline;Columbia |
ny0039440 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2014/04/10 | Samsung Edges HTC in New Android Phones | IN a rare bit of cosmic alignment, two Android phone stars drop into orbit at the same time this week. The HTC One (M8) and the Samsung Galaxy S5 arrive in stores by Friday, and choosing between the two is a matter of emotion versus logic. The HTC phone inspires something like love with its gorgeous design, underdog story and elegant simplicity. But when I use my mind instead of my heart, it is clear to me that the Galaxy S5 is ultimately the better phone: a powerhouse of features and capability, a slightly better camera and a rugged yet lightweight design. Both the HTC One (M8) and the Galaxy S5 have top-of-the-line, quad-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processors that support faster 4G LTE, faster Wi-Fi and faster processing of images compared with their predecessors. The chip also allows for beefy graphics processing for games and video and aggressive power management for longer battery life. Image The Samsung Galaxy S5, left, and the HTC One M8 arrive in stores by Friday. Credit Photo Illustration by The New York Times The phones also feature almost the same size display: 5 inches for the HTC One (M8) and 5.1 inches for the Galaxy S5, with identical 1920 x 1080 resolutions. And both run the latest version of Google’s Android operating system with their own custom touches on top. The two are also the same price: Both retail unlocked for $650, but the real cost will depend on your carrier and contract. The primary difference centers on the cameras — and that’s good, since camera and battery life are just about the only reasons to upgrade a smartphone anymore. The One (M8) has a 4-megapixel camera with HTC’s UltraPixel technology , which uses larger pixels to capture more light and produce better photos. The Galaxy S5 has a 16-megapixel camera with Samsung’s Isocell technology , which squeezes better image quality from a multitude of smaller pixels. Image The HTC One (M8) can make amazing pictures, featuring deep, bright colors, when you shoot on a sunny day. Credit Molly Wood/The New York Times The HTC One (M8) produced some beautiful images, but pictures also look oversaturated in some cases and disappointingly dark and shadowy in others. Photos are better in bright light, but if the light is too bright, they end up blown out. The Galaxy S5’s camera is excellent; I’ve seen too many blurry Samsung photos over the years, and this phone finally addresses that complaint. Colors are vibrant and true to life, and focus and shutter speed are fast enough for children’s sports. The headline camera feature on both phones is the ability to refocus images after the fact. The HTC One (M8) accomplishes this with its Duo Camera — a second camera lens on the back of the phone that captures dimensional information about an image. The results can be remarkable, although the feature is slightly hidden. Take photos in automatic mode, then when you’re viewing them after the fact in your photo gallery, tap Edit. You’ll see Effects and an option called UFocus. Image In lower light, the One (M8) can overcompensate with deep saturation. Credit Molly Wood/The New York Times Select UFocus and the phone automatically chooses the closest item in the image to focus on; tap anywhere else to refocus. If your subject is far enough away from the background, you can get great results, and then apply fun filters like Foregrounder, which can put the foreground image in color and the background in pencil-sketch black and white, among other things. I love Duo Camera; it’s the HTC’s best feature. Unfortunately for HTC, the Galaxy S5 can also do this — or something like it. On the Galaxy S5, the feature is called Selective Focus, and it uses onboard image processing rather than a second camera lens. You must enable Selective Focus before you shoot, but the button is prominently placed at the top of the camera screen. You could leave it on all the time, but not every photo demands it. The camera is a little fussy about which images will work: the closest object must be less than about a foot from the lens to create enough depth for editing, and you’ll occasionally get an error message that says the focus can’t be applied even though the photo is saved. But the on-screen guidance means your pictures will come out better in the end. Once you’ve taken the photo, when you view it in the gallery, you’ll see a specific icon that means you can edit focus. You then choose near, far or pan focus. Image The Galaxy S5 has a speedy shutter and focus, good enough to capture children in flight. Credit Molly Wood/The New York Times Samsung’s Selective Focus is less flexible than Duo Camera, but it’s so obvious and user-friendly that I imagine people will use it much more often. The HTC One (M8) does please selfie fans with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera to the Galaxy S5’s 2.1. The Galaxy S5, though, shoots ultra high-definition, or 4K, video recording compared with the One (M8)’s 1080p video. That video feature won’t appeal to everyone, but it does make the Galaxy S5 that much more future-proof. The HTC One (M8) is the obvious aesthetic winner, but it is not the usability king. The back is slippery, and its newly rounded edges make it even more prone to disasters. It’s also heavier than the Galaxy S5, enough that it gets tiresome with one-handed use. The Galaxy S5 looks much more conventional, even a bit bland, but it gets the job done and it’s a lot easier to hang on to. Image Samsung's camera produced bright images with great detail, little shadow and lots of color. Credit Molly Wood/The New York Times Both phones promise improved battery life and generally deliver. Their power management modes are most impressive. The HTC One (M8) automatically kicks into “power saver” mode when you get to 5 percent battery life, and the Galaxy S5 lets you specify either power saving mode or “ultra” power saving mode, which puts the display into grayscale, restricts background data and allows only low-power communication like texting and calling. Ultimately, in the very close showdown between these two phones, it’s the extras that put the Galaxy S5 over the top. The Galaxy’s user interface is simplified and easy to use, and the phone has the Samsung S Health app preinstalled. The program includes a pedometer, an exercise tracker, a heart rate sensor (a neat trick using the camera flash on the back of the phone) and a food tracker. These are popular features with or without a wearable fitness band, and I liked having them. Little things won me over too, like the ability to search the graphically appealing Settings menu. The Galaxy S5’s keyboard is far superior to the HTC One (M8)’s, which is oddly narrow and unresponsive. Its interface is also just a hair snappier. But the fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy did not impress me, because it is slow and finicky — though the fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5S doesn’t impress me, either. But what really sealed the deal, so to speak, is the Galaxy S5’s dust- and water-resistant design. A rubberized strip inside the case and a cover over the charging port help keep out moisture, meaning the phone can survive the rain, sitting in a sweaty armband or maybe a dip in a shallow puddle. There really aren’t many watershed innovations left in smartphones. For me, the Galaxy S5 won a war of attrition and either phone will make you happy in different ways. And with the LG G3 phone still around the corner, the true Android winner may still be circling our star system. | Smartphone;Camera;Samsung;HTC;Android |
ny0109403 | [
"sports",
"baseball"
] | 2012/05/21 | Cueto and Reds Take Care of Sabathia and Yankees | All too often, meetings between aces end up being anticlimactic, with either or both pitchers failing to live up to the hype. That was not the case for five innings Sunday afternoon, as C. C. Sabathia and Johnny Cueto traded scoreless innings. Cueto was the first to falter in the bottom of the sixth, but it was Sabathia’s losing the strike zone in the seventh that cost the Yankees in a 5-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. Losers of five of six games, the Yankees are one game ahead of the Boston Red Sox, who are in last place in the American League East. “It’s definitely frustrating,” Sabathia said. “I feel like I let the team down. These guys are scratching and clawing, and it’s a great offense, but it’s been tough. And being able to have a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning, that’s a ballgame we should win.” It was the seventh consecutive outing by Sabathia (5-2) with Chris Stewart catching. The two started the season 5-0. Sabathia went seven innings, striking out six and walking five. He has 9 walks in his last 13 innings after walking 10 in his first seven starts, a stretch of 511/3 innings. Manager Joe Girardi did not seem overly concerned with Sabathia’s bout of wildness. “He didn’t get wild until the last inning,” Girardi said. “He was pretty darned good before that. I wouldn’t make too much of it.” Stewart concurred. “It’s bound to happen to any pitcher,” he said. “A guy is not going to strike everybody out without walking anybody. He’s not going to be perfect. Unfortunately, everything just happened in that one inning.” Despite losing two in a row, Sabathia said he was happy with Stewart as his catcher. “I just blew it,” he said. “I didn’t make the pitches I needed to. I feel confident about the pitches he was calling. I just didn’t make the pitch.” Sunday started quietly, but Robinson Cano led off the bottom of the sixth inning with the first hard hit off Cueto, doubling to the wall in left–center field. After a flyout by Alex Rodriguez, Raul Ibanez hit a 1-1 pitch into the second deck in right field for his ninth home run of the season and a 2-0 lead. The lead was short-lived, however. Ryan Ludwick hammered Sabathia’s first pitch of the seventh inning over the fence in left for his fourth home run of the season and Ryan Hanigan homered to left with one out to even the score. After an infield single by Zack Cozart, Sabathia struck out Chris Heisey but then lost control of the strike zone, walking Drew Stubbs, Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips, forcing in the Reds ’ third run of the day. Jay Bruce struck out to end the inning, but Sabathia’s wildness had run his pitch count to a season-high 121, ending his day. Cueto settled down in the seventh, retiring the Yankees in order. But he allowed a single by Curtis Granderson to start the eighth and left the game in the hands of his team’s restructured bullpen. Sean Marshall, in his first appearance since losing his job as the team’s closer, struck out Cano before being replaced by Logan Ondrusek. He got the final two outs of the eighth, including a flyout by Rodriguez that appeared as if it might be a home run before it was knocked down by strong wind. “We thought that ball was gone big time, and he probably thought the ball was gone, too,” Reds Manager Dusty Baker said. “But the elements were with us on that particular play.” The Reds added two more runs off the Yankees’ bullpen on a double by Ludwick in the top of the ninth before turning things over to Aroldis Chapman, the flame-throwing left-hander, in his first opportunity as Cincinnati’s closer. Chapman, who has yet to allow an earned run this season, threw as hard as 99 miles per hour and allowed just one batter to reach base, on an error. He struck out pinch-hitter Andruw Jones to end the game, earning his second career save and first of the season. The Yankees have failed to score more than two runs in four of the last six games. “There’s frustration and there’s disappointment, but it’s probably not as bad as it looks,” said Kevin Long, the Yankees’ hitting coach. INSIDE PITCH Mark Teixeira continued to sit out in hopes of clearing up a bad cough, but he did pinch-hit in the ninth inning Sunday, reaching on an error. ... Outfielder Brett Gardner, who is recovering from an injured elbow, is expected to be cleared to begin swinging a bat on Thursday, Joe Girardi said. | New York Yankees;Cincinnati Reds;Sabathia C C;Cueto Johnny;Baseball |
ny0238070 | [
"technology",
"personaltech"
] | 2010/06/23 | New iPhone Arrives, Rivals Beware | Apple ’s new iPhone , its fourth in four years, reaches stores on Thursday. Ordinarily, this is where you’d expect to find a review of it. But honestly — what’s the point? The iPhone 4 is already a hit. AT&T says that it received 10 times as many preorders as it did for the iPhone 3GS last year. On the first day of taking orders, Apple processed 600,000 requests — before its ordering system, and AT&T’s, descended into chaos. In short, the public seems to be perfectly capable of sniffing out a winner without the help of tech critics. On the other hand, the new model won’t do anything for people who detest the iPhone. It wouldn’t matter if the new iPhone could levitate, cure hepatitis and clean your gutters; the Cantankerous Committee would still avoid it. Despite the strong initial, positive reaction, this must still be a nerve-racking time to be Apple; the iPhone is no longer the only worthy contender. Phones running Google ’s Android software are gaining rave reviews and packing in features that iPhone owners can only envy. The Android app store is ballooning, multiple phone makers are competing, and Google updates the software several times a year. Apple releases only one new model a year, so the new iPhone had better be pretty amazing to compete. It is. The first thing you notice is the new shape. Despite a beefier battery (16 percent more likely to last a full day), a faster processor and upgraded everything, the new model is still noticeably thinner and narrower than before. How is that possible? In part, the trick was squaring off the back. It’s no longer gracefully curved — a design that, if you think about it, created wasted space around the rectangular components. The new iPhone is two glass slabs, front and back, wrapped by a stainless-steel band. The result is beautiful, and since there’s no more plastic, it feels solid and Lexus-like. But it no longer feels like a soothing worry stone, and it’s now impossible to tell by touch which way it’s facing in your pocket. The new metal mute and volume buttons are much stiffer. Still, Apple says the iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smartphone, and most people will approve of the trade-offs. The new phone uses the same custom chip that’s in the iPad ; it’s really, really fast. It makes a difference every time you tap the touch screen. It’s not the first phone with both a front and back camera. It’s not even the first one to make video calls. But the iPhone 4 is the first phone to make good video calls, reliably, with no sign-up or setup, with a single tap. The picture and audio are rock solid, with very little delay, and it works the first time and every time. This feature, called FaceTime, is pure Apple. However, you can enjoy this classic “show Grandma the baby” fantasy only if you and Grandma both have the iPhone 4, and only when you’re both in strong Wi-Fi hot spots. Both limitations may change in time; other software companies are free to create FaceTime-compatible programs for other gadgets. And Apple implies that next year, you’ll be able to make such calls over the cellular airwaves. Clearly, Apple is giving its ball and chain, AT&T, time to get its network ready. The new screen, with greater contrast, is excellent. It packs in four times as many pixels as before; at 326 dots an inch, it’s now the sharpest phone screen on the market. Now, “the screen isn’t sharp enough” wasn’t exactly a common iPhone complaint before. But it’s easy to see, and appreciate, the improvement in clarity of text, pictures and videos. There’s a new 5-megapixel camera, too — better, though it’s still no rival to a real camera. The actual moment of photo-snapping is an instantaneous affair now, freed of the take-your-time sluggishness of last year’s model. Apple has finally deigned to give us a small, bright LED flash, too. You can make it stay on when you’re filming — a convenient video light for very close-range subjects. Speaking of video: the new iPhone takes great-looking 720p high-definition video; now there’s the equivalent of a Flip camcorder in your phone. Furthermore, for $5, you can install iMovie for iPhone. This little app lets you trim and rearrange video clips, add music and credits, drop in photos with zooming and cross-fades, and then post the whole thing directly to YouTube . Frankly, the whole concept sounds a little ridiculous; video editing on a phone? You might as well introduce Microsoft Excel for Hearing Aids. But you watch. The way life goes, some iPhone production will win at Cannes next year. Now, peculiar as it may sound, phone calls have always been the iPhone’s weak spot. It took too many steps to dial. Audio quality wasn’t state-of-the-art. And from Day 1, dropped calls in several big cities have driven people there wiggy. With the iPhone 4, Apple tried to relieve the wigginess. Sound is much better on both ends of the call, thanks in part to a noise-canceling microphone and an improved audio chamber (which also helps speakerphone and music sound). The stainless-steel edge band is now part of the antenna. The new phone is also better at choosing the best channel for connecting with the cell tower, even if’s not technically the strongest one. (Ever had four bars, but a miserable connection? Then you get it.) Does any of this mean no more dropped calls in New York and San Francisco ? No. But there do seem to be fewer of them. The even better news is the new operating system, now called iOS4, which became available this week, free to owners of recent iPhone and iPod Touch models. (Apple dropped the word “iPhone” from the OS’s name because it also runs the iPad and the iPod Touch.) Three big-ticket features in this software upgrade make a huge difference. First, multitasking. Apple has consistently maintained that running several programs at once eats up the battery. So iOS4 permits multitasking of certain important functions — for example, Internet radio can keep playing, and GPS apps can keep updating, while you work in other programs. Other apps go into suspended animation when you switch out of them. They use no power and cost you no speed, but you don’t have to wait for them to start up when you return to them. Second, when you give the Home button a quick double-press, a new app switcher appears at the bottom of the screen. Here are icons for all your recent apps (including the ones you suspended). After three versions of iPhones, you can finally jump directly from one app to another without a layover at the Home screen. The third big change: you can now file your apps into folders. (You drag one icon atop another to create a folder containing them both.) Each folder can hold 12 icons, meaning that download-aholics can now install 2,160 apps on a single iPhone. (Well, it’s a start.) Those over 40 can now bump up the type size for e-mail, notes, text messages and address book entries. The Mail app can group your messages into threads (back-and-forths on a single subject), and you can view all your e-mail accounts in a single Inbox. A new spelling checker lets you tap an underlined word to see correction suggestions. The new iPhone software, in other words, is sweet and free, and you should not hesitate to get it. The new iPhone itself is sweet but not free. The 16-gig model costs $200 (the 32-gig model costs $300), but only if you’re a new customer or an existing iPhone owner whose contract expires this year. (For more on prices, plans, tethering and other gory details, see my post Wednesday at nytimes.com/pogue . Disclosure : I’m the author of an iPhone how-to book, written independently of Apple, which I’m updating.) Now, the iPhone is no longer the undisputed king of app phones. In particular, the technically inclined may find greater flexibility and choice among its Android rivals, like the HTC Incredible and Evo. They’re more complicated, and their app store not as good, but they’re loaded with droolworthy features like turn-by-turn GPS instructions, speech recognition that saves you typing, removable batteries and a choice of cell networks. If what you care about, however, is size and shape, beauty and battery life, polish and pleasure, then the iPhone 4 is calling your name. But you probably didn’t need a review to tell you that. | iPhone;Apple;Smartphone |
ny0038502 | [
"sports",
"ncaabasketball"
] | 2014/04/05 | Pro’s Example Keeps Connecticut’s Foul Shooting Sharp | ARLINGTON, Tex. — Whether Connecticut has better 3-point shooters than Florida, or better rebounders or ball handlers, is up for debate. This much about their matchup Saturday night, though, is unassailable: The Huskies are the superior free-throw shooting team. UConn has reached the national semifinals, sealing three of its four victories in the final minutes, because of its success at the foul line. During the N.C.A.A. tournament the Huskies have made 88 percent (81 of 92) of their free throws, including 93 percent (41 of 44) across two games at Madison Square Garden last weekend. Florida, by contrast, has made 74 percent. Connecticut’s comfort at the foul line stems in part from a drill discovered — and adapted — by the associate head coach Glen Miller. He found a video on the Internet of Steve Nash trying to make as many free throws as he could in 60 seconds. “If you’ve got to shoot it quick, you catch the ball, you’re not dipping the ball below your waist,” Miller said. “It gets rid of all the excess motion in the shot, which, when you do that, it really helps you have good rhythm and timing.” Whenever the Huskies transition to a different drill in practice, guard Ryan Boatright said, they shoot free throws. During that time, they must make 17 free throws in a minute. Anyone who does not must sprint the length of the court and back. Over the course of a practice each player takes about 100 free throws during the Nash drill, Miller said, but everyone tends to shoot more afterward. “Literally, you walk in and you’re just going to see someone shooting free throws,” center Phillip Nolan said. EMERGING STAR It was hard to imagine the week getting any sweeter for Frank Kaminsky III, Wisconsin’s overnight sensation, but Friday happened to be his 21st birthday. How did Kaminsky, nicknamed Frank the Tank, wind up celebrating? “Didn’t really work out,” Kaminsky said. “Found myself falling asleep.” Kaminsky, a 7-foot center who was named the West Region’s most outstanding player, leads the Badgers in scoring and rebounding. He also leads the team in one-liners during this tournament, saying Friday that his biggest battle in high school was “with doorways.” “Learning to duck,” Kaminsky said. Before facing Arizona in the Round of 8, Kaminsky deadpanned his description of this Wisconsin team. “White guys,” he said. But the emergence of the self-described “goofy kid” into an X-factor for the Badgers has not been a joke. He was a first-team All-Big Ten member this season, his junior year, bumping his scoring average up by nearly 10 points while playing three times as many minutes. Kaminsky presents Kentucky a unique threat: He was fourth on the team in 3-point attempts this season, making 37.8 percent of them, but certainly has the length to challenge inside. Lately, Kaminsky’s name has even emerged on some N.B.A. draft boards, which left him chuckling, considering he arrived at Wisconsin anticipating not playing at all his freshman year (he wound up averaging 7.7 minutes). The senior Ben Brust said Kaminsky had “grown into his body” since then, thanks to time, physical maturation, and strength and conditioning work. “We’ve just enjoyed watching Frank do his thing,” Brust said. “I really think his development through the second half of the season, after we hit a little losing streak, has really helped carry us.” Kaminsky credited Coach Bo Ryan for helping him understand how he fit in the Badgers’ complicated system and staying patient with him. At times, things were frustrating. But lately it seems just about everything has turned in Kaminsky’s favor. “It’s been trial and error with a lot of the things I’ve been doing this season,” he said. “I’ve found things that have been working for me, so I’m going to keep going with it.” ZACH SCHONBRUN BAD AS BARKLEY As a way to unwind after their flight to Texas, the Kentucky Wildcats went to the driving range Wednesday night to cut loose and take some hacks. The resulting video of center Dakari Johnson attempting — emphasis on attempting — to swing a club quickly went viral in Kentucky’s Big Blue Nation fan circles. “Dakari Johnson has the worst golf swing I’ve seen since Charles Barkley,” senior Jon Hood said. “We aren’t golfers,” guard Aaron Harrison said. “Let’s just say that.” ZACH SCHONBRUN | College basketball;NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness;NBA;University of Connecticut;Steve Nash |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.