Like us on Facebook
Meanwhile, Scottish cyclist David Millar has insisted he will take part in the London Games if he gets selected for Team GB. The 35 year old, who has served a ban for doping, is available to compete following a court case that forced the British Olympic Association (BOA) to drop their by-law on lifetime bans for athletes found guilty of taking illegal substances.
"I'm available. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, but I've concluded that if I can be of benefit to the team, I would be happy to help. The most rational thing is to leave it to the selectors to decide. If they think that including me might be in any way detrimental, even if, physically, I could be one of the strongest riders, I will respect any decision they make. I have spent time fighting the idea of lifetime bans for a first offence and it gets confusing if I don't make myself available," the Telegraph quoted Millar as saying.
Sprinter Dwain Chambers is also expected to compete for Team GB at the London Games after the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned BOA's ban on the 34 year old for drug use.
To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail:
To contact the editor, e-mail:
Source: www.ibtimes.co.uk
For new law school grads, the job outlook is still bleak - Philadelphia Daily News
Tony Chiaramonte, a Drexel University law school graduate, is one of the fortunate ones.
He landed a coveted clerkship with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin at the start of his third year in school. To get the job, which he will start in September, Chiaramonte sent out 200 to 300 applications.
Total yield? Two return calls.
"I think I hit every state," said Chiaramonte, 29, who graduated May 17. "I was not discriminating against any state."
Even as a robust employment market has emerged for lawyers with several years’ experience, a sobering new reality awaits this year’s crop of law school graduates: The market for those fresh out of school has rebounded only slightly from its recessionary lows and remains very weak.
Big law firms in Philadelphia and across the nation report that hiring of graduates is well down from its peak of just a few years ago, when legal work was plentiful and firms competed for first-year lawyers. This year, firms are showing a little more flexibility in hiring summer interns and first-year lawyers, but the change is incremental. Most important, law-firm leaders who once hoped that the hiring of young lawyers would return to its past peak now say it will likely stay down for years.
The struggling economy, continuing downward pressure on rates, and insistence by clients that their matters be staffed with experienced lawyers all are playing roles.
"I have a stack of resumes on my desk and a number of phone calls that I have put off making," said Stephen A. Madva, managing partner of the Center City firm Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads L.L.P.
In years past, the firm brought in eight or nine new graduates each fall and hosted a class of about a dozen summer interns. This year, Madva doesn’t anticipate hiring any first years, and the firm has only two summer interns. Instead, it has been recruiting lawyers with several years’ experience and established client relationships.
"Our clients are not willing to pay us to train [young lawyers], and the numbers in the firm now are a pretty good match to the amount of work we have," he said.
Most law schools still are collecting employment data on this year’s graduates, so the best information available is for the job search of last year’s class. Figures compiled through February showed that, except for graduates of the very top schools, a great number of law school graduates hadn’t found jobs as lawyers.
Law schools say they expect this year’s results to be about the same. The hiring plans of law firms back up that assessment.
"It is not so terribly different from the way it has been for the past few years," said Drexel law school dean Roger Dennis. "We are about even in absolute numbers with last year, and our sense is that the quality of the jobs is somewhat up."
Yet it is an extremely tough market. Through Feb. 15, Drexel reported that 57 of its 131 graduates had full-time permanent work as lawyers, with nine more employed in full-time jobs in which a law school education was deemed to be an advantage. Others had found work in non-law jobs, while 17 still were looking for jobs.
At Villanova University, 132 graduates out of 252 were employed full time as lawyers, with 19 more in full-time jobs for which a law degree was an advantage. Fifty-nine graduates still were seeking employment at the time of the survey’s conclusion.
At Temple, 177 graduates were employed full time as lawyers out of total of 319 graduates, while 32 had full-time jobs in which a law degree was considered an advantage although not required. About 18 were without jobs.
Even for graduates of the University of Pennsylvania law school, who typically enjoy a high rate of success, the battered economy has exacted a price. The overwhelming majority of last year’s class found employment, 95 percent of the 274 graduates. Yet there was a slight downward trend in the number of graduates employed in sought-after jobs with big firms, those with 500 or more lawyers. That number went down from 152 in 2008 to 125 last year, even though the class size had gone up.
The city’s major law firms report hiring plans that track closely with the law-school statistics. Drinker Biddle & Reath L.L.P. will take on 23 first-year lawyers in the fall, up from 19 in 2010, when the legal world was still adjusting to the financial collapse, but still down from 37 in 2009. Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis L.L.P. plans to hire three first-year lawyers in the fall, down from nine in 2009.
Cozen O’Connor has increased its hiring of first years slightly, from 13 in 2009 to 19 this year, but for a 575-lawyer firm, its program is relatively small.
Though big firms remain highly profitable, it has come in part through severe cost-cutting and layoffs. At the same time, competition among firms for work has sharpened, placing even greater pressure on hourly billing rates. The unraveling of New York-based Dewey & LeBoeuf, which filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, reinforced the idea that the business remains fragile. Dewey once was a global powerhouse.
"The Dewey collapse put a chill in the air and fear in people’s hearts," said James Leipold, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement, which tracks the legal-employment market.
This deep anxiety appears not to be a momentary blip. In a survey of managing partners and chairmen at 238 U.S.-based law firms conducted in March and April, Altman Weil, a Newtown Square-based legal-consulting firm, reported that those firm leaders overwhelmingly said the profession faced long-term financial pressures, and that firms would adjust, in part, by outsourcing work and hiring fewer inexperienced lawyers.
About 55 percent of respondents said they expected that smaller classes of first-year lawyers had become a permanent trend; in 2009, just over 10 percent said they anticipated hiring fewer new law school graduates. There were similarly large increases in respondents who said they expected that outsourcing of legal work, hiring of more contract lawyers, and lower law-firm profits all were part of the new normal.
"The prerecession associate-hiring binge is over, replaced by much more cautious and conservative hiring policies," Altman Weil said.
With such a grim employment market, it likely helped that Chiaramonte, who plans a career in public-interest law, kept a positive outlook. When he started his job search, he didn’t focus on the odds, and he was willing to go anywhere.
"I felt I would go wherever the job was," he said. "I was pretty lucky, and this job came around."
Source: www.philly.com
Law that stopped voter sign-ups blocked by judge - Daytona Beach News-Journal
A law that tripped up a New Smyrna Beach teacher registering students to vote, snagged a Daytona Beach community activist registering new voters at her church, and was scored by Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall as "unenforceable" no longer is in force. A federal judge granted an injunction Thursday halting enforcement of much of the state's controversial new elections law.
And not a moment too soon. The law, passed last year by the Legislature, stopped most volunteer voter-registration efforts across the state.
The League of Women Voters, which had been helping sign up Florida voters for more than 70 years, suspended its usual registration operations and went to the courts. The group complained that the law's strict deadlines, new demands on volunteer organizations and harsh penalties made signups outside of election offices all but impossible.
And a federal district court judge in Tallahassee agreed.
"The statute and rule impose a harsh and impractical 48-hour deadline for an organization to deliver applications to a voter-registration office and effectively prohibit an organization from mailing applications in. And the statute and rule impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional," wrote U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle in a 27-page opinion.
The "harsh and impractical" 48-hour deadline was what got Midtown community activist Norma Bland into trouble last December.
She collected signatures at a church event on a Friday afternoon and turned them in on Monday. That violated the 48-hour deadline even though the elections office was closed on Sunday.
One of the things the judge complained about in Thursday's order was that the law and the rules for applying it are "virtually unintelligible" when it comes to the 48-hour deadline clock.
"The short deadline, coupled with substantial penalties for noncompliance, make voter-registration drives a risky business," he wrote.
Like Bland, New Smyrna High School civics teacher Jill Cicciarelli found herself potentially facing those substantial penalties last October. She fell afoul of the law not just because of the 48-hour deadline but because she failed to register with the state as a "registration agent."
Under the law, everybody associated with voter registration is a registration agent. The example the judge gave was if you had a person with voter-registration forms on a folding table and a person handing out fliers encouraging people to vote, both would need to register ahead of time.
Yes, even a person doing no more than handing out pamphlets.
And becoming a registration agent involves signing a scary-sounding sworn statement promising to obey the elections laws and laying out harsh penalties for even inadvertently running afoul of the law. The statement incorrectly says the volunteers could be criminally charged for unwittingly passing along false information.
"The form is just wrong," wrote the judge.
So, now it looks like customary voter-registration drives can get up and running again in time for the Aug. 14 primary. The registration books close July 16.
Remember: If voting didn't matter, the Legislature wouldn't be going to all this trouble to discourage potential voters.
Source: www.news-journalonline.com
Queen Elizabeth joins giant jubilee flotilla in London - msnbc.com
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth joined an armada of 1,000 boats down London's River Thames to the pealing of bells on Sunday in a spectacular highlight of four days of nationwide celebrations to mark her 60th year on the throne.
Hundreds of thousands of cheering people waving "Union Jack" flags and dressed in red, white and blue braved the wind and rain to pack the 7-mile route for one of the largest flotillas ever seen on the river.
The queen, wearing a silver and white dress with a matching coat, smiled broadly and waved to large crowds before boarding the gilded royal barge, "The Spirit of Chartwell", alongside her 90-year-old husband Prince Philip.
Other members of the royal family on the barge included heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, his eldest son Prince William and new wife Kate, a global fashion trendsetter who wore a vivid red Alexander McQueen dress and matching hat.
Up and down the country, millions of people were due to attend diamond jubilee street parties over the long holiday weekend in honour of the 86-year-old, the only British monarch after Queen Victoria to have sat on the throne for 60 years.
Leisure cruisers, rowing boats, yachts and canoes made up the colourful Thames armada that also featured vessels from the 1940 evacuation of British and Allied troops from Dunkirk in northern France - a famous rescue performed by crafts of all shapes and sizes and a celebrated piece of British history.
A typically inclement British summer's day failed to dampen enthusiasm, with boisterous crowds massed along the banks of the Thames, watching giant TV screens showing black-and-white images of the queen from her childhood.
"We're English, we know what the weather is like. We really don't care if we get wet you know - it's the jubilee, it's the queen, so it's nice to come up and celebrate it," said Jackie, a 39-year-old sales consultant who travelled across southern England to watch the event.
Organisers say Sunday's river pageant is the largest of its kind in 350 years since a similar spectacle was held for King Charles II and his consort Catherine of Braganza in 1662.
CHURCHILL AND EISENHOWER
Other vessels in the flotilla include Motor Torpedo Boat 102 on which Allied Forces commander General Dwight Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspected warships before the 1944 D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
-
- Judge revokes Zimmerman's bail, orders him to court
- As Wis. recall looms, Dems hope to avoid embarrassment
- What happens to your online accounts when you die?
- Recession stormclouds menace world economy
- Google tells Chinese when they're being censored
- Cop: 'First Amendment rights can be terminated'
- WWII vet graduates high school 70 years late
It travels under 14 bridges and past landmarks including the Houses of Parliament, St Paul's Cathedral, and the Tower of London.
"There haven't been pageants like this on the River Thames for 300 years and that makes it extremely special," said Peter Warwick on board "The Macaret" launch with the flotilla. "You look at the river banks and they are packed with people."
Another boat taking part, "Amazon", featured in diamond jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria, Elizabeth's great-great-grandmother, held in 1897 when Britain's empire spanned much of the globe.
Although the queen is still head of state in 16 countries from Australia and Canada to tiny Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean and head of the Commonwealth, Britain is a shadow of its former imperial self.
Historians and commentators say the pomp and spectacle of British royal occasions gives the country a sense of national pride at a time when the economy is in recession and people face deep austerity measures.
STREET PARTIES
Across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, street parties were being held to mark the occasion. Prince Charles and his wife Camilla dropped into one in central London before the pageant, joining in a rousing rendition of the national anthem.
While the queen and the royal party braved the elements under a golden canopy on a barge in the middle of the Thames, the wet conditions proved too much for Prime Minister David Cameron, who moved his Downing Street party indoors.
That said, the government hoped the festivities would mark the start of a summer of revelry capped off by the Olympic Games in London, raising the public's spirits and their poll ratings.
"What is great is that we have the jubilee and then the Olympics. We should show how great we are in Britain," said Joanne Richmond, 61, from central England, who was in London for the queen's coronation as a two-year-old.
However, economists have warned that the extra public holidays will hit Britain's already ailing economy, potentially prolonging a recession.
The celebrations come as polls show the overwhelming backing for the monarchy, which has overcome a slump in the 1990s following marital infidelities and the death of the hugely popular Princess Diana in a 1997 Paris car crash
However, not everyone in London will be cheering. The small yet vocal republican movement plans a protest during the flotilla, saying the jubilee was "a celebration of inherited power and privilege, and those celebrations have no place in a modern democracy".
But even they acknowledge there is almost no chance that the queen will be ousted and take solace in indications many Britons are simply indifferent -- 2 million people are leaving the country to take advantage of the extended public holiday.
Celebrations will continue on Monday with a pop concert outside Elizabeth's London residence Buckingham Palace and conclude with a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral on Tuesday followed by a carriage procession.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Gaunt, Philip Baillie and Ethan Bilby, editing by Paul Casciato)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
Source: www.msnbc.msn.com
Body of man in his 20s washes up by derelict pier... carrying nothing to identify him but his car keys - Daily Mail
By David Baker
|
The body of an unidentified man was found washed up by a derelict peir in Sussex this morning in what the police have called an 'unexplained death'.
Now as the police desperately try to discover who the man in his 20s is it appears there is nothing to identify him but his car keys.
A member of the public discovered the body by Hastings' derelict pier in East Sussex at 7.30am this morning.
Unexplained: The body of a man in his 20s was found by a member of the public near this stretch of beach in Hastings this morning
Officers have appealed for help in trying to identify the man, who had been in the water for up to 24 hours, a Sussex Police spokeswoman said.
Having searched the man's soaked through clothes for signs of his identity there was little to help reveal who he is.
According to the police, they are focusing their attention on the car keys found in his pockets, as the most significant lead for discovering his identity.
Detective Inspector Andy Harbour said: 'The man, who we believe is in his 20s, was found washed up on the beach.
'We are treating his death as unexplained.
Investigations: Police hope car keys found in the man's body will help to identify him and are appealing for any information
'We are doing all we can to identify him.
'He has short dark brown hair, is about 5ft 7in and was wearing a shiny black jacket and stone-washed jeans. In his pocket were keys to a Renault car.'
Anyone with information is asked to call Sussex Police on 101.
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
London 2012: Mo Farah impresses at Diamond League in Eugene - The Sport Review
Mo Farah may be undecided about whether he will look to secure a world and Olympic double over 5,000m – but his current form is certainly encouraging.
Farah says his London 2012 focus is trained firmly on the 10,000m, with heats of the 5,000m following several days later on the Games schedule.
However, he clocked a world-leading and meeting record 12:56.98 to win over the distance at the IAAF Diamond League in Eugene.
Farah, who won the Bupa 10,000 in London last weekend, kicked clear of Kenya’s Isaiah Koech and American training partner Galen Rupp to claim victory.
Elsewhere, Shara Proctor produced a personal best 6.84 metre leap to win the women’s long jump.
Anguillan-born Proctor, who won her first senior medal for Britain with a bronze at the World Indoors, is now just six centimetres short of Bev Finch’s 29-year old British record, set at the first-ever World Championships in Helsinki.
While British rising stars Lawrence Clarke and Andy Pozzi are impressing over 110m hurdles this season, world bronze medallist Andy Turner is still struggling.
Turner, who has admitted his Olympic dream may be shattered by an untimely recurrence of a tendon injury, finished last in Eugene in 13.46 seconds.
© Sportsbeat 2012
Source: www.thesportreview.com
Law firm's scheme investors face losses - Stuff
Investors who contributed $1 million to a Timaru law firm's contributory mortgage scheme face potentially significant losses after a Dunedin student complex with a bizarre sales history went into liquidation.
Pureikeriki Investments, the owner of an 11-studio student accommodation complex known as Hazelwood House, collapsed in April over unpaid taxes. The company's principal, Alistair McGaw, was bankrupted last February over other debts and is working as a real estate agent in Queensland.
Liquidators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) said in its first report into Pureikeriki that a first-ranked Raymond Sullivan McGlashan Law contributory mortgage had swollen to $1.48m following missed interest payments and this amount exceeded the property's current rating valuation of $830,000. The property has been on the market for the past three years for $1.2m.
RSM Law practice manager Greg O'Brien declined to respond directly to questions on whether investors would be short-changed, but said in a statement: "Investors have been kept fully informed of all aspects."
Hazelwood House has had a tortured past and now has four mortgages from fringe financiers.
In the year before McGraw's Pureikeriki's acquiring the property, it had changed hands twice with the sale price nearly doubling.
According to property records Hazelwood House was bought on August 17, 2005, by Gladstone Road, a vehicle for Dunedin-based investors for $980,000. A week later, on August 23, it was sold for $1.2 million to FIIC, a company owned by Tapanui man Christopher Brenssell.
On August 17, 2006, FIIC sold the property to Pureikeriki for $1.6m. Gladstone Road directors and Mr McGaw could not be contacted. Mr Brenssell said when he sold the property, $100,000 of the proceeds was kept in the property as a fourth mortgage, an amount he had now written off.
PWC liquidator Malcolm Hollis said the escalation of the property's price raised questions but was outside the remit of his administration.
Century 21 Real Estate agent Bawden Curson, who facilitated the sale between Gladstone and FIIC, said that sale was underpinned by a registered valuation of $1.4m.
He said the multiple sales and dramatically rising price were merely a function of the recent property boom. "A substantial property moving two or three times within a 12 month period, at the time, was not unusual," Mr Curson said.
Mr O'Brien said he was unable to comment on the sale history of the property. "I don't think I can responsibly or factually comment on historic fluctuating market forces," he said.
Mr McGaw received funding for his 2006 purchase from a variety of sources.
Four mortgages underpinned the Pureikeriki purchase. In order of ranking, $999,000 came from RSM contributory mortgages, an unknown amount from now-collapsed Dunedin lender Hurricane House, $466,000 from the RSM-linked Cheyne Finance and $100,000 from FIIC.
Cheyne Finance, an entity whose directors are all partners at RSM law, borrowed money from South Canterbury Finance (SCF) and lent it to developers.
Cheyne was declared a related-party loan by SCF in its December 2008 prospectus because of RSM partner Ed Sullivan's position on the finance company's board.
The prospectus records Cheyne as being the recipient of an $18.6m loan attracting 11.9 per cent interest.
According to property records, the Cheyne loan over Hazelwood attracted interest of up to 17 per cent.
Mr O'Brien said any loss from Cheyne's Hazelwood loan would be borne by shareholders – whose identity is kept hidden behind the firm's trust company – and he has said Cheyne had no outstanding loans with the collapsed SCF.
In February 2009, after defaults, RSM Law as mortgagor took possession of Hazelwood House. A year later the firm bankrupted Mr McGaw, who had by then moved to Australia.
- © Fairfax NZ News
Source: www.stuff.co.nz
Keith Law Says That Miguel Montero Contract A Good One - SB Nation
Since Miguel Montero signed his five-year contract extension, there has been a lot of talk about whether it was good or bad deal, or simply overpaying to keep a guy who is good, but basically the team cannot afford to lose becaus ethey have no one in the minor leagues to replace him.
However, ESPN baseball insider Keith Law says it was a good deal for Arizona.
According to him, had the team waited to try and sign him on the open market, it would have cost even more than the $60 million that it took to extend him. Plus, statistically, he is one of the best catchers in all of baseball and is good on all facets of the job now.
This is what Law said on Friday on the Doug and Wolf show:
"All he's got to do is stay healthy, but that's the caveat on every contract, but especially catchers because they get hurt a lot, but Montero has had basically one major injury so far in his big league career, and it's not the kind of thing you're going to expect to recur."
The money looks like a lot right now. However, considering the inflation of contracts for players at the top of their position, the money will likely be very reasonable. It is possible, though, by the end of the deal that Montero is playing part time at another position like first base, as frequently happens with catchers, but even so, he is still improving.
Sure it cost a lot, but with the young pitching coming up in the system, the team needs a good signal caller and could ill afford to lose him.
At the end of the day, overpaid or not, the deal is a good one right now.
Get more Diamondbacks coverage over at AZ Snakepit.
For the latest AZ sports, follow us on Twitter @SBNArizona and "Like" us on Facebook.
Source: arizona.sbnation.com
No comments:
Post a Comment