Loretta Lynch meets with Bill Clinton amid email scandal Photo Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch at the White House in May. Credit Zach Gibson/The New York Times
It is well documented that Bill Clinton has a propensity for being social when he sees someone he knows in public. But his decision to walk over to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch for a chat at the Phoenix airport on Monday spurred a firestorm of Republican criticism.
The meeting was not preplanned, and Ms. Lynch told reporters that nothing sensitive was discussed.
But as attorney general, Ms. Lynch oversees the Justice Department, which oversees the F.B.I., which is looking into the circumstances around Hillary Clintons use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
The reaction to the meeting was so politically fraught that Ms. Lynch is expected on Friday to announce that she will rely on the recommendations of career prosecutors and the F.B.I for the outcome of the email investigation.
The conversation lasted roughly 20 minutes, and Ms. Lynchs husband was present for it. But Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pounced on the news in a radio interview on Thursday.
When you meet for a half-hour and youre talking about your grandchildren and a little about golf, I dont know, it sounds like a long meeting, Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Clinton has a habit of impromptu meetings and phone calls, including one with Mr. Trump before he entered the presidential race, and with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas during the Republican primaries.
Even some Democrats winced, suggesting it created needless questions about appearances. The question of the investigation into the email server has dogged Mrs. Clinton for nearly a year now. It is one of the cudgels that Republicans have used against her, and it has contributed to a decline in the number of voters who view her as honest and trustworthy. A central complaint about Mrs. Clinton in the email controversy has been that she chose not to follow rules that applied to others, and the meeting with Ms. Lynch only enhanced that perception among critics.
Mr. Trump has created a large hole for himself over many months with voters over his comments about Muslims, immigrants and terrorism. But he still has room to fight his way back, something that concerns Democrats. And the uproar over the meeting struck those Democrats as an unforced error.
ESPN Broadcaster Mike Tirico on Broadcasting Kobe Bryant"s Farewell Game & More - 4/14/16
By: Andrew Joseph| June 30, 2016 9:31 pmFollow @andyj0seph
Mike Tirico appeared on ESPN for the final time Thursday, as he is set to join NBC Sports on July 1.
Tirico, who has been with ESPN for 25 years, workedthe networks Euro 2016 coverage on location in Paris. With a stunning backdrop of Paris, ESPNs Bob Ley sat down with Tirico and wished him the best on his new venture.
The ESPN crew surprised Tirico on Wednesday with a going-away gathering. He thanked Ley and his colleagues for that and all the memories.
Tirico said:
This has been great. Top to bottom. I think twenty-fiveyears is something like over nine-thousand days. Every one of those days ESPN has been a part of my life. Ill never forget I did the SportsCenter about Week Twoof doing SportsCenter back in the nineties. Chris Berman was doing a baseball game in California the hotel California. And he said, Bob Ley and Mike Tirico. Bob, youre breaking in another one. Well, thank you for breaking me in.
His fellow Euro 2016 co-hosts then joined him on the set to send him off after a tremendous tenure with ESPN.
The 14 hottest takes of Skip Bayless" ESPN career2w agoGabrielle Union is very excited about husband Dwyane Wade appearing in the Body Issue2w agoSkip Bayless gives emotional goodbye to "First Take" and Stephen A. Smith2w ago
Volvo V90 - Made by Sweden - ”Epilogue” feat. Zlatan Ibrahimović
London (AFP) Five facts on Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic after he announced he is signing for English Premier League giants Manchester United on Thursday:
League titles but no Champions League crown
Ibrahimovics goals have delivered league titles wherever he has gone from the Netherlands to Italy to Spain and France but never has he touched the Champions League trophy. Inter Milan and Barcelona won it but after he had left them. United cannot give him it next season either as they failed to qualify, so he will just have to hope that they get a crack at it for the 2017/18 campaign and that he is still on the playing staff.
Carrot and stick approach needed for Ibracadabra magic
Ibrahimovic is such a contrary character that his coach at a previous club AC Milan Massimiliano Allegri says he needs constant attention if he is to be temperamentally ready to produce his magic turn on the pitch. With him, you have to use both the stick and the carrot, he was quoted in The Guardian in 2012. Ibra is a strong personality and needs to be relaxed at times, while in other occasions he has to be stimulated, otherwise he falls asleep. Swedish national coach Erik Hamren called him out when he retired from international football in 2009 telling him do come back but not as the depressed donkey Eeyore but as Winnie The Pooh.
Opponents pay homage to G*d
Fair to say Ibrahimovic through his exploits, his superstar appeal and lively temperament lit up a pretty moribund Ligue 1 for the past few seasons. To such an extent that even opposing clubs felt compelled to offer their thanks for his presence, even if he hurt them by scoring goals against them. Such a case was Toulouse, who would have pleased him with the divine being they compared him to given his penchant for adorning himself with epithets in 2014. Today is your birthday, 33, the age of Christ, your son. Happy birthday and long live the Z! Despite the perverse pleasure you took scoring goals against us the last two seasons, we are not vindictive. We want to thank you. For everything.
Bikes, bed and docks
No one can begrudge Ibrahimovic his riches given he has fought hard to rise to the top and at one point would have stuck with working on the docks in Malmo rather than attempting to carve out a football career. His youth team manager at the time persuaded him to stick with the beautiful game. Not that he needed a father figure for despite his Bosnian caretaker dad splitting from his Croatian mother when he was just two he spent more time with his dad Sefik, who nevertheless was badly affected by the Balkan War even though he had left Bosnia years before. Ibrahimovic who during his youth once stole a bicycle to get himself to training related to The Guardian in 2014 a moving story about his impoverished father shelling out for a bed from IKEA for him. However, they had no way of getting it back home. We carried it home between us. Its fantastic what we did. I had time with my mother but I really lived with my father. One time he gave all his salary so I could travel to a training camp. He couldnt pay the rent but he did that.
Literary Roth of G*d
Most footballers autobiographies generally dont provide much insight or indeed entertainment but Ibrahimovics I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic unsurprisingly bucked the trend. Not often in such tomes will you read anecdotes such as this about his companion and mother of his childen Helena Seger: She came from a model family from Lindesberg, one of those families where they say, Darling, would you please pass me the milk?, whereas we at table mostly we just hurled death threats at each other. Indeed one critic compared it to US literary legend Philip Roths fictional biography Portnoys Complaint, both about growing up as immigrants.
In what has been, by any measure, an extraordinary week for news, Boris Johnson ably demonstrated that the nation still has the capacity to be stunned by new developments when he ruled himself out of the running for the Conservative leadership contest.
In a dramatic press conference just moments before the deadline for nominations passed, Mr Johnson said that the next Tory leader would have to unify his party and ensure that Britain stood tall in the world.
Is Andrew Luck more HYPE than RESULTS? - "The Herd"
Andrew Luck just signed an enormous extension. Lets examine what it means for the Bills and Tyrod Taylor.
My friend, Matt, texted me right after Andrew Lucks extension was announced.
He wrote:
Luck has to be the Bills second-favorite quarterback now.
So Doug Whaley can say the best young QB in the league gets $23M per year.
Hes begging to say that sentence right after Tyrod Taylors agent Adisa Bakari tells him how much Brock Osweiler makes.
Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
That, right there... is a tremendous point.
(For the record, Osweiler signed a deal with the Houston Texans this offseason that averaged $18M per season.)
It makes perfect sense for Bills fans to be curious about how Lucks six-year, $140M contract would affect the impending money talks with Tyrod Taylor.
But I dont really think Lucks monster extension impacts most future quarterback deals in the traditional sense, as in... setting the market.
If anything, it just creates a (lower-than-expected) quarterback-contract ceiling. His $23M average per year (APY) should and probably will act as bargaining leverage for NFL front offices during contract discussions with their signal-callers.
How many agents can plop down at the negotiating table and say, with a straight face, ok, lets start with that Luck got?
Yeah, probably none.
To me, Luck has fallen sliiiiightly short of the gigantic, Elway-esque, Peytonian expectations set forth for him by, well, just about everybody when he entered the league out of Stanford in 2012, but those expectations still carry significant weight.
When youre a white, 64 pocket passer from one of the most prestigious colleges in the country, universally viewed as the most impeccably clean prospect in decades among the ever-bickering #DraftTwitter and are ultimately selected No. 1 overall, your reputation is hard to tarnish.
Photo by Harry How/Getty Images
Luck looked the part from the start of his NFL career, throwing for 4,374 yards as a rookie en route to an unlikely playoff berth for the Colts. Both developments helped to serve as instant validation that, yes, the consensus draft evaluations were correct, and, yes, he was something special.
(Throwing for 4,761 yards and 40 touchdowns in his third season was super impressive, too.)
However, over his last 16 games which includes three playoff outings Luck has completed 56.7% of his passes (6.71 yards per attempt) with 30 touchdowns and 22 interceptions.
Still, though... if you survey NFL fans and media alike about the quarterback theyd select to start a franchise with today, the majority of the picks would be Luck.
Hence, even after an abysmal, injury-plagued fourth-year in the NFL, Indianapolis had seemingly no issue making him the highest-paid QB in league history.
Lucks guarantees $47M due at signing are critical, without a doubt. But his overall $23.3M APY and $24.5M APY in new money should have Whaley and Redskins GM Scot McCloughan smiling ear to ear.
That $23.3M equates to 15% of the 2016 salary cap. Just three years ago, $18.5M wouldve represented that same 15%.
In a few seasons, with the way the NFL salary cap is exponentially rising, well probably see Lucks contract as a colossal steal.
Obviously, theres no way to be sure what will ultimately happen with Tyrod Taylor and the Bills and, more specifically, how big his contract would be.
But it seems like Lucks mega extension actually did Buffalo a favor.
Andrew Luck would be a top-3 pick in a NFL expansion draft - "The Herd"
By: Luke Kerr-Dineen| June 30, 2016 11:04 amFollow @LukeKerrDineen
The Indianapolis Colts announced that its quarterback Andrew Luck had signed a monster $140 million, $87 million guaranteed contract on Wednesday. Luck is now the highest-paid player in the NFL, and it prompted a rash of reactions from people claiming he was overpaid.
That line of argument simply doesnt hold up, asmy colleague Steven Ruiz does a good job explaining, even when you account for his minor regression in 2015. On the contrary: Theres actually a better case to be made that Andrew Luck is still actually underpaid.
ESPNs Dan Graziano has a good piece about how Lucks deal is, in many ways, an underwhelming one, largely becauseit failed to keep pace with the previous growth in NFL quarterbacks salaries.
This is a deal that has been anticipated for more than a year now by people around the NFL But within the context of the NFL quarterback market, Andrew Lucks new deal is a pretty big letdown.
Itsimportantnot to get bogged-down in numbers here. It doesnt matter what Andrew Luck is gettingpaid if hes getting paid less than what hes worth. If I pay someone $5 an hour to do a job thats worth $20 an hour, it doesnt make it okay simply because Im paying him something.People have a right to earn their market value, whatever their level, and Andrew Luck is no different.
And thats the perpetual problem facing football at every level.
Theres an ever-growing acceptance that football is a violent and dangerous sport. Professionals know that, and increasingly, they accept it, even as the longer-term ramifications are becoming more clear. The unjustness of it all stems from the fact that these same players are ushered through a system that is constantly designed to strip them of their market value in a way that boxers, for example, are not.
(Via OlyDrop)
Players arent paid in High School (obviously), then are locked out of the NFL for the next three years. Thatessentially forces them into playing college football where, of course, they arent allowed to get paid again. Then they move onto the NFL, where theres a rookie salary cap. Even when theyre freed of that they spend the remainder of their careers negotiating contracts within the confines of their teams salary cap.Time and time and time again, forces around them are depressingtheir price as low as possible.
And that has happened to Andrew Luck once again.
He went unpaid through college than was the second draft class to suffer the consequences of a rookie salary cap. He signed a $22 million, four-year contract when he came into the league in 2012despite being afar better prospect than Sam Bradford,who made more than double that just in guarantees two years earlier, before the cap was imposed.
(AP)
This contract is probablygoing to be the biggest one Luck ever signs, and it was negotiated with the deck stacked against him. Luck may be the most important player in Indianapolis, butwhen youredealing with a hard cap, that doesnt matter as much. You cant have Andrew Luck plus 52 scrubs. You still need to fill out a team.
NFL owners have constructeda masterful, intricate system designed, above all else, towards maximizing their own profits. Until that changes,no football player will ever be paid what theyre truly worth. And therein lies footballs greatest problem.
Charles Barkley: I told Johnny Manziel "you"re s******g up your life"3hr ago3 inferior quarterbacks who are about to make even more money than Andrew Luck5hr agoWhy should anyone believe Johnny Manziel will ever get sober?6hr ago
Hershey shares surge on report of Mondelez bid Updated April 14, 2016 6:37 p.m. ET
Coals slow collapse pushed the largest U.S. miner to declare bankruptcy Wednesday, marking the end of an era for big publicly traded companies that have fueled American industry for more than a century.
The bankruptcy of St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp. came after similar filings by Arch Coal Inc., Alpha Natural Resources Inc., Patriot Coal Corp. and Walter Energy Inc., WLTGQ -9.09 % all of which have recently sought chapter 11 protection.
Those companies have lost a combined $30 billion in stock-market value since 2010, and the coal sector has shed 31,000 jobs since 2009, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
No large publicly listed U.S. coal miner has been spared by the forces crushing the coal industry, which include the decline in steel production, the conversion of coal-fired power plants to natural gas, which has become a cheap and abundant thanks to the shale boom, and new environmental regulations.
But despite miners struggles, coal has continued to fuel roughly one-third of the U.S. electric grid. Americans will get 33% of their electricity from gas in 2016, and 32% from coal, according to the Energy Information Administration. As recently as 2008, coal fueled half of U.S. power consumption. Coal prices have fallen by more than 60% since 2011, and 15% in the past 12 months.
Peabody Chief Executive Glenn Kellow called the current market historically challenged and said the bankruptcy filing was an in-court solution to Peabodys substantial debt burden.
Peabodys move sets the stage for a potentially bitter fight among creditors for its assets, which include massive open-pit complexes in Wyoming and Australia and underground mines in Illinois.
America may never again see a coal company as big as Peabody. Founded in 1883 by Francis Peabody with $100, a wagon and two mules, according to the companys corporate history, Peabody grew into a juggernaut, producing coal for customers in 25 countries and employing 7,600 people.
But its decline has been precipitous. In 2011, Peabodys value on the stock market briefly touched $20 billion. It is now worth $38 million. Many of its mines are still profitable, but not profitable enough to take care of the debt it has run up.
About half of U.S. coal is now being produced by bankrupt companies, which will be broken up to compensate private creditors. The producer of 2020 is going to look different than the producer of 2010, says James Stevenson of IHS Energy. Were going back to a model of predominantly private ownership.
The industrys setbacks have been damaging well beyond Wall Street, especially in the coal strongholds of Wyoming and Appalachia, wiping out tens of thousands of jobs and denting tax revenues.
Peabody estimates its future cleanup costs and other environmental obligations at $723 million, a concern for environmental activists. The miner shouldnt be allowed to walk away from the billions of dollars in damages to landscapes, wildlife, and crucial water supplies that are part of coals legacy, said Theo Spencer of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Coal isnt the only commodity getting hammered by the weaker global economy. Prices for copper, steel, aluminum and other industrial goods have fallen steeply this decade as demand has weakened around the world, especially in China.
Peabodys move raises the default rate for U.S. metals and mining companies in the past 12 months to 29% from 25%, according to a report released Wednesday by Fitch Ratings.
Peabody expects a bankruptcy-court fight between lenders and bondholders over which of its mines secured lenders can lay claim to, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bondholders including Elliott Management Corp. and Aurelius Capital Management LP are expected to argue that Peabodys debt agreements significantly reduce lenders claims on mines and other assets, leaving more value for bondholders, the people said.
The firms are known for investing in distressed debt and a willingness to engage in legal battles to protect their investments. Elliott and Aurelius, which were founded respectively by billionaire Paul Singer and former Elliott Management portfolio manager Mark Brodsky, are poised to make big profits on a decade-plus legal fight with Argentina over defaulted sovereign bonds.
Many of the creditors expected to vie for control of Peabodys assets bought their debt at steep discounts, according to people familiar with the matter.
The companys bonds and loans have tumbled in recent years along with coal prices. A $1 billion series of bonds Peabody sold just in March 2015 recently traded for 7 cents on the dollar, according to MarketAxess.
Peabody said Wednesday it had obtained $800 million in emergency financing, arranged by Citigroup Inc., and has enough cash to keep running mines and delivering coal to customers. Citigroup declined to comment. Peabody last month said it had delayed interest-rate payments on two loans and warned it may not have sufficient liquidity to sustain operations, warning of a possible chapter 11 filing.
Peabody has now lost money in nine straight quarters and in 2015 posted a $2 billion deficit. The company has also been weighed down by its ill-timed acquisition of Australias Macarthur Coal Ltd. for $5.1 billion in 2011. Prices have been declining ever since.
As of the end of 2015, Peabody carried assets worth about $11 billion, and liabilities over $10 billion. That includes $4.3 billion of secured loans and bonds and $4.5 billion of unsecured bonds.
Peabody executives insist they believe the companys mines have a future. They cite the Environmental Protection Agencys estimates that as much as 802 million tons of coal will be burned in the U.S. in 2050, roughly the same as last year. Coal use is expected to decline to 680 million tons this year.
Peabody filed for chapter 11 protection for most of its U.S. entities in the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Missouri. All mines and offices are continuing to operate during this process, the company said, adding that none of its Australian operations is included in the filings.
The coal producer said it has also dropped plans to sell mines in New Mexico and Colorado.
Because many of Peabodys mines are still individually profitable, the filing feels mostly like a balance-sheet restructuring exercise more than an eliminating mines exercise, said Mark Levin, a BB&T Capital Markets managing director. However, he said that didnt eliminate the possibility that Peabody may take the opportunity to shed less profitable mines.
Alex MacDonald contributed to this article.
Write to John W. Miller at john.miller@wsj.com and Matt Jarzemsky at matthew.jarzemsky@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications: Citigroup declined to comment Thursday on $800 million in emergency financing it provided for Peabody Energy Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday. The bank was not contacted for comment Wednesday. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Citigroup didnt respond to a request for comment. (April 14, 2016)
