Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg A shopper looks at a window display of luxury wrist watches at the Jaeger-LeCoultre store in Toulouse, France, Nov. 20, 2013.

It had taken a licking and was ripe for the picking.

But only if you knew the real value of a 1959 Jaeger-LeCoultre diving watch.

And Zach Norris of Phoenix knows his watches.

He saw the rare timepiece, sans wrist band, at his local Goodwill store. The price tag said $5.99.

"I didn't even want to give it to her scan," he says of his rock bottom-priced purchase. "I was like, 'You can scan it in my hand if your want to.' I just didn't want to let it go," he told KTVK-TV.

When he did let it go, it was for $35,000.

Less than 1,000 of the diving watches were ever made.

"I knew I didn't want to keep it because it's kind of above my means to have a piece like that," he said. "I had a couple of good offers."

After seeing the Jaeger-LeCoultre on Hodinkee.com, a collectors' website, an aficionado in San Francisco offered $35,000 and a $4,000 Mega Speed Master watch.

Norris was only too happy to take the offer.

"We're planning a wedding," he said. "We've been a planning a wedding for a while, but now that we have the extra funds, we're going to go ahead and start taking care of everything.

"We're excited," he said.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

The mass wedding was organised by local authorities to help those who would struggle to pay for their own ceremony.

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

Couples with a combined monthly income of up to $1,000 (£640) were allowed to be involved, the BBC reported.

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

The event took place at the Maracanazinho arena, and proceedings were presided over by volunteer civil judges.

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

n evangelical Christian pastor and a Catholic priest also blessed the couples, AFP reported.

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

The BBC said local officials put on special trains to help couples and their guests attend the event.

AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

The annual mass wedding ceremony, known as Dia do Sim (I Do Day), was the biggest ever in Rio.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

Puerto Vallarta, Jal.- The Spanish government has confirmed the completion of an IPO for the sale of a 49% stake in Aena AS (formely Aena Aeropuertos) to private investors.

The flotation, which was five times over subscribed, is expected to raise €8.7 billion.

Spain’s biggest ever IPO, carried out on the Madrid Stock Exchange, follows the government’s decision to scrap a deal to sell a 21% stake to three “cornerstone investors” – Corporación Financiera Alba (8%), Ferrovial (6.5%) and British investment fund TCI (6.5%).

In addition to its 46 airports and two heliports in Spain, Aena – through subsidiary Aena Internacional – currently has interests in 15 airports in the UK, Colombia and Mexico.

It has a controlling 51% shareholding in London Luton Airport in the UK; 37.89% and 50% stakes respectively in Colombia’s Cartagena de Indias (SACSA) and Cali Alfonso Bonilla Aragón (Aerocali) airports; and a 33.3% interest in Aeropuertos Mexicanos del Pacífico (AMP), strategic partner of Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (GAP), which operates 12 Mexican gateways that include Guadalajara, Tijuana, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, La Paz and Manzanillo.

And it says that it will “continue to consider new business opportunities worldwide” in 2015 although in the last few years it has shed its TBI-owned assets, and its interest in Colombia’s Baranquilla–Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport ended in February 2012 when Aeropuertos de Caribe’s 15-year concession expired.

You can read more about Aena and the airport portfolios of the world’s other airport owners and airport operators in the A to Z feature of global airport operators in the next issue of Airport World.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

David McNew/Getty Images An Alaska Airlines jet passes the air traffic control tower at Los Angles International Airport during take-off on April 22, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

LOS ANGELES — A scorpion stung a woman on the hand just before her flight from Los Angeles to Portland took off.

Alaska Airlines spokesman Cole Cosgrove says Flight 567 was taxing on the runway Saturday night when the passenger was stung. He says the plane returned to the gate and the woman was checked by medics. She refused additional medical treatment but didn't get back on the plane.

Meanwhile, flight attendants killed the scorpion and checked overhead compartments for any additional unwanted arachnids. The flight then took off at 8:40 p.m., about an hour late. Members of Oregon State University's men's basketball team were on the flight, Cosgrove said.

He says it's unclear how the scorpion got on the plane, but the flight originated in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

HAVANA (AP) – Already renowned for fine rum and fancy cigars, Cuba is carving out a new luxury niche that is attracting Latin American elites to the communist-run island: thoroughbred jumping horses.

By importing colts and fillies from the Netherlands, Cuban trainers are creating prized competitors capable of fetching more than $40,000 from buyers at private auctions, with much of the proceeds going back to the government-led equine enterprise.

At an auction last month at the National Equestrian Club, well-heeled horse collectors gathered in the tropical air to sip wine and raise their bidding paddles, hoping to find a champion among the Dutch Warmbloods paraded before them.

By evening's end, 31 horses sold for a total of about $435,000 to buyers from Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, the Netherlands and Mexico.

"The great advantage is that they are already in the Americas," said Cecilia Pedraza, a Mexico City collector who bought several of the Dutch Warmbloods. "In addition, they have been trained very well. They are advanced for their age, very well-behaved, perform concentrated jumps and have excellent blood lines."

Rufino Rivera, from Xalapa, the capital of Mexico's Gulf coast state of Veracruz, paid about $17,000 for a horse he hopes will follow the path of Aristotelis, a prize-winning jumper he bought at the club's first auction six years ago.

Cuba's tradition of horse breeding and training dates to the 16th century, but after the 1959 communist revolution, Fidel Castro's government banned horse racing along with gambling and professional sports. Cuba continued to participate in amateur equestrianism, producing top-notch horse riders and trainers. But the costly sport slipped into decline in the 1990s, when the fall of the Soviet Union provoked an economic crisis that made it hard to care for the animals.

Then, starting in 2005, Cuba began seeing horses as a way to gain badly needed foreign currency. It began to import Dutch Warmbloods around age 1½, then train them for competitive jumping before selling them at age 3.

In the days before an auction, jockeys and trainers like Jose Luis Vaquero can be seen brushing their purebred wards' coats and braiding their manes so that "everything is perfect."

"You have to take care of the horse, look after it every day," Vaquero said.

The National Equestrian Club is run by Flora and Fauna, a state business that promotes the island's natural resources. It keeps 117 horses in stables in Lenin Park on the outskirts of Havana.

Cuba, which splits proceeds from the auction with a Dutch equine company, uses much of its share to fund a new initiative to breed the horses locally rather than have to import animals at great expense.

Willy Arts, the head of the Royal Dutch Sport Horse association's North American wing, said there is growing demand for high-quality show horses and Cuba's program could be important to people in the Western Hemisphere looking to purchase them at more accessible prices.

Cuba complains bitterly about training world-class athletes who leave to make millions for themselves in other countries. If successful, the new equine initiative would produce four-hooved performers whose success only means more revenue for the program that produces them.

Nearly two dozen mares currently are part of the breeding effort. Last year, three horses born through the insemination program were sold at prices ranging from $39,000 to $50,000, said Maydet Vega, a veterinarian who oversees equine programs at Rancho Azucarero, the horse-breeding center west of Havana where the artificial insemination program is being developed.

Breeding foals in Cuba has the additional advantage of allowing horses to adapt to Cuba's sweltering heat and humidity from birth, she said.

"It's important to be able to produce them on the continent," Vega said. "They can adapt to the tropical conditions of our climate so people can have them in all countries in the Americas."

Cuba is training purebred horses for luxury market

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – A noted Mexican-American scholar and civil rights advocate whose name graces educational institutions in Texas and California but is virtually unknown in his hometown of Albuquerque is on track to receive the honor from a New Mexico school.

An Albuquerque Public Schools committee voted Wednesday to name a new kindergarten through eighth-grade school for George I. Sanchez, a key figure in the struggle to end segregation of black and Mexican-American students during the 1950s.

"I'm so excited that he's finally going to get to come back home," said Cindy Kennedy, 51, a Santa Fe teacher and a granddaughter of Sanchez, who died in 1972. "This has been a long time coming."

District officials said Sanchez's name beat out Albert Einstein and City View as the title for the new school on ballots sent to families living in the school's attendance area. The school will be located in the largely immigrant and Mexican-American southwest area of the city.

Born in Albuquerque in 1906, the son of an Arizona miner worked his way out of poverty as a rural public-school teacher in New Mexico to become one of the most influential Latino scholars and education activists in the nation. Sanchez developed his theories on school inequalities using New Mexico's Hispanic and Navajo populations as examples.

He argued that bilingual students faced discrimination by school systems that used only English and testified in landmark court cases about the negative effects of segregation and IQ testing on Hispanic, American Indian and black children.

His 1940 classic "Forgotten People" was one of the first studies to document how Hispanics were losing land and influence to poverty and white encroachment.

The book drew attention from the University of Texas, which eventually offered Sanchez a job. There, he wrote other books, became a national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens and corresponded with Thurgood Marshall on desegregation strategy.

A dozen or so schools in Texas and California are named after Sanchez, but there are none in New Mexico, the state with the largest percentage of Hispanics in the nation and one that celebrates its Hispanic past.

He is not listed among the state's notable figures in New Mexico Centennial guidebooks.

After a 2012 Associated Press story on Sanchez and how he was an unknown figure in New Mexico, a group of current and retired educators began pushing for more recognition of Sanchez.

The New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education, for example, honored Sanchez in 2013 with an award recognizing a New Mexican who has made a significant contribution to bilingual education.

But the group failed to persuade the Santa Fe school board to name a new school after Sanchez.

The Albuquerque school is believed to the first named after Sanchez in New Mexico. The full Albuquerque school board next needs to approve the proposal in a vote that could come as early as next week.

Carlos Blanton, author of "George I. Sanchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration" and a history professor at Texas A&M University, said naming a school after Sanchez will go a long way in securing his legacy in New Mexico.

"School names are enduring," Blanton said. "So it's really heartwarming that George I. Sanchez is going to be remembered in Albuquerque after all these years."

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

Stewart’s representative confirmed his departure to BuzzFeed News.

Stewart first spoke publicly about his departure during the filming of Tuesday’s show, which aired later that night. He said that “in my heart, I know it is time for someone else to have that opportunity.” He could be seen fighting back tears while he spoke.

Comedy Central President Michele Ganeless issued a statement Tuesday about Stewart’s departure:

For the better part of the last two decades, I have had the incredible honor and privilege of working with Jon Stewart. His comedic brilliance is second to none. Jon has been at the heart of Comedy Central, championing and nurturing the best talent in the industry, in front of and behind the camera. Through his unique voice and vision, The Daily Show has become a cultural touchstone for millions of fans and an unparalleled platform for political comedy that will endure for years to come. Jon will remain at the helm of The Daily Show until later this year. He is a comic genius, generous with his time and talent, and will always be a part of the Comedy Central family.

News of Stewart’s departure leaked following Tuesday’s taping, and The Daily Show later encouraged viewers to watch:

Stewart took over The Daily Show from Craig Kilborn in 1999. Over the next 16 years, he grew the show into a trusted source of news for younger Americans that won a total of 20 Emmys.

Over the years, Stewart conducted interviews with an array of high-profile and influential figures, including President Obama.

Last year, Stewart directed his first feature film, Rosewater, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival.

The Daily Show also spawned a spin-off, The Colbert Report, during Stewart’s time as host. The Colbert Report ended in December, about nine months after host Stephen Colbert was chosen to replace David Letterman as host of the Late Show.

Though Comedy Central has not specifically said when Stewart will actually leave The Daily Show, his departure is apparently not imminent and, if The Colbert Report is any indication, could take months. And whenever Stewart does leave, Comedy Central will have an entirely new hour-long block of TV that was formerly filled by two of its biggest stars.

In an interview last year with NPR’s Terry Gross, Stewart discussed the possibility of leaving The Daily Show.

When Gross asked about doing something other than hosting, Stewart said people can’t just stay in one place “because it feels like you’ve built a nice house there.”

“You know there are other considerations of family or even in the sense of just not wanting to be on television all the time,” he said.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

A former U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot and wounded a Mexican man intentionally used excessive force and was not justified in opening fire, a federal judge said as he awarded the victim half a million dollars in a lawsuit.

Gunfire hit Jesus Castro-Romo of Nogales, Sonora, in the stomach on Nov. 16, 2010, after he was caught crossing illegally from Mexico into the Arizona desert.

Former agent Abel Canales did not face criminal charges after the shooting was deemed justified by Colorado prosecutors, who reviewed the case because federal prosecutors in Arizona had a conflict of interest.

Neither the Border Patrol nor Canales' public defender have responded to requests for comment.

In a ruling issued Feb. 5 in the civil case, Judge James A. Soto awarded Castro-Romo nearly $500,000 in damages and said that Canales lacked credibility.

"Canales was given every opportunity to describe in detail the encounter with Castro — with counsel present — the day after the shooting occurred," Soto wrote. "Then, after significant time had passed and in preparation for trial, details of his testimony changed and new details were added."

The government said in a court response filed following the civil trial last year that Canales had not changed his story but merely answered different questions on different occasions.

"A witness's version of events is not inconsistent or inaccurate simply because he provides additional information in response to different questions," the response says.

The defense also said the shooting was justified under Arizona law, which says an agent can open fire if he believes it necessary to protect himself and others.

In an unrelated case, Canales pleaded guilty to taking a bribe and allowing a truckload of drugs and contraband to pass through a border checkpoint near Tucson.

The shooting took place near Walker Canyon, when Canales spotted Castro-Romo and a half-dozen other migrants walking through the desert. Canales, who was on a horse, stopped the group and told them to stay on the ground while other agents arrived to help.

Canales told investigators that Castro-Romo picked up a rock but then dropped it when ordered to do so. Canales believes Castro-Romo then made a motion indicating he was going to pick up the rock again, but the agent did not actually see Castro-Romo with a rock in his hand, according to a letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona.

The letter, signed by former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, explained why prosecutors were declining to charge Castro-Romo with assault on a federal officer.

The Border Patrol has been accused of using excessive force, especially when agents encounter rock-throwing. A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona on behalf of the mother of a Mexican teen who was shot and killed by an agent in Mexico alleges that agents indiscriminately fire at suspected rock-throwers.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File FILE - In this July 30, 2007 file photo, the HSBC building is seen in the docklands, London. The chair of parliaments Public Accounts Committee says the former chief of HS…

LONDON — A trove of leaked documents shows that HSBC's Swiss private bank turned a blind eye to illegal activities of arms dealers and blood diamond traders while helping rich people evade taxes, according to a report based on the documents that was published Monday.

The data relate to accounts worth $100 billion held by more than 100,000 people and legal entities around the world.

WHAT HAPPENED

A former HSBC employee-turned-whistleblower, Herve Falciani, gave the data to French tax authorities in 2008. France shared it with other governments and launched investigations.

The French newspaper Le Monde obtained a version of the data and shared the material with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which analyzed the material together with The Guardian and the BBC in Britain.

WHAT THE FILES SHOW

The leaked documents mainly cover the years 2005 to 2007.

HSBC, which is based in London but has operations globally, served those close to the regimes of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Tunisian leader Ben Ali and Syria's Bashar Assad.

The consortium said clients include former and current politicians from Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Kenya, India, Mexico, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, and Algeria.

Switzerland had the greatest number of clients of the data examined, followed by France, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Italy. In terms of ranking by value, Switzerland was first with $31.2 billion, followed by the United Kingdom with $21.7 billion; Venezuela with $14.8 billion; the U.S. with $13.4 billion; and France with $12.5 billion.

WHY IT MATTERS

Though some of the details of such operations were disclosed previously, when HSBC was fined in 2012 by the U.S. for allowing criminals to use its branches for money laundering, Monday's information suggests HSBC took an active role in assisting the wealthy in hiding their money from authorities.

"The bank repeatedly reassured clients that it would not disclose details of accounts to national authorities, even if evidence suggested that the accounts were undeclared to tax authorities in the client's home country," the consortium said. "Bank employees also discussed with clients a range of measures that would ultimately allow clients to avoid paying taxes in their home countries."

Crawford Spence, a professor of accounting at the University of Warwick, said this case was different than other recent tax scandals.

"HSBC has been complicit in clear tax evasion and law breaking rather than legitimate tax avoidance," he said.

POTENTIAL FALLOUT

The disclosures could see governments step up their efforts to prosecute tax evaders and the bank itself.

Governments are looking to crack down on tax evasion to bolster their coffers depleted by the financial crisis and amid criticism that the rich aren't paying their fair share.

In Britain, the report sparked criticism of tax authorities. The national tax agency clawed back 135 million pounds ($236 million) from some of the 3,600 Britons identified as using the Geneva branch of HSBC, but only one person has been prosecuted. France, by contrast, launched 103 legal actions.

"You are left wondering, as you see the enormity of what has been going on, what it actually takes to bring a tax cheat to court," Margaret Hodge, chair of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee, told the BBC.

Hodge said the former chairman of HSBC, Stephen Green, must face questions about whether he was "asleep at the wheel, or he did know and he was therefore involved in dodgy tax practices."

In Belgium, an investigating judge is considering arrest warrants against some former and current officials of the HSBC bank if cooperation in an investigation on the Swiss operations does not improve.

WHAT HSBC SAYS

HSBC stressed that the documents were from eight years ago and said it has since implemented initiatives designed to prevent its banking services from being used to evade taxes or launder money.

Franco Morra, CEO of HSBC's Swiss subsidiary, said the new management had shut down accounts from clients who "did not meet our high standards."

"These disclosures about historical business practices are a reminder that the old business model of Swiss private banking is no longer acceptable," he said in a statement.

Frank Jordans in Berlin and Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this story.

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

The same loopy weather patterns directing California's ongoing drought and last year's deep freeze across the East Coast may also change how often tornadoes strike the southeastern United States, a new modeling study finds.

Researchers examined how global warming will affect severe weather during the heart of tornado season — March, April and May. They found that while the yearly tornado total will climb by 2080, the number of tornadoes will also vary wildly from year to year. That's because sometimes, the weather will get stuck in a pattern that favors tornadoes, and sometimes, conditions will stymie stormy weather, according to the report, published Jan. 15 in the journal Climatic Change.

"We see this trend in a lot of extreme weather," said lead study author Victor Gensini, a severe storms climatologist at the College of DuPage in Illinois. "Changes in the jet stream are causing the jet to break down and get stuck in these blocking patterns," Gensini said. "It just so happens it could be in a favorable pattern for tornadoes or a really bad pattern [for tornadoes]." [The Top 5 Deadliest Tornado Years in U.S. History]

In the future, tornado season will also peak earlier, in March instead of May, the study reported. The number of tornadoes in April will rise slightly, while May's total twister count will stay the same.

"Because of increasing temperatures, we'll have more [atmospheric] instability earlier in the year, and instability is the fuel for tornadoes," Gensini said.

Typically, climate models can't predict how global warming will affect tornadoes because the storms are smaller than the resolution of climate models. But Gensini's approach relies on a relatively new weather forecasting model that can recreate the hazardous storms that generate tornadoes, hail and damaging winds.

"This is a model that can see thunderstorms, and climate models don't know anything about thunderstorms," said Harold Brooks, a senior scientist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, who was not involved in the research.

Two major factors control the birth of a tornado: convective available potential energy, or CAPE, and vertical wind shear. The available potential energy relates to warm, moist air at low altitude and cold, drier air above. Combined with wind shear — big changes in wind direction and speed with height — these conditions can spawn rotating air that triggers a tornado.

The new model predicts that these severe weather conditions are more likely to occur in the future, at least during the months of March, April and May. The increases are seen primarily across the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio River valleys. Only northern Florida will see a drop in severe weather, the study reported.

"It will be really unlikely to get a tornado in Florida in March, April or May," Gensini said.

At this time, the researchers don't know if the total number of tornadoes will shift during other months, Gensini said. Tornadoes can strike at any time during the year.

The variability from year to year is "a really intriguing result," Brooks said. A study published last year by Brooks found that tornado years are more variable than they used to be, and tornadoes cluster together more often.

In 2011, there were 1,894 tornados — many of them deadly, including the Joplin, Missouri, twister that killed 161 people. That tornado total was followed by a sharp decline, with 1,119 tornadoes in 2012; 943 in 2013; and 1,057 in 2014, according to the National Weather Service.

Follow Becky Oskin @beckyoskin. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

Fishy Rain to Fire Whirlwinds: The World's Weirdest Weather
Infographic: Tornado! How, When & Where Twisters Form
Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats

Source

REPORT AN ERROR

Brian Williams in 2014.CreditAndrew H. Walker/Getty Images

Brian Williams, acknowledging that the scrutiny and criticism he was attracting was becoming a distraction for his network, said on Saturday that he was stepping aside as anchor of NBC’s “Nightly News” for the next several days.

In a memo to the NBC News staff, Mr. Williams said that Lester Holt, the anchor for “Dateline,” would step in as the network dealt with the crisis caused by Mr. Williams’s admission that he had misled the public with an account of a helicopter incident in Iraq.

“In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions,” Mr. Williams said in the two-paragraph memo.

Mr. Williams is both anchor and managing editor for “NBC Nightly News.”

Mr. Williams did not say exactly when he expected to return to the anchor chair. “Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us,” he said.

Richard F. Hanley, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University, said Mr. Williams’s decision would help avert an awkward situation in which his newscast was overshadowed by the attention on his own problems. “It would be impossible for him to be as confident a reader of news with this over his head,” Mr. Hanley said. “The audience would be thinking of that and not the news he was reporting on.”

The move will also give NBC more time to sort out the issue and also to assemble a contingency plan should Mr. Williams be forced to resign, Mr. Hanley said.

“One of the interesting things about this is there is no set date for return,” he said. “It is ambiguous, which suggests that NBC executives are going to undertake a full investigation and not let him back on the air until that investigation is complete.”

The news came a day after it was revealed that NBC was starting an internal “fact-checking” investigation into Mr. Williams that would review the Iraq incident, which occurred in 2003, as well as other examples of his reporting, including during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The investigation will be led by Richard Esposito, the head of NBC’s investigative unit.

Since Wednesday, when Mr. Williams acknowledged his error during his newscast and apologized for it, he has been the target of a wave of criticism, with some military veterans, media critics and viewers calling for his resignation. Indeed, not only has Mr. Williams’s reputation taken a hit but the broader credibility of NBC’s news division has also been questioned, media analysts said.

“It may be just one bad apple, but he came out of the system,” said Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland who previously worked at NBC News.

In his newscast on Wednesday, Mr. Williams said he had embellished an account of an incident in 2003; over the years he came to say that he was in a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire, an assertion he now says is not true. He now says he was in a trailing helicopter, and that he “conflated” the two aircraft. He made no mention of the matter during his newscasts on Thursday and Friday.

The attention on the Iraq mistake has brought the rest of Mr. Williams’s career under a microscope. Some blogs and media outlets questioned Mr. Williams’s description of what he saw while reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Should Mr. Williams be forced out of the anchor chair, it would be a major setback for NBC’s news division, which is in a fierce competition for viewers. So far this season, NBC has averaged 9.3 million total viewers for its nightly broadcast, compared with 8.7 million for ABC and 7.3 million for CBS, according to Nielsen.

The evening broadcast has remained a stable block for NBC even as its “Today” and “Meet the Press” shows have faced challenges. As such, top executives have not focused on succession planning for the “NBC Nightly News” because it did not appear necessary. In December, the network extended Mr. Williams’s contract. The terms were reported to be as much as $10 million per year for five years.

“There is really nobody on the NBC news bench who can replace Williams in terms of his projection and presence on the nightly broadcast,” Mr. Hanley said. “Just look at the problems the ‘Today’ show had in trying to assemble a team that could reverse its fortunes there.”

Source

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that it will be legal for doctors to help their patients die who suffer intolerably from an incurable condition, and gave authorities a year to create rules for implementing the measure.

The decision reversed the ruling made by the same court in 1993, when it dismissed a suit by Sue Rodriguez, a woman in a terminal state and who demanded the right to assisted suicide.

The nine judges on Canada's highest court voted unanimously to reverse the 1993 decision and all signed the new ruling as co-authors, something that legal experts say is unusual and intended to boost its institutional strength.

The judges said in their ruling that "we do not agree that the existential formulation of the right to life requires an absolute prohibition on assistance in dying, or that individuals cannot 'waive' their right to life."

"This would create a 'duty to live,' rather than a 'right to life,' and would call into question the legality of any consent to the withdrawal or refusal of lifesaving or life-sustaining treatment," the Supreme Court wrote.

The reversal of the ban on physician-assisted suicide is the result of court cases entered by two women, Kathleen Carty and Gloria Taylor, who were suffering from chronic degenerative illnesses.

Carter died in 2010 at a Swiss clinic that practices assisted suicide, while Taylor died in 2012 of an infection.

But before dying, both took their cases to court, which launched the judicial process that ended Friday. EFE

Source