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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Maynard Jackson

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. (March 23, 1938 – June 23, 2003) was an American politician and attorney from Georgia. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected in 1973 at the age of 35 as the first black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and of any major city in the South. He served three terms (1974–1982, 1990–1994), making him the second longest-serving mayor of Atlanta, after six-term mayor (1937–1941, 1942–1962) William B. Hartsfield.

He is notable also for public works projects, primarily the new Maynard H. Jackson International terminal at the Atlanta airport, and for greatly increasing minority business participation in the city. After his death, the William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport was re-named Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to honor his service to the expansion of the airport, the city and its people.

Family history, background and personal life

Jackson was born into a family that valued education and political activism. His maternal grandfather was civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs, who worked to successfully overturn the white primary in Georgia. He also gained the hiring of black police officers in Atlanta and lighting of Auburn Street, the main retail street of the black community. Maynard's mother Irene (Dobbs) Jackson was one of his six daughters; all graduated from Spelman College, encouraged by their parents. Irene earned a doctorate in France and became a Professor of French at the college.

His father Maynard Holbrook Jackson was a Baptist minister from New Orleans. He became active in civil rights in Dallas, Texas, where he had grown up after his family moved. His grandfather Alexander Stephens Jackson had been a Baptist minister and educator in Louisiana and Texas. The young Jackson's father died when he was fifteen; his grandfather Dobbs became even more influential in his life.

Jackson attended David T. Howard High School in Atlanta and Morehouse College, a historically black college for men in Atlanta, graduating in 1956 at the age of eighteen. He sang in the Morehouse College Glee Club. After attending the Boston University Law School for a short time, Jackson held several jobs, including selling encyclopedias. He returned to graduate studies, attending the North Carolina Central University Law School. He graduated with a law degree in 1964. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Jackson married Burnella "Bunnie" Hayes, in 1965. The couple had three children: Elizabeth, Brooke, and Maynard III. Bunnie Jackson founded First Class, Inc., a public relations and marketing firm in Atlanta, prior to their divorce.

Jackson married Valerie Richardson in 1977, to whom he was married for 25 years until his death. They have two daughters, Valerie and Alexandra. Valerie Jackson hosts Between the Lines each weekend on the WABE-FM radio station, the Atlanta Public Broadcasting station.

Early career

Jackson worked as a lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board and a legal services firm. He joined the Democratic Party.

Political career

In 1968, Jackson at 30, decided to run for the US Senate against incumbent Herman Talmadge. His campaign was underfunded, and he lost, but Jackson won in Atlanta, gaining prominence in the city, which had a substantial black minority. The following year, he built on his strength, gaining election as vice mayor, who was presiding officer of the board of aldermen. At that time, Atlanta modified its city charter, strengthening the position of mayor and renaming the vice mayor as president of the city council (aldermen were now city council members).

In 1970, Jackson became Atlanta's first Black Vice-Mayor, his first elected position which he held for four years.

In 1973, Jackson was elected with 60 percent of the vote, as the first African-American mayor of Atlanta and any major southern city; he was supported by a coalition of white liberals/moderates and African Americans. At the age of 35, he had unseated incumbent Sam Massell.

During his first term, Jackson worked to improve race relations in and around Atlanta after the polarization caused by the election campaign. As mayor, he led the beginnings and much of the progress on several huge public-works projects for the city and region. Affirmative action programs helped minority and women-owned businesses to participate. He helped arrange for the upgrade of the then-William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport's huge terminal (now Domestic Terminal) to modern standards. Jackson strongly opposed the construction of freeways through in-town neighborhoods, knowing that such actions destroyed thriving communities.

Jackson was mayor through the period when the separate Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) obtained a large amount of Federal funding for a rapid-transit rail-line system, when construction began, and when MARTA began its first rail transit service in Atlanta and in DeKalb County in 1979 and during its continual expansion thereafter. As mayor, he celebrated in September 1990 when Atlanta was selected as the host city for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. As mayor, he accepted the Olympic flag at the 1992 closing ceremonies in Barcelona, Spain. He oversaw the completion of many planned public works projects, such as improvements to freeways and parks, and the completion of Freedom Parkway, which were expedited from 1990 to 1996 in preparation for the Olympic Games that began in August 1996.

During Jackson's second term as mayor, the Atlanta Child Murders were ongoing between 1979 and 1981. He supported the Atlanta Police and other police forces in the area but also worked to calm public tensions aroused by the serial killings of black children. The accused killer, Wayne Williams, was caught in 1981. Williams was convicted to serve two consecutive life sentences for the murder of two adult males, but never charged with or tried for the murder of any of the child victims. He is currently being held in Telfair State Prison.

In 1974, Jackson received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

Controversy

Maynard Jackson provoked a major racial crisis in May 1974 when he attempted to fire the incumbent white police chief, John Inman. Jackson believed the change was needed to grapple with Atlanta's growing crime problem and charges by the black community of police racial insensitivity toward African Americans. Whites opposed the firing and racial tensions rose, detracting from Atlanta's proud motto: "too busy to hate."

In August 1974 Mayor Jackson appointed A. Reginald Eaves, a college friend and fellow activist, as Public Safety Commissioner. Eaves was criticized for lacking police experience. He generated controversy by appointing an ex-convict as his personal secretary but was criticized more for what was considered as a system of quota promotions and hiring in the police department, which many decried as "reverse discrimination."

Jackson fired Eaves after revelation of a police exam cheating scandal. Eaves was later convicted by a federal jury of extortion in 1988 after selling his vote on two rezonings.

Atlanta's crime

In addition to the 1979–1981 Atlanta Child Murders mentioned above, residents were concerned about a rising crime rate during Mayor Jackson's tenure, which was consistent with national trends. In 1979, with a soaring murder rate and nationwide publicity about crime there, Georgia Governor George Busbee, acting on a request from Mayor Maynard Jackson, called in Georgia State Patrol troopers to help patrol the downtown. The business community accused Mayor Jackson and Police Chief George Napper of dismissing public concerns about crime. Atlanta had the highest murder rate and the highest overall crime rate of any city, and the numbers were rapidly climbing higher, with a 69% increase in homicides between 1978 and 1979 alone. Much of it was considered driven by drug wars.

Service to the Democratic National Committee

After leaving office as mayor, Jackson continued to be active with the Democratic Party. In 2001 he unsuccessfully sought the post as the Democratic National Committee chairman, losing to the fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe, who had the backing of former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Jackson was backed by presidential candidate Bill Bradley, among others.

Jackson was appointed as the National Development Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and was the first Chairman of the DNC Voting Rights Institute. In 2002, he founded the American Voters League, a non-profit and non-partisan effort to increase national voter participation. He appeared briefly in the 2001 documentary Startup.com.

Legacy and honors

In 2008 the Southside Comprehensive High School was renamed the Maynard Holbrook Jackson High School.

In 2003, Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport had Jackson's name added to it, and in 2012 the airport's new international terminal was named for him.

In 2015 a documentary film about his life and work, entitled Maynard, was in preparation, directed by Samuel D. Pollard. It is expected to be released in 2016.

The Maynard Documentary was officially selected by DOC NYC to premiere at their film festival on November 16, 2017.

Death

Jackson died in 2003 at the age of 65, of a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Arlington, Virginia after suffering a heart attack at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. His remains are buried at the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

#03/23 #06/23

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mermaidsirennikita · 5 years ago

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August 2019 Reading Wrap-up

Easily the highlight of my reading month was Leigh Bardugo’s King of Scars, AKA “My Monster Boyfriend: THE NOVEL”, but it was overall a decent month for me. In terms of being engrossed, I would say that Erin Ferencik’s Into the Jungle, a classic survival thriller, was probably the other major standout. Excited about fall reading this year!

Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams. 2/5. Virginia arrives in Cocoa Beach with her small daughter to collect upon her dead husband’s estate. The issue? Virginia and Simon were estranged. After meeting Simon and embarking on a whirlwind romance against the battlefields of World War I, Virginia discovered that he was not what she thought, and is now confronted with the realities of her husband’s life--and his death in a fire, which she does not believe was all it seemed... I never connected with Williams’s style in the book. She’s obviously talented, and I’m not against trying a different book of hers, but--much of the novel is flashbacks to Simon and Virginia’s romance, and I think you need to buy into Simon in order to enjoy the novel. I did not.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo. 5/5. In a follow-up to Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy, Nikola, now King of Ravka, is hiding a terrible secret from his people. Still struggling with demons both personal and literal, he hunts for a cure alongside Zoya, his adviser, while attempting to strengthen a nation weakened by war, and quell a continuing fascination among the people with the Darkling. I can’t say much more without spoiling two different series--as a main character from the Six of Crows duology is also a POV character here--but this was SO GOOD. I feel like I might have liked it more than anything else Bardugo has done? Though I did love Six of Crows so much. I feel like she’s grown a lot as a writer since the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which was honestly just okay for me--but how much of that was just me not connecting with Alina? Here we visit Ravka again, but with more compelling characters. And I adored it. Nikolai and Zoya’s side of the story is my favorite, and I need those two just MAKE IT FUCKING WORK. Can’t wait for the next book. And yes, I loved the ending.

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. 3/5. As World War II looms, young Tatiana lives in Leningrad with her family. In a chance meeting, she encounters Alexander--a Soviet soldier with a mysterious past--and they immediately connect, only for her to discover that he is already seeing her older sister. Once the war starts, however, Tatiana and Alexander are plunged into the realities of fighting for their lives, and while also holding back their true feelings for each other. I read this years ago and gave it 4 stars; I had to dial it back a bit here. The tension between Tatiana and Alexander is great, and I respect the way Simons portrays the horrors of war from a Soviet perspective. But the book hasn’t aged super well, not only in terms of Alexander and Tatiana being a bit cipher-y, but the very... odd way that the Russian perspective is handled. Simons emigrated to the States, but did so as a young teen from what I can tell. Obviously, for reasons her family can attest to. But I felt like I was getting a very... anti-Russian Russian perspective? And it overwhelmed the emotional aspects of the story. Plus, it was just too long for what was essentially, overall, a romance novel.

Scandals of Classic Hollywood by Anne Helen Petersen. 3/5. Anne Helen Petersen takes on scandals from the beginnings of Hollywood the the 1960s, examining what happened and how the stars--and the systems backing them--dealt with the public fallout. That’s pretty much it. This is a collection of essays, really, and while I appreciate the work Petersen put into it and the shrewd observations she makes, I would have liked a BIT more detail on the scandals themselves, versus what they meant on a larger scale.

The Whisper Network by Chandler Baker. 4/5. Attorneys at a high-powered at TruViv, Inc., Sloan, Ardie, and Grace have forged a friendship and alliance, of sorts. Then TruViv’s CEO dies--leaving the position open for Ames Garrett, their boss, to take. Sloan has her own personal issues with Ames, stemming from a years-old affair that he never fully forgave her for ending; but the women’s concerns hit a fever pitch when Catherine, a new hire, reveals that Ames harassed her. As the lawyers’ paths cross with that of Rosalita, a member of the cleaning staff, the consequences are not just high stakes, but deadly. I listened to this on Audible, and I’ll admit that my enjoyment was somewhat affected by the fact that the narrator had the most put-on Texas accent for Sloan on the face of the Earth, and I wasn’t... 100% sure about what she was doing for Rosalita either. But the novel is not only timely but exciting. Ames isn’t a cartoonish figure. Nor are the women saints. Sloan in particular can be borderline insufferable, but in a way that I found realistic for a privileged, high-powered white woman. Do I think Baker could have called out that aspect better, especially since Rosalita, a POV character, isn’t white or rich? Yes. And towards the end, there was one reveal that seemed tacked on just for the sake of symmetry. But then there was that OTHER reveal............. and that, I loved. It’s a bit of a mixed bag of a book, but entertaining and timely.

Into the Jungle by Erin Ferencik. 4/5. Nineteen-year-old Lily has lived in foster homes for all of her life. In an effort to make a new start, she moves to Bolivia for a teaching job that ends up being a scam, and finds herself working at a run-down hotel. That’s when she meets Omar, a Bolivian man, and is swept off her feet. When Omar receives news that his nephew was killed by a jaguar, his compelled to return to his home of Ayachero, a village deep within the Bolivian jungle. Despite his warnings, Lily follows him, only to find herself not only completely out of her depth culturally, but at the mercy of the jungle and all that comes with it. This book had fucking atmosphere. I felt all of it. The romance, the terror, the increasing danger of the jungle. It was kind of a classic woman vs. nature novel. It’s probably one of my favorite books of the year--but I’m held back from rating it higher because it was written by a white woman, and most of the characters are native Bolivians and I tend to wonder about how accurate or fair the portrayal of that culture is. I just felt uncomfortable at some points--but I can’t say if that was justified or not. I would recommend it as a thriller, of sorts, but not in a traditional sense. It’s certainly compelling.

Year One by Norah Roberts. 2/5. After the chance killing of a bird, a pandemic begins to spread throughout the word, killing off billions of people in a matter of weeks. Those that are left to survive do so in a perilous environment, with the Uncanny--people with magical abilities--targeted in some areas while rising up in others. Lana, a witch, traveled with her lover Max in an effort to find a safe place, alongside others who are Immune from the Doom--only to find that she’s a much greater part of the world’s fate than she would have though. The beginning of this book was great. Then the urban fantasy elements set in. I love urban fantasy, but the introduction of fairies and elves didn’t work well here.

How to Walk Away by Katherine Center. 4/5. On the day that she gets engaged to her boyfriend, Chip, Margaret is injured in an accident that will change her life forever. Waking up in the hospital with third degree burns and having lost her ability to walk, her relationships with her partner and her family are immediately altered, and she struggles to see what the future could hold. At the same time, she’s partnered with Ian, a brusque and demanding physical therapist--who ends up bringing even more questions. As Margaret seeks a new identity, she discovers support where she would have least expected it. This is a fluffy romcom of a book, while dealing with a serious issue--and though this is being compared to be Me Before You, I tend to think it handles that issue in a much healthier way. The book certainly benefits from being from the perspective of the disabled person, versus a caregiver. On the flipside, I do think that it suffered somewhat in the romantic department, which could probably be critiqued better by someone who has been in a wheelchair; part of me felt like, had there been less fluff and more physicality, I would have been more invested. But while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, this is a nice story if you’re looking for something light and quick without sacrificing emotion.

Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie. 4/5. A biography on Catherine the Great, attempting to tackle her as a woman. I don’t know what else to say. It was good? Nothing super in depth, doesn’t bring anything particularly NEW to the table from what I’ve read, but it seems like a good primer.

#books #reading wrap up #book recs

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years ago

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Events 6.29

226 – Cao Rui succeeds his father as emperor of the Kingdom of Wei. 1149 – Raymond of Poitiers is defeated and killed at the Battle of Inab by Nur ad-Din Zangi. 1194 – Sverre is crowned King of Norway, leading to his excommunication by the Catholic Church and civil war. 1444 – Skanderbeg defeats an Ottoman invasion force at Torvioll. 1457 – The Dutch city of Dordrecht is devastated by fire 1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island. 1613 – The Globe Theatre in London, built by William Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, burns to the ground. 1644 – Charles I of England defeats a Parliamentarian detachment at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. 1659 – At the Battle of Konotop the Ukrainian armies of Ivan Vyhovsky defeat the Russians led by Prince Trubetskoy. 1786 – Alexander Macdonell and over five hundred Roman Catholic highlanders leave Scotland to settle in Glengarry County, Ontario. 1807 – Russo-Turkish War: Admiral Dmitry Senyavin destroys the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Athos. 1850 – Autocephaly officially granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Church of Greece. 1864 – At least 99 people, mostly German and Polish immigrants, are killed in Canada's worst railway disaster after a train fails to stop for an open drawbridge and plunges into the Rivière Richelieu near St-Hilaire, Quebec. 1874 – Greek politician Charilaos Trikoupis publishes a manifesto in the Athens daily Kairoi entitled "Who's to Blame?" leveling complaints against King George. Trikoupis is elected Prime Minister of Greece the next year. 1880 – France annexes Tahiti, renaming the independent Kingdom of Tahiti as "Etablissements de français de l'Océanie". 1881 – In Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad declares himself to be the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer of Islam. 1888 – George Edward Gouraud records Handel's Israel in Egypt onto a phonograph cylinder, thought for many years to be the oldest known recording of music. 1889 – Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships vote to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest United States city in area and second largest in population at the time. 1915 – The North Saskatchewan River flood of 1915 is the worst flood in Edmonton history. 1916 – British diplomat turned Irish nationalist Roger Casement is sentenced to death for his part in the Easter Rising. 1922 – France grants 1 km2 at Vimy Ridge "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes". 1927 – The Bird of Paradise, a U.S. Army Air Corps Fokker tri-motor, completes the first transpacific flight, from the mainland United States to Hawaii. 1945 – The Soviet Union annexes the Czechoslovak province of Carpathian Ruthenia. 1950 – Korean War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman authorizes a sea blockade of Korea. 1952 – The First Miss Universe was held. Armi Kuusela from Finland wins the title of Miss Universe 1952. 1956 – The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System. 1972 – The United States Supreme Court rules in the case Furman v. Georgia that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. 1974 – Vice President Isabel Perón assumes powers and duties as Acting President of Argentina, while her husband President Juan Peron is terminally ill. 1974 – Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with the Kirov Ballet. 1975 – Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of Apple I computer. 1976 – The Seychelles become independent from the United Kingdom. 1976 – The Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe convenes in East Berlin. 1987 – Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, the Le Pont de Trinquetaille, was bought for $20.4 million at an auction in London, England. 1995 – Space Shuttle program: STS-71 Mission (Atlantis) docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time. 1995 – The Sampoong Department Store collapses in the Seocho District of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937. 2002 – Naval clashes between South Korea and North Korea lead to the death of six South Korean sailors and sinking of a North Korean vessel. 2006 – Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that President George W. Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law. 2007 – Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone. 2012 – A derecho sweeps across the eastern United States, leaving at least 22 people dead and millions without power. 2014 – The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant self-declared its caliphate in Syria and northern Iraq.

#Events

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thechasefiles · 5 years ago

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 8/1/2020

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Wednesday January 8th, 2020. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Midweek Nation Newspaper (MWN).

GIVE YOUTH A STAKE IN PROJECT – As residents in Nelson Street welcome plans for a City facelift outlined by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, they are also calling on authorities to give young people from the area a piece of the pie. Several residents told Barbados TODAY that while they accepted that the development will inconvenience them in some way, they believe it would be fair if young men, are hired on the construction sites. In a national broadcast last Thursday, Prime Minister Mottley announced that in addition to the Hyatt project, there will be the construction of the Golden Square Freedom Park and the completion of the Fairchild Street Market Village which will be equipped to house 100 vending stalls. To pave way for the redevelopment of The City under the Bridgetown Transformation Project, the former National Insurance Building on Fairchild Street, and the Barbados Fire Service headquarters on Probyn Street, and nearby markets, will be demolished. Thirty-year-old Andel Joseph who has lived in the area all his life, said there were too many skilled young people wasting time on the blocks who need work. “I would like them to help young people get some work when them start to rebuild because it ain’t nothing going on and young people want something to do. “I would like them to get some work and keep off the streets. Them just on the blocks with nothing to do and all about violence and guns,” Joseph said. A business operator said while he also embraced the project which would give Bridgetown a much-needed facelift, he hoped there was a plan to get young people involved in the process. “The young people need work too. And it would only be fair that the young men from Nelson Street benefit from this deal since all the changes happening right around them in their home,” the operator said. Meanwhile, another resident who referred to himself as Mr Butcher, lamented that people must accept that change was constant. He views the project as a win for City residents because it has the potential to enhance the lives of the poor by making opportunities available. “I believe that we should not allow material things and objects to stand in our way of progress. In order for us to progress as a small nation, we have to make sacrifices. So the building might be a historic place, but sometimes, as the old saying goes, old things bring new. “And remember that we are a generation that is looking for progress. In my opinion getting rid of these derelict buildings is no problem once the land space is going to good use,” the resident said. Vendors renting space in the area of the Fairchild Street Terminal also have to move to accommodate the demolition. Many of the vendors who complained that they received word that an area close to the River Terminal has been earmarked to temporary relocate them, said they were otherwise clueless. In fact, one sidewalk vendor declared that markets were a waste of time since customers preferred to purchase their fruits and vegetables at the side of the road. “You go any part of the Caribbean and you have vendors outside selling. The tourists come to see people outside selling. Go to the Jamaica and you got hair doing right here on the road, and people selling. Putting people in a market is caging up people in a space that customers ain’t coming to support them,” the vendor said. “These people trying to squeeze poor people. Where are people going to go when you shut down the area for six weeks? Them catering for the rich people, but we poor people need to survive out here too. And speaking out don’t work for poor people, because this is Barbados,” the vendor added. Longtime vendor Henrietta Joseph said she believed that the proposed Fairchild Street Market Village should have been built before the buildings are demolished. “They should do the market first so that everybody would be off the road when they are breaking down in there,” Joseph said. (BT)

US WANTS TO SHIP MORE GOODS HERE – The United States, already with a $1 billion annual trade advantage over Barbados, is looking to export more goods here. Between May 31 and June 1, the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, in partnership with the US Department of State, will bring a trade mission of 20 to 30 American companies to Barbados/Eastern Caribbean, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname, The Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago. It will include a Trade Americas-Business Opportunities In The Caribbean Region Conference in Barbados, and is coming as latest data showed that in the last ten years alone, Barbados imported goods worth $10.81 billion from the US, and sold the Americans $1.08 billion, leaving a $9.73 billion trade deficit in that period. Latest figures released yesterday by the US Census Bureau showed that up to the end of November, Barbados bought $1.04 billion in goods from the US and exported $78.2 million worth there. (MWN)

CRUISE RECORD – Barbados has a new record for cruise passenger arrivals in a single year. Barbados Port Inc. (BPI) is reporting 853 200 arrivals from 422 cruise ship calls for January to December 2019, a three per cent increase over the 2018 figure of 826 267 passengers from 437 vessels. It surpassed the previous high of 827 486 visitors in 2017, when the island benefited from the redeployment of ships from other Caribbean destinations ravaged by hurricanes that year. Director of cruise at the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), Cheryl Franklyn, yesterday described it as a “fantastic performance”. She told the MIDWEEK NATION that with this rate of growth, it was necessary to ensure Barbados continued to meet the demand and maintain its competitive edge by building out capacity to handle the mega ships being turned out. (MWN)

VENDORS AND BTI IN PROBYN-FAIRCHILD STREETS RELOCATION DEAL – Tensions among vendors operating along Fairchild Street and areas surrounding Probyn Street appeared to ease this afternoon after reaching a tentative agreement on relocation to make way for a makeover of Probyn Street, Golden Square and Fairchild Street. Barbados Association of Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs (BARVEN) told Barbados TODAY that its members have been given “satisfactory” temporary accommodations to ply their trade while the old National Insurance Building and the Fire Service headquarters are demolished. The resolution was reached following a near three-hour long meeting between the vendors’ representative and the project developers, the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc (BTI), at the BTI’s offices. Under the agreement, vendors are to be moved to the northeast of the area to the pathway along the Constitution River at the rear entrance to the Fairchild Street Bus Terminal, said BARVEN president Alister Alexander. Work is to be done to make the area “pedestrian-friendly” and temporary stalls are to be set up, he added. Alexander said: “Right now, we don’t want to dwell in the past and we are happy that this has been sorted out because in the end we will benefit from the development, which also includes a new Fairchild Street market.” During her address to the nation last week, Prime Minister Mia Mottley revealed plans for a City facelift that include the Golden Square Freedom Park and the completion of the Fairchild Street Market Village. Mottley said 100 new vending stalls are to built at the market. Vendors operating near the construction zone were informed that they would be required to relocate, although many complained that they were not told where to go. Last Thursday, an upset Alexander told Barbados TODAY that the vendors felt disrespected since they were not given the opportunity to meet with authorities and discuss a viable solution to the challenges. He stressed that if such an approach was not taken, the vendors would not comply. The letters informed them that the section of Fairchild Street opposite the old NIS Building is to be closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and that the nature of the work would prevent vendors from operating from their current locations. This afternoon, a clearly relieved Alexander explained that the temporary relocation could actually result in an uptick in business for vendors. He predicted that more foot traffic will be funnelled to their businesses at the river pathway, as the cordoned off construction area, would require bus terminal users to pass by their stalls. Joyann Haigh, whose firm, Haigh Communications, is handling the project’s public relations, explained that a similar provision would be made for vendors operating within the Fairchild Street terminal as well as the vendors operating around the Probyn Street fire station. Noting that disruption is expected of traffic, pedestrians and businesses within the area, Haigh told Barbados TODAY: “We have quite a number of players involved in this, so we are dealing with BARVEN first and then we are moving on to the other vendors at the Transport Board as well as those under the Ministry of Agriculture. “Everybody has something different happening in each section, what may impact the vendors on the bridge, may not necessarily impact the kiosks elsewhere. “So there are different solutions for different groups and that is why we had to do things step by step starting with BARVEN.” (BT)

TIME NOW TO SWITCH TO GREEN ENERGY – Current tensions between the United States of America and Iran should serve as a stark reminder to Barbados and other regional economies of the need to urgently make the switch to renewable energy. This is the warning from noted regional economist Marla Dukharan, who also issued a call for urgency in greater regional integration. Her call comes as Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Edward Clarke called for greater vigilance in light of the geopolitical development. Oil prices have risen sharply in recent days to a near four-month high, following the US airstrike near the Baghdad airport that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. On Tuesday, Iran attacked US forces in Iraq. Pundits have predicted that oil prices could continue to rise, and that a prolonged oil surge could raise the risk of a global recession. Oil prices rose above US$70 a barrel for the first time since September. About a fifth of the global oil supply flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping route between Oman and Iran. Dukharan told Barbados TODAY while the US/Iran tension could benefit some oil producing nations in the region, the overall effect will be negative. “The current escalation in geopolitical tensions, taking with it crude oil prices, are clear reminders to all of us non-energy producers of the importance of switching to renewable and sustainable energy sources,” said Dukharan. She said: “The implications of recent events may have positive implications for crude oil producers such as Guyana, Suriname and to a lesser extent Trinidad and Tobago, which are not oil importers, but natural gas exporters. But overall, I believe that the effect on the region and globally, would be net negative.” Pointing out that the global economy was in “great stagnation”, Dukharan is further predicting that more geopolitical developments could be on the horizon. “The current surge of insularity and the concomitant retreat in multilateralism in and of itself fuels this global stagnation, and the de facto denial of its very existence,” she said. “The current escalating aggressions will exacerbate uncertainty, curb investment, and therefore perpetuate the weak economic performance we have been seeing for a decade,” said the economist. Adding that “this great stagnation will be our new normal in the next decade”, Dukharan said it would be characterized by more “geopolitical posturing and tensions”, recessionary levels of international trade, investment and therefore growth, persistent inequality and poverty, all of which create the feedback mechanism to perpetuate the loop. She suggested that the region double its efforts towards greater integration as a mechanism to safeguard against any major fallout from international geopolitical tensions. “As the Honorable Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados has been campaigning hard for, we need to urgently pursue greater regional integration, as we will all be stronger together, and better equipped by amplifying each other’s strengths and compensating for each other’s weaknesses, to face our many challenges together – be it volatile commodity prices, climate change, or otherwise,” Dukharan explained. “But as the Prime Minister has lamented repeatedly, we face a chronic crisis of political will in this region to truly execute on the integration dreams we have had for generations,” she added. Meanwhile, Clarke expressed concern that any continued rise in oil prices could put a strain on the island’s international reserves. The private sector head told Barbados TODAYthere was no doubt any tension in the Middle East would drive up oil prices and that would have a negative impact on the Barbados economy. “So we have to watch this carefully and see how it develops. Not only that, but any increase in tension in any threats by these countries towards the USA could also impact tourism,” he pointed out. Though stating that the extent of the impact on the region’s bread and butter industry would be difficult to predict, Clarke said it was necessary for officials to stay alert. “We have to watch patiently and hope that commonsense prevails with these leaders and that the world stay at peace. “The cost of oil and petroleum products will certainly have a very negative impact on Barbados and the foreign exchange of Barbados. So we’ve got to keep our eyes fixed on it and pray and hope that peace and commonsense prevail in all of this,” insisted Clarke. (BT)

BARBADIANS ALL FOR BREATHALYSERS – Barbadians say they are looking forward to when breathalyser testing finally shifts into gear, with some reflecting on close calls or witnessing the aftermath of impaired driving. The devices were expected to be introduced on January 1 after Minister of Transport, Works and Maintenance Dr William Duguid said late last year they would be on stream by this month. However, Minister in that ministry, Peter Phillips, recently said the devices would be now introduced in “due course”. Grace-Ann Cumberbatch, one of the motorists who spoke to the MIDWEEK NATION yesterday on the issue, told of nearly being involved in a collision with a drunk driver. (MWN)

DLP EX-MINISTER BACKS ‘LONG OVERDUE’ BREATHALYZER – The man who piloted the amended Road Traffic Act in 2017, which gives police officers the authority to request a breath sample from drivers suspected to be under the influence, says he is happy that the Mia Mottley-led administration is now ready to enforce this law. Former Minister of Transport and Works Michael Lashley, Q.C. believes both the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration and the current Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Government, dragged their feet in seeing the law through to implementation. However, in a recent interview with Barbados TODAY, the former Member of Parliament contended that it was better late than never. “When we looked at the breathalyser test, we were always looking at international standards and the fact that Barbados had signed on to the conventions on road safety. With that in mind there was always one glaring omission. At the time we were making sure that we had buy-in from all of the stakeholders, but I believe that breathalyser testing is something that is badly needed and long overdue, so I am glad that it has been finally implemented,” said Lashley. He argued, as he did three years ago from the floor of Parliament, that the measure would go a long way in reducing the country’s road fatality statistics, which have reached double figures in the last three years. “I remember bringing the Road Traffic Act amendments in Parliament and those were accepted by both Houses. We also had a series of meetings to determine the best device. So, putting aside politics I am really happy that it is finally here. We’ve had quite a number of road fatalities in recent times and we can see the effects late at night and sometimes early in the morning when persons are coming from parties,” he explained. However, the former transport minister, who has now returned to his private practice as an attorney-at-law, told Barbados TODAY that Barbadians can expect some teething problems when the breathalyser testing is fully rolled out. He explained that it was likely to be some trial and error in the process, as this was uncharted territory for the law courts. “I believe initially they are going to be some problems because it is a new area that we are going into when it comes to road safety. So obviously police officers have to be trained and in terms of giving the evidence. I expect in the first couple of months there would be some kinks but as long as the prosecutors and police are trained, the problems should all be worked out. We as the defense lawyers also have a job to do ensuring that the proper procedure is adhered to,” he said, noting that Barbados can pull from the experience of other countries which have implemented breathalyser testing. Last November, Minister of Transport and Works Dr William Duguid put would-be drunk drivers on notice that breathalyser testing was coming in January. His announcement came well over a year after government promised the apparatus would be implemented within “a matter of weeks”. “My ministry is at an advanced stage with respect to the use of breathalyser testing of drivers of vehicles. The introduction of such testing will certainly go a long way in ensuring the safety of the travelling public and we anticipate that this will be instituted in January of 2020,” he said at the time. Motorists found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol face fines of $5,000 or two years in prison. Police officers will be carrying out the tests with a handheld Portable Breath Test (PBT) which provides a measurement of a driver’s deep lung alcohol concentration or breath alcohol and the current limit is 35 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 milliliters of breath. (BT)

STUNT CYCLISTS’ CONTROL ‘MARGINAL’, RBPF ADMITS – Efforts to control rogue motorcyclists, whose reckless stunts endanger motorists, pedestrians and themselves have yielded only “marginal” results, the Royal Barbados Police Force admitted today, suggesting instead that education and law enforcement will be needed to control their attempts to defy the laws of the land and gravity. For a decade, individuals and group riders on noisy off-road motorcycles have been weaving in and out of vehicles and even among pedestrians, pulling “wheelies”, standing on one leg while balancing the motorcycle on one wheel, and other attempted antics that have endangered public safety and flouted the Road Traffic Act. In light of a viral video showing a young man riding at high speed through Bridgetown while standing on one leg and balancing the motorcycle on one wheel, Superintendent Antonio Forte of the RBPF’s Traffic Division described the behaviour as a “perennial problem”. Superintendent Forte said: “For some time now we have been looking at different traffic management approaches to deal with this situation, but you will always have daredevils who will try to flout the laws, and unless we take some draconian measures, it is difficult to control.” The senior police officer, while noting similar behaviour is a problem in other countries as well, said: “One method we can use is public education, where we remind people of how they should use the road. “Another is direct enforcement of the laws, and while we have tried to enforce the law, our results have been marginal at best, but it is not something we are ignoring.” He also outlined the potential dangers of going after these motorcyclists on the road. He said: “In many instances, these bikes are unregistered and the riders are wearing full face helmets, and when they are travelling at high speeds, were we to pursue them, it could result in a situation that is perilous to all road users. “Nevertheless, we are well aware of the issue and we are seeking to address it over time.” (BT)

SENATOR RELIVING GUN INCIDENT – Weeks after being robbed at gunpoint in the village where he was born and raised, Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn is being haunted by the ugly memories of that night. Franklyn said the incident has left him so traumatised that he believes the time has come for persons who carry out unlawful acts to face stiffer penalties, like years in jail, when they go before the law courts. “I am now recovering. But I can still see this gun in my face ever so often. It ain’t like I could just turn it off. In my quiet moments I keep remembering it,” he told Barbados TODAY. The incident reportedly occurred just before midnight on Friday, December 20, 2019, at Rock Hall, St Thomas where Franklyn and several others were playing dominoes. It has left the quiet community shocked. The Senator, who indicated that he left the island to go on vacation the following day, said during his ten-day stay in St Lucia he struggled through many sleepless nights reminiscing on how the situation could have ended differently. “The people who were there with me are people that I know when they were born. Some of them around the same age with me. Two of the people that got robbed, are unemployed. One fella had BDS$7 and change in his pocket. Them ain’t people that you want to rob, not that you should rob anybody at all. “That is Rock Hall, St Thomas, nothing don’t happen in Rock Hall, St Thomas. I was within yards from the spot where I was born. My navel string bury around that same place,” he said. Stating that he would not allow thugs to control his life, Franklyn said he has since returned to the scene, but has been more vigilant. “I thought a murder was going to happen you know. I was there stiff waiting for the bullet to enter me because the guy was nervous. The guy that was searching my pocket, he was trembling. The guy with the shotgun seemed to be the guy in control and was giving the orders and stuff. They were under his control but not confident in what they were doing. They were like recruits to the trade. “But I think he recognized me and he stepped back and took the gun out of my face and when he did that that calmed the situation. But I was thinking about my friends and hoping that they did nothing to aggravate the situation,” Franklyn said. The trade unionist related that when the guys left the spot, they headed to a nearby location where a resident was shot just above his kneecap. “He shot and because it wasn’t a good shot he hit the knee,” Franklyn said. The senator advised those in the judicial system that when sentencing perpetrators of serious crime, the punishment administered should be just as harsh as the crime. “If a fella knows that if he rob somebody and he get catch he gine get lock up next week, and he will spend a good long time round there, I think that would be some sort of deterrent. But no, fellas are out for years on bail. “The police do their job but then the system fail the police and fail the citizens of Barbados. The police catch you and they let you go to let you do it again,” he said. “We need long stiff sentences for these fools. If somebody want to put somebody’s life in danger, he should spend a good part of his life away from the population. And he shouldn’t be telling you about he had 2,000 days on remand and if you can give he time off. When you catch a fella his punishment should be swift and stiff,” Franklyn continued. The person shot during the robbery received medical attention and has since been released. (BT)

HEARING ADJOURNED ON THREAT CHARGE – A St Michael man was today granted bail after denying that he told a woman he would “blow off her face”. When he appeared in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court Nathaniel Lerone Gooding, a 39-year-old labourer of Lower Deacons Road, pleaded not guilty to using the threatening words, “I would barely blow off your face, I would come back up here and shoot the two of wanna when wanna together”, to Nadelia Piggott, with intent to cause her to believe that unlawful violence would be used against her. There were no objections to bail and Magistrate Douglas Frederick released him on $3,000 bail. Gooding will reappear in court on May 5. (BT)

KNOWN CRIMINAL WILL SPEND 12 MONTHS IN PRISON – Two unbelievable stories presented by known thief Terry Corey Alexander Waldron in his defence, were not enough to prevent him from being imprisoned. The 39-year-old unemployed man of Lot 75 Parish Land, Christ Church will spend the next 12 months behind bars after he admitted to two offences today. Waldron pleaded guilty to loitering on the premises of Claudia Scott with reason to suspect he was about to commit an arrestable offence on December 25 and December 27, 2019. The court heard from prosecutor Sergeant Vernon Waithe that the complainant lives at the residence with her 19-year-old son. There is a studio apartment attached to the residence. On Christmas Day, the German visitor who was staying at the apartment was in the backyard when she saw the accused jump over the rear fence. She shouted at him and he ran off in the direction of the house where he was confronted by the complainant and her son. The son questioned him about why he was on the premises, but he ran off. Two days later, the visitor was asleep in bed around 2 a.m. when she heard moaning noises. She got up and realized that her curtains had been pulled and saw the accused sitting in a chair with his hand on his penis masturbating. She screamed and the accused ran off in the direction of Dover. He was eventually apprehended by police. However, when asked by Magistrate Douglas Frederick if he had anything to say, Waldron gave two excuses. He first claimed that on Christmas Day he was socializing with some friends when a fight broke out. Waldron said during that fight he was “getting beat up” and was lashed on his hand. He said in an attempt to get away he jumped over the fence and hid, but someone saw him and “holler out”, so he ran away. Waldron claimed he only returned on the premises two days later because he had lost his chain. He said he went to the area with a flashlight to look for the jewelry. But Magistrate Frederick did not believe those claims. A check of Waldron’s conviction card revealed he had been found guilty of loitering, stealing and burglary. The magistrate sentenced him to 12 months at HMP Dodds for the first offence and three months for the latter. The sentences will run concurrently. (BT)

WINDIES CRUSH IRISH – Whether it was mashed Irish potatoes or fast food on the menu at Kensington Oval last night, the greedy West Indies’ batsmen seemed in a hurry to eat a bellyful. Only opener Evin Lewis stayed for a full-course meal but didn’t have the satisfaction of savouring the taste of a century as the West Indies whipped Ireland by five wickets in the first day/night Colonial Medical Insurance One-Day International. Chasing Ireland’s modest total of 180 in 46.3 overs, West Indies ended on 184 for five in 33.2 overs, with Lewis one short of a third ODI century on 99 not out off 99 balls. The Trinidadian left-hander struck 13 fours and two sixes in his knock but needing to hit a six to get his century with the scores level, Lewis lofted fast bowler Barry McCarthy over extra cover only to drop to his knees as the ball landed agonisingly a few inches inside the boundary. (BT)

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR PRIDE OF BARBADOS AWARDS – Barbadians are invited to nominate fellow citizens for the 2020 Pride of Barbados Award for St Peter. Nominees must be persons who, through sacrifice, diligence and dedication to service, have made outstanding contributions to community life or to the improvement of economic and social conditions in this parish. The deadline for submissions for St Peter is February 7. No nominations will be accepted by hand or mail. The nomination form may be accessed via the following link -https://Barbados.seamlessgov.com/prideofbarbados. The Pride of Barbados Award shall be conferred on persons who reside or have resided in a parish in Barbados, and who have been nominated by citizens or permanent residents of Barbados living in the respective parish, or who now live outside of Barbados. (BGIS)

There are 359 days left in the year Shalom! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

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becausewecareatlanta · 6 years ago

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April 27th- Stockbridge City Councilman Elton Alexander will host the community event titled “Trail Alive” on Saturday, April 27, 2019 from 10 am to 1 pm at Reeves Creek Trail in Stockbridge, Georgia. This family fun event is free and open to the public. The walk, run or cycle event will highlight the importance of staying active and fit as a thriving community while advocating for more sidewalks and trails in Henry County. The 1.5 mile trail event will take place at the popular and scenic Reeves Creek Trail located at 106 Jennings Way in Stockbridge, Georgia. "The 2019 Trail Alive in Stockbridge will focus on health and wellness. It's vital for communities to stay active. It's important that we continue to provide multi use trails connecting our community so it continues to be a safe, walkable and pedestrian friendly city, " said Stockbridge Councilman Elton Alexander. "This event is open to all, including teams and groups. We will have several bike teams joining us, including teams from the Henry County Sheriff's Office, the Henry County Police Department and the Henry County Fire Department. We would love to see everyone come out." All community members are encouraged to attend the event which will feature free giveaways, refreshments, and fresh fruit. This year's event will also feature Veda Wright of Wright One Fitness conducting a warmup class for participants. Previous Trail Alive https://www.facebook.com/1180099140/posts/10212264078295355?sfns=mo #Stockbridgega #Active #TrailAlive2019 (NABJ) National Association of Black Journalists Connecting Henry 11Alive WSB-TV Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area PATH Foundation 100 Black Men of Atlanta, Inc. The Henry County Times Atlanta BeltLine Aerotropolis Atlanta Alliance Friends of Panola (Panola Mountain State Park GA-USA) ChooseATL. #stockbridgega #atlanta #Runners (at Memorial Park, Stockbridge) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwuRC9fhgkc/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2u5g9jppeqb6

#stockbridgega #active #trailalive2019 #atlanta #runners

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blackkudos · 8 years ago

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Maynard Jackson

Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr. (March 23, 1938 – June 23, 2003) was an American politician and attorney from Georgia, a member of the Democratic Party, and elected in 1973 at the age of 35 as the first African-American mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and of any major city in the South. He served three terms (1974–82, 1990–94), making him the second longest-serving mayor of Atlanta, after six-term mayor (1937–41, 1942–62) William B. Hartsfield.

He is notable also for public works projects, primarily the new Maynard H. Jackson International terminal at the Atlanta airport, and for greatly increasing minority business participation in the city. After his passing, the Atlanta Hartsfield airport was re-named the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to honor his service to the expansion of the airport, the city and its people.

Family history, background and personal life

Maynard Jackson was born into a family that valued education and political activism. His maternal grandfather was civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs, who worked to successfully overturn the white primary in Georgia. He also gained the hiring of black police officers in Atlanta and lighting of Auburn Street, the main retail street of the black community. Maynard's mother Irene (Dobbs) Jackson was one of his five daughters; all graduated from Spelman College, encouraged by their parents. Irene earned a doctorate in France and became a Professor of French at the college. His father Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Sr. was a Baptist minister from New Orleans. He became active in civil rights in Dallas, Texas, where he had grown up after his family moved. His grandfather Alexander Stephens Jackson had been a Baptist minister and educator in Louisiana and Texas. The young Jackson's father died when he was fifteen; his grandfather Dobbs became even more influential in his life.

Jackson attended Morehouse College, a historically black college for men in Atlanta, graduating in 1956 at the age of eighteen. He had sung in the Morehouse College Glee Club. After attending the Boston University Law School for a short time, Jackson held several jobs, including selling encyclopedias. He returned to graduate studies, attending the North Carolina Central University Law School. He graduated with a law degree in 1964. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Early career

Jackson worked as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board and a legal services firm. He joined the Democratic Party.

Political career

During Jackson's second term as mayor, the Atlanta Child Murders case was active between 1979 and 1981. He supported the Atlanta Police and other police forces in the area but also worked to calm public tensions aroused by the serial killings of black children. The murderer, Wayne Williams, was caught in 1981, tried, convicted, and sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences in prison.

In 1974, Jackson received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

Racial controversy

Jackson fired Eaves after revelation of a police exam cheating scandal. Eaves was later convicted by a federal jury of extortion in 1988 after selling his vote on two rezonings.

Atlanta's crime

Service to the Democratic National Committee

Legacy and honors

In 2008 the Southside Comprehensive High School was renamed the Maynard Holbrook Jackson High School.

In 2003, Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport had Jackson's name added to it, and in 2012 the airport's new international terminal was named for him.

In 2015 a documentary film about his life and work, entitled Maynard, was in preparation, directed by Samuel D. Pollard. It is expected to be released in 2016.

Death

Wikipedia

#Maynard Jackson #03-23 #06-23

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nebris · 8 years ago

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Trump's Art of the Deal and Roy Cohn: “Always Hit Back”

DONALD TRUMP HAS FAILED at many things: his casinos went bankrupt, his “university” collapsed in lawsuits, his TV show was cancelled. But he was hugely successful with one undertaking: his book Trump The Art of the Deal. It was, to use some of his favorite adjectives, something terrific, spending almost a year on the New York Times bestseller list in 1987, including 13 tremendous weeks at Number One. It has sold more than a million copies, earning him millions and millions in royalties. (And it is undoubtedly more successful than almost any book ever written about in LARB.)

Reading the book is a miserable experience, especially now. Every page provides at least one example of what Garry Trudeau calls “big, honking hubris.” And it’s full of lies, of course; lies about his, well, deals.

But Art of the Deal does contain one massively important truth: it explains why he has been so wild in his attacks over the last few months on people he is not running against this year. This conduct has driven Republican political professionals to despair, and seems inexplicable: spending a week tweeting about a Venezuelan beauty queen for gaining weight; going after the Khan family, whose soldier son was killed in Afghanistan; attacking Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican in Congress — when every political strategy requires that he devote all his energy to attacking Hillary Clinton.

Trying to explain his behavior, pundits have said we were witnessing Trump’s “inability to restrain his worse impulses,” or that he “blindly follows his ego,” or that he’s “like a two-year-old” (here and here). And many have been saying he is simply crazy. In fact if you Google “Trump and crazy,” you get 66 million results — starting with President Obama, who said recently that Trump comes from “the swamp of crazy.”

There’s a better explanation. Trump’s statements are not infantile or impulsive or insane, but rather are part of a conscious, consistent, long-term strategy for dealing with criticism and opposition. It’s all there in Art of the Deal, Chapter 5, “The Move to Manhattan,” where Trump tells the story of how in 1973 he managed to join a private club — of course it was “the hottest in the city and perhaps the most exclusive,” and of course its members included “some of the most successful men and the most beautiful women in the world.” It was the kind of place, he wrote, “where you were likely to see a wealthy seventy-five-year-old guy walk in with three blondes from Sweden.” In other words, Trump’s kind of place.

But it wasn’t the blondes at that club that most interested him. It was a New York lawyer named Roy Cohn. For liberals and leftists in New York, Roy Cohn was the personification of evil, the reptilian right-hand man and snarling chief counsel for Joe McCarthy during the darkest days of the blacklist, and later a notorious legal attack dog and fixer for mobsters and corrupt politicians.

Roy Cohn taught young Donald Trump two simple precepts: Always hit back. Never apologize. That’s exactly what we’ve seen Trump doing throughout the campaign, and especially the last several weeks. So if a Venezuelan beauty queen says you treated her cruelly, you say she made a sex tape. If the father of a dead soldier criticizes you on TV, you say he didn’t allow his wife to speak. And if the most powerful Republican in Washington says he won’t defend you any more, you spend days calling him “weak and ineffective.” Because you always hit back. And you never apologize. That’s what Trump learned from the man who became his mentor.

There’s a lot about Roy Cohn that’s not in Art of the Deal. Trump does let his readers know that “I don’t kid myself about Roy. He was no Boy Scout.” Trump left out the story of the first part of Cohn’s career, when he worked as a young federal prosecutor who helped send the Rosenbergs to the electric chair. Then he went to work for McCarthy. Missing from Art of the Deal: the famous photo showing Cohn whispering in McCarthy’s ear during hearings of his Senate committee, where the term “McCarthyism” entered the lexicon.

Also missing from Trump’s book: the story of how, after the fall of McCarthy, Cohn opened his own law office and became what the New York Times called “New York’s most feared lawyer,” with a client list that included mobsters like ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno, accused wife-murderer Claus von Bulow, and, in the words of the Times, “the quasi-reputable George Steinbrenner.”

When Trump met Cohn, the family business was in crisis. Trump was working for his father, Fred, renting out apartments in Queens and Brooklyn. That year the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sued Trump and his father, charging them with refusing to rent to black people. It was the first time Donald Trump’s name appeared in the New York Times. The family lawyers told the Trumps to settle. That’s in the book.

Then Donald met Roy Cohn — Trump was 27, Cohn was 50 — and something clicked between them. Trump told him about the family’s legal problems. This episode provides one of the climactic moments of the book, and one of the key lessons readers are supposed to learn about “the art of the deal.” Cohn’s advice was clear: don’t settle. Hit back. Trump quoted Cohn’s words: “Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court.” The Trumps signed up with him.

Trump’s book is wildly misleading on what happened next, although it’s the story he’s been telling ever since, including in the first debate. He says “we ended up making a minor settlement without admitting any guilt. […] and that was the end of the suit.”

The true story is much richer and more revealing. Cohn’s response to United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump and Trump Management Inc. showed Donald how to deal with opponents: he filed a countersuit against the federal government, calling the Justice Department complaint “baseless” and “irresponsible.” He demanded $100 million in damages — something like half a billion in today’s dollars.

The judge in the case wasn’t impressed. He dismissed the countersuit, calling it “wasting time and paper.” Cohn fought back, accusing the Justice Department of “Gestapo-like tactics.” He called the FBI investigators “storm troopers.” The delays lasted two years, after which the Trumps finally had to settle. The consent decree they signed required that they rent to more black people and that they put ads in black newspapers saying they were an “equal housing opportunity” company. The government press release called the consent decree “one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated.”

Cohn had a different approach: the Trumps’ press released called it a victory. It’s a lot like Trump declaring victory after the presidential debates.

That was the point at which Roy Cohn “became Donald’s mentor,” says Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice, who wrote the 1992 book Trump: The Deals and the Downfall. After that, Cohn was Trump’s “constant adviser on every significant aspect of his business and personal life.” You don’t learn that from Art of the Deal. After the story about the housing discrimination settlement, Roy Cohn appears only once in the rest of the book – getting a tax exemption for Trump Tower in 1981.

One other Roy Cohn story is missing from Art of the Deal: his disbarment in 1986, the year before the book was published. The Bar Association charged Cohn with “fraud, deceit and misrepresentation” — for “lying on a bar application, for taking a client’s money, for altering the will of an incapacitated man,” as Politico explained. In the disbarment proceedings, Cohn received testimonials from Barbara Walters, Geraldine Ferraro, Alan Dershowitz, and William Buckley — and also from Donald Trump, who, according to Alexander Cockburn in The Nation, “testified that Cohn was a fine fellow.” It didn’t work. The five-judge appellate panel said they found Cohn’s explanations “incomprehensible” and “incredible” and his testimony “misleading” and “untruthful.” (Trump didn’t mention his testimony at Roy Cohn’s disbarment proceedings in Art of the Deal. When researchers at The Smoking Gun website asked the courts for a copy of that testimony, they were told that all the records had been destroyed in a 2015 fire at a Brooklyn waterfront warehouse where the New York state court system stored its records.) Five weeks after his disbarment, Roy Cohn died — of AIDS. Fifteen months after that, Art of the Deal was published.

Cohn is long gone, but his tactics have come to dominate our dark political landscape this season — and it’s all there, in Donald Trump’s huge, amazing, tremendous best seller.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/roy-cohn-trump-art-deal-always-hit-back/

#Donald Trump #roy cohn

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jobsearchtips02 · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus upgrade: U.S. case tally climbs up above 2.6 million, and leading Republicans now contact Americans to wear face masks

Cases have actually been increasing in 35 states in the last 14 days, according to a New york city Times tracker, led by California, Texas and Florida. State authorities in Texas, California, Florida, Arizona and Kansas, among others, have actually taken procedures in the previous few days to encourage their residents to stop gathering inside and to observe the measures that health experts state are vital to including the spread– hand cleaning, social distancing and using face masks.

The politicization of face masks has dismayed public health specialists and put the lives of susceptible Americans at higher danger. The Republican leadership has now got the message, and are concerned that President Donald Trump has not, as the Associated Press reported.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, revealed his frustration on Tuesday: “Regrettably, this simple, lifesaving practice has entered into a political argument that states: If you’re for Trump, you do not wear a mask. If you protest Trump, you do.”

Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have actually spoken up in recent days, and both have actually urged Americans to wear masks when they are not able to socially distance.

” Put on a mask– it’s not made complex,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican politician, stated during his weekly press conference on Tuesday.

Cosmetic Surgeon General Jerome Adams agreed.

Research carried out by the University of Washington released last week discovered that more than 30,00 0 deaths might be prevented by October if 95%of Americans wear face masks in public areas, and states might move ahead with resuming their economies more securely.

” Individuals require to know that using masks can minimize transmission of the infection by as much as 50%, and those who refuse are putting their lives, their families, their friends, and their neighborhoods at threat,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Examination.

The problem has actually handled extra weight as the U.S. heads into the July 4 weekend, a holiday usually marked by barbecues and other gatherings, including fireworks display screens

New York City Mayor Costs de Blasio stated Wednesday that indoor dining will stay closed when the city moves into the next stage of reopening next week. New York City Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to make the same announcement for the state later on in the day. New York has prospered in decreasing its infection rate after stringent lockdown measures that are slowly being lifted.

Fauci Cautions Coronavirus Cases Could Reach 100,00 0 a Day.

Latest tallies

There are now 10.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and a minimum of 512,331 individuals have died, according to information aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. At least 5.4 million individuals have recuperated, the data reveal.

The U.S. continues to lead the world, with a case tally of 2.64 million and death toll of 127,681

Brazil is next with 1.4 million cases and 59,594 deaths. Russia is 3rd determined by cases at 653,479, followed by India with 585,481 and the U.K. with 314,991 The U.K. has 43,991 fatalities, the highest in Europe and 3rd greatest in the world. China, where the health problem was first reported late last year, has 84,813 cases and 4,641 deaths.

See also: No Americans, in the meantime– EU locks out tourists from U.S. as it reopens to more than a lots nations

What’s the current medical news?

Drug giant Pfizer Inc. PFE,. 4.29% and partner BioNTech SE. BNTX,. 3.10% were actively traded on Wednesday, after the business said that all 24 individuals in a Stage 1/2 clinical trial who got one of 2 lower dosages of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed reducing the effects of antibodies, as MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported.

This data were shared by the companies and also released in a preprint research study, implying it has not been peer-reviewed. The research study has 45 individuals between the ages of 18 and 55 who were randomized and immunized, 24 of whom received 2 rounds of 2 lower dosages of the vaccine candidate. (Twelve participants got one high dosage, and 9 got 2 doses of the placebo.)

Read: Why virus stocks are driving market volatility

The antibody findings are very important because they indicate that the experimental vaccine can create antibodies at the exact same level or greater than those seen in convalescent sera, which is gathered from individuals who have actually recovered from COVID-19 There were no severe unfavorable events reported in the trial, although some reported pain in the area of the body where the investigational vaccine was administered.

Pfizer said additional information from this trial will notify the selection of a vaccine prospect– the companies are evaluating four COVID-19 vaccine candidates– and dosing level for the Stage 2b/3 study, which could start this month, with approximately 30,00 0 individuals.

Health officials in Europe have actually slammed the U.S. government for buying up all of Gilead Sciences Inc.’s. GILD,. -0.75% remdesivir, the Guardian reported. The drug is a previous Ebola treatment that has actually been repurposed as a treatment for COVID-19 The drug speeds up recovery times for seriously ill, hospitalized patients and has received an emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

The U.S. will get 500,00 0 dosages through September that can be bought by U.S. healthcare facilities. That amounts to 100%of Gilead’s overall remdesivir production in July and 90%in August and September.

Do not miss: Here’s the current on what we know works– and doesn’t work– in dealing with coronavirus infections

What’s the economy stating?

American makers fired up their production lines in June and broadened for the first time because the start of the coronavirus pandemic almost 4 months ago, but development hasn’t gone back to pre-crisis levels and is not likely to do so anytime soon, MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash reported.

The Institute for Supply Management said its production index climbed to 52.6%from 43.1%in May and an 11- year low of 41.5%in April.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast the index to produce a reading of 50.2%. Readings over 50%suggest more business are broadening instead of shrinking.

See likewise: Customer confidence leaps to 3-month high but stays well below levels prior to the coronavirus pandemic

What’s unclear is the level to which a current spike in COVID-19 cases in states such as Texas, California and Florida derails the healing. Timothy Fiore, chairman of the ISM study, said so far the institute has actually not seen concrete evidence of backsliding, but he acknowledged viral flare-ups are likely to trigger economic disruptions.

” The renewed upturn in COVID-19 infections across the South and West in current weeks presents a downside risk, however with states at first trying to manage the break outs with targeted constraints on bars and other public locations, in the meantime the production sector seems reasonably less exposed,” said senior U.S. economic expert Andrew Hunter of Capital Economics.

Do not miss out on: MarketWatch’s Coronavirus Recovery Tracker

The Commerce Department stated investments for building jobs fell 2.1%in May at a seasonally changed yearly rate of $1.36 trillion. Economic experts surveyed by MarketWatch had expected a 0.7%increase. Spending in April was modified to a 3.5?ll from the prior estimate of a 2.9%drop. Residential building and construction fell 3.9%in May, while spending on public building and construction tasks rose 1.2%.

Separately, Automatic Data Processing Inc. said private-sector employers added 2.

Read: Fed’s Williams warns that U.S. economy far from healthy even if worst of the coronavirus outbreak is over

” Overall, a gain in personal and overall payrolls in June will be welcome news and will extend the gains in May. However, the joblessness rate will likely stay high, signaling that conditions in the labor market remain weak with a restored danger to activity and tasks from a revival in infection infections,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economic expert at High Frequency Economics.

What are companies saying?

FedEx Corp. FDX,. 1245% proved it is among the recipients of the pandemic with better-than-expected incomes for its fiscal fourth quarter, as the surge in online buying balanced out higher costs and thinner margins.

The quarter was “severely impacted” by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Executive Frederick W. Smith stated in a declaration. Thanks to “herculean efforts” by employees and the business’s investments in improving capability and performances, “FedEx is well-positioned to support and take advantage of the resuming of the international economy,” he stated.

Shares of plant-based-meat-substitute maker Beyond Meat Inc. BYND,. 5.81% rose more than 8%, after the company stated it’s making its retail-store launching in China via a partnership with e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. BABA,. 0.25%

The company prepares to make its Beyond Burger offered in 50 Freshippo shops in Shanghai starting this weekend. Freshippo shops are Alibaba’s futuristic grocery stores that aim to fuse the physical and digital shopping experiences.

In Other Places, there were favorable incomes reports from food business General Mills and booze business Constellation Brands. However Michael Kors’s moms and dad was injured by store closures during the pandemic and posted a large loss.

Here’s the latest news about companies and the pandemic:

– Michael Kors parent Capri Holdings Ltd. CPRI,. -1.69% reported a fourth-fiscal-quarter adjusted revenue that missed out on expectations, while revenue fell less than projection. After closing all of its 455 Michael Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo retail stores in the Americas in March as an outcome of the pandemic, about 70%are now open, and the “vast majority” of the remaining shops are anticipated to be opened by the end of the company’s 2nd quarter. Among Capri’s business sectors, Michael Kors revenue fell 18.4%to $872 million to beat expectations of $8405 million, Versace earnings grew 55.5%to $213 million to leading expectations of $1656 million and Jimmy Choo profits declined 23%to $107 million to miss out on expectations of $1119 million. Capri did not supply assistance for fiscal 2021, pointing out the absence of visibility surrounding the pandemic.

– Denny’s Corp. DENN,. -9.79% The offering, which represented 14.4%of the shares exceptional, priced at $9.15, or 9.4?low Tuesday’s closing cost of $10

– General Mills Inc. GIS,. -2.01% “The COVID-19 pandemic has had an extensive impact on consumer need across the company’s major markets, consisting of driving an extraordinary boost in need for food at house and a matching reduction in away-from-home food need resulting from efforts to lower virus transmission,” stated the business. At-home food accounted for about 85%of its pre-pandemic net sales and away-from-home food accounted for 15%.

– Macy’s Inc. M,. -3.98% reported first-fiscal-quarter outcomes that matched Wall Street expectations, and said almost all of its stores have actually reopened, after closing in the middle of the pandemic. Sales fell 45.2%to $3.02 billion, matching the FactSet consensus. “While our stores are re-opened, we anticipate that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to affect the nation for the rest of the year,” stated President Jeff Gennette. “We do not prepare for another complete shutdown, but we are remaining flexible and are prepared to address boosts in cases on a local level.” Macy’s stated it would not supply a financial outlook.

– United Airlines Holdings Inc. UAL,. -0.29% That would bring the air provider’s overall August schedule to 40%of its August 2019 schedule. In the U.S., United prepares to fly 58%of its 2019 schedule, up from 30%in July, while internationally, United is arranged to fly 25%of its August schedule, up from 16%in July.

– Whirlpool Corp.’s. WHR,. -0.71% job cuts will result in about $95 million in severance and other employee-related expenses, the company stated in a filing. Restructuring charges for fiscal 2020 are now anticipated to vary from $260 million to $280 million, that includes a previous expectation of costs around $100 million, expenditures with the task cuts, “and prepared for additional restructuring actions in 2020.” The company announced a plan to cut jobs on Friday as part of its “continued cost decrease efforts.” It did not say the number of workers would be affected. The workforce-reduction plan consists of voluntary retirement and layoffs, and it is expected to be finished this year.

– Trucking business YRC Worldwide. YRCW,. 6910% “YRCW and its operating companies Holland, New Penn, Reddaway, and YRC Freight have actually been considerably affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the business stated. In return for the loan, the U.S. Treasury will get a 29.6%equity stake in the business.

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/coronavirus-upgrade-u-s-case-tally-climbs-up-above-2-6-million-and-leading-republicans-now-contact-americans-to-wear-face-masks/

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the-record-briefs · 5 years ago

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March 4, 2020: In other news

SkillsUSA Region 7 Rally & Career Showcase largest in N.C. history

Over 1,250 high school students, advisors, and industry partners attended this year’s rally held on the Wilkes Community College campus, Monday, February 24, 2020. This year’s event was the largest in our history of hosting the regional rally,” says Hardin Kennedy, SkillsUSA advisor/event coordinator, with over 650 students competing in the skills contests.”

There were 91 contests offered at the WCC competition. High schools from Alexander, Alleghany, Avery, Burke, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Catawba, Cleveland, Davie, Forsyth, Iredell, Montgomery, Surry, Union, Watauga, Wilkes, and Yadkin counties, as well as the Home School Association of North Carolina and Christian schools participated in this event.

SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry representatives, working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. It helps students excel in their respective trade areas. SkillsUSA provides an opportunity for students to showcase the skills they received at their educational institution and see how their education compares to other schools in our state and nation. SkillsUSA is a national nonprofit organization serving teachers and high school and college students who are preparing for careers in trade, technical and skilled service occupations, including health occupations.

In addition to the competition, students also explored career opportunities with the Career Showcase segment of the event. This aspect is designed to increase student awareness of the programs offered at Wilkes Community College and to encourage students to take advantage of Career & College Promise high school course offerings that will lead to college certificates and degrees. This year WCC had 73 Career and College Promise students that competed.

Students not involved in competitions were able to meet with WCC representatives and tour four areas of the college that focus on direct classroom-to-careers programs. They had the opportunity to ask questions and see demonstrations as they visited various areas on campus.

Wilkes Community College is proud to host the SkillsUSA Northwest Region Rally and Career Showcase each year and we appreciate the community support and the help we receive from WCC’s SkillsUSA club. The college would like to recognize and thank the following sponsors: WCC faculty and staff, Adams Old Castle - Williams Roberts, Appalachian Cabinets, Blevins Building Supply, Blue Ridge Tractor, McNeill Nissan, Flowers Auto Parts, HD Supply, High Country Paint, Home Builders Association of Wilkes and Yadkin, Impact Collision, John Deere with James River Equipment, Kris Dell Applied Software, L & A Emergency, Inc., Lowes Home Improvement Warehouse, ARC 3 Welding Supply, Mike's Body Shop, Millers Creek

Volunteer Fire Department, North Carolina Association of Electrical Contractors, O'Reilly's Auto Parts, Pardue's Welding, Payne Power Equipment, Pine Hall Brick, Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors of NC, Inc., Snap-on Tools, Specialty Fabricators, Statesville Brick, The Welding Company, Triad Freightliner, Western Carolina Electric, Weyerhaeuser, Yadkin Well Company, Inc. Window World, Inc., sponsored the building construction luncheon and made a donation.

Additional monetary donations were given by Carolina West Wireless, Duke Energy, Town of North Wilkesboro, Window World, Inc., Keith Elmore, Arnold & Becky Lakey, Joe Mashburn, Bobby & Susan Phillips, Kathie Rider, and Sylvia Robinson.

For more information about the SkillsUSA program, contact Hardin Kennedy at 336-838-6219 or [email protected]. To learn about the college-to-career programs, contact WCC Student Services at 336-838-6135.

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valoansarlingtontx · 5 years ago

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Torrington invites participation in Memorial Day parade

Contents

Deaf supports legislation

Flew black hawk

Interested. clock. monday

Pin. downtown torrington historic district

Real estate servicing specialist job with nih federal credit union | 39694677 Leicester 0-0 Chelsea: Sarri’s side secure third place with drab draw Ipsos and YouGov Galaxy polls also show Labor ahead of the Coalition, with a similar margin of 51-49. UPDATE: Criminal probe opened into veterans’ agency mismanagement The State Board of Accounts found former idva director jim brown approved at least 11 distributions from the military family relief Fund to state veterans agency employees, some in excess of the.Communication Service for the deaf supports legislation to Allow Deaf Americans to Enlist and Serve in the U.S. Military Keith Nolan, a teacher at the Maryland School for the Deaf, wants to be in the military but can’t.Because he is deaf. dave alexander, who went through reserve officers’ training Corps in college, flew black hawk helicopters in the military, taught ROTC, and went into the Reserves, went to graduate school for audiology and started working at the Maryland School for the Deaf in November.

Plano Memorial Day Events 2019 Find out what’s happening in Plano for Memorial Day Events 2019. Enjoy your 3-day week-end for Plano Memorial Day Events & kick off summer fun!. Be sure to check out our Daily Event Calendar for more family-friendly events happening on Memorial Day week-end in DFW!. Be sure to check out our BLOG for easy Memorial Day crafts kids can make for Memorial Day.

Boucher Nissan of Waukesha will Donate Money to Local Veterans Organizations for each Vehicle purchased throughout May Donating your vehicle to a veterans’ charity can be a valuable and relatively easy way to give back to U.S. service members and their families. With a wide range of local and national charity organizations, it may be a bit daunting to know how to pick the best destination for your donation.

Memorial Day is a time to honor those who gave their lives for our country. From parades, services and observances, to family activities marking the history of our armed forces, we have you.

Fayette commissioners move toward approving loan up to $10 million for Mt. Macrina Manor Fayette County Master Gardener Association Executive Committee Meeting Minutes November 10, 2016, at 9:00 a.m. Present at the meeting: Kay Fisher, Debbie Johnson, Ann Henry, Ellyn Katen, Brenda Owen, Christine Parsons, Jane Peters. I. Call to order and welcome President Brenda Owen called the meeting to order.

Torrington Memorial Day Parade. Theme & Registration The Torrington Veterans Support Committee is actively planning this year’s Torrington Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony. The parade will be conducted, rain or shine, on Monday May 30, 2016 and will step off promptly at 9:30 AM. The theme of this year’s Parade is:

Plans for the Scotch Plains-Fanwood 2010 Memorial Day Parade are now under way. This year’s parade will be held on Monday, May 31. Memorial Day pays tribute to.

Torrington Memorial Day Parade. Public Hosted by Torringford Volunteer Fire Department. interested. clock. monday, May 30, 2016 at 9:30 AM EDT. More than a year ago. pin. downtown torrington historic district. Torrington, Connecticut 06790. Show Map. Hide Map. Landmark & Historical Place. Get.

· On Monday, May 29, all are invited to honor Simsbury’s fallen heroes at the town’s 100th Memorial Day Parade in Tariffville at 9 a.m. and Simsbury at.

This Memorial Day will mark 100th year that Leasure-Blackston Post 239 of the American Legion has sponsored the Worthington Memorial Day Parade. Thanks to your participation, this parade has become a premier event in Ohio for honoring the veterans and serving members of the United States armed forces.

5 days ago · State encourages participation in overdose awareness day, invites Pennsylvanians to join in naloxone social media campaign. The events include two free naloxone distribution days on Sept. 18 and 25. Naloxone will be available at locations across the state, while supplies last.. State encourages participation in overdose awareness day.

An antique car show, as well as participation from area fire. For nonprofit organizations and community groups, this.

Smethport chamber honors several ParcelPal Welcomes Ontario MP Parm Gill to the Advisory Board of Directors ParcelPal Technology Inc. ("ParcelPal" or the "Company"), (CSE: PKG) (FSE: PT0) (OTC: PTNYF) is pleased to announce that it has expanded their relationship and operations with Amazon.com by commencing.Kentucky WWII Veteran to Receive French Legion of Honor A 95-year-old World War II veteran in Kentucky will be awarded the French Legion of Honor, that country’s highest distinction. The Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs says Alvin H. Perry of Wilmore will receive the medal june 6 at the Thomson-Hood Veterans Center in Wilmore for his participation.

TORRINGTON >> The Torrington Veterans Support Committee is seeking nominations for Honorary Parade Marshals for this year’s Memorial Day parade and ceremony. To nominate a veteran, submit nominee.

Spokeswoman says Sen. Isakson’s calls to agencies on behalf of biotech firm’s CEO were ‘nothing improper’ Industry news: DiligenceEvents – The two firms were fined a total of BRL42.9m. Morgan Stanley has to pay BRL30.28m While the Canadian bank would have to pay BRL12.586m. The firms were accused of colluding to manipulate rates on offshore spot-market transactions involving the Brazilian real.

The post Torrington invites participation in Memorial Day parade appeared first on VA Loans Arlington TX.

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hbhughes · 6 years ago

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Maria Bardoutsou Mertz

Maria Bardoutsou Mertz, passed away on March 19, 2019 at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. She was born on September 10, 1958, in Patras, Greece, the daughter of the late Constantine (Dino) and Polyxeni (Jenny) Bardoutsos.

Maria moved to the United States at the age of 17, to attend and graduate from Wilkes University, she went on to receive a Master’s Degree in Finance from Penn State University. While at Wilkes, she met the love of her life, Phil, with whom she led an incredible life.

For the last 24 years Maria, along with her business partner, Cheryl Lewis, formed and grew Officestaff Services in Wilkes-Barre and was always proud to be a resident of this Valley.

Fluent in three languages, Maria embraced the spoken word, spending more than fifteen years coaching speech and debate at Meyers High School and helping hundreds of students learn and grow. A charitable woman, she contributed to many causes and donated time regularly to Valley Santa, ensuring needy children would not go without Christmas gifts.

Desirous of helping people even at the end, the family is proud that Maria chose to be an organ and tissue donor, ensuring that other people may receive the gift of life.

In more recent years Maria took great joy in her work, spending time with friends and neighbors and enjoying her weekends at Onawandah Campground in Tunkhannock, walking her dog Sidney. A new grandmother, her greatest joy came from holding and reading to her granddaughter, Rory.

Maria will be deeply missed by her husband of 36 years, Dr. Philip Mertz PhD, her son, Alexander Mertz and daughter-in-law Alison McManus Mertz, along with her granddaughter Rory Rinker Mertz. Additionally, she is survived by a brother, Antonios Bardoutsos, his wife Mary Teresa, of San Fransisco, and sons, Nicholas and Michael, along with many nieces and nephews.

The family would like to thank the incredible staff at Geisinger Wyoming Valley’s Trauma Center and Intensive Care Unit for all their hard work and compassion. They would also like to thank the staff from Gift of Life for making her incredible donations possible. Additionally, they are grateful to the Kingston/Forty Fort Ambulance and Fire Department for their rapid response and heroic effors.

Family and friends are asked to call on Saturday, March 30, 2019 from 1-3 PM at the Hugh B. Hughes & Son, Inc. Funeral Home, 1044 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort. A short service will be held at 3 PM with Rev. James Quinn, officiating.

In lieu of flowers the family asks for memorial donations to be made to the Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center, 318 Northern Blvd, South Abington Township, PA 18411; or Gift of Life Organ Donation, 401 N 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19123.

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chestnutpost · 6 years ago

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Here Are The 81 People And Entities Close To Trump Democrats Are Investigating

This post was originally published on this site

WASHINGTON ― Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Monday sent document requests to 81 agencies, entities and individuals close to President Donald Trump as part of a broad investigation into possible obstruction of justice, public corruption and other abuses of power.

The list includes Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. It also names dozens of current and former members of Trump’s administration, inaugural committee, his businesses and his campaign.

The letters piggyback off the preexisting investigations being run by Robert Mueller’s special counsel office as well as federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. They inform recipients that, in the interest of speeding up the process, they can limit their production to documents they already turned over in response to those investigations.

“We have sent these document requests in order to begin building the public record,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “The Special Counsel’s office and the Southern District of New York are aware that we are taking these steps. We will act quickly to gather this information, assess the evidence, and follow the facts where they lead with full transparency with the American people.”

The probe will focus on three main areas: whether Trump obstructed justice by interfering in criminal investigations of his campaign and administration, whether he violated the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution and campaign finance laws, and potential misuse of his pardon powers and other abuses of power.

By launching the investigation, Democrats are effectively ensuring Trump’s long litany of scandals will remain in the news throughout and up to the 2020 presidential election, including his firing of former FBI Director James Comey, his alleged involvement in a hush money scheme, the dealings of the Trump Foundation, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with foreign officials, to name just a few.

Some people on the list are likely to invoke executive privilege in response to requests for sensitive documents from their time in the White House. That group could possibly include former White House counsel Don McGahn and former top White House communications aide Hope Hicks. Those who received document requests from the committee have been told to respond by no later than March 18, though some are expected to fight the request and force a possible subpoena.

The committee, for example, asks Hicks to produce “any personal or work diary, journal, or other book containing notes, a record or a description of daily events” related to her long time spent working for Trump prior to and after his election in 2016.

The request to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, on the other hand, asks him to produce documents pertaining to his “possible resignation or firing” as well as “any conversation in which President Trump stated, in words or substance, that he wanted the Mueller investigation shut down.”

Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer who testified before the House oversight committee last week, is asked to produce “any audio or video recordings of any conversation with or relating to the Trump Campaign, Donald Trump or his Business Interests from June 2015 to the present.”

See below for the full list of people and groups that received document requests from the committee:

Alan Garten

Alexander Nix

Allen Weisselberg

American Media Inc

Anatoli Samochornov

Andrew Intrater

Annie Donaldson

Brad Parscale

Brittany Kaiser

Cambridge Analytica

Carter Page

Columbus Nova

Concord Management and Consulting

Corey Lewandowski

David Pecker

Department of Justice

Don McGahn

Donald J Trump Revocable Trust

Donald Trump Jr.

Dylan Howard

Eric Trump

Erik Prince

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Felix Sater

Flynn Intel Group

General Services Administration

George Nader

George Papadopoulos

Hope Hicks

Irakly Kaveladze

Jared Kushner

Jason Maloni

Jay Sekulow

Jeff Sessions

Jerome Corsi

John Szobocsan

Julian Assange

Julian David Wheatland

Keith Davidson

KT McFarland

Mark Corallo

Matt Tait

Matthew Calamari

Michael Caputo

Michael Cohen

Michael Flynn

Michael Flynn Jr.

Paul Erickson

Paul Manafort

Peter Smith (Estate)

Randy Credico

Reince Priebus

Rhona Graff

Rinat Akhmetshin

Rob Goldstone

Roger Stone

Ronald Lieberman

Sam Nunberg

SCL Group Limited

Sean Spicer

Sheri Dillon

Stefan Passantino

Steve Bannon

Ted Malloch

The White House

Trump Campaign

Trump Foundation

Trump Organization

Trump Transition

Viktor Vekselberg

Wikileaks

58th Presidential Inaugural Committee

Christopher Bancroft Burnham

Frontier Services Group

J.D. Gordon

Kushner Companies

NRA

Rick Gates

Tom Barrack

Tom Bossert

Tony Fabrizio

Paul Blumenthal contributed to this report.

The post Here Are The 81 People And Entities Close To Trump Democrats Are Investigating appeared first on The Chestnut Post.

from The Chestnut Post https://thechestnutpost.com/news/here-are-the-81-people-and-entities-close-to-trump-democrats-are-investigating/

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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It’s not just taxes — here is what’s really killing Canada’s competitiveness

First in a three-part series on how Canada’s heavy regulatory burden is choking competitiveness.

Ask Jean-Francois Boursier about running a business under Canadian regulations and he will likely tell you a tale of two paint shops.

ADF Group Inc., where Boursier is chief financial officer, needed to build identical painting facilities on either side of the border: one at its steel fabricating plant in Terrebonne, Que., and the other in Great Falls, Mont.

The approval process for the Montana project kicked off in 2016 and it was authorized a year later. The Quebec shop was a different story.

“Between the time we started and the time we ended up with our final environmental permit was about two years,” Boursier said. “These are twin paint shops — the two of them, identical, built at roughly the same time. I’d say we paid between a half-million and a million dollars more in Quebec on a $9-million investment. That’s not counting the frustration.”

Much of the recent debate about Canada’s competitiveness has focused on whether Ottawa should chase U.S. corporate tax reductions by slashing its own rates. But Boursier’s tale illustrates a less often considered, but growing concern about their respective regulatory frameworks — the mass of government rules that protect the public when they’re working well, but unnecessarily hinder business development, supply chains and operations when they’re not.

“Canadian businesses have a very legitimate issue on tax competitiveness, but we don’t just compete on taxation right? We also compete via regulation,” said Craig Alexander, Deloitte Canada’s chief economist. “And in Canada, we have significant areas where regulation is impeding competitiveness.”

Fixing those regulations is a longstanding problem that some say assumed greater urgency after U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a package of measures he touted as “the most far-reaching regulatory reform in history.”

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One of Trump’s first actions as president was to establish a “one in, two out” policy, ordering agencies to cut two regulations for every new one introduced, and to offset the cost of that new regulation. The U.S. also created reform task forces in all federal departments charged with evaluating existing rules and making recommendations regarding their repeal, replacement or modification.

The resulting cuts have saved US$23 billion in costs, according to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Yet many of Trump’s regulatory rollbacks — particularly those that weaken protections for wildlife, air quality and groundwater supplies — have raised grave concerns about the long-term impact on the public.

U.S. President Donald Trump has made regulatory reform a priority.

“If Trump’s regulations are harmful to the public interest, it might not be the case that you want to match them, because they aren’t necessarily where Canada wants to go,” said Alexander, who points to the 2008 financial crisis as a “great example” of where weak U.S. regulations contributed to a major economic catastrophe.

“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we should be trying to do, because when you take all the different sources and put them together, you get a picture that says Canada is facing a real challenge on regulatory competitiveness,” he said.

Indeed, Canada this week fell four spots to No. 22 on the World Bank’s latest Ease of Doing Business Index, which measures the impact of regulations in 190 economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Dig a little deeper and the drag becomes clear: Canada compares well in terms of access to credit and the ease of starting a business, but its performance takes a steep decline to No. 63 in terms of “dealing with construction permits” and No. 50 in “trading across borders.”

Similar concerns surface in the World Economic Forum’s 2018 global competitiveness index. Despite an overall 12th place ranking on favourable views of Canada’s labour market and macroeconomic stability, the country plunges to No. 53 when it comes to the “burden of government regulation,” down from No. 38 the year before.

One of the key challenges in reshaping Canada’s regulatory regime stems from the way rule-making powers have been distributed between federal and provincial governments.

Unlike the U.S., where more power is held at the federal level, Canada’s status as a federation means regulatory control is spread between Ottawa and the provinces. That dynamic makes Canada’s key regulatory challenges — including the removal of inter-provincial trade barriers — and the remedies required to fix them particularly tricky, analysts say.

Decades of provincial rule-making have created a “tyranny of small variances” in regulations that affect trucking standards, food packaging and labelling, trade in beer and wine, and securities regulation, according to a May report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

For trucking companies, Canada’s cross-country patchwork of rules governing permissible weights, speed limitations and driver hours complicates operations and denies companies a level playing field, said David Carruth, chief executive of Milton, Ont.-based One for Freight and incoming chair of the Ontario Trucking Association.

Trucking companies face a cross-country patchwork of rules.

For example, rules regarding the number of hours a driver can stay on the road without stopping to rest differ between Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, he said. Furthermore, Ontario and Quebec require licensed trucks to have “mandatory speed limiters” — devices that restrict speeds to 105 km/hr — while other provinces do not.

“Mandatory speed limiters are safer, better for fuel consumption, better for carbon emissions,” Carruth said. “But we’re competing with carriers in other parts of the country and in the U.S. who don’t have speed limiters on their trucks. There’s a lot of good rules there, but we need a national standard.”

Scrapping or streamlining such differences could be a game changer for the economy since internal trade accounts for almost a fifth — or $370 billion — of Canada’s annual GDP.

Removing barriers could boost annual output up to two-tenths of a percentage point, according to Bank of Canada estimates — about as much as is expected to result from the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

A “harmonize or justify approach,” in which provinces must explain why their standards need to be different, is one way to “hold feet to the fire” and address issues of regulatory duplication and overlap, said Grant Bishop, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute.

“Harmonization between our provinces on regulatory standards is the real way to unleash Canadian competitiveness, with the federal government ideally playing a supportive, but assertive role to bring that competition together,” he said.

Governments and businesses broadly agree on the need to ease the regulatory burden, particularly at a time when rising trade barriers are creating new challenges for businesses.

The federal government announced a “one for one” regulatory rule in 2015 — in which one rule must be removed for every new one introduced — and will hold a first ministers meeting in late November or early December that will focus on easing internal trade barriers.

Federal, provincial and municipal governments also ratified the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) last year in an attempt to resolve inter-provincial differences, though analysts and business groups say progress has been slow.

Navdeep Bains, left, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, and provincial ministers release the completed Canadian Free Trade Agreement in Toronto on April 7, 2017.

“Without strong top-down leadership pressure, we remain skeptical that officials and regulators will on their own through this agreement achieve significant action,” said Ryan Greer, lead analyst on regulatory issues at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

“It’ll take a lot of pressure from the provinces and the prime minister to take advantage of this new tool and show the business community that things will be different this time. We think it’s positive it’s happening, but what matters is what comes after.”

Getting Canada’s regulatory house in order would add a degree of clarity for domestic businesses as well as for international investors, who are already grappling with foreign investment rules that have been a “great point of uncertainty for competitors entering the Canadian marketplace,” Bishop said.

For instance, Canada imposes unusually strict ownership restrictions on sectors such as telecommunications and banking compared to international standards, according to an OECD survey. The Investment Canada Act is also unusual among countries in that it requires foreign investors to show a “net benefit” to the country when buying a domestic company.

Various incidents this year — including the decision to halt the purchase of Aecon Group Inc. by a Chinese state-owned entity and the upheaval surrounding the Trans Mountain pipeline — have led to calls for more transparency on foreign direct investment rules and the government’s duty to consult Indigenous peoples.

The Aecon Group logo on a worker’s hardhat at a construction site in Toronto.

“Instead of having companies prove a net benefit, I’d like to have a world where government has to show net harm to the economy,” Alexander said, noting that clear policies on investments by state-owned enterprises are also required. “If we could clear up that, we might actually make it more attractive for companies to look at Canada and say, ‘Boy, that’s a place I’d like to invest.’”

Organizations such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce point to international examples for inspiration on how to turn things around.

For example, Denmark’s Business Forum for Better Regulation — a group of industry, labour and professional organizations assembled in 2012 — is charged with suggesting rule changes that the government must either accept or give reasons for refusing.

By 2016, the Danish government had adopted 308 recommendations, either fully or partially, for savings of $168 million, according to an OECD report.

Others say reforming regulations begins with the fundamental task of improving the collection of data necessary to identify cases of regulatory overlap and duplication.

Introduced in 2014, the federal government’s Administrative Burden Baseline (ABB) requires governments to establish a count of the number of regulations imposed on business.

But the number of regulations is only part of the picture for Canadian businesses. The ABB does not provide information on the intensity of those burdens or how they correlate to rules issued at other levels of government, analysts say.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t reduce it,” Greer said. “There’s no magic bullet, of course, but any political effort to reduce regulatory burden has to start with a measure of what’s actually there. Otherwise, that cumulative burden just builds up.”

Financial Post

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Where Roads Can’t Reach, Blockchain Drones Just Might Travel

A metal frame with four small and two large propellers – carrying a container the size of a refrigerator – rises into the air with a roar, hovering above an empty road amidst snowy fields.

The video was shot on the airfield near the Russian city of Kazan, which is located to the south-east of Moscow, and the machine is a SKYF drone, designed by a team of Russian aviation engineers.

According to its makers, the drone can carry up to 880 pounds, travel as far as 220 miles and work up to 8 hours. And everything that happens to these drones is going to be recorded on the project’s own blockchain, SKYFchain.

The SKYF team is trying to crack into a rapidly growing ecosystem, with PwC valuing the emerging global market for drones at over $127 billion in 2016. As of today, drones can only carry small objects, but the SKYF team aims to open a totally new market for heavy-duty cargo drones.

The idea is that they’ll serve multiple purposes, such as delivering large amounts of cargo, fighting fires and spraying insecticides and fertilizers on agricultural lands.

SKYF is a decidedly Russian project. The drones are being produced domestically by OKB Aviareshenia Ltd., a subsidiary of British entity ARDN Technologies. Both entities were founded by the same team of engineers and tech entrepreneurs: Aleksander Timofeev and Ilya Rodin – managing partners of the FPI venture fund – engineers Dmitry Arsentyev, Marat Sabirov and Nail Zinnurov, and others.

To financially support the project, the team is holding an initial coin offering (ICO). In February, Skyfdrones Services OU, a company registered in Estonia by Alexander Timofeev, registered the token sale with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Form D (Rule 506(c)) exemption, declaring a goal to raise $30 million.

Recently, this plan was adjusted – thus far, the project has managed to raise around $6 million, and they plan to raise some $500,000 more before the end of the ICO. Timofeev told CoinDesk that 45 percent of the funds will be spent on R&D.

Trusted delivery

According to Ilya Rodin, SKYF’s GR manager, the use of blockchain in this context is aimed at creating a trust layer between stakeholders, including public and private sector interests.

“We need a blockchain to create trust between the counterparts: the banks, leasing and insurance companies, drone manufacturers and users, government agencies, licensing bodies, self-regulating organizations, and so on,” Rodin told CoinDesk.

The idea is that the data being stored will encompass various pieces of information about the drones. This includes information about what licenses the manufacturers possess, the drones’ flight paths, their performance and data on the people operating them.

“Drones are a new thing, banks don’t know how to evaluate them and calculate interest rates for them, how to monitor their use,” added Olga Budnik, a PR director of ARDN. “So they would rather deny a loan or a leasing agreement than take a risk. And we give them a tool to follow the entire life of a drone.”

The idea for the startup came about in 2014, when Dmitry Arsentyev was trying to create a flying motorbike – but in the end, he wound up working on an industrial drone with Sabirov and Zinnurov. Soon after, they got investment and support from FPI back in 2014, Inc. magazine wrote.

“Initially, the guys had a prototype of a self-piloting flying taxi,” Alexander Timofeev explained. “We realized that the system was new and viable, but we convinced them to transform it into an unmanned cargo platform.”

Timofeev believes that drone delivery will be in demand in the areas with bad road infrastructure. This is especially the case in places like northern Russia and the banks of large Siberian rivers, where bridges are far apart from one another and getting from one side to the other using road vehicles means miles of extra driving.

Putting drones to work

Even though things are in the early stage, the startup is pushing ahead with its ambitious plans for its blockchain-connected fleet.

At the heart of the project is the token, which the team says will serve a key role in managing the fleet.

“From the start of SKYFchain the SKYF drone autopilot will require authorization in the SKYFchain to lift off,” the project’s white paper states.

ARDN has manufactured three drones so far, but the plan is that, by 2021, there will be more than 1100 SKYF drones operating worldwide. Looking farther, the aim is for other manufacturers of air-borne, sea-borne, and ground-borne cargo drones to join the SKYFchain network.

And within that time, the project’s backers hope to see as many as 12.5 million transactions made on their purpose-built blockchain.

What’s more, company has already secured partnerships with Vietnamese port ITC, a Chinese delivery company ZTO Express and a number of Russian entities, including agricultural, delivery and oil and gas companies, as well as the Department of Transportation of the Far East region of Khabarovsk, ARDN says.

The parties involved have signed preliminary agreements to test the SKYF drones for possible applications in their businesses.

Drone image via SKYFchain website

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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