Obama signs bill to close gap in cocaine penalties - Politics - White House. WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a bill reducing the disparity between federal mandatory sentences for convictions for crack cocaine and the powder form of the drug. Obama's signing of the bill in the Oval Office was open to news photographers but not the rest of the media. He made no remarks. But as a longtime thorn for the black community, the matter is important to a key Obama constituency. The quarter-century-old law that Congress changed with the new bill has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to long prison terms for crack cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient sentences to those, mainly whites, caught with powder. However, the new law is not retroactive. And it applies only to federal defendants, with no impact on state mandatory sentencing laws.
But Monica Pratt, spokeswoman for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said the states have generally been ahead of the federal government in moving away from mandatory sentences in general. Number of millionaires in Israel grows by 42% - Israel Business, Ynetnews. Israel home to 8,419 millionaires according to Merrill Lynch Capgemini World Wealth Report The number of millionaires in Israel increased last year by 42.7%, from 5,900 in 2008 to 8,419 in 2009, according to the 14th Merrill Lynch Capgemini World Wealth Report released Tuesday. According to the report, the number of millionaires in the world rose in 2009 by 17.1%, to some 10 million, despite the economic downturn. Israel takes third place in the increase of millionaires after Hong Kong and India, where the number of millionaires grew by 104% and 50.9% respectively.
The report defines a millionaire as anyone with at least $1 million in liquid funds, not including invested capital, and after all debts are deducted. In 2009, the world's millionaires held a total of $39 trillion – an increase of 18.9% compared to the previous year. The number of multimillionaires (who have at least $30 million) grew by 15.4%, to some 90,000.
Jews in Animated TV. Laughing at and with Jews on The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. Since the advent of The Simpsons in 1989, the animated prime-time genre, which primarily targets adults instead of children, has been one of the most creative zones in contemporary television. Shows such as The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy have delivered some of the most consistent laughs on TV, creatively skewering American life and culture from an infinite range of perspectives. We Also Recommend Centered around a single family or a set of friends, these three series have steadily spiraled outward to encompass a miniature universe of walk-on characters, among which a number of Jews are present. Each show has also, on occasion, poked fun at Judaism and American Jewish life. The tone, for the most part, has been strikingly gentle--almost tender, preferring to use Judaism for nostalgic or satiric material rather than out-and-out savaging it.
Springfield Jews Did you like this article? Inside Lucasfilm | George Lucas. Steven Spielberg. Hollywood Jews. Despite the Jewish dominance of Hollywood, Jewish filmmakers were not always comfortable portraying Jewish themes on screen. Although Jewish executives, producers, writers, performers, and directors dominate the American film industry, American movies before the 1960s rarely ventured very far beyond stereotypical Jewish characters trapped within conventional situations. We Also Recommend From 1908, when Walter Selig moved his company to California--with the exception of Darryl E Zanuck's 20th Century-Fox ("the Goy Studio")--Jewish creative artists and businessmen guided the destiny of America's largest propaganda machine.
Their pictures influenced not only the millions at home, but also countless more abroad whose only view of America was cranked out by the studios of such ill-educated but streetwise immigrants as Louis Mayer, Carl Laemmle, Marcus Loew, Adolph Zukor, Harry Cohn, Jesse Lasky, the Warner brothers, and Samuel Goldwyn. De-Semiticizing Films A New Generation. Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project, 1939-1945 : Paul Lawrence Rose.
No one better represents the plight and the conduct of German intellectuals under Hitler than Werner Heisenberg, whose task it was to build an atomic bomb for Nazi Germany. The controversy surrounding Heisenberg still rages, because of the nature of his work and the regime for which it was undertaken. What precisely did Heisenberg know about the physics of the atomic bomb? How deep was his loyalty to the German government during the Third Reich? Assuming that he had been able to build a bomb, would he have been willing? These questions, the moral and the scientific, are answered by Paul Lawrence Rose with greater accuracy and breadth of documentation than any other historian has yet achieved.
Digging deep into the archival record among formerly secret technical reports, Rose establishes that Heisenberg never overcame certain misconceptions about nuclear fission, and as a result the German leaders never pushed for atomic weapons. Jews in Comic Books. How American Jews created the comic book industry. Jews built the comic book industry from the ground up, and the influence of Jewish writers, artists, and editors continues to be felt to this day. We Also Recommend But how did Jews come to have such a disproportionate influence on an industry most famous for lantern-jawed demigods clad in colorful tights? First Comic Books The story begins in 1933. During that year, the world experienced seismic changes in politics and pop culture. In its earliest days consisted of reprinted newspaper funnies.
Rival comic book publishers sprang up immediately. Because the comic book stories were being written and drawn largely by inexperienced teenagers, they were often crude rip-offs of the popular newspaper strips of the day, such as Tarzan or Buck Rogers. According to most comic book historians, Superman's creation heralded the beginning of the so-called "Golden Age" of comic books, the era during which the visual grammar of the medium was established. Gotham Center - Garment Industry History Initiative. The garment industry, like Wall Street and the media business, has been central to the growth and development of New York City’s economy and identity. At one time, nearly a third of the adult workforce toiled in the garment trade, making it the city’s largest business. From roots on the Lower East Side, manufacturers spread north and then west, eventually concentrating in “New York City’s Garment District,” which extends from 34th Street to 40th Street and from Sixth to Ninth Avenue.
Yet for many decades, when historians delved into the history of the garment industry, most focused their scholarship on the garment workers or on the fashion elements of the trade. The manufacturers, who played a critical role in American entrepreneurial and business history, have been largely ignored. The Garment Industry History Initiative, which the Leon Levy Foundation started in 2006 after consulting with scholars, is an attempt to redress this imbalance.
But trouble was coming. Website. Richard Watson Gilder. U.S. Gov't Freezes Iranian Assets of Two New York Companies - Defense/Middle East - Israel News. Women’s shoe wholesaler explains why Hebron house is perfect fitBy Ben Harris · December 16, 2008Photos 1 out of 1Previous Forward Other MediaMorris Abraham says his purchase of Beit Hashalom in Hebron was motivated primarily by business interests. (Ben Harris)NEW YORK (JTA) -- Morris Abraham had never owned land in the West Bank before he was told, on a trip to Hebron five years ago, that Arabs in the area were eager to sell property to Jews. Initially, the New York businessman demurred. Real estate isn't his business, he recalls thinking. Women's shoes are. But almost immediately he changed in mind, setting in motion a process that culminated two weeks ago with the eviction of Jewish settlers from the building he purchased, known as Beit Hashalom, or House of Peace.
The evacuation itself set off a paroxysm of Jewish violence that drew broad condemnation from American Jewish groups and prompted the Israeli prime minister to describe it as a “pogrom.” IBM to Put Genetic Data of Workers Off Limits STEVE LOHR / New York Times 10oct2005. STEVE LOHR / New York Times 10oct2005 As concerns grow that genetic information could become a modern tool of discrimination, I.B.M. plans to announce a new work force privacy policy today. I.B.M., the world's largest technology company by revenue, is promising not to use genetic information in hiring or in determining eligibility for its health care or benefits plans.
Genetics policy specialists and privacy rights groups say that the I.B.M. pledge to its more than 300,000 employees worldwide appears to be the first such move by a major corporation. The new policy, which comes as Congress is considering legislation on genetic privacy, is a response to the growing trend in medical research to focus on a person's genetic propensity for disease in hopes of tailoring treatments to specific medical needs. Gene tests are not yet widespread, but start-up companies are already intent on developing a market for genetic testing and counseling. "If you want a genomic revolution," Mr. Rangel Appears Nearly Certain to Face Trial on Ethics Charges. Citigroup Pays $75 Million to Settle Subprime Claims. S.E.C. Charges Billionaire Dallas Brothers With Securities Fraud.