NEW YORK (AP) — A protest against embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh outside a luxury hotel in New York got heated Sunday when demonstrators saw him leave the building, with one charging toward him and another throwing a shoe.
"Everybody is living in fear of this guy at home, but here, he's getting good treatment!" said Yemeni immigrant Nasser Almroot, a Brooklyn grocer.
The dozen angry protesters were kept behind police barricades across the street from the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which was teeming with security guards, both inside and on the sidewalk where Saleh passed.
The 69-year-old leader is visiting the United States for medical treatment.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh waves to people protesting his presence in the United States as he exits his hotel in New York, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012. Saleh arrived in the United States on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, for treatment of burns he suffered during an assassination attempt in June. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based human rights organization says it has documented the deaths of hundreds of anti-government protesters in confrontations with Saleh's security forces, and while they are not opposed to Saleh receiving care in the United States, the organization wants assurances that concerned governments will insist on prosecution for those responsible for last year's attacks. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
He exited the hotel on Central Park South on Sunday afternoon and waved and smiled sardonically toward the yelling protesters — even blowing them a kiss. Suddenly, one of them tried to charge across the street but was restrained by police, who wrestled him to the ground.
"He can't help it, the killer is here," Almroot said.
As the man bolted out, a shoe flew in Saleh's direction. Showing the sole of a shoe is an insult in Arab culture, because it is on the lowest part of the body, the foot. To hit someone with a shoe is seen as even worse.
Saleh got into his car and his motorcade left for an unknown destination.
Since he arrived in New York about a week ago, the Yemeni president has kept a low profile.
His presence, however, has been controversial.
On Sunday, the protesters hoisted placards bearing photos of Yemenis badly bloodied and brutally killed during his government's yearlong crackdown on anti-Saleh demonstrations.
Saleh signed a deal in November to transfer power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
An election is scheduled for Feb. 21 to select his successor in a nation mired in poverty and divided among powerful tribes and political factions.
While Saleh has been an anti-terrorism ally of Washington, the United States has not officially welcomed a leader accused of killing hundreds of people during an uprising against his 33-year rule.
Saleh traveled to the United States with permission for a private visit.
In June, he was badly injured in an attack on his presidential palace — an assassination attempt after which he spent months in Saudi Arabia being treated for massive burns from the explosion that ripped through his palace mosque as he prayed.
A world-renowned burn center is in Manhattan, at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Hospital officials have not confirmed whether Saleh was a patient there.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Items as small as a hairpin and as big as a chunk of the Titanic's hull are among 5,000 artifacts from the world's most famous shipwreck that are to be auctioned in April, close to the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
Nearly a century after the April 15, 1912, sinking of the ocean liner that hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, a New York City auction is being readied by Guernsey's Auctioneers & Brokers.
This 1998 image provided by RMS Titanic, Inc., shows a 17-ton portion of the hull of the RMS Titanic as it is lifted to the surface during an expedition to the site of the tradegy. The piece along with 5,000 other artifacts will be auctioned as a single collection on April 11, 2012 100 years after the sinking of the ship. (AP Photo/RMS Titanic, Inc.)
That auction house has garnered headlines in the past by selling off such historical curiosities as prized Beatles photos, famous jewels of the late Princess Diana, beloved Jerry Garcia guitars and a police motorcycle used in the Texas motorcade when John F. Kennedy was slain. But nothing as titanic as the so-called Titanic collection.
On April 11, all of the salvaged items are to be sold as one lot in what Guernsey's President Arlan Ettinger describes as the most significant auction ever handled by that house.
"Who on this planet doesn't know the story of the Titanic and isn't fascinated by it?" he asked. "Could Hollywood have scripted a more tragic or goose-bump-raising story than what actually happened on that ship?"
"It is as poignant to my 12-year-old son as it is to me and generations before me. There's no end to the fascination about it."
The auction will be conducted 100 years plus a day after the Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, embarking on the ill-fated maiden voyage that had New York as its destination.
The collection was appraised in 2007 at $189 million, including some intellectual property alongside the myriad items plucked by remote controlled probes from the pitch-black depths, some 2 and ½ miles below the ocean's surface.
Those artifacts include the massive hull section called "The Big Piece" as well as personal belongings of passengers and crew, such as a mesh purse and eyeglasses. A bronze cherub that once adorned the Grand Staircase is also among the collection, as are fine china, table settings, bottles and ship fittings — even the stand upon which the ship's wheel stood.
By court order, the items cannot be sold individually and must go to a buyer who agrees to properly maintain the collection and make it available for occasional public viewing. The sale is subject to court approval.
Ettinger and officials with RMS Titanic Inc., which salvaged the artifacts from the Titanic wreck, spoke to The Associated Press in advance of a media preview Thursday in New York. The AP first reported on the auction Dec. 29, based on financial filings by RMS Titanic.
The planned sale also could include a trove of archaeological data and visuals of the wreck, as well as the only detailed map of the vast ocean floor where all the artifacts were scattered after the Titanic's sinking.
The Titanic's sinking claimed the lives of more than 1,500 of the 2,228 passengers and crew. An international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard located the wreckage in 1985, about 400 miles off Newfoundland, Canada.
The research materials could be a road map to future salvage expeditions because of the new information they provide on the wreck site.
"We are opening the door of opportunity for the future of the Titanic," said Brian Wainger, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions Inc., of which RMS Titanic is a division.
But the clock is ticking on thousands of additional artifacts embedded in a 3-by-5-mile section of ocean floor around the wreck, an area subject to a century of extreme ocean conditions such as cold temperatures and treacherous currents.
"I think it's fair to say that we have only touched the surface," Wainger said.
The deteriorating hulk of the Titanic is off limits to salvage.
The auction is subject to approval by a federal judge in Virginia whose jurisdiction for years has given oversight to legal issues governing the salvage of the Titanic. The Titanic treasures were amassed during seven risky and expensive trips to the wreck.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, who has overseen the case from her Norfolk courtroom, has called the Titanic an "international treasure." She has approved covenants and conditions that the company previously worked out with the federal government, including a prohibition against selling the collection piecemeal.
The court conditions also require subsequent owners to make the artifacts available "to present and future generations for public display and exhibition, historical review, scientific and scholarly research, and educational purposes."
Wainger and Ettinger declined to speculate on who might bid on the collection.
"You hate to be in the position of being a fortune teller or clairvoyant," Ettinger said. "I, for one, would be very surprised if there wasn't international interest."
Wainger said, "Any individual can fall in love with any of the different artifacts because so many of them are personal. When you read the personal stories you recognize the tragedy."
Premier Exhibitions has been displaying the Titanic artifacts in exhibitions worldwide. The items were recovered from the shipwreck in expeditions in 1987, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2004.
RMS Titanic, which has overseen the artifacts for 18 years, said the public company decided to auction the collection in response to shareholders' wishes that the "company go out and make money."
"It's better to be in the hands of a private institution that doesn't have the same short-term profit obligations that a public company has," he said.
In 2010, RMS Titanic collaborated with some of the world's leading experts in the most technologically advanced expedition to the Titanic, undertaking the first comprehensive mapping survey of the vessel with 3-D imagery from bow to stern.
The most striking images involved the 3-D tour of the Titanic's stern, which lies 2,000 feet from the bow.
A camera in a remote-controlled submersible vehicle skimmed over the stern, seemingly transporting viewers through scenes of jagged rusticles sprouting from the deck, a length of chain, the captain's bathtub, and wooden elements that scientists had previously believed had disappeared in the harsh, deep ocean environment.
The expedition fully mapped the wreck site, documenting the entire debris field for the first time.
"Titanic" director James Cameron also has led teams to the wreck to record the bow and the stern.
The Titanic exhibit is among several operated by Premier Exhibitions, which bills itself as "a major provider of museum-quality touring exhibitions." Its offerings have included sports memorabilia, a traveling Star Trek homage and "Bodies," an anatomy exhibit featuring preserved human cadavers.
In this Oct. 26, 2011 photo, Mousa Ahmad stands in front of an empty Brooklyn, N.Y., storefront where he used to run a coffee shop. Ahmad says he had to close the coffee shop because police surveillance was scaring away customers. (AP Photo/Chris Hawley)
But when asked if he would consider legal action against the police, Ahmad just shrugs.
It's a common sentiment among those who are considering their legal options in the wake of an Associated Press investigation into a massive New York Police Department surveillance program targeting Muslims. Many of the targets feel they have little recourse — and because privacy laws have weakened dramatically since 9/11, they may be right, legal experts say.
"It's really not clear that people can do anything if they've been subjected to unlawful surveillance anymore," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The AP investigation revealed that the NYPD built databases of everyday life in Muslim neighborhoods, cataloguing where people bought their groceries, ate dinner and prayed. Plainclothes officers known as "rakers" were dispatched into ethnic communities, where they eavesdropped on conversations and wrote daily reports on what they heard, often without any allegation of criminal wrongdoing.
The NYPD did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, but it has insisted that it respects the rights of people it watches. Commissioner Ray Kelly says each request for surveillance is thoroughly examined by the department's lawyers.
"The value we place on privacy rights and other constitutional protections is part of what motivates the work of counterterrorism," Kelly told a city council committee. "It would be counterproductive in the extreme if we violated those freedoms in the course of our work to defend New York."
But critics of the surveillance say the NYPD is taking advantage of a general weakening of state and federal restraints, many of them forged during the 1960s and following the Watergate scandal:
—The USA PATRIOT Act, passed after the 9/11 attacks, reduced legal limits on wiretaps imposed by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The same law also amended the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 to allow banks to release records to intelligence agencies investigating terrorism.
—A 2007 law changed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, originally a reaction to former President Richard Nixon's spying on political groups, to allow wiretaps of international phone calls.
—In 2002 the Supreme Court decision ruled that students cannot sue universities under the 1974 Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act. That could make it harder for Muslim student groups to seek redress over infiltration by NYPD undercover officers.
The U.S. Department of Justice still has some tools it can use to discipline local police forces.
It can withhold federal money from any police agency that discriminates on the basis of race, color, sex or national origin. Another law allows the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to sue state and local police forces for any "pattern or practice" that deprives people of their Constitutional rights. In September it cited the statutes in a scathing report about corruption and abuse within the Puerto Rico Police Department.
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. has asked the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD surveillance program.
But in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, the Justice Department has typically focused only on issues of excessive force, illegal traffic stops and other clear violations of police procedure. Since 9/11, the department has not used its civil rights authority against a police department in a national security case.
Lawsuits filed by surveillance targets themselves are notoriously hard to win, said Paul Chevigny, a law professor at New York University and expert on police abuse cases.
"The fact that you feel spooked and chilled by it doesn't constitute an injury," Chevigny said. Even in cases where surveillance notes leak out, the chances of winning a lawsuit are "marginal" unless the leaking was done with the clear intent of harming someone, he said.
Over the last 40 years, there has been only one class-action lawsuit that has forced serious changes to an NYPD surveillance program, lawyers say, and those changes have been eroded since the 9/11 attacks.
In 1971, 16 leftists led by lawyer Barbara Handschu sued the police department for spying on them. In 1985 they settled the case in exchange for a set of rules, known as the Handschu Guidelines, that set up a three-member panel to oversee NYPD surveillance operations.
The rules also said detectives could only start an investigation when they had "specific information" about a future crime.
"An individual's or organization's political, religious, sexual or economic preference may not be the sole basis upon which the (police intelligence division) develops a file or index card on that individual or organization," the rules said.
In 2003 a judge agreed to relax the rules. Under the new rules, known as the Modified Handschu Guidelines, NYPD intelligence chief David Cohen can act alone to authorize investigations for a year at a time. He can also authorize undercover operations for four months at a time.
Most importantly, the rule requiring police to have "specific information" was loosened. It now says only that facts should "reasonably indicate" a future crime.
Activists say they have not ruled out going to court over the latest NYPD program. But at a "strategy meeting" held in Manhattan on Wednesday, the discussion centered on preparing for a Nov. 18 protest march and on organizing "know your rights" seminars at mosques and community centers.
Organizers believe they need to build a mass movement against the surveillance program first, so that people like Ahmad will feel more confident about coming forward and filing lawsuits, said Cyrus McGoldrick, civil rights manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who ran Wednesday's meeting.
"That way if there's a court date, it's not just 10 people sitting there, it's 1,000 people outside the courthouse, every day," he said. "People need to feel there is a movement protecting them before they take on the police. Apathy is not our problem — fear is our problem."
As the 9/11 attacks recede into the past, state and federal rules may eventually swing toward privacy rights again, said Judith Berkan, a member of the advisory board of the National Police Accountability Project, a group of civil rights lawyers.
But until then, surveillance targets would likely face a difficult court battle, she said.
"I think if the government treats you different because you're from a particular part of the world, even if the surveillance is in a public place, it might violate the constitution," Berkan said. "But it's not a favorable judicial climate for me to make those kinds of arguments today."
Mary Keitany of Kenya is favored to win the women’s race Sunday at the New York City Marathon. She might even set a course record, but one thing she will almost certainly not do is set a world record.
Mike Segar/Reuters
Mary Keitany finished third among women in the New York City Marathon last year and is favored to win Sunday's race. Her best time is 2:19:19.
The bridges and hills of New York are not accommodating to unprecedented performance. The fastest that any woman has run here, 2 hours 22 minutes 31 seconds, is more than seven minutes slower than the fastest time ever run, 2:15:25 by Paula Radcliffe of England at the 2003 London Marathon.
Technically, Radcliffe’s time is now considered a “world best” instead of a “world record.” In August, track and field’s world governing body made a controversial ruling, striking Radcliffe’s two fastest times from record consideration because they came in races in which she was paced by men.
Now, the official women’s record is 2:17:42, run by Radcliffe in a women’s-only race at the 2005 London Marathon. That is still nearly five minutes — or about a mile in distance — faster than any woman has run in New York, and 38 seconds faster than any other woman has covered 26.2 miles on any course.
Lately, the men’s world record has been batted around like a volleyball. It has officially been broken three times in the past four years. Patrick Makau of Kenya set the current record of 2:03:38 at the Berlin Marathon in September. That time had been beaten in Boston in April, but the course is not certified for records; and it was nearly eclipsed last Sunday in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, the women’s record has gone unchallenged for years. The reasons are varied. First, Radcliffe is an outlier who radically changed the way women trained and raced, piling on the mileage and speed in workouts and setting a blistering pace from the starting gun, as elite male runners now do.
“Paula was ahead of her time,” said Deena Kastor of the United States, the 2004 Olympic bronze medalist in the marathon. “She could go out at a grueling pace and keep it. I think it brought a realization to the men as well that you don’t have to be so timid going into a marathon.”
Regarding training, Kastor said: “I think people go into a marathon so concerned about riding the line between getting as fit as possible without overdoing it, and that was never Paula’s concern. She goes out there and grinds on a daily and weekly basis. It’s very admirable. Sometimes, it leads to injuries with her, but the end result is that she’s got this untouchable world record and a well-deserved one. I think 2:15 will be in the books for a while.”
While the numbers of elite women are growing, the depth still does not match men’s marathoning. In particular, few women are fast enough to serve as pacemakers for a world-record pace. Only a few women have even run a half-marathon at Radcliffe’s record marathon pace, said Dan Lilot, the agent for the American marathoner Kara Goucher.
And given the new rules in the sport, men can no longer be used to pace women to record times.
“I don’t know how you find a woman pacesetter to go through the half in 68 flat,” said Mark Wetmore, an American agent who represents a number of female Ethiopian runners. “If a woman can do that, she’ll want to race. Maybe you’ll need to have two women in 2:20 shape and one decides to take care of the other and help her out so she can run 2:17. There are very few of these women.”
Women tend to run the marathon later in their careers, when they face decisions about motherhood, which inevitably disrupts training and can lead to protracted comebacks. Werknesh Kidane of Ethiopia won the world cross-country championship in 2003 and finished second in the 10,000 meters at the 2003 world track and field championships in a stirring 30:07.15; many projected her to be a sub-2:20 marathoner. But she then had two children and essentially took a three-year break from competition from 2006 to 2009.
Married to Gebre Gebremariam, the defending New York City Marathon champion, Kidane has finally taken up the marathon this year at age 29. She finished seventh in Boston in April in 2:26:15 and will run New York on Sunday, but she remains well short of earlier projections.
“When you take off 6, 8, 10 months, it’s hard to come back,” said Wetmore, Kidane’s agent. “Werknesh is just getting back to her premotherhood self.”
A number of the top female distance runners are still competing on the track and are expected to move up to the marathon after the 2012 London Olympics. They include Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia, the 2008 Olympic champion at 5,000 and 10,000 meters; Meseret Defar of Ethiopia, the 2004 Olympic champion at 5,000 meters and 2008 bronze medalist; and Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya, the 2011 world champion at 5,000 and 10,000 meters.
They can be encouraged by the marathon debut in Chicago last month of Ejigayehu Dibaba, Tirunesh’s sister, who won a silver medal at 10,000 meters at the 2004 Olympics. She finished second in Chicago in 2:22:09, the third-fastest debut marathon for a woman.
But the question for track runners moving up the marathon is always one of timing: “Did they wait too long?” in the words of Mary Wittenberg, director of the New York City Marathon.
Although Radcliffe’s best times have not been challenged, this year has produced some encouragingly fast results. For the first time since 2008, a woman has run a marathon under 2:20. Actually three of them have. Keitany ran 2:19:19 to win in London in April. Florence Kiplagat of Kenya ran 2:19:44 to win Berlin in September. And Liliya Shobukhova of Russia ran 2:18:20 to win in Chicago last month, making her the second-fastest female marathoner.
“I feel like marathons have been more tactical in the last 5 or 10 years,” Goucher said. “In the past year, some women have shown more interest in running fast.”
Women from Kenya and Ethiopia are moving up to the half-marathon and the marathon at an earlier age, according to runners, coaches and agents.
Keitany did not have a long track career, running a half-marathon at age 24 in 2006. Six months later, she paced the London Marathon.
“I was not afraid” of the distance, Keitany, 29, said.
She represents another development among female African runners, who have begun in larger numbers to break free of traditional subservient roles in society to become full-time professional athletes.
“Finally, after many years, you are seeing women have the possibility to approach athletics like a job, not just as mothers who run,” Gabriele Nicola, an Italian who is Keitany’s coach, said.
This growing professionalization can be found in their wearing GPS watches, which give the precise distance run during workouts; using electrolyte drinks instead of water; and having a diverse support staff.
Keitany has a support group of 10 people, including physical therapists, masseuses and male runners hired to pace her during workouts. Her sister-in-law watches her 3-year-old son, Jared, so Keitany can train and sleep between twice-daily runs.
“She is already in the Olympics as a sleeper,” Nicola said with a laugh.
A whispery figure who is about 5 feet tall and 88 pounds, Keitany finished third in New York last year in her marathon debut in 2:29:01 but shaved nearly 10 minutes off that time in winning London in April. In February, she shattered the world half-marathon record in 1:05:50, breaking the previous mark by 35 seconds.
Eventually in the marathon, Keitany said, “Maybe I can run under 2:18.”
But everyone seems to agree that Radcliffe’s 2:15:25, the fastest time ever run, will remain safe for years. As fast as Shobukhova was in Chicago, she would have to run nearly three minutes faster to reach that mark.
“I don’t realize how you train for 2:15,” Shobukhova told reporters after the race.
NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators protesting corporate greed filled Times Square on Saturday night, mixing with gawkers, Broadway showgoers, tourists and police to create a chaotic scene in the midst of Manhattan.
"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" protesters chanted from within police barricades. Police, some in riot gear and mounted on horses, tried to push them out of the square and onto the sidewalks in an attempt to funnel the crowds away.
Demonstrators affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street rally in New York's Times Square, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Sandy Peterson of Salt Lake City, who was in Times Square after seeing "The Book of Mormon" musical on Broadway, got caught up in the disorder.
"We're getting out of here before this gets ugly," she said.
Sandra Fox, 69, of Baton Rouge, La., stood, confused, on 46th Street with a ticket for "Anything Goes" in her hand as riot police pushed a knot of about 200 shouting protesters toward her.
"I think it's horrible what they're doing," she said of the protesters. "These people need to go get jobs."
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators had marched north through Manhattan from Washington Square Park earlier in the afternoon. Once in Times Square, they held a rally for several hours before dispersing. Over the course of the day, more than 80 people were arrested.
After midnight, about 10 people were loaded into a police van after refusing to leave Washington Square Park, where protesters had returned to convene a meeting following the Times Square rally. The police had warned protesters that the park had closed, and began massing in riot gear and on horses a few minutes before then; most people had left by then.
Police spokesman Paul Browne said 42 people were arrested in Times Square on Saturday night after being warned repeatedly to disperse; three others were arrested while trying to take down police barriers.
Two police officers were injured during the protest and had to be hospitalized. One suffered a head injury, the other a foot injury, Browne said.
Five people wearing masks were arrested earlier in the day, and two dozen were arrested on charges of criminal trespass when demonstrators entered a Citibank bank branch near Washington Square Park and refused to leave, police said. One protester was arrested on a charge of resisting arrest.
Citibank said in a statement that police asked the branch to close until the protesters could be taken away. "One person asked to close an account and was accommodated," Citibank said.
Earlier in the day, demonstrators paraded to a Chase bank branch, banging drums, blowing horns and carrying signs decrying corporate greed. Marchers throughout the country emulated them in protests that ranged from about 50 people in Jackson, Miss., to about 2,000 in the larger city of Pittsburgh.
"Banks got bailed out. We got sold out," the crowd of as many as 1,000 in Manhattan chanted. A few protesters went inside the bank to close their accounts, but the group didn't stop other customers from getting inside or seek to blockade the business.
Police told the marchers to stay on the sidewalk, and the demonstration appeared to be fairly orderly as it wound through downtown streets.
Overseas, violence broke out in Rome, where police fired tear gas and water cannons at some protesters who broke away from the main demonstration, smashing shop and bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles. Dozens were injured.
Tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in cities across Europe, as the protests that began in New York linked up with long-running demonstrations against government cost-cutting and failed financial policies in Europe. Protesters also turned out in Australia and Asia.
Across the Atlantic, hundreds protested in the heart of Toronto's financial district. Some of the protesters announced plans to camp out indefinitely in St. James Park. Protests were also held in other cities across Canada from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver, British Columbia.
In the U.S., among the demonstrators in New York withdrawing their money from Chase was Lily Paulina, 29, an organizer with the United Auto Workers union who lives in Brooklyn. She said she was taking her money out because she was upset that JPMorgan Chase was making billions, while its customers struggled with bank fees and home foreclosures.
"Chase bank is making tons of money off of everyone ... while people in the working class are fighting just to keep a living wage in their neighborhood," she said.
Other demonstrations in the city Saturday included an anti-war march to mark the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War.
Among the people participating in that march was Sergio Jimenez, 25, who said he quit his job in Texas to come to New York to protest.
"These wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were all based on lies," Jimenez said. "And if we're such an intelligent country, we should figure out other ways to respond to terror, instead of with terror."
Elsewhere in the country, nearly 1,500 gathered Saturday for a march past banks in downtown Orlando. About 50 people met in a park in downtown Jackson, Miss., carrying signs calling for "Health Care Not Warfare."
Some made more considerable commitments to try to get their voices heard. Nearly 200 spent a cold night in tents in Grand Circus Park in Detroit, donning gloves, scarves and heavy coats to keep warm, said Helen Stockton, a 34-year-old certified midwife from Ypsilanti, and plan to remain there "as long as it takes to effect change."
"It's easy to ignore us," Stockton said. Then she referred to the financial institutions, saying, "But we are not going to ignore them. Every shiver in our bones reminds us of why we are here."
Hundreds more converged near the Michigan's Capitol in Lansing with the same message, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Rallies drew young and old, laborers and retirees. In Pittsburgh, marchers also included parents with children in strollers and even a doctor. The peaceful crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 stretched for two or three blocks.
"I see our members losing jobs. People are angry," said Janet Hill, 49, who works for the United Steelworkers, which she said hosted a sign-making event before the march.
Retired teacher Albert Siemsen of Milwaukee said at a demonstration there that he'd grown angry watching school funding get cut at the same time that banks and corporations gained more influence in government. The 81-year-old wants to see tighter Wall Street regulation.
Around him, protesters held signs reading, "Keep your corporate hands off my government," and "Mr. Obama, Tear Down That Wall Street."
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick visited protesters in Boston's Dewey Square for the first time. He said after walking through the camp that he better understands the range of views and was sympathetic to concerns about unemployment, health care and the influence of money in politics.
In Denver, about 1,000 people came to a rally in downtown Denver to support the movement.
The Rev. Al Sharpton led a march in Washington that was not affiliated with the Occupy movement but shared similar goals. His rally was aimed at drumming up support for President Barack Obama's jobs plan. Thousands of demonstrators packed the lawn in the shadow of the Washington Monument to hear labor, education and civil rights leaders speak.
Source:
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW YORK (AP) — The official cleanup of a New York plaza where protesters have camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from demonstrators who feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them and said the victory emboldened their movement.
Protesters had already been scrambling to clean up the park on their own in hopes of staving off eviction when Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway announced that the owner of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning.
"My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying ... 'We're going to make your life more difficult,'" Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show.
There was still some skepticism even after the protesters, who call their demonstration Occupy Wall Street, were told they could stay on.
"I'll believe it when we're able to stay here," said Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. "One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials."
Nonetheless, they declared it a boon to their movement, which blames Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown. Since starting a month ago in New York, the movement has spread to cities across the U.S. and the world.
Demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests confront New York City police officers as they march on the street in the Wall St. area, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011 in New York. The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
"This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street," New York organizers said in a statement.
In Denver early Friday, police in riot gear herded hundreds of protesters away from the Colorado state Capitol, arresting about two dozen and dismantling their encampment. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment near a war memorial.
New York police arrested 14 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street, and others who tuned over trash baskets, knocked over a police scooter and hurled bottles.
A few blocks south of the park, about two dozen demonstrators screamed "Pigs!" and hurled obscenities at a dozen officers in riot gear, who showed no visible reaction. The officers left the area, trailed by protesters with cameras.
Protesters have had some previous run-ins with police, including mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed.
Several protests are planned this weekend in the U.S., Canada and Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa, and the official capitulation in New York could buoy those events.
"I think it's really a prophetic moment," said Annie Gonzalez, a student at Union Theological Seminary who wore a sign identifying her as an Occupy Wall Street chaplain. She likened the protesters to "the prophets of the Old Testament, crying out that there's no justice."
Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is on Brookfield's board of directors, said his staff was under strict orders not to pressure the company one way or the other. He noted that the company can still go ahead with the cleanup at some point.
"They called to say they want to see if they can work out an agreement with the protesters," he said on his radio show. "If they want to take a couple of days ... then they can do that."
The company's rules, which haven't been enforced, have all along prohibited tarps, sleeping bags and storing personal property on the ground. Though the park is privately owned, it is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
Brookfield, a publicly traded real estate firm, had planned to power-wash the New York plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back — but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there. The company called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.
The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken. But the deputy mayor's statement indicated that "for the time being" Brookfield was withdrawing its request for police assistance in cleaning the park.
A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been feared. Many protesters had said the only way they would leave was by force, and organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."
Supporters including union members streamed into the plaza in the early morning darkness in a show of solidarity in a show several hundred strong.
Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowd as the announcement of the cleaning postponement circulated, and a small group soon marched away with brooms, saying they were going to clean up Wall Street, a few blocks away.
Some protesters scrubbed the park's marble and pavement with brooms and soapy water and picked up trash as others unfurled tarps on the rain-dampened concrete and ate potluck breakfast off paper plates. One man practiced his yoga sun salutation despite the dark clouds.
Liane Nikitovich, 44, fitness instructor, said she was buoyed by the news but also concerned that it was a postponement — not a cancellation.
"It's really a victory for freedom of speech and for democracy," Nikitovich said. "This is one moment. It shows that our support is growing worldwide."
The demand that protesters clear out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a reference to the protests in a speech Friday at The Economic Club of New York.
"The protests happening just a few miles from here ought to be reminder to all of us that we have a great deal of work to do to live up to the expectations of the American people," she said.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — wrote a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatened "fundamental constitutional rights."
Source:
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW YORK (AP) — Officials on Thursday announced that the monthlong occupation by Wall Street protesters of a park that spawned similar gatherings across the nation will have to clear out for a cleanup, a move that protesters say is a move to shut them down.
Demonstrators at the half-acre park in lower Manhattan said they won't go anywhere at the Friday morning deadline when the park's owners, their patience worn thin, want them to clear out and stop pitching tents or using sleeping bags.
Other protesters said they would wait and see if they are allowed back into the park after the cleanup. If not, they said, they will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. Some 100 protesters volunteered Thursday to get arrested and protesters went over various scenarios, including what happens if police are confrontational.
Workgroups at Zuccotti Park's "Occupy Wall Street" encampment collect trash on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 in New York. The owner of the private park where "Occupy Wall Street" protesters have been camped out for nearly a month in lower Manhattan gave notice Thursday that it will begin enforcing regulations that prohibit everything from lying down on benches to storing personal property on the ground. The landlord, Brookfield Properties, handed out a notice to protesters saying they would be allowed back inside after a planned park cleanup on Friday morning if they abide by park regulations. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
Han Shan, 39, of New York, a spokesman for Occupy Wall Street, said it was clear to everyone that the plan is to shut down the protest.
"There is a strong commitment to nonviolence, but I know people are going to vigorously resist eviction," he said. "I think we're going to see a huge number of supporters throughout New York and the surrounding area defend this thing ... I'm hoping that cooler heads will prevail, but I'm not holding my breath."
The company that owns the private park where the demonstrators have camped out said it has become trashed and unsanitary. Brookfield Office Properties planned to begin a section-by-section power-washing of Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, at 7 a.m.
The demand that protesters clear out sets up a turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
The protesters' demands are amorphous, but they are united in blaming Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown.
There was a scramble of activity in the park Thursday afternoon and overnight. Hundreds of demonstrators scrubbed benches and mopped the park's stone flooring in an attempt to get Brookfield to abandon its plan.
Members of the protesters' sanitation working group passed out 30-gallon bins for people to organize their belongings. Jordan McCarthy, a 22-year-old member of the group, said she wouldn't be sleeping at all.
As rain fell off and on, a few people hunkered down under tarps but few slept. Police kept a low profile — a couple of officers walked through the encampment while other police sat in vans.
Protesters would be allowed to return after the cleaning, which was expected to take 12 hours, but Brookfield said it plans to start enforcing regulations that have been ignored.
No more tarps, no more sleeping bags, no more storing personal property on the ground. In other words, no more camping out for the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who have been living at Zuccotti Park for weeks. The park is privately owned but is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is a member of Brookfield's board of directors, said Brookfield has requested the city's assistance in maintaining the park.
"We will continue to defend and guarantee their free speech rights, but those rights do not include the ability to infringe on the rights of others," Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna said, "which is why the rules governing the park will be enforced."
Protesters say the only way they will leave is by force. Organizers sent out a mass email asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."
"We are doubling up on our determination to stay here as a result of this," said 26-year-old Sophie Mascia, a Queens resident who has been living in Zuccotti Park for three weeks and intended to sleep there Friday night. "I think this is only going to strengthen our movement."
Protesters have had some run-ins with police, but mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed seemed to energize their movement.
The New York Police Department says it will make arrests if Brookfield requests it and laws are broken. Brookfield would not comment on how it will ensure that protesters do not try to set up camp again, only saying that the cleaning was necessary because conditions in the park had become unsanitary due to the occupation.
Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate, expressed concern over the city's actions as he inspected the park Thursday afternoon and listened to protesters' complaints.
"This has been a very peaceful movement by the people," he said. "I'm concerned about this new set of policies. At the very least, the city should slow down."
The city is provoking a confrontation by enforcing a planned cleanup, said Doug Forand, a spokesman for 99 New York, a coalition of community groups that support the protest.
"To us it's clear the whole guise of cleanup is just a smokescreen for the mayor's goal of shutting down the protest," Forand said. "They are very clearly set on using this as a means of silencing the voices of dissent that the mayor does not want to hear."
Forand said the coalition would stand in solidarity with the protesters early Friday.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — have written a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatens "fundamental constitutional rights."
"There is no basis in the law for your request for police intervention, nor have you cited any," the attorneys wrote in a letter Thursday to Brookfield CEO Richard B. Clark. "Such police action without a prior court order would be unconstitutional and unlawful."
The attorneys said the sanitation working group has "committed itself to carrying out a thorough and complete cleaning" and to negotiate with the park's owner in good faith.
The protest has led sympathetic groups in other cities to stage their own local rallies and demonstrations: Occupy Boston, Occupy Cincinnati, Occupy Houston, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Providence, Occupy Salt Lake and Occupy Seattle, among them.
Occupy Seattle protesters running a live video feed from their corporate power protest at Seattle's Westlake Park said police started making arrests Thursday. They said at least 10 people were arrested. Police did not immediately return a call to confirm the arrests and provide details. City law bans camping in parks.
Several protests are planned this weekend across the U.S. and Canada, and European activists are also organizing.
As the hour neared for evacuation, Zuccotti Park had been cleared of about half of the protest's supplies. The self-organized sanitation team had hired a private garbage truck to pick up discarded curbside garbage, and belongings were accumulating at a storage area at one corner of the park.
Nicole Carty, a 23-year-old from Atlanta, hoped the last-minute cleaning effort would stave off any confrontation on Friday.
"We tell them, 'Hey the park is clean, there's no need for you to be here,'" she said. "If they insist on coming in, we will continue to occupy the space."
Source:
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
