Olga Kisseleva

Olga Kisseleva (; born 22 November 1965 in Saint-Petersburg) is a Russian artist. Olga Kisseleva works mainly in installation, science and media art. Her work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale art installations and interactive exhibitions.
Biography.
As early as the beginning of the 1990s Olga Kisseleva became, thanks to an invitation by the Fulbright Foundation, part of a team of creators working on the development of numerical technologies in the United States. She primarily stays at Columbia University and University of California, where she participates in the adventure of the first start-ups of the Silicon Valley.
Olga Kisseleva teaches New media art and Art&Science in the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. From 2007 to 2009 she was a member of the High Scientific Committee of Sorbonne.
The work of Olga Kisseleva constantly interweaves actions that reveal themselves in the urban environments or in network with interventions in galleries and museums. For the 5th Dakar Contemporary Art Biennial, she presented « Une Voyante m’a dit... », an alarming method, where the artiste publicly exchanges her look with different participants to symbolically endorse their identity and see the world through their eyes. « Where are you? » places the phenomenon of the teleobjectivity to the centre of the project while proposing an immersion within reality, in environments that truly raise the imagination. Leaving one collects photographs accumulated during their peregrinations through the world; the artiste makes obvious the impressive gaps to which one attends in all contemporary megalopolis. Rewarded by the International Prize ProArte (Russia), Olga Kisseleva works in collaboration with The Academy of Sciences « Hybrid Space », a body of twelve interactive installations, a perilous game, that explores the capacity of the spectator to reveal the presence of a border, that separates reality and the imagination.
Main exhibitions.
The artist’s exhibitions include: Modern Art Museum (Paris, France), State Russian Museum, (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), Kiasma (Helsinki, Finland), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain), Moscow Biennale (2007), Dakar Biennale (2002), Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain (Paris, France), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, USA), National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Moscow, Russia).


Alice (Pogo song)


Ursula Endlicher

Ursula Endlicher is a New York City based Austrian multi-media artist who creates works in the fields of internet art, performance art and installation art.
Life and education.
Ursula Endlicher was born in Vienna, Austria. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1991. In 1995, she received a Master of Fine Arts, with an emphasis in computer art, from the School of Visual Arts. She relocated permanently to New York City in 1993.
Work.
Endlicher has created technology-based performances and installations that use live Internet data. A recurring theme in her work is the "nature" of the web and the behavior of its users, addressed through exploitation of the Internet’s inherent architecture, the web’s HTML language, and user behavior on social media sites. Endlicher’s earliest Internet artwork was presented at the Thing's Vienna bulletin board in 1994. Her internet art works have been since been commissioned for the Whitney Museum’s artport ("Light and Dark Networks", 2012; "Famous for One Spam", 2004) and for New Radio and Performing Arts’s Turbulence.org website ("html_butoh").
Two of her projects—the performance series "Website Impersonations: The Ten Most Visited" and "html_butoh"—use HTML code as the basis of a movement language. That is, HTML (and later XML) tags are translated into a set of dance movements, thus making the web code visible and physical. Endlicher writes, "I first had the idea to 'perform' HTML in 2006, when I discovered a parallel between HTML tags (the language the Web is written in) and Butoh (a Japanese dance technique, which is based on 'becoming an image' in the performance)." In "html_butoh" these movements are recodified into a database of small video clips. "Website Impersonations" has been hosted at SIGGRAPH, the Center for Performance Research, Light Industry, and elsewhere.
Endlicher has also physicalized the web through her project "Website Wigs", a collection of wigs whose structure replicates the sitemap of websites belonging to Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and other entities of the digital era. The sites' hyperlinks are represented through braiding, beading, and color banding, resulting in a three-dimensional form of data visualization.
Endlicher's performances have been hosted in festivals such as transmediale, SIGGRAPH, and ZERO1 Biennial, as well as at galleries and museums such as Postmasters Gallery (New York), Jersey City Museum (New Jersey), Beral Madra Contemporary Art (Istanbul, Turkey), and the Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdów Castle (Warsaw, Poland). She has collaborated on several occasions with other artists, including Ela Kagel (with whom she ran the blog "curating netart" from 2006 to 2009), Anke Zimmermann, Annie Abrahams, and the Plaintext Players. Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rhizome Artbase, and the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art at Cornell University.


Tape bias

Tape bias is the term for two techniques, AC bias and DC bias, that improve the fidelity of analogue tape recorders. DC bias is the addition of direct current to the audio signal that is being recorded. AC bias is the addition of an inaudible high-frequency signal (generally from 40 to 150 kHz) to the audio signal. Most contemporary tape recorders use AC bias.
When recording, magnetic tape has a nonlinear response as determined by its coercivity. Without bias, this response results in poor performance, especially at low signal levels. A recording signal that generates a magnetic field strength less than the tape's coercivity cannot magnetise the tape and produces little playback signal. Bias increases the signal quality of most audio recordings significantly by pushing the signal into more linear zones of the tape's magnetic transfer function.
History.
Magnetic recording was proposed as early as 1878 by Oberlin Smith, who on 4 October 1878 filed, with the U.S. patent office, a caveat regarding the magnetic recording of sound and who published his ideas on the subject in the 8 September 1888 issue of "The Electrical World" as "Some possible forms of phonograph". By 1898, Valdemar Poulsen had demonstrated a magnetic recorder and proposed magnetic tape. Fritz Pfleumer was granted a German patent for a non-magnetic "Sound recording carrier" with a magnetic coating, on 1 January 1928, but it was later overturned in favour of an earlier US patent by Joseph A. O'Neill.
DC bias.
The earliest magnetic recording systems simply applied the unadulterated (baseband) input signal to a recording head, resulting in recordings with poor low-frequency response and high distortion. Within short order, the addition of a suitable direct current to the signal, a DC bias, was found to reduce distortion by operating the tape substantially within its linear-response region. The principal disadvantage of DC bias was that it left the tape with a net magnetization, which generated significant noise on replay because of the grain of the tape particles. Some early DC-bias systems used a permanent magnet that was placed near the record head. It had to be swung out of the way for replay. DC bias was replaced by AC bias but was later re-adopted by some very low-cost cassette recorders.
AC bias.
Although the improvements with DC bias were significant, an even better recording is possible if an AC (alternating current) bias is used instead. While several people around the world rediscovered AC bias, it was the German developments that were widely used in practice and served as the model for future work.
The original patent for AC bias was filed by Wendell L. Carlson and Glenn L. Carpenter in 1921, eventually resulting in a patent in 1927. The value of AC bias was somewhat masked by the primitive state of other aspects of magnetic recording, however, and Carlson and Carpenter's achievement was largely ignored. The first rediscovery seems to have been by Dean Wooldrige at Bell Telephone Laboratories, around 1937, but the BTL lawyers found the original patent, and simply kept silent about their rediscovery of AC bias.
Teiji Igarashi, Makoto Ishikawa, and Kenzo Nagai of Japan published a paper on AC biasing in 1938 and received a Japanese patent in 1940. Marvin Camras (USA) also rediscovered high-frequency (AC) bias independently in 1941 and received a patent in 1944.
The reduction in distortion and noise provided by AC bias was rediscovered in 1940 by Walter Weber while working at the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG). The German pair received several related patents, including for "high-frequency treatment of the sound carrier".
Possibly independently of Weber and Braunmühl, the UK company Boosey & Hawkes produced a steel-wire recorder under government contract during the Second World War that was equipped with AC bias. Examples still surface from time to time, many having been disposed of as government surplus stock. After the war, Boosey and Hawkes also produced a "Reporter" tape recorder in the early 1950s using magnetic tape, rather than wire, which was based on German wartime technology.
Theory.
As the tape leaves the trailing edge of the gap in the tape head, the oscillating magnetic field due to the applied AC bias is rapidly reduced to the average magnetic field of the much slower-changing audio signal, and the tape particles are therefore left in this magnetic condition. The non-linearity of the magnetic particles in the tape coating is overcome by having the AC bias field greater by at least an order of magnitude (10× the maximal audio field), which saturates these particles in both magnetic directions while they pass the gap in the recording head. The AC bias level is quite critical and, after being adjusted for a particular tape formulation with a specific recording machine, is usually left unchanged.
The mechanism is similar to the demagnetizing signal, which is used to erase the tape except that the desired audio signal is superimposed and retained on the tape during the recording process. The large AC bias acts as a demagnetizing signal which decays exponentially as the tape moves beyond the head, while the audio signal is the residual field that remains imprinted on the magnetic medium.
A quantitative explanation of AC bias has been given by Bertram.
Practice.
The characteristics of the recording system change quite markedly as the level of the bias current is changed. There is a level at which the system gives the minimal distortion (which is the highest bias). There is also a level at which the high-frequency response is at maximum (lowest bias). These conditions, unfortunately, do not occur at the same bias level. Professional reel-to-reel and cassette recorders are always set up for minimal distortion. Consumer equipment, particularly Compact Cassette recorders, have the bias set at a compromise level (usually a little higher) to give good frequency response and acceptably low distortion.
Bang & Olufsen invented and patented the so-called Dolby HX PRO (Headroom eXtension) principle for combining bias control with the Dolby system for better high-frequency response in cassette recorders. Tandberg invented the cross-field recording system for tape recorders where a separate head with the bias was used. Adding bias to the recorded signal in the one head had tended to limit the system's high-frequency response due to interaction between bias and signal. The cross-field system produced less interference from the bias signal. This allowed extended high-frequency performance compared to mixing the two signals in the recording head, but mechanical tolerances for cross-field are tight. The system required frequent readjustment and was largely abandoned. Japanese manufacturer Akai, however, persisted with cross-field bias and successfully marketed portable and mains-operated machines featuring the cross-field system.
Different amplitudes of bias field are optimal for different types of tape, so most recorders offer a bias setting switch on the control panel, or, in the case of the compact audio cassette, may switch automatically according to cutouts on the cassette shell. Ferric-based tapes require the lowest bias field, while chrome-based tapes (including the pseudo-chromes) requiring a higher level, and metal-particle tapes requires even more. Metal-evaporated tape accepts the highest level of bias, but it is mostly used for digital recording (which does not use bias, as the non-linearity is not a major problem). The same is valid for a combination cassette tape, the FeCr variant, on which a thinner chrome layer covered a thicker ferric layer. The idea behind this was that at lower frequencies and higher head currents, the ferric layer would be more deeply magnetized, while at higher frequencies only the top Cr layer was active. In practice, this didn't work well, and some claimed that this thin chrome layer was quickly polished off in heavy use.


Luckin Coffee

Luckin Coffee Inc. () is a Chinese coffee company and coffeehouse chain. It was founded in Beijing in 2017. , it managed 4,507 kiosks and exceeded the number of Starbucks stores in China. Most of its stores are small "pick-up" locations in office buildings or college campuses that serve for online orders' pickup and delivery.
In April 2020, the company revealed that it had inflated its 2019 sales revenue by up to US$310 million. It resulted in the stock price crashing and several executives being fired. Trading was suspended and the company was delisted from NASDAQ on 29 June 2020. The company filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the US in February 2021.
History.
Luckin Coffee was incorporated in October 2017, and by January 2018 had opened its first shops in Beijing and Shanghai. The company announced the completion of Series A financing to a total of US$200 million in July 2018 backed by Centurium Capital, Joy Capital and GIC.
The company continued its rapid growth—by October 2018, Luckin Coffee had opened 1300 stores, surpassing the number of Costa Coffee stores to become the second-biggest coffee brand in China. Luckin Coffee also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tencent. Much of Luckin's expansion was fueled by an aggressive marketing strategy which saw the company spend three times as much as it earned to feed its growth. In May 2018, Luckin Coffee accused Starbucks of forming a monopoly by signing exclusive contracts with suppliers and property owners. Starbucks dismissed these allegations as a marketing stunt. On 16 May 2018, the case was officially put on file by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court. In October 2019, Luckin Coffee unilaterally withdrew the case.
In January 2019, Luckin Coffee announced that they planned to open 2500 new stores and surpass Starbucks to become the biggest coffee brand in China. Luckin also gained exposure in the US stock market, applying to the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations and starting to trade on Nasdaq at $17 a share. After reaching $25.96 on the first day, the stock dropped to $16 on its second day of trading. By the end of September 2019, Luckin Coffee had opened 3,680 stores, and had recorded a net loss of $75 million in the third quarter of 2019.
In January 2019, Luckin Coffee appointed Reinout Schakel as CFO.
On 8 January 2020, Luckin Coffee held a press conference about their self-service retail stores operations. At the conference, Luckin announced to public that they had opened 4507 stores in past two years and as such had already become the biggest coffee chain brand in China, surpassing Starbucks. Luckin Coffee also announced their unmanned retail strategy and two new technical products in the press conference—Luckin Coffee EXPRESS and Luckin popMINI. Luckin Coffee EXPRESS venues adopt the Swiss made Schaerer coffee maker and are placed in offices, campuses, airports, train stations and communities as self-service coffee makers in the future. Luckin popMINI is the vending machine with E-commerce price.
On 13 July 2020, Luckin Coffee named Jinyi Guo as the new chairman and CEO after co-founder and former chairman Charles Zhengyao Lu was removed by shareholders.
On 5 February 2021, the embattled Luckin Coffee Inc. filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in New York, less than a year after the company said that more than a quarter’s worth of business may have been faked. The move will protect the company from lawsuits by U.S. creditors while it reorganizes in China, where it runs several thousand outlets. All its coffee shops will remain open for business and the Chapter 15 petition will not materially impact the company’s day-to-day operations, according to a statement issued on Friday.
2020 accounting scandal.
On 31 January 2020, short-selling firm Muddy Waters Research published an anonymous 89-page report on Twitter, claiming that Luckin Coffee had falsified financial and operational figures. The report claimed that the number of items sold per store was inflated by at least 69% in the third and by 88% the fourth quarter of 2019, supposedly backed by 11,200 hours of video footage. Before the U.S. stock market opening on 3 February 2020, Luckin Coffee responded by categorically denying all allegations made in the report. The company argued that the report raised malicious accusations and false allegations with unsubstantiated evidence and flawed methodology.
On 2 April 2020, Luckin Coffee announced that an internal investigation found that its chief operating officer, Jian Liu, had fabricated the company's 2019 sales by "around RMB2.2 billion" (US$310 million). The next day, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said that it would investigate the company for fraud. On 8 April, the U.S. stock market halted trading on all Luckin shares over the fraud probe. In the month of April, the company's stock fell by over 80%. In mid-April 2020, American investment bank Goldman Sachs announced that it would seize and sell the Luckin stock holdings of the company's chairman, Lu Zhengyao, after he defaulted on a $518 million margin loan.
On 12 May 2020, CEO Jenny Zhiya Qian and COO Jian Liu were relieved of their positions, while Reinout Schakel remained as CFO. On 15 May the company received a delisting notice from NASDAQ.
After over a month of being halted for trading, Luckin Coffee stock was able to be traded again on 20 May 2020. On 28 May, shares of Luckin Coffee (NASDAQ:LK) plummeted more than 20% after The Wall Street Journal released a report claiming that firms linked to the company's chairman and controlling shareholder played a central role in its accounting scandal.
On 29 June 2020, Luckin Coffee suspended trading on NASDAQ and filed for delisting, after the exchange ordered the company to delist.
The scandal could potentially have a profound impact, as the US Government is poised to pass the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, which would force Chinese companies to provide audited financial statements or else face delisting from U.S. stock markets.
In September 2020, China's markets regulators fined a group of firms including Luckin Coffee for a combined $8.98 million in relation to Luckin's falsification of financial and operational figures.
On 16 December 2020, the US SEC settled the accounting fraud case with Luckin Coffee for $180 million. Luckin agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the SEC allegations which include defrauding investors by materially misstating revenue and expenses, inflating its growth rates and understating its losses.
Operations.
Luckin Coffee stores started trial operations in January 2018. The company operates shops, stores, and kiosks that offer coffee, tea, and food. As noted by sources, the company's marketing and market appeal is centered around marketing and discounts; Luckin offers freebees, where each new customer is offered a free drink and a 50%-off coupon for one cup. They also offer "buy one, get one free" coupons for loyal customers. These discounts make its price lower than Starbucks and attracted a bigger number of returning customers in the early stage of its business.
The brand also has a strong focus on technology. Luckin Coffee did not open any traditional brick-and-mortar stores in the beginning. Its physical locations were only for making coffees and fulfilling online orders picked up by customers or delivery persons. Although most of its stores do not have seats or other services for customers, and are in less prestigious locations compared to Starbucks, the brand has been able to capture a new generation of consumers and rival Starbucks in China. The target customers of Luckin Coffee are white-collar workers and students near the stores who do not have much time to drink coffee at stores.
Customers need to download the Luckin Coffee App to order and pay for drinks online. Luckin Coffee also cooperates with the second largest courier in China, SF Express, delivering orders to customers within two kilometers around each store. This operation principle is suitable for Chinese people's fast-paced lives and put pressure on other traditional coffee brands.
Products.
Purchases can only be made through the Luckin mobile application. Luckin offers coffee-based drinks regularly found in other coffee shops, and has a selection of recipes custom-made for the palates of the Chinese consumers. Luckin Coffee hired Hidenori Izaki (2014 World Barista Champion) to advise the company on recipes and store designs.


Dayamani Barla

Dayamani Barla is a tribal journalist and activist from the Indian state of Jharkhand. She became notable for her activism in opposing Arcelor Mittal's steel plant in Eastern Jharkhand that tribal activists say would displace forty villages.
Barla has won a number of prestigious awards for journalism. She unsuccessfully ran from the Khunti Lok Sabha Constituency, Jharkhand in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as an Aam Aadmi Party candidate.
Early life.
Dayamani was born in the tribal family (also known as Adivasi in India) in Jharkhand state of eastern India. Her family belonged to the Munda tribe. Dayamani's father like other tribals in the region was cheated out of his property, because he could not read and lacked paperwork to show his rights to the land. Her father became a servant in one city, and her mother a maid in another. Barla remained in school in Jharkhand but worked as a day labourer on farms from the 5th to 7th grades. To continue her education through secondary school, she moved to Ranchi and worked as maid to pay her way through University. She, sometimes, slept at railway stations to continue her education in Journalism.
Career.
Barla works in a popular Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar to bring attention to myriad problems facing the Munda people and other tribal communities in the Jharkhand region. She is the National President of Indian Social Action Forum INSAF. Earlier her journalistic work was supported by a small fellowship for some years by Association for India's Development (AID). Barla owns and runs a tea shop that effectively supports her journalistic desire and career. She chose the business consciously because tea shops are gathering places where social issues are discussed.
Activism.
Jharkhand region is rich in natural resources and many government and private companies have appropriated land to build number of natural resources extracting factories. Although the tribal people are supposed to receive compensation, numbers of activists allege that they do not receive adequate compensation.
Arcelor Mittal wants to invest US$8.79 billion to set up one of the world's biggest steel plants in the area. The Greenfield steel project requires of land and a new power plant. According to Barla, that would displace forty tribal villages. Barla and her organisation "Adivaasi, Moolvaasi, Astitva Raksha Manch" (Forum for the protection of tribal and indigenous people's identity) – says apart from causing massive displacement, the project will destroy the forests in the area. It will also affect the water sources and ecosystems, thereby threatening the environment and the very source of sustenance for indigenous peoples, it says. Arcelor Mittal on its part says that it does not want to grab local peoples land as is willing to negotiate with all stake holders. But Barla counters that the subsistence tribal communities will not survive the alienation from their native land and they cannot be compensated for such a loss.
Awards.
Barla won the Counter Media Award for Rural Journalism in 2000 and the National Foundation for India Fellowship in 2004. Counter Media Award is funded by royalties from journalist P. Sainath's book "Everyone Loves a Good Drought", and is meant for rural journalists whose (often outstanding) work gets ignored or even appropriated by the larger press at the State or national level in India.
 In 2013, she was conferred the Ellen L. Lutz Indigenous Rights Award instituted by Cultural Survival, an international NGO.


Wilbur Ross

Wilbur Louis Ross Jr. (born November 28, 1937) is an American businessman who served as the 39th United States Secretary of Commerce from 2017 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Ross was previously chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of WL Ross & Co from 2000 to 2017.
Before founding WL Ross & Co, Ross ran the bankruptcy restructuring practice at N M Rothschild & Sons in New York beginning in the late 1970s. In April 2000, Ross left Rothschild to found WL Ross & Co. Ross was a banker known for acquiring and restructuring failed companies in industries such as steel, coal, telecommunications, and textiles, later selling them for a profit after operations improved, a record that had earned him the moniker "King of Bankruptcy". Ross has been chairman or lead director of more than 100 companies operating in more than 20 different countries.
Named by Bloomberg Markets as one of the 50 most influential people in global finance, Ross was previously an adviser to New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on privatization, and was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the board of The U.S. Russia Investment Fund.
On November 30, 2016, then-President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Ross to become the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. On February 27, 2017, the Senate confirmed him in a 72–27 vote. He was sworn into office on February 28, 2017; at age 79, he was the oldest first-time Cabinet appointee in U.S. history.
Early life and education.
Ross was born on November 28, 1937, in Weehawken, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby North Bergen, New Jersey. His father, Wilbur Louis Ross, was a lawyer who later became a judge, and his mother, Agnes (née O'Neill), a descendant of Irish people, was valedictorian from Sacred Heart Academy in Hoboken and taught third grade in North Bergen for 40 years.
Ross attended Xavier High School, a Catholic school, and college-preparatory school in Manhattan. He ran track and was captain of the rifle team. He graduated in 1955. In 1959, he received a bachelor's degree from Yale College, his father's alma mater. At Yale, Ross edited one of the literary magazines and worked at the radio station. His dream was to be a writer. He enrolled in an English course that required writing a thousand words by 10 a.m. every day; after two weeks, he ran out of things to write about and dropped the course. His faculty adviser at Yale helped him get his first summer job on Wall Street. In 1961, he received a Master of Business Administration degree at Harvard Business School.
Business career.
Early career.
In 1963, he joined what became Wood, Struthers & Winthrop. There, he liquidated the portfolio of its venture capital affiliate.
He then worked for Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan, an institutional securities research company, where he rose to become president of its investment banking operation. The firm was sold to what became Shearson Lehman.
Rothschild Investments.
In 1976, Ross began his 24-year employment with the New York City office of Rothschild & Co, where he ran the bankruptcy restructuring advisory practice. By 1998, Ross was involved in eight of the 25 biggest bankruptcies to date, including Drexel Burnham Lambert, Texaco, Public Service of New Hampshire (now Eversource Energy), and Eastern Air Lines.
In the 1980s, Donald Trump's three casinos in Atlantic City were under threat of foreclosure from lenders. Ross, who was then the senior managing director of Rothschild & Co, represented investors in the casino. Along with Carl Icahn, Ross convinced bondholders to strike a deal that allowed Trump to keep control of the casinos.
WL Ross & Co..
In November 1997, under Rothschild & Co, Ross started a $200 million fund to invest in distressed securities. In its first year, it earned a 15.2% return. In April 2000, just before the dot-com bubble burst, Ross founded WL Ross & Co and raised $450 million to buy the fund from Rothschild and make additional investments. By 2003, the fund had averaged a 30% return.
In 2006, Ross sold WL Ross & Co to Amvescap (now Invesco).
International Steel Group (ISG).
In February 2002, WL Ross & Co founded International Steel Group. He first agreed to buy the assets of bankrupt Ling-Temco-Vought for $325 million, paying $11 per ton of capacity when other firms were trading for $200 per ton of capacity. A few weeks later, George W. Bush slapped a 30% tariff on many types of imported steel. A year later, WL Ross & Co acquired the assets of bankrupt Bethlehem Steel. As part of the bankruptcy reorganizations, these companies shifted their huge pension liabilities to the government-backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Ross had support from the United Steelworkers, negotiating a deal to save some jobs.
In April 2005, WL Ross & Co sold International Steel Group to Mittal Steel Company for $4.5 billion, half in cash and half in stock, and made 12.5 times its original investment. Ross personally made a $260 million profit on his $3 million investment and gained a seat on the board of directors of Mittal Steel.
International Textile Group (ITG).
After outbidding Warren Buffett, who offered $579 million, WL Ross & Co acquired Burlington Industries for $620 million and combined it with Cone Mills in 2004 to form International Textile Group.
In 2005, Ross acquired 77.3% of Safety Components International for $51.2 million.
In October 2006, Ross had International Textile Group acquire Safety Components International. Ross controlled both companies and in February 2014, Ross paid $81 million to settle a lawsuit brought by shareholders that Ross breached his fiduciary duty when structuring the merger. International Textile Group was acquired by private equity firm Platinum Equity in 2016.
International Automotive Components Group (IAC).
International Automotive Components Group was formed in 2006 by WL Ross & Co and investment funds managed by Franklin Templeton Investments. In 2006, the company acquired the European operations of Lear Corporation and in 2007, it acquired Lear's North American interiors operations. In 2005–2007, IAC purchased several divisions of Collins & Aikman. In September 2005, investors led by Ross invested $100 million in Oxford Automotive for 25% of the company. In 2006, Oxford merged with Wagon Automotive.
International Coal Group (ICG).
WL Ross & Co founded International Coal Group in 2004 after acquiring the assets of several bankrupt coal companies. The United Mine Workers of America protested the reorganization as it led to changes in health care and pensions for the existing employees.
In 2006, the Sago Mine disaster, an explosion in a coal mine indirectly owned by International Coal Group, likely caused by a lightning strike, led to the deaths of 12 miners. The mine had 12 roof collapses in 2005, and U.S. Department of Labor data showed 208 citations for safety violations in that same period, including 21 times for build-up of toxic gases. Miners and their families accused Ross of ignoring safety violations. Ross defended his company's management of the mine.
In 2011, Arch Coal acquired International Coal Group for $3.4 billion.
Navigator Gas.
By January 2016, WL Ross & Co was the "biggest investor" in Navigator Gas, a liquefied gas shipping company.
Overstating of net worth.
In February 2017, "Forbes" reported that Ross has a net worth of $2.5 billion. Financial disclosure forms filed by Ross after his nomination as Commerce Secretary showed less than $700 million in assets, and Forbes later revised his net worth to $600 million.
Grift allegations.
In August 2018, "Forbes" reported that Ross's business partners and workers accused Ross of illicitly siphoning or stealing a total of $120 million.
In December 2017, a report by two Irish financial analysts, commissioned by Luke Ming Flanagan, an Irish member of the European Parliament, accused Ross of insider trading as part of a 2014 sale of shares in the Bank of Ireland by WL Ross & Co.
Overcharging of fees.
In August 2016, Ross agreed to reimburse investors $11.8 million and pay a fine of $2.3 million to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe into the overcharging of fees by WL Ross & Co. The company had self-reported the issue and did not admit any liability.
On August 7, 2018, five former WL Ross & Co. employees and investors claimed the firm was charging its investors fees on money it had lost, including allegedly charging fees on one investment that was essentially worthless.
United States Secretary of Commerce (2017–2021).
On November 30, 2016, then-President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Ross for United States secretary of commerce. On February 27, 2017, the Senate confirmed Ross in a 72–27 vote. Ross was sworn into office on February 28, 2017.
Ross took office at the age of 79, making him the oldest first-time Cabinet appointee in U.S. history. The previous record-holder was Philip Klutznick, who took office at the age of 72.
Trade issues.
UK trade post-Brexit.
In December 2016, after being designated by Trump as his nominee to lead the Commerce Department, Ross said in a speech to Cypriot financiers that Brexit was a "God-given opportunity" for other countries, such as Ireland and Germany, to draw business away from the United Kingdom's financial services industry. In 2017, Ross said that a trade deal with the UK was a low priority for the Trump administration; however, he outlined possible terms. No U.S. trade deal with the UK was concluded, although Ross and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stated in January 2020 that they hoped to have an "easy" agreement with the UK that year.
Tariffs and trade wars.
In September 2017, Ross traveled to Beijing as part of efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-China trade war. In February 2018, the Commerce Department recommended an increase of tariffs in aluminum and steel imports. On March 1, 2018, Trump implemented a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum imports. In September 2018, Ross said that the tariffs are meant to "modify China's behavior".
In 2018, under Trump and Ross, the U.S. imposed tariffs on the import of steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. Ross dismissed concerns that the tariffs would increase costs to U.S. consumers, harm the U.S. economy, and damage relations with U.S. allies, saying that tariffs were "blips on the radar screen" and that the EU "will get over this in due course." He also dismissed concerns over EU retaliatory tariffs. In November 2019, Ross indicated that the Trump administration might now also impose tariffs on imports of automobiles from the EU; in January 2020, however, Ross said that the Trump administration might still impose tariffs on European cars despite ongoing trade talks. Also in January 2020, Ross threatened retaliation if the EU adopted a proposed carbon tax, comparing it to a proposed EU digital services tax, to which the administration has also threatened tariffs in response.
Ban of Huawei.
In January 2019, Ross was present with other American politicians when 23 criminal charges were announced against Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou, including financial fraud, money laundering, conspiracy against the United States, industrial espionage, mail and wire fraud, obstruction of justice and violation of sanctions against Iran. In July 2019, Ross stated that the United States will keep Huawei on its blacklist but will allow licensed sales.
Accusations of being out of touch.
In May 2017, Ross accompanied Trump on his first foreign visit, to Saudi Arabia, where Ross generated controversy after heralding the president's visit as a success due to a lack of protests, unaware that the Saudis had banned public protest and demonstrations since 2011.
During the 2018-19 federal government shutdown, Ross was criticized as being out of touch with average American citizens after expressing bewilderment about why furloughed, unpaid workers and contractors would choose to visit food banks rather than apply for a personal loan.
Non-disclosures.
In February 2019, Ross' financial disclosure was rejected by the Office of Government Ethics after he reported that he had sold bank stock in conflict with other disclosures he made.
Ross failed to disclose a lawsuit from ex-business partner David Storper on his financial disclosure forms. Ross settled the lawsuit for $9 million after being subpoenaed for information that he did not want to disclose.
Conflicts of interest from failure to divest.
In June 2018, an investigation by "Forbes" found that Ross, while secretary of commerce, owned "stakes in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin's inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation and a huge player in an industry Ross is now “investigating" and that Ross had failed to divest his financial holdings, instead putting them in a trust for his family members, contradicting Ross's written statement in November 2017 that he had divested all his financial holdings. Ross may have broken the law in doing so. These holdings posed a conflict of interest for Ross, as the Trump administration was in a position to affect the value of the holdings.
Ross was confirmed by the Senate in February 2017 and he agreed to sell his stocks before the end of May 2017. In July 2018, it was reported that Ross divested from his stock in Invesco, originally worth between $10 and $50 million, in December 2017. Between the end of May and the sale date in December, the value of Ross's holdings in Invesco increased by between approximately $1.2 million to $6 million, depending on the number of shares he owned, which was not disclosed. Ross said that he "mistakenly believed that all [his] previously held Invesco stock was sold". On July 13, 2018 after he received a letter from the government's top ethics watchdog warning of "potential for a serious criminal violation", Ross announced that he will sell all his remaining stock.
In October 2018, documents showed that Ross had participated in a meeting with executives from Chevron Corporation where they discussed oil and gas developments, tax reform and trade issues. Ross's wife owned a stake in Chevron worth at least $250,000 at the time.
In October 2020, it was reported that Ross had continued to serve on the board of a Chinese joint venture until January 2019 (which was nearly two years into his tenure as Secretary of Commerce); at the same time, the United States and China were engaged in a trade war.
Insider trading allegations.
While Secretary of Commerce, Ross shorted at least five stocks. In June 2018, it was revealed that Ross shorted stock after he knew of an upcoming report with information that would adversely affect the company but before the story was published. Ross later closed out the position at a substantial profit after the story was published. Ethics experts said that the shorting was alarming given that federal office-holders are prohibited from profiting on nonpublic information. Ross denied that he had engaged in insider trading. Ross had shorted two additional stocks in June 2018 and two additional stocks in July 2018.
2020 Census citizenship question.
As secretary of commerce, Ross oversaw the Census Bureau and the 2020 Census, and approved adding the controversial question: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"
New York solicitor general Barbara Underwood led a lawsuit filed by 18 states and many cities to attempt to stop the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. The Department of Justice supported the Department of Commerce. U.S. federal judge Jesse M. Furman ruled against the Department of Justice and Wilbur Ross, stating that if the trial is delayed the appeals process may not be done by summer 2019, the printing deadline of the census. Furman blocked the census question proposal on January 15, 2019, saying Ross had violated a "veritable smorgasbord" of federal rules, asserting Ross and his aides made false or misleading statements under oath. Democrats in Congress accused Ross of lying about the citizenship question's origins, and of seeking to add the question to the Census based on a pretext.
Contempt of Congress.
Ross and the Trump administration refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, issued by the House Oversight Committee, for documents regarding efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. After Trump asserted executive privilege over the subpoenaed documents, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Ross and Attorney General William Barr in criminal contempt of Congress, with the committee's chairman saying that Ross and Barr had "blatantly obstructed our ability to do congressional oversight." In June 2019, the House held Barr and Ross in contempt of Congress on a mostly party-line 230–198 vote; this was only the second time in U.S. history that a sitting Cabinet member was held in contempt. The vote signified an escalation of the House of Representatives' battles with the Trump White House over congressional oversight, but was largely symbolic as Trump's Justice Department did not act on the criminal citation.
Supreme Court decision.
On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court, in "Department of Commerce v. New York", left the citizenship question blocked from the 2020 census, in part because of the government's explanation for why it was added. In the Supreme Court opinion, there was a significant mismatch between Secretary Ross's decision to add the question, and his stated reason that the question would to support Department of Justice's Voter Rights Act.
Ownership in Navigator Gas.
In November 2017, leaked documents known as the Paradise Papers showed that, during his confirmation hearings, Ross had failed to clearly disclose a financial interest in Navigator Gas, a shipping company which transports petrochemicals for Russian gas and petrochemicals company Sibur. Ross had failed to clearly disclose ties to Russian interests during his confirmation hearings. While his confirmation was pending, Ross promised in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics to cut ties "with more than 80 financial entities in which he has interests". This letter played a key role in securing his confirmation. However, according to the leaked documents, while he did divest some holdings, he did not disclose the full extent of those he retained.
Speaking about his financial ties to Navigator, Ross said the media was making "a lot more out of it than it deserves" and "There is nothing wrong with it. The fact that it happens to be called a Russian company doesn't mean there is any evil in it." A spokesman for Ross stated that Ross has never met Shamalov, Timchenko or Mikhelson and that Ross "recuses himself from any matters focused of transoceanic shipping vessels, but has been generally supportive of the administration's sanctions of Russian and Venezuelan entities".
Dysfunction of the Department of Commerce.
In July 2019, "Politico" reported that the Commerce Department under Ross reached "new heights of distraction"; an outside source, as well as multiple senior staffers, described Ross as "seen as kind of irrelevant" and morale at the department as "very low because there's not a lot of confidence in the secretary." Ross allegedly left his department leaderless due to the large amounts of time spent in the White House trying to win support from President Trump. Also, Ross allegedly tends to fall asleep in meetings to the extent that senior staffers have avoided putting him in critical meetings where he could fall asleep. Reports of Ross' inability to stay awake have gone back as far as May 2017, where in a meeting in Riyadh with the Arab-Islam-American Summit during President Donald Trump's speech, Ross appeared to have been completely asleep.
NOAA/Hurricane Dorian controversy.
On September 1, 2019, President Donald Trump made the incorrect claim that Hurricane Dorian presented a major threat to Alabama; minutes later the Birmingham, Alabama, branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) (which is under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is part of the Commerce Department) reported that Alabama was not at risk. "The New York Times" reported that Ross had threatened, a few days late, to fire high-level NOAA staff unless the agency disavowed its contradiction of Trump's false claim, leading to a September 6 NOAA statement from an unidentified spokesperson endorsing Trump's position and declaring that the NWS Birmingham's contradiction of Trump was incorrect. The Commerce Department denied that Ross had threatened to fire "any NOAA staff over forecasting and public statements about Hurricane Dorian." Later reporting said that Ross had made the call from Greece, where he was traveling, after being told to "fix the problem" by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, reportedly on Trump's orders. The NOAA's disavowal prompted an outcry from scientists and others, who said that the agency's failure to back its hurricane forecasters damaged its credibility.
A subsequent report by the National Academy of Public Administration, commissioned by NOAA, found that NOAA's leadership violated the agency's scientific integrity policy by releasing a statement backing Trump's false statement about Hurricane Dorian's path. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Commerce Department separately investigated the incident and concluded that the Commerce Department "ran a 'flawed process' that did not sufficiently engage NOAA and went against the interests of the agency and the National Weather Service." In a July 2020 letter to Ross, Inspector General Peggy Gustafson expressed "deep concern" that the department was blocking OIG from publicly releasing its report by asserting "amorphous and generalized privileges." The letter prompted Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, to call upon Ross to "immediately cease this campaign to keep the public in the dark." The House Science Committee also probed Ross's role in the issuance of the NOAA statement.
Coronavirus pandemic.
In a January 30, 2020 interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, when asked if the COVID-19 outbreak in China would threaten the U.S. economy, Ross said, "I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America...I don't want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease ... the fact is, it does give business yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain." Vast stay at home orders meant to combat COVID-19 pandemic in the United States led to a major recession, with 10 million Americans filing unemployment claims and unemployment rising more than during the entirety of the Great Recession.
2020 Census count early completion.
Due to delays and operation challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ross and U.S. Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham announced on April 13, 2020 that they would extend the timeframe for field data collection and self-response for the 2020 United States Census to October 31, 2020. However, on August 3, 2020, the Census Bureau announced that they were moving this deadline up to September 30, 2020. Community advocates and former Census Bureau employees expressed concern that this shortened timeframe would result in poor-quality data and a significant undercount that would disproportionately affect traditionally hard-to-count groups such as ethnic minorities, young adults, and people living in rural areas.
On September 24, 2020, federal district court judge Lucy Koh issued a preliminary injunction against the plan to end counting on September 30 rather than the scheduled October 31, saying the Commerce Department "never articulated a satisfactory explanation." She also blocked a plan to deliver the count results to the White House by December 31, rather than the original April 2021 delivery date when Trump might be out of office. On the next business day, Ross announced the count would end October 5, as the administration appealed Koh's decision to the 9th circuit. Koh subsequently called the October 5 end date "a violation" of her court order and prepared to begin contempt proceedings against Ross and the Commerce Department. The appeals court rejected the administration's appeal, and the Census Bureau announced on October 2 that the count would continue until October 31. However, the counted ultimately ended at 11:59 PM on October 15 after the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued a 7-1 ruling allowing the count to finish early.
Honors.
In 1999, Ross was awarded the Order of Industrial Service Merit medal by South Korean president Kim Dae Jung for his assistance during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He was awarded the American Irish Historical Society Gold Medal in 2014 in recognition of his work in Ireland and Irish-American causes. The Japanese government awarded Ross the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, in recognition of his service as Chairman of the Board of New York's Japan Society, his work to promote and strengthen the Japanese economy, and his relief efforts after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
Organizational memberships.
Ross is a past director of the Turnaround Management Association and member of its hall of fame. Ross has been the vice-chairman of the board of Bank of Cyprus, the largest bank in Cyprus, after he and his investors invested €400 million in the bank in 2014. As of January 2012, Ross was the leader (or "Grand Swipe") of the secret Wall Street fraternity, Kappa Beta Phi. Ross served on the board of trustees of the Brookings Institution. He is also on the board of advisors of Yale School of Management and is a former board member of the Yale University Art Gallery. He served as International Counsel Member of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and President of the American Friends of the René Magritte Museum in Brussels. Ross has been on the board of directors of Navigator Gas since March 2012.
Political views.
Support for Democratic Party and switch.
Although he was an early supporter of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Ross was previously a registered Democrat, served as an officer of the New York State Democratic Committee, and held fundraisers for Democratic candidates at his apartment in New York City. He served under President Bill Clinton on the board of The U.S. Russia Investment Fund.
In January 1998, he funded $2.25 million in seed money into the campaign of his then-wife, Betsy McCaughey, who was seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor of New York. Since at least 2011, Ross has donated to Republican candidates and organizations.
Ross became a registered Republican in November 2016.
Privatization.
In the 1990s, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed Ross as his privatization advisor. He helped push to privatize the city's public broadcasting stations and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and worked to sell off empty land lots to businesses.
Trade policy.
Ross has described himself as "pro-sensible trade" and said that the U.S. government "should provide access to our markets to those countries who play fair, play by the rules and give everybody a fair chance to compete. Those who do not should not get away with it – they should be punished." Initially in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Ross has said that after examining the agreement, he found it was "not consistent with what was advertised".
In 2004, "The Economist" described Ross as a supporter of protectionism.
At the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Ross responded to concerns of a trade war by noting that "There have always been trade wars. The difference now is U.S. troops are now coming to the ramparts."
Personal life.
Ross married Judith Nodine in 1961. They divorced in 1995. After the divorce, Nodine sued Ross for failing to transfer stock by the agreed-upon deadline and Ross counter-sued. They had two children, Jessica Colby Ross (b. 1962) and Amanda Colby Ross (b. 1965). Amanda attended the French Culinary Institute and founded a baking company, while Jessica worked for Sotheby's. In 1995, Ross married his second wife, Lieutenant Governor of New York Betsy McCaughey. They divorced in 2000. On October 9, 2004, Ross married his third wife, Hilary Geary Ross, a society writer for "Quest" magazine.
In December 2016, Ross purchased a 10,000 square foot house in the Massachusetts Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. from Adrienne Arsht for $10,750,000. In 2018, he purchased a $3.2 million house in The Berkshires. He also owns two multimillion-dollar properties in Palm Beach, Florida.
Ross owns an art collection valued at $150 million that includes pieces ranging from Western surrealists to contemporary Eastern sculptures. Ross owns 25 works by René Magritte, valued at $100 million, including some of the artist's most valuable paintings, such as "The Pilgrim".
Philanthropy.
Ross donated $10 million for the construction of the new campus of Yale School of Management.


Joseph Duffey

Joseph Daniel Duffey (July 1, 1932 – February 25, 2021) was an American academic, educator, anti-war activist and political appointee. He was the Democratic Party's candidate in the 1970 U.S. Senate election in Connecticut, losing to Republican Lowell Weicker. He later served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs; the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; the director of the U.S. Information Agency; and the president or chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Massachusetts system and American University.
Early life and education.
Duffey was born in Huntington, West Virginia, on July 1, 1932. His father initially worked as a coal miner, but became a barber after losing a leg in an accident. His mother died when he was thirteen. Duffey was the first person in his family to study past grade four. He obtained a bachelor's degree from Marshall University in 1954. He went on to earn a B.D. from Andover Theological School (now part of Yale Divinity School) in 1957, an S.T.M. from Yale University in 1963 and a Ph.D. from Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1969.
Career.
From 1960 to 1970, Duffey was an assistant professor and then acting dean and associate professor at Hartford Seminary. He was also founder and director of the Center for Urban Studies there.
1970 election.
Duffey ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970 as a prominent anti-Vietnam War candidate; he had just turned 35 years old. The campaign became notable because several of Duffey's young supporters went on to prominent careers in Democratic politics, including future president Bill Clinton, a Yale Law School student at the time.
The incumbent in that race, Thomas J. Dodd, was the father of future Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd. Dodd, who had been censured by the Senate for corruption, was not re-nominated by the Democratic Party. Instead, Duffey joined Stamford businessman Alphonsus J. (Al) Donahue, State Senate President Edward Marcus, and former congressman Donald J. Irwin in a race to win the party endorsement. Donahue won the Democratic convention, but Duffey went on to win the primary. He finished second in a three-way general election race to Lowell Weicker, with Senator Dodd running as an independent. Some of these events were captured in a documentary, "Dissent of the Governed".
Anne Wexler ran Duffey's 1970 campaign. They subsequently married in September 1974, after they had both divorced their respective spouses.
Academics.
Duffey was a fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1971. He went on to serve as an adjunct professor at Yale University and a fellow at Calhoun College from 1971 to 1973. During this time, he worked for the George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign. From 1974 to 1976, he acted as the chief administrative officer and spokesman for the American Association of University Professors. He worked on the Carter–Mondale transition team between 1976 and 1977, and was Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs in 1977 and 1978. Duffey was unsatisfied in the latter role, and was reportedly unenthusiastic about being nominated to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Duffey was appointed chairman of the NEH in August 1977, after an impasse that lasted for half a year. He served in that capacity until 1982, when he became chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The position of president of the entire University of Massachusetts system was added to his responsibilities in 1990. One year later, he acted as joint head of the American delegation of election observers in Ethiopia. He was named as president of American University in 1991 and served for two years.
Duffey became the final director of the United States Information Agency in 1993. He held the position until June 30, 1999, shortly before USIA was incorporated into the State Department on October 1 of that year. He subsequently joined Laureate Education as senior vice president in 1999. There, he was responsible for education and academic quality and coordinated the development of Laureate International Universities network programs and partnerships worldwide.
Honors.
Duffey was conferred 14 honorary degrees from American colleges and universities. He was named Commander of the Order of the Crown by the King of Belgium in 1980. Thirteen years later, he was granted an honorary Doctor of Letters by Ritsumeikan University in Japan. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1979 until his death.
Personal life.
Duffey married his first wife, Patricia Fortney, in 1952, when he was 19 years old. They had met at a Baptist church youth convention. Together, they had two children: David (who predeceased him in 2019) and Michael. They divorced after the Senate election in 1970. His second wife, Anne Wexler (1930–2009), was a political advisor and lobbyist. She also had two sons from her previous marriage. She died of cancer on August 7, 2009 at age 79.
Duffey died on February 25, 2021, at a retirement community in Washington, D.C. He was 88, and was ill in the time leading up to his death.


Minnale

Minnale () is a 2001 Indian Tamil-language romance film directed by Gautham Menon. The story was written by him and Vipul D. Shah. Starring Abbas, Madhavan, Reema Sen, Vivek and Nagesh, it tells the story of a love-struck man stealing the identity of his former college foe to pursue his lady love and the eventual repercussions he has to face when his cover is blown.
Minnale is the directorial debut of Menon. The film's original soundtrack composed by first time music composer Harris Jayaraj, became a chartbuster prior to the film's release. The cinematography of the film was handled by R. D. Rajasekhar and Ravi Varman and it was edited by Suresh Urs.
Minnale was released in February 2001. The film received positive reviews from critics and enjoyed stupendous blockbuster commercial success at the box office. Menon remade the film the same year in Hindi as "Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein", which featured Madhavan reprising his role.
Plot.
Rajiv Samuel (Abbas) and Rajesh ShivaKumar (Madhavan) are students at the same Engineering college in Ooty. Rajiv is a top-performing Computer Science and Engineering student who is very popular with the students and faculty, while Rajesh, a Mechanical Engineering student with several arrears, is notorious for his rebellious attitude and mildly violent and misogynistic behaviour. This contrast in personalities puts the two students at loggerheads throughout their college days, with both of them engaging in constant fights and pranks with each other. Upon graduating, Rajiv and Rajesh decide never to see each other ever again. Rajiv goes to the United States for his higher studies while Rajesh decides to stay in India.
Two years later, Rajesh is working as a Software Engineering instructor in Chennai and roams around in his free time with his close friend Chockalingam "Chokku" (Vivek). He stays with his grandfather Subbuni (Nagesh), who is a librarian from the Aminjikarai neighbourhood of Chennai. Rajesh's affection for his grandfather is such that he even refuses to accept an on-site opportunity in Singapore so that he can be with him. While on a trip to Bangalore, he comes across a young woman (Reema Sen) dancing with children in the rain and gets immediately smitten by her when he sees her face lit by the flash of a lightning bolt. He comes across this woman again during his friend's wedding and soon learns that the woman's name is Reena Joseph and she is working as a chartered accountant at Ford in Bangalore. Some days later, Rajesh, who is back in Chennai, notices Reena again, this time exiting a Ford office cab. He and Chokku pursue Reena, but in the process, lose track of her in a mall.
Rajesh and Chokku meet Reena's best friend Vasuki at a market, and enquire about Reena. Vasuki informs them that Reena has been transferred to Chennai, however, when she realises that Rajesh is in love with Reena, she angrily mentions that Reena has already been engaged to an Indian American software engineer from Seattle named Rajiv Samuel, who happens to be her childhood friend, hence it would be futile to pursue her. Rajesh is upset at this development; however, on learning that Reena has never seen Rajiv since her childhood, and on the goading and encouragement of Subbuni and Chokku, he decides to pursue Reena. He comes to her house impersonating Rajiv. Reena is smitten by Rajesh and within a few days, she reciprocates Rajesh's love. Rajesh decides to reveal his true identity to her, but before he can, the real Rajiv arrives in Chennai. When Reena realises that the "Rajiv" she loves is an impostor, she breaks up with him and warns him never to come near her again.
Rajesh, Chokku and their friends decide to meet Rajiv to somehow convince him to break his engagement with Reena. To Rajesh's shock, he finds out that Rajiv is none other than Sam. Enraged at the fact that Rajesh cheated Reena, Sam refuses to break up their engagement. Rajesh also tries to seek Reena's forgiveness, to no avail, and stalks her while she is on a date with Sam at a restaurant. Sam notices this and both he and Rajesh engage in a brawl which is stopped by Reena, who again warns Rajesh never to come near her. Rajiv also threatens to kill Rajesh if he sees him at the same place as Reena ever again. Enraged, Rajesh, Chokku and their friends decide to beat up Sam in a parking lot, but Rajesh backs out at the last minute, accepting the bitter truth that Sam and Reena are going to marry.
Heartbroken, Rajesh decides to accept the on-site opportunity in Singapore, which he had earlier rejected, to forget Reena. Meanwhile, Reena realises that she has fallen in love with Rajesh, even though he had cheated her. On the wedding day, Sam realises the love Reena has for Rajesh. He cancels the wedding and takes Reena to the airport, where Rajesh is about to board a flight to Singapore. Sam approaches Rajesh and tells him that although they will always be enemies, he cannot marry a girl who does not love him. He wishes Rajesh and Reena for well and leaves, heartbroken but happily. Rajesh and Reena finally reunite.
Production.
Gautham Menon launched a Tamil romantic film "O Lala" in 2000 with the project eventually changing producers and title into "Minnale" with Abbas, who was at the beginning of his career, being signed on to portray the lead role. About the making of the film, Menon revealed that he found it difficult as the team was new to the industry with only the editor of the film, Suresh Urs, being a prominent technician in the industry. Menon had come under further pressure when Madhavan had insisted that Menon narrated the story to his mentor, Mani Ratnam, to identify if the film was a positive career move after the success of his "Alaipayuthey". Despite initial reservations, Menon did so and Ratnam was unimpressed; however Menon has cited that he thought that Madhavan "felt sorry" and later agreed to continue with the project.
Miss World 1999, Yukta Mookhey was considered to play the film's heroine during July 2000, as was Isha Koppikar, but eventually they were left out and Reema Sen, who appeared in her first Tamil film, was cast. "Minnale" also saw Madhavan collaborating with Abbas for second time after Kannada film "Shanti Shanti Shanti". Post-release, Abbas felt that his scenes had been cut from the film and accused Madhavan of playing a role in editing his sequences out from the film.
Release.
The film was advertised as a Valentine's Day release in 2001 but was released on February 2, 2001 and upon release it went on to become a large success commercially. Madhavan became extremely popular among the youth after the release of "Alaipayuthey", but had a setback as his next film flopped. "Minnale" made him once again popular among the youth. Savitha Padmanabhan of "The Hindu" claimed that the film had a "lot of verve and vigour" and that it was "sure to go down well" with the "yuppie, college-going youngsters". A reviewer, Shilpa Kannan from Zee TV, also gave the film a positive review, writing "the entire movie is given an advertisement like treatment by the director. It is glossy, stylish, youthful and trendy". The movie was dubbed into Telugu under the name "Cheli" and also performed well at the box office, owing to Madhavan's popularity in Andhra Pradesh.
The success of the film led to producer Vashu Bhagnani signing Menon on to direct the Hindi language remake of the film, "Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein", which featured Madhavan reprising his role. The Hindi version gained mixed reviews and subsequently went on to become an above average grosser at the box office. However, the film belatedly gained popularity through screenings on television and subsequently developed a cult following amongst young audiences and the actors released a video thanking the film's admirers for their adulation on the fifteenth anniversary of the film's release.
Soundtrack.
The music and background score were composed by Harris Jayaraj. The audio cassette of the film was released in Chennai at a function in January 2001, where the songs were also screened. Upon release, the soundtrack received critical acclaim and was a major contributor to the film's commercial success. Harris Jayaraj won his first Filmfare Best Music Director award in Tamil. The song "Vaseegara" is set in Natabhairavi raga and marked the debut of poet Thamarai as a film song lyricist.
All songs except "Ivan Yaaro" and "Iru Vizhi Unadhu (Ore Nyabagam)" were reused in the film's Hindi version "Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein" by Harris himself.
Legacy.
The songs "Azhagiya Theeye" and "Vaseegara" inspired films of the same names.


Michael Brune

Michael Brune (born 24 August 1971) became the youngest executive director of the Sierra Club at 38 years of age, an American environmental organization founded by preservationist John Muir, UC professor of botany Willis Linn Jepson, and attorney Warren Olney in 1892. Brune was hired by the 15 member board of directors to his position as executive director in January 2010, after Carl Pope was fired.
Prior to working for the Sierra Club, Brune was the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network for seven years. He also worked as an organizer for Greenpeace.
In 1999, while working at the Rainforest Action Network, Brune ran a successful campaign to get Home Depot stores to stop purchasing and selling wood from old-growth forests. "Time" magazine listed this as its top environmental story of that year.
Brune is a regular contributor to the "Huffington Post", a progressive website founded by Arianna Huffington, as well as Daily Kos.
In 2008 he published a book called "Coming Clean -- Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal".
In 2014 Brune was confirmed as the Hillary Institute of International Leadership's Hillary Laureate in recognition of his work on climate change issues. He was then awarded, jointly with Amazon Watch's Atossa Soltani, the four yearly Hillary Step prize.


Journalism in Australia

Journalism in Australia is an industry with an extensive history. Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 26th on a list of 180 countries ranked by press freedom in 2020, ahead of both the United Kingdom and United States. Print media in the country is generally owned by Nine Entertainment Co and News Corp Australia.
History.
Most of the published material in the first twenty years of the New South Wales colony was to inform residents of the rules and laws of the time. These were printed with a portable wooden and iron printing press. Since half of the convicts of the time were not able to read, it was compulsory for these notices to be read at Sunday church services.
On 22 November 1800, George Howe arrived in Australia. Nicknamed "Happy", Howe was born in the West Indies, although his father had been a native of Ireland. In London, Howe had worked in the print industry for several newspapers including "The Times", but was sent to New South Wales after being charged with shoplifting, a crime which was also punishable by hanging.
In 1803, Howe started production on Australia's first newspaper, the "Sydney Gazette". While much of its content was government notices, there was also an abundance of news to report in the burgeoning colony. An extract from the paper about the first Koala to be captured told of the "graveness of the visage", which "would seem to indicate a more than ordinary portion of animal sagacity".
One news gathering technique that Howe used for local content was to place a slip box outside of the store where the "Gazette" was published, to let the public suggest stories. Because of the country's geographic isolation, international news arriving via arriving ships was usually printed 10 to 14 weeks out of date.
The "Sydney Gazette" was the only paper published until 1824, when William Wentworth began publishing the colony's first uncensored newspaper, "The Australian" (no connection with the current paper of the same name, which was established by Rupert Murdoch in 1964).
The Australian Journalist's Association (AJA) was formed in 1910 and registered federally in 1911. In 1921, the University of Queensland became the first Australian institution to offer a diploma of journalism. The AJA was amalgamated in 1992 into the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
In 1956, Ampol Petroleum founder Sir William Gaston Walkley established Australia's most prestigious Journalism Awards, the Walkleys.
On 16 October 1975, five Australian journalists, now known as the Balibo Five, reporting on the invasion of East Timor (then Portuguese Timor) by Indonesia were murdered at a house in Balibo. The journalists, from both the Nine Network and the Seven Network, were killed by Indonesian soldiers after recording footage which proved Indonesia was behind the conflict, as opposed to the claim it was an internal Timorese coup.
Paul Moran, an ABC cameraman from Adelaide became the first Australian journalist to die while covering the Iraq war in March 2003. He was killed while working when a car bomb near him exploded. The ABC foreign correspondent working with Moran, Eric Campbell, survived the explosion and went on to write about the incident in his book "Absurdistan".
Legal protection.
Australian journalists are more vulnerable to defamation action than many of their international counterparts. Australia lacks both a bill of rights and an explicit rights to freedom of speech in the Australian constitution. Writing in 2021, the "BBC" stated that "Australian media outlets have been overwhelmingly united in their criticism of strict local defamation laws".
The 2006 Reporters Without Borders survey ranking the countries of the world in relative press freedom listed Australia as number 35 behind Ghana and Mauritius. Australia's score of nine had increased greatly since scoring a much better three in 2002. According to the Australia's Right to Know campaign, a collaborative effort between all major Australian media publishers and outlets, major causes in the decline of press freedom include anti-terrorism legislation (Australian anti-terrorism legislation, 2004 and Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005), sedition laws, suppression orders and Freedom of Information requests.
Implied freedom.
In 1992, the High Court of Australia saw the case of Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth, concerning a decision the previous year which inserted Part IIID into the Broadcasting Act 1942. The resulting regulations banned political advertising during Federal, State or Local elections. There was some free time provided for political messages, but 90 percent of this was allocated to parties in the previous government. A majority decision found in favour of Australian Capital Television, ruling there was an implied right to freedom of political communication in the constitution.
The 4–3 decision of the Theophanous v Herald and Weekly Times Ltd case two years later enforced the previous ruling to the extent of validating the constitution's implied freedom of speech as a defamation defense, however this would not last.
"Lange v ABC".
In 1997, the High Court heard the case of former New Zealand Prime Minister Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the rulings of the Theophanous and "Stephens v West Australian Newspapers". "While the judges unanimously confirmed the existence of an implied constitutional freedom of political speech, they did not cite it as a defense against defamation action by politicians."
Since Australian law does not currently accept the implied freedoms as a defamation defense, Australian journalists facing slander or libel must use common law defense. This involves the defendant proving that they:
Education in journalism.
Many Australian universities provide journalism and communication courses. The majority of new Australian journalists have a tertiary education in the field. In 2000, seven of eight cadetships given by the "Age" were given to those with a journalism degree. In the same year, however, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance estimated Australian universities produced approximately 600 students graduating with either a Bachelor of Journalism or an undergraduate degree majoring in Journalism, with another (approx.) 50 graduates with a Masters qualification. The alliance estimated these graduates were competing for fewer than 150 jobs. Since that time the situation has worsened considerably, with a record 4750 journalism students enrolled in 2010 for fewer than 1000 jobs. Additionally, depending on their own personal preference, many editors prefer to employ graduates with qualifications in other fields in the belief that they (as working journalists) are better equipped to pass on journalistic skills than academics (who have left the profession).
The following Australian tertiary educational institutions provide journalism courses:


Tsinnorit

Tsinnorit (Hebrew צִנּוֹרִת֘) is a cantillation mark in the Hebrew Bible, found at the 3 poetic books, also known as the א״מת books (Job or אִיוֹב in Hebrew, Proverbs or מִשְלֵי, and Psalms or תְהִלִּים). It looks like a 90-degrees rotated, inverted S, placed on top of a Hebrew consonant. "Tsinnorit" is very similar in shape to Zarka (called "tsinnor" in the poetic books), but is used differently. It is always combined with a second mark to form a conjunctive symbol:
This mark has been wrongly named by Unicode. "Zarqa"/"tsinnor" corresponds to Unicode "Hebrew accent zinor", code point U+05AE (where "zinor" is a misspelled form for "tsinnor"), while "tsinnorit" maps to "Hebrew accent zarqa", code point U+0598.


Ibrahim Mahama (businessman)

Ibrahim Mahama (born 29 January 1971) is a Ghanaian businessman, and the founder of "Engineers and Planners", the largest indigenous-owned mining company in West Africa, and the owner of several other businesses in Ghana. He is the younger brother of John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana from 2012 to 2017.
Early life.
He was born in Piase in the Northern Region of Ghana to Emmanuel Adama Mahama, former Minister of Agriculture and the first Minister of the Northern Region under the first President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. His mother, Joyce Tamakloe comes from Keta in the Volta Region of Ghana.
He moved to the United Kingdom, where he studied at the College of North London.After college, he went on to live in London, where he worked for a property development company.
Career.
Mahama started his company Engineers & Planners in 1997 after his return from London. The Company now employs over 3000 Ghanaian employees.
Mahama has also invested in Asutsuare Poultry Farms, which was started in 2004 and produces 150,000 eggs and 10,000 live broilers a day.
Mahama is also an investor at Dzata Cement company, a fully Ghanaian-owned cement processing factory located in Tema. Construction of the factory began in 2011, and it is set to start operations by first quarter of 2018, projected to create 1,200 direct jobs. Its production capacity is projected to be 2 million tonnes of cement a year.
Philanthropy.
Northern Ghana.
Mahama has been recognized in supporting the Northern and Zongo communities. Ghana has about 400 Zongo communities which have been described by many as deprived communities. He has catered for many in these communities, providing for education, healthcare, employment as well as funding projects within the communities.
He is currently in the process of building a 550-bed dormitory for his former high school, Tamale Secondary School in the Northern Region of Ghana, after a fire destroyed an existing dormitory.
Joyce Tamakloe Cancer Foundation.
Following the loss of his mother to breast cancer, he has championed charity causes that create awareness on different types of cancer. He is a co-founder of the Joyce Tamakloe Cancer Foundation which has raised funds for several hospitals in Ghana as a contribution to the fight against cancer. The Foundation has provided free mammograms for over 1000 women across Ghana. The foundation played a key role in ensuring breast cancer patients received treatment under the National Health Insurance in Ghana. After the death of his mother,in 2005 the Joyce Tamakloe Memorial Cancer Foundation Polo Championship was set up in memorial of her who was a staunch member of the Accra Polo Club.
The championship is also used a way of creating awareness of cancers, for instance in 2009 when it was played to raise awareness on the dangers of prostrate cancer which is fast spreading on the continent of Africa.
Personal life.
He is married to Oona Mahama and they have three children. He is the younger brother of John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana from 2012 to 2017. His step-mother died on July 2016 He uses a Bombardier 604 luxury private jet named Dzata and was the first individual to buy one in Ghana.
Honours.
Mahama received the 2018 African Achievers’ Award in London, for African Industrialist of the year 2018 - during the 8th edition African Achievers awards that took place in the House of Commons in London.


Bill Belleville

Bill Belleville was an American environmental writer, documentary filmmaker, and lecturer.
 "In Search of Xanadu", shown on public television, follows Belleville on visits to various locations. He received the Order of the South award, while one of his books, "Losing it all to Sprawl", was named one of the "Best Books of the Year" by the Library Journal. "Salvaging the Real Florida" received top honors from the National Outdoors Book Awards, while many others have won regional honors, including his ("The Peace of Blue") that won the Silver Medal in the prestigious Florida Book Awards.
His book "River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River" (University of Georgia Press. ) covers the 275 mile long St. Johns River. His extensive web site documented many of his activities.
Works.
His work on documentaries included: "In Marjorie's Wake: Rediscovering Rawlings, a River & Time" National PBS release 2009-2010. (Co-produced & scripted), "Searching for Xanadu" Florida PBS Affiliates (co-produced and scripted), "Conch Cowboys" (Florida PBS Affiliates. co-produced and scripted), and "Wekiva: Legacy or Loss?" Florida PBS Affiliates (co-produced and scripted)
He was a co-founder of Equinox Documentaries, a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization dedicated to using films and related media for environmental education.
Education and early career.
He attended Wicomico Sr. High School in Salisbury, Maryland where he was an all-conference football player and ran track. He also attended Wesley College, University of Maryland, and University of Baltimore.
Belleville was a school social worker (SSA) in Baltimore City Public School System for two years.
Other.
He was a scuba diver, volunteered with literacy programs and environmental groups. He was Writer-in-Residence during the 2004-2005 school year at the University of South Florida in its Florida Studies program.


Inami (TV series)

Inami is a French television animated cartoon series set in Amazonia. It was directed by Michael Pillyser, and is distributed by the French company Mediatoon. The series first aired in France on TF1 in 2007, as part of the "TFOU TV" programming block.
Plot.
The series revolves around the adventures of Inami, a young Amazonian native of the tribe of the Bellacaibos who faces many adventures through the forest facing several enemies next to his animal pair Tatune, his best friend Shimiwe and his secret friend Hyaema, of the tribe of Patamis.
Broadcast.
The series has aired in Africa, Belgium, Brazil, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Serbia and Turkey.


Howard K. Smith

Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys.
Early life and education.
Smith was born in Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana near Natchez, Mississippi, to Howard K. Smith, a nightwatchman descended from a poor "gentleman-farming" family of Lettsworth, Pointe Coupee Parish (north of Baton Rouge), and the former Minnie Gates, the daughter of a Cajun riverboat pilot.
Smith worked his way through Tulane University in New Orleans, studying German and journalism. After his graduation in 1936, with both Bachelor of Arts degrees, he signed on as a deckhand with a ship bound for Germany, where he briefly studied at Heidelberg University. In 1936, he spent a year as a reporter in New Orleans before securing a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1939. Smith became active in student politics, mostly protesting Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's seemingly soft attitude toward Nazism. While at Oxford, he was the first American to chair the Oxford University Labour Club.
Early career and CBS years.
World War II.
Upon graduating, Smith worked for the "New Orleans Item", with United Press in London, and with "The New York Times". In January 1940, Smith was sent to Berlin, where he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System under Edward R. Murrow. He visited Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden and interviewed many leading Nazis, including Hitler himself, Schutzstaffel or "SS" leader Heinrich Himmler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. When Smith refused to include Nazi propaganda in his reports, the Gestapo seized his notebooks and expelled him from the country. He left for Switzerland on December 6, 1941, the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
He was one of the last American reporters to leave Berlin before Germany and the United States went to war. His 1942 book, "Last Train from Berlin: An Eye-Witness Account of Germany at War" describes his observations from Berlin in the year after the departure of "Berlin Diary" author William L. Shirer. "Last Train from Berlin" became an American best-seller and was reprinted in 2001, shortly before Smith's death.
Unable to leave Switzerland, where he and his young wife spent most of the war, Smith reported whatever the Swiss government would permit. After the liberation of France, he began reporting on Germany and central Europe from Berne. By the winter of 1944–1945, he began sending vivid radio accounts of the German counter-attack in the Ardennes known as the Battle of the Bulge, and he accompanied Allied forces across the Rhine River and into Berlin.
Smith became a significant member of the "Murrow Boys" that made CBS the dominant broadcast news organization of the era. In May 1945, he returned to Berlin to recap the German surrender.
Post-war.
In 1946, Smith went to London for CBS with the title of chief European correspondent. In 1947, he made a long broadcasting tour of most of the nations of Europe, including behind the Iron Curtain. In 1949, Knopf published his "The State of Europe", a 408-page country-by-country survey of Europe that drew on these experiences and that argued "both the American and the Russian policies are mistaken"; he advocated more "social reform" for Western Europe and more "political liberty" for Eastern Europe.
Despite these criticisms of Soviet policies, Smith was one of 151 alleged Communist sympathizers named in the "Red Channels" report issued in June 1950 at the beginning of the Red Scare, effectively placing him on the Hollywood blacklist.
In 1959, Smith hosted a 21-week public affairs series entitled "Behind the News with Howard K. Smith". Topics included Nikita Khrushchev (a two-parter), the St. Lawrence Seaway, Fidel Castro, and unemployment in distressed areas.
In 1960, having established residence earlier in Bethesda, Maryland, Smith chaired the first-ever televised presidential debates, held between U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
In late 1961, Smith left his job at CBS when a dispute erupted over the documentary "Who Speaks for Birmingham?". This in-depth investigation concerned the battle between civil rights forces and the police of Birmingham, Alabama. Smith, an advocate of desegregation, concluded his commentary at the end of the program by recalling the admonition commonly attributed to Edmund Burke—"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Smith was told to remove the Burke quote from the end of the broadcast. Network president and founder William S. Paley declined to support Smith over the matter, and Smith promptly left the network after twenty years of service. Smith declared that his hatred of discrimination stemmed from living in the racially segregated American South and from watching the Nazis in Europe during the world war.
ABC, 1962 – 1979.
Smith moved to ABC at a time its news division was a distant third among the Big Three networks. After the 1962 mid-term elections, Smith presented a documentary entitled, "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon" as part of his "" series (1962–1963). Smith referred to Nixon's "last press conference" after his disastrous losing campaign against Democrat Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr., for governor of California. In that exchange, the former vice president famously told reporters that they would not "have Nixon to kick around any more." Smith included in the broadcast an interview with Nixon's longstanding nemesis Alger Hiss, a convicted Cold War perjurer. "Howard K. Smith: News and Comment" aired in the 10:30 Eastern slot on Sundays, opposite CBS's long-running quiz program "What's My Line?" hosted by John Charles Daly, who had been the first-ever ABC news anchor. ABC stood by Smith on the Nixon "obituary", but sponsors dried up for the program thereafter. It was revived in the 1963–1964 season as simply "ABC News Reports".
Smith was a frequent interviewer with Bob Clark on the ABC Sunday news program, "Issues and Answers", which began in 1960 and was subsequently revamped and renamed in 1981 as "This Week with David Brinkley".
On June 5, 1968, Smith and fellow newsman Bill Lawrence were anchoring coverage of the California presidential primary that had stretched to 3 am. New York time. As the closing credits for the special were airing, word came in that United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York had been shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. ABC simply showed a wide shot of the chaotic newsroom for several minutes until Smith was able to confirm the initial story and go back on the air with a special report. He and Lawrence continued at their anchor desks for several more hours for reports of Kennedy's condition.
In the summer of 1968, Smith moderated a series of debates on ABC between conservative journalist William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal.
In 1969, the veteran reporter became the co-anchor of the "ABC Evening News," first with Frank Reynolds, then the following year with another CBS alumnus, Harry Reasoner. He began making increasingly conservative commentaries, in particular a hard-line stance in support of the Vietnam War. He contrasted United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's decisive stance in Vietnam with the international failure to take preemptive action against Hitler. During this period, his son, future ABC newsman, Jack Smith (April 25, 1945 – April 7, 2004), was serving with the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry Regiment in South Vietnam and fought at the Battle of Ia Drang. These commentaries endeared him to President Nixon, who rewarded him with a rare, hour-long, one-on-one interview in 1971, at the height of the administration's animus against major newspapers, CBS, and NBC, despite Smith's having broadcast his "political obituary" only nine years earlier.
Smith remained as co-anchor at ABC until 1975, after which Reasoner anchored solo until Barbara Walters joined the broadcast a year later. Smith continued as an analyst until 1979; he left the network nearing full retirement, and as the Roone Arledge era was beginning at ABC News. Sources say that Smith was embittered over the reduction in time allowed for his commentaries and hence resigned after he criticized the revamped "World News Tonight" format as a "Punch and Judy show."
Awards and film roles.
Among honors which Smith received over the years were DuPont Awards in 1955 and 1963, a Sigma Delta Chi Award for radio journalism in 1957, and an award from the American Jewish Congress in 1960. In 1962 he received the Paul White Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Smith also appeared in a number of films, often as himself; "The Best Man" (1964), "The Candidate" (1972), "The President's Plane Is Missing" (1973, a made-for-television production of the Robert J. Serling novel of the same name), "Nashville" (1975), "Network" (1976), "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1976), "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), "The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper" (1981), "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" (1982), "The Odd Candidate" (1974) episode of the television series "The Odd Couple" (playing himself), the "Kill Oscar" episode (1977) of "The Bionic Woman" (playing himself anchoring an ABC newscast), and both "V" (1983) and the subsequent 1984 television series. He appeared as the Narrator in the 1987 film "Escape From Sobibor".
Along with "Last Train from Berlin", he wrote three other books, "The Population Explosion" (1960), the children's book "Washington, D.C.: The Story of our Nation's Capital" (1967), and a memoir "Events Leading Up to My Death: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Reporter" (1996).
Family life.
Smith's son, Jack, as an ABC correspondent received Peabody and Emmy awards for his coverage of technology; he was 58 when he died in 2004 of pancreatic cancer in Marin County, Calif.
Smith also had a daughter, Catherine H. Smith of Los Angeles, by his March 1942 marriage to the former Benedicte "Bennie" Traberg (September 25, 1921 – October 29, 2008), a journalist originally from Denmark whom Smith called the most impressive person he had ever known, "far above presidents and generals." There were three grandchildren.
Catherine Smith, who wrote her mother's obituary, quoted from Smith's 1996 memoirs "Events Leading Up to My Death", that their relationship "was born in an atmosphere of acute crisis." With World War II heating up, recalled Catherine Smith, and both of them heading out of the German capital, they decided to marry just four days after their first date. Her young age required her return to Nazi-occupied Denmark for parental approval and the Danish queen's intervention to obtain travelling papers, but the couple reunited successfully three months later in Berne, Switzerland."
Mrs. Bennie Smith managed her husband's career, handled the finances and investments, and helped with the processing of his publications. Catherine Smith noted that her mother was the one most responsible for the development of his patrician demeanor. "She was a formidable presence at his side and major force behind his success. She edited all his books and articles, and was his agent, negotiating all his broadcasting and other contracts. She arranged every aspect of what, in later years, became a very lucrative speaking career. When my parents traveled on the lecture circuit, she once laughingly told a Lansing, Mich. paper...: 'My husband never knows where his trips will take him ... It's not until we get ready to board the plane that he'll inquire 'Where are we going?' and then I will tell him.'"
The Smiths lived at their Potomac River home in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1958 until his 2002 death from pneumonia, after which Mrs. Smith relocated to a condominium on Marco Island, Fla. She died in 2008 at age 87 of complications from hydrocephalus. The Smiths are interred at historic Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C.


Minolta helps you scramble for glory


Stuart Chaifetz


Martin John Callanan

Martin John Callanan, (born 1982 in Solihull, West Midlands) is a British conceptual artist working in Scotland. He taught at the Slade School of Fine Art from 2008-2019. Key exhibitions include White Cube Mason's Yard, Or Gallery, Berlin, Casal Solleric, Spain, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Imperial War Museum, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Whitstable Biennale. In 2013 Callanan was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize, an award for young academic researchers. Callanan worked with the Bank of England for 12 months from July 2015, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Artworks.
Well known artworks include, "The Fundamental Units", a collaboration with the National Physical Laboratory imaging the world's lowest domination coins to massive scale using the latest microscopes.
"I Wanted to See All of the News From Today", a web based program collecting front covers of newspapers from around the world, won an Honorary mention (best online project) at Live 2011 Grand Prix (Finland), and a finalist for both File Prix Lux (Brazil), and Screengrab 2010 Award, (Australia)
Callanan legally changed his name by deed poll from Martin John Callanan to Martin John Callanan in 2008 and again in 2012. The latter performance, which involved a magistrate visiting the gallery, took place at the London Open at the Whitechapel Gallery, London: curator Kirsty Ogg said "It highlights the fact that there is a particular bureaucratic process that we're all subject to but are not necessarily aware of".
The 2012 Whitstable Biennale commissioned "Wars During my Lifetime", about which New Statesman wrote: "A simple idea with high impact is Wars During my Lifetime by Martin John Callanan, which lists on newsprint all the wars that have taken place during his lifetime.". A town crier proclaimed the list along the seafront.
For another artwork, published by Book Works he sent letters to several world leaders saying "I respect your authority" and published replies by figures including Hosni Mubarak; critic Jonathan Jones (journalist) found the work humorous but struggled to find any point to it: ""He sent out a letter to various presidents saying, "I respect your authority." Amazingly, he got loads of replies. Hosni Mubarak seemed genuinely flattered. You laugh. Then you laugh again, but not so loud. Then you stop laughing and wonder what the point is. That world leaders are rather polite?""
He has also produced an artwork out of his social media status where every update since 2007 has read "Martin John Callanan is okay".
"Location of I" published Callanan's precise physical location every second for two years from 2007. The artwork was commissioned during a six-month residency at RIXC in Latvia. It was presented at "9th international festival Art+Communication held in Liepaja.
Other works.
While working at UCL Environment Institute he collaborated with science writer Richard Hamblyn on a number of projects, documented in their book "Data Soliloquies" (Slade Press, 2009, ). "A Planetary Order" (2009) combines satellite images into an advanced sculpture made using high-end 3D Printing, to show the planet earth covered in clouds. "Text Trends" was based on Google searches for terms related to climate change over a five years.