Leicester City's Jamie Vardy, right, battles for the ball with Sunderland's Papy Djilobodji during their English Premier League soccer match last year at Selhurst Park, London. Photo: Olly Greenwood / Associated Press
LONDON — After spending last season as one of the key forces behind Leicester’s rise to the Premier League title, Jamie Vardy is now the symbol of the team’s alarming decline.
The rough diamond unearthed in non-league soccer helped power Leicester to its first English title by scoring 24 goals. Defenses struggled to contain him as he scored in a record 11 consecutive Premier League games from August to November 2015.
Now, the striker can barely get a shot on target and Leicester is struggling because of it.
If Vardy fails to score against Manchester City on Saturday, it will be 11 consecutive games without a Premier League goal. And if results go against Leicester, the team could start the game in the relegation zone.
The 29-year-old Vardy rejected the chance to join perennial top-four team Arsenal to see if Leicester could build on its fairytale season. That has happened in Europe, with Leicester qualifying for the round of 16 in its Champions League debut as group winners.
Leicester collected as many points in the six group games as in the 14 Premier League matches so far: 13.
Vardy didn’t find the net once in five European games before being rested in Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to FC Porto, which didn’t affect Leicester’s status as group winners but was a high-profile humiliation.
Vardy has only contributed two Premier League goals and managed a mere four shots on target in the competition dominated by Leicester so unexpectedly last season. What’s also been noticeable is how Vardy is no longer linking so effectively with Riyad Mahrez — if at all — as the supply line for scoring opportunities has fractured.
Unless the symbiotic relationship between Vardy and Mahrez rejuvenates in the second half of the season, Leicester is in real danger of seeing its three-season stay in the Premier League end on the first anniversary of its title triumph in May.
“Of course he’s not happy,” Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri said of the central England club’s Thai owner. “No one at the club is.”
The one player Leicester couldn’t persuade to stay offseason is being sorely missed. N’Golo Kante produced a league-leading 175 tackles and 156 interceptions last season before joining Chelsea. The midfielder would seem to perform the work of two men when he was on the field and without him Leicester’s defense has seemed easier to break through.
Many at the club have publicly attributed the drop in domestic form to the desire to impress on the continent. Now there are no distractions for the next two months before the Champions League knockout phase begins.
The visit of Manchester City is a timely reminder about the fate of champions. City was the last team to follow a title triumph with relegation, far back in 1938.
City’s current mission is coping for the next four games without Sergio Aguero, with Kelechi Iheanacho replacing the banned striker in the starting lineup. City is fourth in the standings, four points behind Chelsea.
This image released by Pantone shows a color swatch called "greenery", which has been named as the color of the year for 2017 by the Pantone Color Institute. Photo: Associated Press
NEW YORK — Amid social, political and environmental tumult around the world, the Pantone Color Institute on Thursday plucked fresh and zesty “greenery” as the color of the year for 2017.
The vibrant green with yellow undertones is an answer, of sorts, to bruising 2016, signaling a yearning to rejuvenate, and to reconnect to both nature and something larger than oneself, said Laurie Pressman, the institute’s vice president.
“It’s a realization for many people,” she said in an interview Wednesday. “This country is politically divided, and we see that around the world. It’s not just us. There’s a real division in terms of globalization and this desire to pull back from globalization. It’s Brexit. It’s what we just saw in Italy.”
The experts at the institute, which advises a variety of industries on the use of color from fashion and home design to packaging and product development, have been choosing a color of the year since 1999. It’s a way to conjure the emotions that colors evoke. The team at Pantone, based in Carlstadt, New Jersey, scouts trends through the year in media, on runways and at trade shows around the world.
The color “greenery,” similar to chartreuse, is well represented in the first buds and grass blades of new spring, but it also plays out in history at times of major cultural shifts, including the suffrage movement and flapper era of the 1920s and the war and racial justice protest movements and psychedelia of the ’60s and ’70s.
“It’s been there during times of bold change, when people are exploring,” Pressman said.
The hue is in contrast to the soft, serenity-inducing dual choices of “rose quartz” and “serenity” blue as the colors of the year for 2016.
In addition to the emerging recycle-and- share economies, we have green rooftops, green spaces and indoor vertical farming. In home decor, there’s a trend to connect with the elements outside through open spaces and vast windows, and a desire to bring nature inside through forestry murals and living moss walls, Pressman said.
On the industrial side, both Skoda and Mercedes showed bright green cars for 2017. For the kitchen, Pantone spotted its shade in appliances, including a Keurig coffeemaker, and in cookware.
And in fashion, menswear designers have played into the idea of gender fluidity through prints and accessories of bright greens, along with the creators of womenswear and beauty products, ranging from the couture of Oscar de la Renta in a leaf-embellished gown to bright green shades for eyes, nails and lips.
Katy Perry, Kylie Jenner and Lena Dunham have all taken turns dying their hair bright green. Last year, a cologne from the Diana Vreeland brand came in green and was dubbed “Bold.”
The shade also symbolizes the organic and health frenzy in cleaning products and food – hello matcha! – coupled with efforts to rethink food waste in restaurants and processing plants.
In the tech and digital spaces, the color pops up in products like earbuds and in logos and advertising for apps and startups, Pressman said.
“We saw it always as a bold color,” she said, “but it may not have been accepted by some people. Today we look at this as a color associated with innovation. It takes on a whole different feeling.”
This undated photo shows astronaut John Glenn in his Mercury flight suit. Photo: Associated Press
WASHINGTON — He became a hero as the first American to orbit the Earth and then served as a longtime U.S. senator. But John Glenn, who died Thursday at age 95, continued to defy gravity decades later.
The last survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts flew into space again at age 77. To his fellow crewmates on the space shuttle Discovery in 1998, the legend-turned-senator had to be called John. Or else.
“He didn’t want any special treatment as a U.S. Senator,” said crewmate Scott Parazynski. “He said, ‘Don’t call me Senator Glenn. I’m going to ignore you if you call me that. It’s just John. Or it’s payload specialist 2’.”
While on Earth people pull their weight, in orbit Glenn “pulled his weightlessness up there. He did that well. He was down to Earth. He made time for everybody.”
Flying with the Mercury legend “was like playing basketball with Michael Jordan or doing astrophysics with Albert Einstein,” Parazynski recalled. “He jumped right in and wanted to be part of everything.”
Fellow shuttle astronaut Leroy Chiao, who worked with Glenn but didn’t fly with him, said “He was one of us.”
John Herschel Glenn Jr. had two major career paths that often intersected: flying and politics, and he soared in both of them.
Before he gained fame orbiting the world, he was a fighter pilot in two wars, and as a test pilot, he set a transcontinental speed record. He later served 24 years in the Senate from Ohio. A rare setback was a failed 1984 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
His long political career enabled him to return to space in the shuttle Discovery in 1998, a cosmic victory lap that he relished and turned into a teachable moment about growing old. He holds the record for the oldest person in space.
More than anything, Glenn was the ultimate and uniquely American space hero: a combat veteran with an easy smile, a strong marriage of 70 years and nerves of steel. Schools, a space center and the Columbus, Ohio, airport were named after him. So were children.
The Soviet Union leaped ahead in space exploration by putting the Sputnik 1 satellite in orbit in 1957, and then launched the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, in a 108-minute orbital flight on April 12, 1961. After two suborbital flights by Alan Shepard Jr. and Gus Grissom, it was up to Glenn to be the first American to orbit the Earth.
“Godspeed, John Glenn,” fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter radioed just before Glenn thundered off a Cape Canaveral launch pad, now a National Historic Landmark, to a place America had never been. At the time of that Feb. 20, 1962, flight, Glenn was 40 years old.
During the four-hour, 55-minute flight, Glenn uttered a phrase that he would repeat frequently throughout life: “Zero G, and I feel fine.”
President Barack Obama awards the Medal of Freedom to former astronaut John Glenn in 2012 during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Photo: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press
“It still seems so vivid to me,” Glenn said in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press on the 50th anniversary of the flight. “I still can sort of pseudo feel some of those same sensations I had back in those days during launch and all.”
Glenn’s ride in the cramped Friendship 7 capsule had its scary moments. Sensors showed his heat shield was loose after three orbits, and Mission Control worried he might burn up during re-entry when temperatures reached 3,000 degrees. But the heat shield held.
Glenn was born July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, and grew up in New Concord, Ohio. His love of flight was lifelong; JohnGlenn Sr. spoke of the many summer evenings he arrived home to find his son running around the yard with outstretched arms, pretending he was piloting a plane.
Glenn’s goal of becoming a commercial pilot was changed by World War II. He left Muskingum College to join the Naval Air Corps and soon after, the Marines.
He became a successful fighter pilot who ran 59 hazardous missions, often as a volunteer or as the requested backup of assigned pilots. A war later, in Korea, he earned the nickname “MiG-Mad Marine.”
Glenn’s public life began when he broke the transcontinental airspeed record, bursting from Los Angeles to New York City in three hours, 23 minutes and eight seconds. With his Crusader averaging 725 mph, the 1957 flight proved the jet could endure stress when pushed to maximum speeds over long distances.
In New York, he got a hero’s welcome — his first tickertape parade. He got another after his flight on Friendship 7.
He first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1964 but left the race when he suffered a concussion after slipping in the bathroom and hitting his head on the tub. He tried again in 1970 but was defeated in the primary.
For the next four years, Glenn devoted his attention to business and investments that made him a multimillionaire. In 1974, Glenn ran for the Senate again and won.
Glenn represented Ohio in the Senate longer than any other senator in the state’s history. He became an expert on nuclear weaponry and was the Senate’s most dogged advocate of nonproliferation. He was the leading supporter of the B-1 bomber when many in Congress doubted the need for it.
Glenn said the lowest point of his life was 1990, when he and four other senators came under scrutiny for their connections to Charles Keating, the notorious financier who eventually served prison time for his role in the costly savings and loan failure of the 1980s. The Senate Ethics Committee cleared Glenn of serious wrongdoing but said he “exercised poor judgment.”
He announced his impending retirement in 1997, 35 years to the day after he became the first American in orbit, saying, “There is still no cure for the common birthday.”
Glenn returned to space in a long-awaited second flight in 1998 aboard the Discovery. He got to move around aboard the shuttle for far longer — nine days, compared with just under five hours in 1962 — as well as sleep and experiment with bubbles in weightlessness.
In 1943, Glenn married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Margaret Castor. They had two children, Carolyn and John David.
The couple spent their later years between Washington and Columbus. Both served as trustees at their alma mater, Muskingum College. Glenn spent time promoting the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, which also houses an archive of his private papers and photographs.
BANGKOK— A studio-gallery-shophouse in the Thonglor area will host three days of cult films from the ‘60s and ‘70s next week.
Gonzo-comedy musical “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which still plays regularly to devoted fans worldwide four decades after its release, will headline a roster of six films considered avant-garde productions of their time at Inspirational Films from the Last Century.
The event starts with love and sex games in 1960s’ Italy in “Boccaccio ‘70.” The four-episode film released in 1962 was directed by four Italian filmmakers: Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica and Mario Monicelli.
Get more Italiano vibe from the tale of Venetian womanizer in “Fellini’s Casanova.” The 1976 film stars Donald Sutherland and won a Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards.
Comical French highlights will come via the satirical exploration of supermodels and fashion industry in photographer William Klein’s first film, “Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?” and “Playtime” by director Jacques Tati of “Mon Oncle” fame. The latter French comedy is known for a budget as enormous as its sets, reportedly costing 17 million francs to make.
Horror enthusiasts won’t be let down. The French-Italian made “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein,” or “Flesh for Frankenstein,”) will also be shown. The film, about a Dr. Frankenstein who dreams of making Serbian male and female monsters, received an X rating due to its explicit sex and copious gore.
The event runs Dec. 16 to Dec. 18 on the third floor of the Thong Lor Art Space. The full schedule is available online.
Tickets are 250 baht and include two drinks. All movies will show with English subtitles. Thong Lor Art Space is located on Soi Sukhumvit 55 and can be reached on foot from BTS Thong Lo exit No. 3.
Dhammachayo gives a sermon on Feb. 19, 2012, at Wat Dhammakaya in Pathum Thani. Image: DMC YouTube
BANGKOK — The fugitive abbot of Dhammakaya wanted on embezzlement charges was removed from his position Thursday by Buddhist authorities but allowed to retain a ceremonial role.
A letter released by Pathum Thani’s chapter of the national authority on Buddhist monks said Dhammajayo, 72, was relieved of his post due to the long-running illness his order blames for not turning himself in to face charges of receiving 1.4 billion baht of donations embezzled from a credit union.
Dhammajayo has not been seen in public since the first set of charges was filed in May.
He was replaced by Phra Vithet Bhawanachan as the new abbot of Wat Dhammakaya, an influential Buddhist sect that boasts widespread support among the moneyed elite in Thailand.
The same order also named Dhammajayo to the position of “honorary abbot.”
The temple insists the charges are politically motivated, and said its spiritual leader could not turn himself in because he’s confined to his sick bed. The refusal led to an ongoing law enforcement presence outside the movement’s headquarters north of the capital in Pathum Thani province.
The temple has rallied its followers in defense, and authorities have held off from moving in to avoid a confrontation that may look bad on live television.
National police commissioner Chakthip Chaijinda said Tuesday that he expected the standoff to end “within three months,” but police have yet to announce any plan to raid the temple and search for Dhammajayo.
Chanoknan Ruamsap, 23, in an undated photo from her stay in Brazil. Photo: Chanoknan Ruamsap / Courtesy
BANGKOK — A pro-democracy activist said Thursday the military has threatened to arrest her when she returns from abroad and charge her with lese majeste for sharing two articles by foreign media about the new King.
Though junta spokesman Col. Winthai Suvari said he had no knowledge of any warning made by army officers, Chanoknan Ruamsap, a 23-year-old spokeswoman for the New Democracy Movement, said her mother informed her she could be arrested and charged upon returning from Brazil.
Chanoknan is expected back Monday morning after two months training with a landless workers’ rights movement in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Chanoknan recently shared on Facebook two articles about the new King, one from The Telegraph on Monday and another from BBC Thai on Saturday.
“If you dare write, I dare share,” Chanoknan wrote along with her share of the BBC Thai biography, which has already led to charges against another activist who shared it.
Reached for comment, Chanoknan said she had been warned by her lawyers Sunday to remove the articles from her Facebook profile after the arrest of Jatupat “Pai” Boonpattararaksa, a member of community rights group Dao Din, one week earlier.
Chanoknan said her mother rang her from Bangkok on Wednesday morning.
“My mom called, sounding stressed and reprimanding me, saying this is serious and that a military officer had rung her up to tell her [I] might be apprehended at the airport,” Chanoknan wrote in a chat message Thursday. “She said I could face a military court for my earlier charge of violating the junta’s ban on political gatherings because I posted the articles after Jatupat.”
Chanoknan, who said she was also threatened with prosecution under the Computer Crime Act, said she will not back down.
“I don’t think what I posted was wrong because I believe in freedom of expression, and freedom of speech is a human right, which [is] what I’m fighting for right now,” she said.
Chanoknan admonished the junta in a message posted Wednesday, saying it’s futile to pressure her through her parents because they’ve failed to influence her over the years with their differing political views.
“Those military officers who visited my home almost every month for a year, to the point where they became close to my mother and father, should not think that they can send a message through my family to tell me what to do or what not to do,” she wrote. “I don’t need permission from anyone. Try again.”
Although junta spokesman Winthai said he did not have knowledge of what Chanoknan claimed, he said anyone risked arrest and prosecution if they violated the law.
She was arrested back in January for her involvement in a December 2015 protest against alleged corruption in the construction of a royal memorial park in Prachuap Khiri Khan province.
Chanoknan said Thursday that her lawyers have advised her to prepare money for a bail bond and have friends meet her at the airport.
Jatupat was made to pay a 400,000 baht bond to be freed Sunday.
“But I don’t have 400,000 baht for bail,” Chanoknan said. “Over the past five years of my [political] activism, my parents have contributed 0 baht.”
NBA basketball legend Michael Jordan waves during the match of Charlotte Hornets against the Los Angeles Clippers at the 2015 NBA Global Games in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province. Photo: Kin Cheung / AP.
BEIJING — China’s highest court on Thursday ruled in favor of basketball legend Michael Jordan at the culmination of a years-long case over use of the Chinese rendering of his globally-known name and trademark.
The former NBA star has been in a dispute with a sportswear company based in southern China called Qiaodan Sports since 2012. He had previously argued unsuccessfully in Beijing courts that they had used his Chinese name “Qiaodan” by which he has been known since he gained widespread popularity in the mid-1980s, his old jersey number 23 and basketball player logo to make it look like he was associated with their brand.
The Supreme People’s Court on Thursday announced that it was overturning two rulings by Beijing courts against Jordan from 2014 and 2015 that had found there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support the athlete’s allegations over the use of his image. It also ordered the trademark bureau to issue a new ruling on the use of the Chinese characters in the brand name “Qiaodan.”
Pronounced “CHEEOW-dan,” it is the transliteration of “Jordan” in Mandarin.
The court’s judgment was broadcast live on its website.
Jordan said in a statement that millions of Chinese fans and consumers had always known him by the name Qiaodan and that he was happy the court had recognized his right to protect his name.
“Chinese consumers deserve to know that Qiaodan Sports and its products have no connection to me. Nothing is more important than protecting your own name, and today’s decision shows the importance of that principle,” Jordan said.
In a twist to the legal saga, Qiaodan Sports successfully counter-sued Jordan in 2013 for preventing it from pursuing a stock market listing because of the trademark lawsuit.
The Beijing law firm representing Qiaodan Sports Co. Ltd. declined to comment.
The case reflects the difficulties faced by foreign individuals and companies in protecting their copyrights in China, where domestic firms have long taken a cavalier attitude toward intellectual property.
Numerous Chinese companies sell products with names that sound suspiciously similar to well-known foreign brands, often with only one or two letters changed.
Chinese law protects foreign companies in cases where their brand was already famous in China before being registered by a Chinese firm seeking to capitalize on its notoriety.
However, Apple Inc. lost a legal battle earlier this year when a Beijing court ruled the company had failed to prove that iPhone was a famous brand in China before a Chinese company applied for the “iPhone” trademark in 2007. The Chinese company uses “iPhone” on its handbags and mobile phone cases.
On Dec. 7, Paris' Police authority is again cracking down on the city's rocketing air pollution with a 24-hour traffic-regulating scheme that aims to halve the day's emissions from road vehicles. Photo: Francois Mori / AP.
PARIS — Facing its worse winter pollution in a decade, Paris is sticking to controversial traffic restrictions.
Paris city hall has barred half of all cars from traveling and made public transportation free for a third consecutive day. A similar scheme will be implemented in the city of Lyon Friday as the pollution hit various regions across France including the Rhone valley.
Only vehicles with even-numbered plates are allowed to drive Thursday in the French capital and its nearby suburbs. The ban wasn’t respected by many drivers during the first two days, while disruption in transportation services added to confusion and triggered political bickering among local politicians.
The right-wing head of the Paris region, Valerie Pecresse, asked for a suspension of the ban on cars as long as troubles on the local train network aren’t settled. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a close ally to Socialist President Francois Hollande, replied that it was the region’s prerogative to fix public transportation problems.
According to Airparif, the body in charge of monitoring pollution in Paris, the drop in car emissions was limited to just between 5 and 10 percent on the first day of the ban because only half as many of the vehicles respected it compared to March 2014. Drivers face a fine between 22 ($23) and 75 euros ($80) if they ignore the rule.
To tackle the crisis, Paris’ Velib bike-share and Autolib electric cars will again be free Thursday, as well as the Paris metro and bus services.
In northern France, local authorities have reduced the maximum speed on major roads and urging drivers to resort to car-sharing while residents have been ordered to skip wood fires.
Airparif says the peak is due to the accumulation of pollutants because of anticyclonic conditions.
An image posted to Instagram by @ticha_ek, at left. At right, a parody created by the maker of popular web cartoon Jay the Rabbit.
BANGKOK — A former flight attendant exposed for photoshopping herself into amazing locations inspired the internet Thursday to escalate its ridicule with its own backlash of memes.
@Ticha_ek had more than 134,000 followers on Instagram when sharp-eyed netizens noticed photos of her awash in the Northern Lights, at Chichen Itza and with footballer Lionel Messi were actually just images pulled from the Internet with her pasted in.
Many quickly heaped scorn on the air hostess for touting her wanderlust lifestyle with photo captions (also plagiarized) such as, “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.”
Thursday’s top trending Twitter hashtag was #ticha_ek. People have pointed out many of the photos used were copyrighted by photographers, sometimes with identifying watermarks removed.
Being an air hostess is held up as a dream job for many young women in Thailand, and now many are loving to hate the unidentified woman for making up her too-good-to-be-true life.
Others were inspired by her audacity to go even further by taking the idea to new heights.
@Ticha_ek wasn’t the only one to enjoy some much-needed fresh air.
‘Northern Lights.jpg’ says this post by Drama-Addict page.
Marketers were quick exploit the opportunity. In this image, Ing On rice milk shower cream got on the bandwagon to tout its shower products being “as cool as getting to see the Northern Lights.”
The Department of Intellectual Property even joined the fray, warning that reproducing or editing copyrighted material is illegal with an image of a hot pot, which in Thai is an idiom for being caught red-handed.
‘I already went there 555555555555’
‘I don’t have a husband, so I can go be single anywhere.’
Popular satire page Pim Thai Mai Dai features fugitive abbot Dhammachayo mocking @Ticha_ek’s images. / Photo: Pim Thai Mai Dai / Facebook
The photo which started it all. @Ticha_ek’s northern lights photo was one of the first ones where netizens spotted that the background was pulled from Google.
Leonardo Dicaprio attends the premiere of National Geographic Channel's "Before The Flood," at the United Nations on Oct. 20, 2016. Photo: Brad Barket / AP.
NEW YORK — Leonardo DiCaprio and the head of his foundation met Wednesday with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss how jobs centered on preserving the environment can boost the economy.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Terry Tamminen, the CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, confirmed the meeting at Trump Tower in New York City. Tamminen said the pair gave a presentation to Trump, daughter Ivanka, and other members of Trump’s team on how focusing on renewable, clean energy could create millions of jobs.
“Today, we presented the President-elect and his advisors with a framework — which LDF developed in consultation with leading voices in the fields of economics and environmentalism — that details how to unleash a major economic revival across the United States that is centered on investments in sustainable infrastructure,” Tamminen said. “Our conversation focused on how to create millions of secure, American jobs in the construction and operation of commercial and residential clean, renewable energy generation.”
The Oscar-winning actor has been a strong advocate of fighting climate change and preserving wildlife, and his recent documentary, “Before the Flood,” addresses the peril that the world faces because of climate change.
DiCaprio previously met with Ivanka Trump and presented her with a copy of the film.
The meeting with Trump’s team lasted for about 90 minutes. The actor also gave the president-elect a copy of the documentary, and Trump promised to watch it, according to a person who was familiar with the meeting but not authorized to speak publicly.
Tamminen, who was secretary of California’s Environmental Protection Agency under former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Trump was receptive and suggested they meet again next month.
“We look forward to continuing the conversation with the incoming administration as we work to stop the dangerous march of climate change, while putting millions of people to work at the same time,” said Tamminen.
The meeting came after word got out Wednesday that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate-change denier whose policies have helped fossil fuel companies, is expected to be announced as Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
