Sterling happy with US$2b Clippers sale, says wife |
- Sterling happy with US$2b Clippers sale, says wife
- Open Championship and Tiger return to Hoylake
- Test vaccine for dengue seen as promising
- Microsoft CEO signals changes, defers talk on job cuts
- NYT Video: A look at Beijing’s four seasons of design
- Groth upsets Mahut to reach Newport semis
| Sterling happy with US$2b Clippers sale, says wife Posted: 10 Jul 2014 06:01 PM PDT
Shelly Sterling, 79, told a probate court in a trial over the disputed sale of the Clippers to former Microsoft Corp chief executive Steve Ballmer that her husband did not want the NBA to confiscate the team and sell it at auction after the league banned him for life. "Every day we talked about what I was doing and who I had talked to," Shelly Sterling said about courting bidders, adding: "He was on the same page as I was ... He was very happy and very proud of me and said, 'Wow, you really did a good job.'" Donald Sterling, 80, was banned by the league for racist remarks made in private that were taped and published. He has been deemed by physicians to have early Alzheimer's disease and unable to conduct his own business affairs, handing his wife control of the trust that owns the Clippers. Shelly Sterling has asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas to confirm her as the sole trustee of the family trust that owns the Clippers and to back the sale to Ballmer. Sterling has contended that his wife and her attorneys misled him into submitting to the medical examinations and has vowed to block the sale of the pro basketball franchise. Levanas will decide whether Shelly Sterling acted in accordance with the family trust, and if Donald Sterling's move to revoke the trust after the deal with Ballmer would invalidate the sale. Closing arguments in the trial, which was scheduled to end yesterday, were pushed back to July 28, ending any hope that the Clippers sale would be finalised by July 15, according to its term sheet. The next scheduled trial date is July 21. Ballmer's attorney, Adam Streisand, said Ballmer would extend the sale's deadline to Aug. 15. Shelly Sterling moved to sell the team because it would have had diminished value at an NBA-forced auction and that players did not want to play for Sterling. "My fear was that the players weren't going to play," she testified. "They were going to strike. The sponsors wouldn't sponsor." Under cross-examination, Shelly Sterling said there was no plot to oust her husband as trustee by arranging for doctors to examine his mental fitness. "I wanted to know what was wrong with my husband and his mood swings, his yelling and cussing," she said. "I had no other purpose in mind. He had given me permission to sell the team." Sterling, who was combative in two previous days on the stand, said he believes the Clippers are worth up to US$5 billion. The NBA has said it could seize the Clippers from the Sterlings and put the franchise up for auction if the deal is not approved by Sept. 15. — Reuters  |
| Open Championship and Tiger return to Hoylake Posted: 10 Jul 2014 05:54 PM PDT
The last English player to capture an Open title in England was Tony Jacklin at Royal Lytham and St Annes in 1969. In recent years, English and British golfers have enjoyed more success at the three other Majors while Lee Westwood and Luke Donald have topped the world rankings. It's a conundrum that has left many in the golfing world scratching their heads and one that some see as a consequence of golf having gone truly global. That means picture-perfect golf courses and superb warm-weather playing conditions in the United States and Asia, a world away from the howling wind and lashing rain that often turn the British Open into a dire battle against the elements. Both Rory McIlroy and fellow Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell, who won the French Open last Sunday in cold, rainy conditions outside Versailles, believe that some timely exposure to bad weather is a key element in preparing for the Open challenge. McIlroy, whose Open record is abysmal apart from a tie for third at St Andrews in 2010 has opted to change his schedule this year by teeing off in the Scottish Open up in Aberdeen where yesterday's first round conditions were typically "North Sea Scottish." "It's a challenge. You've got to relish the challenge. I'm trying to adopt more of that mind-set, especially for these couple of weeks a year," he said. "It's not like I haven't played well on links courses before and in links conditions I think the more you play, the more sort of used to it you are, because back when I was 15, 16, 17, playing links golf all the time, it wasn't anything to put your wet gear on and play. "Whereas now we're so spoiled playing in great conditions. Any time there's a bit of rain in America, it's a thunderstorm so you go in any way. "It's nice to get back and play in some conditions like this." Words echoed by Ian Poulter the popular Englishman who has come close to success at the Open in the past, notably last year at Muirfield. "You know what you're going to get when you come over to play any Open Championship. We've had a few nice-weathered ones and we've had some really bad ones," he said. "Nobody likes to play in torrential rain and 35-mile-an-hour wind. But yeah, we do get spoiled for the most part following the sunshine around and if there's a storm 30 miles away we're in having a cup of coffee with you boys (press). "We can go very soft. We do get looked after and pampered quite nicely. I guess from time to time it is nice to be beaten up every now and then and realise what some of the guys have to put up with when they go out to play golf. "It's a true test of golf. It's hard, and it should be, and it's a serious test for everybody. It will drain them." Bad weather and foul conditions is likely not what Woods has in mind as he plays in just his second tournament in several months following back surgery. His emotional win at Hoylake in 2006, just months after the death of his father Earl, came in one of the hottest and most becalmed Opens in years with the fairways burnished brown and the course playing very short. Having missed the cut in his first tournament back at Congressional two weeks ago, a 15th Major title, and a first in six years, would appear to be a very long shot for the 38-year-old American. Many doubt he can compete at Hoylake, but McIlroy for one refuses to write him off. "We have all witnessed what Tiger has been able to do over his career, whether that's come back from injury and win, come back from any sort of off-course stuff and win," "I mean, to win the US Open on one leg, really on one leg. Is it foolish for people to write him off? I would say so. If he's playing and he's competing, he's got as good a chance as any." Among the favourites will be defending champion Phil Mickelson, who won his fifth Major in glorious style at Muirfield last year, Sergio Garcia, who came close at Hoylake in 2006 and who has been a model of consistency this year, and Swedish powerhouse Henrik Stenson, who was runner-up last year. — AFP |
| Test vaccine for dengue seen as promising Posted: 10 Jul 2014 05:51 PM PDT
Devised by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur, the so-called CYD-TDV vaccine provided only 30 per cent protection against the dangerous fever when first tested among children in Thailand. Widened to trials in four other Asian countries, where disease conditions vary greatly, the vaccine's protection has been shown to be significantly higher, at 56.5 per cent overall, the scientists said. The result falls short of the benchmark set by classic vaccines such as those for polio and measles, which can be more than 99 percent effective. One reason for this is that CYD-TDV performed poorly against one of the four strains of dengue virus, the investigators reported in The Lancet. These strains, or serotypes, circulate simultaneously, which means a vaccine should ideally protect against all of them. Even so, the prototype was safe and well tolerated and its shield, if only partial, means it should be enlisted in the fight against dengue, they argued. "Our results suggest that vaccination with CYD-TDV can reduce the incidence of symptomatic dengue infection by more than half and importantly reduced severe disease and hospitalisations," said Maria Rosario Capeding from the Philippines' Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. "This candidate vaccine has the potential to have a significant impact on public health in view of the high disease burden in endemic countries." Dengue is a potentially fatal fever, caused by a virus transmitted by a mosquito when it takes its blood meal, and is especially dangerous for children. The virus infects around 390 million people each year, of whom about 96 million fall sick, according to UN estimates. It was once considered a disease of the tropics that was endemic in only nine countries. But globalisation, climate change and jet travel are helping it to move into more temperate zones. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) cases of dengue have risen 30 fold over the last 50 years, and more than half of the world's population are at risk of the disease. Wider trials The CYD-TDV vaccine was tested as a so-called Phase IIb trial among just over 4,000 children in rural Thailand, the results of which were reported in September 2012. The new figures are those of a Phase III trial — normally the final step in the process to test new drugs for safety and efficiency — carried out in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as in Thailand. More than 10,000 children aged two to 14 years were enrolled. They were randomly assigned to receive three injections of the vaccine or a placebo over 12 months, and were followed for up to two years. During this period a total of 150 dengue cases occurred, a majority of them in the placebo group, demonstrating an overall effectiveness of 56.5 per cent. But the protection varied according to the serotype — more than 75 per cent against virus types 3 and 4; 50 per cent against type 1; but only 35 per cent against type 2. On the plus side, those who had received the vaccine were also far less likely to fall ill with a severe form of the disease, dengue haemorrhagic fever, which leads to half a million hospitalisations each year. In a commentary, Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, said a vaccine that halved annual cases of dengue "would present a significant public health benefit" but was not a magic bullet. "For the moment, the CYD-TDV vaccine is the best we have; however, with 56 per cent efficacy it will never be a single solution," Wilder-Smith said. Other strategies, including better approaches to tackling mosquitoes that cause the problem, would also have to be part of the campaign, she said. The children in the trial are being followed up for another four years to see whether the vaccine's promise still holds up. — AFP |
| Microsoft CEO signals changes, defers talk on job cuts Posted: 10 Jul 2014 05:48 PM PDT
Nadella said he would address detailed organisational and financial issues for the company's new financial year, which started at the beginning of this month, when Microsoft reports quarterly earnings on July 22. "There will be many opportunities for me to talk more about our specific fiscal plans on the 22nd," Nadella said in a telephone interview. Since absorbing the handset business of Nokia this spring, Microsoft has 127,000 employees, far more than rivals Apple Inc and Google Inc. Wall Street is expecting Nadella to make some cuts, which would represent Microsoft's first major layoffs since 2009. "With recent chatter on the Street about potential head count reductions at Microsoft it was important for Nadella to be visible and set an optimistic tone heading into the next few months, especially on the heels of the Nokia integration," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. In a 3,105-word memo sent to employees today and posted on Microsoft's website (http://bit.ly/1bqubHk), Nadella set out his vision for the company five months after taking over as CEO from Steve Ballmer. Most noticeably he described Microsoft as a "productivity and platform company" focused on mobile and cloud computing, a subtle advance on Ballmer's reinvention of Microsoft as a "devices and services" company, which could signal less emphasis on manufacturing devices. Nadella did not go into detail about specific changes he planned for Microsoft, but signaled that change was needed. "Nothing is off the table in how we think about shifting our culture to deliver on this core strategy," Nadella wrote in the memo. Nadella wrote that he had asked his senior leaders to "evaluate opportunities to advance their innovation processes and simplify their operations and how they work." He did not discuss in great detail individual businesses, but did say he was committed to developing the Xbox gaming platform, pouring water on persistent talk that the unit might be spun off. He did not address the unprofitable Bing search engine directly in the memo - which some investors have called for Microsoft to ditch - but did not indicate that he was thinking of backing away from it in an interview. "To me, Bing is a much more core productivity technology, its task completion in its essence," Nadella told Reuters. "That's one of the reasons why internally we get that a lot more than externally." Microsoft shares rose slightly to US$41.90 on Nasdaq, and are up 12 per cent year to date on the back of renewed confidence in the company under Nadella's leadership. The stock hit a 14-year high last month, the highest since the tech-stock bubble of 2000. — Reuters |
| NYT Video: A look at Beijing’s four seasons of design Posted: 10 Jul 2014 05:46 PM PDT Duration: 2:37, Published 11 Jul 2014 Isabelle Pascale, founder of the boutique Wuhau in a preserved corner of Beijing, showcases the work of contemporary Chinese and Western designers. — New York Times |
| Groth upsets Mahut to reach Newport semis Posted: 10 Jul 2014 05:42 PM PDT
Groth, a 26-year-old from Melbourne who is ranked 123rd in the world, blasted 10 aces and saved the only break point he faced to eliminate the Frenchman in 77 minutes. "I've had a great grass-court season already. I really had nothing to lose," Groth said. "I went out there confident. I thought I played really well." Groth, who ousted US fifth seed Donald Young in the opening round, booked a Saturday semi-final date against Croatian second seed Ivo Karlovic, who ousted Israel's Dudi Sela 7-6 (7/3), 7-5 at the US$474,000 (RM1.5 million) grass-court event. With his run of three wins this week, Groth will jump into the top 100 in the world rankings and a spot in the US Open main draw. "I've got myself in great shape," Groth said. "I'm not losing my mind out on court. I'm doing a lot of things better. I've tightened up my groundstrokes. I'm volleying better than I ever have. I'm making it tough for guys to break me. I'm becoming more prepared to be a top player." Groth has matched his number of ATP match triumphs from last year and the first half of this year combined. Groth's only two prior ATP singles wins of the season came in the opener at Brisbane. His lone ATP win last year came in the first round at Washington. Karlovic, who blasted nine aces to dispatch Sela in 92 minutes, beat Groth 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 in a first-round match at Delray Beach earlier this year. In today's quarter-finals, Aussie third seed Lleyton Hewitt faces American sixth seed Steve Johnson and US top seed John Isner meets seventh-seeded countryman Jack Sock. — Reuters |
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