Jason Giambi was mobbed by teammates after reaching home. “This is what you dream about as a kid,” he said, “especially in Yankee Stadium.” (Photo by Barton Silverman/ The New York Times)
Giambi’s Home Run Is a Pain Reliever By JOE LAPOINTE, June 6, 2008
After Jason Giambi’s titanic home run landed in the third deck to give the Yankees a 9-8 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, he hopped, skipped and jumped around the bases, ignoring the pain in his sore left foot that had kept him out of the starting lineup for two games.
“I didn’t feel anything,” Giambi said. “It hurts now.” He was standing in the clubhouse, his feet bare, his left foot bandaged after having been hit by a pitch two days before.
His two-run shot — as a pinch-hitter on an 0-2 count, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning against closer B. J. Ryan — gave the Yankees two consecutive victories and a .500 record again (30-30) in one of their most dramatic finishes of the season.
Although the ending was memorable, it was witnessed by less than half of the 53,571 fans who were there earlier. Many of them might have left because of the game’s length: 3 hours 53 minutes. But they should know that the fourth hour of a Yankees game is sometimes the most interesting.
Until then, they could have been discouraged by the Yankees’ mistakes, which included a dropped fly ball by Melky Cabrera that negated a possible inning-ending double play and fueled Toronto’s five-run rally in the fifth. Some might have been annoyed by Robinson Canó’s failure to bunt in the eighth inning.
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Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays fight, Tribune wire reports, June 6, 2008
The Boston Red Sox had plenty of fight against Tampa Bay — both in and out of their dugout.
Manny Ramirez homered, drove in five runs and got into a shouting match with a teammate as Boston beat Tampa Bay 7-1 Thursday night in a game that included a bench-clearing brawl between the clubs.
TV cameras showed Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis being separated after exchanging words in the dugout at the end of the fourth inning. Ramirez pointed at Youkilis before being escorted down the runway toward the clubhouse by trainer Paul Lessard and a few players.
Boston manager Terry Francona felt emotions were still running hot after the earlier brawl.
“I think they were just exchanging some views on things,” he said, trying to downplay his players’ near altercation. “It was kind of a hectic night. Sometimes those things happen. It wasn’t really a big deal; it won’t be a big deal.”
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Wednesday, August 3, 1994
KIGALI, Rwanda – Leaders of this war-ravaged nation yesterday said they will execute those responsible for the slaughter of up to 500,000 Rwandans in ethnic fighting.
“Those who willingly carried out genocide deserve no less than the death penalty,” Rwanda’s President Pasteur Bizimungu told the Daily News yesterday at his villa near the capital, Kigali.
“We need a fair and transparent justice as a pillar of the government of national unity,” he said. “We don’t want to wait two or three years before we start.”
Bizimungu said trials and executions must begin soon to avoid revenge atrocities.
Speaking from his makeshift office at the Meridien Hotel in Kigali yesterday, Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu agreed.
“We do not want to be involved in retribution, revenge reprisals. The law must be followed,” he said.
The former government and ousted Rwandan Army, which triggered the civil war in April, primarily were composed of radical, ruling class Hutus. The Hutus, however, were defeated by Tutsi rebels in the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
Bizimungu and Twagiramungu are moderate Hutus appointed by the Tutsi government. Among the issues causing a rift within the fledgling government is when elections will be held.
Asked by the Daily News yesterday when he would be putting himself up for election, Bizimungu became agitated.
“There has been a tragedy in our country,” he snapped. “If you were sensitive to our tragedy you would not be asking for an election.”
In sharp contrast, the bespectacled Twagiramungu smiled easily as he sat in his office yesterday. Room 529 was neat and furnished with a dining room table and four sofas arranged around a coffee table. It does not give the appearance that the business of governing a nation of seven million people is being conducted here.
But it was here Twagiramungu met with George Moose, the U.S. assistant secretary of African Affairs, and assured him he welcomes America’s help in the daunting task rebuilding the nation.
Yesterday, U.S. Army convoys delivered more than 100,000 gallons of water to Rwandan refugees, bolstering their chances of surviving in crowded, disease-infested camps in Zaire. But much more will be needed to defeat the cholera, dysentry and simple dehydration that have killed more than 20,000 people since the refugee crisis began two weeks ago.
Walter S. Mossberg
WALTER S. MOSSBERG’s Personal Technology column from the Wall Street Journal.
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Is the Best Browser For Web — For Now, June 5, 2008
If you buy a new Windows Vista PC, it comes with a decent built-in Web browser, Internet Explorer 7. If you buy a new Macintosh computer, it comes with a decent built-in Web browser, Safari 3.0. So why would you want or need a different Web browser?
That is the question that Mozilla, the nonprofit organization that makes the leading alternative browser, hopes to answer this month when it releases version 3.0 of its Firefox Web browser. In some tech-industry circles, Firefox already is preferred over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari, but it still isn’t used by most people, and Mozilla is hoping to broaden its appeal.
The new version will be released simultaneously for Windows and the Mac’s OS X operating system, as well as for Linux. While each of the three editions will have the visual style of the operating system on which it runs, all three will have the same features.
I’ve been using prerelease versions of Firefox 3.0 for months, and have recently been testing a near-final version and comparing it closely to IE and to Safari. I have tested it on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, on desktops and laptops, over slow connections and fast ones. I have tried it with well over 100 Web sites.
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, August 7, 1994
KIGALI, Rwanda–Sylvestre Kamali finally broke down.
Imprisoned for 21 days, he was tired, hurting and badly in need of a bath.
A career diplomat, he has served his country in all branches, including terms as vice president of the Supreme Court and ambassador to Belgium, Burundi and China.
Now Kamali was wearing the gray pants and white shirt he had on the day he was arrested in July. He was unshaven and had no shoes. He had not been given hismedication and special diet for a colon condition.
The tears came this day when he was told the new leaders of Rwanda are holding him on a charge of genocide. His jaw dropped. He looked at his two prisonguards and his face spread into a smile of incredulity.
“I am happy because now I know the reason why I am in prison,” the diplomat said in an interview with reporters from the Daily News and the Washington Postlast week. It was the first time he had been seen by people other than his jailers since his arrest in July.
In his native language, Kinyarwanda, as a prison guard translated, he said, “They told me my cars did not have all the proper papers.
“Me, Kamali?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “Me, Kamali? From the time I was brought onto this earth until now, and I am 59 years old, I have never killed anyone, or ordered anyone to be killed.”
The following is a transcript of Senator Barack Obama’s speech to supporters on the last night of voting in the primary campaign, as provided by CQ Transcriptions.
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Sixteen months have passed since we first stood together on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Thousands of miles have been traveled; millions of voices have been heard.
And because of what you said, because you decided that change must come to Washington, because you believed that this year must be different than all the rest, because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another, a journey…
(APPLAUSE)
… a journey that will bring a new and better day to America.
Because of you, tonight I can stand here and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
But I want to thank — I want to thank all those in Montana and South Dakota who stood up for change today. I want to thank every American who stood with us over the course of this campaign, through the good days and the bad, from the snows of Cedar Rapids to the sunshine of Sioux Falls.
And, tonight, I also want to thank the men and woman who took this journey with me as fellow candidates for president.
At this defining moment, at this defining moment for our nation, we should be proud that our party put forth one of the most talented, qualified field of individuals ever to run for office.
I have not just competed with them as rivals. I’ve learned from them as friends, as public servants, and as patriots who love America and are willing to work tirelessly to make this country better. They are leaders of this party and leaders that America will turn to for years to come.
And that is particularly true for the candidate who has traveled further on this journey than anyone else. Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign.
(APPLAUSE)
by MICHAEL 0. ALLEN in Rwanda and GENE MUSTAIN in New York, Daily News Staff Writers
KIGALI, Rwanda–The heartbeat of this nearly terminal country thumped a little louder yesterday.
The war ravaged capital city, as most of the country has little portable water, few working phones or toilets and hardly any electricity–but people were beginning to try to go about their business.
For the first time since rebel army took over, an open-air market was live with the noise of a back-to-basics economy–hawkeers pitching okra and plantains and buyers haggling over the price.
Nearby, the few people with money to spare sipped warm beer in Kigali Night, the hottest nightclub and bordello in town.
Beyond the market and the club, however, the evidence of Rwanda’s difficult road to recovery was everywhere. Neighborhoods were deserted. Buildings lay in ruins, or looted of their contents. Refugees trickling back to their homes lugged the bodies of the sick or dead relatives on makeshift stretchers.
Rwanda Patriotic Front soldiers questioned civilians at gunpoint and searched vehicles at roadblocks built with plastic crates.
The new government’s Tutsi-dominated leaders, overwhelmed by the demands of resuscitating the country, announced that they will step aside and a let a United Nations panel investigate and prosecute officials in the former Hutu-dominated government suspected of waging genocide against the Tutsi.
“We recognize the importance of a fair and independent judicial system to stability and democratic reform and we intend to develop such a system expeditiously, said Alphonse Nkubito, the justice minister.
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer
BUJUMBURA, Burundi–The driver’s father was a Hutu, but his mother was a Tutsi, and that ethnic mix is a recipe for murder in this country–where all the ingredients of a Rwandan-like bloodbath are beginning to boil.
Afraid he was a marked man, Selemani Hakizimana drove fast and furious through the Hutu-dominated villages along the winding road to this jittery capital city, where the outnumbered Tutsis have an uneasy hold on power.
“I must drive fast, I cannot stop,” he said. “These are Hutu villages; if I stop, they will kill me because they will see that I have Tutsi blood.”
The ethnic hatred that’s ripped apart Rwanda–leaving a half million dead from genocidal attacks and more than a million in refugee camps–runs even deeper in neighboring Burundi, a former Belgian colony of 6 million.
“In Rwanda, a Hutu and a Tutsi can marry,” Hakizimana said. “Not in Burundi.”
As in Rwanda, the Tutsis comprise only about 15% of the population; unlike in Rwanda, however, they have always held the military and political upper hand.
But now that a Tutsi rebel army has gained power in Rwanda, the Hutus of Burundi have seen the value of revolution. In the last month, 3,000 Burundians have died in political killiings, mainly Tutsis.
In reply, Tutsi students began rioting earlier this week and virtually shut down the city for two days. All businesses closed, as did the airport. Fifteen people have died.
Yesterday, in a televised talk, Burundi’s acting president warned the nation against going down a Rwandan path.
“Think twice before you act,” said Silveste Ntibantunganha. “Rwanda should be example for us all.”