Tuesday 9 April 2013
Wednesday 3 April 2013
Rutgers Leaders Are Faulted on Abusive Coach
With the business of college sports becoming more crucial to a university s prominence not to mention its bottom line the choice of Mr. Pernetti seemed to pay off. Sports at Rutgers were on the rise and in November the university received a coveted invitation to join the Big Ten an athletic conference that guaranteed vast exposure and huge television revenue.
But now with outrage growing over the abusive behavior of Mike Rice the university s men s basketball coach Mr. Pernetti and the university s president Robert L. Barchi find themselves under scrutiny for their handling of the case. Their jobs may be in jeopardy and their university is once again attracting unflattering attention just two years after Tyler Clementi an 18 year old gay student killed himself after a bullying incident.
On Wednesday morning Rutgers fired Mr. Rice a day after video surfaced of him berating players during practice throwing basketballs at them kicking them and taunting them with vulgar language including homophobic slurs. The firing came four months after Rutgers learned of the abuse allegation and punished Mr. Rice by suspending him for three games fining him $50 000 and ordering him to take anger management counseling.
College sports analysts noted that the video of Mr. Rice first surfaced just as Rutgers was engaged in sensitive negotiations with the Big Ten when the university would have been especially wary of attracting negative attention of any kind.
They had a lot of things going on said Tyrone Thomas a Washington lawyer who advises universities on N.C.A.A. matters. Any type of controversy would have been poorly timed for them.
They had to be sensitive to anything that could rock the boat publicly in any way at that point he added.
In a statement Wednesday Mr. Pernetti said he regretted how the initial disciplining of Mr. Rice was handled.
I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to rehabilitate but I was wrong Mr. Pernetti said. Moving forward I will work to regain the trust of the Rutgers community.
That was not good enough for state officials in Trenton who said they would hold hearings into how Mr. Pernetti and other Rutgers officials responded to initial reports of the abuse after a video was provided to Mr. Pernetti by the former team assistant Eric Murdock. Stephen M. Sweeney a Democrat and the president of the State Senate said officials should strongly consider firing Mr. Pernetti.
Sheila Y. Oliver a Democrat and the speaker of the State Assembly said I want to know what role everybody took in the whole fiasco.
Gov. Chris Christie a Republican said he supported Mr. Rice s dismissal adding The way these young men were treated by the head coach was completely unacceptable and violates the trust those parents put in Rutgers University.
At least 10 faculty members including the dean of the Graduate School at Rutgers in Newark signed a letter calling for Dr. Barchi just seven months into his term to resign for his inexcusable handling of Coach Mike Rice s homophobic and misogynist abuse of our students.
The faculty members accused Dr. Barchi of covering up the coach s behavior by neglecting to tell them and the student body about the extent of it in the fall. In the meantime in December President Barchi reviewed Coach Rice s $700 000 contract and renewed it the letter said.
Top Rutgers officials held an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon on the university s New Brunswick campus.
Last year under pressure from Mr. Christie the Legislature passed a law reorganizing Rutgers and its three campuses. The plan bitterly debated among students faculty lawmakers and university trustees gave Rutgers control of the medical schools of the long troubled University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey which officials believed would attract more research money and therefore more prestige to Rutgers.
Ariel Kaminer contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction
Correction April 3 2013
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the day Mike Rice was fired. It was Wednesday not Monday.
Lollapalooza Single Day Passes Sell Out
CHICAGO (CBS) Single day tickets for Lollapalooza sold out in less than two hours on Wednesday.
The single day passes for the music festival in Grant Park went on sale at 10 a.m. and by 11 45 a.m. the promoters announced tickets had sold out.
Three day passes also sold out last month in less than three hours VIP passes sold out on Tuesday.
The only tickets left for Lollapalooza are through pricey Travel Packages which include three night stays at Chicago hotels plus general admission or VIP tickets for the festival. Prices for Travel Packages begin at $1 599 for general admission tickets for two people and run as high as $9 299 for VIP platinum packages for two people.
Running from Aug. 2 to Aug. 4 Lollapalooza is being headlined this year by Nine Inch Nails The Killers Mumford Sons The Cure Phoenix Postal Service Vampire Weekend New Order the Lumineers and Queens of the Stone Age.
Brittney Griner responds to Mark Cubans offer
Kevin Jairaj USA TODAY Sports
Mark Cuban might have to keep a spot open on the Dallas Mavericks' Summer League squad. After the Mavs owner made waves Tuesday night by hinting that he might consider drafting Brittney Griner the former Baylor star responded to his offer over Twitter.
mcuban so when do I show up for try outs
Brittney Griner ( Brittney4Griner) April 3 2013This is looking like more than just a publicity stunt. Griner is clearly just as open to the idea as Cuban. Questions about whether a woman could cut it in the NBA have been brought up including doubts expressed by University of Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma. And while it's unlikely that Griner would actually make an NBA roster it sounds like she would be more than motivated to prove herself. There doesn't appear to be any kind of downside to an owner like Cuban at least giving her an invite to Summer League or training camp invite.
Monologue Jay Leno congratulates Tonight Show replacement Fallon
.cnn_html_media_utility before color red content '>>' font size 9px line height 12px padding right 1px .cnnstrylccimg640 margin 0 27px 14px 0 .captionText filter alpha(opacity 100) opacity 1 .cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a .cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a visited .cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a link .captionText a .captionText a visited .captiontext a link color 004276 outline medium none .cnnVerticalGalleryPhoto margin 0 auto padding right 68px width 270px > Jay Leno here in May began hosting The Tonight Show in 1992. In 2009 he launched The Jay Leno Show but after seven months and poor ratings he resumed his post on The Tonight Show in 2010. Leno and sumo wrestler Manny Yarborough on February 16 2000. Leno asked actor and entrepreneur Paul Newman about adding pet food to his list of Newman's Own products on March 13 2006. Sports commentator Terry Bradshaw and Leno have a cake fight on December 21. Leno with a Kodiak bear cub on May 16. Actor Dane Cook praises actress Charlize Theron before kissing her rear on October 4 2005. Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Leno in a Bush mask on October 30 2000. Leno during a skit on January 8 1997. Actor Adam Sander gets hot and heavy with audience member Sharon Kidd of Rogers Arizona on September 15 2005. Leno makes a surprise appearance on Dr. Phil's 500th show on April 22 2005. Leno hosts the Hollywood Animals segment on February 28 2007. Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. does a striptease on October 2 1998. Jack the snowboarding chimp on the show on February 20 2004. Actress Ellen Cleghorne watches Leno and NFL player Junior Seau wrestle on November 1 1994. Actor Russell Crowe left and Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin with Leno on November 6 2003. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
(CNN) Outgoing Tonight Show host Jay Leno congratulated his replacement Jimmy Fallon at the start of his opening monologue on Wednesday night while taking another swipe at the NBC executives that are showing him the door.
I just have one request of Jimmy. We've all fought kicked and scratched to get this network up to fifth place okay Now we have to keep it there. he deadpanned. Jimmy don't let it slip into sixth. We're counting on you.
Leno will wrap up his 22 year run as host in spring 2014 with Jimmy Fallon officially signing on as his replacement.
According to a statement from NBC As part of the transition 'The Tonight Show' will be returning to its original home in 30 Rock in New York from Leno's base of Los Angeles.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised the move saying in a statement on behalf of all New Yorkers that he's pleased to welcome 'The Tonight Show' back to its first home.
When it began in 1954 the original 'Tonight Show' ushered in the modern era of television Cuomo continued. It is only fitting that as 'The Tonight Show' returns to our state it will be headlined by New York's own native son and resident Jimmy Fallon.
The expectation that Leno would leave NBC's legendary late night program has been building recently and Fallon's appointment isn't surprising in the least. He's had a swift rise to Tonight's chair having hosted Late Night for just four years but Fallon's transition was treated as such a near certainty that both hosts worked the headlines into their nightly routines.
While Fallon initially downplayed the rumors Leno went after his employer on a regular basis. He's compared NBC executives to snakes joked about the network's sagging ratings and kidded that the rumored late night shuffle was like NBC's version of March Madness.
Just two days before the big announcement Fallon and Leno again made light of the reports with a parody of the song Tonight from the musical West Side Story.
With Leno's contract set to expire in fall 2014 industry observers said the move was only a matter of time.
Leno first exited Tonight in 2009 after 17 years as host passing the torch to Conan O'Brien who was then the host of Late Night.
Leno was moved to prime time with his own program The Jay Leno Show in the fall of 2009. But when that brought dismal ratings NBC decided to put Leno back in charge of Tonight at the start of 2010 leaving O'Brien without a job.
The flame haired comedian eventually moved to TBS to host his own show Conan in the 11 p.m. hour but the entire scenario generated ill will toward Leno and NBC. (TBS shares a parent company with CNN.)
Yet as the years went on Leno has proved to be resilient. As NBC's prime time ratings suffered Leno's Tonight Show was still able to rise above the rest in its time slot. At the end of March The Tonight Show hit a seven week high in total viewers with 3.52 million watching.
However NBC was said to be concerned about losing younger viewers to ABC's Jimmy Kimmel whose Jimmy Kimmel Live was moved up to compete with Leno and David Letterman's Late Show at the beginning of 2013.
The more time Jimmy Kimmel is in that slot the more the young audience goes that way the harder it is for (Fallon) to keep that audience one source familiar with the network's thought process told The Hollywood Reporter in March.
At 62 years old Leno represents a more traditional form of hosting as he's known for his Las Vegas style comedy said the New York Times. Fallon 38 regularly incorporates the Web and social media into his act offering a more contemporary and varied brand of entertainment the Times said.
This changing of the guard is one of the most closely watched exercises in pop culture especially as it takes place at one of TV's mainstay productions. Even with its decline in ratings over the years it remains a solid profit center for NBC making between $25 million and $40 million for the network according to The New York Times.
Although it's been on the air for almost 60 years The Tonight Show has had just a handful of regular hosts Steve Allen Jack Paar Johnny Carson Leno and O'Brien.
The Tonight Show isn't what it was during the long tenure of Carson who hosted the show from 1962 until 1992. In those three network times Carson dominated late night TV like nobody before or since. He dominated the ratings and routinely sat down challengers like so many duck targets at a carnival shooting gallery. Joey Bishop Dick Cavett Joan Rivers Pat Sajak they all tried to dethrone the king and they all came up short.
Carson sat behind Tonight's desk for 30 years before passing the torch to Leno and Johnny is still the model against whom all are measured.
Interestingly enough Late Night producer Lorne Michaels who's now executive producer of The Tonight Show has called Fallon the closest thing this generation has to Carson. It appears it's now time for Fallon to show and prove.
Daddy Yankees publicist refutes gay rumors blames online outlet
The blather reached a crescendo Wednesday after photos of a man resembling Daddy Yankee kissing another man surfaced on the 'net and were picked up and reprinted by other outlets. That set off another round of innuendo according to some accounts Daddy Yankee released a statement acknowledging that he is gay and asking the media to respect his and his family's privacy.
I am a human being like any other with virtues and defects and I don't believe that this is a defect he was quoted as saying in a putative statement to the press and his followers.
PHOTOS Gay celebrities Who's out
But according to other reports the 36 year old singer born Ramon Ayala used a press conference to castigate the rumor mill for spreading falsehoods. Now again to you ignorant ones the Internet is where the lies become truth and truth becomes myth. Wake up bobo
The speculation and rumor mongering started spreading after Daddy Yankee was asked at a press conference his opinion on gay marriage. The rapper responded in Spanish that I have people on my team who are gay and I respect them entirely and give them work. As for gay marriage he believes it's a matter for governments and religious figures to settle taking full regard of human rights.
Updated at 4 22 p.m. An agency identifying itself as Daddy Yankee's publicist has refuted rumors that the Puerto Rican reggaeton artist had publicly acknowledged he is gay.
Wednesday afternoon the offices of Nevarez Communications and Perfect Partners in Florida issued a statement that reports circulating throughout various social media outlets regarding the artist's sexual orientation were completely false.
The statement contained a quote attributed to Mayna Nevarez president of the public relations firm Nevarez Communications
Online blogs and social media are once again to blame for the spread of false news reports which other media outlets have also shared regarding a public figure. The reports circulating regarding Daddy Yankee's declaration of homosexuality was falsely written by an online outlet known for fabricating false information and spreading it through social media sites.
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PHOTOS AND MORE COACHELLA Complete 2013 lineup THE ENVELOPE Awards Insider PHOTOS Grammy top winnersNorth Korea warns moment of explosion nears
.cnn_html_media_utility before color red content '>>' font size 9px line height 12px padding right 1px .cnnstrylccimg640 margin 0 27px 14px 0 .captionText filter alpha(opacity 100) opacity 1 .cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a .cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a visited .cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a link .captionText a .captionText a visited .captiontext a link color 004276 outline medium none .cnnVerticalGalleryPhoto margin 0 auto padding right 68px width 270px > A South Korean soldier stands on a road linked to North Korea at a military checkpoint in Paju on Wednesday April 3. After a week of threats to the United States and South Korea North Korea blocked hundreds of South Korean workers from entering the industrial complex which is an important symbol of cooperation between the two countries. South Korean soldiers walk down the empty road after trucks were denied access to the Kaesong joint industrial park in North Korea. South Korean trucks turn back after they were banned from entering Kaesong. An officer directs a South Korean car that was denied access at a military checkpoint in Paju. A South Korean military vehicle leads cars arriving from the Kaesong joint industrial park to Paju. South Koreans stand in front of an information desk at the Inter Korean Transit Office in Paju after being blocked from North Korea. South Korean trucks turn back. A truck drives back toward Paju. Reporters gather in front of customs at the Inter Korean Transit Office in Paju. A South Korean soldier walks past a Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee bus at the Inter Korean Transit Office. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Are you from South or North Korea Concerned about the latest crisis Send us your thoughts.
(CNN) North Korea stirred up fresh unease in Northeast Asia early Thursday threatening attacks by a smaller lighter and diversified nuclear force and warning The moment of explosion is approaching fast.
The new threat came after the North Koreans locked South Korean workers out of a joint factory complex and announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor it shut down five years ago. Meanwhile the United States announced it was sending ballistic missile defenses to Guam a Pacific territory that's home to U.S. naval and air bases.
The moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow North Korea's state news agency KCNA declared in its latest broadside. The responsibility for this grave situation entirely rests with the U.S. administration and military warmongers keen to encroach upon the DPRK's sovereignty and bring down its dignified social system with brigandish logic.
S. Koreans barred from N. Korean complex Crisis hurts place 2 Koreas work together How Korean war might play out Experts Reactor can be up in 6 monthsDPRK is short for Democratic People's Republic of Korea the official name for North Korea.
Most observers say the North is still years away from having the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead on a missile. U.S. officials have said they see no unusual military movements across the Demilitarized Zone that splits the Korean Peninsula despite weeks of bombastic rhetoric from Pyongyang and many analysts say the increasingly belligerent talk is aimed at cementing the authority of the country's young leader Kim Jong Un.
But the North does have plenty of conventional military firepower including medium range ballistic missiles that can carry high explosives for hundreds of miles. And U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday that the North Korean threats to Guam Hawaii and the U.S. mainland have to be taken seriously.
It only takes being wrong once and I don't want to be the secretary of defense who was wrong once Hagel told an audience at Washington's National Defense University.
But Hagel also said there was still a responsible path for the North to take.
I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down Hagel said. There is a pathway that is responsible for the North to get on a path to peace working with their neighbors. There are many many benefits to their people that could come. But they have got to be a responsible member of the world community and you don't achieve that responsibility and peace and prosperity by making nuclear threats and taking very provocative actions.
Shows of force and flights of bombast
The United States has in turn made a show of its military strength in the annual drills flying B 2 stealth bombers capable of carrying conventional or nuclear weapons Cold War era B 52s and F 22 Raptor stealth fighters over South Korea.
KCNA blamed the U.S. and its South Korean allies for the situation however.
We formally inform the White House and Pentagon that the ever escalating U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK and its reckless nuclear threat will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting edge smaller lighter and diversified nuclear strike means of the DPRK and that the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified it said. The U.S. had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation.
Caitlin Hayden National Security Council spokeswoman slammed North Korea's statement as unhelpful and unconstructive.
It is yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development. North Korea should stop its provocative threats and instead concentrate on abiding by its international obligations she said.
Robert Carlin a North Korea expert at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California told CNN that the rhetoric is still too hot. It needs to be cooled down. But he added If we say that we don't see any actions yet from them I have to assume that the U.S. military still thinks the situation is under control.
OPINION Why Kim Jong Un is not crazy
North Korea's Wednesday decision to prevent South Korean workers and managers from entering the Kaesong Industrial Complex which sits on the North's side of the border but houses operations of scores of South Korean companies is a tangible sign of the tensions between the two sides.
North Korea has demanded the withdrawal of South Korean workers by April 10 from the complex South Korean semi official news agency Yonhap said Thursday. But South Korea's ministry of unification denied the report.
It's a move that could end up hurting Pyongyang financially since Kaesong is considered to be an important source of hard currency for Kim's government. More than 50 000 North Koreans work in the zone producing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods each year.
Those workers earn on average $134 a month of which North Korean authorities take about 45% in various taxes.
The North had threatened over the weekend to shut down the industrial complex. North Korea has yet to grant permission for South Koreans to enter the complex South Korea's ministry of unification said Thursday. The nearly 800 South Koreans remaining inside the complex are still able to leave the ministry said.
U.S. sends missile defense to Guam North Korea's new nuclear threat to U.S. Should the world worry about N. Korea Live fire drills out of North Korea South Korea returns rhetorical fireNorth Korea's elaborate game of chicken with U.S.
A 'cash cow'
We are highly skeptical that they will close this cash cow as some recent reports have suggested Stephan Haggard professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California San Diego wrote in an article published Monday.
But if they did the costs would be higher for the North than for the South Haggard wrote in the article for the Peterson Institute for International Economics a Washington based research organization.
Seoul said it deeply regrets the North's decision to stop South Koreans from entering Kaesong.
North Korea's action creates a barrier to the stable operation of the complex the South Korean Unification Ministry said in a statement urging its neighbor to immediately normalize the entry and exit process.
And South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan jin said military action could be taken if the safety of the South Koreans in the zone were to come under threat.
If there is a serious situation we are fully ready including military measures he said at a meeting of lawmakers the semiofficial South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
U.S. moves warship sea based radar to watch North Korea
The North has blocked the crossing into Kaesong before. In March 2009 also during joint U.S. South Korean military drills that it said were a threat Pyongyang shut the border temporarily trapping hundreds of South Korean workers in the industrial complex.
It allowed many of the stranded workers to return to South Korea the next day and fully reopened the border about a week later without explaining its reversal. It was unclear whether the latest drama over Kaesong would play out in similar fashion.
At the start of the day when the North informed the South that it would prevent new entries to the complex there were 861 South Korean workers in there according to the Unification Ministry. The North said it would continue to let people leave the zone.
Hundreds of workers rotate in and out of Kaesong each day in a series of scheduled entries and exits. Many of them stay there for several nights.
During the late morning and early afternoon exit windows only a trickle of workers was seen returning to South Korea from Kaesong far fewer than the scores who were registered to leave at those times. South Korean authorities didn't immediately provide an explanation for the discrepancy saying the individual companies decide when to send workers back.
Kim Kyong sin the manager of a textile manufacturing company in Kaesong who came back into South Korea on Wednesday said some people were staying in the complex because they are worried they might not be able to come back in.
During the March 2009 crisis many South Korean companies with operations in the zone chose to keep more workers there to compensate for those not being allowed in. Kim said he was scheduled to go back into Kaesong on Thursday but wasn't optimistic.
I think if this continues there business will be affected Kim said. I think the damage will be serious.
Kerry calls North 'reckless'
U.S. and South Korean officials have kept up their criticism of the North's actions in recent days.
John Kerry the U.S. secretary of state warned Tuesday that the United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state.
The bottom line is simply that what Kim Jong Un is choosing to do is provocative. It is dangerous reckless Kerry said during a joint briefing in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung se.
And I reiterate again the United States will do what is necessary to defend ourselves and defend our allies Korea and Japan Kerry added. We are fully prepared and capable of doing so and I think the DPRK understands that.
The North has conducted three nuclear bomb tests the most recent in February. It has said that its nuclear weapons are a deterrent that are no longer up for negotiation.
Carlin said North Korea's longer range missiles may not be ready to be used for three to four years and its nuclear program is a low level threat at this point. He said Washington's most recent moves could be caused by it seeing some sort of movement around North Korean missile facilities or it could be misreading and over reading North Korean propaganda but fulfilling their obligation to be on guard and prepared.
We're going to get out of this particular crisis it seems to me without anything really blowing up Carlin said. But down the road things are going to get more serious.
What we should be looking at really is the decisions and the policies and the approach that we're going to have to take over the next four or five years to deal with these things he added. Because for the last five years we really didn't do a very good job of doing that.
CNN's Kyung Lah and Judy Kwon in Paju South Korea K.J. Kwon in Seoul Jethro Mullen and Tim Schwarz in Hong Kong Barbara Starr and Elise Labott in Washington and Chelsea J. Carter in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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