text:
ERISA 2019: The Evolving World
Speaker(s): Alicia C. McCarthy, Allison E. Wielobob, Andrew L. Oringer, Arthur H. Kohn, Audrey Jean, Bruce D. Gallant, Christina Y. Lee, Darren Cohen, Dennis Simmons, E. Philip Bush, Emily S. Costin, Erin K. Cho, Garrett A. Fenton, Gretchen Harders, Ian L. Levin, Jay Dinunzio, Jeanne Klinefelter Wilson, Jeffrey A. Lieberman, Jon W. Breyfogle, Judith Rom, Kendra Kosko Isaacson, Lisa J. Bleier, Lori E. Bostrom, M. Matthew Mannion, Matthew T. Rutchik, Nicole Rosser, Norma Drelich Mero, Patricia Anne Kuhn, Peter E. Haller, Phyllis J. Zanghi, Rhonda Prussack, Sarah E. Downie, Sarah L. Burt, Sarah N. Lowe, Shannon Barrett, Veronica M. Wissel, William E. Ryan III
Recorded on: Aug. 5, 2019
ERISA Regulatory and Legislative Updates
ERISA Issues Affecting Financial Institutions
ERISA: Trade Associations' Priorities
ERISA Trends in Asset Management
ERISA: Legal Risks and Issues Affecting Plan Sponsors
ERISA: The M&A Transactional Practice
ERISA Litigation
DOL Enforcement
Pension De-Risking – A Plan Sponsor and Service Provider Primer
ERISA: Legal Ethics – Outside and In-House Counsel
Alicia C. McCarthy is Counsel in the Executive Compensation and Benefits Department at Wachtell Lipton. Ms. McCarthy advises clients with respect to executive compensation and employee benefit matters involving mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, joint ventures, financings, litigation as well as plan compliance. Her experience includes ERISA's fiduciary rules and the investment of plan assets with an extensive background representing financial institutions, fund sponsors and ERISA investors. She also advises on executive compensation matters including performance-based compensation plans, nonqualified pension plans, and employment, severance and change in control agreements.
Ms. McCarthy chairs the Committee of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. She speaks frequently on executive compensation and ERISA topics for the Practicing Law Institute where she co-chairs the ERISA Investment Fiduciary Basics program. She is the recipient of the Pro Bono Publico Award (2010, 2011 and 2014) for her services to The Legal Aid Society. She is also recognized in Best Lawyers of America (2012-2021) in Employee Benefits (ERISA) law and New York Super Lawyers (2013-2020). She recently co-authored the articles "DOL Proposes New Rules Regulating ESG," The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation (July 7, 2020) and "Sun Capital Redux: Private Equity and Pension Liability," The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation (April 5, 2016).
Ms. McCarthy received her B.A. in 1981 from Georgetown University and her J.D. cum laude in 1984 from Brooklyn Law School, where she was a member of the Journal of International Law.
Allison Wielobob is General Counsel at the American Retirement Association. Allison brings nearly 20 years of experience—both in government service and private practice—with a broad range of employee benefits issues under ERISA and the Code. Allison served as a legislation counsel for the Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress and was on the staff of the Office of Regulations and Interpretations of the Employee Benefits Security Administration. After leaving the Labor Department, Allison worked at Eversheds Sutherland (US) in Washington, DC.
Andrew L. Oringer is a partner and the co-chair of the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Group at Dechert LLP. He is the co-chair of the Employee Benefits Committee of the American Bar Association's Business Section, Emerging Issues Coordinator of the Employee Benefits Committee of the American Bar Association's Section of Taxation and chair of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Attorney Professionalism. Mr. Oringer is a charter member of the Practical Law Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Advisory Board and was a long-standing member of the Advisory Board for the Bloomberg BNA Benefits Resource Practice Center and for the Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal. He is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, a Senior Fellow from Practice for the Regulatory Compliance Association and an adjunct professor at the Maurice A. Deane Law School at Hofstra University. He is co-editor of a leading treatise on ERISA fiduciary law and has authored two of its chapters, and has authored a chapter in a leading treatise on the taxation of nonqualified deferred compensation and. Mr. Oringer is highly rated by a number of key ranking organizations, has been repeatedly included in a widely disseminated list of the Top 100 lawyers in New York City across all practice areas and is a member of The Legal 500 Hall of Fame.
Arthur Kohn is General Counsel – ERISA, Compensation and Benefits at Citigroup. Prior to joining Citigroup, Arthur was a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton LLP. His practice focused on compensation and benefits matters, including executive compensation, pension compliance and investment, employment law and related matters.
He repeatedly has been recognized for his work on behalf of clients by the business and legal press, including Best Lawyers, which named him its 2014 New York Employee Benefits (ERISA) Lawyer of the Year. He has also been recognized for his work in employee benefits and executive compensation law by Chambers USA, The Legal 500, Super Lawyers of New York and others.
He is frequently invited to speak about executive compensation, taxation and corporate governance matters across the United States. Arthur is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law and a regular guest lecturer at Columbia Law School.
Arthur received a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was admitted into the Accelerated Interdisciplinary Legal Education program, was appointed a Harlan Fiske Scholar and received Phi Beta Kappa honors.
Audrey serves as in-house counsel for AARP, the largest social mission tax-exempt organization serving the fifty-plus and retirement community, with 38 million members. Audrey works with departments across the organization, including public policy, government affairs, membership management, state and local offices, and AARP Foundation. Audrey oversees data privacy compliance for AARP and advises on privacy trends and legislation affecting older Americans. In addition, Audrey advises AARP Innovation Labs, an in-house venture capital and innovation center which invests in and develops new products and services for fifty-plus consumers.
Previously, Audrey worked in the legal department of Bloomberg BNA, where she advised on 401(k), pension plan, retiree health and other benefits compliance issues, and served on the company's Pension Administration Committee, in addition to providing general corporate counsel on privacy, compliance, technology, media, commercial, employment and other matters. Prior to Bloomberg BNA, Audrey was in-house at Discovery, Inc. advising the television and streaming video content distribution teams for US networks. Audrey began her career in private practice with the law firms Chadbourne & Parke (now Norton Rose Fullbright) and DLA Piper.
Audrey holds a BA in History from Princeton University and a JD from Georgetown University. Audrey is an Advisory Board Member of the Future of Privacy Forum and serves on the Women's Leadership Network for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. She was recently recognized by DCA Live as Top 40 Corporate Counsel and by ACC National Capital Region as a finalist for Outstanding In-House Counsel in 2018, and has spoken on various topics for ACC and Bloomberg Law.
Bruce D. Gallant is Of Counsel at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP. Prior to joining Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP in 2016, Mr. Gallant was Managing Director and Associate General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., supporting the JPMorgan institutional investment management and related business units with primary responsibility for ERISA and general fiduciary matters. He was also responsible for advising clients on new products, portfolio investment transactions and business practices, participation in legal and business staff training and education and providing general legal advice. Prior to joining JPMorgan in 1996, Mr. Gallant worked at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton from 1981, where his responsibilities included representations of broker-dealers, investment banks and other financial institutions, investment managers and other corporations. Mr. Gallant is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, in 1977 and the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1981.
Christina is lead ERISA counsel for the institutional broker dealer and the asset management businesses of Morgan Stanley. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2011, Ms. Lee was an attorney at Allen & Overy LLP, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Proskauer Rose LLP, representing clients in all aspects of employee benefits and executive compensation.
Christina received her JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, where she was an editor of the Law Review and a Bachelor of Science, with distinction, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ms. Lee is admitted to practice in New York.
Darren Cohen is the Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Labor's New York Regional Office of the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). He is responsible for overseeing the Regional Office's civil enforcement program, which obtains compliance with the fiduciary, reporting, and disclosure provisions of Title I of ERISA. He is also responsible for the Office's criminal enforcement program, which is handled in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney's Offices and state and local prosecutors. Prior to joining EBSA, Mr. Cohen was the Deputy Regional Solicitor and ERISA Counsel in the New York Office of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor. Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Labor, Mr. Cohen worked at two New York law firms and clerked for the Honorable Cecilia M. Altonaga, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Mr. Cohen received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his B.A. from Columbia University.
Dennis Simmons is the Executive Director of CIEBA, the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets. CIEBA represents more than 100 of the country's most experienced chief investment officer fiduciaries, with CIEBA Members managing over $2 trillion of defined benefit and defined contribution plan assets. As the largest organization of corporate investment officers, CIEBA represents the interests of fiduciaries as they carry out their daily responsibilities on behalf of over 17 million participants and retirees worldwide.
Prior to joining CIEBA in 2017, Mr. Simmons led global retirement savings public policy strategy as senior principal in the International Legal team at Vanguard, one of the world's leading investment management firms. In that role, Mr. Simmons worked through Vanguard's global regional offices in London, Brussels, Paris, Hong Kong, Beijing, Melbourne, Toronto, and Latin America, leading Vanguard's efforts in shaping global retirement savings policies and initiatives.
Prior to leading international retirement savings policy strategy, Mr. Simmons served for over ten years as Vanguard's lead ERISA counsel, heading Vanguard's ERISA Legal and Fiduciary Services Group and Vanguard's Plan Sponsor Strategic Consulting Group, specialized units providing business-focused, legal compliance and consulting support for Vanguard's over $2 trillion U.S. defined contribution, defined benefit, executive compensation and individual retirement plan businesses. Mr. Simmons also served as lead counsel on boards and committees responsible for Vanguard's trustee services and the design and administration of global retirement and health and welfare programs, including programs benefitting Vanguard's 15,000+ employees.
Mr. Simmons has been handling global retirement savings policy, tax, and legal issues for over two decades and he is a frequent conference speaker on retirement savings matters. He has been active on legislative committees for prominent retirement savings industry groups, such as the American Benefits Council, the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association, the Plan Sponsor Council of America, and the Investment Company Institute (ICI), serving as the past Chairman for both ICI's Global Retirement Savings Committee and ICI's States Pension Committee.
Mr. Simmons also served on the US Department of Labor's ERISA Advisory Council, the council established under U.S. federal law to give recommendations to the Secretary of Labor on important policy issues affecting retirement savings and welfare plans.
Mr. Simmons earned a B.A. in economics and a BS in business administration from Roanoke College, and a J.D., cum laude, from Widener University School of Law.
Emily Seymour Costin is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Alston & Bird LLP, and the leader of the firm's ERISA Litigation team. Emily primarily represents employers, plan sponsors, insurers, and fiduciaries in employee benefit disputes and advises on litigation avoidance strategies. She has experience defending a variety of individual, mass action, and class action claims for benefits and breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA, including those involving investments, excessive fees, employer stock, actuarial factors, benefit termination, and health care matters. Emily also represents clients in related disputes that include employment, securities, insurance, breach of contract, professional malpractice, and government contract matters. She also assists clients responding to government audits, investigations, and subpoenas.
Emily was one of five lawyers named a "Rising Star" by Law360 in the field of employee benefits in 2018, and was most recently recognized by The Best Lawyers in America© in Litigation – ERISA. Emily is the former chair of the American Bar Association's Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB), a member of the editorial advisory board of the Benefits Law Journal, and a contributing author to the BNA treatise ERISA Litigation.
Erin K. Cho is a partner in the Retirement Services and Employers Practice Groups at Groom Law Group and Chair of its Women's Initiative. She advises clients on a wide range of matters involving ERISA's fiduciary and conflict of interest rules. She counsels plan sponsors on all aspects of ERISA fiduciary compliance, including plan governance, plan expense issues, and the selection and monitoring of plan investment options. She also has extensive experience advising broker-dealers, asset managers, insurance companies and investment bankers with respect to the many and varied services and investment products they offer to U.S. pension plans.
Erin also represents clients in connection with audits and investigations as well as advisory opinion and exemption requests before the Department of Labor. Erin regularly writes on pension investment matters for a variety of publications. She is a frequent speaker on ERISA matters and is the co-chair of the Practising Law Institute's annual conference, "ERISA: The Evolving World."
Erin received her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School and her B.A. Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude from Yale University.
Garrett Fenton is a Senior Attorney in Microsoft's Corporate Legal Group who specializes in all aspects of employee welfare and retirement benefits, executive compensation, and HIPAA compliance.
Garrett received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington, his Juris Doctor degree (magna cum laude) from Southwestern University School of Law, and his LL.M. in Taxation (magna cum laude, top 5%) from the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2017, Garrett was an equity partner at Miller & Chevalier Chartered in Washington, D.C., where he assisted primarily large employers and insurers with a broad range of employee benefits, executive compensation, and tax issues.
Garrett is a frequent speaker on employee benefits matters, and has authored and co-authored numerous articles and treatises as well.
Gretchen Harders is a Member of the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation and HealthCare and Life Sciences practice group of Epstein Becker & Green, in the New York office. Ms. Harders counsels a broad range of clients on executive compensation and employee benefit issues, tax-qualified and non-qualified plans, 401(k) plans, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, deferred compensation, executive incentive compensation plans, executive employment and severance agreements, Section 409A compliance, equity-based compensation plans, multiemployer plans and health and welfare plans and trusts. Ms. Harders' clients include Fortune 500 companies, financial services institutions, health care providers and tax-exempt organizations.
Ms. Harders is a frequent speaker on various employee benefit and executive compensation issues and developments and has authored articles on various topics of ERISA and employee benefits law. She is on the editorial board of the Bloomberg BNA Compensation Planning Journal and has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America and New York Metro Super Lawyers and Top Women lists. Ms. Harders received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and her J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School (cum laude).
Ian L. Levin concentrates on executive compensation and employee benefits, with a focus on the employee benefit aspects of mergers and acquisitions and issues arising from the investment of pension plan assets. He represents both executives and companies with respect to the negotiation and drafting of executive employment agreements and advises as to the design and establishment of virtually all types of employee benefit arrangements ranging from cash incentive, equity, deferred compensation and change-in-control arrangements to broad-based retirement and welfare plans. He also advises clients on fiduciary and plan asset requirements of ERISA, including the structure and offering of various securities and securities products; the formation and ongoing compliance of private equity and hedge funds; the administration, management and investment of employee benefit plans; and compliance with ERISA's various prohibited transaction rules and exemptions.
Ian has been recognized as a leading employment and employee benefits attorney by Chambers USA, The Legal 500 US, New York Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers. The Legal 500 US noted that he "operates at a very high level across many areas, but brings a particularly unique set of skills to ERISA Title I matters in his representation of private investment funds." A highly sought-after thought leader, he has been quoted in articles published by Bloomberg and The Washington Post. He co-authored the SRZ Alert "DOL Fiduciary Duty Rule Officially Dead" and he discussed "ERISA: The M&A Transactional Practice" at the PLI's ERISA: The Evolving World Seminar. Ian serves as a member on the Advisory Board and as chair of the Center for Transactional Law and Practice Advisory Board at the Emory University School of Law. He also serves as an adjunct professor at New York Law School.
Jay Dinunzio is a Principal in Mercer's Financial Strategy Group focused on consulting with clients on pension risk transfer (PRT) strategies including retiree lift-out and plan termination annuitizations. Jay has nearly 20 years of experience navigating strategic and tactical aspects of insurance based transactions involving retirement plans.
Jay has led over 100 pension risk transfer transactions since 2013, and is well versed in communicating and managing the settlor and fiduciary issues which naturally compete with each other in a PRT transaction. Additionally, Jay is proficient in asset-in-kind annuity funding, mortality experience data, insurer negotiation, and independent annuity expert/DOL 95-1 "safest available annuity" analysis.
Prior to joining Mercer Jay worked at a leading national retirement consulting firm, within the annuity consulting practice. Additionally, Jay spent the first portion of his career working within the pension risk transfer business units for two different leading life insurance companies. Jay holds a B.A. political science from Syracuse University, and also holds Life, Accident and Health Insurance Licenses in all 50 states.
Jeffrey Lieberman is Counsel in the employee benefits practice at Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and was previously Counsel and Partner at several international Law firms. His practice focuses on ERISA Title I matters, advising abroad range of clients including asset managers, investment advisers, banks, hedge funds, plan sponsors, recordkeepers, private equity funds, pooled investment funds, insurance companies, securitized vehicles and servicers to such vehicles, issuers of various types of securities, underwriters and trustees. He regularly assists plan fiduciaries and service providers in navigating ERISA's prohibited transaction and fiduciary requirements rules. He is a member has served as chair and vice-chair of several subcommittees of the American Bar Association tax section and is a member of the New York City Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation and serves on several non-profit boards of directors.
Jon Breyfogle is an expert on ERISA's fiduciary rules and government regulation of health insurance, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In his practice, Jon counsels numerous financial services firms, health insurers, and their D.C.-based trade associations on retirement and health matters. His practice includes advice on regulatory and legislative strategies, compliance, and defense of federal and state investigations. Jon has testified before Congress and at Department of Labor hearings on both retirement and health issues.
With respect to ERISA, Jon frequently represents clients in front of the Department of Labor, seeking and obtaining a variety of advisory opinions, information letters, and prohibited transaction exemptions. Jon works with a wide range of financial services firms on the products they offer to the 401(k) market and to IRAs. He regularly counsels large employers, supporting plan investment and administrative committees by providing fiduciary training, fee and expense analyses, reviews of plan governance and administrative practices, and assistance regarding frozen or eliminated company stock funds.
As part of his health practice, Jon represents the nation's largest health insurers and their trade associations on ACA and other federal and state laws that regulate health insurance. He regularly engages in advocacy on behalf of the firm's clients before Congress and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury. Jon's practice also includes defending insurers on state and federal government investigations relating to the ACA, federal mental health parity, ERISA and state insurance law.
Currently, Jon is the Chair of Groom and is the leader of the firm's Health Services Practice Group. Jon also is a member of the firm's Retirement Services and Employers Practice Groups.
Prior to joining Groom, Jon served in political and civil service positions at the Office of Management and Budget, Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, and the Department of Labor.
Judith Rom heads the Legal Department at DWS (Deutsche Bank's Asset Management division) in the Americas. She was previously head of Legal for Wealth Management & Asset Management Americas at Deutsche Bank and also worked at Zurich Scudder Investments.
Prior to working in-house, Ms. Rom was a lawyer at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. She received her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was the Managing Editor of the Law Review, and her B.A. from Columbia University. She is a member of the State Bar of New York. Ms. Rom serves on the Board of Trustees of the Kaufman Music Center.
Kendra Kosko Isaacson serves as Senior Pensions Counsel to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, where she advises Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) and other committee members on ERISA and all retirement-related issues. She is also a member of the Committee's Oversight Team where she assists with nominations and financial conflicts of interest.
Kendra received her B.A. in Government from Dartmouth College, a J.D., with honors, from the Catholic University Columbus School of Law, and an LL.M in Taxation with a certificate in Employee Benefits from the Georgetown University Law Center. After law school, Kendra was an Associate with Slevin & Hart, P.C. and also with Venable LLP in Washington, DC. Before joining the HELP Committee, Kendra worked in the Employee Benefits Security Administration at the Department of Labor where she worked in the Office of Policy and Research.
Kendra speaks frequently on retirement policy.
Lisa J. Bleier is Managing Director and Associate General Counsel at SIFMA. In this capacity, she supervises and coordinates SIFMA's outreach to members of Congress and government regulators on retirement and senior investor matters.
Ms. Bleier has been published in Trust & Investment Magazine, having authored "Overhauling ERISA for Today's Marketplace," and "The State of Play for Today's Directed Trustee."
Ms. Bleier is also on the Board of the NAPSA National Institute on Elder Financial Exploitation, Co-Chair SIFMA's Senior Investor Protection Initiative, and the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Section on Taxation Employee Benefits Legislation and Litigation Subcommittee. In addition, she is on the planning board for the National Aging and Legal Conference. She has testified on retirement plan matters in Oregon and Connecticut. Further, she has testified on ERISA fiduciary matters in Nevada and Maryland.
Previously, Ms. Bleier held positions as Vice President and Senior Counsel at the American Banker's Association, Government Affairs Manager for the American Society of Pension Actuaries, and as a legislative assistant and counsel for Congresswoman Marge Roukema.
Ms. Bleier holds a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Lori E. Bostrom is Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer of Newport Trust Company, which serves clients with fiduciary services in retirement and investment management. Lori manages the legal work for Newport Trust, and is also on the senior team responsible for new business engagements. She previously served as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at OFI Global Asset Management, Inc. (OppenheimerFunds) for over 10 years, heading a team of 30 attorneys, paralegals, and marketing compliance professionals covering investment product distribution. Previously, Lori spent 9 years in-house at Prudential Financial, Inc. and The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, specializing in investment products and initiatives, having started her legal career at large and midsize law firms. She has served on various committees of financial industry and benefits trade associations, focusing on retirement policy and investment product distribution. Lori has a B.A. from Skidmore College and a J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Matt Mannion has been with AIG since 2007. As the Vice President, Fiduciary Liability Claims, in the Financial Lines Group, Matt manages a team of five analysts who handle multi-million dollar insurance claims, which involve all aspects of ERISA litigation. Before AIG, Matt was a practicing commercial litigation attorney in New Jersey. Prior to his legal career, Matt was an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army and was awarded the bronze star for service with the First Infantry Division during Desert Storm. Matt earned his B.A. from Rutgers University and his J.D., with honors, from the University of Baltimore.
Mr. Ryan is President and Chief Fiduciary Officer of Newport Trust Company, and served as President and Chief Fiduciary Officer of Evercore Trust Company, N.A., prior to the acquisition of Evercore Trust's institutional trustee and independent fiduciary business by Newport Trust in 2017. Prior to Evercore Trust, Mr. Ryan was with Morgan Stanley, where he was an Executive Director in the Legal and Compliance Division and Head of ERISA Law, responsible for coordinating ERISA and qualified tax issues for Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities Group (Institutional Brokerage), Morgan Stanley Investment Management (Asset Management), and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (Retail Brokerage). Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Ryan was the Chief ERISA/Benefits Counsel for Prudential Financial, Inc. from 1995 through 2004, handling ERISA-related HR, compensation and product issues for Prudential Insurance, and was in private practice in New York from 1987 through 1995, specializing in ERISA issues. On behalf of various industry groups, Mr. Ryan has met with and testified before the U.S. Department of Labor, the Treasury Department, the White House, and various state regulators on fiduciary and other retirement issues. He has also served on various industry groups, including the SIFMA Retirement Committee (where he served as co-chair from 2010-2013). Mr. Ryan holds an A.B. Degree in History from Princeton University in 1984, a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1987 (where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review), and a Masters in Taxation (LL.M.) from New York University School of Law in 1995.
Ms. Wissel is a partner in Davis Polk's Corporate Department, practicing in the Executive Compensation Group. She advises clients on a variety of compensation-related matters, including the design and implementation of equity, retention and incentive plans, compensation, disclosure and regulatory compliance, and employment negotiations with senior executives, with a particular emphasis on compensation and benefits issues relating to mergers and acquisitions transactions. Additionally, she advises clients with respect to the ERISA aspects of the investment and management of pension plan assets in private funds and other products and arrangements, including hedge funds and private equity funds, and she advises asset managers and broker dealers with respect to the financial products they offer to U.S. pension plans and compliance with ERISA's fiduciary rules.
Nicole Rosser is a member of BlackRock's Legal & Compliance Department, responsible for ERISA matters for BlackRock. Nicole advises the firm with respect to ERISA's fiduciary responsibility and prohibited transaction rules in connection with BlackRock's asset management business.
Prior to joining BlackRock in 2013, Nicole worked at the law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, where she was an associate since 2007. Nicole received a B.S. from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia in 2004, and a J.D. and LL.M from New York University School of Law in 2007 and 2010, respectively.
Norma is an Assistant General Counsel at Warner Media Group, LLC (formerly known as Time Warner Inc.). She is an employee benefits lawyer responsible for Time Warner employee benefit plans, including the 401(k), pension plan, excess and deferred compensation plans, health and welfare benefits, COBRA, HIPAA etc. In addition, she provides fiduciary advice to the Investment Committee and acts as a liaison to the Administrative Committee. Norma works closely with Corporate Benefits, divisional benefit departments and collaborates with other attorneys within the legal department on contracts, litigation and securities matters.
Prior to joining WarnerMedia almost 16 years ago, Norma practiced employee benefits law at Morgan Lewis & Bockius in New York and Washington D.C. Before that, she worked as a senior tax consultant in the Compensation and Benefits practice at KPMG, and Deloitte Touche. She received a JD/MBA from Emory University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Norma is a co-founder and board member of the Charity Chess Championship, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to raising money for charitable causes. 2019 was the third year of the charity and 100% of all net proceeds from the chess event will be donated to the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to fund research for the early detection and prevention of pancreatic cancer.
Norma lives in New York City with her husband and son, a chess aficionado.
Patricia is a member of the bank's Legal Department. She provides advice and guidance on ERISA, fiduciary and other employee benefit plan and retirement issues to the Global Wealth and Investment Management business. Her responsibilities include supporting institutional and individual retirement programs and services and non-qualified deferred compensation and equity plans.
Prior to Bank of America, Ms. Kuhn was a Managing Director at BlackRock in Legal and Compliance and a counsel at Shearman & Sterling LLC in the Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits Group. She advised clients on issues arising under the Title I and Title IV of ERISA and other employee benefit plan and employment issues.
Patricia received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York, College at Purchase in 1983, and a Juris Doctor degree from Boston University, cum laude in 1989, and she was a member of law review.
Peter E. Haller is a partner in the Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits Department and practice leader for ERISA fiduciary issues.
Mr. Haller advises clients on their employee benefit plans and programs, with an emphasis on the fiduciary responsibility and prohibited transaction rules under ERISA, including the DOL guidance and court decisions arising out of the Fiduciary Rule and related exemptions. He has significant experience with ERISA issues raised by hedge funds, private equity funds and financial institutions and their broker-dealer, asset management and private bank affiliates. Mr. Haller represents clients with their prohibited transaction exemption requests before the Department of Labor's Employee Benefit Security Administration. He also advises on ERISA and other employee benefits matters in connection with corporate transactions involving asset management and financial services firms.
Mr. Haller chairs the New York City Bar Association subcommittee on ERISA Fiduciary Duties, Private Equity and Plan Investments. Mr. Haller also serves as an adjunct professor and teaches a class with Barry Barbash at Georgetown University Law Center and Howard University Law School on ERISA Fiduciary Duties and the Regulation of Private Funds. He is also a frequent speaker and lecturer on a wide variety of employee benefits and ERISA related topics.
Prior to returning to Willkie in 2015, Mr. Haller was counsel for Credit Suisse in New York, where he served as the global head of the ERISA and Executive Compensation practices, and head of the U.S. Bank Regulatory practice. In this role, he advised Credit Suisse with the development and offering of complex financial products in their investment banking and asset management divisions. Mr. Haller is also a Certified Public Accountant.
Mr. Haller received a JD from Boston College Law School in 1993 and a BS in accountancy (cum laude) from Bentley College in 1988, where he received the Falcon Society Award for academic achievement.
Philip Bush is a partner in the Dallas, Texas office of Locke Lord LLP. His practice focuses on employee benefits and executive compensation.
He has served as an adjunct professor on qualified and non-qualified plans at SMU Dedman School of Law since 1989.
Philip received his J.D. in 1978 and received his LLM in Taxation in 1985 from SMU Dedman School of Law. He is board certified as a specialist in taxation by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Philip has been recognized by Best Lawyers in the field of Employee Benefits. He is a frequent author and speaker on various topics related to employee benefits and executive compensation. He also is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel.
Phyllis Zanghi is Associate General Counsel and Tax Director for Brighthouse Financial in Charlotte, NC. Phyllis heads both the Finance Tax team as well as the Law Department's Tax/ERISA team. Phyllis' main responsibilities include company tax strategy as well tax and ERISA compliance. She is responsible for a team of accountants that focus on timely and accurate tax filings, tax projection, financial reporting and tax depositing as well as tax and ERISA audit work. She also manages a group of tax/ERISA professionals responsible for all employee benefit (e.g. medical, pension, severance etc.) plans and executive compensation programs, as well as the tax and ERISA positions for all products. Finally, Phyllis is a Board Member and General Counsel for the Brighthouse Foundation. Prior to joining Brighthouse in 2016, Phyllis worked in the MetLife Law and Tax Department's for 18 years. Prior to joining MetLife, Phyllis clerked for the Honorable John F. Callinan in the Chancery Court in Cape May County, NJ. Phyllis earned her LL.M in Taxation from New York University School of Law in 2002 and her law degree from St. John's University in 1997.
Rhonda Prussack is Senior Vice President and Head of Fiduciary and Employment Practices Liability at Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance. Ms. Prussack has been with BHSI for the last six of her thirty years in the insurance industry. In her extensive career, Ms. Prussack has developed and brought to market state-of-the-art policy forms and innovative coverages for corporations, organized labor, municipalities, and not-for-profits. She also oversees pricing, profitability, underwriting, and marketing of fiduciary and employment practices liability insurance products. Early in her career, Ms. Prussack had roles at Dean Witter, Johnson & Higgins, and the New York City Employees' Retirement System. She has written articles for and been quoted in many publications and is a frequent speaker at ERISA, employment practices, and executive liability seminars around the U.S. and Canada.
Ms. Prussack received her B.A. from Brooklyn College.
Originally from Brooklyn, Ms. Prussack is now based in New York. She can be reached at rhonda.prussack@bhspecialty.com
Sarah Burt is the Chief Legal Officer for the ERISA/Benefits team at Prudential Financial and leads a team of attorneys who provide advice to the businesses and human resources on ERISA, Internal Revenue Code, and other laws affecting benefit plans and IRAs. Sarah has served as the lead ERISA attorney on the Department of Labor Fiduciary Investment Advice Rule and is a member of Prudential's Extended Leadership Team.
On a daily basis, Sarah and her team provide advice on a wide range of ERISA and Internal Revenue Code issues including, but not limited to, prohibited transaction exemptions, fiduciary requirements, and fund structure. In addition, Sarah and her team provide advice on welfare, wellness, pension, severance, and deferred compensation plans. Sarah's clients include the Prudential businesses that sell products and services to ERISA plans and IRAs including Prudential's broker-dealer, asset management, insurance, and annuity businesses. Sarah is also the lead lawyer for the Investment Oversight Committee of Prudential's company plans.
Sarah joined Prudential in 2007 as a Director, Corporate Counsel. In 2010, Sarah was promoted to Vice President, Corporate Counsel, and in 2012, Sarah became primarily responsible for providing advice on ERISA Title I issues. In 2013, Sarah became Co-Lead ERISA Counsel for the ERISA/Benefits team, and in 2018, Sarah become Chief Legal Officer for the ERISA/Benefits team.
Before joining Prudential's Law Department in 2007, Sarah was an attorney in Proskauer Rose LLP's Employee Benefits Practice Group. While at Proskauer, Sarah primarily provided ERISA and Internal Revenue Code advice to multi-employer pension and welfare plans (i.e., Taft-Hartley plans).
Sarah graduated cum laude from Cornell Law School. She received her undergraduate degree from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.
Sarah Downie is an Executive Compensation & Benefits partner in Weil's Tax Department and is based in New York. Ms. Downie advises clients on all aspects of compensation and employee benefits.
Ms. Downie has extensive experience in the executive compensation and employee benefits aspects of mergers, acquisitions and financings. She represents senior executives and companies in the negotiation and drafting of employment and severance agreements. She also advises as to the design and operation of executive and employee benefit arrangements including equity compensation and cash incentive plans, change in control and retention arrangements and nonqualified deferred compensation plans. In addition, Ms. Downie regularly advises employers on the design and operation of tax-qualified retirement plans, including 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans and 457(b) plans, as well as health and welfare benefit plans.
Ms. Downie advises clients on pension plan investment and compliance with ERISA's fiduciary obligations and prohibited transaction rules. She regularly counsels private fund sponsors in connection with ERISA's "plan asset" regulations and with VCOC, REOC and similar issues.
Ms. Downie is recognized for Employee Benefits by Super Lawyers and has been recommended for Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation by Legal 500 US. She served as Chair of the New York City Bar Association's Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Committee and is a member of the Steering Committee of the New York Chapter of Worldwide Employee Benefits Network.
Sarah N. Lowe of Frost Brown Todd LLC focuses her practice on employee benefits, with an emphasis in the areas of qualified plans, related ERISA fiduciary issues and pension plan investments. She regularly reviews and negotiates provisions of pension plan investments on behalf of large pension funds, including hedge funds and other alternative investments. She also routinely assists structuring private investment funds and their portfolio investments so that they avoid being subject to ERISA fiduciary rules. As part of her practice, she regularly advises clients on compliance with ERISA's rules regarding fiduciary duties and prohibited transactions.
Sarah also has significant experience in pension de-risking area, including both "lift out" and termination annuity transactions. Her experience includes representing plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries and independent fiduciaries in multiple complex annuity transactions.
Sarah has provided counsel to and negotiated on behalf of clients regarding employee benefit issues in connection with mergers, acquisitions, dispositions and other business transactions. She has also advised public and private employer clients regarding issues related to design, preparation, communication, administration and operation of qualified plans and the related funding vehicles, including pension and profit-sharing plans, 401(k) plans, rabbi trusts and cafeteria plans.
Shannon Barrett concentrates his practice on ERISA-related litigation and on providing advice relating to Title I of ERISA. He has been involved in litigating a broad range of ERISA matters at both the trial and appellate levels, with a particular focus on fiduciary issues. In addition to his litigation practice, Shannon has assisted clients in responding to regulatory investigations and has counseled clients, including financial institutions and plan sponsors, on ERISA issues such as fiduciary structure, fee disclosure, and compliance with ERISA's prohibited transaction provisions. Shannon also has advised independent fiduciaries in their representation of employee benefit plans' rights in connection with ERISA and securities settlements.
Shannon is a frequent thought leader on ERISA-related topics and serves as the co-editor of the ERISA Litigation Reporter. He is recognized by Chambers USA and Legal 500 in the ERISA Litigation (Nationwide) category.
As Acting Assistant Secretary, Ms. Wilson serves as agency head for the Employee Benefits Security Administration at the Department of Labor. Ms. Wilson has served at EBSA since her initial appointment in November 2017. Since that time she has served as Acting Assistant Secretary (from June 2020 to now, and previously from November 2017 to January 2018). She also served as EBSA's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy (November 2017 to May 2019), and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary (May 2019 to May 2020).
Before her appointment, Ms. Wilson served as counsel to plan sponsors and fiduciaries for over fifteen years. Prior to her graduation from law school, Ms. Wilson worked for seven years at a national accounting firm where she audited employee benefit plans and provided employee benefit plan compliance advice.
Matt is ERISA Counsel at Credit Suisse. He advises the buy and sell sides of the financial institution on structuring investments and relationships. He provides support on fiduciary responsibilities, prohibited transaction rules and exemptions, reporting and disclosure, fund structure, and contract negotiation. In addition, Matt serves as counsel to Credit Suisse's benefits committee, covering the internal qualified and non-qualified employee benefit plans. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Matt worked at the United States Department of Labor, Employee Benefit Security Administration.
Matt graduated from the University of Toronto (BA and MA), and the Hofstra University School of Law.


text:
Q: Checkbox background size in JavaFx-Css I am styling a checkbox inside a menu button, and i am trying to change the color of the box's background but it appears the size of it (red) is larger than the margin (yellow), how can I change the size or what would be the attribute to change? I tried changing the size attribute in CSS but it is not working.
.menu-item .check-box > .box {
    -fx-background-color: red;
    -fx-border-color: yellow;
}

Example Link

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The City Nature Challenge is a multi-city, multi-day bioblitz where multiple urban areas try to observe the most species.
This BioBlitz takes place at Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência in Lisboa, and invites you to record a biodiversity inventory.
This BioBlitz takes place at the WWT Caerlaverock Wetland Centre.
The River Ouse Bioblitz takes places in Sheffield Park, UK.
This BioBlitz takes place on the Tróia Peninsula, Portugal.
This BioBlitz takes place at the Bath Festival of Nature 2017, UK.


text:
Gojo Vs. Naruto: Who Would Win and Why?
Satoru Gojo is among the strongest characters in the Jujutsu Kaisen franchise and a character that can overpower all known characters from his own franchise. But, how good is he when compared to a character from another universe, Naruto Uzumaki? Who is stronger between the two? Who would win in a fight between Gojo and Naruto?
The fight between Gojo and Naruto would end in a draw. Gojo and Naruto don't really rely on the same techniques, but where Gojo's strongest magical technique can defeat Naruto, Naruto's strongest chakra techniques can also overtake Gojo. This is why it all depends on the course of the battle and why there is no clear winner.
Now that you have the short version of the answer, the rest of the article is going to be divided into three sections, with the first two introducing the characters, their powers, and their abilities. In the end, we're going to give our final verdict and explanation on why the fight between Naruto Uzumaki and Satoru Gojo is a draw.
Saturo Gojo and His Powers
Satoru Gojo is the teacher of the first-year class of the Tokyo school of magic, which consists of the three main characters from the series, Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, and Nobara Kugisaki. Despite being considered the strongest sorcerer, he is portrayed as a fool who has little respect for his superiors.
Satoru is known within exorcist society as the most powerful exorcist. He got this pseudonym because of the immense amounts of cursed energy and powerful techniques he possesses.
Satoru's cursed energy is large enough to use Territory Expansion multiple times a day, unlike other exorcists. He has excellent control over his occult energy, being able to activate his Territory Extension in a fraction of a second, use the inversion spell, and even combine positive and negative occult energy.
Fighting Skills and Physical Powers
Satoru, in addition to his overwhelming level of occult energy, is also an incredibly fearsome martial art master, with extraordinary physical prowess to support his skills. He was able to completely dominate Jogo in melee, delivering several precise attacks on the scourge kill points.
Gojo Vs. Goku: Who Would Win?
He was even able to fight and largely dominated Jogo and Hanami in close combat, easily countering their attacks and delivering powerful blows to them that quickly forced them into submission.
He has great speed, managing to keep up with the movements of an S-Class flail effortlessly, and throwing almost imperceptible punches and kicks. He has been shown to be able to move faster than the eye can perceive, and in his greatest feat of speed, has traveled a great distance from a fight and returned to the battlefield before that his opponent didn't realize he was even gone in the first place.
Naruto Uzumaki and His Powers
Naruto Uzumaki is a ninja from Konoha and is part of "Team 7", made up of Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno and their leader and sensei, Kakashi Hatake. Near the end of his main narrative arc, he becomes the Seventh Hokage of Konoha, as well as the husband of Hinata Hyūga and father of Boruto Uzumaki and Himawari Uzumaki.
Initially, Naruto is portrayed as a very deficient student in the ninja arts, who spends his time inventing useless techniques such as the Sexy Technique and later that of the Harem; after studying the parchment of the First Hokage, in which the forbidden techniques of the village are noted, however, Naruto learns the superior technique of the multiplication of the body, which becomes a sort of his trademark given the versatility with which he will be able to use it.
From this moment Naruto manages to improve enormously thanks to his unlimited desire to learn and train under the tutelage of Kakashi and above all of Jiraiya, who teaches him various skills (such as exploiting the Kurama chakra up to the third tail while maintaining his personality and to improve the concentration of energy) and two techniques that will prove to be fundamental for him.
30 Strongest Naruto Characters (RANKED)
The first is the Recall Technique, with which he becomes able to evoke toads that support him in fighting and in the use of some techniques, while the second is Rasengan, of which he will create numerous variants. Naruto can boast an impressive chakra reserve, at least four times that of Kakashi (considering also the Fox chakra it would be over a hundred times that of the copying ninja), and an equally remarkable physical resistance, also increased by the Nine-Tails.
Fighting skills
He is especially suited to close combat, also due to his predisposition for the Wind-type chakra, but he also possesses long-range techniques. In battle, he mainly uses ninjutsu and taijutsu and has also shown considerable skill in the use of ninja tools, especially in tandem with Sasuke.
After Jiraiya's death he decides to follow the teachings of the hermit toad Fukasaku and thus learns to use the Hermit Mode, a skill that not even the legendary ninja and the Fourth Hokage were able to perfectly control.
Saturo Gojo Vs. Naruto Uzumaki: Who Wins?
Now, as we have stated in the short version of the answer, Gojo and Naruto don't really fight in the same manner. Sure, they're both good in hand-to-hand combat, but Gojo focuses on his exorcist skills, while Naruto's main focus are his chakra techniques.
Although one could draw a parallel between the two, they're essentially too different to be compared equally. This is why we had to approach this comparison the way we did.
So, who's stronger? This one was a very tough one. Namely, in terms of hand-to-hand combat, they're both very skilled fighters, but Naruto, as a trained shinobi, would certainly overpower Gojo, despite all of his great fighting skills.
But, the fact is that neither of them really focuses on hand-to-hand combat, i.e., they both have a special power they opt to use in difficult situations.
For Gojo, it is his Infinity Void technique, and for Naruto, those are his various chakra-based techniques. Now, if Gojo would attack Naruto with his technique he would win.
But, if Naruto would attack Gojo with his strongest technique, he would win as well. Neither Gojo nor Naruto have a clear advantage here, as none of these techniques are essentially invincible and there is a way around them.
This is why the outcome would depend on the flow of the battle and the state of the fighters, which, in turn, means that we cannot really determine the winner here. In one situation, Naruto might find a way to avoid Gojo's technique and defeat him, while in another situation, it would be the opposite.
This is why, ultimately, we had to put this one down as a draw, as it best reflects the true state of things.
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If I-KEA Were A Rich Man
As a lover of second-hand clothes and flea markets, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad also happened to be the eighth richest person on Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Hailed as one of the most influential business men and entrepreneurs of the twentieth century, Kamprad's wealth was estimated at around $73.8 billion. Sadly, the mogul passed away late last month aged 91, leaving behind his staggering fortune. Regrettably for his families and heirs, they will inherit a mere fraction of Kamprad's enormous wealth.
Starting at the age of five, Kamprad sold matches to his neighbours and gradually progressed to selling seeds, stockings and stationary from his bicycle as a teenager. By the time he was 17 he had founded IKA; the first mail-order catalogue launched in 1951 and in 1955 the famous flat-pack furniture was launched. By 1985 it had stores in Europe, Norway and the US, eventually establishing 412 stores across 49 countries.
Kamprad grew up on a farm in southern Sweden and attributed his financial outlook to the attitude of the agricultural region in which he grew up. This functionality displayed in his business model permeated to the style of furniture he sold. Rooted in his homeland, he even conducted meetings in the downstairs of the flat in which he was living and grew up.
Although renowned for his internationally successful flatpack empire, Kamprad was equally known to be frugal in his financial dealings and perspective throughout his life. Bloomberg reported that his purpose is charity donations and 'supporting [design] innovation'. Most of Kamprad's furniture stores are owned by the Stichting Ingka Foundation and controlled Liechtenstein-based Interogo Foundation. The latter foundation is itself managed by Stiftungsrat Foundation Council, consisting of a Supervisory Council in which, as Bloomberg reports, the Kamprad family 'ha[s] been and shall always be in minority'. The Kamprad family has no control over ownership of the company's shares, with Kamprad arranging all the logistics personally so that they have no control of the IKEA company and will therefore receive minimal sums. They will receive a small amount from Ikano Group, owned by the family and who runs a number of businesses in a variety of industries. IKEA Foundation's Chief Executive, Per Heggenes, confirmed Kamprad's philanthropic outlook, stating in 2012 that he was 'not interested in money'. The complex structure put in place by Kamprad not only means that profits can be reinvested into the company but also ensures IKEA's longevity, as not even a direct heir can take control after his death.
Applicants for Economics, PPE or Land Economy might want to consider the complex nature of the internal structure Kamprad set up to protect his company's reputation and longevity. Although he himself had not been involving in running IKEA since the late 1980s, with his son taking his place on the board of Inter IKEA in 2013, Kamprad had set in place the foundations to remain in control of his company and maintain the ethical values he practiced throughout his life and were inspired by the place in which he group up.
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text:
Bognor Regis is een spoorwegstation van National Rail in Bognor Regis, Arun in Engeland. Het station is eigendom van Network Rail en wordt beheerd door Southern. Het station is geopend in 1864.

Bognor Regis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Inspired by HN's old feature requests thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363), let us know if you'd like to see any changes on laarc, or if you have ideas for what might be missing compared to other community sites.
Experimental ideas are quite welcome! There's a lot of freedom and flexibility with how the site could turn out.
* shows only posts in the last month (also definable in settings?).
* orders posts by points (highest to lowest).
1. one of the links in the top left corner.
The bang should remove items with that tag from the search. So I may want all topics besides programming for what ever reason.
+1 for | and & and !
A more privacy-friendly, free/open source chat option like Matrix (Riot's a good client). You can bridge Matrix <-> Discord  so people who like Discord don't even need to switch.
fix doubleposting, If i click "add comment" twice quickly 2 comments may be posted. This could be fixed by making a one time code in the form or something.
This was a big problem for me on various forums. I don't want one aggregator to control this on all sites I use either. I ended up keeping per-site folders with text copies of the good stuff with links back to originals. Each site letting one organize the material is a step up. API's that make that easy to automate might be next step up from there. Then, what goes into each site can be locally generated, customized for each per their style, and uploaded.
I don't want one aggregator to control this on all sites I use either.
Definitely! This was partly the motivation for starting the site. Your bookmarks are yours, and it's important to us to avoid siloing data. The API might end up similar to https://github.com/HackerNews/API.
Ok, there is an initial JSON API.
I'll add endpoints for tags like /l/news soon (and RSS feeds).
Really cool. I like the simplicity of just adding .json. If I'm looking at that right, it has all the stories I submitted in JSON so I could just grab, store, or view them with an app?
Correct. If you notice any problems, let me know.
Ok, you can save stories and comments to favorites.
To save something to your favorites, click on an item's timestamp, then click "favorite" (at the top, next to the "parent" link).
If you visit someone's profile page, you can visit links to their submissions/comments/favorites.
The display of tags is IMHO ugly and hard to read.
I don't think the "/l/" prefix is needed when displaying the tags.
I dropped the /l/ prefix and appended the tag's total count. Is this better or worse?
Must been too sleepy this week since I just noticed that. Yeah, it definitely looks cleaner. Thanks.
The absence of prefix is definitely better. I will let the tag count sink in for a while and update after I've seen it in action.
When viewing the page in full screen, the text expands to fill the screen, making reading long lines more difficult.
Example screenshot, from a 1920 pixel wide monitor.
I believe it would be better for the line length to be restricted when the browser window is expanded horizontally, especially for longer paragraphs.
Open source development process for laarc platform.
For the social side of things, hopping into discord and striking up a conversation is the best way, but I'm open to suggestions.
I probably should've read the guidelines first. Just jumped in. I noticed the requirement from HN of adding pdf or video to the title. On Lobsters, we have tags for those which it auto-adds if link ends in pdf or (just guessing) is from known video site. It then put those tags first so they know at a glance.
I'm not sure what the best method is here. Just mentioning that for your consideration.
Actually, for now, go ahead and err on the side of submitting more things; you have good taste. I can fix up small details like the title.
You're right about auto-fixes. If you hop into our Discord or email, I can fill you in on some upcoming plans. New people are showing up each day, and curiation like you mention will be crucial going forward.
2. Having a search feature on the site for keywords, filters by time/user/tag, and so on. Apart from discovery, this also lets me check to see if something was already submitted to avoid wasting folks' time.
b) Allow me to organize my bookmarks using tags. You already have tags, give me a view for all posts added by me with some tag.
1. HN favorites. See mine at https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=akkartik. But only one namespace, and strictly ordered by most recently added.
2. Google+'s Collections feature (https://plus.google.com/+googleplus/posts/7ZpGWeou2sV). Here's one that I created: https://plus.google.com/collection/cmGHYB. You can see how it shows up on my profile at http://akkartik.name/google. Multiple namespaces but ordered by most recently added.
3. The old del.icio.us used to have global bookmarks for a tag at /tag/tag1, and user's tags at /user/user1/tag/tag1, with ways to easily jump around between the two. I always thought that was really nice.
Oh yeah, that was a slip. I've clearly spent more time posting links on Lobsters than HN recently. Yeah, Markdown or a HTML subset would be nice. Embedding the links is an advantage Lobsters has over HN since it reduces clutter.
A year or so ago HN added anchor tags to comments, so you can link to a comment in the context of the larger thread. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18776606#18791215. Would be cool to have that here as well. You could even go one better and actually make that the link at each post, so it's more discoverable.
Just spotted a bug. I responded to a comment from https://www.laarc.io/threads?id=akkartik and it put https://www.laarc.io/threads?id=akkartik#366 on the location bar. Which is a valid link, but only for a fixed period.
This feature is getting complex :/ Feel free to put this on the back-burner.
No no, good catch. Thanks for pointing out these corner cases. I'm heading over to a lovely little cafe called the Front Bar in Chicago, so I'll have time to look into this.
I like the feature where you put the URL in to submit then it automatically fetches the title for you.
Ok, you can now click "suggest title" on the submit page.
FWIW, the laarc bookmarklet (https://www.laarc.io/bookmarklet.html) does this for you, but frustratingly Chrome recently made it impossible to install bookmarklets by dragging and dropping them onto the toolbar. I'll try for a lobsters-esque solution.
How about removing comment downvotes?
I think downvotes for submissions would be ok but in my experience downvotes for comments have some unpleasant effects on discussion.
Ok, timestamps older than 24 hours are measured in days.
Ok, duplicate replies are killed and marked as a dupe.
Another idea if I haven't said it already: the "someone replied to you message" component checks to see if the comment and the submitter are the same person. Most "reply" notifications I get from Laarc are my abstracts or summaries I do in comments on my own stories.
Email notifications when someone responds to my comment?
Done! If you go into your profile page, you'll notice that you can now verify your email address. Afterwards you'll be able to toggle the email notification setting.
Sure, let me see how lobste.rs is set up. In the meantime, I've found https://quiterss.org/ monitoring https://www.laarc.io/rsscomments to be effective at this.
Yeah! JungleCat pointed it out here: https://www.laarc.io/item?id=263 I use KeePassX for password management, so it's the perfect GUI for me.
JungleCat has also done some impressive gamedev work. Check out his "scent map" pathfinding technique in the browser: https://www.laarc.io/item?id=274#285 Haven't seen anything like it.
It's probably time to add a "Show" section.
Is QuiteRSS related to KeePassX somehow? I looked at it, but I didn't get a sense of who the authors were and was leery of installing a desktop app in that situation.
It's unrelated. I only meant that the interfaces are both austere.
I don't know how many others are like me, but I like having an actual date and time for each permalink. Maybe as a tooltip on the 'n days ago'?
RSS feed! Maybe even one for new stories, one for new comments?
Though browsers don't use that stuff anymore, but it can't hurt to add something like his to the front page HTML, right?
It's how I check if a site has a feed most of the time: ctrl+u, ctrl+f "rss" and "atom"
That was a great idea. QuiteRSS is my new favorite reader.
https://www.laarc.io/newcomments and https://www.laarc.io/ now works with QuiteRSS.
Preferably as a user config option though, reason being that without the blank target, you can still press ctrl (or whatever key a particular browser may use) to open it in a new tab, but if the link has a target=_blank, you cannot open it in the same tab (easily).
It makes it difficult to copy and paste a post to someone.
Ok, I replaced hyperlink truncation with a css effect. Comments can be copied now.
Ok, I bumped the hyperlink truncation threshold from 60 to 100. It might be raised or lowered depending on how it affects commenting.
If you think of a better way to handle this, let me know.
In Mastodon I can copy links with ellipses and somehow magically still end up with the full link in my clipboard. Might be worth researching how it manages that.
Thanks! Ended up using a similar solution.
One minor bug I ran into: when I submitted a pdf I hit 'suggest title' just to see what would happen, and noticed that it filled the title with 'running...' or something like that? It took a while so I lost patience and filled out the title. But then I lost it when the request finally completed and filled out 'unknown' in the text box. It feels like a fairly complex workflow and I probably don't understand all the ins and outs. Maybe just follow how Reddit or Lobsters does it?
Fixed. Thanks! If the suggestion takes too long to generate, you can now safely type in a different title without worrying about it being nuked mid-entry.
A link under the comment textarea to explain the markup.


text:
Transcripts reveal Bergdahl's side of story
Keith Whittemore
New documents have been released surrounding the case of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. He is currently awaiting court-martial for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after leaving his post in rural Afghanistan in 2009. The sergeant was subsequently captured by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network and held in captivity in Pakistan for nearly five years. Bergdahl was released in 2014 as part of a controversial prisoner exchange involving five suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay. The recently-released documents include transcripts of the sergeant's Aug. 2014 interview with Gen. Kenneth Dahl, as well as transcripts of Bergdahl's Sept. 2015 Article 32 preliminary hearing. In his statements to Dahl, the sergeant described his intention to walk from his post to a nearby forward operating base to draw attention to what he considered dangerous mismanagement by the leadership of his unit.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is currently facing court-martial charges for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Bergdahl walked off his base in Afghanistan in 2009, and was held captive by Taliban allies for almost five years in Pakistan.
Bergdahl also described a previous mental health incident while he was in the Coast Guard, as well as the circumstances of his capture and captivity. D. Chris Russell, a civilian attorney with expertise in military law, spoke about how the sergeant's testimony could affect his upcoming court-martial. "They hurt him in the context that it's a clear expression that he intended to walk away from his post," Russell said.
At the same time, Russell noted, Bergdahl's statements could also help mitigate the severity of his sentence. "It helps him in the context that his expressions are (that) he only temporarily meant to leave military authority, and that, in his words, involuntary capture obviously prevented his ability to return," Russell said. "That's not a defense, if you will, but it's certainly an extenuating factor…" More importantly, in Russell's estimation, the sergeant's words could work toward changing public opinion of the case.
"People's imaginations are probably, and often are, a lot worse than reality, and this case for this defense attorney obviously has a very significant political stigma," he said. "It seems to me that the defense was trying to mitigate public opinion." Still, many current and former military personnel hold a low view of Bergdahl's actions. Jesse Gomez, an MCC student and former Marine who did tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, discussed his impressions of the case. "I think he's just very lucky to be alive," he said. Gomez acknowledged how Bergdahl's motives and possible mental illness could have been a factor in what he did. "Maybe he had some issues… before he even went into the military, you know, and all this trauma just exacerbated it," he said. "I know a lot of guys who crack… There's tons of people that join, but they might have a different mentality than you and I."
Gomez was also unsure whether life imprisonment was appropriate for the sergeant.
"Maybe they might be able to figure out a different sentence," he said. "What's he going to do, sit around and waste taxpayer money sitting in there?" For Gomez, however, Bergdahl nevertheless ought to stand accountable for his actions. "You can't tell me he didn't know what was happening," he said. "You can't tell me he thought everything was going to be okay. You're in the military, so you don't have no say." "That's on him. He did that to him… Nobody did that to him," he added. According to Gomez, Bergdahl's impact go beyond his own life – his actions represent a black mark on the Army as a whole. "You can't erase that," he said. Regardless of the outcome of the court-martial, Gomez is skeptical over whether justice is even possible in this case. "In the end, I think that he's never going to get any kind of justice," he said. "If he dies, he's not going to get justice. If he stays in prison, he's not going to get justice… Nobody's getting justice."
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READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
We hold an opinion on Language
It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study. Popular linguistic debate regularly deteriorates into invective and polemic. Language belongs to everyone, so most people feel they have a right to hold an opinion about it. And when opinions differ, emotions can run high. Arguments can start as easily over minor points of usage as over major policies of linguistic education.
Language, moreover, is a very public behavior, so it is easy for different usages to be noted and criticized. No part of society or social behavior is exempt: linguistic factors influence how we judge personality, intelligence, social status, educational standards, job aptitude, and many other areas of identity and social survival. As a result, it is easy to hurt, and to be hurt, when language use is unfeelingly attacked.
In its most general sense, prescriptivism is the view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community. The view is propounded especially in relation to grammar and vocabulary, and frequently with reference to pronunciation. The variety which is favored, in this account, is usually a version of the 'standard' written language, especially as encountered in literature, or in the formal spoken language which most closely reflects this style. Adherents to this variety are said to speak or write 'correctly'; deviations from it are said to be 'incorrect'.
All the main languages have been studied prescriptively, especially in the 18th century approach to the writing of grammars and dictionaries. The aims of these early grammarians were threefold: (a) they wanted to codify the principles of their languages, to show that there was a system beneath the apparent chaos of usage, (b) they wanted a means of settling disputes over usage, and (c) they wanted to point out what they felt to be common errors, in order to 'improve' the language. The authoritarian nature of the approach is best characterized by its reliance on 'rules 7 of grammar. Some usages are 'prescribed', to be learnt and followed accurately; others are 'proscribed', to be avoided. In this early period, there were no half-measures: usage was either right or wrong, and it was the task of the grammarian not simply to record alternatives, but to pronounce judgement upon them.
These attitudes are still with us, and they motivate a widespread concern that linguistic standards should be maintained. Nevertheless, there is an alternative point of view that is concerned less with standards than with the facts of linguistic usage. This approach is summarized in the statement that it is the task of the grammarian to describe, not prescribe-to record the facts of linguistic diversity, and not to attempt the impossible tasks of evaluating language variation or halting language change. In the second half of the 18th century, we already find advocates of this view, such as Joseph Priestley, whose Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) insists that 'the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language'. Linguistic issues, it is argued, cannot be solved by logic and legislation. And this view has become the tenet of the modern linguistic approach to grammatical analysis. In our own time, the opposition between 'descriptivists' and 'prescriptivists' has often become extreme, with both sides painting unreal pictures of the other. Descriptive grammarians have been presented as people who do not care about standards, because of the way they see all forms of usage as equally valid. Prescriptive grammarians have been presented as blind adherents to a historical tradition. The opposition has even been presented in quasi-political terms-of radical liberalism elitist conservatism.
Questions 1-8
Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1 There are understandable reasons why arguments occur about language.
2 People feel more strongly about policy of language education than about small differences in language usage.
3 Our assessment of a person's intelligence is affected by the way he or she uses language.
4 Prescriptive grammar books cost a lot of money to buy in the 18th century.
5 Prescriptivism still exists today.
6 According to descriptivists it is pointless to try to stop language change.
7 Descriptivism only appeared after the 18th century.
8 Both descriptivists and prescriptivists have been misrepresented.
Questions 9-12
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.
Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 9-12 on your answer sheet
The language controversy
According to 9 _________, there is only one correct form of language. Linguists who take this approach to language place great importance on grammatical 10 _________. Conversely, the view of 11 _________, such as Joseph Priestley, is that grammar should be based on 12 _________.
A descriptivists B evaluation C rules
D formal language E change F modern linguists
G language experts H prescriptivists I popular speech
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in box 13 on your answer sheet.
What is the writer's purpose in Reading Passage 1?
A to argue in favor of a particular approach to writing dictionaries and grammar books
B to present a historical account of differing views of language
C to describe the differences between spoken and written language
D to show how a certain view of language has been discredited
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
The Seed Hunters
With quarter of the world's plants set to vanish within the next 50 years, Dough Alexander reports on the scientists working against the clock the preserve the Earth's botanical heritage.
They travel the four comers of the globe, scouring jungles, forests and savannas. But they're not looking for ancient artefacts, lost treasure or undiscovered tombs. Just pods. It may lack the romantic allure of archaeology, or the whiff of danger that accompanies going after big game, but seed hunting is an increasingly serious business. Some seek seeds for profit—hunters in the employ of biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical companies and private corporations on the lookout for species that will yield the drugs or crops of the future. Others collect to conserve, working to halt the sad slide into extinction facing so many plant species.
Among the pioneers of this botanical treasure hunt was John Tradescant, an English royal gardener who brought back plants and seeds from his journeys abroad in the early 1600s. Later, the English botanist Sir Joseph Banks – who was the first director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and travelled with Captain James Cook on his voyages near the end of the 18th century—was so driven to expand his collections that he sent botanists around the world at his own expense.
Those heady days of exploration and discovery may be over, but they have been replaced by a pressing need to preserve our natural history for the future. This modem mission drives hunters such as Dr Michiel van Slageren, a good-natured Dutchman who often sports a wide-brimmed hat in the field—he could easily be mistaken for the cinematic hero Indiana Jones. He and three other seed hunters work at the Millennium Seed Bank, an 80 million [pounds sterling] international conservation project that aims to protect the world's most endangered wild plant species
The group's headquarters are in a modem glass-and-concrete structure on a 200-hectare Estate at Wakehurst Place in the West Sussex countryside. Within its underground vaults are 260 million dried seeds from 122 countries, all stored at -20 Celsius to survive for centuries. Among the 5,100 species represented are virtually all of Britain's 1,400 native seed-bearing plants, the most complete such collection of any country's flora.
Overseen by the Royal botanic gardens, the Millennium Seed Bank is the world's largest wild-plant depository. It aims to collect 24,000 species by 2010. The reason is simple: thanks to humanity's efforts, an estimated 25 per cent of the world's plants are on the verge of extinction and may vanish within 50 years. We're currently responsible for habitat destruction on an unprecedented scale, and during the past 400 years, plant species extinction rates have been about 70 times greater than those indicated by the geological record as being 'normal'. Experts predict that during the next 50 years a further one billion hectares of wilderness will be converted to farmland in developing countries alone.
The implications of this loss are enormous. Besides providing staple food crops, plants are a source of many machines and the principal supply of fuel and building materials in many parts of the world. They also protect soil and help regulate the climate. Yet, across the globe, plant species are being driven to extinction before their potential benefits are discovered.
The world Conservation Union has listed 5,714 threatened species is sure to be much higher. In the UK alone, 300 wild plant species are classified as endangered. The Millennium Seed Bank aims to ensure that even if a plant becomes extinct in the wild, it won't be lost forever. Stored seeds can be used the help restore damaged or destroyed environments or in scientific research to find new benefits for society- in medicine, agriculture or local industry- that would otherwise be lost.
Seed banks are an insurance policy to protect the world's plant heritage for the future, explains Dr Paul Smith, another Kew seed hunter. "Seed conservation techniques were originally developed by farmers/' he says. "Storage is the basis of what we do, conserving seeds until you can use them – just as in farming." Smith says there's no reason why any plant species should become extinct, given today's technology. But he admits that the biggest challenge is finding, naming and _ categorising all the world's plants. And someone has to gather these seeds before it's too late. "There aren't a lot of people out there doing this," he says" The key is to know the flora from a particular area, and that knowledge takes years to acquire."
There are about 1,470 seed banks scattered around the globe, with a combined total of 5.4 million samples, of which perhaps two million are distinct non-duplicates. Most preserve genetic material for agriculture use in order to ensure crop diversity; others aim to conserve wild species, although only 15 per cent of all banked plants are wild.
Many seed banks are themselves under threat due to a lack of funds. Last year, Imperial College, London, examined crop collections from 151 countries and found that while the number of plant samples had increased in two thirds of the countries, budget had been cut in a quarter and remained static in another 35 per cent. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has since set up the Global Conservation Trust, which aims to raise US$260 million to protect seed banks in perpetuity.
Questions 14-18
Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.
Write your answers in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
People collect seeds for different purposes: some collect to protect certain species from 14 ________; others collect seeds for their potential to produce 15 ________. They are called seed hunters. The 16 ________ of them included both gardeners and botanists, such as 17 ________, who sponsored collectors out of his own pocket. The seeds collected are often stored in seed banks. The most famous among them is known as the Millennium Seed Bank, where seeds are all stored in the 18 ________ at low temperature.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 19-24 on your answer sheet, write
21 The reason to collect seeds is different from the past.
20 The Millennium Seed Bank is one of the earliest seed banks.
21 A major reason for plant species extinction is farmland expansion.
22 The method scientists use to store seeds is similar to that used by farmers.
23 Technological development is the only hope to save plant species.
24 The works of seed conservation are often limited by insufficient financial resources.
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 25 and 26 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following are provided by plants to the human world?
A food
B artefact
C treasure
D energy
E clothes
The Legend of Tea
The story of tea began in ancient China over 5,000 years ago. According to the legend, Shen Nung, an early emperor was a skilled ruler, creative scientist and patron of the arts. His far-sighted edicts required, among other things, that all drinking water be boiled as a hygienic precaution. One summer day while visiting a distant region of his realm, he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, the servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the nearby bush fell into the boiling water, and a brown liquid was infused into the water. As a scientist, the Emperor was interested in the new liquid, drank some, and found it very refreshing. And so, according to legend, tea was created.
Tea consumption spread throughout the Chinese culture reaching into every aspect of the society. In 800 A.D. Lu Yu wrote the first definitive book on tea, the Ch'a Ching. His work clearly showed the Zen Buddhist philosophy to which he was exposed as a child. It was this form of tea service that Zen Buddhist missionaries would later introduce to imperial Japan.
The first tea seeds were brought to Japan by the returning Buddhist priest Yeisei, who had seen the value of tea in China in enhancing religious mediation. As a result, he is known as the "Father of Tea" in Japan. Because of this early association, tea in Japan has always been associated with Zen Buddhism. Tea received almost instant imperial sponsorship and spread rapidly from the royal court and monasteries to the other sections of Japanese society.
Tea was elevated to an art form resulting in the creation of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The best description of this complex art form was probably written by the Irish-Greek journalist- historian Lafcadio Hearn, one of the few foreigners ever to be granted Japanese citizenship during this era. He wrote from personal observation, "The Tea ceremony requires years of training and practice to graduate in art…yet the whole of this art, as to its detail, signifies no more than the making and serving of a cup of tea. The supremely important matter is that the act be performed in the most perfect, most polite, most graceful, most charming manner possible".
Such a purity of form, of expression prompted the creation of supportive arts and services. A special form of architecture developed for "tea houses", based on the duplication of the simplicity of a forest cottage. The cultural/artistic hostesses of Japan, the Geishi, began to specialize in the presentation of the tea ceremony. As more and more people became involved in the excitement surrounding tea, the purity of the original Zen concept was lost. The tea ceremony became corrupted, boisterous and highly embellished. "Tea Tournament" were held among the wealthy where nobles competed among each other for rich prizes in naming various tea blends. Rewarding winners with gifts of silk, armor, and jewelry was totally alien to the original Zen attitude of the ceremony.
The first European to personally encounter tea and write about it was the Portuguese Jesuit Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560. Portugal, with her technologically advanced navy, had been successful in gaining the first right of trade with China. The Portuguese developed a trade route by which they shipped their tea to Lisbon, and then Dutch ships transported it to France, Holland, and the Baltic countries. Because of the success of the Dutch navy in the Pacific, tea became very fashionable in the Dutch capital. This was due in part to the high cost of the tea (over $100 per pound) which immediately made it the domain of the wealthy. Slowly, as the amount of tea imported increased, the price fell as the volume of sale expanded.
As the consumption of tea increased dramatically in Dutch society, doctors and university authorities argued back and forth as to the negative and/or positive benefits of tea. Known as "tea heretics", the public largely ignored the scholarly debate and continued to enjoy their new beverage though the controversy lasted from 1635 to roughly 1657. Throughout this period France and Holland led Europe in the use of tea.
As the craze for things oriental swept Europe, tea became part of the way of life. The social critic Marie de Rabutin made the first mention in 1680 of adding milk to tea. During the same period, Dutch inns provided the first restaurant service of tea. Tavern owners would furnish guests with a portable tea set complete with a heating unit. The independent Dutchman would then prepare tea for himself and his friends outside in the tavern's garden. Tea remained popular in France for only about fifty years, being replaced by a stronger preference for wine, chocolate, and exotic coffees.
By 1650 the Dutch were actively involved in trade throughout the Weatern world. Peter Stuyvesant brought the first tea to America to the colonists in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (later re-named New York by the English). Settlers here were confirmed tea drinkers. And indeed, on acquiring the colony, the English found that the small settlement consumed more tea at that time than all England put together.
Great Britain was the last of the three great sea-faring nations to break into the Chinese and East Indian trade routes. The first samples of tea reached England between 1652 and 1654. Tea quickly proved popular enough to replace ale as the national drink of England. Tea mania swept across England as it had earlier spread throughout France and Holland. Tea importation rose from 40,000 pounds in 1699 to an annual average of 240,000 pounds by 1708. Tea was drunk by all levels of society.
Reading Passage 3 contains 10 paragraphs A-J.
Which paragraphs state the following information?
Write the appropriate letters A-J in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.
27 Coffee took the place of tea.
28 Religious implications were abandoned.
29 Tear aroused controversies in Europe.
30 Tea was once the symbol of the wealth in the Netherlands.
31 A kind of ceremonial art was born related to tea.
On your answer sheet please write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage.
32 The introduction of tea to imperial Japan originates from missionary purposes.
33 Tea had spread to all sections of Japanese society over a very long time.
34 Drinking tea has significant health benefits.
35 Dutchmen preferred to add milk to their tea.
Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed 36-40) with opinions or deeds (listed A-J) below.
NB Some discoveries may match more than one person.
36 Jasper de Cruz
37 Peter Stuyvesant
38 Lu Yu
39 Lafcadio Hearn
40 Shen Nung
A _________ discovered the value of tea as a refreshing drink.
B _________ published a book about tea and Buddhism.
C _________ introduced tea to Japanese society.
D _________ depicted the art of tea ceremony.
E _________ elevated tea drinking to an art.
F _________ realized the value of tea in strengthening religious intervention.
G _________ wrote about tea and his country started the first tea trade with China.
H _________ developed a trade route by shipping tea to Lisbon.
I _________ first brought tea to America.
J _________ brought the first tea to Americans in the Netherlands.


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