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But on Tuesday, Lisa McCormick, an unknown candidate with no federal finance filings, no television ads and no real campaign apparatus, earned nearly 40 percent of the Democratic primary vote.
It was a clear protest vote from many Democrats who have not completely forgiven their senior senator’s transgressions, which resulted in the corruption trial and a subsequent bipartisan admonishment for ethics violations.
Of course, Mr. Menendez’s Republican opponent, Bob Hugin, has been reminding New Jerseyans constantly, spending nearly $4 million before a primary vote had even been cast. Mr. Menendez has largely kept a low profile — minus a raucous high school rally kickoff — and maintains a sizable war chest.
While New Jersey is a reliably blue state and Mr. Menendez has maintained leads in all polls (though the most recent one was much closer), the fact that many of the state’s Democrats marched into polling places and voted for a woman they probably didn’t know anything about shows a simmering level of frustration.
This year 70 former Obama campaign or administration staff members are running for state and local offices, according to the Obama Alumni Association, a volunteer group.
On Tuesday, three of them won their primary elections.
In New Jersey, Andy Kim, who most recently served as the director for Iraq on the White House National Security Council, joined the Obama administration in 2009 in the State Department. He ran unopposed in the Third District to take on Representative Tom MacArthur.
Tom Malinowski, also in New Jersey, served as an assistant secretary of state for roughly three years, starting in 2014. He won his primary in the Seventh Congressional District to take on Representative Leonard Lance.
And in New Mexico, Deb Haaland, who could be the first Native American woman in Congress, won her primary to replace Representative Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who is making a run for governor. Ms. Haaland was the Native American vote director in New Mexico for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign.
However, not all of the Obama diaspora was successful on Tuesday. John Norris, who was the commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Mr. Obama for four years, lost his primary bid for governor in Iowa to Fred Hubbell.
Democrats have celebrated their class of candidates as a triumph of diversity, with liberal women leading the charge in congressional races. But the primaries on Tuesday also highlighted the party’s more traditional instincts where powerful executive offices are concerned: In three important governor’s races, Democrats passed over female and minority candidates to nominate well-funded, well-known white men.
In Iowa, Democrats overwhelmingly picked Mr. Hubbell, a wealthy businessman, from a field that included Cathy Glasson, a union leader. In Alabama, they nominated Walt Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, over Sue Bell Cobb, the former chief judge of the state’s highest court. And in California — a state that embodies Democrats’ hopes for a rising liberal coalition nationwide — Democrats rallied around Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor and the lone white man among the major Democrats running.
The night was hardly a rout for Democratic women, and in New Mexico it was Ms. Lujan Grisham who handily won the nomination for governor. But the convincing wins by Democratic men in most primaries in governor races underscore a persistent political barrier for women and minorities: Voters, including liberal-leaning ones, have typically been less willing to embrace diversity in executive offices than in legislative ones.
There are just two Democratic women now serving as governors and only one Democratic governor who is not white, David Ige of Hawaii. Coming primaries in states like Nevada, Maryland, Michigan and Florida may give Democratic voters a chance to change that — if they want to.
• Sign up to get the latest news and analysis on the midterm elections from the First Draft newsletter.
Jonathan Martin reported from Laguna Beach, Calif., Nick Corasaniti from Verona, N.J., and Alexander Burns and Matt Flegenheimer from New York.
Friends who summer in the Vaucluse whisper the name of a favorite village still unravaged by the indignities of upscale tourism and hint darkly that, if I write about it, our friendship might be in trouble. Planning a trip to the south of France, I understand their concern: the dread of seeing town after town redecorated in sprigged cotton by some local, pastis-crazed, Provencal Martha Stewart.
But the satisfactions of travel in Provence make all such misgivings vanish. As I sit in the deserted, austere Romanesque church of Venasque, watching a bright coin of sun roll slowly across the stone walls until it strikes, and lights up, the gilded altar, or when I spend the late afternoon in Avignon, observing a group of schoolboys trying to scale the Palais des Papes by hurling themselves and their skateboards against the honeyed masonry of its massive fortifications, or when my husband, Howie, and I have lunch in Gigondas, on the terrace of Les Florets, an inn overlooking the vineyards that produce the wine that goes so well with the disks of monkfish perfumed with orange zest and nested in creamy brandade -- at such times I'm reminded that the pleasures of this region predate and will outlive the travelers dutifully photographing the potted geraniums and buying lavender sachets. The singular beauties of Provence -- the ''transparency'' of the air that van Gogh so loved, the music of its fountains, the layers of history striated like an ambitious, slightly gaudy terrine -- are timeless, unexportable, immune to commodification.
No matter how often one visits Provence, the realities of its landscape, cities and towns can be trusted to startle with how little they resemble the tamer fantasies that one may have conjured up, or remembered. As we drive from Avignon up into the northern Vaucluse and down through the winding roads of the Luberon to finish our slightly breathless five-day journey at a cafe on Aix-en-Provence's Cours Mirabeau, I'm struck by how the world around me is at once less delicate and more beautiful, less charming and more raw, more sensual and less manicured than the version offered by the glossy books that guide the armchair traveler through quaint villages seemingly struck by a bomb that's eradicated all messy human life while considerately preserving the wisteria.
In fact, Provence is extremely vital, thanks to a toughness and durability that man and nature have spent centuries getting right. Here, the deferential palms of the Cote d'Azur give way to prickly aloes and silvery olives corkscrewed by the fierce mistral. Far from the Gothic confectionery of the northern cathedrals, tapped only lightly by the hand of the Baroque, the region's most handsome churches -- Avignon's Cathedral of Notre-Dame-des-Doms, Vaison-la-Romaine's Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, the great Cistercian abbeys of Senanque, Silvacane and Le Thoronet -- are Romanesque, plain and thick-walled, barrel-vaulted, no-nonsense, suggestive of a contemplative, somber, slightly embattled faith. The walled villages -- Venasque, Gordes, Menerbes, Bonnieux -- perched on the tops of hills were not situated there to delight future generations with their gravity-defying splendor, visible from miles away, but rather for protection against foreign armies and homegrown marauders. The fanciful wrought-iron campaniles typical of the area evolved to shelter the bells that summoned people to Mass and warned them of danger, and to provide structures resistant to shredding by the wind.
Part of what gives Provence its slightly dangerous edge is its ability to wrest pleasure from apparently inhospitable elements (a skill alchemized in the wines pressed from grapes nurtured in the stony soil), and the comfort with which the esthetic and lovely coexist with the haunted and dark. The most celebrated, as well as the lesser-known, attractions of the Midi often evoke its history's bleaker moments. Just off the scenic route between Venasque and Gordes, one can hike into the countryside to see a 12-mile wall, the Mur de la Peste, built in 1721 in a futile effort to keep plague victims from bringing disease to Avignon. In Carpentras, in the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, one can admire the exquisite 18th-century synagogue -- decorated in fairy-tale pastels, pinks and greens, with a glittering chandelier, an elaborate menorah, faux-marble columns and a tiny plush throne for the infant boy about to be circumcised -- the last relic of the crowded ghetto in which Carpentras's sizable Jewish population was once sequestered and required to pay a fee each time anyone wished to leave.
Elsewhere, the contrast between the beauty of the facade and the secrets behind it are less troubling, but nonetheless pronounced. The ruined chateau atop the appealing town of Lacoste is the ancestral home of the Marquis de Sade. Roussillon is, I thought, the most attractive of the hill towns, its crooked buildings, arched portals and winding alleys painted in deep reds and ochers mined from the nearby hills, brilliant hues that somehow never clash with the royal blues of the doorways, the yellows of the curtains. Yet, as I walk up the Rue d'Eglise to a spot called the Castrum, with its prospect of red cliffs and green cedars below, I can't help thinking of Samuel Beckett, hiding from the Nazis here during the war, going half mad from boredom and sensory deprivation. At Senanque, the Luberon's most beautiful lavender fields run in long rows, neat as hedges, smack into the forbidding stone walls of the 12th-century abbey in which Cistercian monks turned their backs on the joys of the world.
Nowhere is the contrast between the austere and the voluptuous as striking as it is in Avignon, its skyline dominated by that looming, gorgeous immensity, the Palais des Papes. Built, destroyed, remodeled and reconstructed during the 14th century, a process set in motion when Pope Clement V fled the scandal and chaos of Rome for the relative calm of Provence, the palace -- with its grand courtyard, its towers and chapels, its cavernous audience halls -- might excite a painful case of real estate envy, were it not so vast and spooky that when a ghostly wind rattles the windows, my pulse begins to skip.
There is always one souvenir we forever regret not buying. In my case, it may be the deck of cards on sale at the gift shop of the Museum of the Petit Palais, at the north end of Avignon's Place du Palais. On the face of each card is a different Renaissance or medieval saint -- allowing the gambler, presumably, to play and to repent at once.
Here, as in many of the smaller Provencal museums, the art must compete with the building that houses it, or the view outside its windows. The Petit Palais offers panoramic vistas of the St.-Benezet Bridge that reaches (halfway) across the Rhone and beyond it to the quiet medieval suburb of Villeneuve-les-Avignon, with its tower, its fort and the labyrinthine, gloriously ruined chapels and cloisters of the Charterhouse of Val de Benediction. But, for now, the remarkable collection of Italian Gothic and Renaissance painting holds our attention. Though the museum takes pride in its Botticelli, his Virgin and Child pale slightly beside Carpaccio's Sacred Conversation: Mary, Jesus and accompanying saints occupy a Disneyesque fantasy landscape, with a natural rock bridge arching over the Virgin, a pair of nuzzling deer and symbolic scenes from the lives of St. Anthony and St. Jerome. Yet even Carpaccio's masterpiece barely holds its own against the Master of the Cassoni Campana's mythical extravaganza, a four-panel representation of scenes from the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, including their final battle in a circular Labyrinth, truncated at waist-level to let us better observe their struggle.
Later that evening, I recall the frugal repast portrayed in one of the museum's gems -- an intensely touching 13th-century Last Supper. I happen to be eating a very different sort of meal, in Avignon's Hiely-Lucullus restaurant. The crepe stuffed with olive tapenade, the grilled lamb encrusted with thyme, the foie gras with morel cream sauce could hardly be less like the bread and fruit that the studio of the Master of the Madeleine set out for Jesus and His disciples; and yet I keep sensing an unmistakably spiritual current pulsing beneath the worldly delights of this temple to cuisine. Perhaps its source is a cheese course and a dessert cart that could move the irreligious to prayer; but more likely it's the restaurant's staff with its blessed lack of attitude, its coolly competent desire to please, its near-telepathic anticipation of one's every need, qualities we associate with the more selfless of the saints.
Throughout Provence, people seem kindly, helpful, relaxed -- except behind the wheel. An altered sense of time must be what allows the men (and, surprisingly, one woman) from the sleepy town of Pernes-les-Fontaines to spend all afternoon indulging in the puzzling rituals of the less-than-racy sport of boules. Or perhaps it's the immanence of history that encourages one to count centuries rather than minutes. Conceivably, that's how one might feel if one lived in Vaison-la-Romaine, where the epochs are layered like those 3-D vertical time lines in children's museums. Divided in two sections are the Roman ruins: villas, an amphitheater, statuary, streets displaying the imperial passion for municipal plumbing, all landscaped with rows of cherries, irises and almonds -- rather formal French plantings that the Roman magistrates would no doubt have approved. Uphill from the ruins is the twisting, atmospheric medieval city, while the epochs separating the Empire from the Middle Ages are compressed in the church of Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, where the pillars of a Roman temple are half-buried, like pylons bearing the weight of the Romanesque.
Similarly, Aix-en-Provence's St.-Sauveur Cathedral displays the wonders that can be accomplished by craftsmen adding on to each other's work for more than a thousand years. Its baptistery (decorated with sculptures of Christians half-devoured by lions) dates from 500; the naves range from 12th-century Romanesque through 14th-century Gothic to the early-18th-century Baroque St. Catherine chapel.
On rare occasions, in Provence, the weight of history can grow oppressive, especially when one feels it being used to exert a nasty sort of muscle. Despite the tawdry souvenir shops lining the path, the brief hike to the source of the river Sorgue at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse is actually quite pleasant. But on the Sunday we visit, the site seems to have attracted an alarming contingent of skinhead pilgrims, drawing God-knows-what mystically jingoistic inspiration from the river's primal beginnings.
Mostly, though, we're grateful for the inventive ways in which the past has been recycled to augment our enjoyment. In Aix, the welcoming Hotel des Augustins is far more luxurious than it must have been in its former life as a 12th-century Augustinian convent, and Avignon's Hotel d'Europe, founded in 1799, offers, one assumes, even more creature comforts than it did when Napoleon I and the eloping Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning stayed there.
A good deal of artful -- and profitable -- recycling has gone into preparations for the weekly antiques market in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, a leafy town encircled by branches of the Sorgue that run under humped bridges and over mossy water wheels. A number of trendy antiques stores are in permanent residence, but they seem -- by comparison -- a bit stodgy when, very early on Sunday morning, the dealers spread their wares on the streets bordering the river. Everything that one could need to furnish the stylish mas or bastide is here: oak tables, monogrammed linens, Art Deco coffeepots and grinders, antique boules, botanical prints, framed photos of strangers' relatives. As always, I'm attracted to the most fanciful and useless. What exactly would I do with the vintage wooden cello case hinged with polished brass?
In any case, I much prefer the market on the opposite bank of the Sorgue. Selling fruits and vegetables, sausage, cheese, garish trinkets -- the best and worst of the Midi -- it's more in tune with the needs of the living than the leftovers of the dead. Next to a stand draped with aprons and potholders in the appallingly familiar flowered madder, yellow and blue, there's another vendor specializing in various tempting purees. Black olive and anchovy pastes, green basil pestos, red jams ground from sun-dried tomatoes are mounded on baskets and bowls in volcanic cones resembling those in Indian spice shops. There's no safe way to take such souvenirs home; the only thing to be done is to buy a loaf of crusty bread and purchase samplings of the tapenades, miniature portions scooped from the peaks of those gleaming delicious mounds that, on this bright Sunday morning in Provence, seem like the pinnacles of civilization.
Hotel D'Europe, 12 Place Crillon, Avignon (telephone: 4-90-14-76-76; fax: 4-90-85-43-66), open since 1799, is an elegant hotel with a pretty courtyard, a few blocks from the Palais des Papes. It has 44 rooms and 3 suites; the cost of a double room, with bath, ranges from about $105 to about $292. A Continental breakfast costs about $15. There are two private garages. Open all year.
The hotel restaurant, La Vieille Fontaine, is open to the public. Specialties include lobster salad with mango and a creamy red and green pepper sauce; roast stuffed pigeon with sauteed artichokes and potatoes Anna, and black coffee flavored with star anise and fennel; dinner for two, with a bottle of 1989 Chateau Mont Redon, is about $166.
Hotel Des Augustins, 3 Rue de la Masse, Aix-en-Provence (4-42-27-28-59; fax: 4-42-26-74-87), is set in a converted monastery, a few steps from the Cours Mirabeau. There are 29 rooms, and a double room, with bath, costs from about $100 to about $250. Breakfast served in the dining room is about $8, in the hotel room, about $11. Open all year.
Hotel Cardinal, 22-24 Rue Cardinal, Aix-en-Provence (4-42-38-32-30; fax: 4-42-26-39-05), in the Mazarin district, is slightly funky, with old-fashioned charm. There are 30 rooms in the main building and 6 suites, with kitchens, in an annex up the street; one suite has a private garden, one room has a small terrace. A double room, with bath, is about $53. A Continental breakfast costs about $6. Open all year.
Hiely-Lucullus, 5 Rue de la Republique, Avignon (4-90-86-17-07; fax: 4-90-86-32-38), offers three prix-fixe menus at about $26, $36 and $53. Specialties include saffron soup with anglerfish; sheep feet and stuffed mutton tripe simmered in wine with bacon, and roast lamb with herbs and onions. Dinner for two, with a bottle of 1997 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, is about $115. Open for lunch and dinner, Wednesday through Sunday, for dinner Monday and Tuesday. Closed 15 days in June and 15 days in January. Reservations advised.
Cafe Des Artistes, 21 bis Place Crillon, Avignon (4-90-82-63-16; fax: 4-90-85-41-26), is a small, friendly bistro offering traditional Provencal cuisine. Among its special dishes are molded aubergine and egg puree; grilled bass with fennel, and medallion of anglerfish with slow-simmered leeks. Dinner for two, with a bottle of 1993 Cotes du Rhone, is about $65. Open for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday. Reservations advised.
Les Florets, Route des Dentelles, Gigondas (4-90-65-85-01; fax: 4-90-65-83-80), has a terrace where 80 to 100 people can sit on a fine day. Specialties include chicken-liver flan and morels; pan-sauteed lamb with Belgian endive preserve and sugar peas in a garlic sauce, and saddle of young rabbit in caramelized onions with sweet potatoes. There are two prix-fixe menus, and dinner for two, with wine, ranges from about $75 to about $95. There is also a pleasant small inn; a double room, with bath, is about $68; a Continental breakfast costs about $9. The hotel and restaurant are closed in January and February; also closed Wednesday.
On the second day of Senate floor debate over legislation that would give local school districts the option of starting the school year before Labor Day, tempers boiled over.
Defending his bill, Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Chair Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George’s) could barely contain his anger Friday as he talked about Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.’s (R) executive order from 2 ½ years ago mandating that all schools open after Labor Day and close by June 15.
Pinsky and supporters of his bill have repeatedly contended that Hogan’s executive order robs Maryland school districts of their right to set the school calendar.
That imagery offended State Sen. Robert Cassilly (R-Harford), one of several Republicans who have been defending Hogan’s executive order.
“I rise in outrage,” he said, shortly after Pinsky spoke, accusing his colleague of comparing Hogan to racist Southern governors who stood in schoolhouse doorways in the 1950s and ’60s to prevent African-American children from entering.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) tried to calm the tensions, suggesting that while the debate had turned emotional, it hadn’t gotten out of bounds.
But later in the day, Hogan spokeswoman Amelia Chassé returned to Cassilly’s criticism and offered a similar rebuke.
In an interview Friday evening, Pinsky — one of the most senior and vocal progressives in the General Assembly — said he was surprised that Republicans would suggest he was comparing Hogan to racists like the late Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus and the late Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
“If he draws parallels from it, he draws parallels from it,” Pinsky said.
He added that he was “explaining the implications of [Hogan’s] actions” — that with a signature, a governor could subvert the will of local school districts.
“I think that offends a lot of people,” Pinsky said.
The Senate gave preliminary approval to Pinsky’s bill on Thursday. Final debate is scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
In a related development, Sen. Melony G. Griffith (D-Prince George’s) introduced a bill Friday mandating that Maryland schools educate students about the abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.
That was an outgrowth of the debate over Pinsky’s bill on Thursday. Republicans, in a maneuver to try to get Democrats to vote against paying tribute to Tubman, introduced an amendment to Pinsky’s bill mandating a day of classroom instruction about Tubman. Democrats voted against it, anyway.
Israelis asked to vote for their favorite logo for the visit, on Prime Minister's Facebook page.
The English version of the code name chosen for the operations surrounding the upcoming visit to Israel by U.S. President Barack Obama, scheduled for March 20, is "Unbreakable Alliance." The Hebrew name is "Brit Amim," which means, literally, "an alliance between nations."
According to Maariv/NRG, the names were chosen carefully by the National Public Information Staff, which is wary of upsetting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
According to this report, Netanyahu was unhappy with the English translation of the name given to Israel's operation in Gaza, "Pillar of Defense." The Hebrew name of that operation was "Pillar of Smoke" – a reference to the pillar of smoke and fire that led the nation of Israel out of Egypt, in the Biblical account of the Exodus.
The meaning of the phrase "Pillar of Defense" was unclear, however.
The English name for Obama's visit is seen as one that imparts the intended meaning and emphasizing the values that Israel wants to stress during the visit.
Visitors to the Prime Minister's Facebook page have been asked to choose between three logos for the visit.
BHOPAL: The Election Commission has issued notice to the BJP over its social media advertisement showing a woman in a police uniform extolling the party's achievements.
The Congress, which filed a complaint in this regard, alleged that showing a person in police uniform praising the government was in violation of laid down rules.
"We have sent notice to the BJP seeking its reply on the complaint of the Congress regarding an advertisement," Madhya Pradeshs Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) VL Kantha Rao told reporters.
Speaking on the electoral rolls in the poll-bound state, Rao said that the date for submitting objections on their second special revision had been extended to September 7 from August 31.
He added that the publication of the final voters list would be done on September 27.
Rao also informed that 11-12 Information Technology applications would be used to conduct the Assembly polls smoothly.
Besides MP, state polls are also due this year in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
Investors have come to accept the fact that earning returns require risk and that the higher return you want, the bigger the risks you must accept.
At the most basic level, this can mean utilizing programs such as TFSA and RRSP accounts, but it can also include a plan regarding how much you contribute to each.
More complex tax strategies include the utilization of investments such as corporate class structures that allow your fixed income investments (which can be taxed as high as 50 per cent) to be treated like equity holdings which can effectively cut the tax bill in half.
A “T-SWP” structure can allow you to draw a regular retirement income without creating any taxable dispositions and can therefore maximize the government pensions that you may otherwise not qualify for.
A good tax strategy could boost net returns by as much as 25 per cent yet many don’t focus on this area at all.
In particular, aggressively pay down any debt that is accruing interest at over 10 per cent. What is the point of taking on risk to earn six or seven per cent per year in your portfolio when you have debt that is sitting there costing a guaranteed eight per cent per year in interest charges?
Every dollar that you “invest” to pay down your debt generates a risk-free and tax-free return equal to the interest rate being charged.
If you’re holding a balance on a credit card that charges 20 per cent interest and contributing to your RRSP that earns an average of seven per cent per year, it really makes no sense unless you are getting employer matching benefits!
Some investors are paying far more in fees than they are aware of. Commission fees for buying and selling, annual account fees, administration fees, management fees and advisor compensation that are all reported separately and swept under the rug.
Yes, access to professional investment management costs money, but a good investment adviser will provide added value, help boost net returns and more importantly, help avoid losses during the downturns.
If you don’t know what you really pay per year, it’s time to ask. You should also ask the question “What can we do to lower my fees”?
When investing money in term deposits, GICs and other “guaranteed” investments, a few extra basis points matter now more than ever. A three-year GIC at a major bank will pay you around 1.8 per cent per year right now. A comparable GIC through another lender will pay around 2.9 per cent.
While you might think 1.1 per cent isn’t that big of a difference, you’re giving up 38 per cent of your potential return. A GIC should be sourced through an independent investment adviser who is allowed to shop around across all providers to find the best rates for you.
Still skeptical on how much difference it makes?
Let’s assume you have $350,000 to invest and you put it in a GIC at the above three-year rates and renew it for two more three-year terms. Nine years later, the GIC money invested in the bank will earn $61,501 of interest while the GIC money invested at the better rate will earn $104,236.
Everybody would like to earn a higher rate of return but in today’s volatile markets, many aren’t willing to take on additional risk to do so.
Before you consider increasing the risk of your portfolio, take a look to see if the above ideas will boost your returns all on their own.
Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, once more?
Actor Aamir Khan has recently said that he would love to do a film with actor and friend Salman Khan. We ask the fraternity who should direct the two Khans; Raju Hirani gets the most votes.
Actor Aamir Khan has recently said that he would love to do a film with actor and friend Salman Khan. “I would love to work with Salman. He is a great person to work with. If we come across a script, then we will be happy to do it,” Aamir had said recently. The two were last seen together in the popular Raj Kumar Santoshi comedy Andaz Apna Apna (1994). And ever since, the industry has been abuzz with suggestions of who should direct the two superstars.
SEATTLE (AP) — The owner of a Washington seafood company was sentenced to two years in prison for overharvesting sea cucumbers and must pay $1.5 million in restitution — the second large bust of illegal sea cucumber trade in the U.S. West in just over a year.
Hoon Namkoong, 62, was also sentenced Friday to three years of post-prison supervision.
He pleaded guilty earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Seattle to underreporting the number of sea cucumbers he bought from tribal and nontribal fisheries in the Puget Sound by nearly 250,000 pounds (113,400 kilograms) between 2014 and 2016. His company, Orient Seafood Production, then sold them to seafood buyers in Asia and the U.S.
The illegal harvest amounted to nearly 20 percent of the total allowed harvest of the sea creatures statewide, said U.S. Attorney Annette Hayes, and did serious damage to the Puget Sound.
Sea cucumbers, which are shaped like cucumbers with small feet and measure up to 6 feet (1.8 meters), are echinoderms, a family that includes starfish and sea urchin.
They are served dried or fresh and often braised with fish, vegetables and traditional Chinese sauces. They are sought to treat various health issues and are increasingly in demand in China and southeast Asian countries.
Harvesting sea cucumbers is permitted in the United States and many parts of the world, but with limited quantities and only during high season. Illegal trade is becoming increasingly common and lucrative.
Last year, federal officials filed charges against a father-son partnership for allegedly smuggling more than $17 million worth of sea cucumbers to the United States and exporting them to Asia.
The pair was accused of buying the illegally harvested animals from poachers in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and then shipping them overseas after bringing them across the border in San Diego.
According to court records, in the recent Washington case, Namkoong bought Puget Sound sea cucumbers from both tribal and nontribal fishers over three seasons.
Sea cucumber harvests are regulated by both Washington state and tribal authorities and are tracked by fish tickets signed by both the fisher and the purchaser.
As part of his plea, Namkoong said he falsified fish tickets over three seasons and frequently paid fishers in cash so there would be no financial record of the total amount of sea cucumbers taken.
Those actions are a violation of the Lacey Act, a federal law that prohibits illegal trafficking in wildlife, fish and plants.

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