UPDATE 1-Merck veteran named R&D chief, after drug setbacks

(Adds analyst comment, details on Merck, Amgen drugs)

By Ransdell Pierson

March 7 (Reuters) - Merck & Co will bring back one of its veterans to head research and development, replacing retiring Peter Kim, who leaves behind a mixed record over the past decade at the drugmaker's highly respected laboratories.

Merck, after recent setbacks for some of its most important experimental drugs, said former Amgen Inc research chief Roger Perlmutter will take over from Kim on April 15, although Kim, 55, will stay on as a company advisor until August.

"This is an acknowledgement by Merck that the status quo wasn't getting desired results," said analyst Barbara Ryan of Barbara Ryan Advisors.

The appointment represents a homecoming for Perlmutter, 60, who joined Amgen in February 2001 after four years with Merck, where he oversaw global basic research and preclinical development. While at Amgen sales of its Epogen and Aranesp anemia drugs plunged due to safety concerns.

But Perlmutter helped Amgen, the world's biggest biotechnology company, branch out into new areas -- including successful development of Prolia for osteoporosis and Sensipar, used to treat dangerously high calcium levels in the blood. It is testing treatments for cancer, cholesterol, psoriasis and a promising new type of osteoporosis drug.

Most of the Amgen drugs are biologics, meaning they are injectable products made in living cells and involve a costly manufacturing process. But biotech drugs command far higher prices than conventional pills, making them an increasing focus for drugmakers.

"Merck may become more aggressive now in acquiring and developing more biotech drugs," with Perlmutter as research chief, Ryan predicted.

Perlmutter became Amgen's research chief only months after Kim, then a 42-year-old professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was selected to head research at Merck.

Merck has had several big successes under Kim's watch, including development of its blockbuster Januvia diabetes medicine, its Gardasil vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, its Zostavax shingles vaccine and its Isentress treatment for HIV. But more recently, it has been hurt by failed trials of cholesterol treatment Tredaptive and migraine drug telcagepant, and a regulatory delay for a new type of osteoporosis medicine called odanacatib.

Merck's Vioxx arthritis drug was recalled in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks and strokes, forcing Kim to defend controversial clinical trials of the pill that were conducted before his arrival.

New medicines are badly needed at Merck, where sales of its onetime $6 billion-a-year Singulair asthma drug are plunging due to generic competition and other medicines will soon face cheaper generics. Moreover, cost savings from Merck's 2009 purchase of rival Schering Plough have mostly dried up and are no longer able to boost company earnings.

"On balance, most investors we speak with have been disappointed by Peter Kim's tenure as head of Merck's R&D," Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez said in a research note on Thursday.

"We believe a transition makes sense at this time." Fernandez said he believed Perlmutter's 10-year tenure at Amgen were "constructive. Overall he strikes us as a thoughtful straight shooter and a decisive leader."

Merck praised Kim's tenure. "His contributions have positioned us well for future success."

Shares of Merck were down nearly 1 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By Ransdell Pierson; editing by Carol Bishopric)

((ransdell.pierson@thomsonreuters.com)(646 223 6030)(Reuters Messaging: ransdell.pierson.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: MERCK PERLMUTTER/

View the original article here

Clintons, Obamas dined at White House

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama had a private dinner last Friday at the White House with former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A spokesman for the president offered few details about the dinner, which took place the night that Obama ordered the budget cuts from sequestration to begin.

"It was a private dinner that the president and the first lady enjoyed with President Clinton and Former Secretary of State Clinton," White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday. "They enjoyed the meal and they enjoyed the conversation.

Asked if the famously garrulous former president — a veteran of second-term budget battles with Congress — had suggested President Obama's social outreach to Republicans, Earnest was careful not to link the two events.

"In terms of the president's bipartisan outreach to rank-and-file members of Congress, that is actually something that started before that dinner," Earnest said. "You know, the president had made some calls to the members of the Gang of Eight a week prior to the dinner, and had hosted Senator [Lindsey] Graham [(R-S.C.)] and Senator [John] McCain [(R-Ariz.)] in the Oval Office the day before."

Earlier this week, President Obama shared dinner with a dozen Republican senators as part of a push to strike a long-term deficit reduction deal. On Thursday, Obama shared lunch with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the panel.

The president’s burst of socializing will continue next week with visits to lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill.

Earnest said Obama’s outreach efforts — and perhaps even the meals with lawmakers — would continue.

"I think you could view this as an opportunity for the president to engage a new line of communication and an open and constructive dialogue that could contribute to a solution," Earnest said.

The relationship between Obama and Clinton has been the subject of much fascination in Washington. The former president campaigned vigorously for Obama’s reelection last year, and the two men seem to have struck up a friendship.

After winning a second term last November, Obama’s first phone call was to Clinton.

View Comments

View the original article here

Shareholders should not be prosecuted for the sins of the board and employees

Many people were getting in their licks yesterday as the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs gave three top government officials a tongue lashing about the way they are not handling the failure of major financial institutions to comply with two complex regulations governing money laundering and sanctions.

The failure of the board of directors to oversee policies and procedures at HSBC allowed a small but important number of bank employees to knowingly allow transactions they knew at the time were in violation of the law or took no action to control the inefficient management when the violations were first discovered. No doubt, laws were violated and indictments for felonious behavior were called for.

However, let us not throw the baby out with the bath water. There is nothing to be gained by prosecuting a corporation in the banking business for criminal activities when only a few miscreants are to blame. But why, we have asked for months, have the regulatory agencies failed to file criminal indictments against both the lower level managers responsible for the lapsed oversight and the members of the Board of Directors who appear to have been asleep at the switch?

Let’s remember that the former dean of the Stanford School of Business who was a member of the board of Enron was indicted, found guilty and fined down to his basic holdings for not being on top of both the Enron management and a few not so honorable members of the auditing firm, Arthur Andersen. Unfortunately, the shareholders of Enron and the partners and employees of Arthur Andersen were left holding the bag or out of work.

With Sarbanes-Oxley and the more recent Dodd-Frank legislation, the federal government is taking over functions that for two hundred years have been the provenance of the state governments, and without appropriate legislation, they still do not have the legal right to indict a corporation for anything other than tax evasion or violation of the Clean Air Act and other operating functions.

Criminal indictments should have been made by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Reserve Bank by sending their evidence to the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in the cases of Goldman Sachs, Barclays, AIG, and numerous other financial institutions and asking for formal criminal indictment procedures to follow through.

They did not. SEC claimed that they have preferred really big fines and a slap on the wrist because they have testified the Securities Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934 are too vague on errors of omission to justify the effort to support a criminal indictment. It must be said that Mary Schapiro, the former head of the SEC had on more than one occasion asked the Congress to clarify and strengthen the legal basis for enforcement and prosecution.

If we are going to obtain discipline in any organization for conduct in accordance with stated principles, policies and procedures, laid down by the Board of Directors, there must be a fear factor. That is achieved by making it clear to all employees from the Board on down that violations of internal governance procedures will result in termination with cause. Violation of external governance regulations will be sent to regulatory agencies with recommendations for both civil and criminal indictments.

There is little doubt that banks have cut back funding and lost board control of the training programs for these critically important functions. They and the perpetrators of violations should be painfully aware of the possible civil and criminal penalties.

Filing federal charges against a corporation registered and governed by a state will open a can of legal worms. It is totally unnecessary. Board members need to take a greater interest in assuring that compliance and internal audit procedures are being implemented effectively. Do not stand by those few employees who, with malice aforethought, violate a law either for recognition of a successful profit making unit or other motivations of avarice and greed.

In any case, send those truly guilty to jail. 

James is executive director of the Center for Global Governance, Reporting and Regulation at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business in New York City. James is also program director of Pace University’s Certified Compliance and Regulatory Professional certificate program.

View Comments

View the original article here

UPDATE 5-Royalty Pharma says ready to move quickly on Elan offer

* Royalty Pharma hopes to meet with Elan shareholder J&J

* Royalty Pharma first approached Elan last year

(Adds Elan shareholder comments)

By Jessica Toonkel March 6 (Reuters) - U.S. investment firm Royalty Pharma

on Wednesday stood by its offer to acquire Irish drugmaker Elan , which has rejected the approach, and said it was ready to move quickly and could complete due diligence within 20 days.

The firm is scheduling meetings with 10 to 15 of Elan's largest shareholders, including Johnson & Johnson , as well as a few smaller investors, over the next several days, Pablo Legorreta, chief executive of Royalty Pharma, told Reuters. The firm is meeting with nearly a dozen shareholders this week alone, with the first talks taking place on Wednesday.

"We are very confident that our offer gives Elan shareholders a very attractive alternative," Legorreta said. "We really need access to the books to do due diligence."

Royalty Pharma made a $6.6 billion approach last week after Elan announced last month a $3.2 billion plan to sell its 50 percent stake in multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri to its U.S. partner, Biogen Idec .

Elan rejected Royalty Pharma and on Monday sweetened its offer to its shareholders, saying it would give them 20 percent of future royalties from Tysabri. It had already planned to return $1 billion to shareholders after the drug sale.

"The 'proposal' by Royalty Pharma remains an indication of interest, is highly conditional, and may or may not lead to an offer being made for the entire issued share capital of the company," Elan said in a written statement on Wednesday. "The highly conditional indication of interest is opportunistic in its timing."

Royalty criticized Elan for not taking its bid to Elan shareholders. It also criticized Elan's sweetened offer to shareholders.

Given the competitive M&A landscape in the sector, Elan's lack of experience in making acquisitions, and the fact that without existing products there are no synergies for Elan to realize through acquisitions, Royalty Pharma believes Elan will have a tough time growing on its own, Legorreta said.

"There are companies that have been doing this for a longer period of time," he said. "When you look at what is required to be successful in that kind of strategy, having an infrastructure, having product and having a sales force is important, and Elan lacks that," he said.

Royalty Pharma is confident that shareholders, some of whom have reached out to the company, will be in favor of its proposal.

When Royalty Pharma contacted Elan shareholder Matt Strobeck a few days ago, he told them he would tender at "a modest premium" to Royalty Pharma's $11-a-share offer, Strobeck told Reuters.

Strobeck, a former partner at Boston-based Westfield Capital Management Co, which in 2009 owned 18.8 million Elan shares, sold most of his personal stake in Elan over the past few years but still owns some shares in custodian accounts. Strobeck declined to say how many Elan shares he sold or still owns.

"In the end, they sold the rights to their most important asset and now it is truly like a royalty company in and of itself," Strobeck told Reuters.

"In most companies I own there is no way I would tender unless the premium was significantly higher, but in this case I would take a modest premium to $11 bucks since I view the potential for future value destruction as significant."

Legorreta declined to say if J&J, which owns 18 percent of Elan, is in favor of the deal or to identify the other Elan shareholders meeting with Royalty Pharma.

Fidelity Management & Research is the second-biggest shareholder in Elan with 13.79 percent, according to Thomson Reuters. Invesco Asset Management is the third-largest with 8.7 percent.

J&J, Fidelity and Invesco declined to comment.

Royalty Pharma has been talking to Elan about a possible deal since last autumn, Legorreta said.

Royalty Pharma questioned whether Elan would have any value at all after the Biogen deal is completed. It also said that as the world's largest buyer of pharmaceutical royalty revenue streams, Royalty Pharma may be the only buyer for Elan.

Earlier this week, Elan Chief Executive Kelly Martin told Reuters that his company did not view Royalty Pharma's offer as credible and said the majority of its investors did not believe the bid was worthy of a discussion period. He also said he expected the Tysabri deal to close in a month or two.

Elan shares were down 15 cents to $11.72 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and John Wallace)

((caroline.humer@thomsonreuters.com)(+1 646 223 6181)(Reuters Messaging: caroline.humer.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: ROYALTYPHARMA ELAN/

View the original article here

On International Women’s Day, Five Women In Pop Culture I’m Thankful For

It’s International Women’s Day, an occasion that often focuses on human rights and gender issues around the world. But I wanted to take today to remember that pop culture is a global enterprise, and women are doing amazing work as actors, directors, and writers all over the globe. Hollywood is such an international environment that I think we don’t always acknowledge the debts we owe to countries ranging from New Zealand to Malaysia. So today, here are five women in pop culture who make me thankful for the international community of film and television:

1. Jane Campion: This New Zealand-born writer and director is one of the fiercest champions for women’s stories out there, particularly ones that don’t fit neatly into romantic comedy story arcs or bandage dresses. The Piano, her story about a mute artist who is effectively sold off in marriage and shipped to the New Zealand frontier, is probably Campion’s most important work. But her new mini-series, detective story Top of The Lake, which premieres on the Sundance Channel on March 18, is a fascinating, twisty story, featuring Mad Men‘s Elisabeth Moss as a cop investigating a sex crime in a remote region where a colony of feminists is set to collide with the local culture.

2. Gurinder Chadha: One of the best stories about female athletes in recent years? Check. One of the best Jane Austen modernizations in recent years? Check. With movies like Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice, Chadha, born in Nairobi to Sikh parents who were part of the Indian diaspora, and settled in the UK, has painted vivid portraits of immigrants and explored how culture survives outside its point of origin. And she’s done so while being funny, wildly romantic, and narratively rich.

3. Michelle Yeoh: News that we might finally get a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that focuses on Yeoh’s character Yu Shu Lien is a welcome chance to celebrate this incredible, athletic Malaysian actress yet again. Famous for doing her own stunts, Yeoh also was a bright spot in the Pierce Brosnan years as one of the few characters to actually qualify as a Bond Woman, rather than an arm-candy Bond Girl, and recently turned in a fantastic performance as Aung San Suu Kyi in The Lady. Yeoh’s a constant reminder that women deserve better as characters, and as action stars, not least because she raises the ceiling on what everyone in her genre is capable of.

4. Salma Hayek: Born in Mexico and now a naturalized United States citizen, Hayek isn’t just a versatile actress who can segue easily between comedy and drama, and fim and television. She’s a producer who gave us Ugly Betty, one of very few shows about immigrant families, working-class neighborhoods in New York, and what it takes to actually break into the glamorous jobs in fashion and journalism so much other pop culture took for granted. And when she’s not making great pop culture, Hayek’s an advocate against domestic violence—she’s testified in support of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act—and for immigrants.

5. Emma Thompson: What more needs to be said about the British actress and screenwriter who’s transitioned from romantic comedy heroine (and great Shakespearean actress) to one of the few women who can still act and not be a joke or a sidshow at middle age, who turned in the never-to-be-topped performance as a veiled Hillary Clinton in Primary Colors, who gave us the brilliant adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, who gave Sybill Trelawney dignity in the Harry Potter movies, and who reminds us how much we all love Joni Mitchell?

View the original article here

Fla. Gov. Scott's Medicaid U-Turn Angers Tea Party

MIAMI—A few days after Gov. Rick Scott of Florida endorsed a Medicaid expansion, a U-turn so sharply executed that it flabbergasted his supporters, the head of a local Tea Party group typed up a "breakup note."

"I'm trying to determine how the Medicaid expansion is going to pay for the surgery to remove the knife planted in my back," Henry Kelley, the Tea Party leader and an early supporter of Mr. Scott, wrote on his blog.

"This was his issue, his singular core issue," Mr. Kelley said later in an interview. "This is why we rallied around him."

Mr. Scott, 60, a former health care executive who won the governorship by calling for deep budget cuts and fiercely criticizing President Obama's health care bill, has, in his third year in office, marched toward the political center, a necessity in this diverse swing state.

Facing stubbornly low approval ratings, Mr. Scott has crisscrossed the state advertising his enthusiasm for education, state workers, highways, commuter rails, early voting, the disabled, environmental protection and jobs. With Florida's economy slowly burbling to life and a tiny budget surplus, the governor's proposed budget of $74.2 billion is one of the largest in Florida history and includes a $2,500 across-the-board pay increase for teachers.

Along the way, Mr. Scott has danced in a music class, hugged teachers, quipped about his bald head and sprinkled cartoon-size checks around the state like a reborn Ebenezer Scrooge.

Democrats are as puzzled as Republicans. "Medicaid expansion, Obamacare, teacher bonuses—who is this guy?" Chris Smith, the State Senate minority leader, asked on Twitter.

In a recent interview at Wynnebrook Elementary School in West Palm Beach, Mr. Scott, wearing black cowboy boots emblazoned with an alligator and Florida flags, defended his new pragmatism, saying re-election concerns played no role in them. He did not change, he said, so much as Florida's economy and deficit changed, freeing him to spend some money.

He points to the state's 7.9 percent unemployment rate, the lowest in four years, and the 200,000 new jobs in the state. "If you look, I have been extremely consistent," he said. "It's what I talked about when I ran: jobs, education and cost of living."

And Medicaid? Mr. Scott said he decided to support the expansion for three years, but only after the federal government assured Florida a waiver to begin a managed-care style approach to the program.

He still disagrees with the health care law, but recognizes that "the Supreme Court upheld the law and the president got re-elected. Because of that you have to say, what's in the best interest of my citizens?" said Mr. Scott, who also was lobbied heavily by the health care industry. "I represent 19.2 million Floridians. I have to make the best decisions I can for them."

Other groups are pleased as well. Environmentalists, who once pilloried him for slashing state regulatory agencies, now have a seat at his table. In fact, they are consulted regularly.

"I think the governor has a turned a corner," said Eric Draper, the executive director of the Florida Audubon Society and a leading environmental advocate in the state. "He recognized how important this is to Floridians."

Tea Party members, on the other hand, can no longer get the governor's office on the phone. "Nobody in his leadership circle is even contacting us," said Mr. Kelley, the head of the Fort Walton Beach Tea Party. "We are not being asked our opinion."

Many Republicans, including members of Mr. Scott's cabinet, are apoplectic over his support for the Medicaid expansion. A special committee looking at the issue in the State House voted to reject it. The State Senate is still studying the issue, but the House committee vote may have killed it.

Mr. Scott's reversal has set off rumbling about a possible primary challenge in 2014. But many state Republican leaders say a contested primary would be counterproductive, given that former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican turned Democrat, is considering another run.

"There is not going to be a primary challenge to the governor," said State Sen. John Thrasher. "He is strong. He is well-funded."

Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said he was "concerned" but not "alarmed" about Mr. Scott's Medicaid decision. And at this point, he said, there was not much "appetite" among donors for a primary challenge.

Mr. Scott does have Republican supporters who say that after a slow start, he is finding his way.

"This governor is doing what a good business leader does, which is lash his policies to the new realities," said Don Gaetz, the Republican president of the State Senate. Mr. Scott, he said, referring to cutting the deficit, administered "tough medicine" in tough times and now "wants to reward them when times are better."

In his first year in office, Mr. Scott chose to introduce his budget in a rural town surrounded by Tea Party supporters.

That year, he sought $4.6 billion in budget cuts, including steep drops in education, while pushing for large corporate tax breaks (both were tempered by the Legislature). He successfully pushed for measures that linked teacher pay to merit, shrank unemployment benefits and required state workers to contribute 3 percent to their retirement. He laid off thousands of workers and returned $2.4 billion in federal dollars that would have financed a high-speed rail line.

His policies led to a tangle of expensive legal challenges. And polls found that he had turned off an overwhelming number of voters.

Mr. Scott is still trying to undo that first impression.

"If he is going to get re-elected, he needs to rebrand, reboot and repackage," said Ana Navarro, a Republican political strategist in Florida.

One on one, Mr. Scott is the opposite of his confounding public persona. Even his detractors call him a nice guy. Genial, down to earth and genuinely curious, the governor can disarm with a quip or a goofy grin.

"He's the kind of guy I would like to have as a neighbor," Mr. Gaetz said. "If he borrowed a lawn mower and returned it, it would be full of gas and working properly."

Florida has a high number of uninsured residents, a situation that Mr. Scott said he understood. His family was poor enough that his mother, Esther, considered putting him up for adoption.

His family, living in Missouri, had no health insurance, and his mother struggled to pay medical bills for his father's heart ailment and his brother's hip disease. "I know what my mom went through," Mr. Scott said. "She was scared to death."

Her sudden death last year badly shook the governor, and he said she played a role in his Medicaid decision.

Some Democrats welcome his "epiphanies," as they call it. "The fact that he is recognizing the value of public education and helping our teachers is a good thing," said Perry Thurston, the Democratic leader in the State House.

Over all, though, "I am not impressed," Mr. Thurston said. For starters, he said, schools need more money.

For Mr. Scott, the bigger concern may be the disillusionment of conservatives.

"They have made a calculation that people like me have no place else to go," Mr. Kelley said, referring to the expectation that the Tea Party would vote Republican regardless.

But, Mr. Kelley said, they are wrong. Tea Party supporters can simply choose not to vote. He said, "It's called an under-vote."

Christine Jordan Sexton contributed reporting from Tallahassee, Fla.

View the original article here

Merck veteran named research chief, after drug setbacks

By Ransdell Pierson

March 7 (Reuters) - Merck & Co will bring back one of its veterans to head research and development, replacing retiring Peter Kim, who leaves behind a mixed record over the past decade at the drugmaker's highly respected laboratories.

Merck, after recent setbacks for some of its most important experimental drugs, said former Amgen Inc research chief Roger Perlmutter will take over from Kim on April 15, although Kim will stay on as a company advisor until August.

The appointment represents a homecoming for Perlmutter, who joined Amgen in February 2001 after four years with Merck, where he oversaw global basic research and preclinical development. While at Amgen sales of its Epogen and Aranesp anemia drugs plunged due to safety concerns.

Perlmutter left Amgen in February 2012 and has served since then as a board member of several smaller biotech companies.

But Perlmutter helped Amgen branch out into new areas, including successful development of Prolia for osteoporosis and Sensipar, used to treat dangerously high calcium levels in the blood.

Perlmutter became Amgen's research chief only months after Kim, then a 42-year-old professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was selected to head of research at Merck.

Merck has had several big successes under Kim's watch, including development of its blockbuster Januvia diabetes medicine and its Isentress treatment for HIV. But more recently, it has been hurt by failed trials of cholesterol treatment Tredaptive and migraine drug telcagepant, and a regulatory delay for a new type of osteoporosis medicine called odanacatib.

Merck's Vioxx arthritis drug was recalled in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks and strokes, forcing Kim to defend controversial clinical trials of the pill that were conducted before his arrival.

New medicines are badly needed at Merck, where sales of its onetime $6 billion-a-year Singulair asthma drug are plunging due to generic competition and other medicines will soon face cheaper generics. Moreover, cost savings from Merck's 2009 purchase of rival Schering Plough have mostly dried up and are no longer able to boost company earnings.

"On balance, most investors we speak with have been disappointed by Peter Kim's tenure as head of Merck's R&D," Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez said in a research note on Thursday.

"We believe a transition makes sense at this time." Fernandez said he believed Perlmutter's 10-year tenure at Amgen, the world's biggest biotechnology company, were "constructive. Overall he strikes us as a thoughtful straight shooter and a decisive leader."

Merck praised Kim's tenure. "His contributions have positioned us well for future success."

Shares of Merck were down nearly 1 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting By Ransdell Pierson; editing by Carol Bishopric)

((ransdell.pierson@thomsonreuters.com)(646 223 6030)(Reuters Messaging: ransdell.pierson.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: MERCK PERLMUTTER/

View the original article here

FIFA Investigates Claims That Nigera Banned Lesbians From Playing Soccer

Members of Nigeria's women's national soccer team

The Nigerian Football Federation has officially banned lesbians from participating in competition in the country, the chair of the Nigeria Women’s Football League announced Thursday. The move has drawn an inquiry from FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, since such a ban would violate its anti-discrimination policy.

Nigeria is one of several African countries that have moved to legally ban homosexuality, and Nigerian club officials have boasted of driving lesbians from the game before, but under the new policy, lesbian players will be disqualified from competition and won’t be allowed to join the national team, NWFL chair Dilichukwu Onyedinma said, according to Inside World Football:

“Any player that we find is associated with it will be disqualified.

“We will call the club chairmen to control their players, and such players will not be able to play for the national team,” said Onyedinma. She said the governing body will work with clubs to stop the practice.”

While outright bans on lesbians are obviously (and thankfully) rare, discrimination aimed at gay female athletes is hardly limited to soccer or to Nigeria. The push for LGBT equality in sports has largely focused on men while gay women athletes get ignored, since the stereotypical female athlete is often already presumed to be gay. As Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky wrote when American soccer star Megan Rapinoe came out ahead of the 2012 Olympics, “An openly gay female athlete almost isn’t news. A lesbian in the locker room conforms to a stereotype, just as a straight male athlete is a stereotype.”

But in both American and international sports, there is “an amazing division between lesbians and straight women in sports” that persists because straight women don’t want to be stereotyped as gay, Dr. Pat Griffin, a professor and advocate for LGBT rights in sports, has said before. That has led to discrimination against female athletes who actually are gay and a culture, particularly in American college sports, where both coaches and players are expected to “be straight, or at the very least, act straight.” It’s no wonder then, that many lesbian athletes wait until their careers are over to come out of the closet.

So while Nigeria’s ban is uniquely horrific, and while FIFA will hopefully help put an end to it, it is emblematic of a larger sports culture that remains tilted against LGBT equality not just for men but for women too.

View the original article here

Beige Book Says Obamacare Is Costing Jobs and Sales

The Beige Book, which paints a picture of the economy by drawing on the contacts maintained by regional Fed banks with their local business communities, was prepared this time around by the Kansas City Federal Reserve. It's not usually considered to have any partisan tilt, although obviously the views it reports are those of the business sector (rather than, say, the labor unions).

"Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff," the report says.

The Richmond Fed reports that employers in its area continued to point to the Affordable Care Act as "reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff."

The Dallas Fed contacts "noted concern that client companies are hiring the absolute minimum to get by due to uncertainty about the Affordable Care Act."

It's not just hiring that is being hurt by Obamacare, according to the Beige Book. Sales are also.

"Many District contacts commented on the expired payroll tax holiday and the Affordable Care Act as having restrained sales growth," the report says.

As I mentioned, it's not all bad news related to Obamacare. The San Francisco Fed reports that contacts project a rising demand for health care services due to the law.

View the original article here