The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule Wednesday requiring companies to reveal the pay gap between the chief executive officer and their typical worker, handing a new weapon to groups protesting rising income inequality.

 The commission voted 3 to 2 to mandate the disclosure. The agency had delayed progress on the rule for years, with SEC Chair Mary Jo White facing attacks from unions and Democratic lawmakers in recent months for failing to get it done.

 The disclosure is required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which hasn’t stopped it from splintering the five-member commission. Republican commissioners and business groups argue it’s meant to embarrass CEOs and won’t be useful to investors.

 White and the SEC’s two Democrats, Luis Aguilar and Kara Stein, approved the rule. Democrats have said the metric will be helpful to shareholders who are deciding how to vote on executive pay packages.

 “While there is no doubt that this information comes with a cost, the final rule recommended by the staff provides companies with substantial flexibility in determining the pay ratio while remaining true to the statutory requirements” of Dodd-Frank, White said at the meeting.

 Company Discretion

 The SEC required companies to disclose the median compensation of all its employees, excluding the CEO, and publish a ratio comparing that figure to the boss’s total pay. Companies would have to report the pay ratio beginning in 2017.

 In a nod to businesses such as Exxon Mobil Corp. that oppose the effort, the SEC will require the metric to be updated only once every three years and will allow companies to exclude as much as five percent of their foreign workers from the calculation.

 The SEC gave allowed for some discretion in determining the median pay of workers. Companies can use sampling to estimate the figure, rather than calculating it by tallying data from all of the payrolls across the company.

 “These decisions were designed to facilitate compliance with the rule in a manner that is reasonable and workable” for companies, Aguilar said.

 ‘Peculiar’ Decision

 Even so, Republicans and business groups still oppose the requirement and said the SEC ignored some of their recommendations to improve it. Groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable are expected to sue the agency over the rule.

 “We will continue to review the rule and explore our options for how best to clean up the mess it has created,” the chamber’s David Hirschmann said in a statement Wednesday.

 Republican lawmakers have sponsored legislation that would repeal the provision in Dodd-Frank that underpins the SEC’s rule. Commissioner Michael Piwowar, a Republican who opposed the measure, said he found White’s decision to move forward “peculiar” given that opposition in Congress.

 Commissioner Daniel Gallagher, another Republican, said the vote shows how the agency’s rulemaking agenda has been hijacked by “ideologues” and partisans who want to shame businesses into reducing CEO pay.

 “A majority of the commission has opted for a hugely expensive rule over a much less expensive rule,” Gallagher said. “I can only conclude that there is no reasoned basis for the commission’s action.”

 Average Pay

 Average CEO pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies by revenue surged 997 percent from 1978 to 2014, while the compensation of non-supervisory employees rose 10.9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a research group that advocates for workers.

 While CEOs earned about 30 times what the typical employee did in 1978, corporate chiefs’ pay had jumped to more than 300 times their employees’ compensation as of 2014, the institute said. ||||| "SEC rules are not meant to serve as an ideological bulletin board for whatever political party happens to be in power," the Chamber of Commerce said in a letter to the commission opposing the rule. "But that is precisely what the authors of the CEO pay ratio rule had in mind; it is intended to help carry the income inequity message." ||||| Companies must start disclosing the pay gap between their top boss and rank-and-file employees under one of the most significant postcrisis rules addressing executive pay, launching a period of uncertainty for companies over whether the disclosure will rile up shareholders, employees and the broader public.

 The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted 3-2 to approve the measure, with the panel’s two Republican members opposing it.

 Required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, the CEO pay-ratio rule emerged as a major flash point because it tied corporate disclosure policy to divisive political debates about income inequality and executive pay.

 Companies will have to explain large pay gaps to investors, and face new challenges explaining to workers why they make so much less than the boss and, possibly, why they are less richly rewarded than their peers or competitors.

 Steven Seelig, a senior regulatory adviser for Towers Watson & Co., a human-resources consultancy, said the SEC rule means rank-and-file workers will be able to see how they stack up against the median employee at their firm and at other firms. “This is going to raise all sorts of questions as to whether that person believes they’re paid fairly both internally…and [compared] to competitors,” he said.

 Related Video The SEC is set to approve a contentious ruling that would disclose the pay gap between rank-and-file employees and CEOs. WSJ’s Joann Lublin joins Lunch Break’s Tanya Rivero. Photo: Getty

 The pay-ratio measure is one of several Dodd-Frank provisions that aim to empower shareholders to better understand and challenge executive-pay practices at major U.S. companies. The SEC earlier this year unveiled another proposal designed to make it easier for investors to judge whether top executives’ compensation is in line with the company’s financial performance. The commission previously greenlighted new “say on pay” rules directing firms to submit executive-compensation packages regularly to a nonbinding shareholder vote.

 But the pay-ratio rule has sparked greater controversy—and the SEC’s action is likely to trigger a new round of partisan and legal warfare. Corporate advocates such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce could challenge the measure in court, while Republicans in Congress greeted the SEC’s action with promises to move quickly on legislation repealing the Dodd-Frank mandate.

 “We will continue to review the rule and explore our options for how best to clean up the mess it has created,” said David Hirschmann, head of the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.

 The issue is also ripe for attention on the 2016 campaign trail, where populist issues such as inequality and corporate behavior and profits have flourished. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has decried the pay disparity between CEOs and average workers, and in a major July speech criticized the SEC for taking so long in finishing the pay-ratio rule.

 “I hope that shining a spotlight on the disparity will help working families,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who is challenging Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said in a written statement.

 David Larcker, director of the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at Stanford University’s business school, said, “You have an incredibly important and complicated issue that’s being reduced down to one ratio.”

 While debates about income inequality are ones the country should have, he said, “I just worry that the focus is going to be so much on that ratio without doing the deep dive into it and saying what does it actually mean and is it conceivable that it could be appropriate. I think the numbers are going to be electrifying for a large chunk of workers out there.”

 The SEC’s action kicks off a transition period for companies likely to be colored by uncertainty over how the requirement, which starts with compensation paid in 2017, will influence not only shareholders but their own executives and employees. Some analysts say public pressure over big pay gaps could lead talented chief executives to find other posts, for instance.

 MaryAnn G. Miller, chief human-resources officer of technology distributor Avnet Inc., expects the rule will require careful preparation to limit the effect on employee morale. “It will consume a fair amount of management’s time at the outset,’’ she said in an interview on Wednesday. But overall, the rule won’t be “very impactful to the business,” she added.

 Staffers at Avnet likely will worry more about how much less they make than the median employee than the CEO-worker ratio, Ms. Miller said. “That will be the bigger issue.’’ The firm has 19,000 employees in 53 countries. Avnet CEO Rick Hamada collected about $5.9 million in compensation during fiscal 2014.

 “ I don’t think the pay ratio is going to impact CEO pay. The level of [CEO] pay is really based on the market for talent. ” —Charlie Tharp, head of the Center on Executive Compensation

 Activist hedge funds have also been making an issue out of CEO pay, though from a different vantage point. These investors, who take stakes in companies and push for financial or strategic changes, don’t have a populist take on compensation and generally are happy to compensate executives for market-beating results. Rather, what concerns them is when CEOs are paid if they don’t, in the activist’s view, deliver for shareholders.

 Chip maker Qualcomm Inc. recently agreed to revamp its executive-pay practices as part of a settlement with activist hedge fund Jana Partners LLC. Qualcomm will tie bonuses more closely to shareholder returns, after Jana complained that prior yardsticks of revenue and operating income had encouraged scattershot growth.

 The pay-ratio rule, which covers larger public companies with exemptions for some smaller and foreign-owned firms, includes fewer concessions than were sought by companies. It allows firms to exclude up to 5% of their non-U.S. workers from the new pay-ratio. Firms had pushed to exclude a larger percentage of foreign workers, which would likely have resulted in a narrower pay gap for some multinational firms.

 In general, firms only have to recalculate the pay ratio every three years. SEC staff estimated that the initial cost of complying with the rule for companies, collectively, will be about $1.3 billion—though they said the cost could be somewhat lower than that figure.

 Supporters include congressional Democrats and labor unions that pushed for the measure, saying the ratio disclosure will provide shareholders with pertinent information on how their money is being spent.

 Opponents contend the requirement at best provides no meaningful insight to investors and at worst offers a misleading picture of a company’s pay practices.

 The rule appears to be an attempt at a middle ground between what unions and the corporate community sought. For instance, the AFL-CIO had urged the SEC to bar companies from making adjustments in its calculations to turn part-time or seasonal workers into full-time equivalents.

 The commission’s endorsement of that approach “is a good thing,’’ said Heather Slavkin Corzo, director of the labor federation’s Office of Investment, in an interview on Wednesday.

 Some in the business community sought to play down the significance of the new requirement.

 Affected businesses will spend more time explaining “to employees at all levels how they set pay,’’ said Charlie Tharp, head of the Center on Executive Compensation, a Washington advocacy group for large employers.

 “I don’t think the pay ratio is going to impact CEO pay,’’ he said. “The level of [CEO] pay is really based on the market for talent.’’

 “I don’t sense this is going to be a big deal for investors,’’ Mr. Tharp added.

 —Liz Hoffman contributed to this article.

 Write to Victoria McGrane at victoria.mcgrane@wsj.com and Joann Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com.

Summary: – Those worried about income inequality will soon have some tangible new figures at their disposal: The SEC today ruled that public companies must start revealing the pay gap between the CEO and a typical worker, reports the Los Angeles Times. Specifically, companies have to disclose median employee compensation—the figure at which half their workers earn more and half earn less—and compare it to the CEO's salary starting in 2017, reports Bloomberg. The ratio must be updated every three years. The rule, mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law but never put in place, "should provide a valuable piece of information to investors" and help observers gauge how companies manage "human capital," says SEC Commissioner Kara Stein, per the Wall Street Journal. She and two fellow Democrats voted in favor, while the two Republicans on the commission voted against it. The rule is "pure applesauce," said GOP commissioner Daniel Gallagher, echoing Antonin Scalia's line about ObamaCare.


The post from a popular Twitter page called "Yes, You're Racist" points to Pete Tefft of Fargo.

 It's sparked thousands of retweets and likes, as well as many threats of violence.

 RELATED:

 Local family members also report being harassed.

 The 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville turned deadly this weekend when a man drove a car into a crowd that was protesting the white nationalists.

 One woman died and at least 19 others were hurt.

 In February, Tefft responded to flyers in downtown Fargo that called him a Nazi.

 In an video interview with The Forum, he said he was interested in political action to further pro-white interests.

 Statement by Jacob Scott, Pete Tefft's nephew:

 "In brief, we reject him wholly – both him personally as a vile person who has HIMSELF made violent threats against our family, and also his hideous ideology, which we abhor. We are all bleeding-heart liberals who believe in the fundamental equality of all human beings. Peter is a maniac, who has turned away from all of us and gone down some insane internet rabbit-hole, and turned into a crazy nazi. He scares us all, we don't feel safe around him, and we don't know how he came to be this way. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father."

 "Several members of our family have been being harassed or threatened by random strangers, due to our connection with Peter. I know in particular that Peter's sister... has been contacted or threatened at her workplace, under the assumption that she must be a nazi or endorse nazism. We also have some relatives who live in..., who have randomly found themselves attacked, including a... year old girl, my cousin, named... who has supposedly been messaged online by at least one random stranger in a threatening manner. Our relatives were calling us in a panic earlier today, demanding we delete all Facebook photos that connect us to them, etcetera."RELATED: ||||| We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?

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Summary: – The father of a self-described white nationalist who marched at Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., says his son is no longer welcome home. Pearce Tefft of Fargo, ND, posted the open letter on INFORUM Monday, writing that his son Peter’s values are not shared by his family. “I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful, and racist rhetoric and actions,” he wrote. “We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.” Peter was first identified by Twitter user Yes, You’re Racist in a grainy screengrab from a video taken during the rally, but he's also been interviewed by news outlets about his beliefs. Pearce said that Peter’s family members originally stayed silent about Peter’s white nationalist beliefs, but ultimately realized that was a mistake. “It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now,” Pearce writes, adding that unless his son renounces his “hateful beliefs,” he “is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer.” Peter Tefft's nephew also denounced Peter in a statement to WDAY: “He scares us all, we don’t feel safe around him, and we don’t know how he came to be this way.” Pearce ended his letter with a powerful response to a joke his son made about putting anti-fascists in ovens, writing: “Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.”


Hayes, who has spoken frankly about growing up in public housing and being the daughter of a drug addict, acknowledged her unlikely journey and the history-making quality of her campaign. She noted that she jumped into the race “102 days ago, with no money and no network.” ||||| Tim Pawlenty stands with his wife, Mary, background left, and running mate Michelle Fischbach as he concedes his run for governor at his election night gathering at Granite City Food and Brewery, Tuesday,... (Associated Press)

 ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Democrats embraced diversity Tuesday in a primary night of firsts, while Republicans in Minnesota rejected a familiar face of the GOP old guard in favor of a rising newcomer aligned with President Donald Trump.

 In Vermont, Democrats rallied behind the nation's first transgender nominee for governor. Minnesota Democrats backed a woman who would be the first Somali-American member of Congress. And in Connecticut, the party nominated a candidate who could become the first black woman from the state to serve in Congress.

 Still, Democrats in Minnesota also backed a national party leader who is facing accusations of domestic violence. He has denied the allegations, yet they threaten to undercut enthusiasm in his state and beyond.

 On the other side, Trump tightened his grip on the modern-day Republican Party as the turbulent 2018 primary season lurched toward its finale. A one-time Trump critic, former two-term Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, lost a comeback attempt he was expected to win.

 All but 10 states picked their candidates for November's general election by the time the day's final votes were counted. While the full political battlefield isn't quite set, the stakes are clear: Democrats are working to topple Republican control of Congress and governors' offices across the nation.

 Four states held primaries Tuesday: Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Kansas' gubernatorial primary, which was held last week, was finalized when Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer conceded defeat.

 In Minnesota, Republican County Commissioner Jeff Johnson defeated Pawlenty, who once called Trump "unhinged and unfit" and was hoping to regain his old post. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, endorsed just this week by Trump, won the right to seek a third term.

 The president's pick for Kansas governor, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, scored a delayed victory against Colyer, who became the first incumbent governor to fall this season.

 In Vermont, Democrat Christine Hallquist won the Democratic nomination in her quest to become the nation's first transgender governor. The former chief executive of Vermont Electric Cooperative bested a field of four Democrats that included a 14-year-old.

 While she made history on Tuesday, Hallquist faces a difficult path to the governor's mansion. Republican incumbent Phil Scott remains more popular with Democrats than members of his own party in the solidly liberal state.

 Vermont Democrats also nominated Sen. Bernie Sanders, who hasn't ruled out a second presidential run in 2020, for a third term in the Senate. The 76-year-old democratic socialist won the Democratic nomination, but he is expected to turn it down and run as an independent.

 Democrats appeared particularly motivated in Wisconsin, where eight candidates lined up for the chance to take on Walker.

 Walker's strong anti-union policies made him a villain to Democrats long before Trump's rise. State schools chief Tony Evers, who has clashed with Walker at times, won the Democratic nomination and will take on Walker this fall.

 Once a target of Trump criticism, Walker gained the president's endorsement in a tweet Monday night calling him "a tremendous Governor who has done incredible things for that Great State."

 Trump also starred, informally at least, in Wisconsin's Senate primaries as Republicans try to deny Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin a second term.

 Longtime state lawmaker Leah Vukmir, who was backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, won the Republican primary, even after struggling to explain footage recently unearthed from 2016 in which she called Trump "offensive to everyone."

 Tuesday's primaries served as a test of Democratic enthusiasm in the upper Midwest, a region that has long been associated with liberal politics but has been trending red. Trump won Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state since 1984.

 It was much the same in Minnesota, where Trump lost by less than 3 percentage points in a state that hasn't backed a Republican presidential contender since 1972.

 Nearly twice as many Minnesota Democrats as Republicans cast ballots in their parties' respective gubernatorial primaries.

 Pawlenty had been considered the heavy favorite in a two-person Republican contest for his old job. But he struggled to adapt to a GOP that had changed drastically since he left office in 2011 and flamed out early in a 2012 presidential bid.

 The former two-term governor strained to live down his October 2016 comment that Trump was "unhinged and unfit for the presidency," remarks that incensed many Republican voters in Minnesota and beyond. Johnson, his underfunded opponent, circulated Pawlenty's critique far and wide, telling voters that he was a steadfast supporter of the president.

 Johnson will face Democratic Rep. Tim Walz, who won a three-way race for his party's nomination.

 Three Minnesota women won Senate nominations, including incumbent Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.

 Smith, who had been appointed to replace disgraced Democrat Al Franken, will face Republican state Sen. Karin Housley, ensuring a woman will hold the seat once held by Franken, who left Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward women.

 Nationwide, a record number of women are running this year for governor and Congress.

 Meanwhile, a new scandal threatened to dampen Democratic enthusiasm.

 Rep. Keith Ellison, the Democratic National Committee's deputy chairman, captured his party's nomination in the race to become the state's attorney general. That's after Ellison's candidacy was rocked by allegations over the weekend of domestic violence amid a broader national outcry against sexual misconduct by powerful men in business, entertainment and politics.

 Ellison has denied a former girlfriend's allegations that he dragged her off a bed while screaming obscenities during a 2016 relationship she said was plagued by "narcissistic abuse."

 Also in Minnesota, Democrat Ilhan Omar, the nation's first Somali-American legislator, won her party's congressional primary in the race to replace Ellison.

 In Connecticut, Republican businessman Bob Stefanowski emerged from a field of five Republicans seeking to replace the unpopular outgoing governor, Democrat Dan Malloy. Former gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont won the Democratic nomination.

 Connecticut Democrats picked a former teacher of the year, Jahana Hayes, to run for the seat vacated by Rep. Elizabeth Etsy, who is leaving Congress after bungling sexual abuse claims levied against a former staffer. Hayes could become the first black woman from the state to serve in Congress.

 ___

 Peoples reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin contributed to this report. ||||| Tony Evers speaks after his win in Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary election during an event at Best Western Premier Park Hotel in Madison on Tuesday. (Photo: Associated Press)

 MADISON - Tony Evers won an eight-way Democratic primary Tuesday, setting up a November showdown between the state's education chief and GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

 "We’re going to win because we're going to hold Scott Walker accountable for his reign of terror," Evers told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shortly after the Associated Press called the race for him based on unofficial returns.

 Walker handily won his own primary against a political unknown, Sun Prairie businessman Robert Meyer, who raised just $270 in the first half of the year.

 In a string of posts on Twitter, Walker touted the state's record-low unemployment rate, his cuts to income taxes and property taxes, and his program to shore up premiums for those who buy insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces,

 CLOSE Gov. Scott Walker will face Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin will face state Sen. Leah Vukmir. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

 "Wisconsin is working — and we are moving the state forward with our bold reforms that are having a positive impact across the state," Walker wrote.

 Unemployment has hit a record low, and we’ve been below the previous record low of 3 percent for 5 straight months. More people are working in Wisconsin than ever before. — Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) August 15, 2018

 The primary came a day after President Donald Trump — who at times has criticized Walker — tweeted that the Wisconsin governor "has done incredible things for that Great State" and had Trump's "complete & total Endorsement."

 Scott Walker of Wisconsin is a tremendous Governor who has done incredible things for that Great State. He has my complete & total Endorsement! He brought the amazing Foxconn to Wisconsin with its 15,000 Jobs-and so much more. Vote for Scott on Tuesday in the Republican Primary! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018

 As the primary wrapped up, the general election kicked off, with the state Republican Party making plans to spend nearly $500,000 on TV and digital ads attacking Evers that will begin airing Thursday.

 On Wednesday, Walker plans to visit La Crosse, Eau Claire, Schofield, Green Bay and Waukesha, while Evers will be in Madison, Appleton and Waukesha. Both are scheduled to travel the state later in the week, as well.

 With Trump in the White House and liberal enthusiasm rising, Democrats view Walker as vulnerable.

 Republicans see Walker as strongly positioned in part because of his huge financial advantage. At the end of July, Walker had $4.9 million in his campaign account, 31 times as much as Evers had at that point.

 RELATED: It's Tony Evers vs. Scott Walker: 5 takeaways from the 2018 Wisconsin primary election

 ELECTION RESULTS:Wisconsin and Milwaukee-area fall primary election

 FULL COVERAGE: 2018 Wisconsin Elections

 On the issues, the Democrats have been largely united, with most of them saying they would end the $4 billion taxpayer-funded incentive package for Foxconn Technology Group, legalize marijuana, expand access to health care, boost spending on roads and schools, and scale back Act 10, the 2011 law that all but eliminated collective bargaining for public workers.

 Those stances put them in agreement with one another but deeply at odds with Walker, who has championed the Foxconn deal, his tax cuts and the state's economy. Walker opposes legalizing marijuana, has sought to overturn Obamacare and has fought with his fellow Republicans to prevent gas taxes from going up to fund roads.

 "He's got a bad record on roads, you name it," Evers said. "I'm equally concerned that we as Democrats provide a positive vision for the future and it starts with education and it intersects with all other areas and we’re going to take it to him."

 Jon Thompson, a spokesman for the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement that Democrats had chosen a "far-left, big-government politician committed to raising taxes and opposing job creation."

 “As the state’s top education official, Evers has consistently failed Wisconsin students, and opposed Governor Walker’s successful efforts to spur job growth throughout the state," his statement said.

 Evers established himself early on as the front-runner, though there were so many undecided voters that it seemed possible one of his challengers could overtake him. But no one else was able to consolidate support.

 In a Marquette University Law School poll last month, 31% of likely Democratic voters backed Evers and 38% were undecided.

 DATA ON DEMAND: Contributions to the 2018 candidates for governor

 Following Evers in that poll were firefighters union President Mahlon Mitchell (6%); state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma (6%); former state Democratic Party Chairman Matt Flynn (5%); Madison Mayor Paul Soglin (4%); liberal activist Mike McCabe (3%); former state Rep. Kelda Roys of Madison (3%); and attorney Josh Pade (0%).

 Since then, Evers, Flynn, Mitchell, Soglin and Roys began running ads.

 Buy Photo A voter makes his way to vote at South Shore Terrace on Tuesday. (Photo: Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

 All the Democrats were expected to spend virtually all their money to get through the primary, which will widen their financial gap with Walker, at least temporarily.

 Recognizing that, the Democratic Governors Association set up a plan to provide the nominee with post-primary advice and a financial network that Evers can now quickly tap. That won’t eliminate the fundraising gap, but Democrats hope it will mitigate it enough that Evers can withstand an expected avalanche of GOP ads.

 "We know they are going to carpet bomb us — that is his M.O.," Evers said of Walker. "He likes to divide people."

 RELATED: Dems plan to quickly pivot to general election to avoid being caught flat-footed in Wisconsin governor's race

 The primary came two days after Trump put Walker and other Republicans in an awkward spot by tweeting that he thought a boycott of Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson Inc. would be "great" because the company is moving some production overseas.

 The company says it is doing so because of new European tariffs that came in response to Trump's tariffs. Trump has disputed that, saying the company would have shifted jobs overseas even without the tariffs.

 Walker said Monday he opposed a Harley boycott but supported Trump's goal of eventually eliminating tariffs. The break with Trump on the boycott didn't appear to hurt his standing with Trump, who praised Walker on Twitter less than five hours later.

 Evers cast Walker as beholden to Trump in his victory speech.

 "Donald Trump will no longer have a doormat here in Wisconsin," Evers said.

 RELATED: Scott Walker and GOP Senate candidates say they oppose a Harley boycott after avoiding the issue

 Evers, first elected in 2009, was the only Democrat in the field who has held statewide office. His background in education gives him a chance to go after Walker on an issue that Democrats see as a weak spot for the governor.

 His current title could cut the other way as well. Walker’s team, for instance, has noted that Evers called Walker’s last state budget “kid-friendly,” possibly limiting how effective Evers could be in arguing against Walker’s funding for schools.

 Democratic candidates for Wisconsin governor: (Top row, left to right) Tony Evers, Paul Soglin, Josh Pade and Kathleen Vinehout. (Bottom row, left to right) Kelda Roys, Mike McCabe, Mahlon Mitchell and Matt Flynn. (Photo: handouts from candidates)

 Flynn told Evers at a forum last week that Walker would "have you for lunch" because of his "kid-friendly" comment.

 But on Tuesday, Flynn praised Evers and said he would work with him to defeat Walker. Other Democratic candidates joined in trying to unite the party.

 Evers did not go as far as his Democratic opponents on some issues. For instance, he is the only Democrat to oppose making the state’s technical colleges free. And unlike many of his colleagues, he did not embrace legalizing marijuana outright, saying he would do so only if voters approved of the idea in a statewide referendum.

 Buy Photo Arline Jasinski feeds her ballot as poll worker Richard Koehler looks on at Franklin City Hall. (Photo: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

 Lieutenant governor

 In the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, former state Rep. Mandela Barnes of Milwaukee appeared on track to defeat Sheboygan businessman Kurt Kober.

 Barnes will be paired with Evers on the November ballot. Incumbent Republican Rebecca Kleefisch did not have a challenger in the primary.

 State treasurer

 Businessman Travis Hartwig beat Jill Millies in the Republican primary for state treasurer.

 The Democratic primary hadn't been called as of 10:20 p.m. Competing in that race were businesswoman Sarah Godlewski, former communications director for the Office of the state Treasurer Cynthia Kaump and former Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass.

 Secretary of state

 Secretary of State Doug La Follette easily withstood a challenge in the Democratic primary from Madison Ald. Arvina Martin.

 La Follette will face Republican businessman Jay Schroeder in November. Schroeder beat U.S. Air Force veteran Spencer Zimmerman.

 Max Bayer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

 For complete election coverage, subscribe to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

 Support local journalism SUBSCRIBE ×

 Read or Share this story: https://jsonl.in/2MtmvO7 ||||| [Read more about Republican governors in Democratic states.]

 Mr. Scott’s popularity fell, however, especially among conservatives, after he signed gun control measures this year. Still, a poll in July by public media organizations in the state found two-thirds of Vermonters supported the law, and nearly half of Democrats had a favorable opinion of Mr. Scott. Only 18 percent of Democratic respondents in the same poll said they had a favorable opinion of Ms. Hallquist, and 55 percent did not yet know who she was.

 That may change now that Ms. Hallquist is the nominee, and she is likely to draw national attention — and fund-raising dollars — because of the historic potential of her candidacy. “She’ll raise more money and her message will get out there more,” said Eric Davis, an emeritus professor at Vermont’s Middlebury College. “Even if she doesn’t get elected governor, the greatest contribution of her campaign could be to raise awareness about the issues transgender people face.”

 Before she ran for governor, Ms. Hallquist spent 12 years as the chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative, an in-state power utility that she helped to bring back from near ruin. Her transition from male to female took place in 2015, while she was at the helm of the company, and was the subject of a documentary film made by her son.

 As a candidate, she made it part of her stump speech, drawing knowing laughs from her female supporters at a fund-raiser this summer as she talked about what it was like to experience life as a woman for the first time.

 “I remember the first time after transitioning, a stranger walking by told me to smile — I’m like, ‘Who the heck are you to tell me to smile?’” Ms. Hallquist said. “What my transition has taught me is just how far we have to go.” ||||| Despite a late-breaking accusation of abuse from an ex-girlfriend, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) has won the Democratic nomination for attorney general. With 34 percent of precincts reporting, he was running far ahead of four other candidates, including Mark Pelikan, a young attorney who won the party endorsement at its summer convention.

 Ellison is likely to face Republican Doug Wardlow, a former state legislator, for a job that no Republican has won since the 1970s. Republicans had planned to invest in the race even before this weekend, when Kate Monahan, whom Ellison had dated until 2016, shared social media posts that accused the congressman of emotional and physical abuse. ||||| U.S. Sen. Tina Smith beat Richard Painter, once the ethics chief in a Republican White House, in the DFL primary election Tuesday, setting up the state’s first U.S. Senate race with two women nominees.

 State Sen. Karin Housley, who won the Republican nomination, will face Smith in the fall. “It’s inspiring for all young women out there that they can make a difference,” Housley said of the historic matchup.

 Smith agreed. “It is a year when women feel particularly enthusiastic about stepping into the public arena, and I think that’s a good thing,” she said in an interview.

 Two women who won primaries Tuesday in Wisconsin also will square off in that state’s U.S. Senate race. A record-breaking 19 women have won major-party nominations for the U.S. Senate this year, according to Rutgers University’s Center for American Women in Politics.

 The Minnesota winner on Nov. 6 will finish the final two years of former DFL Sen. Al Franken’s term. He resigned in January amid sexual misconduct allegations. The race is crucial; Senate Republicans have a one-vote edge.

 Smith’s victory was “a testament to the trust that Minnesota voters have in Tina to represent their interests,” DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement.

 Sen. Tina Smith

 Chris Hansen, director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Housley “has what it takes to end left-wing Democrat Tina Smith’s brief career” in the Senate.

 Sen. Amy Klobuchar won the Democratic nomination easily over four little-known opponents. In her bid for a third term, she’ll face state Rep. Jim Newberger of Becker, who has served three terms in the state Legislature. He defeated three Republican candidates in the primary.

 Smith attributed her win to the fact that she “really listened to people.” She’ll employ the same strategy against Housley, she said. “The way elections are won in Minnesota is by talking to people and sharing what’s on their minds,” Smith said. “It sounds so simple, but it really is the thing that works.”

 Housley said she’ll continue in the fall campaign to work hard and talk about jobs, the economy, trade issues’ effect on farmers, and immigration. “I will continue to support our elders,” she added.

 She’s confident about her chances against Smith. “I am going to win,” she said.

 Smith, 60, was appointed to the seat by Gov. Mark Dayton, whom she had served as lieutenant governor since 2015. Before that, she was the DFL governor’s chief of staff. She was endorsed by the DFL.

 Housley, 54, is from St. Marys Point. She was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 2012 and in 2014 lost a race for lieutenant governor.

 Painter, 56, who announced in April that he was leaving the Republican Party, is a University of Minnesota law professor. He was the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007.

 Painter said his campaign helped call attention to ethics issues and to single-payer health care, which he endorsed. “We got a lot of attention around the country,” he said in an interview. He’ll resume teaching, Painter said. Asked if he’d consider running for office again, he said, “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

 Voters interviewed at the polls Tuesday said their decisions in the Smith-Painter race turned on support for his animosity toward President Donald Trump — whom he said should be impeached — or doubts about whether his DFL conversion was genuine.

 In late July, the DFL’s Martin publicly questioned whether Painter is actually a Democrat. Martin described Painter’s candidacy as “a craven act of desperation” because he is out of sync with the Republican Party. At the time, Painter said the DFL assault proved he was “a true threat to win this election.”

 West Foster, 24, of Minneapolis, who works for a nonprofit group, voted for Smith. “I vote as far left as I can, and I’m not too impressed with Republicans — whether they say they are or not,” he said.

 Paul Nelson, 50, a self-employed contractor in Minneapolis, was tempted by Painter, but he voted for Smith. “I’m a party guy,” he said.

 When Housley and Smith meet in November, Trump’s policies and the senator’s record will be the top issues.

 Smith has pledged to “stand up” to Trump. However, she has said she doesn’t think voters “want to hear us only talking about what we don’t like about this president.”

 Housley has tried to establish some distance between her views and style and those of the president. For example, she said this summer that she disagreed with his decision to separate immigrant families.

 Painter’s candidacy forced Smith to focus on wooing DFL voters. Meanwhile, GOP-endorsed Housley — who faced two candidates in the primary — made Smith her sole target.

 Housley made frequent references to the “failed Dayton-Smith administration,” citing MNsure and the beleaguered vehicle registration system.

 Cook Political Report, which handicaps campaigns, rates the race as a likely Democratic win. So do Inside Elections and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. All three groups are nonpartisan.

 The fall campaign is sure to become an expensive national battlefield, with outside TV ads flooding the airwaves and national interest groups’ money flowing into the race.

 As of June 30, Smith had raised $4.8 million and Housley had collected $1.8 million.

 Retired nurse Patricia Cohen, 75, voted in Minneapolis for Smith and Klobuchar because of their support for abortion rights. “There’s an assault on women’s privacy and the right to plan their families,” she said. “For me that’s one of the defining issues of our time.”

 Kerry Riley, 41, a photographer and wardrobe stylist from Minneapolis, said her vote for Smith was less vital than showing up to vote — especially in the current political climate. “You have to,” she said.

Summary: – In a historic moment for the transgender rights movement, former power company exec Christine Hallquist won the Democratic primary for Vermont governor Tuesday, becoming the first transgender candidate from a major party to win a gubernatorial primary. Hallquist, who transitioned from male to female in 2015, was chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative before entering politics, the New York Times reports. Annise Parker of the LGBTQ Victory Fund praised the victory as a "defining moment," though she added that Hallquist won "not because of her gender identity, but because she is an open and authentic candidate ... who speaks to the issues most important to voters." In other results: Vermont also nominated Sen. Bernie Sanders to seek a third term, the AP reports. He won the Democratic primary, but is expected to run as an independent again. In Minnesota, Sen. Tina Smith defeated Richard Painter, George W. Bush's former ethics counsel, in the Democratic primary, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. In November, she will face Republican state Sen. Karin Housley in a race to decide who will finish the last two years of former Sen. Al Franken's term. Rep. Keith Ellison has won the Democratic primary for Minnesota attorney general despite allegations of domestic violence involving an ex-girlfriend that surfaced days before the election, the Washington Post reports. He placed far ahead of the other four candidates in the race, and is expected to face Republican former state lawmaker Doug Wardlow in November. In Wisconsin, Democrat Tony Evers won an eight-way gubernatorial primary and promised to end Republican Gov. Scott Walker's "reign of terror," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Walker, who is seeking a third term, cruised to victory in the GOP primary. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who once called President Trump "unhinged and unfit for the presidency," was trying to get his old job back but lost the GOP primary to pro-Trump candidate Jeff Johnson, the AP reports. Former National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes won the Democratic primary for the House seat being vacated by scandal-plagued Rep. Elizabeth Esty, the Hartford Courant reports. If she wins in November, Hayes will be the first black Democrat from New England elected to the House.


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 Chris Detrick | Tribune file photo A bill advanced to the full House on Monday would limit liability of gun makers and manufactu Scott Sommerdorf | Tribune file photo Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, is proposing legislation that would create a pilot progr ||||| Gun-safety courses could be offered to students as young as 13 in Utah if a state senator succeeds in adding a voluntary course to next year’s curriculum.

 Sen. Todd Weiler, a Republican representing the city of Woods Cross, has proposed a pilot program in Utah schools that would provide eighth-grade students with information on firearm safety and violence prevention. Late last month, he introduced State Bill 43, “Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention in Public Schools,” and the state’s financial analysts are considering the proposal.

 “I think it’s always helpful for children and adults to think through what you would do in a situation before you encounter it,” Mr. Weilertold The Salt Lake Tribune. “Unfortunately, it is probably a necessary reality in the society we live in these days.”

 If his colleagues in the Legislature agree, Utah could green-light the senator’s plan to put $75,000 toward a program that would teach mostly 13- and 14-year-olds what to do if they ever come across a firearm.

 “Even if someone doesn’t have a gun in their home,” Mr. Weiler told The Tribune, “odds are very likely that a neighbor or a friend’s parents do.”

 No actual firearms would be used in the course, and students would need a parent or guardian’s signature before they could participate, he said.

 After a wave of mass shootings, however, the class wouldn’t end with basic firearm dos and don’ts, the senator said. In addition, Mr. Weiler said, students would be taught how to respond in the event they end up face to face with a gunman.

 Late last month, authorities in Plain City, Utah, arrested a 16-year-old who was suspected of bringing a gun to school to shoot a classmate.

 “If we’re going to talk about guns while we’re in school, I think it would be silly not to be able to mention something about an active-shooter situation,” he said.

 If the plan is approved, the state attorney general’s office would hammer out the details of the course in collaboration with the State Board of Education and the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee. Mr. Weiler’s proposal, as written, calls for getting the pilot program off the ground during fiscal 2017.

 President Obama announced Tuesday a suite of executive actions he is implementing on a federal level in an attempt to curb gun violence nationwide.

 “Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been shot to death protecting their communities,” the White House said in a statement Monday. “And too many children are killed or injured by firearms every year, often by accident.”

Summary: – Utah's eighth-graders may soon add gun safety and active shooter preparation to their traditional math and English classes. Republican Sen. Todd Weiler introduced the "Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention in Public Schools" bill last month, the Washington Times reports. If passed, it would require schools to teach gun safety and what to do in case of a shooter to all eighth-graders. "I think it's always helpful for children and adults to think through what you would do in a situation before you encounter it," Weiler tells the Salt Lake Tribune. "Unfortunately, it is probably a necessary reality in the society we live in these days." The bill would be funded with $75,000 from the state attorney general's office. If passed, it would be implemented in 2017, the Times reports. The program wouldn't teach 13-year-olds to use guns; instead instructing them what to do if they come across a gun, the Tribune reports. "There will be no guns in the classrooms," Weiler says. "It's more, if you happen to encounter a gun, this is what you should and shouldn't do." He says the bill was inspired by how many children accidentally shoot someone. According to the Times, the White House made a similar point in a statement Monday: "Too many children are killed or injured by firearms every year, often by accident.” The active-shooter preparation would be secondary to gun safety, Weiler tells the Tribune. "If we're going to talk about guns while we're in school, I think it would be silly not to be able to mention something about an active shooter situation," he says.


The father of a student killed during February's school shooting in Parkland, Fla., put a bulletproof vest on the “Fearless Girl” statue in New York on Friday to protest mass shootings in America.

 Manuel Oliver, whose son, Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, was one of 17 people killed inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day, placed the vest on the statue to create “#FearfulGirl,” according to a statement.

 The vest stayed on the statue for one hour before it was peacefully removed.

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 “The Fearless Girl is undeniably brave, but bravery isn’t bulletproof,” Oliver's group, Change the Ref, said in a Friday statement.

 The sculpture by Kristen Visbal was placed in front of the “Charging Bull” last year before International Women’s Day 2017, and has since become a popular tourist attraction.

 Officials said earlier this year that it will be moved to a safer location for spectators, away from its crowded original location on Broadway Avenue.

 Manuel Oliver has made several art installations in the wake of the Parkland shooting to protest gun violence, including depicting President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump pauses Missouri campaign rally after woman collapses Fox News hosts join Trump on stage at Missouri campaign rally Nate Silver in final midterm projections: 'Democrats need a couple of things to go wrong' to lose the House MORE as a ringleader of a circus outside the annual National Rifle Association convention in May.

 He unveiled a life-size, 3D-printed sculpture of his son in Times Square last week to protest the legality of 3D-printed guns.

 The figure is dressed how Joaquin Oliver was dressed on the day he died and was personalized with accessories to depict his character.

 “You won’t see me in line in Washington, D.C. waiting to talk to a legislator to try to tell him what’s going on with my family,” he said. “I’d rather do this,” he said of his art. ||||| In New York’s Times Square today, artist Manuel Oliver unveiled what he calls the world’s first "3D-printed activist," a life-size rendition of his son, Joaquin. Oliver said the piece is a statement to combat the use of 3D printers to make firearms.

 Joaquin was one of the victims in the Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen students and faculty were killed that day when a former student allegedly opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle.

 ABC News

 After his death, Joaquin’s parents, Manuel and Patricia, founded the nonprofit “Change the Ref” to empower young people to get involved in issues impacting the country. In an interview with ABC News, Manuel said the nonprofit’s name came from a conversation he had with Joaquin a few months before he was shot.

 Instagram

 Joaquin had been frustrated with a series of bad calls a referee made during a basketball game. This inspired Joaquin and his father to call the recreational league to ask to have the referee switched for someone who would judge the game more fairly. Since his son's death, Manuel and Patricia have extended that ideology beyond the basketball court.

 ABC News

 "This is the first time since February that I can see an image of my son standing next to me. Not a good feeling, but the idea here is to make it a powerful moment for the rest of you," Manuel said at the event today.

 ABC News

 Manuel went on to say that even though he and his wife can't do anything to bring their son back, their work is "for the rest of the families who can still do something about it."

 ABC News

 This installation was a statement against gun violence and to encourage voter turnout for the November midterm elections. ||||| New York City’s “Fearless Girl” statue was transformed into a “Fearful Girl” on Friday morning in a powerful protest against gun violence.

 The bronze statue in Manhattan’s financial district sported a new addition Friday morning: a bulletproof vest that read “#FEARFULGIRL.” The demonstration was created by Change the Ref, a gun control advocacy group founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin died in February in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

 “She can’t be fearless if she’s afraid to go to school,” CTR tweeted Friday morning with a photo of the statue wearing the bulletproof vest.

 Manuel Oliver told HuffPost that he and his wife put the vest on Kristen Visbal’s iconic statue early Friday and stood next to her as people commuted to work and tourists swarmed the area.

 “They saw the girl with the bulletproof vest and they also saw us,” Oliver said. “So, some of them will be realizing that there is a chance that it could happen to them. I really hope that society understands that they don’t need to go through what we’re going through.”

Summary: – A New York City statue went from "fearless" to "fearful" Friday—at least for an hour. Manuel Oliver, the father of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin "Guac" Oliver, 17, placed a bulletproof vest on the renowned "Fearless Girl" statue near Wall Street to protest America's mass shootings, the Hill reports. The vest, removed an hour later, read simply, "#FearfulGirl." "She can't be fearless if she's afraid to go to school," tweeted Change the Ref, a gun-control group started by Manuel and his wife Patricia Oliver, per Huffington Post. In October, Oliver unveiled a 3D-printed statue of his son holding a flower to protest 3D-printed firearms, ABC News reported. (The statue is slated to be moved later this year.)


How the company, and Ms. Bresch, strikes that balance seems to be quickly changing. Generic drug companies once dealt almost exclusively in making cheap copies of pills and railed passionately against the anticompetitive tactics of brand-name competitors. Now, through a series of acquisitions and mergers, the handful of large generic companies that are left are increasingly investing in expensive brand-name drugs, and in doing so, are embracing many of the tactics they once scorned.

 “It’s like talking out of both sides of your mouth,” said Dinesh Thakur, an advocate for generic drug quality. “To me, I think, it’s opportunistic.”

 In the interview, Ms. Bresch said the company’s latest actions would do the most to help patients where it mattered, by reducing their out-of-pocket costs. And she said that the $600 list price was necessary for the company to recoup its investment in the EpiPen, which includes raising awareness for severe allergic reaction and making improvements to the way the product works.

 But she also sought to shift blame away from Mylan, saying that patients are feeling the pain in part because insurers have increased the amount that customers must pay in recent years.

 “What else do you shop for that when you walk up to the counter, you have no idea what it’s going to cost you?” she said. “Tell me where that happens anywhere else in the system. It’s unconscionable.”

 To some, the company’s response seemed to ring hollow. “It’s a real challenge to understand how a management team sits around a board table and makes a decision to raise the price of a lifesaving medication over and over and over, and when the P.R. storm hits, decides to blame someone else for that price increase,” said David Maris, an analyst for Wells Fargo. He had warned investors in June that Mylan’s price increases on EpiPen and other drugs could soon draw unwanted media scrutiny.

 The company is not a stranger to controversy. Robert J. Coury, Mylan’s chairman who served as chief executive until 2011, came under scrutiny in 2012 for using the company’s corporate jet to travel to his son’s music concerts. And last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that one of the board members had undisclosed ties to the land where the company built its new Pittsburgh offices. ||||| HERTFORDSHIRE, England and PITTSBURGH, Feb. 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ, TASE: MYL) today announced that Mylan CEO Heather Bresch has been elected to serve as chair of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association's (GPhA) board of directors. GPhA is an association that represents the world's leading generic drug manufacturers and suppliers and plays a critical role in tackling key issues affecting the generics industry and shaping policies that help ensure patients have access to high quality, affordable medicines.

 Bresch said: "In the decade since serving my last term as chair of GPhA, the generics industry has evolved significantly within an increasingly globalized market. Never has there been a greater need for our association to lead the way in shaping policy that expands access to high quality generic medicines and biosimilars, which is why I've committed to return to the role of chair and work with our industry's leaders to influence positive change to our healthcare system.

 "The value that the generic drug industry brings to the U.S. healthcare system is indisputable. Today, generic drugs fill 88% of the prescriptions dispensed in the U.S., but consume only 28% of the total drug spending. Yet, the harsh reality is that some of the numerous challenges we currently face could limit patient access to generic medicine and debilitate our generics industry which serves as a critical solution to the nation's healthcare challenge.

 "In today's political climate, no matter how strong each of us may be at an individual company level, it's important for us to stand strongly together with a unified voice for the good of our shared mission of advancing access to more affordable medicine.

 "I would like to recognize GPhA's outgoing board officers Craig Wheeler, Doug Boothe and the dedicated staff at GPhA for the critical role they have played to date in continuing to advance our industry's efforts to improve healthcare in the U.S. I am energized by the vision and experience GPhA President and CEO Chip Davis is bringing to further the association's role in Washington and beyond, and I look forward to working with the team and our industry's executives in continuing these efforts."

 Bresch's term as chair of GPhA will last for one year. Previously, she served two one-year terms as the chair of the association in 2004 and 2005 and two one-year terms as vice chair in 2003 and 2006.

 Mylan is a global pharmaceutical company committed to setting new standards in healthcare. Working together around the world to provide 7 billion people access to high quality medicine, we innovate to satisfy unmet needs; make reliability and service excellence a habit; do what's right, not what's easy; and impact the future through passionate global leadership. We offer a growing portfolio of more than 1,400 generic and branded pharmaceuticals, including antiretroviral therapies on which nearly 50% of people being treated for HIV/AIDS in the developing world depend. We market our products in approximately 165 countries and territories. Our global R&D and manufacturing platform includes more than 50 facilities, and we are one of the world's largest producers of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Every member of our nearly 35,000-strong workforce is dedicated to creating better health for a better world, one person at a time. Learn more at mylan.com.

 SOURCE Mylan N.V. ||||| W.Va.U. embroiled in scandal over degree for gov's daughter MORGANTOWN, W.Va.  This is not how West Virginia University wanted to build its national reputation. Six months after his inauguration, President Mike Garrison is struggling to hold his administration together -- and keep his job -- amid a scandal that erupted after the school granted Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter a master's degree she didn't earn. Two top university officials resigned last weekend over their part in the episode. Major donors have canceled plans to donate millions. Members of the Faculty Senate are planning a no-confidence vote on Garrison next week. And critics inside and outside the university have demanded the president resign over what appears to be an instance in which political pull influenced the awarding of a degree. "If you have smart officials, they know this would be one of the quickest ways to ruin the reputation of the university," said Thomas Morawetz, a professor and authority on ethics at the University of Connecticut law school. "It is a serious violation of norms." With more than 27,000 students, West Virginia is the pride of a state where people say they "bleed blue and gold." Mountaineer alumni include the governor and NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West. The university has helped generations of West Virginians -- many of them the sons and daughters of coal miners and steelworkers -- lift themselves up in a poor state. But it also perennially ranks among the nation's top party schools. Now some fear the scandal threatens the university's effort to improve its academic reputation and turn itself into a national research powerhouse. Garrison himself has made high-tech research a priority, successfully lobbying the state Legislature for a multimillion-dollar "bucks for brains" program. An editorial in the student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, said the administration has "trivialized all degrees this university has awarded and will award." "I suppose this is the price paid for attending a university with such an intimate connection to its state, a final reminder of how dirty West Virginia can be, and not just from the coal dust of economic fallout," student columnist Chad Wilcox wrote separately. The scandal cracked wide open last week after an investigative panel issued a report saying the university showed "seriously flawed" judgment last fall in retroactively awarding an executive master's of business administration degree to Heather Bresch, who attended the school in 1998 but did not earn enough credits. The panel said the business school gave Bresch credit for classes she didn't take, and assigned grades "simply pulled from thin air," giving her special treatment because of who she is. The degree has since been rescinded. The governor, a Democrat, has denied exerting any pressure and said he first learned of the dispute only after it became a news story. Bresch told The Associated Press that she believes she did nothing wrong. Bresch, 38, is not only the governor's daughter. She is chief operating officer of generic drug maker Mylan Inc., a major West Virginia benefactor with a lab in Morgantown that employs about 2,000 people. Mylan was one of the companies that raised the money to create the Executive MBA program, which is for full-time executives. Mylan's chairman, Milan "Mike" Puskar, is a Manchin supporter and one of West Virginia's biggest contributors. The business school deanship is endowed in Puskar's name, and the football stadium was named for him after he donated $20 million in 2003. Bresch is also a friend and former high school and West Virginia classmate of Garrison. He, in turn, worked for Democratic former Gov. Bob Wise and was once a Mylan lobbyist. Now, Garrison -- who was a 38-year-old lawyer with much stronger political credentials than academic ones when he was tapped for the presidency -- finds himself the target of critics among the faculty, alumni and the state Republican Party. Garrison should resign, and "he needs to take all his cronies with him," said GOP chairman Dr. Doug McKinney. "They've shown there's entirely too much connection between the statehouse and the president's office." One philanthropic group, the McGee Foundation, has dropped plans to donate $1 million in cash and an additional $1 million worth of art, and other, smaller donors have threatened similar action, officials said. Garrison said this week that he will not resign. "I was not involved in any way in the decision," he said. And the university Board of Governors -- which hired him and has the power to fire him -- issued a statement affirming its "full support" of Garrison. The governor also said he believes Garrison should not step down. The resignations of Provost Gerald Lang and R. Stephen Sears, dean of the business school, have not satisfied the most vocal of the critics, particularly since Lang and Sears will remain as tenured professors, with Lang earning nearly $200,000 a year and Sears almost $160,000. Lang presided over the meeting last October during which Sears made the final decision to grant the governor's daughter a degree. "It's nice that the dean and provost were offered up as sacrificial lambs, but the cancer is still there," said Peter Kalis, a lawyer and 1972 graduate. He said Garrison and the chairman of the Board of Governors must go, too, if the university is to "reclaim its independence and integrity." The scandal is not the first major crisis of Garrison's young administration: Football coach Rich Rodriguez abruptly left in December for a job at Michigan, complaining that the university broke a promise to give him greater control over the football program. Rodriguez and West Virginia are now locked in bitter public feud and a lawsuit over a penalty clause in his contract that says he owes the university $4 million for leaving early. Rodriguez claims Garrison had assured him privately that he would not enforce the clause; Garrison denies that. On Thursday morning, protesters showed up for a speech on campus by former President Clinton. "Mountaineers always free; Mountaineers earn degrees; Garrison must go," read one sign. Another sign bore a drawing of a diploma and the words: "Free while they last." ___ Tom Breen contributed to this report from Charleston, W.Va. (This version CORRECTS wording on protester's sign.) Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Enlarge by Dale Sparks, AP In this April 23, 2008 file photo, West Virginia University President Michael Garrison listens to a charge being read by West Virginia Board of Governors chairman Stephen Goodwin during open session at West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va. Garrison is facing public scrutiny over the handling of an MBA degree awarded to Heather Bresch, daughter of Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin. (AP Photo/Dale Sparks, File)

Summary: – Is Mylan CEO Heather Bresch the next Martin Shkreli? Based on public reaction to the bloated costs of her company's EpiPen, the 671% pay raise she's reaped as those costs rose, and the recently publicized fact that her dad is a US Senator, the initial answer may seem to be "yes." But the woman the New York Times calls America's "new pharmaceutical villain" refutes comparisons to the roundly reviled Shkreli, noting to the paper that Mylan's price spikes aren't in the "same hemisphere" as that of Shkreli's Daraprim and freely admitting hers is a for-profit business. "I am not hiding from that," she says. And some note she has, to an extent, helped bring about positive change in the industry: The director of the Knowledge Ecology International NGO, for example, says Bresch helped his group fight TPP provisions that would have made it more difficult for people overseas to obtain certain drugs. The admittedly brash Bresch says high EpiPen prices are necessary to pay back the company for the expensive investment it's made in the device. She adds that the health insurance industry is also to blame, calling its raising of fees that consumers have to foot "unconscionable." But the Times notes other questionable items swirling around Bresch—including her receiving a since-rescinded MBA from West Virginia University without earning it, as well as Mylan's 2014 tax-sheltering move to the Netherlands. And some are calling her hypocritical, considering she was recently elected to head the board of directors of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, whose mission is to help patients gain access to affordable, high-quality meds, per a release. "It's like talking out of both sides of your mouth," a generic drug advocate notes to the Times of the increasingly monopolistic practices of companies like Mylan. (We don't know how Sarah Jessica Parker feels about Bresch, but we know how she feels about Mylan.)


Harshing on Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Lionsgate Films), the awkwardly titled Lee Daniels adaptation of an "urban fiction" best-seller, makes a critic feel almost as mean-spirited as Mary, the monstrously abusive mother of the film's eponymous heroine. Parked in front of the TV in the grim Harlem walk-up they share, Mary (played with a fearsome lack of vanity by stand-up comedian Mo'Nique) pelts her 16-year-old daughter, Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), with cruel insults, imperious commands, and, whenever possible, heavy airborne objects. "I ain't done nothin'!" Precious protests, and the movie is at pains to prove her right: For the first hour at least, Precious is less a person who does things than an object to which things are done. Her absentee father, seen only once in a nauseating flashback sequence, rapes her on a regular basis; at 16, she's pregnant with his second child. Her daughter, who has Down syndrome, lives with a coldly disapproving grandmother; their visits last just long enough to fool the welfare inspector into issuing Mary's next check. In addition to being obese, unloved, and dirt-poor, Precious is also illiterate, though the public school she attends is so bad that she's managed to camouflage that fact through the eighth grade. In short, this girl's life is so abysmal that you feel the least you can do is like the movie she's in.

 It's not that there isn't anything to like about Precious, which at its best resembles its heroine: observant, large-spirited, and brave. The director, Lee Daniels (Shadowboxer), puts on his hip boots and wades into grimmer territory than any recent film I can think of, and his fearless leading ladies, Mo'Nique and Sidibe, wade right in with him. But Daniels' methodical commitment to abjection, his need to shove the reality of Precious' life in our faces and wave it around till we acknowledge its awfulness, winds up robbing the audience (and, to some extent, the actors) of all agency. Daniels is not above cutting from an image of incestuous rape to a shot of greasy pork sizzling on the stove: Her father treats her like meat, get it? In its eagerness to drag us through the lower depths of human experience, Precious leaves no space for the audience to breathe or to draw our own conclusions. For a film about empowerment and self-actualization, it wields an awfully large cudgel.

 Precious is expelled from school when the news of her second pregnancy comes out, but the principal refers her to an alternative learning center, Each One Teach One, where an impossibly beautiful and patient teacher named Blu Rain (Paula Patton) leads a reading and writing workshop for dropout girls. Ms. Rain is an emissary from another world, where slender, caring, soft-spoken women (Ms. Rain, as it turns out, is a lesbian) sip wine and play Scrabble and, in Precious' words, "talk like TV channels I don't watch." Precious' ability to read and write keeps pace with her growing belly as she slowly learns to trust Ms. Rain and her raucous, foulmouthed, but closeknit classmates. (All the Each One Teach One girls are deftly sketched and well-cast, as is an exasperated social worker played with surprising finesse by Mariah Carey.) But when Precious' baby finally arrives, she's forced to depend once more on her toxic disaster of a mother. As Precious carries the fragile newborn into that awful apartment, you want to rush the screen and lock her out to keep them safe, and the scene that follows shamelessly exploits that protective impulse. I don't like when children are used as decoys to lure a movie audience into a trap.

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 Seeded throughout Precious are brief dream sequences in which the stolidly joyless heroine imagines herself as a performer in a music video, a movie star on the red carpet, etc. Whether these are meant to be critiques of a mass culture that trades in escapist fantasy or simply pathos-ridden glimpses into Precious' impoverished mental life is never clear. But like the outlandish badness of the mother character, the overdetermined tawdriness of these scenes does the movie and its heroine a disservice. Daniels and his screenwriter, Geoffrey Fletcher, are so eager to wring uplift from Precious' story that they're willing to manipulate us to get it. Daniels and Fletcher no doubt intended for their film to lend a voice to the kind of protagonist too often excluded from American movie screens: a poor, black, overweight single mother from the inner city. But in offering up their heroine's misery for the audience's delectation, they've created something uncomfortably close to poverty porn.

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 Like This Story Follow Slate's Movies ||||| Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

 November 4, 2009

 Cast & Credits Precious Gabourey Sidibe

 Mary Mo'Nique

 Ms. Rain Paula Patton

 Nurse John Lenny Kravitz

 Ms. Weiss Mariah Carey

 Cornrows Sherri Shepherd

 Lionsgate presents a film directed by Lee Daniels. Written by Geoffrey Fletcher, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (for child abuse, including sexual assault, and pervasive language).

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 Precious has shut down. She avoids looking at people, she hardly ever speaks, she's nearly illiterate. Inside her lives a great hurt, and also her child, conceived in a rape. She is fat. Her clothes are too tight. School is an ordeal of mocking cruelty. Home is worse. Her mother, defeated by life, takes it out on her daughter. After Precious is raped by her father, her mother, is angry not at the man, but at the child for "stealing" him.

 There's one element in the film that redeems this landscape of despair. That element is hope. Not the hope of Precious, but that of two women who want better for her. It's not that Precious "shows promise." I think it's that these women, having in their jobs seen a great deal, can hardly imagine a girl more obviously in pain.

 That is the starting point for "Precious," a great American film that somehow finds an authentic way to move from these beginnings to an inspiring ending. Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, a young actress in her debut performance as Precious, says, "I know this girl. I know her in my family, I know her in my friends, I've seen her, I've lived beside this girl."

 We may have seen her, too, if we looked. People often don't really look. They see, evaluate, dismiss.

 Sidibe is heartbreaking as Precious, that poor girl. Three other actresses perform so powerfully in the film that academy voters will be hard-pressed to choose among them. Audiences may be hard-pressed to recognize them. The comedian Mo'Nique plays Mary, Precious' chain-smoking couch potato of a mother, treating her daughter like a domestic servant and turning a blind eye on years of abuse. Paula Patton is Ms. Rain, Precious' teacher, who is able to see through the girl's sullen withdrawal and her vulgarities, and wonder what pain it may be masking. Mariah Carey is Ms. Weiss, a social worker.

 This casting looks almost cynical on paper, as if reflecting old Hollywood days when stars were slipped into "character roles" with a wink. But Lee Daniels, the director, didn't cast them for their names, and actually doesn't use any of their star qualities. He requires them to act. Somehow he was able to see beneath the surface and trust that they had within the emotional resources to play these women, and he was right. Daniels began his career by producing "Monster's Ball," in which Halle Berry shed her glamour and found such depths that she won an Oscar. Daniels must have an instinct for performances waiting to flower.

 Carey and Patton are equal with Sidibe in screen impact; the film holds the girl in the center of their attempt to save her future. Why would a teacher and a social worker go to such lengths to intervene? They must see tragic victims of abuse every day.

 Mary, the mother, is perhaps not a bad woman but simply one defeated by the forces she now employs against her daughter. Mo'Nique is frighteningly convincing.

 The film is a tribute to Sidibe's ability to engage our empathy. Her work is still another demonstration of the mystery of some actors, who evoke feelings in ways beyond words and techniques. She so completely creates the Precious character that you rather wonder if she's very much like her.

 You meet Sidibe, who is engaging, outgoing and 10 years older than her character, and you're almost startled. She's not at all like Precious, but in her first performance, she not only understands this character but knows how to make her attract the sympathy of her teacher, the social worker -- and ourselves. I don't know how she does it but there you are.

 My interview with “Gabby” Sidibe. ||||| Precious Is the Diary of a Sad Black Woman Pushing the limits of taste, but locating the heart—and hell—of its heroine's struggle

 In her broad outlines, Claireece Precious Jones risks sounding like the epitome of ghetto cliché: an obese, illiterate 16-year-old; mother to a four-year-old Down syndrome daughter and now pregnant again; physically and psychologically abused by her mother; repeatedly raped by her father, who is, also, the father of her own two children. Precious—as she prefers to be called—is the central figure in the poet Sapphire's bestselling 1996 novel Push, an homage of sorts to The Color Purple (which it directly references and also mirrors in its diaristic style), set in the pre-gentrification Harlem of the mid-1980s. And it's a testament to Sapphire's affecting prose (written in Precious's own words and dialect) that her protagonist emerges as something more than a mere statistic or representative—that we understand how Precious's story is, for all its commonalities with other abused black women, uniquely her own.

 Director Lee Daniels's film adaptation (which has been retitled Precious since its Sundance premiere, and also acquired two high-profile "presenters" in Tyler Perry and Oprah) is a somewhat blunter, but nevertheless effective object. Working from screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher's faithful adaptation, Daniels cultivates an aesthetic that is often more grotesque than artful, sometimes artfully grotesque (like a Courbet painting), and rarely delivered with less than a sledgehammer thwack. Bleak though it was on the page, the apartment shared by Precious (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) and her layabout welfare mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), here appears like a Lenox Avenue Grey Gardens, with a television perpetually tuned to The $100,000 Pyramid and curtains that don't seem to have parted since whatever decade Mary last left the premises. When Daniels flashes back to Precious's horrifying rapes, the wide-angle close-ups of her father's heaving body, and of fried chicken sizzling on the stove, feel like outtakes from one of Rudy Ray Moore's outré blaxploitation farces (or from Daniels's own risible, little-seen debut feature, Shadowboxer, featuring Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. as oedipal hired assassins). And when Precious enrolls at the alternative school where a teacher improbably named Blu Rain (Paula Patton) inspires her to stand and deliver, the classrooms are wreathed in ethereal light.

 Hothouse melodrama one moment, kitchen-sink (and frying-pan-to-the-head) realism the next, with eruptions of incongruous slapstick throughout, this may be Daniels's stab at finding a cinematic analog for the novel's inventive, naïf-art language—a film style, like Precious's writing style, seemingly being made up as it goes along. Yet even when the movie is at its most schizoid, Precious still packs a wallop. What Daniels lacks as a craftsman, he makes up for in his willingness to put the lives of abused and defeated black women on the screen with brute-force candor and a lack of sentimentality. Where Push the novel echoed The Color Purple the novel, Precious the movie operates as something of a corrective to Steven Spielberg's 1985 film, with its narrative sanitizing and artery-clogging Quincy Jones score. Its own inspirational touches notwithstanding (not for nothing did it cop the audience awards at Sundance and Toronto earlier this year), Precious is less about overcoming adversity than about survival—a battle the movie does not begin to pretend can be won in two hours of screen time. No slumdog millionaires here, Daniels's movie puts us through hell—Precious's hell—and leaves us somewhere like limbo.

 A former casting director, Daniels shows undeniable savoir faire with his actors, a mix of musicians and comedians effectively cast against type, from a dark-haired, deglamorized Mariah Carey as a tough-love social worker to a subtle Lenny Kravitz as an attentive male nurse. The picture belongs, however, to the gale-force Mo'Nique, who transforms an ostensibly one-note monster mom into a complex portrait of a psychologically damaged woman (no matter that Daniels seems to have edited her most showstopping scene in a blender), and to the magnanimous Sidibe, who carries the alternately exhausting and exhilarating narrative on her formidable shoulders. For most of the movie, her stoically beautiful face stays wrought tight in a mask of sadness and self-loathing. When she relaxes those muscles ever so slightly—one of the movie's few subtle touches—it is like a weight of centuries has been lifted.

Summary: – Precious packs a strong emotional punch with its story of an abused, illiterate teen in '80s Harlem, but where some critics see candid greatness, others see "poverty porn." Precious is "a great American film," writes Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times, that finds a believable way to move from "a landscape of despair" to an inspiring ending. Star Gabourey Sidibe makes a fantastic debut and "three other actresses perform so powerfully in the film that Academy voters will be hard-pressed to choose among them." What director Lee Daniels at times "lacks as a craftsman," Scott Foundas writes in the Village Voice, "he makes up for in his willingness to put the lives of abused and defeated black women on the screen with brute-force candor and a lack of sentimentality." But Dana Stevens, writing for Slate, finds that effort to "wring uplift' from a hard-knocks story manipulative. "Daniels' need to shove the reality of Precious' life in our faces, and wave it around till we acknowledge its awfulness, winds up robbing the audience (and, to some extent, the actors) of all agency." Further, in offering up their heroine's misery for the audience's delectation, he's created something uncomfortably close to poverty porn."


Donald Trump's name has been doing the rounds a fair bit recently.

 You might recognise him as the American businessman who has his own tower in New York or as the host of the original version of The Apprentice.

 You're also likely to have heard his name recently because he's hoping to be the Republican presidential candidate.

 And if you've been on Twitter since he suggested Muslims should be banned from America, you might have seen him being compared to Lord Voldemort.

 In a campaign statement, Donald Trump said a "complete" shutdown should remain until the US authorities "can figure out what the hell is going on" and if Muslims pose a threat to the US.

 He later repeated the comments at a rally in South Carolina, where supporters cheered him loudly.

 Read more about all the candidates hoping to take over from Barack Obama as US president.

 But Jeb Bush, who is also from the Republican party and hoping to be president, said the New York businessman was "unhinged".

 Donald Trump's comments, which he said were "common sense", were made in light of last week's shooting in California where a Muslim couple, believed to have been radicalised, opened fire and killed 14 people at a health centre in San Bernardino.

 The White House said Mr Trump's comments were contrary to US values, while the internet compared him to Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter - a lot.

 This isn't the first time in this campaign that Trump, who also thinks there should surveillance on some US mosques, has been criticised.

 His idea to build a "great, great wall" between the US and Mexico didn't go down too well.

 Mr Trump, a billionaire New Yorker who has been leading in the polls, defended his plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and deport all the people living illegally in the US.

 "You're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely," he told MSNBC's Morning Joe.

 "You have millions of people that are waiting in line to come into this country and they're waiting to come in legally."

 Donald Trump: 21 things the Republican believes.

 For more stories like this one you can now download the BBC Newsbeat app straight to your device. For iPhone go here. For Android go here. ||||| J.K. Rowling took on Donald Trump with her latest tweet heard ’round the world.

 After the Republican presidential candidate frontrunner said that all Muslims should be banned from entering America, Harry Potter fans began comparing Trump to Lorde Voldemort, a.k.a. he who must not be named, a.k.a. the most draconian, dastardly villain in all of literature — well at least in Harry Potter’s wizarding world.

 But Rowling didn’t agree with the comparison. “How horrible,” Rowling wrote. “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad.”

 How horrible. Voldemort was nowhere near as bad. https://t.co/hFO0XmOpPH — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 8, 2015

 On Monday, Trump called for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

 “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension,” Trump said. His remarks were slammed by both Republicans and Democrats alike. “Donald Trump is unhinged,” Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush wrote on Twitter. “His ‘policy’ proposals are not serious.”

Summary: – Donald Trump is usually the one dishing out insults on Twitter. Not on Tuesday. The business mogul found himself the latest to be burned by JK Rowling after proposing a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the US, reports Entertainment Weekly. Twitter users quickly began comparing Trump to Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort, reports the BBC, but Rowling was having none of it. "How horrible," she tweeted. "Voldemort was nowhere near as bad." Her comment was retweeted more than 50,000 times within hours and racked up almost as many likes. (By the way, you've been saying "Voldemort" incorrectly for years.)