Cuomo creates panel to investigate NY Legislature [womens jackets]
Cuomo creates panel to investigate NY Legislature
Gov. Andrew Cuomo established a powerful investigative body Tuesday to examine public corruption, including potential wrongdoing by legislators in campaign fundraising, in an attempt to address what’s seen as a widespread problem in New York government.
Cuomo, announcing the panel at the Capitol, was joined by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who said he’ll deputize the commission members. That gives them broad authority to investigate any branch of state government and refer misconduct cases for prosecution. They will also recommend changes in the law and ethics rules, he said.
Cuomo announced his intention two weeks ago after abandoning efforts to get reforms through the legislature. That followed federal bribery and embezzlement charges filed against several state lawmakers this year. Similar commissions ordered by governors over decades have resulted in lengthy corruption probes and arrests.Search a wide selection of skateshoes.
“They’ll follow the money and go where the commission determines to go,” Cuomo said. It’s no legislative witch hunt, he said, noting the federal cases show there are real problems,List of sunglasses Products. but adding that he expects the investigation to vindicate 99 percent of elected officials who are good people.
The committee was established by executive order under both New York’s anti-corruption Moreland Act and the state’s Executive Law. It has subpoena power and will investigate the influence of campaign contributions on state government and compliance with election and lobbying laws. Its preliminary report is due by Dec.Like a lot of women,Custom made bicyclesaddles0? 1, with a final report expected by the end of next year.
“The corruption that now is perceived by the public to be rampant in state government undermines the ability of every part of the state government to function. It has to be addressed comprehensively,” Schneiderman said. “In New York state, we have a voting system that sometimes seems to be set up to make it as hard for people to vote as possible. We have an election law and regulations and enforcement of election law and regulations that sometimes seems like a welcome wagon for pay-to-play schemes.”
Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is a polarizing figure in the eyes of many F1 fans -- but he is also a force of nature. Now 82, he still strides up and down pit lane and the paddock area with the same boundless energy that has marked his reign over F1 racing for the past three decades and counting. Sitting down inside his small, unguarded private tent in the paddock area, it was fascinating to watch Ecclestone work at the recent Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
Shortly before noon, various celebrity guests -- British actors Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, and billionaire Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberté -- arrived to pay tribute to him in much the same manner as foreign dignitaries might come to greet a world leader or royal head of state. This is a fitting comparison, however, as Ecclestone has ruled over the sport in a benevolent, iron-fisted way that has seen him transform a formerly rag-tag operation composed of factional racing tribes into a multibillion-dollar global business empire.
Unlike national potentates, however, Ecclestone has little need for ceremony. There is no excess baggage or artifice to his world or manner. He speaks in plain terms using an economy of words to state precisely what he thinks and feels. He has long sealed deals with a single handshake and adheres to an old-world expectation that a person’s word is their bond.
Ecclestone likes to come to the point and has never seen the need to embellish anything. It’s that kind of brutal efficiency that has marked his time as ringmaster of the F1 circus that has become one of the greatest sporting shows on earth. He was the first to identify the ultimate potential of television to turn F1 racing into a world-wide spectacle, and in the process has made billions from his management and ownership of the sport’s commercial activities.
Ecclestone’s business philosophy is essentially one of challenging you to make a deal with him and see how you fare. After all, when in 2000 he (via his family trust) sold a 75-percent stake in F1’s marketing company, his family trust earned $3.37 billion yet still owned 25 percent of the operation while retaining effective management control of the sport. It’s the kind of deal that any business school ought to use as a master case study in the art of outmaneuvering your opponent. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel described this deal recently as a “brilliant coup.”
But today the master dealmaker is under assault on several fronts. In November 2011, Ecclestone was called upon to testify in a Munich courtroom in the trial of Gerhard Gribkowsky, the former BayernLB banker in Germany who oversaw the 2006 sale of F1 to CVC Capital, a private equity fund, which netted the Ecclestone family trust, Bambino Holidings, a reported $478 million profit. Gribkowsky, BayernLB’s chief risk officer, was accused of accepting a bribe of $44 million (27 million) to deliberately undervalue the shares of F1 so that the bank sold the shares for $800,000,000 rather than the more plausible value of $2.8 billion as has been charged in court documents. Gribkowsky was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
Ecclestone admits that Bambino Holidings paid the sum to Gribkowsky but denies it was a bribe, testifying in court that it was the result of a subtle “shakedown” on him by Gribkowsky, who according to Ecclestone was effectively blackmailing the billionaire Briton by threatening to present “false evidence” about him to British tax authorities.
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The U.S. Military Might Switch to One Universal Camo Design [womens jackets]
The U.S. Military Might Switch to One Universal Camo Design
If you think you spend crazy amounts of money on camo, think again. The U.S. Military has a bigger budget on camouflage clothes than you do. How much you ask? Well, let’s just say all the branches combined have already spent $12 million on developing seven different patterns throughout the years. But pretty soon the entire armed forces might be rocking one universal design.
Swollen wartime budgets afforded each brand to go H.A.M. and create a design of its own. It’s gotten so out of hand (err, stylish) that some of the patterns being produced might be great for your next street style shot, yet not even safe to use in battle.
To give you an idea on how much camo is being used in the U.S. military, here’s a quick breakdown. The Army uses woodland—a streetwear favorite—and desert camo. In 2005 they introduced the All Combat Uniform that was supposed to cover all environments, but it ended up sucking and proved ineffective. "All the tests we have done say it doesn't work…it puts our soldiers at risk," says Gen. Raymond Odierno.
The U.S. Air Force’s hybrid digital tiger stripe might be the coolest out of the bunch. Why do people flying fighter planes need camo exactly? Beats us. As for the Navy, just look at the movie Battleship and you’ll see Rihanna famously rocking their uniforms.
Last but not least is the Marines’ digital camo pattern. This is the most effective out of the bunch. Armed troops can use it to hide in the jungle, the desert, and even from night vision goggles.Great handbags and replicalouisvuitton for men and women! What more can you ask for?
Now, these varying uniforms might come to an end. Politicians are trying to pass a bill to get the U.S. Military to use one standard uniform across all branches. "Combat uniforms are about survivability," said Rep. Bill Enyart, and simply put, many of the new patterns have proved to be ineffective. "If you want to separate yourself, do it in your dress uniform. It doesn't do us any good to have a battlefield where you have three or four uniforms,” mentions one defense official. If the bill does get passed, we think there are a couple of designers out there that can take the unused fabric off the government's hands. Check the photos above for the different patterns currently used by the U.S. Military.
SPRINGFIELD - For Gianna Mitchell, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Wilbraham & Monson Academy, life would not be the same without soccer.
So, when Mitchell, of Springfield, recently realized that many children in poor countries play soccer without the best of equipment, she decided to do something about it.
“My family travels a lot, and when we visited Costa Rica and Mexico, I saw that they love soccer in those places,” Mitchell said. “But, I saw that they didn’t have the right equipment to play. We have so much equipment here, it just kind of made sense to give them what they needed.”
Mitchell, who has played soccer since she was 4, said she decided she needed to do something.
“They didn’t really have shin guards or cleats,” she said. “They were just playing with sneakers, or barefoot.”
Mitchell, a high honors student, heard that Wilbraham & Monson Academy administrator Chris Sparks had a connection with a soccer team in Haiti, so she decided that’s where she would focus her attention.
“I really wanted to help someone else that may not have the luxury to get what they need to play what they love,” she said. “Sometimes you have an idea and you talk about it but you don’t do it. I felt like I needed to get it done.”
Mitchell first sent out an email to family and friends, telling them about her plan. She realized that was limiting her outreach, so she decided to tell administrators at her school, who helped her get the word out.
Mitchell has formed a non-profit, Two-Six for Kicks (26 is her soccer number), through which to collect cleats, shin guards, uniforms and soccer balls. She’s also taking monetary donations. She’s made a lot of progress already.
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Why do some twins like to dress the same.. but others do their best to look different? [womens jackets]
Why do some twins like to dress the same.. but others do their best to look different?
THE 33-year-olds are from Glasgow and Cumbernauld. Lisa is a hairdresser and Claire is a call-centre worker. They avoid dressing alike.Lisa said: “When we were at school, my mum used to dress us alike all the time.“We’re identical so it’s hard enough to tell us apart even when we’re not wearing the same outfits. I think it makes people see you as ‘the twins’ rather than for your own personalities. As we got older we wanted to express ourselves more, so tried to look different.
“Now, we never wear the same clothes.“Our lives are quite different and our career paths have taken us in different directions, so I think that has a big influence on how we dress. Claire works in an office but I’m a hairdresser, so fashion, hair and make-up are more important.“I like to mix vintage with high street shops like Topshop, H&M, Forever 21 and Zara.
“I’m definitely the more dressy one. I always have my hair and tan done, and I love girly dresses, shoes and handbags.“Claire is more casual but makes more of an effort for a night out.“We go shopping together and give each other advice, even though our styles are quite different.
“She loves chunky boots and has an amazing collection of leather jackets and watches. With me, it’s handbags and shoes that are always top of my shopping list.
“We share our wardrobes with each other, so it’s nice to be able to borrow things and put together new outfits. When we lived at home, our wardrobe took over the spare room. It was completely full of clothes and accessories.
“There was just once recently that we both bought the same outfit. I was living in Ireland for a couple of years and my parents had come to visit me.
“When I met them they were laughing because the floral jumper and skinny jeans I was wearing were exactly the same as the ones Clare had bought a few weeks earlier in Glasgow.”Claire said: “I’m definitely the more casual one. I like jeans and leather jackets. It’s been that way since we went to high school and stopped dressing alike.
“Lisa has a few things in her wardrobe that I’d never wear. There’s a long wool cardigan that I’d never be seen in and her heels are just far too high for me.“Now and again, I’ll borrow some tops from her but we’ll go out of our way to make sure we’re not wearing the same thing.“I’d feel quite weird dressing in matching outfits as grown-ups.
“We’ve had a bit of fun with it. I once did Lisa’s PE exam for her and she did my swimming exam for me.“When we were a bit older, I sat in a bar with Lisa’s boyfriend for about three hours and then I met her in the toilet and we swapped outfits. He didn’t even notice.“I think once people get to know us, it’s easy to tell us apart, though.”
The 23-year-olds are from Pollokshields in Glasgow. They live together and both study law in Edinburgh. They admit they now share a wardrobe.Madeleine said: “When we were younger, mum used to dress us up in the same colours, and one would wear a dress and the other jeans and a waistcoat. I was ‘the boy’ until Stephanie had her hair cut short.
“When we were in fancy dress, I would be Danny to Steph’s Sandy. I didn’t like dresses then but I love them now.“We always wanted to be alike and if Steph had something I didn’t, I’d be upset.
“We still dress similarly, although my clothes are a bit more grungy, like my boyfriend’s.
“On our 16th birthday at Topshop, Oxford Circus, dad said we could have any outfit we wanted. We chose the exact same denim skirt, top and shoes.“We don’t normally buy two of things unless it’s shoes or bags and belts. Now we just share clothes – it’s more economical.
“We like to be known as twins.Here you can take your pick from a wide selection of wintert-shirts. In Pollokshields,Here you can take your pick from a wide selection of stunning heelshoes . there are some old lady twins who are so adorable. We see them and think, ‘That’s going to be us’.”
Stephanie said: “Mum used to dress us in hideously co-ordinating outfits and, when I got my hair cut short, I got to wear the boy’s version.
“We couldn’t pick clothes at that stage but probably thought we looked great.Wanna to buy the new canadagoosecampdown now?“At five, I realised that if Maddy had something like little jewelled heels, I had to have them. We wanted to be the same. We were Goths together, skaters together, and we both stopped being Goths at the exact same time and put on white summer dresses instead.“I guess we were a brand and realised there was a power in that.
“I’m a bit more prim because I have a slightly different body shape with a curvier chest.“We turned our separate wardrobes into one for summer and one for winter and we share the same make-up too.“Maddy has talked about dyeing her hair brown but chickens out.Maddy bought a Vivienne Westwood dress for my birthday, knowing she’d like it too. We can’t share shoes because Maddy has size seven feet and I’m a five but sometimes we share a six.“It’ll be sad to keep dressing the same all our lives but it’s difficult not to, as well.”
Pussy Riot Takes Manhattan, Quietly [womens jackets]
Pussy Riot Takes Manhattan, Quietly
If there is ignominy in being anonymous at the premiere of your own movie, the ladies of Pussy Riot didn’t show it. There they were, without their trademark bright balaclavas, sitting at the back of the Landmark Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side on Wednesday evening, awaiting the showing of an HBO documentary called “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer.”
The film, which will be broadcast on Monday, chronicles the rise of Pussy Riot, the Moscow-based activist group, whose 2012 performance of an anti-Kremlin song described as a “punk prayer” inside the main Orthodox cathedral in Moscow attracted international attention. Three of the women were convicted of hooliganism for the 40-second performance; two are still imprisoned. The rest, fewer than a dozen, have carried on, masked crusaders for feminism and free speech.
Their outlaw status has become a rallying cry for dissent in Russia and abroad, backed by the likes of Paul McCartney, Madonna and Amnesty International, and an unexpected display of global girl power.
Without fanfare, two members of the collective slipped into New York in the last week, to help promote the film and meet, undercover, with supporters. It is their first time in America. At the theater, they munched popcorn as a slew of well-heeled New Yorkers and boldface names — Salman Rushdie, Patti Smith — sauntered by. A few guests wore “Free Pussy Riot” T-shirts, oblivious to the still-at-large members in their midst. There was a party afterward,All these imitation highqualityhandbag are created to cheer you up. but for Pussy Riot, this trip was a serious effort to expand their reach without compromising their credibility as artistic revolutionaries.
“We don’t share personal information, sorry,” one of the young women said in Russian in an interview before the screening.
She was without her balaclava, smiling. The members of Pussy Riot are practiced at maintaining their mysterious identities. Questions about jobs and ages were off limits; they agreed to be identified only by pseudonyms, Fara and Shaiba. Who was who?
“Doesn’t matter,” one of them — let’s call her Shaiba — said.
They could have been any young visitors to the city, crashing at a friend’s parents’ well-appointed downtown apartment, fretting about what to wear to the premiere, although the goal was not to impress but to blend in. They would not seem out of place in a Bushwick art studio.
In their few days in New York, they had been on a kind of anarcho-feminist-cultural show-and-tell, appearing at the feminist bookstore Bluestockings on the Lower East Side — where they briefly went barefaced because, they explained, they felt it was a “safe space” — visiting with leaders of Occupy Wall Street and receiving a guided tour of “The Dinner Party,” Judy Chicago’s feminist installation at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
“We knew this work,” Fara said, in a tone that implied, “Duh.” “But to see it in person, it was really extraordinary.”
At the moment, though, Pussy Riot is not able to extend its oeuvre: After the arrests, the Russian government drafted laws banning the wearing of masks and imposing hefty fines for unauthorized demonstrations. Pussy Riot’s videos were labeled extremist and ordered removed from Russian-hosted Internet sites (though they are still available on YouTube)
“For anybody that wants to follow in our footsteps, this is a direct disruption of freedom of speech,Welcome to authenticguccishoes And Buy 2013 Authentic Beats By Dre. this is like a muzzle,” Fara said, adding that they will keep fighting the ruling.
Performance is not much on their minds,Formal ralphlaurenhoody on sale at great discount. anyway.
“From the moment the girls were arrested,” Fara said, “our entire focus has shifted toward securing their freedom and helping them.” Last August, “the girls” — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich — were sentenced to two years in prison for an act of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” Ms. Samutsevich was released in October but forbidden to leave Russia, while the other two remain in separate and remote penal colonies. In the spring, as expected,Search our wedding photo gallery for thousands of the best asymmetricnecklinedress pictures. they were denied parole.
Visiting them is impossible for the other current members of Pussy Riot: they don’t want to risk revealing their identities to the authorities, and besides, navigating the prison rules is difficult even for lawyers and family members. Scheduled phone calls can be suddenly canceled. Letters and e-mail are censored. “The only thing that gets through is ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye,’ ” Fara said.
Ms. Alyokhina, who turned 25 on Thursday, staged an 11-day hunger strike last month to protest conditions in prison; it ended when authorities acceded to her demands, her lawyer said.
Maxim Pozdorovkin, a Moscow-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker who directed the HBO documentary with Mike Lerner, said he was impressed by the solidarity and eloquence of the women. “They’ve used what happened in the best way possible, to continue propagating their ideas and for sticking to the ideas as a group,” he said.
The film has been making the festival rounds and is to be shown in Moscow this winter,You'll be the queen of the room in this ssuniform evening gown. though Mr. Pozdorovkin said it was unclear how that would work with the video ban.
“One of the things that I always hope to show is that these women are patriots and they really want to transform their society for the better,” he said. “They’re not just vulgar hooligans, which is pretty much how they’ve been portrayed in the general channels in Russia.”
David Bench: The force behind Cary Crime Stoppers [womens jackets]
David Bench: The force behind Cary Crime Stoppers
David Bench is Cary’s top civilian cop.
That’s what he jokes, anyway, as he sits in a home office bedecked with replica cowboy revolvers, model cars and high-end radio systems.
This is Bench’s command center: He watches carefully through his wire-frame spectacles as cars roll down the cul-de-sac, and he monitors his scanners for incidents in his district. Perhaps most notably, he manages a crime-fighting network of financiers, volunteers and tipsters.
“I don’t wear a mask and a black cape and all that stuff,” said Bench, 70. “I’m a good speaker. I enjoy going to Rotary clubs and Kiwanis clubs.”
The native of Syracuse, N.Y., is chairman of Cary Crime Stoppers, a local nonprofit that has had a role in some of the town’s closest-watched investigations lately.
An anonymous call through the Crime Stoppers hot line helped Cary police nab a suspect in the March fire that caused $500,000 of damage to Cary Parkway.
A Crime Stoppers tip was part of the investigation of a 2010 murder.
And the group already has paid out $3,welcome to our new store castellicycling.200 for information this year, putting it on track for a record-breaking year.
“Once Crime Stoppers tips come in,Strapless bella canadagoosejacket with contrasting band and drapes under the bustline. it’s kind of a snowball effect ,” said Bench, who lives in central Cary with his wife.
The son and grandson of police officers, he doesn’t credit himself for his group’s recent success. Crime Stoppers still runs much as it did when Bench took the helm a decade ago: Callers dial 919-226-CRIM and are routed to the Cary Police Department.There are kinds of the latest womenshoes with kinds of colorways.
The tipsters don’t have to give their names, and they never appear in court, Bench said.
If the tip leads to an arrest or conviction, Bench and his board tally up a payout of anywhere from a few hundred bucks to $2,500, depending on factors such as the severity of the crime and the contraband seized – drugs,Ah-mazing wine cheapjackets detailing and a navy pleated skirt. most often.
Bench traces his interest in police work to his childhood days, watching his father handle police duties in the Syracuse courthouse.
He’d spend afternoons at the radio, waiting to hear that his pa was heading home. Later he would become an expert in telephone systems, and he has always parked himself at the edge of police and civilian culture.
A 26-year resident of Cary,Right now we are more than excited to share our current sweetheartnecklinedress line. he remembers local Police Chief Pat Bazemore from her days as a DARE officer, and by now he knows Cary’s radio codes as well as most any officer. Between Crime Stoppers and his constant vigilance, Bench is pretty well known around Town Hall.
“Something goes down on the scanner that’s anywhere near his neighborhood, usually I get an email. He’s a little bit like a reporter,” said Capt. Don Hamilton, with the Cary Police Department.
It’s hard to say whether the force will hear more or less out of Bench after he leaves the chairmanship of Crime Stoppers in December. His schedule freed from fundraising and networking, he may just have more time to watch his window and listen to the scanner.
In his absence, Bench hopes the group pushes harder to get its name out. As the police department has tried to broaden its public face, so too might its civilian supporters. Cary’s Citizens Assisting Police group also has seen growing popularity in recent years.
“Everybody wants to be a cop or fireman,” Bench said. “You guys got the glory job. Nobody wants to be the telephone man.”
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