Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner Dies at 80

Watches this Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner Dies at 80


FILE - This Aug. 27, 1977, file photo shows New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner, who rebuilt the New York Yankees into a sports empire with a mix of bluster and big bucks that polarized fans all across America, died Tuesday, July 13, 2010. He had just celebrated his 80th birthday July 4. (AP Photo/File)
NEW YORK -- He was baseball's bombastic Boss.

He rebuilt the New York Yankees dynasty, ushering in the era of multimillion-dollar salaries and accepting nothing less in return than World Series championships.

He fired managers. Rehired them. And fired them again.

He butted heads with commissioners and fellow owners, insulted his players and dominated tabloid headlines -- even upstaging the All-Star game on the day of his death.

George Michael Steinbrenner III, who both inspired and terrorized the Yankees in more than three decades as owner, died Tuesday of a heart attack at age 80.


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"He was and always will be as much of a New York Yankee as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and all of the other Yankee legends," baseball commissioner Bud Selig said.

YOU DECIDE: What's George Steinbrenner's Legacy?

Once reviled by fans for his overbearing and tempestuous nature, Steinbrenner mellowed in his final decade and became beloved by employees and rivals alike for his success.

Steinbrenner was taken from his home to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Fla., and died about 6:30 a.m, a person close to the owner told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team had not disclosed those details.

"George was a fierce competitor who was the perfect fit for the city that never sleeps -- colorful, dynamic and always reaching for the stars," former President Bill Clinton said.

Yankees captain Derek Jeter added: "He expected perfection."

In 37 1/2 years as owner, Steinbrenner whipped a moribund $10 million team into a $1.6 billion colossus that became the model of a modern franchise, one with its own TV network and ballpark food business.

Under his often brutal but always colorful reign, the Yankees won seven World Series championships, 11 American League pennants and 16 AL East titles, going on spectacular spending sprees that caused Larry Lucchino, president of the rival Boston Red Sox, to dub Steinbrenner's Yankees the "Evil Empire."

He moved the Yankees from their tradition-rich "House that Ruth Built" into a new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium. Call it the "House the Boss Built." He appeared there just four times: the April 2009 opener, the first two games of last year's World Series and this year's home opener, when Jeter and manager Joe Girardi went to his suite and personally delivered his seventh World Series ring.

"He was very emotional," son Hal Steinbrenner said then.

Steinbrenner's larger-than-life outbursts transcended sports and made him a pop culture figure whose firings were parodied on the TV comedy "Seinfeld" and even by Steinbrenner himself in commercials.

"George was The Boss, make no mistake," said Berra, the Hall of Famer who ended a 14-year feud with Steinbrenner in 1999. "He built the Yankees into champions, and that's something nobody can ever deny. He was a very generous, caring, passionate man. George and I had our differences, but who didn't? We became great friends over the last decade and I will miss him very much."

Steinbrenner's death, about 14 hours before the first pitch of the All-Star game in Anaheim, Calif., was the second in three days to rock the Yankees. Bob Sheppard, the team's revered public address announcer from 1951-07, died Sunday at 99.

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Too few ethnic-minority staff at GCHQ, claims Whitehall report

Watches understanding this Too few ethnic-minority staff at GCHQ, claims Whitehall report

GCHQ, Britain's secret eavesdropping centre, has been criticised for failing to recruit enough ethnic-minority staff to help fight terrorism

A shortage of ethnic-minority staff with key language skills is hampering the intelligence services' ability to eavesdrop on terrorist conversations, according to a leaked Whitehall report.

The study, produced by a Whitehall race adviser, warns that black and Asian officers working at the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham feel they are the subject of racial discrimination within the 5,500-strong organisation.

The 28-page report, The Representation of Black and Minority Ethnic People, was commissioned last year after concerns raised in a public document, GCHQ's Capability Review. The inquiry was authorised by the head of the civil service, Sir Gus O'Donnell.

Most of the agency's work involves intercepting telephone calls and emails between terrorist suspects for MI5, and MI6 and a lack of officers with specialist knowledge of languages, such as Arabic or Urdu, was said to be a problem.

"It is ... critical to have a diverse staff group who are able to profile and recognise certain behaviour patterns and communications," the report says. "There is a very small pool of black and minority ethnic employees within the total workforce ... specific concerns have been raised by both management and staff around the language team. This area of work is unusually diverse within the organisation."

The policy of local community recruitment should be expanded from Cheltenham to areas such as Birmingham "which has more visible diversity", the report recommends. Equality and diversity should be "embedded" in recruitment practice because ... "this is critical to good national security intelligence and is also a form of future proofing by preparing the organisation to be receptive to more diverse staff."

By September last year, the percentage of black and ethnic minority employees stood at only 2.49% of the workforce. The report records some GCHQ officers' experiences of discrimination:

• "I wasn't born here and although I have been security cleared, I am constantly challenged about my loyalty to Britain by my colleagues."

• "The security officers ask questions which are culturally inappropriate, insensitive and offensive."

• "As black and minority ethnic employees, we have to work harder than our white counterparts and for less reward."

MI5 was the first intelligence service to recognise the importance of recruiting ethnic minority officers who might be able to penetrate terrorist networks. MI6 has followed suit.

Responding to the report, leaked to the Sunday Times, a GCHQ press officer said the recruitment freeze complicated attempts to increase ethnic diversity. "Our capability review in June 2009 reflected that GCHQ continued to fall short in meeting our targets," he said. "GCHQ's board commissioned a review to assist in supporting our commitment to increasing the numbers of black and minority ethnic staff, their progression and contribution.

"We are making a number of improvements to our policies and practices, including: a dedicated diversity officer; relaunch of our black and minority ethnic network with a target to increase membership; co-ordinated community engagement with diverse schools and community projects; review of university diversity data to help us identify universities to target; and internal awareness raising such as diversity week."
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Small business baulks at burden of pregnancy discrimination

Now we are know this Small business baulks at burden of pregnancy discrimination


ELEANOR HALL: In what seems to be an extraordinary move, small business owners say they should be exempted from laws that prohibit discrimination against pregnant women.

The business owners are responding to the Fair Work Ombudsman's move to pursue pregnancy discrimination claims on behalf of women. It has just lodged its first pregnancy discrimination case in the Federal Court.

And while it has been illegal for a quarter of a century to discriminate against pregnant workers, the ombudsman is tipping that there'll be a surge in claims now that women don't have to take the cases on their own.

But small business owners say this sort of regime imposes an impossible burden them, as Ashley Hall reports.

ASHLEY HALL: The issue of workplace discrimination can take a terrible toll.

This woman asked to be known only as Jane, and for her voice to de disguised before she would talk about her experience.

Jane was working in a male-dominated sector of the media industry when she became pregnant.

She had no problems throughout the pregnancy herself, but then she approached her workplace about returning after 11 months of maternity leave.

JANE: The moment I started emailing people about organising coming back to work, I did not get any response from anybody at work except for HR.

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