News Values
Timeliness
I put this article in the timeliness category because it was just released today.
Queen Elizabeth II Becomes Britain’s Longest-Serving Monarch
She became queen at 25 and as of Wednesday, at 89, has ruled for 23,226 days, or 63 years, seven months and two days, surpassing Queen Victoria, her great-great grandmother.
The first Queen Elizabeth gave her name to an age, as did Victoria, in an ever more powerful kingdom. But that is not going to be the legacy of this Elizabeth, who has reigned over Britain’s long transition from empire to Commonwealth, from world power to relative international insignificance.
The historian David Cannadine said Queen Elizabeth’s legacy would feature both transition and decline — the change of British society into “a much more fluid, multicultural, more secular society,” and “the downsizing of the British Empire into the British Commonwealth, the downsizing of Britain as a great power.”
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.
Associated Press
For Mr. Cannadine, the queen has been “the perfect symbol for the orderly management, to the extent it’s been orderly, of domestic transformation and international decline.”
Through it all, she has managed to maintain public respect and belief in the monarchy — despite the sometimes scandalous behavior of her children and the spectacular death of Diana, the Princess of Wales — by her regal quiet.
Another historian, David Starkey, echoed Mr. McCartney’s insight into the queen. “She has made it an absolute rule to say nothing about anything,” he told the BBC.
“The other name, alongside Elizabeth the Changeless, could be Elizabeth the Silent,” he said. “And clearly it is deliberate.”
In private, as many attest, the queen can sometimes be sharp and even malicious, and a good mimic, Mr. Starkey said. But “in public utterance,” he said, “a very firm and large padlock is placed upon the royal lips.”
In this, the queen has embraced the wisdom of Walter Bagehot in “The English Constitution,” published as a book in 1867, when he said that to preserve a constitutional monarchy, “we must not let in daylight upon magic.”
The monarch should be “a visible symbol of unity,” he wrote.
And when the bright lights of the tabloids displayed the sometimes shocking, sometimes bizarre marital troubles of the first in line for the throne, Prince Charles, and those of Prince Andrew and Princess Anne, the queen kept her head down and did her sometimes tedious duty, keeping her own marriage together and deflecting criticism away from the institution.
She has also been rigorous about her responsibilities, again heeding Bagehot when he wrote that a sovereign has “three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.” He added, “And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.”
Her reign has included 12 British prime ministers, seven archbishops of Canterbury and seven popes. One of the prime ministers, John Major, called her “an absolute constant, that is very reassuring.”
In his memoir, Tony Blair recounted his first meeting with her as prime minister: “You are my 10th prime minister,” the queen told him. “The first was Winston. That was before you were born.”
The current prime minister, David Cameron, on Wednesday called the queen “a rock of stability in a world of constant change,” adding,“It is only right that we should celebrate her extraordinary record, as well as the grace and dignity with which she serves our country.”
Prime ministers are supposed to keep their conversations with the monarch private. But an embarrassed Mr. Cameron had to apologize to her last year after he was overheard telling the former mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, of the queen’s happiness that Scotland had voted to remain a part of the United Kingdom.
“The definition of relief is being the prime minister of the United Kingdom and ringing the queen and saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s O.K.,’ ” Mr. Cameron told Mr. Bloomberg. “That was something. She purred down the line.”
He then added, according to the BBC: “I’ve never heard someone tear up like that. It was great” — although Channel 4 decided the words were “cheer up.”
The queen spendt Wednesday in Scotland, doing her queenly duty. The Duke of Edinburgh, her husband, joined her to open the Scottish Borders Railway, and they rode on a steam train with Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
There was more fuss in London, where regular business in the House of Commons was postponed for 30 minutes so that legislators could pay tribute.
A flotilla of historical vessels, leisure cruisers and passenger boats took part in a procession between Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. The flotilla did not, however, include the Royal Yacht Britannia, which the queen loved but decommissioned in 1997 in response to public agitation for savings. It is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh.
The official photograph of the queen released on Wednesday, with her “red box” full of government papers to read, was taken by Mr. McCartney’s daughter Mary, a professional photographer. The message of the photograph, of course, is that this queen is continuing to do her duty and exercise her functions, and that she has no interest in stepping down.
The monarchy and the queen are hardly without critics, and the republican movement, which regards the monarchy and its many branches as a waste of space and money, remains vocal.
Graham Smith, head of the anti-monarchist group Republic, said in a statement: “The queen has said nothing and done little that anyone can remember over 63 years in office. So instead we see commentators and cheerleaders projecting the nation’s history, changes and achievements onto the monarch.”
In reality, Mr. Smith said: “The queen has succeeded only in serving the monarchy and the status quo. It is now time for the country to look to the future and to choose a successor through free and fair elections, someone who can genuinely represent the nation.”
Polly Toynbee, a columnist for The Guardian newspaper, called the queen “the past-mistress of nothingness,” who only had to “stay alive, procreate and do nothing to upset the multitudes” to reach Wednesday’s milestone.
“Charles is now the oldest ever Prince of Wales,” she wrote. “If the queen lives as long as her mother, he’ll be 79 when/if he accedes.”
She fumed, as many have done before: “If centuries of privileged breeding and education produce dunderheads and philistines, that proves talent is genetically random, not inherited.”
“Put an end to this royal infantilizing of a nation,” she added. “Imagine how abolishing the monarchy would open all the dusty constitutional cupboards to the sunlight of reform. Let her reign as long as she lives — but let her be Elizabeth the Last.”
In his diaries, Alan Clark, one of the more indiscreet ministers to serve in her governments, described a 1991 ceremony in which he had been inducted into the Privy Council.
Queen Elizabeth was seated in a room with “indifferent pictures,” before rising from her chair and moving “regally, to initiate a painfully, grotesquely, banal conversation,” Mr. Clark wrote.
“Not for the first time, I wondered about the queen,” he wrote. “Is she really rather dull and stupid? Or is she thinking, ‘How do people as dull and stupid as this ever get to be ministers?’ Or is, for her, the whole thing so stale and déjà vu after 40 years that she’d really rather be going round the stables at Highclere, patting racehorses on the nose?”
And that was 24 years ago. ARTICLE FROM NEW YORK TIMES
Proximity
I chose this article because this is a road i live very close to and is how i get to church.
Turn lanes at U.S. 290, William Cannon to open
TxDOT officials hope changes in Oak Hill reduce travel times.
Jerry Strange, from his home atop Convict Hill in Oak Hill, has watched U.S. 290 evolve over the past 35 years from a lightly traveled rural highway to an all-day, suburban traffic nightmare.
And during the past couple of years, he’s likewise watched crews installing what Texas Department of Transportation officials hope will take a bite out of that congestion: a “continuous flow” intersection at U.S. 290 and William Cannon Drive. But Strange is skeptical about the size of that bite.
“It looks like some Aggie drew it up,” Strange, a retired mortuary owner, said of the odd collection of lanes set off by medians. “There’s nothing continuous about it.”
But when the new-style intersection opens early Wednesday, TxDOT officials believe the final stage of what has been $6.5 million of intersection improvements along U.S. 290 through Oak Hill will make a meaningful difference in traffic backups, reducing travel times through that area by 30 percent to 50 percent.
“This is not going to completely eliminate traffic congestion,” TxDOT spokeswoman Kelli Reyna cautioned. “But if you have to sit through two cycles of the light when it used to be four or five cycles, it’s a huge improvement.”
She emphasized that the department is continuing design and environmental clearance work on the so-called Oak Hill Parkway, what is likely to be the expressway through Oak Hill that TxDOT has been trying to get approved and constructed for more than 20 years. TxDOT hopes for final environmental approval next year of what has been proposed as a toll road. For now, drivers will have this “interim” change.
The U.S. 290 and William Cannon intersection, through Tuesday, was operating as a traditional confluence of two heavily traveled roads. The repeating cycle of signals included four parts: green light time for east and west travel on U.S. 290; green for left turns from U.S. 290 onto William Cannon; green for north and south on William Cannon; and yet another green for left turns from William Cannon to U.S. 290.
What TxDOT has done eliminates the time devoted to one of those parts, the left turns from U.S. 290 to William Cannon. People wishing to make those lefts, instead of lining up at the intersection in a traditional left-turn bay, instead will queue up several hundred feet before it in a separate channel controlled by a new traffic light. As long as traffic is moving east-west on U.S. 290, they will face a red light.
But when the main intersection signal goes green for north-south on William Cannon, their control lights will as well, allowing them to cross the opposing direction of U.S. 290 and then line up in a left turn bay on what most people think of as the wrong side of the street. Then, when the light goes green for east-west U.S. 290, they’ll be able to turn left without obstructing or waiting for oncoming traffic.
The net result, with one piece of the traffic signal cycle removed, is more time for the three that are left. City of Austin officials, who control the signal timing of the U.S. 290/ William Cannon light, will allot 7 percent to 10 percent more time for east-west U.S. 290 than was the case with the traditional intersection. In the afternoon, that will amount to about 10 extra seconds for westbound drivers in each 150-second cycle.
By moving more people through the intersection on a continual basis, and thus preventing or lessening traffic stack-ups, the percentage of time saved will actually be several times greater than the percentage of added green light time, officials said.
TxDOT in the past two years has opened two other continuous flow intersections, both in San Marcos, and is working on yet another at RM 1431 and Ronald Reagan Boulevard in Cedar Park.
The changes along U.S. 290 in Oak Hill have included another continuous flow left turn, from eastbound U.S. 290 to westbound Texas 71 at the Oak Hill “Y” and the replacement of a traffic light at Joe Tanner Lane with a U-turn lane in the center median. TxDOT spent an additional $4.6 million to widen U.S. 290 and add left turn lanes between the Y and RM 1826.
Contact Ben Wear at 512-445-3698.
PROMINENCE
I chose this article because Kim Davis is
a big deal in the news currently.
Clerk who defied court order freed from jail
Kim Davis didn’t say if she will interfere with licenses.
GRAYSON, KY. — Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples, walked free Tuesday after five days, but she and her lawyer would not say whether she would abide by a court order not to interfere with the issuance of licenses by her office.
Five of her deputies in the Rowan County Clerk’s Office have been issuing marriage licenses since Friday, after telling Judge David Bunning of U.S. District Court that they would do so.
Bunning sent Davis to jail last Thursday for defying his order, but in a two-page order Tuesday, the judge said he would release her because he was satisfied that her office was “fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.”
The order came with a stern warning: “Defendant Davis shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,” and that the deputies would report to him every two weeks. “If Defendant Davis should interfere in any way with their issuance, that will be considered a violation of this order and appropriate sanctions will be considered.”
A short time later, Davis spoke briefly to a rally of cheering supporters outside the Carter County Detention Center here, where she had been held. She walked on stage to thunderous applause, the song “Eye of the Tiger” playing, her hands held aloft in triumph by her lawyer, Mathew Staver, and Mike Huckabee, the Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor. She broke into tears.
“Thank you all so much; I love you all so very much,” she said after composing herself. “I just want to give God the glory. His people have rallied, and you are a strong people. Just keep on pressing. Don’t let down. Because he is here.”
Davis walked out of the detention center about 2:35 p.m., flanked by Huckabee, Staver and her husband, Joe. Reporters asked repeatedly if she would abide by Bunning’s order, and not interfere with the processing of licenses by her office, but Davis remained silent.
“She’s not going to violate her conscience,” Staver said, a possible indication that she would continue to defy the court. Last week Staver told Bunning that Davis would not abide by the resolution the judge had settled on: having her deputies issue licenses without her approval or signature.
Staver has argued that the problem is that the licenses say they are issued by the Rowan County clerk, and she, as the clerk, will not authorize them. If that wording were eliminated, he said, she would not stand in the way of granting licenses.
Impact
Chinese Trade is a Driving Economic Force
As China’s economy slows, countries with significant exposure to raw materials, like Australia and Brazil, are facing serious headwinds. Germany exports machinery and automobiles to China, which had been a counterbalance to slow growth in Europe.
China’s 2013 trade with each country Total value of imports plus exports
Russia
Germany
Japan
United States
South Korea
Taiwan
Hong Kong
Malaysia
Brazil
Australia
$500
billion
300
100
China’s exports and imports to:
United
States
Hong
Kong
South
Korea
Japan
Taiwan
Germany
Australia
Malaysia
Brazil
Russia
EXPORTS
$368
bil.
$385
$150
$91
$41
$67
$38
$46
$36
$50
IMPORTS
153
16
162
183
157
94
98
60
54
40
TOTAL TRADE
521
401
313
274
197
162
136
106
90
89
The New York Times|Sources: China's General Administration of Customs, via CEIC data
Slumping Stocks Are Igniting Broader Fears
Despite significant intervention, the Chinese government has been unable to stop the stock slide. Global markets initially shrugged off the weakness as simply a correction in a market that had doubled in the preceding year. But the tumult is now spreading around the world, as worries grow about the health of China’s economy.
Peak
June 12
0
Change in the
Shanghai composite index
relative to the peak
June 25
The Chinese central
bank injects cash into
the financial markets.
–10
Aug. 11
China devalues
its currency.
June 27
The central bank cuts
interest rates and lets
banks lend more.
–20
July 1
Regulators allow homes
and other real assets as
collateral when borrowing
to buy stocks.
–30
July 8
–32%
–40
Aug. 25
China cuts interest
rates again.
Aug. 26
–43%
–50
July
June
Aug.
Aprill 2015
May
The New York Times|Source: Reuters
Economic Uncertainty Reigns in China
Although the government puts China’s official growth at 7 percent a year, some economists question whether the economy is slowing more quickly. Here are two alternative estimates of China’s output.
+20
%
China’s gross domestic product
Year-over-year change
+16
+12
+12
%
Official figures
Official figures
2nd qtr.
2015:
2nd qtr.
2015:
+8
+8
+7.0%
+7.0%
+4.3%
+4
+4
+3.7%
Estimates by:
Capital Economics
Estimates by:
Lombard Street
0
0
’05
’15
’05
’15
The New York Times|Sources: Reuters; Capital Economics; Lombard Street Research
IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS, This situation is a conflict between 2 different groups of people with different opinions.
Democrats clinch Iran deal votes
Support from four more senators ensures ability to block a Republican disapproval resolution.
WASHINGTON — The White House and Senate Democrats locked up the votes Tuesday to frustrate attempts by outraged Republicans to pass a legislative rebuke to the Iran nuclear accord.
Human Interest
I chose this article because it is a struggle happening to
a large group of people
Germany will accept 500K refugees a year
Critics question if generous policies entice migrants.
BERLIN — A top German official said Tuesday that his country could take half a million refugees a year “for several years,” even as some critics questioned whether generous asylum policies are enticing more migrants to make the dangerous trek for Western Europe.
Novelty
I choose this article because it was the
one that had the most feed back in response to it
on the article
Juncker Proposes Migrant Quota
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said European nations needed to take in 160,000 migrants and announced a package for legal migration, expected in early 2016.
By REUTERS on September 9, 2015. Photo by Frederick Florin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.Watch in Times Video »
BRUSSELS — Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, called on the bloc on Wednesday to accept 160,000 migrants, imploring leaders not to remain indifferent in the face of one of Europe’s toughest humanitarian challenges in decades.
“Turning a blind eye to poor and helpless people, that is not Europe,” said Mr. Juncker, a former prime minister of Luxembourg. Coming against the backdrop of anti-immigrant sentiment in countries like Hungary, which is building a 110-mile fence on its border with Serbia to try to keep migrants out, Mr. Juncker appealed to Europeans in personal terms.
In his first State of the European Union speechin Strasbourg, France, he urged Europeans to remember their ancestors who sought refuge from religious persecution, war and famine, and he warned that Europe had a historical imperative not to look the other way.
“Let us be clear and honest with our often-worried citizens,” Mr. Juncker said, pointing to the root causes of the crisis. “As long as there is war in Syria and terror in Libya, the refugee crisis will not simply go away.”
GRAPHIC
Seeking a Fair Distribution of Migrants in Europe
German and European Union leaders have called for European countries to share the burden of absorbing the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have poured into the continent this summer.
Many of the migrants are believed to be fleeing war in the Middle East and Africa, and he said the sight of people sleeping in train stations and on beaches was unacceptable and must be addressed as winter approaches.
The centerpiece of Mr. Juncker’s speech to the European Parliament was his formal announcement of an emergency plan, which would be binding on a majority of member states, to spread the burden of accommodating 160,000 people, many of whom are flowing into Greece, Hungary and Italy.
Facing a migration crisis that has stoked angry passions, European leaders in June failed to agree on a vague pledge to spread even 40,000 migrants around the Continent, and it remained unclear whether a quota of 160,000 people, even if accepted, would be sufficient to accommodate a large influx of migrants to Europe. Germany alone has said it expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year.
European governments have been squabbling over how to deal with asylum seekers, and Mr. Juncker’s comments matched a theme expressed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who earlier in the day repeated her call for European leaders to reach a binding agreement on the distribution of them throughout the bloc.
“The bell tolls, the time has come,” Mr. Juncker said. “We have to look at the huge issues with which the European Union is now confronted” because it is “not in a good situation.”
There is “a lack of union in this European Union,” he continued.
“That has to change,” he added.
In Denmark, Migrants Aim for Sweden
Hundreds of migrants walked along a road north of Padborg, Denmark, toward Sweden on Wednesday.
By LOCAL EYES on September 9, 2015. Photo by Pedersen Rune Aarestrup/POLFOTO, via Associated Press. Watch in Times Video »
Opposition to the emergency plan arose almost immediately after Mr. Juncker ended his address. “Let’s work out what each country can do to help those fleeing for their lives,” Syed Kamall, the leader of the British Conservative Party in the European Parliament, told other lawmakers.
“But let’s be clear: Telling countries what to do, forcing a plan on them, only risks more finger-pointing,” he said. “It might make some of you feel better, but I fear it could actually make the crisis worse.”
But Mr. Juncker’s plans drew praise from a number of his political opponents, including Ulrike Lunacek, a lawmaker in the Greens bloc of the European Parliament who represents Austria. Mr. Juncker’s calls for “solidarity with refugees” and for European countries “to finally step up to the plate” were “worthy of respect,” Ms. Lunacek said.
She also praised Mr. Juncker for having called for a change to European rules to allow people who have applied for asylum to work and earn money while their applications were being processed.
Mr. Juncker used his speech to denounce the leaders of some European Union member states who have been unwelcoming to migrants, and he said that allowing more of them would help the economy, rather than damage it, by adding young workers to the bloc’s aging work force.
He highlighted efforts of countries like Jordan and Lebanon to accommodate a larger number of migrants than their richer European neighbors.
“We can build walls; we can build fences,” he said, alluding to measures Hungary has taken. “But imagine for a second if it were you, your child in your arms, the world you knew torn apart around you. There is no price you would not pay; there is no wall you would not climb.”
Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants
Thousands of migrants and refugees are desperately pushing their way into Europe. A team of New York Times journalists is documenting the journey.
Mr. Juncker asked home affairs ministers of European Union member states to approve his plan to accept the 160,000 at their next meeting, on Monday.
“That’s the number that Europeans have to take in charge, and have to take in their arms,” Mr. Juncker said.
“Action is what is needed for the time being,” he continued.
There is no guarantee that ministers will accept that plan. European Union leadersfailed to agree on far more modest quotas at the summit meeting in June, and many governments must contend with the growing support of populist or anti-immigrant groups.
Countries like the Czech Republic and Hungary are likely to continue resisting any binding or permanent quotas.
But the discovery last month of more than 70 dead migrants in a truckabandoned on the side of an Austrian highway and the photograph of a young Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey have increased the resolve of policy makers like Mr. Juncker to ensure that Europe does a better job of managing the influx.
France, which had been hostile to permanent quotas, now supports Germany on the need to share the burden of taking in asylum seekers among all European countries.
The plan would require states to pay a small percentage of their gross domestic product, amounting to 0.002 percent of it, to help finance the efforts of neighboring countries if they cannot participate.
Any such temporary exemption would last 12 months and be decided “case by case,” Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, told a news conference in Strasbourg after Mr. Juncker’s speech.
“This is not about picking and choosing because of people’s ethnicity, their religion or the color of their skin,” said Mr. Timmermans, referring to the payment option.
Only a country “in dire trouble because of a natural catastrophe or another reason and can therefore not take its fair share for a given period of time” would be eligible for the option, said Mr. Timmermans, adding that nations should not be allowed to “buy themselves out of solidarity.”
In his bid to win support from even more member states, Mr. Juncker leveled thinly veiled criticism at Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that Christian traditions in Europe are under threat from newcomers from Muslim countries.
Last week, Mr. Orban said that Hungarians “do not want a large number of Muslim people” in their country, and Mr. Juncker suggested that such an approach was completely unacceptable.
“Europe has made the mistake in the past of distinguishing between Jews, Christians, Muslims,” Mr. Juncker said. “There is no religion, no belief, no philosophy when it comes to refugees.”
To speed up the processing of asylum applications, Mr. Juncker said the European Commission planned to propose a list of countries that are deemed safe, to which migrants originating from those countries would be sent back. He noted that the list should include candidate countries for accession to the European Union, like the western Balkans.
Mr. Juncker said that Europe should learn from its history and appeared to point a moral finger at European nations demonizing asylum seekers from Muslim countries.
He also mentioned the large number of people from Ireland, Poland and Scotland who had emigrated to the United States, suggesting that immigration was a source of cultural richness rather than an impediment.
Addressing the root causes of the migration crisis, he also proposed that the European Union create an emergency fund of 1.8 billion euros, or more than $2 billion, to help African countries.
In Germany, Ms. Merkel has repeatedly emphasized the importance of equitable contributions from all members of the European Union in addressing the migration crisis.
“The current refugee crisis cannot be handled solely at the national level,” Ms. Merkel said in a speech to Parliament on Wednesday. “It is a challenge for the European Union, for every member of the European Union.”
Ms. Merkel said that European Union member states needed to agree on a way to distribute the arrivals equitably across the bloc.
Over the past week, Ms. Merkel’s government has taken measures to help the thousands of people pouring into Germany. A package valued at €6 billion was announced on Monday, and legislative changes affecting how asylum seekers’s applications are processed and how to get them into the work force more quickly are expected to come to a vote in Parliament within a month.
“We need to change,” she said, “and it won’t help anyone to point fingers and exchange blame over who didn’t do what, but we all need to go at this so that we can help the people arriving in our country.”
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