Sepp Blatter Elected to Fifth Term as FIFA President

Story by Bloomberg
Written by Alex Duff and Tariq Panja

Sepp Blatter won a fifth term as President of FIFA, world soccer’s ruling body, two days after U.S. criminal charges targeted his inner circle.

The 79-year-old’s opponent, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, withdrew before a second-round vote. In the first round, Blatter outpointed Ali 133 to 73. He now gets four more years to head the not-for-profit group, which collected almost $5 billion from running last year’s World Cup in Brazil.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/blatter-surmounts-scandal-to-win-fifth-term-as-fifa-president

Sirius XM to face class action in copyright suit on songs pre-1972

Story by Reuters

A U.S. judge in California allowed a class action lawsuit to proceed on Sirius XM over the payment of royalties for songs produced before 1972. It’s a case that is being closely watched for its implications for digital media.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez marks another win for members of the 1960s band the Turtles, known for the hit "Happy Together," and means the company could face claims from a broader group of artists.

"Sirius XM treats every single owner of a pre-1972 song the same, namely it doesn't pay them, so it was appropriate for this court to grant class certification," said Henry Gradstein, attorney for Flo & Eddie Inc, a company controlled by founding Turtles members Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman.

Gutierrez ruled last September that, under California state law, New York-based Sirius XM was liable for copyright infringement by airing the band's pre-1972 songs without paying royalties.

Flo & Eddie also sought to certify a class action against the company to bring in other artists in a similar situation. Sirius XM argued against certification because it said damages would be difficult to calculate accurately for different members of the class.

Gutierrez rejected that argument on Wednesday, saying "a class action is superior to individual litigation to the fair and efficient adjudication of the present controversy."

Floyd Dent, Man Beaten by Michigan Cops on Camera, Settles for $1.4 Million

Floyd Dent says that he has memory loss since the police choking and beating Dent survived


Settlement reached in Dent Beating


Dash Cam shows Police Beating Dent

Read More from NBC News: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/floyd-dent-man-beaten-michigan-cops-camera-settles-1-4m-n365931

Long Live the King of Blues: BB King RIP in Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Memorial flowers stand outside the club of B.B. King on Beale Street in Memphis, Wednesday, May 27, 2015. The city of Memphis is saying farewell to blues legend B.B. King with a tribute and processional down Beale Street on Wednesday. King died May 14 in Las Vegas. He was 89. (AP Photo/Karen Pulfer Focht)

Story by AP
Written by Johnny Clark

A Dixieland jazz band walked ahead of a slow black hearse and a crowd of thousands followed as the city of Memphis said farewell Wednesday to blues legend B.B. King with a tribute and processional down Beale Street.

The street whose name is virtually synonymous with the blues is where a young, ex-sharecropper named Riley B. King was nicknamed the Beale Street Blues Boy — later shortened to B.B. — and where King rose to fame.

The Memphis-based Mighty Souls Brass Band played "When the Saints Go Marching In." Behind them and just ahead of the hearse, drummer Rodd Bland — son of the late blues singer Bobby "Blue" Bland — carried one of King's signature "Lucille" guitars.

BB King's body in hearse travel down Memphis' Beale Street

The huge crowd filled Beale Street and spilled down side streets as onlookers pressed in making cellphone pictures.

"This is history," said Detroit resident Mary Springfield, standing at Beale and 3rd streets. "This is an awesome feeling. This is a legacy and I'm part of it today, and I'm blessed to be here." She traveled to Memphis for the processional.

"Such a beautiful day," said Memphis native Gary Daly. "It's a great tribute to a wonderful contributor to the world of music. It's been really amazing to see the people of Memphis coming out, having a great time together, celebrating a wonderful, loving man."

Tributes in music and words were also offered at nearby W.C. Handy Park.

The processional paused next to B.B. King's Blues Club before turning onto B.B. King Blues Highway.

"We are so proud. We are sad, yes we are sad but we are glad he did come through this way," said spectator Carmen Adair Thomas. "And I did get a chance to enjoy his entertainment. We thank God today for B.B. King. May he rest in peace."

King's body is being taken to Indianola, Mississippi, which King considered his hometown, for his funeral on Saturday.

King died May 14 in hospice care at home in Las Vegas at age 89.

FIFA’s Paris Cash Drop: $10,000 Rows Stacked High in a Suitcase

Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney general, speaks during a news conference in the Brooklyn borough of New York, on May 27, 2015. The future of the World Cup has been called into question and soccer's governing body plunged into crisis after U.S. prosecutors charged nine officials with corruption and Switzerland probed upcoming tournaments awarded to Russia and Qatar. (Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)

Story by Bloomberg
Written by Andrew Martin

The suitcase was waiting in a hotel room in Paris, the cash inside neatly bundled into $10,000 STACKS.

The suitcase was waiting in a hotel room in Paris, the cash inside neatly bundled into $10,000 stacks.

The money, U.S. authorities allege, was payment for one of the most sought-after prizes in world soccer: a nod from FIFA, the sport’s governing body, to host the World Cup.

That allegation, involving a bid by South Africa for the 2010 Cup, is contained in a stunning 47-count indictment unsealed Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department, the result of a years-long investigation of corruption at FIFA.

While scandals are nothing new at FIFA, the portrait of corruption painted by federal prosecutors rivals the worst in sports history for length and breadth. Money laundering, racketeering, bribery, kickbacks and more were all embraced by FIFA officials as business as usual, the authorities say.

“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic and deep-rooted, both abroad and here in the United States,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement. “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials.”

One of those officials, according to the indictment, was a former history teacher from Trinidad and Tobago named Jack Warner -- the man for whom that suitcase was allegedly waiting.

A soccer official in his native country, Warner had won an election in 1990 to become president of Concacaf, the soccer confederation that oversees Central and North America.

‘Gift’ Envelopes

In 2004, FIFA’s leadership gathered to consider bids from countries that wanted to host the 2010 World Cup. Among the hopefuls were Morocco, Egypt and South Africa.

Warner had ties to the South Africans, who had failed in a bid for the 2006 World Cup. One of his relatives had organized friendly matches in South Africa for teams in Warner’s confederation, according to the indictment. So Warner authorized the relative to fly to Paris to meet with a high-ranking South African bid official in a hotel, where prosecutors said the suitcase full of cash was waiting.



Years later, in 2011, Warner directed Caribbean football officials to pick up a “gift” -- an envelope containing $40,000 in cash -- ahead of the election for FIFA’s president, according to the indictment. He became angry, it said, when he learned that a Caribbean official had told a Concacaf official in New York about the cash.

“There are some people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you’re pious, open a church, friends,” he said, according to the indictment. “Our business is our business.”

‘No Due Process’

Warner, who stood down from all soccer posts in 2011, said in a statement that he was innocent of any charges.

“I have been afforded no due process and I have not even been questioned in this matter,” he said in the statement. “I have walked away from the politics of world football to immerse myself in the improvement of lives in this country where I shall, God willing, die.”

In all, 14 people were indicted on charges that include racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering schemes. Four others pleaded guilty.

In a related case, Swiss authorities said they were examining allegations of money laundering and criminal mismanagement related to selecting host countries for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup, awarded to Russia and Qatar, respectively. Swiss authorities seized electronic data and documents from FIFA’s Zurich headquarters Wednesday.

FIFA’s president, Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, wasn’t charged, though several members of his inner circle were. “Such misconduct has no place in football and we will ensure that those who engage in it are put out of the game,” Blatter said Wednesday, in prepared remarks on FIFA’s website.

Concealed Payments

Most of the allegations focus on soccer officials in the Americas, where prosecutors say leaders of regional confederations solicited and accepted bribes from sports marketing firms that seek media and marketing contracts for major regional tournaments, a major source of revenue for soccer confederations.

Over a 24-year period, Fifa officials conspired with the soccer marketing agencies for bribes and kickbacks in exchange for contracts, often concealing the payments through shell companies, offshore accounts or other schemes, prosecutors said.

Indeed, when one set of soccer leaders is ousted for corruption, the new leaders started soliciting bribes almost immediately after taking office, even as they pledge reform, the indictment said.

Reform Pledges

For instance, in May 2012, FIFA vice president Jeffrey Webb, of the Cayman Islands, was elected president of Concacaf. Webb has promised a new culture of transparency and accountability that would depart markedly from Warner’s tenure.

Webb hired an executive from a sports marketing company, Enrique Sanz, from Traffic Sports USA, as his general secretary. Sanz, too, pledged reforms.

“Almost immediately after taking office, however, both men resumed their involvement in criminal activities,” the indictment alleges.

Webb and other defendants named in the indictment couldn’t be reached for comment.

The indictment refers to an unidentified “Co-Conspirator #4,” whose details appear to match those of Sanz, though it doesn’t identify him by name. Sanz wasn’t charged or mentioned by name in the indictment.

Shortly after beginning work at Concacaf, Co-Conspirator #4 began negotiating with a former colleague at Traffic Sports USA for media rights to Concacaf tournaments, including its main competition, the Gold Cup. At Webb’s behest, the co-conspirator negotiated a bribe for Webb and a second bribe a year later, when the contract was renewed, the indictment said.

New Pool

Webb used some of the money from bribes to build a pool at his suburban Atlanta home and to buy real estate in Stone Mountain, Ga., the indictment says.

Co-Conspirator #4 benefitted, too. An associate of Webb’s, Costas Takkas, bought him an “expensive painting” at a New York gallery, the indictment says. Takkas was charged as part of the government’s case.

Sanz couldn’t be located for comment.

In the battle to win the 2010 World Cup, more than one country was wrangling for Warner’s favor.

Months before the May 2004 vote on the venue, a representative from Morocco offered Warner $1 million in exchange for his vote, prosecutors said. South Africa countered: High-ranking officials at FIFA, the South African government and the South African bid committee had arranged for a $10 million payment from the government to the Caribbean Football Union, Warner’s home base of support, to “support the African Diaspora,” the indictment says.

Paid by FIFA

Warner accepted the offer and later indicated he’d voted for South Africa, according to the indictment.

Ultimately, prosecutors said, the South Africans struggled to make the payment from government funds, so FIFA paid the bill, using money that was intended to support South Africa’s World Cup.

Referring to the practice of paying bribes to obtain commercial rights at tournaments, Aaron Davidson, president of Traffic Sports USA, allegedly told one of the co-conspirators: “Is it illegal? It is illegal. Within the big picture of things, a company that has worked in this industry for 30 years, is it bad? It is bad.”

Davidson, who couldn’t be reached for comment, was also charged Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/27/football/fifa-corruption-charges-justice-department/index.html

U.S. Department of Justice alleges World Cup Soccer's FIFA corruption over past 24 years

U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch reveals all of the details and evidence used against the nine former and current FIFA executives and five corporate executives indicted on corruption charges.

Story by ESPN

U.S. prosecutors say they have uncovered a dozen different schemes while investigating corruption at FIFA, the world football body -- and that some of those schemes involved the awarding of the 2010 World Cup to South Africa.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a news conference that bribery and corruption have been marring the sport for at least 24 years as FIFA officials solicited bribes from sports marketing firms and others surrounding its marquee events.

Lynch spoke on Wednesday in New York as U.S. federal charges were unveiled against 14 people, including nine former or current FIFA officials, in a sweeping investigation. She said the extradition process was already underway but stressed that there are no allegations that football games or tournaments were influenced by corruption.

The Swiss justice ministry says U.S. authorities now have 40 days to submit a formal extradition request to Switzerland for six of seven FIFA officials arrested in a FIFA corruption probe, adding that six of those seven plan to fight extradition.

U.S. officials said those arrested include FIFA vice presidents Jeffrey Webb from the Cayman Islands and Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay; as well as Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, Julio Rocha of Nicaragua, Costas Takkas of Britain, Rafael Esquivel of Venezuela and Jose Maria Marin of Brazil.

Swiss officials did not name the person who agreed to purse simplified extradition. That person could be handed over to U.S. authorities immediately.

Read more: http://www.espnfc.com/world-cup-soccer/story/2468775/fifa-corrupt-over-24-years-says-us-department-of-justice

Legendary Globetrotter Marques Haynes, one of basketball’s all-time greats, died Friday in Plano

Marques Haynes being inducting into the Hall of Fame. Clip features Wilt Chamberlain, current Harlem Globetrotters, and a ball-handling drill with Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon, and Haynes participating

Story by Dallas Morning News
Written by Robert Wilonsky

Marques Haynes, long considered basketball’s greatest ball-handler and the first Harlem Globetrotter inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, died at 4:35 a.m. today in Plano at the age of 89.

Haynes got paid to play ball for five decades, beginning in 1948, when the Sand Springs, Oklahoma, native signed on with the Globetrotters for a mere $400 a season. He had two stints with the Globetrotters, and was still in the game even at this late date: In 2011 Donnie Nelson hired the point guard to work in the Texas Legends’ front office as an executive advisor.

“The game of basketball has lost one of its most iconic figures,” says Globetrotters CEO Kurt Schneider in a prepared statement. “Marques was a pioneer, helping pave the way for people of all races to have opportunities to play basketball and for the sport to explode on a global scale. His unique and groundbreaking style of play set the tone for modern basketball as we know it; anyone involved with basketball worldwide is indebted to Marques. He was the consummate Globetrotter.”

Schneider says the team will wear a commemorative patch in the coming season to “salute the significant contributions he made to basketball and the Globetrotters.”


Marques Haynes, who handled a basketball better than anyone to ever lace up a pair of high-tops (Courtesy Harlem Globetrotters International, Inc.)

And it was an enormously significant contribution, so much so that Haynes is often considered among the greatest basketball players never to have suited up in the NBA. A decade ago Sports Illustrated named Haynes the 10th-best point guard of all time, behind Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson, Bob Cousy and Isiah Thomas. Jack McCallum wrote that “for five decades he entertained millions of fans around the world as the game’s first dribbling and passing wizard, and, further, on two occasions captained a ‘Trotter team that beat the George Mikan-led Minneapolis Lakers.”

But as Robertson told me in 2007, when I spent weeks with Haynes at his Plano home, Haynes wasn’t an influence — not on him or anyone else. The simple reason, said the man known as The Big O: “It was impossible to copy what he did.”

And vintage clips make his case — the man did beautiful, wild, inexplicable things with the basketball. He was “as much hummingbird as he was rabbit,” wrote historian John Christgau in his book Tricksters in the Madhouse. And he made it look effortless. And, he did it for decades.

He also did it in two of the most famous basketball games every played: In 1948 and 1949, Haynes led a Globetrotters team that defeated a Minneapolis Lakers team that went on to capture the first-ever NBA title in 1950. For years Hollywood and Broadway have toyed with turning that tale into a film or musical.


Globetrotters defeat of the NBA - then the Basketball Association of America (BAA) - Champion Minneapolis Lakers in 1948 changed the face of the NBA. Theme music by Miles Davis. (Pardon the announcers' mis-pronunciations of iconic names)

“He and the ‘Trotters played in front of 19,000 at Madison Square Garden, almost causing a mass riot, and 50 years later nobody knows who they are,” said Ben Green, author of Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters, when we spoke in 2007. “Nobody makes the connection between where did Magic Johnson and ‘Showtime’ and playing above the rim come from. But they are a black ball team, and America just doesn’t care that much. They always just saw the Globetrotters as clowns, a cartoon.”

Despite the admiration, despite the honors, he’s among the greatest athletes you’ve likely never heard of. There’s a reason for that: In 1950 Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein refused to allow Haynes to go to the NBA as the league’s first black player. It wasn’t the first time Haynes and the Globetrotters clashed over the years. There were several lawsuits, in fact, culminating with a 2004 dispute over the sales of jerseys bearing the names of some of the team’s best-known players, among them Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Neal and Haynes, who didn’t receive a cent from their sales.

In 2007 Haynes told me he didn’t mind not playing in the NBA. If nothing else, he sounded like he meant it.

“I don’t think it would have been that big a deal for me,” Haynes said. “You see, I had played against at least two of the top players who were drafted into the NBA — maybe even three or four. A guy asked me a long time ago if I ever thought I’d get into the NBA Hall of Fame. You know what my answer was at that time? This was just four or five years before I retired. My answer was: ‘The world is my Hall of Fame.’ Because I played all over the world — 106 countries, if you count the United States, Mexico and Canada. As far as ability was concerned, I never doubted my ability against any of them. I never had any reason to.”

According to the Globetrotters, Haynes died peacefully, surrounded by family and friends.

Read more: http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/legendary-globetrotter-marques-haynes-one-of-basketballs-all-time-greats-died-friday-in-plano.html/

John F. Nash Jr., Math Genius Defined by a ‘Beautiful Mind,’ Dies at 86

John F. Nash Jr. at his Princeton graduation in 1950, when he received his doctorate.

Story by NY Times
Written by Erica Goode

John F. Nash Jr., a mathematician who shared a Nobel Prize in 1994 for work that greatly extended the reach and power of modern economic theory and whose long descent into severe mental illness and eventual recovery were the subject of a book and a film, both titled “A Beautiful Mind,” was killed, along with his wife, in a car crash on Saturday in New Jersey. He was 86.

Dr. Nash and his wife, Alicia, 82, were in a taxi on the New Jersey Turnpike in Monroe Township around 4:30 p.m. when the driver lost control while veering from the left lane to the right and hit a guardrail and another car, Sgt. Gregory Williams of the New Jersey State Police said.

The couple were ejected from the cab and pronounced dead at the scene. The State Police said it appeared that they had not been wearing seatbelts. The taxi driver and the driver of the other car were treated for injuries. No criminal charges had been filed on Sunday.

The Nashes were returning home from the airport after a trip to Norway, where Dr. Nash and Louis Nirenberg, a mathematician from New York University, had received the Abel Prize from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Dr. Nash was widely regarded as one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century, known for the originality of his thinking and for his fearlessness in wrestling down problems so difficult that few others dared tackle them. A one-sentence letter written in support of his application to Princeton’s doctoral program in math said simply, “This man is a genius.”

“John’s remarkable achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists,” the president of Princeton, Christopher L. Eisgruber, said on Sunday, “and the story of his life with Alicia moved millions of readers and moviegoers, who marveled at their courage in the face of daunting challenges.”

Russell Crowe, who portrayed Dr. Nash in the 2001 film adaptation of “A Beautiful Mind,” posted on Twitter that he was “stunned” by the deaths. “An amazing partnership,” he wrote. “Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.”

Dr. Nash’s theory of noncooperative games, published in 1950 and known as Nash equilibrium, provided a conceptually simple but powerful mathematical tool for analyzing a wide range of competitive situations, from corporate rivalries to legislative decision-making. Dr. Nash’s approach is now pervasive in economics and throughout the social sciences and applied in other fields as well, including evolutionary biology.

Harold W. Kuhn, an emeritus professor of mathematics at Princeton and a longtime friend and colleague of Dr. Nash’s who died in 2014, once said, “I think honestly that there have been really not that many great ideas in the 20th century in economics, and maybe, among the top 10, his equilibrium would be among them.” A University of Chicago economist, Roger Myerson, went further, comparing the impact of the Nash equilibrium on economics “to that of the discovery of the DNA double helix in the biological sciences.”

Dr. Nash also made contributions to pure mathematics that many mathematicians view as more significant than his Nobel-winning work on game theory. In one he solved an intractable problem in differential geometry derived from the work of the 19th century mathematician G. F. B. Riemann.

His achievements were the more remarkable, colleagues said, for being presented in papers published before he was 30.

“Jane Austen wrote six novels,” said Barry Mazur, a professor of mathematics at Harvard who was a freshman at M.I.T. when Dr. Nash taught there. “I think Nash’s pure mathematical contributions are on that level. Very, very few papers he wrote on different subjects, but the ones that had impact had incredible impact.”

To a wider audience Dr. Nash was probably best known for his life story, one of dazzling achievement, devastating loss and almost miraculous redemption. The tale of Dr. Nash’s brilliant rise, the years lost to schizophrenia, his return to rationality and his receiving the Nobel — retold in a biography by Sylvia Nasar and in the Oscar-winning film, which also starred Jennifer Connelly as Alicia Nash — captured the public mind as a portrait of the destructive force of mental illness and the stigma that can hound those who suffer from it.


Dr. Nash and his wife, Alicia, in Paris in 1960. By then, mental illness had begun to take its toll on him. Though the couple divorced in 1963, she stood by him, and they later remarried.

Arrogant, Ambitious and Odd

John Forbes Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, W.Va. His father, John Sr., was an electrical engineer. His mother, Margaret, was a Latin teacher.

As a child, John Nash may have been a prodigy, but he was not a sterling student, Ms. Nasar noted in a 1994 article in The New York Times. “He read constantly. He played chess. He whistled entire Bach melodies,” she wrote.

In high school he stumbled across E. T. Bell’s book “Men of Mathematics,” and soon demonstrated his own mathematical skill by independently proving a classic Fermat theorem, an accomplishment he recalled in an autobiographical essay written for the Nobel committee.

Intending to become an engineer like his father, he entered Carnegie Mellon University (then called Carnegie Institute of Technology) in Pittsburgh. But he chafed at the regimentation of the coursework and switched to mathematics, encouraged by professors who recognized his mathematical genius.

Receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Carnegie, he arrived at Princeton in 1948. It was a time of great expectations, when American children still dreamed of growing up to be physicists like Einstein or mathematicians like the brilliant Hungarian-born polymath John von Neumann, both of whom attended the afternoon teas at Fine Hall, the home of the math department.

John Nash, tall and good-looking, became known for his intellectual arrogance, his odd habits — he paced the halls, walked off in the middle of conversations and whistled incessantly — and his fierce ambition, his colleagues have recalled.

He invented a game, known as Nash, that became an obsession in the Fine Hall common room. (The same game, invented independently in Denmark, was later sold by Parker Brothers as Hex.) He also took on a problem left unsolved by Dr. von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, the pioneers of game theory, in their now-classic book, “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.”

Dr. von Neumann and Dr. Morgenstern, an economist at Princeton, addressed only so-called zero-sum games, in which one player’s gain is another’s loss. But most real-world interactions are more complicated; players’ interests are not directly opposed, and there are opportunities for mutual gain. Dr. Nash’s solution, contained in a 27-page doctoral thesis he wrote when he was 21, provided a way of analyzing how each player could maximize his benefits, assuming that the other players would also act to maximize their self-interest.

This deceptively simple extension of game theory paved the way for economic theory to be applied to an array of situations besides the marketplace.

“It was a very natural discovery,” Dr. Kuhn said. “A variety of people would have come to the same results at the same time, but John did it and he did it on his own.”

Brilliance Turns Malignant

After receiving his doctorate at Princeton, Dr. Nash worked as a consultant to the RAND Corporation and as an instructor at M.I.T. while continuing to attack problems that no one else could solve. On a dare, he developed an entirely original approach to a longstanding problem in differential geometry, showing that abstract geometric spaces called Riemannian manifolds could be squished into arbitrarily small pieces of Euclidean space.

As his career flourished and his reputation grew, however, Dr. Nash’s personal life became increasingly complex. A turbulent romance in Boston with a nurse, Eleanor Stier, resulted in the birth of a son, John David Stier, in 1953. Dr. Nash also had a series of relationships with men, and while at RAND in the summer of 1954 he was arrested in a men’s bathroom for indecent exposure, according to Ms. Nasar’s biography. And doubts about his accomplishments gnawed at him: Two of mathematics’ highest honors, the Putnam Competition and the Fields Medal, had eluded him.

In 1957, after two years of on-and-off courtship, he married Alicia Larde, an M.I.T. physics major from an aristocratic Central American family and one of only 16 women in the class of 1955.

“He was very, very good looking, very intelligent,” Ms. Nash told Ms. Nasar. “It was a little bit of a hero-worship thing.”

But early in 1959, with his wife pregnant with their son, John, Dr. Nash began to unravel. His brilliance turned malignant, leading him into a landscape of paranoia and delusion, and in April he was hospitalized at McLean Hospital, outside Boston, sharing the psychiatric ward with, among others, the poet Robert Lowell.

It was the first step of a steep decline. There were more hospitalizations. Dr. Nash underwent electroshock therapy and fled for a while to Europe, sending cryptic postcards to colleagues and family members. For many years he roamed the Princeton campus, a lonely figure scribbling unintelligible formulas on the same blackboards in Fine Hall on which he had once demonstrated startling mathematical feats.

Though game theory was gaining in prominence, and his work cited ever more frequently and taught widely in economics courses around the world, Dr. Nash had vanished from the professional world.

“He hadn’t published a scientific paper since 1958,” Ms. Nasar wrote in the 1994 Times article. “He hadn’t held an academic post since 1959. Many people had heard, incorrectly, that he had had a lobotomy. Others, mainly those outside of Princeton, simply assumed that he was dead.”

Indeed, Dr. Myerson recalled in a telephone interview that one scholar who wrote to Dr. Nash in the 1980s to ask permission to reprint an article received the letter back with one sentence scrawled across it: “You may use my article as if I were dead.”

Reaching a ‘Watershed’

Still, Dr. Nash was fortunate in having family members, colleagues and friends who protected him, got him work and in general helped him survive. Ms. Nash divorced him in 1963, but continued to stand by him, taking him into her house to live in 1970. (The couple married a second time in 2001.)

Ms. Nash supported her ex-husband and her son by working as a computer programmer, with some financial help from family, friends and colleagues.

By the early 1990s, when the Nobel committee began investigating the possibility of awarding Dr. Nash its memorial prize in economics, his illness had quieted. He later said that he had simply decided that he was going to return to rationality. “I emerged from irrational thinking, ultimately, without medicine other than the natural hormonal changes of aging,” he wrote in an email to Dr. Kuhn in 1996.

Colleagues, including Dr. Kuhn, helped persuade the Nobel committee that Dr. Nash was well enough to accept the prize — he shared it with two economists, John C. Harsanyi of the University of California at Berkeley, and Reinhard Selten of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany — and they defended him when some questioned giving the prize to a man who had suffered from a serious mental disorder.

The Nobel, the publicity that attended it and the making of the film were “a watershed in his life,” Dr. Kuhn said of Dr. Nash. “It changed him from a homeless unknown person who was wandering around Princeton to a celebrity, and financially it put him on a much better basis.”

Dr. Nash is survived by his sons, John David Stier and John Charles Martin Nash, and a sister, Martha Nash Legg.

He continued to work, traveling and speaking at conferences and trying to formulate a new theory of cooperative games. Friends described him as charming and diffident, socially awkward, a little quiet, with scant trace of the arrogance of his youth.

“You don’t find many mathematicians approaching things this way now, barehandedly attacking a problem,” the way Dr. Nash did, Dr. Mazur said.
______________________________________

Read More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/john-f-nash-jr-dies-nobel-laureate-was-subject-of-a-beautiful-mind/2015/05/24/61463418-0219-11e5-bc72-f3e16bf50bb6_story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/24/us/feat-john-nash-wife-killed/

Happy Birthday to the late El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (formerly Malcolm X)

FROM MALCOLM X TO EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ
The Transformation of Malcolm X

Written by Zameer Baber

Malcolm X was perhaps one of the most controversial elements in
the civil rights movement. In his early years, Malcolm X became a member of
Nation of Islam, a religion that borrowed basic ideas from the orthodox
teachings of Islam and combined with racist views regarding whites taught
by Elijah Mohammed. Malcolm X was a very influential and prominent priest
for the Nation of Islam. However, Mr. Mohammed and his Nation of Islam
turned against Malcolm when he questioned some of the beliefs and actions
of Elijah Mohammed. This uncertainty forced Malcolm to embark on a quest
over seas seas to find his true beliefs. Upon his arrival to Arabia, he
found a truly different society, where race played no factor on a person's
status (Davies, 98). This made a very positive change in Malcolm X's
beliefs. This unity of human kind had forced Malcolm to change many of his
ideas including his beliefs about the the solution to the racial problem in
America.

Malcolm X had his first religious enlightenment while serving time
for various crimes he had committed when he was young. While Malcolm was in
prison, he learned and adopted the teachings of Nation of Islam, a
religious sect of Orthodox Islam which believes in strict moral codes and
radical views about race led by Elijah Mohammed. By the time he left
prison, Malcolm had completely changed himself from a drug dealing burglar
to a religious priest for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X had completely
submitted himself to the racist teachings of Elijah Mohammed. It is through
the Nation of Islam and Elijah Mohammed's teachings that Malcolm developed
his radical views about race in America.

Under the teachings of Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm X had targeted all
whites and blamed them for position of blacks in society. He had referred
to whites as devils, who sought to lower the standards of blacks even more,
by bringing prostitution, liquor, etc. into black neighborhoods. (Life,
0:06:03). Malcolm X believed that complete segregation between blacks and
whites was the only answer to the racial problem in America. Malcolm felt
that all the actions committed against blacks in history was due the white
race in its entirety, and not because of specific individual actions (X,
238-239). He also believed that blacks should not only segregate but all
blacks should migrate to Africa, and establish a society there (Perry,
196).

Fifteen years after Malcolm embraced the Nation of Islam, he
started to question the religion. Allegations of sexual misconduct and
illegitimate children against Elijah Mohammed had arisen (Mack-Williams,
101). When Malcolm confronted Mr. Mohammed regarding the situation, Mr.
Mohammed admitted to his actions. Malcolm then began to question the
beliefs of Elijah Mohammed, and his involvement with the Nation of Islam.
During this time, according to Malcolm, Elijah Mohammed and other leaders
of the Nation of Islam grew increasingly jealous of Malcolm's success, and
created lies about Malcolm to discredit his name (X, 290). Malcolm finally
left the Nation of Islam in 1964.

Later that same year, in an attempt to find the true religion of
Islam, as it is practiced by the millions of followers around the world,
Malcolm embarked on a voyage that would ultimately change his beliefs,
life, and attitude about America. Malcolm X landed in Mecca, Arabia to
undergo the holy pilgrimage, an act that all well-to-do orthodox Muslims
are required participate in . This experience had a very positive impact on
Malcolm X. Despite the racial frustrations Malcolm carried, he wrote in a
letter to his wife,

"Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the over
whelming sprit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all
colors and races here [Mecca].... this pilgrimage... has forced me
to re-arrange much of my thought patterns... and toss aside some of
my previous conclusions.... In the words and in the actions and in
the deeds of 'White' Muslims I felt the same sincerity that I felt
among the Black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana" (qtd.
in X, 339-340).

While racial hatred, in America, had forced blacks into the lowest depths
of society, Malcolm had encountered a land where the color of the skin
played absolutely no factor in any aspect of life. While Segregation in
America had forced blacks to survive in poorest of living conditions, the
white leader of Arabia had invited Malcolm to stay not only in his
extravagant palace, but in his own room (X, 333). While whites had beaten,
raped, and attacked blacks, while fire hoses were unleashed at black
civilians, while hungry dogs were released on black protesters, while white
supremacist groups like the KKK used violence to intimidate blacks, Malcolm
X had "eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass... while
praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes are the
bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was
the whitest of white" (Malcolm X tape II, 1:38:48). It is from this trip to
Arabia, that Malcolm learned about the value of brotherhood He learned to
trust people, whites in particular. Malcolm learned the color of one's skin
does not reflect what kind of person you are, rather that ones actions
reflect the quality of a person (X, 333). He learned that coexistence can
and will work, something that Malcolm previously believed could never
happen. From this trip, Malcolm abandoned all his racist and segregational
views about the American society, and adopted the more Orthodox Islamic
approach of racial coexistence and equality.

When Malcolm returned to his trip, he immediately started preaching
his new philosophy. He developed new ideas about race in America and how
its relation in the world, foreign policy and politics, and African
American unity.

Perhaps the greatest change in Malcolm's beliefs were his ideas
regarding relationships between whites and blacks. His conversion to
orthodox Islam had changed his views about Whites completely. In one of his
speeches after his Mecca trip, he writes:

"I am not a racist... In the past I permitted myself ... to make
sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race,
and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites and
perhaps did not deserve to hurt. Because of my spiritual
enlightenment... as a result of my pilgrimage [to Mecca, Arabia]...
I no longer subscribe to make sweeping indictments of any one race"
( "Malcolm X", MSA internet site).

It is at this time Malcolm X had changed his name from the Nation of Islam
trademark of "X" to a traditional orthodox Muslim name, Malik El- Shabazz.
This change in his name probably signified his complete separation from the
Nation of Islam's radical philosophy about racial separation to orthodox
Islam's beliefs in racial equality. This is what Malik El-Shabazz said
about his new found religion: "When you become [a true] Muslim, you don't
look at a man as being black, brown, red, yellow. You look at him as being
a man" (qtd. in Decaro Jr, 72).

Mr. El- Shabazz practiced his new found philosophy.. After
Malcolm's separation from the Nation of Islam, he created his own
orginization called Muslim Mosque Inc., which abandoned the Nation of
Islam's anti-symetic views and called for black unity both in America and
abroad. (Myers, 158). Perhaps the most shocking difference between Muslim
Mosque Incorporated and the Nation of Islam was its views regarding whites.
According to Malik's friend, Dr. Mahmoud Shawarbi, Malik El-Shabazz wanted
whites to join his organization. In fact, Mr. El- Shabazz felt that it
would help his organization grow (DeCaro Jr., 249). This was a complete
reversal from his previous beliefs under the Nation of Islam where he not
only didn't trust whites, he referred to them as devils (Malcolm X
tape 2, 0:27:36).

In Arabia, Malcolm witnesses coexistence between all races. He
brought this positive ideology to America. In his years with Nation of
Islam, Malcolm called for complete separation of blacks and whites. He felt
that the only way blacks could exist the way they deserve to exist is if
they governed and lived by themselves (Malcolm X tape II, 1:11:19).
However, Malik El- Shabazz no longer believed this way, infact he
completely changed his views on this subject. Mr. Shabazz went as far as to
state that relationships between races was permissible saying, "...when you
are dealing with humanity as a family there's no marriage of intergration
or intermarriage" (qtd. in X, 424). Malik El- Shabazz truly felt unified
with the people of all nations who held common beliefs. He believed that
the solution to the racial problems lies in the mind of the people, not
segregation. Malik El- Shabazz had felt that that many of the whites in
America had developed a superiority attitude which dates back to the time
of slavery. This superiority attitude was the root of the racial problems
in America, and unless it is removed, theses problems could never be
solved. (DeCaro Jr, 1^9)

The way Malik El- Shabazz viewed other black organizations changed
as a result of his spiritual rebirth. Previously, under the Nation of
Islam, Malcolm X denounced all black leaders who supported "non-radical"
solutions to the racial problems in America. He argued, "...when the white
man wants to attack Negroes, they can't defend themselves, because [Martin
Luther] King has put this foolish philosophy out- you're not supposed to
fight or you're not supposed to defend yourself." Malcolm made direct
criticisms against Martin King and others like King (qtd. in Gallen, 139).
However, since the conversion to authentic Islam, Malik El- Shabazz looked
at other black leaders differently. On his trip to Mecca, Malcolm witnessed
a tremendous amount of unity of people, despite their differences. He had
felt that unity is what strengthened brotherhood. Malik El- Shabazz wanted
to bring this unity to America (Malcolm X tape II, 1:19:52). When Malik El-
Shabazz returned to America, he gave full support to all black
organizations, which wanted to achieve positive results. He began to set
the stage for working with Martin Luther King and perhaps other black
leaders (Curry, 5).

Shabazz's enlightenment in Arabia changed his attitude regarding
the solution to the racial problems. Since Malik El- Shabazz gained a sense
of unity with the people of the world, he no longer felt that the racial
problem existed only in America. He felt the civil rights cause should be
addressed as human rights and should be treated as a human problem, not
just a national one (Davies, 104). In that regard Malik El- Shabazz
presented proposition to sue the United States for violating human rights
in front of the United Nations (Curry, 5). However, because of the mind-set
of the black community in America at the time, the proposition had minimal
support. In addition this movement was completely stopped as a result of
Shabazz's assassination.

Malik El- Shabazz also made direct criticisms against Elijah
Mohammed and the Nation of Islam. He believed that the religion of Nation
of Islam is a completely different entity than Orthodox Islam, and Elijah
Mohammed was a fake. Regarding the Nation of Islam and Elijah Mohammed,
Malcolm writes:

"For 12 long years I lived within the narrow minded confines of the
straight jacket world created by my strong belief that Elijah
Mohammed was a messenger direct from God... and my faith in what I
now see to be a pseudo-religious philosophy that he preaches. . . .
I shall never rest until I have undone the harm I did to so many
well-meaning, innocent Negroes who... now believe in him even more
fanatically and more blindly than I did (Malcolm X Quotes,
Internet). This passage reflects Shabazz's new beliefs regarding
the Nation of Islam, Shabazz's previous religion. He had felt that
the Nation of Islam was blinding many blacks, which in turn could
hurt the human rights movement."

Malik El- Shabazz, not only criticized the Nation of Islam, he preached for
many blacks to convert from Nation of Islam to Orthodox Islam. Malcolm had
insulted the Nation by calling it "cult like" (De Caro Jr., 166). An action
that threatened Elijah Mohammed and his Nation of Islam. El- Shabazz had
felt that this threat may lead the Nation of Islam to inflect violence, in
particular, against himself. (DeCaro Jr., 254). El- Shabazz was correct. On
February 21, 1965, Malik El- Shabazz was assassinated while delivering a
speech in New York. Three Nation of Islam leaders were convicted and
sentenced for the killing (Myers, 196-197).

Malik El- Shabazz had said, "My whole life has been a chronology
of changes" (Malcolm X Quotes, Internet). El- Shabazz had three main stages
in his life. As Malcolm Little, he was a drug addict and a criminal. As
Malcolm X, he had transformed from a petty thief to a prominent priest for
the Nation of Islam . He taught racial hatred and radical views on solving
the racial problems in America. As Malik El- Shabazz, he had transformed
from preaching segregation to preaching racial unity and equality. If
someone was to hear the beliefs of Malcolm X and hear the beliefs of
Malcolm as Malik El-Shabazz, they might beleive that Malcolm and Malik were
two entirely different people, with drastically opposing views. Perhaps
what made Malik El- Shabazz so great was that bettered himself by
acknowledging his mistakes, learning from them, and was committed to
teaching the lessons of his mistakes to others, so others could better
themselves.
_____________________________

Sources:

Curry, George E. "The Last Days of Malcolm X." Emerge Feb. 1995: 1-5. SIRS
Researcher Article 49.

Davies, Mark. Malcolm X: Another Side of the Movement. New Jersey: Silver
Burdett Press Inc., 1990.

DeCaro Jr., Louis A. On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm
X. New York: New York University, 1996.

Gallen, David. Malcolm X: As They Knew Him. New York: Caroll & Graff
Publishers Inc., 1992.

Life and Death of Malcolm X. Dir. James Washington. Narr. Kingston Ducoeur.
Simitar Entertainment, 1992.

Mack-Williams, Kibibi. Malcolm X. Florida: Rourke Publications Inc., 1993.

Malcolm X. Dir. Spike Lee. With Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett.
Warner Bros., 1992.

Moritz, Elke. Malcolm X Quotes. http://www.unix-ag.uni
kl.de/moritz/daten/afroamer/mxquotes.aa. Online. Netscape. Internet. 30
April 1996.

MSA. Malcolm X. http://www.csun.edu/~hbcsc103/malcolmx.html. Online.
Netscape. Internet. 5 May 1996.

Myers, Walter Dean. Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary. New York:
Scholastic Inc., 1993.

Perry, Bruce. Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. New
York: Station Hill Press Inc., 1991.

X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Random House Inc.,
1965.
____________________________

Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson in the Boxing Ring

Never knew Muhammad Ali was that fast until I saw this #respectMusic theme is called the xx- intro , here is link for the longer version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPcDl5PLm8o

Posted by Willy Foo - Photographer, Marketer, Technopreneur on Thursday, May 8, 2014

Muhammad Ali shows of his speed against an array of opponents.

BEST OF MIKE TYSON!

Mike Tyson, one of the greatest ever!

Posted by DJ Mosaken on Monday, April 6, 2015

Mike Tyson shows of his speed and power during the prime of boxing career

Atlanta's CBS-owned 1380 WAOK and sister station V103fm (WVEE) ends 23-year NTR event: "For Sisters Only"

Story by Inside Radio

CBS-owned talk station 1380 (WAOK-AM) Sister R&B/hip-hop station V-103 (WVEE-FM) and Atlanta are ending their signature annual event 'For Sisters Only' this year after a 23-year run. A competitor may have led to the change.

The two day event was cut to one day in 2013, featured live music from big name acts such as Ciara, Kelly Rowland, Future, Brandy and Tamar Braxton along with vendors, talks and giveaways from sponsors such as McDonald’s and Verizon.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Station General Manager Rick Caffey declined to comment except to say they are planning another type of event this fall but haven’t finalized the details. Elements of "For Sisters Only" may be used in the future.

The newspaper reports that some of event's thunder may have been stolen by Steve Harvey. The syndicated radio host heard on Atlanta competitor Majic 107.5/97.5 began producing his annual Steve Harvey’s Neighborhood Awards in Atlanta last year, moving from Vegas. The multi-day event features an expo at the Georgia World Congress Center that targets a similar audience as For Sisters Only: Black Women.

THE KING OF BLUES BB KING DEAD AT 89

THE KING OF BLUES BB KING DEAD AT 89.

The thrill BB King is gone and for millions of music fans around the world, he was the best with a guitar. He did it his way and became of the most admired in music respected by all.


BB King LIVE in Nashville and Memphis


B.B.King & Friends - Night Of Blistering Blues (1987)

King’s attorney said, he died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. PDT Thursday at his home in Las Vegas.

The iconic blues guitarist and singer was 89. He had been musically active until last fall, when he collapsed on stage during a concert in Chicago. No cause of death has been disclosed yet. But King was hospitalized in early April, when he was suffering from dehydration. He was briefly hospitalized again on April 30, according to his daughter, Patty King, who said he may have had a minor heart attack. He had also battled Type 2 diabetes for decades.

A message posted Friday, May 1, on King’s website read: “I am in home hospice care at my residence in Las Vegas. Thanks to all for your well wishes and prayers.”

Authorities recover eighth victim in Amtrak train crash near Philadelphia

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter speaking at 12noon Press Conference today (Photo: Suzanne Kennedy/WJLA)

Story by AP/ABC

Philadelphia - The death toll from the Amtrak wreck rose to eight with the discovery of another body in a mangled railcar Thursday, while a lawyer for the train's engineer said his client has no recollection of the crash and wasn't on his cellphone or using drugs or alcohol.

A cadaver dog found the eighth body in the wreckage of the first passenger car Thursday morning, nearly 36 hours after the crash, Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer said.

Officials believe they have now accounted for all 243 passengers and five crew members who were thought to be aboard the train, Mayor Michael Nutter said.

Meanwhile, lawyer Robert Goggin told ABC News that engineer Brandon Bostian, 32, of New York City, suffered a concussion in Tuesday night's wreck and had 14 staples in his head, along with stitches in one leg.

Federal investigators have determined that the train was barreling through the city at 106 mph before it ran off the rails along a big curve where the speed limit drops to 50 mph. But they don't know why it was going so fast.

"He remembers coming into curve. He remembers attempting to reduce speed and thereafter he was knocked out," Goggin said. But he said Bostian does not recall anything out of the ordinary and does not remember using the emergency brake, which investigators say was applied moments before the crash.

The lawyer said the next thing the engineer remembered was coming to, looking for his bag, retrieving his cellphone and calling 911 for help. He said the engineer's cellphone was off and stored in his bag before the accident, as required.

"As a result of his concussion, he has absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the events," Goggin said. He said he believes the engineer's memory will probably return once the head injury subsides.

Goggin said that his client "cooperated fully" with police, immediately consented to a blood test and surrendered his cellphone. He said he had not been drinking or doing drugs. Police had said on Wednesday that the engineer had refused to give a statement to law enforcement.

Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday that accident investigators want to talk to the engineer but will give him a day or two to recover from the shock of the accident.

Goggin said his client was distraught when he learned of the devastation.

The engineer hit the emergency brakes moments before the crash but slowed the train to only 102 mph by the time the locomotive's black box stopped recording data, according to Sumwalt. The speed limit just before the bend is 80 mph, he said.

Nutter said the engineer was clearly "reckless and irresponsible."

"Part of the focus has to be, what was the engineer doing?" the mayor said. "Why are you traveling at that rate of speed?"

Within hours of the wreck, Bostian's Facebook profile picture was changed to a black rectangle. Friends who seemingly knew about his role in the crash before his name publicly surfaced rallied to his side.

"Hold your head up," wrote a Facebook friend whose profile identifies him as an Amtrak engineer living in California. "Yes, it happened to you but it could have been any one of us and you are not alone."

Bostian was an Amtrak conductor for four years before becoming an engineer in December 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. The Tennessee native graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor's degree in business administration and management in 2006, the university said.

He was obsessed with trains as he grew up, said Stefanie McGee, a friend who is now the city clerk in Bostian's hometown of Bartlett, a suburb of Memphis. She said Bostian talked about wanting to become an engineer.

"He would go on vacation with his family and come back talking about the train ride," she said. "He would go to New York and get a map of the subway routes, and that's what he was excited about."

No one answered the door at an address listed for Bostian in Queens.

More than 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured in the wreck, which happened in a decayed industrial neighborhood not far from the Delaware River just before 9:30 p.m.

Sixteen people remained at Temple University Hospital, including eight in critical condition, but all were expected to recover, said Dr. Herbert Cushing, chief medical officer. The patients are between 19 and 80 years old and have severe rib injuries, he added.

"All individuals we had any reason to believe were on that train have now been accounted for and we know their whereabouts completely," the mayor said Thursday morning.

The dead included an Associated Press employee, a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, a Wells Fargo executive, a college administrator and the CEO of an educational startup.

It was the nation's deadliest train accident in nearly six years.

With the investigation underway, all Amtrak service has been suspended between Philadelphia and New York, forcing many thousands of commuters and other travelers to find some other means of transportation.

The tragedy has led to new demands for the installation of technology known as positive train control, which uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to prevent trains from going over the speed limit.

Amtrak has equipped most of its heavily used Northeast Corridor with positive train control, but not the section where the accident happened.

"Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred," Sumwalt said.

The notoriously tight curve is not far from the site of one of the deadliest train wrecks in U.S. history: the 1943 derailment of the Congressional Limited, bound from Washington to New York. Seventy-nine people were killed.

In 2013, four people were killed in a derailment in the Bronx when a New York City commuter train took a 30 mph curve at 82 mph. NTSB investigators said the sleep-deprived engineer in that crash had nodded off at the controls because of undiagnosed sleep apnea combined with a drastic shift in his work schedule.

Amtrak carries 11.6 million passengers a year along the Northeast Corridor, which runs between Washington and Boston.

Five Reasons Chicago Is in Worse Shape Than Detroit - especially Chicago's Pension Funds

Story by Bloomberg
Written by Tim Jones

Forget all the nicknames attached to Chicago for generations -- Windy City, City of Big Shoulders, the City that Works. This gleaming metropolis of 2.7 million people is now, along with Detroit, junk city.

When Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Chicago’s debt on Tuesday to junk status, it deepened the city’s financial crisis and elevated comparisons to the industrial ruin 280 miles to the east.

Chicago partisans, starting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, argue vehemently that their city isn’t Detroit. They cite population growth, a diverse economy bolstered by an abundance of Fortune 500 companies, vibrant neighborhoods and a booming tourist trade.

Yet here are five reasons, now more than ever, that suggest Chicago is akin to Detroit -- or, by some measures, even worse. Or, as Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner put it last month: “Chicago is in deep, deep yogurt.”

BIG, SCARY NUMBERS: Chicago’s unfunded liability from four pension funds is $20 billion and growing, hitting every city resident with an obligation of about $7,400. Detroit’s, whose population of about 689,000 is roughly a quarter of Chicago’s, had a retirement funding gap of $3.5 billion, meaning each resident was liable for $5,100. A January 2014 report from Morningstar Municipal Credit Research showed that among the 25 largest cities and Puerto Rico, Chicago had the highest per-capita pension liability.

HOSTILE COURT: When Detroit filed for Chapter 9 in July 2013, a federal bankruptcy judge exerted his considerable powers and decreed that everyone -- taxpayers, employees, bondholders and creditors alike -- would get a haircut to settle the crisis. When the Illinois Supreme Court ruled on May 8, it said the state couldn’t cut pension benefits as part of a solution to restructure the state retirement system.

That decision sent a clear signal to Chicago, which was trying to follow the state’s benefit-cutting lead. Where the Detroit judge acted, the Illinois justices told elected officials to clean up the mess of their own making.

POLITICAL PARALYSIS: Just as Detroit slid into bankruptcy after decades of economic and actuarial warnings, Chicago politicians have watched the train wreck rumble toward them for more than a decade. During that time, they skipped pension payments and paid scant attention to the financial damage being done. In 10 years starting in 2002, the city increased its bonded debt by 84 percent, according to the Civic Federation, which tracks city finances. That added more than $1,300 to the tab of every Chicago resident.

In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder acted when the crisis in Detroit couldn’t be avoided. He invoked a state law giving an emergency manager what amounts to fiscal martial-law power. In Chicago’s case, there’s no political pressure to invoke a similar law. And a proposal supported by Rauner that would allow municipalities to seek bankruptcy protection without state approval is languishing in the Illinois legislature.

NO BAILOUT: Detroit’s bankruptcy filing allowed it to restructure its debt, officially snuffing out $7 billion of it by cutting pensions and payments to creditors. In Illinois, the nation’s lowest-rated state with unfunded pension obligations of $111 billion, Rauner had a blunt message last week in an unprecedented address to Chicago’s City Council: The city will get no state bailout.

DENIAL: After years of denial, Detroit officials finally, if grudgingly, agreed to major surgery. At least for now, Chicago’s Emanuel is sticking to his view that the Illinois Supreme Court’s rejection of a state pension reform law doesn’t apply to the city. “That reform is not affected by today’s ruling, as we believe our plan fully complies with the State constitution because it fundamentally preserves and protects worker pensions,” he said in a statement on Friday.

Four days later, Moody’s begged to differ. “In our opinion,” it wrote, “the Illinois Supreme Court’s May 8 ruling raises the risk that the statute governing Chicago’s Municipal and Laborer pension plans will eventually be overturned.”

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter Amtrak Train Accident News Conference

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter along with Pennsylvania Governor, members of the NTSB and first responders, discuss the Amtrak train accident which has so far claimed six lives (Video by NBC News). Train 188, a Northeast Regional, was traveling from Washington, D.C. to New York City; 243 onboard including 5 Amtrak staff

____________________________

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter from Press Conference this morning: “This is fully coordinated operation, and everyone understands their role. We train for these kinds of incidents—although every one of these instances, and this is a tragedy, are very different. Again, from last night, we can only confirm that, unfortunately, we have six deceased. We have transported now hundreds of people to various hospitals. Sadly, not all the passengers of the train, have been accounted for. Everything still at this point, 12-plus hours into this traffic event, is preliminary information and subject to change. The National Transportation Safety Board officials have not yet confirmed the cause of the derailment. The black box has been recovered. We have no information from that device at all because it is currently being analyzed by the experts. The NTSB is leading the investigation.”
____________________________

The latest from Yahoo News: At least seven people are dead and scores injured as a result of Tuesday night's Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia. The commuter train was traveling from Washington D.C. to New York City when it derailed.

NTSB: Amtrak train was speeding at 100-plus mph when it derailed

Latest details:

* Amtrak Train 188 was speeding at 100-plus miles per hour (twice the
approved limit) when it derailed and crashed Tuesday night, federal
investigators now confirm."

* In a statement, Amtrak said "it would be inappropriate
for us to comment or speculate about any information that is being
investigated.

* A seventh fatality was discovered in the wreckage earlier today,
according to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

* More than 200 people out of the 243 passengers and crew were treated
for injuries at hospitals. Eight patients remain in critical condition.

* The train's "black box" event recorders are being analyzed.

* An unknown number of people are unaccounted for, officials say.
"We will not cease our efforts until we are absolutely sure that we have
gone through every vehicle," Nutter said. "The search is
vigorous."

* People with questions about their friends or family on Amtrak 188
should call 800-523-9101. Amtrak service between Washington and New York City
remains suspended.

Dozens killed as armed men open fire on bus in Pakistan

Relatives of victims of an attack on a bus gather outside a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, on Wednesday.

Story by Al Jazeera

At least 43 people have been killed and more wounded in a gun attack on a bus in the Pakistani city of Karachi.

The bus belonged to the Ismaili Shia Muslim sect, and was targeted by gunmen at the Safoora Chowk intersection in the eastern part of Pakistan's largest city on Wednesday.

The assault is Pakistan's deadliest in months. Provincial police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali said 43 people were killed, including 16 women, and another 13 people were wounded.

Jamali added that six attackers are believed to have been involved, and the gunmen approached the bus on three motorcycles.

Testimony from those who have seen the bus, and footage of it, suggests that the attackers boarded the bus and shot indiscriminately while inside.

Jamali said that those killed had been hit by 9mm gunfire, indicating that handguns may have been used in the attack.

Pamphlets left at the scene of the attack claimed that it had been carried out by fighters allied to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group.

“Oh soldiers of the [unbelievers]! We swear that we will make you and your families cry tears of blood and will not rest until we have cleansed this land of you and established Shariah,” read the pamphlet.

Jundullah, a Pakistani armed group that pledged allegiance to ISIL in November last year, also claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack.

Following the attack, the bus was driven to the nearby Memon Medical Institute and Hospital with 62 people still inside — many of whom had already died.

“When the bus came into the hospital, there were some people whose heads were hanging limply out of the windows,” said a hospital official, on condition of anonymity.

Many of those injured were in critical condition, hospital official Salma Wahid told Al Jazeera.

“Their condition is serious and they were covered in blood when they came in,” said Wahid, adding that many were unconscious when they were admitted.

Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, who heads the provincial government, said that he had ordered senior police officials to investigate the incident.

“I have taken it very seriously. I am terribly sorry that this nasty incident has taken place. Whoever it is, we have to detect the offense and take action against the culprits,” he told local media shortly after the attack.

This is the fifth major attack against Shia Muslims in Pakistan this year, with previous attacks including suicide attacks and bombings at Shia mosques in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar and Shikarpur. Those attacks claimed the lives of at least 98 people.

Karachi, home to at least 20 million people, has often seen incidents of targeted attacks on political, ethnic and sectarian grounds, although violence has decreased since a paramilitary operation against criminals was launched in September 2013.

Black Miss Japan fights for race revolution

Miss Japan Ariana Miyamoto has resolved to use her new-found fame to help fight racial prejudice (AFP Photo/Toru Yamanaka)

Story by AFP
Written by Alastair Himmer

Ariana Miyamoto entered the Miss Universe Japan beauty contest after a mixed-race friend committed suicide. And she endured abuse after winning the crown because of her skin colour.

Far from being put off by the backlash, Miyamoto resolved to use her new-found fame to help fight racial prejudice -- in much the same way British supermodel Naomi Campbell broke down cultural barriers in the fashion industry a generation ago.

"I'm stubborn," said Miyamoto, the daughter of a Japanese mother and black American father, who turned 21 on Tuesday.

"I was prepared for the criticism. I'd be lying to say it didn't hurt at all. I'm Japanese -- I stand up and bow when I answer the phone. But that criticism did give me extra motivation," she told AFP in an interview.

"I didn't feel any added pressure because the reason I took part in the pageant was my friend's death. My goal was to raise awareness of racial discrimination," added Miyamoto, who was bullied as a schoolgirl growing up in the port town of Sasebo, near Nagasaki.

"Now I have a great platform to deliver that message as the first black Miss Universe Japan. It's always hard to be the first, so in that respect what Naomi Campbell did was really amazing."

Social media lit up after Miyamoto's victory in March, many critics complaining the title should have gone to what they called a "pure" Japanese, rather than a "haafu" (the Japanese pronunciation of "half", a word used to describe mixed race).

Miyamoto, who turns heads in Japan with her caramel skin and height of 1.73 m (5 ft 8 ins), admitted she has had to toughen up.

"I used to get bullied as a kid but I've got mentally stronger, to protect myself," said the model, whose first language is Japanese, screwing up her nose in mock horror when handed an English menu by a waitress.

"When I was small I stood out and always felt I had to fit in with everyone. I'd try not to bring attention to myself, but now I say what I feel. I do things my own way.

"I want to start a revolution," Miyamoto added with a laugh. "I can't change things overnight but in 100-200 years there will be very few pure Japanese left, so we have to start changing the way we think."

- 'Shock of the new' -

The hostility Miyamoto faced sits at odds with a government-sponsored drive to promote the country overseas as "Cool Japan" and entice foreign tourists for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Some point to the success of mixed-race celebrities such as Rola -- a model of Bengali, Japanese and Russian descent -- and half-British singer and actress Becky as proof of Japan's openness to change.

"It's possible that some conservative people might feel Ariana Miyamoto doesn't fit the traditional Japanese image to represent the country," said psychologist Yoko Haruka, a regular on Japanese TV.

"It's just the shock of the new. But she certainly has the chance to be a pioneer, and it's an excellent opportunity for Japan to become more globally aware."

Miyamoto argues that any shift still favours Caucasian or Eurasian lineage in an overwhelmingly homogenous country, where multi-racial children make up just two percent of those born annually.

"In Japan there are hardly any black models or TV personalities," she said. "Most celebrities are like Rola or Becky. Hopefully I can help create a Japan where anyone can make things happen."

Should Miyamoto win the Miss Universe finals later this year, she would spend a year living in splendour at New York's Trump Towers -- and her influence over issues close to her heart, which also include gender identity disorder, would be greatly enhanced.

But despite her noble intentions, Miyamoto has no plans to run for political office just yet.

"I'd like to use my position to become a leader," she smiled. "I'm like a sponge -- always absorbing new things. But I haven't thought too deeply about politics yet. It's still a bit early to think about becoming Prime Minister!"

Youth Summit Thursday Evening May 14th., 6:00pm in Baltimore, Maryland

Verizon is buying AOL

Story by CNN Money

Verizon is buying AOL for about $4.4 billion, or $50 a share, the companies announced Tuesday.

The deal aims to create a major new player in the digital media business by combining one of the biggest mobile network providers with a leading content producer.

It's part of Verizon's (VZ, Tech30) plan to dominate a future in which all content -- from TV channels to publications -- are streamed over the Internet.

By buying AOL, Verizon is getting much more than the 1990s dial-up Internet company that first introduced many Americans to the Web.

Today AOL provides online video services, content and ads to 40,000 other publishers. It brings in $600 million in advertising. It has news sites such as The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget.

It is also developing its own video shows aimed at smartphone and tablet users, some of which have as many as 15 million viewers, which is more than many well-known television shows now attract.

Armstrong recently told a panel at the Internet and Television Expo that Internet companies and traditional cable, phone and media companies need to be coming together to create joint offerings, and that those who don't find a partner are in danger of being left on the sidelines without enough scale to compete.

"I think we're at a tipping point," he said. "I think this is absolutely a time period almost like the beginning of the Web. There are years ... where everything changes. And I think we're in one of those time periods right now."

AOL will become a separate division within Verizon. Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL (AOL, Tech30), will keep his job.

Armstrong told CNN's Poppy Harlow that the combination will open new growth opportunities for both AOL and Verizon amid the shift toward mobile devices.

The merger, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close sometime this summer.

"At this point we don't expect regulatory issues," Armstrong told CNN.

Armstrong, whose stake in AOL is now worth $84 million, up from $71 million before the deal, said there are no plans for job cuts. Verizon said it would fund the purchase with cash on hand and short-term corporate loans.

Shares of AOL were up nearly 19% to just over $50 in morning trading. The stock closed at $42.59 on Monday. Verizon shares were down slightly.

The deal marks a major turning point in the history of AOL, which many had left for dead just a few years ago.

In January of 2000, when the Internet was still relatively young and a large percentage of users depended on dial-up modems, AOL and its stock were flying high. It used that strength to strike a deal with established media giant Time Warner (TWX), the owner of CNN, HBO, Warner Bros., and a number of other units it has since sold off. The deal was eventually judged to be among the worst mergers in corporate history.

The Internet bubble soon burst and the combined AOL Time Warner reported a record corporate loss of $99 billion in 2002, just a year after the merger was completed. The conglomerate eventually dumped the AOL unit in 2009.

NEWS from the LIBRARY of CONGRESS - Family of Rosa Parks to Discuss Her Legacy

NEWS from the LIBRARY of CONGRESS

Press contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217, glam@loc.gov
Public contact: Center for the Book (202) 707-5221, cfbook@loc.gov
Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Family of Rosa Parks to Discuss Her Legacy – “Our Auntie Rosa” Memoir Offers Personal Side of Parks’ Life

Rosa Parks is internationally famous for her role in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Yet few know the other side of Parks’ life.
A new memoir, “Our Auntie Rosa: The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and Lessons” (Tarcher/Penguin, 2015), provides a look at Parks as a model of excellence in daily life, as well as a devoted mother figure to her niece, Sheila McCauley Keys, and Keys’ 12 siblings.

Keys and Eddie B. Allen Jr., the memoir’s co-author, will discuss and sign their book on Wednesday, May 20, at noon in Room LJ 119, located on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. This Books & Beyond program is sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Library’s Prints and Photographs and Manuscript divisions, and the Daniel A.P. Murray Association of the Library of Congress. The Rosa Parks Collection is housed in the Manuscript Division, on loan to the Library for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Following her act of bravery on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, Rosa Parks and her husband moved to Detroit in 1957, where Parks largely disappeared from public view. There, Parks reconnected with her only sibling, Sylvester McCauley, and her nieces and nephews. They were her only family. The woman whose family called her “Auntie Rosa” was a soft-spoken person whom very few people actually knew.

Sheila McCauley Keys is the seventh niece of Rosa Parks. She was featured in PBS’s live broadcast of the National Day of Courage, celebrating what would have been Parks’ 100th birthday, in 2013. Journalist Eddie B. Allen Jr. is the author of “Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Gaines.” His work has appeared in The New York Times and the Detroit Free Press, among other publications.
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Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs, publications and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov.

The Library’s Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to "stimulate public interest in books and reading," is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading promotion partners and through the Young Readers Center and the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit read.gov.
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PR 15-086
5/12/15
ISSN 0731-3527

Dr. Boyce Watkins defines what is Rich, Poor, Free, and Mental Enslavement

Dr. Boyce Watkins defines what is Rich, Poor, Free, and Mental Enslavement

Baltimore, Maryland is not Ferguson, Missouri

Commentary by George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist

Baltimore is not Ferguson. That was evident by opposite official reactions to the death of an unarmed African American male killed at the hands of local police in the respective cities. At the time of Michael Brown's death last year in Ferguson, Mo., the city with a two-thirds Black majority was governed by a White mayor and a White city manager, had only one Black on the 6-member city council, and had a White police chief who directed a department that was 94 percent White. Equally telling, less than 12 percent of voters turned out to cast a ballot in 2014.

Though also predominantly Black - 63.7 percent - Baltimore has a Black mayor, Police Commissioner, State's Attorney and President of a city council that is 60 percent African American. The Police force is 48 percent Black.

After the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch mangled his Grand Jury presentation - perhaps deliberately - that resulted in the grand jury's decision "not" to indict Officer Darren Wilson, the White officer who fatally shot Michael Brown.

As the New York Times pointed out, the St. Louis County Prosecutor strayed from customary behavior by, among other things:

* Convening the Grand Jury for 25 days over three months instead of the usual one;
* Calling 60 witnesses, possibly confusing jurors, instead of only a few that are usually called;
* Allowing Wilson to testify for four hours, without being cross-examined, though most potential defendants do not usually testify before a grand jury and
* Taking the unusual step of "not" making a recommendation to the grand jury.

So, no one was surprised that the jury of nine Whites and three Blacks voted "not" to indict Darren Wilson.

-- In Baltimore, things were different.

First, voters had ousted the incumbent State Attorney by electing Marilyn J. Mosby (African-American) over Gregg L. Bernstein in the Democratic primary. Though on the job less than four months, the 35-year-old Mosby made the courageous decision to charge six Baltimore police officers with crimes that included murder and manslaughter instead of conveniently shifting that responsibility to a grand jury.

Mosby made her decision several hours after receiving the medical examiner's report that concluded that Gray's death was a homicide.

At a news conference, she said: "The findings of our comprehensive, thorough and independent investigation, coupled with the medical examiner's determination that Mr. Gray's death was a homicide that we received today, has led us to believe that we have probable cause to file criminal charges."

She also said, "To the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America: I heard your call for 'No justice, no peace.' Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man."

Shortly after Mosby announced her decision, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (also an African-American), said she was "sickened and heartbroken" by the charges outlined by Mosby. She said, "To those of you who want to engage in brutality, misconduct, racism and corruption, let me be clear: There is no place for you in the Baltimore City Police Department."

The fact that Rawlings-Blake and Mosby (African-American women) were in a position to act boldly was possible only because Black voters put them in office.

You can't reasonably hope for that kind of outcome when only 12 percent of the voters turn out for an election, which was the case in Ferguson.

But don't get it twisted: Having Blacks in office or voting in large numbers do not guarantee justice will be done. Blacks vote in respectable numbers in New York City yet the White officer, David Pantaleo, was never prosecuted in the choking death of Eric Garner.

In Baltimore, the State's Attorney's investigation revealed that many of the early assertions made by the police department, under the supervision of Black Police Commissioner Anthony Batts were inaccurate. Even worse, of the six officers charged, three of them - Sgt. Alicia White and Officers William Porter and Caesar Goodson, Jr. - are African American.

Goodson faces the most serious charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He was driving the van that transported Gray and was accused of not placing the suspect in a seatbelt for his safety.

Porter was told twice that Gray was in need of a medic, but never called one, according to the prosecutor. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and other charges.

White arrived on the scene after Gray had been placed in the police van. But she, too, was accused of failing to summon a medic. She was charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and misconduct in office.

The other officers - Edward Nero, Garrett Miller and Lt. Brian Rice - were charged with, among other things, second-degree assault.

Clearly, having Blacks in key positions is no guarantee that justice will be served. But it certainly increases the odds of that happening, as we have seen in Baltimore.
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George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA) and BlackPressUSA.com. Cury is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. George can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge and George E. Curry Fan Page on Facebook.

See previous columns at http://www.georgecurry.com/columns.