Chasing a second successive title, Australia face a tricky task against a resurgent rivals New Zealand in the Champions Trophy final in Centurion on Monday.
Ricky PontingRicky Ponting’s men have been in red-hot form and they have not lost a single match in the eight-nation ICC event.
A rejuvenated New Zealand, however, will not let a rare chance of an ICC event triumph go by so easily as they finally broke the semi-final jinx having made it to the final of the Champions Trophy for the second time.
Though without a major ICC event triumph, except for the 2000-01 edition of the Champions Trophy, New Zealand have always been tough opponents.
The Australians have been in fine form with the bat with skipper Ricky Ponting leading the chart of most prolific batsman in Champions Trophy with 287 runs at an average of nearly 96.
And Shane Watson’s return to form at the top order with a blistering unbeaten 136 against England in the first semi-final will only add to the concerns of Kiwis.
The timely return to form of Michael Hussey has also filled the void left by vice-captain Michael Clarke’s absence in the middle-order.
Australia’s quick bowling department comprising Peter Siddle , Brett Lee [ Images ], Watson and Mitchell Johnson has been among wickets too.
The good form of the pacers has also compensated the few concerns Ponting had in the slow-bowling department with only off-spinner Nathan Hauritz [ Images ] in his armour.
Ponting has already made his intentions clear and said his side will raise their game when it matters the most.
“We are playing at a level which would win us the big games. We look to play best cricket when it matters. We are peaking at the right time for the finals,” Ponting said.
New Zealand, on the other hand, have often been the underdogs in major tournaments, having faltered eight times in the semi-finals of 50-over ICC events.
The Black Caps mainly consists of bits-and-pieces players, mainly all-rounders, who have the capability to turn a match on any day, as was witnessed in Grant Elliot’s 75-run knock against Pakistan.
Skipper Daniel Vettori is determined to see that his side does not lose a chance to win a major tournament.
“There is a real ambition in the side. There’s belief and desire to win tournament instead of just ending up as semi-finalists,” he said.
But with a flat track on offer at Centurion, Vettori will bank on wicket-keeper batsman Brendon McCullum , Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor to give them a good start.
Although Vettori has been multi-tasking with both bat and the ball, the Black Caps cannot afford to leave it to him all the time.
On the bowling front, with support from Kyle Mills and James Franklin at the other end, Shane Bond too is slowly and steadily coming back to his usual hot form sending down fast stuffs.
The charge of middle overs, meanwhile, rests with Vettori, who along with Ian Butler and Elliot, have done a decent job so far in the tournament.
Teams
Australia: Ricky Ponting (Capt), David Hussey , Callum Ferguson, Nathan Hauritz, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Tim Paine, Peter Siddle, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Brad Haddin, Doug Bollinger.
New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (Capt), Shane Bond, Neil Broom, Ian Butler, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott , Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, James Franklin, Jeetan Patel, Aaron Raymond, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey.
Johannesburg—New Zealand found the perfect balance between the defensive and the offensive after having lost the toss on a flat pitch surrounded by an outfield as fast as a highway. They bowled tight lines interspersed with odd effort balls, their fielders made every run hard work, and frustrated Pakistan into giving their wickets away at important junctures. As a result, Pakistan were left to defend 233, that too thanks to a 35-run last-wicket stand between Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal.
Only the 19-year-old Umar Akmal batted with a free mind, scoring a 62-ball 55 in the middle overs, but just before he could open up in the last 10 a rare ordinary call from Simon Taufel accounted for him. The rest of the batsmen, though, were thrown off their game plan by the hustling New Zealanders. Pakistan once again suggested they had forgotten the batting Powerplay, and played as if the good old 15-over restriction rule was in place.
Mohammad Yousuf and Umar did well to bring Pakistan back from 86 for 4, but did little to unsettle the lesser bowlers. Yousuf, too, fell when the time to accelerate came, having scored 45 off 78. James Franklin and Grant Elliot went for 40 in their 10 overs, and gave Ian Butler and Shane Bond enough scope to attack. Butler ended with career-best figures of 4 for 44.
The innings started with a delightful face-off between two men making their comebacks from ICL. Bond was forever accurate, consistently bowling inswingers headed for the top of off stump. The first such delivery to Imran Nazir showed him a slight bat-pad gap. All through his first spell Bond kept working on that gap. He played on the intelligence and ego of a batsman known for his attacking instinct and dashing stroke play – mixing the inswingers with slower legcutters.
On his part, Nazir played one of his more mature knocks. He didn’t try any expansive shots to Bond. He found release by hitting Butler for three boundaries in his first over, and Pakistan suddenly looked healthy at 43 for 0 after nine overs.
That was when Bond produced a special over. Two accurate bouncers, one a no-ball, and the other one, a jaffa, rising from just short of a length and jagging into Nazir and taking the edge, reminded the cricketing world what it had been missing.
It was then Butler’s turn to make a comeback from an ordinary start. He first induced an edge from Shoaib Malik, and then got an under-pressure Kamran Akmal to hole out to sweeper-cover. At 69 for 3 Pakistan needed a renovation job from Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, but bowling at such times is right up Daniel Vettori’s alley.
In his second over, he got a leading edge from Younis, his third failure in three innings in the tournament. While Yousuf and Umar added 80 runs for the fifth wicket, the intent that their middle order showed against India was missing. It also owed to much smarter bowling and field placements from New Zealand.
When Yousuf fell in the 39th over, with the score on 166, one would have expected Shahid Afridi to call for the Powerplay. He didn’t. But he kept playing risky cricket at the same time, and paid for it. In between those two dismissals, Taufel ruled Umar lbw off Vettori, while replays showed the batsman had hit the ball.
The bowlers were left to give themselves runs to defend, and Aamer and Ajmal did that in uninhibited manner. They managed 233 but will it be too much to do for the most varied and skilled attack of the tournament?
Pakistan: 1 Imran Nazir, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Younis Khan (capt), 4 Shoaib Malik, 5 Mohammad Yousuf, 6 Umar Akmal, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, 9 Mohammad Aamer, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Umar Gul.
New Zealand: 1 Brendon McCullum (wk), 2 Aaron Redmond, 3 Martin Guptill, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Neil Broom, 6 Grant Elliot/Scott Styris, 7 James Franklin, 8 Daniel Vettori (capt), 9 Kyle Mills, 10 Shane Bond, 11 Ian Butler.
Umpire Simon Taufel, five times voted the sport’s best match official, is not permitted to stand in matches featuring Australia because of the International Cricket Council’s neutrality rules.
Taufel’s nationality has prevented him standing in some of cricket’s biggest showpieces, such as the 2007 World Cup final, the Ashes, and last summer’s battle for the number one Test ranking between Ricky Ponting’s side and South Africa.
There have been loud calls from many former players and commentators in recent times to abolish the neutrality rule so the highest-profile matches feature the best umpires.
Taufel was the number one umpire when the 2007 World Cup final descended into farce because five officials did not know how many overs constituted a match, and forced Australia and Sri Lanka to return to the field and play in darkness.
He also could have prevented the Sydney Test of 2008 turning ugly, which nearly resulted in India abandoning their tour.
But ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat is adamant umpires of neutral nationality will stay, as impartiality was the preference over the best.
“You can’t have both sets of issues resolved with the same debate,” he said.
“You’re either going to have neutral umpires or you’re going to have the best irrespective, and the (ICC) cricket committee has supported the view it is better to have neutral umpires.”
Had Pakistan reached the Champions Trophy final instead of New Zealand, the ICC would have had to rule out Aleem Dar, just days after the Pakistani broke Taufel’s five-year stranglehold on the umpire of the year award.
Lorgat said the ICC would retain its position on umpiring neutrality to ward off claims of bias from parochial fans in contentious decisions.
“Simon can make an honest mistake just like any other umpire,” he said.
“But as soon as he’s standing in an Australia game against somebody and he makes that mistake, the majority of spectators will view that not as a mistake.
“That is human nature. The conservative approach is better to keep neutrality.
“It’s worked, it’s not been a failure at all, it’s not been a failure at all, it’s been a success.”
Under ICC rules Test matches must feature two umpires of neutral nationality, while one home umpire is permitted to stand in one-day internationals outside ICC events such as the world cup and Champions Trophy, alongside one official of neutral nationality.
UNITED NATIONS – In the highest-level conference yet on climate change, 100 world leaders come to the United Nations on Tuesday to decide how to start an energy revolution.
While attention turns to U.S. President Barack Obama’s first U.N. speech, the most substantial changes may come from what the presidents of China, India and other major economies spell out for billions of people and their households, businesses and farms in the decades ahead.
Those leaders are expected to make more ambitious commitments than the U.S. leader, whose hands are still tied by Congress.
“We are asking developing countries to do as we say, not as we did,” said Ed Miliband, Britain’s climate secretary, whose nation has pledged to cut carbon emissions by more than a third from 1990 levels by 2020, and said 40 percent of the UK’s electricity by then would come from renewable sources.
Tuesday’s U.N. summit and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh at the end of this week are intended to add pressure on the United States and other rich nations to commit to cuts and provide the billions of dollars needed to help developing nations stop cutting down their forests or burning coal.
China and the U.S. each account for about 20 percent of all the world’s greenhouse gas pollution created when coal, natural gas or oil are burned. The European Union is next, generating 14 percent, followed by Russia and India, which each account for 5 percent.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to lay out new plans for extending China’s energy-saving programs and targets for reducing the “intensity” of its carbon pollution — carbon dioxide emission increases as related to economic growth.
China has been cutting energy intensity for the past four years and could the new carbon intensity goal in a five-year plan for development until 2015. China already has said it is seeking to use 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
India, too, may draw away some of the spotlight for laying out plans for the fifth-biggest contributor of global warming gases to bump up fuel efficiency, burn coal more cleanly, preserve forests and grow more organic crops.
The United States, under former President George W. Bush’s administration, long cited inaction by China and India as the reason for rejecting mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
Tuesday’s meeting is intended to rally momentum for crafting a new global climate pact at Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. Bush rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting global emissions of warming gases, which expires at the end of 2012, based on its impact on the U.S. economy and exclusion of major developing nations like China and India, both major polluters.
But neither China nor India say they will agree to binding greenhouse-gas cuts like those envisioned in a new climate pact to start in 2013. They question why they should, when not even the U.S. will agree to join rich nations in scaling back their pollution.
“The crisis today on climate change is the inability of the United States to put on the table credible emissions reduction targets for 2020,” said Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister.
The EU is urging other rich countries to match its pledge to cut emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and has said it would cut up to 30 percent if other rich countries follow suit.
Japan’s incoming prime minister, whose nation generates more than 4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, has announced a new goal of a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.
Obama has announced a target of returning to 1990 levels of greenhouse emissions by 2020. Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate envoy, said the Obama administration is moving “full speed ahead” toward helping craft a global climate deal.
But with Congress moving slowly on a measure to curb emissions, the United States could soon find itself with little influence when 120 countries convene in Copenhagen.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a climate bill this summer that would set the first mandatory limits on greenhouse gases. But action in the Senate has been delayed as lawmakers wrestle with overhauling the health care system.
China’s ambition to grow quickly but cleanly soon may vault it to “front-runner” status — far ahead of the United States — in taking on global warming, the U.N. climate chief said Monday.
“China and India have announced very ambitious national climate change plans. In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change,” U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press. “The big question mark is the U.S.”
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The daring return of deposed President Manuel Zelaya has thrust Honduras back onto the world stage and posed a sharp challenge to interim leaders determined to hold new elections without him after a June coup.
Thousands of Zelaya supporters defied a curfew and spent the night surrounding Brazil’s embassy, where the leader remained holed up Tuesday, a day after slipping back into the country. In exile since June 28, Zelaya said he had traveled for 15 hours overland in a series of vehicles to pull off the stealth homecoming.
The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti ordered a 26-hour shutdown of the capital Tegucigalpa beginning Monday afternoon, closed the airport and set up roadblocks on highways leading into town. The measures were taken to keep out more Zelaya supporters from other regions in an attempt to head off the big protests that disrupted the city after his ouster.
But Zelaya loyalists ignored the decree and surrounded the embassy dancing and cheering and using their cell phones to light up the streets after electricity was cut off on the block housing the embassy.
“We’re here to support him and protect him, and we’re going to stay here as long as it’s physically possible,” said Carlos Salgado, a 43-year-old jewerly maker from Zelaya’s home state of Olancho.
Supported by the U.S. and other governments since his ouster, Zelaya called for negotiations with the leaders who forced him from the country at gunpoint. But Micheletti urged Brazil to turn Zelaya over to Honduran authorities for trial.
Zelaya told The Associated Press that he was trying to establish contact with the interim government to start negotiations on a solution to the standoff that started when soldiers flew him to Costa Rica.
“As of now, we are beginning to seek dialogue,” he said by telephone, though he gave few details.
Talks moderated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias stalled over the interim government’s refusal to accept Zelaya’s reinstatement to the presidency under a power-sharing agreement that would limit his powers and prohibit him from attemting to revise the constitution.
In June, the country’s Congress and courts, alarmed by Zelaya’s political shift into a close alliance with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuba, backed the president’s removal.
He was arrested on orders of the Supreme Court on charges of treason and abuse of power for ignoring court orders against holding a referendum on reforming the constitution. His opponents feared he wanted to end a constitutional ban on re-election — a charge Zelaya denied.
Arias called his proposed compromise the last option to end the Honduran crisis. “I think this is the best opportunity, the best time now that Zelaya’s back in his country,” he said in New York.
Zelaya returned on the eve of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, where U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the opposing factions in Honduras to look for a peaceful solution.
“It is imperative that dialogue begin, that there be a channel of communication between President Zelaya and the de facto regime in Honduras,” Clinton said at a joint news conference with Arias.
Micheletti showed no inclination to give any ground, saying late Monday that Zelaya had violated Arias’ mediation effort by returning.
“Arias’ mediation in Honduras’ political problem has ended … and he has absolutely nothing else to do in this conflict,” Micheletti said in a televised interview.
The interim government was clearly caught off guard by Zelaya’s dramatic move. Only minutes before he appeared publicly at the Brazilian Embassy, Honduran officials said reports of his return were a lie. They soon ordered a 15-hour curfew, then later extended the shutdown by another 11 hours, until 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Speaking from the embassy, Zelaya summoned his countrymen to come to the capital for peaceful protests and urged the army to avoid attacking his supporters.
“It is the moment of reconciliation,” he said.
Teachers union leader Eulogio Chavez announced that the country’s 60,000 educators would go on strike indefinitely Tuesday to back Zelaya’s demand to be reinstated.
International leaders were almost unanimously against the armed removal of the president, worrying it could return Latin America to a bygone era of coups and instability. The United States, European Union and international agencies have cut aid to Honduras to press for his return.
The U.S. State Department announced Sept. 4 that it would not recognize results of the Nov. 29 presidential vote under current conditions — a ballot that was scheduled before Zelaya’s ouster. The coup has shaken up Washington’s relations with Honduras, traditionally one of its strongest allies in Central America.
The secretary general of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, called for calm and warned Honduran officials to avoid any violation of the Brazilian diplomatic mission. “They should be responsible for the safety of president Zelaya and the Embassy of Brazil,” he said.
Zelaya said he had “evaded a thousand obstacles” in getting back to Tegucigalpa but declined to give specifics on who helped him cross the border, saying that he didn’t want to jeopardize their safety.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorin said neither his country nor the OAS had any role in Zelaya’s journey before taking him in.
“We hope this opens a new stage in negotiations,” Amorin said.
But Honduras’ Foreign Relations Department accused Brazil of violating international law by “allowing Zelaya, a fugitive of Honduran justice, to make public calls to insurrection and political mobilization from its headquarters.”
In the days following the coup, at least two of the thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets were killed during clashes with security forces. Thousands of other Hondurans demonstrated in favor of the coup.
DENVER – Counterterrorism officials are warning mass transit systems around the nation to step up patrols because of fears an Afghanistan-born immigrant under arrest in Colorado may have been plotting with others to detonate backpack bombs aboard New York City trains.
Investigators say Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old shuttle van driver at the Denver airport, played a direct role in a terror plot that unraveled during a trip to New York City around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He made his first court appearance Monday and remained behind bars.
Zazi and two other defendants have not been charged with any terrorism counts, only the relatively minor offense of lying to the government. But the case could grow to include more serious charges as the investigation proceeds.
Zazi has publicly denied being involved in a terror plot, and defense lawyer Arthur Folsom dismissed as “rumor” any notion that his client played a crucial role.
Publicly, law enforcement officials have repeatedly said they are unaware of a specific time or target for any attacks. Privately, officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case said investigators have worried most about the possible use of backpack bombs on New York City trains, similar to attacks carried out in London and Madrid.
The investigation into Zazi’s role and how many others may be involved was ongoing. Two law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation told The Associated Press late Monday that more than a half-dozen individuals were being scrutinized in the alleged plot.
The FBI said in a statement that “several individuals in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere” were being investigated.
Backpacks and cell phones were seized last week from apartments in Queens where Zazi visited.
In a bulletin issued Friday, the FBI and Homeland Security Department warned that improvised explosive devices are the most common tactic to blow up railroads and other mass transit systems overseas. And they noted incidents in which bombs were made with peroxide.
ATLANTA – Surging floodwaters ripped apart a west Georgia trailer home, drowning a 2-year-old boy swept from his father’s arms. In Atlanta, stranded motorists scrambled to the tops of their car as waters rose on one of the city’s busiest highways. To the north, crews worked furiously to shore up a levee holding a surging river back from an isolated town.
Storms that pounded the Southeast on Monday turned sleepy creeks into rivers, and rivers into raging floodwaters. Six people were killed across the region, including five in the Atlanta area. Aerial shots showed schools, football fields, even entire neighborhoods submerged by the deluge, sending some unlucky residents scurrying for higher ground.
“It’s a mess all over,” said Lisa Janak of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
At least two people were missing, including a Tennessee man who went swimming in an overflowing ditch on a $5 dare and a 15-year-old Georgia teen who never returned from a swim in the surging Chattooga River.
The storm came after days of rain pounded most of the region and saturated the soil. Some parts of Georgia have had more than 20 inches since Friday.
“Any rain that fell has no place to go,” said Georgia climatologist David Stooksbury. “This rainfall on top of already saturated soils really made the situation worse.”
Many parts of north Georgia have experienced “historic” amounts of rain well in excess of so-called 100-year predictions, which describe a storm with the likelihood of happening once every century, said Stooksbury. The downpours come just months after much of the region emerged from an epic drought that plagued the region since 2007.
As the storm front rumbled through west Georgia, it turned a normally docile creek into a surging headwater that tore apart 2-year-old Preston Slade Crawford’s mobile home around 2 a.m. The boy’s body wasn’t found until hours later, but his parents had been rescued as another son, age 1, clung to his mother’s arms in the county west of Atlanta.
“By the time we got into our vehicle, they were screaming at the back of our house,” said Pat Crawford, the boy’s grandmother, who watched as the family’s mobile home was whisked away. “We could see them, but the current was so bad, we couldn’t get to them.”
Crawford said she was on higher ground, unable to help her family members. Craig Crawford clung to his 2-year-old son, but the boy was pulled away in a strong undercurrent.
To the northwest, crews in the tiny Georgia town of Trion worked to shore up a levee breached by the Chattooga River and in danger of failing. The town evacuated more than 1,500 residents, and Red Cross workers quickly set up an emergency shelter able to help hundreds nearby.
“It’s a grave situation for us,” said Lamar Canada, Chattooga County’s emergency management director.
Most of the dead were motorists trying to navigate the treacherous roadways. Seydi Burciaga, a 39-year-old woman from Georgia’s Gwinnett County, was found dead in her vehicle after it was swept off a road by flooding, said Gwinnett County Fire Capt. Thomas Rutledge.
But the surging waters weren’t just dangerous for drivers. A 22-year-old Alabama man, James Dale Leigh, drowned when a pond’s rain-soaked bank collapsed beneath him, said Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin.
Among the hardest-hit areas was Georgia’s Douglas County, where as much as a foot of rain fell Monday. Flooding there was blamed for the deaths of a man and two women in three separate situations, said county spokesman Wes Tallon.
Emergency officials were often forced to improvise to rescue dozens of people stranded in their homes and cars.
“We’re using everything we can get our hands on,” Tallon said. “Everything from boats to Jet Skis to ropes to ladders.”
Other southeastern states were hit less severely.
In Kentucky, rescue crews went on more than a dozen runs to help stranded people after 4 inches of rain fell on parts of Louisville Sunday, said Louisville fire department spokesman Sgt. Salvador Melendez.
Water rose as high as window-level on some houses in North Carolina’s Polk County, forcing emergency officials to evacuate homes along a seven-mile stretch of road. Flooding in more than 20 counties in western North Carolina closed roads, delayed school and forced evacuations.
The forecast held little good news for Georgia: Another round of storms was expected to move in Tuesday from the west.
“Don’t remind me,” Carroll County Emergency Management Director Tim Padgett said of the forecast. “That’s the worst news we could hear.”
A tax holiday is a temporary reduction or elimination of a tax. Governments usually create tax holidays as incentives for business investment. The taxes that are most commonly reduced by national and local governments are sales taxes. In developing countries, governments sometimes reduce or eliminate corporate taxes for the purpose of attracting Foreign Direct Investment or stimulating growth in selected industries.
Tax holiday is given in respect of particular activities, and sometimes also only in particular areas with a view to develop that area of business.
- 1 Sales tax holidays in the United States
- 2 See also
- 3 References
- 4 External links
|
[edit] Sales tax holidays in the United States
A statewide sales tax holiday was first enacted by the New York Legislature in 1996 and enabled the first tax-free week in January of 1997. Local governments in New York were given the option of whether or not to participate. [1] Since then, the initiative has been adopted by thirteen states. It commonly takes place as a form of tax-free weekend lasting Friday through Sunday, usually during a major shopping period for necessities, such as just before school starts. During that period, sales tax is not collected on selected items, such as clothing and school supplies. The items subject to the sales tax exemption may also be restricted by price (for example, clothing up to $100), but consumers are free to buy unlimited quantity of items.
As with other sales taxes, visiting residents of non-participating states who purchase tax-free goods (holiday or not) may still have to pay “use tax” on their goods that they take home.
| State (Or Capital) |
Items Included |
Period |
Days |
| Alabama |
clothing, computers, school supplies, books |
1st weekend in August |
3 |
| Connecticut |
clothing |
3rd week in August |
7 |
| District of Columbia |
clothing, school supplies |
August and November |
9 |
| Georgia |
clothing, school supplies, computers |
1st weekend of August |
4 |
| Iowa |
clothing |
1st weekend of August |
2 |
| Massachusetts[2] |
school supplies, computers, sports equipment, health & beauty aid |
2nd weekend of August |
2 |
| Missouri |
clothing, school supplies, computers |
1st weekend in August |
- |
| New Mexico |
clothing, school supplies, computers |
1st weekend of August |
3 |
| North Carolina |
clothing, school supplies, computers, sport equipment |
1st weekend of August |
3 |
| Oklahoma |
clothing |
1st weekend of August |
3 |
| South Carolina |
clothing, school supplies, computers |
1st weekend of August |
3 |
| Tennessee |
clothing, school supplies, computers |
1st weekend of August |
3 |
| Texas[3] |
Cd’s, DVD Movies,cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, clothing, diapers, backpacks , school supplies |
3rd weekend of August |
3 |
| Virginia |
clothing, school supplies |
1st weekend of August |
3 |
Seven states in the U.S. (Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Texas, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) do not impose general sales taxes at all (but may still tax gas, cigarettes, alcohol, meals, etc). See Sales taxes in the United States for details.
BARNSTABLE, Mass. – Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a sister of President John F. Kennedy and a longtime champion for the disabled, was in a Massachusetts hospital with family at her side.
The 88-year-old Shriver, who has been weakened in recent years by a series of strokes, was in critical condition Friday.
Her husband, 1972 vice presidential candidate and former Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver, was at her side along with their children and grandchildren at Cape Cod Hospital in Barnstable, said family spokesman Stephen Rivers.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the husband of Shriver’s daughter, Maria, was also there, said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor.
The Shrivers live in Hyannis Port, near the family compound where her brother, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, has been staying as he undergoes treatment for brain cancer. He left the compound Friday in a golf cart with his wife and dog, headed toward the area where the family sailboat is docked.
Eunice Shriver is the fifth of the nine Kennedy children. Edward Kennedy and Jean Kennedy Smith are her sole surviving siblings.
In a recent interview posted on eunicekennedyshriver.org, Sen. Kennedy said his sister has never backed down from the rest of the competitive clan.
“She always strived to be the best, and she in many respects has made such an extraordinary difference in the lives of so many people around the world,” he said.
Shriver is perhaps best known for her work to establish the Special Olympics, inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary.
She organized the first Special Olympics in 1968 in Chicago. The two-day event drew more than 1,000 participants from 26 states and Canada. By 2003, the Special Olympics World Summer Games, held that year in Dublin, Ireland, involved more than 6,500 athletes from 150 countries.
Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver (July 10, 1921) is a member of the Kennedy family and helped to found Special Olympics in the 1960s as a national organization. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.A., she is the fifth of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy (née Fitzgerald).
Personal life
Kennedy was educated at The Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, London, England, and in 1944 graduated from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, with a Bachelor of Science in Social Science/Social Thought, after which she went to work for the U.S. Department of State, in the Special War Problems division. In 1950, she became a social worker at the then-named Federal Industrial Institution for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, and the following year she moved to Chicago, Illinois, to work with the House of the Good Shepherd and the Chicago Juvenile Court.
On May 23, 1953, she married Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr. at Roman Catholic St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, New York.
Her husband served as the U.S. Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970 and was the Democratic U.S. Vice Presidential candidate in 1972 (with George McGovern as the candidate for U.S. President).
They have five children: Robert Sargent Shriver III (born April 28, 1954), Maria Owings Shriver (November 6, 1955), Timothy Perry Shriver (August 29, 1959), Mark Kennedy Shriver (February 17, 1964), and Anthony Paul Kennedy Shriver (July 20, 1965).
With her husband, she has nineteen grandchildren, the second-most of any of the children of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. Her late brother U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy had eleven children who have produced thirty-two grandchildren.
Upon the death of her sister, Rosemary Kennedy, on January 7, 2005, Shriver became the eldest of the four then-surviving children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. (Her sister, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, later died on September 17, 2006, leaving just her brother U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy and her sister, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith.)
Shriver, who is believed to suffer from Addison’s disease,has had several health setbacks in recent years, and on November 18, 2007, she was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts;she spent several weeks there.
Political career
Shriver actively campaigned for her elder brother, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, during his successful 1960 U.S. presidential election.
In 1968, she helped Ann McGlone Burke nationalize the Special Olympics movement and is the only woman to have her portrait appear, during her lifetime, on a U.S. coin – the 1995 |commemorative Special Olympics silver dollar.
Her daughter, Maria, is married to actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger who is currently Governor of California (elected 2003). Shriver, a lifelong Democrat, supported her Republican son-in-law’s successful bid. During the 1992 Democratic presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, she was one of several prominent Democrats including Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania, Bishop Austin Vaughan of New York, who signed a letter to the New York Times, protesting the Democratic Party’s plank in favour of abortion, in its platform.
She and her husband are opponents of abortion, and she has been a supporter of Feminists for Life of America,the Susan B. Anthony List,[6] and Democrats for Life of America.
On January 28, 2008, she was present at American University, Washington, D.C., when her brother, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, announced his endorsement of Barack Obama’s U.S. presidential campaign.
[edit] Charity work and awards
A longtime advocate for children’s health and disability issues, Shriver was a key founder of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a part of the National Institutes of Health, in 1962, and has also helped to establish numerous other health-care facilities and support networks throughout the country.
In 1968, Shriver founded the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring at The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
She was awarded the nation’s highest civilian award, the (U.S.) Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1984 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, because of her work on behalf of those with mental retardation.
For her work in founding the Special Olympics, Shriver received the Civitan International World Citizenship Award.Her advocacy on this issue has also earned her other awards and recognitions, including honorary degrees from numerous universities.
Shriver received the 2002 Theodore Roosevelt Award, an annual award given by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
In 2008, the U.S. Congress changed the NICHD’s name to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Rare Halo Display: Portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, David Lenz, 2009 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Commissioned as part of the First Prize, Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006
On 9 May 2009, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., unveiled a historic portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the first portrait the Gallery has ever commissioned of an individual who had not served as a U.S. President or First Lady. The portrait of Mrs. Shriver depicts her with four Special Olympics athletes (including Loretta Claiborne) and one Best Buddies participant and was painted by David Lenz, the winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition in 2006. As part of the Portrait Competition prize, the National Portrait Gallery commissions a work from the winning artist to depict a living subject for the collection. Lenz, whose son, Sam, has Down syndrome and is an enthusiastic Special Olympics athlete, was inspired by Mrs. Shriver’s dedication to working with people with intellectual disabilities.
Shriver involved Dorothy Hamill’s special skating program in the Special Olympics after her Olympic skating win.
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