Haiti’s garment workers are planning protests against the government’s newly signed 17% wage rise to HTG350 (US$4.8) per day – which they deem unfair compared with their HTG800 or $12.90 original demand.

Athletic wear maker Under Armour is to close stores and cut jobs as part of new plans to build a stronger and smarter company with faster go-to-market speed and greater digital capabilities.

Taiwan-based garment maker Roo Hsing Co believes it will become the world’s largest jeans maker following its merger with Chinese jeans manufacturer JD United.

Traditional apparel retailers are facing new competition from online subscription services that send customers boxes of handpicked fashion items to choose from or offer auto-replenishment of fashion basics.

Gears turn, closing the glass garage doors on the gleaming Wasserman Football Center. UCLA football players, dressed in their redesigned blue-and-gold uniforms, loiter on the brand new turf field before filing onto risers for the annual team picture.

With a $65 million football-specific facility on campus and uniforms from a record-breaking $280 million apparel deal, this next era of UCLA football looks different on the surface. As they prepare to christen the Wasserman Center with training camp Wednesday, the Bruins want to make the results different too.

“The new buildings and jerseys don’t mean anything if we don’t go out there and win games,” wide receiver Darren Andrews said.

Winning is not something UCLA did often last year. The Bruins endured their first losing season under head coach Jim Mora, going 4-8 for their worst finish since 2010.

This came after they were a preseason favorite to win the Pac-12 South. Their starting quarterback started the year on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He ended it on the sideline with a surgically repaired shoulder.

When the Bruins open the 2017 season Sept. 3 against Texas A&M at the Rose Bowl, 11 months will have passed since quarterback Josh Rosen played in a competitive game. The junior is ready, said safety Jaleel Wadood, who is also a former high school teammate of Rosen’s.

“More ready than I think he’s ever been,” Wadood continued.

Rosen, who participated fully in UCLA’s spring practices in April, played a large hand in preparing his teammates for a bounce-back season. He was one of the driving forces behind the team’s 25 player-run practices this summer.

The sessions were roughly an hour each. Upperclassmen ran the show, filling the roles of both player and coach, for their respective position groups. Andrews led the receivers. Kenny Young kept a watchful eye on the linebackers. Wadood and Adarius Pickett strengthened the secondary.

Together, they orchestrated a full practice with individual drills, one-on-ones, team periods and seven-on-seven.

The player-run practices brought the team together, strengthening the bonds of brotherhood necessary to traverse a treacherous Pac-12 schedule. The offense, learning its third system in three seasons, dug into new offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch’s four-inch-thick playbook.

Rosen said there’s a “different energy in the locker room,” from the coaching staff, which includes four new faces, to the players.

“We’re supremely confident in our coaching staff,” the quarterback said. “I can’t speak as much to the defense, but offensively, I would go to war with any one of them. We have a really good crop of core leadership in the locker room. We have the same goals and process and ideas in mind. There’s no miscommunication. We all know where we want to get and how we’re going to get there.”

Rosen, too, has changed to onlooking media types. As a young sophomore, he opened training camp by saying he wanted to win a national championship that year. When baited with similar goal-setting questions during spring camp this year, a humbled Rosen stuck to the script: Get 1 percent better every day and everything else will follow.

By his own admission, he hasn’t “said anything stupid on social media.” Having lost five of his past eight starts, Rosen understands the current circumstance. A losing quarterback doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt if he stirs up controversy.

“I lost three games out of six last year. It’s not great,” he said. “Definitely gotta take a step back, regroup, regather and see how you’re going to attack this thing differently.”

A Yorba Linda man admitted Tuesday to improperly receiving $320,000 from a U.S. Army contract despite failing to properly overhaul a part used in Apache helicopters.

Bahram Bordbar, 62, pleaded guilty during a hearing at a federal courthouse in Los Angeles to making false statements involving aircraft and aiding and abetting in the filing of a false tax return, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Bordbar is the owner of Prototype Engineering and Manufacturing, a Gardena-based company that had a contract with the Army to “overhaul and repair” linear actuators used on the AH-64-A Apache helicopter.

Prototype was only allowed to repair the DC motors used in the linear actuators after getting specific authorization from the Army.

Instead, prosecutors allege, Prototype used an outside contractor to repair 105 motors without Army approval, then installed the motors into overhauled linear actuators that were delivered to the military.

For the work, Bordbar admitted to receiving $320,000 from the military, money his plea agreement refers to as “ill-gotten gains.”

Prosecutors also allege that Bordbar paid an employee $100,000 but told the employee that it was a gift and that he would take care of the taxes. As a result, the employee didn’t report the money on a tax return, prosecutors said.

As part of the plea deal, Bordbar agreed to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $28,000 to cover his employee’s back taxes.

Bordbar will return to court for sentencing on Oct. 16. He faces up to 13 years in federal prison.

IRVINE – Police are searching for a man who fled after being seen inside an Irvine house on Monday by a babysitter.

The man was also seen on surveillance video breaking into the home in the Woodbury neighborhood a little after 12:30 p.m., Irvine police spokeswoman Kim Mohr said on Tuesday, Aug. 1.

“The suspect smashed the rear sliding-glass door,” Mohr said in a statement. “A babysitter returned home with a child who resides at the home and discovered the suspect on the staircase. He ran past the babysitter and fled through an open garage door.”

The suspect was described as 18- to 25-year-olds old, black, about 170 pounds with black hair. He had on a long-sleeve blue and white shirt with the No. 3 on a sleeve. He wore black Adidas sweatpants with white stripes down at least one side, blue tennis shoes and blue gloves. He was carrying a blue backpack with white polka dots.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Irvine Detective Jameson Roberts at 949-727-7170 or at jroberts@irvinepd.org.

A film documenting the journey of four blind sailors as they compete in national and international competitions will be shown Aug. 10 at the American Legion Post 291 in Newport Harbor.

The screening of “Sense the Wind: Blind Sailors Race Across Open Water” follows Nancy Jodoin, Inky Sengali, Matt Chao and Philip Kum as they hone their craft and learn not to fear what they can’t see.

The hour-long documentary follows the group as they train and compete in the Blind Nationals and move toward Japan’s Blind Sailing World Championships. The film will be followed by a Q&A with New York-based first-time filmmaker Christine Knowlton, who has worked in film and TV.

The screening is open to members and prospective members of the Women’s Sailing Association-Orange County and their guests and the American Legion Yacht Club.

The event will coincide with the 27th anniversary of the Sail for the Blind and Visually Impaired, where over 150 volunteers act as escorts, servers and crew for sailors in Newport Harbor.

Filmed over four years — including two years of post-production — the film chronicles the sailors’ travels to various locations, including Oakland, Boston and San Francisco.

Knowlton filmed each subject in and off the water, in their homes, at work and during doctor appointments.

“That’s what makes this more than just a sailing film because you really get to know these people,” Knowlton said. “I realized that just because you’re blind doesn’t mean you don’t see anything.”

The documentary was given a humanitarian award at the Socially Relevant Film Festival New York and has been screened in Poland, Moscow, Canada and Tokyo, as well as across the U.S.

The screening begins at 6:30 p.m., Aug. 10 at the Great Hall at the American Legion at 215 W. 15 St.

In the aftermath of his first losing season at UCLA, Coach Jim Mora and his staff evaluated every detail of their program.

Everything was up for scrutiny, he said, from the way the team dresses to the food it eats. Heading into his sixth season in Westwood, Mora’s deep-dive into the state of his program left him feeling encouraged for the future.

“Everybody’s really taken ownership for where we went and where we want to get,” he said. “The culture’s different. … Our players have completely embraced it and so that gives you a sense of enthusiasm.”

Here are five things the Bruins must accomplish during training camp to keep the enthusiasm going:

GET IN LINE

Josh Rosen needs protecting, the running backs need blocking and UCLA needs its offensive line.

Developing consistency and depth on the offensive line are paramount in UCLA’s effort to jump-start its struggling offense. Mora called the unit his biggest concern after UCLA rushed for 84.2 yards per game in 2016.

Sunny Odogwu eased Mora’s concerns slightly as the 6-foot-8 grad transfer from Miami (Fla.) gives the Bruins an experienced right tackle. With both tackle positions and center solidified, offensive line coach Hank Fraley must sort through a three-man competition for the guard spots. Najee Toran, Andre James and Kenny Lacy all have starting experience and will battle for two starting roles.

HOLD ON TO THE BALL

The dessert menu at Pac-12 Media Days included customized donut flavors for all 12 teams. UCLA’s, in a twist of painful poetry, was topped with Butterfingers candies. An intentional choice or not, the little candy crumbles stirred memories of the many dropped passes that plagued UCLA receivers last year.

New wide receivers coach Jimmie Dougherty renewed focus on technique and concentration during spring camp, hoping to cure UCLA’s case of the drops. Then the Bruins showed some stage fright with seven drops during the team’s Spring Game. Offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch said he wasn’t concerned about the drops because they came from seven players, but the Bruins don’t want drops to become a team-wide epidemic again.

PREPARE FOR BACKUP

After 2016, UCLA is intimately familiar with the need for a good backup quarterback. If disaster strikes again at quarterback, the Bruins will likely turn to redshirt freshman Devon Modster.

The Tesoro High graduate is starting to come out of his shell, Mora said last week. He improved as a passer during spring practice, making the fleet-footed quarterback even more of a dual-threat.

Modster took a narrow lead over fellow redshirt freshman Matt Lynch for the role of Rosen’s understudy after spring camp, but the backup position is not set in stone, Mora said. True freshman Austin Burton rounds out the group of scholarship quarterbacks.

DUEL ON DEFENSE

The defense celebrates competition and will get plenty of it this fall in key position battles. One of the best battles will be in the backfield, where junior Denzel Fisher, sophomore Colin Samuel and freshman Darnay Holmes are vying for the starting cornerback spot opposite junior Nate Meadors. Fisher was the first choice during spring camp, but missed the final days with an elbow injury. He is fully healthy for fall.

Sophomore Keisean Lucier-South and freshman Jaelan Phillips are competing to earn Takkarist McKinley’s former starting role at the razor position, UCLA’s rushing defensive end.

Sophomore DeChaun Holiday was making strides toward claiming the starting strong-side linebacker role until a shoulder injury slowed his development during spring practice. The Bruins often opt for their nickel defense, lowering the need for a strong-side linebacker, but redshirt freshman Breland Brandt may slide into that role if Holiday’s injury keeps him out for long.

FIND A PUNTER

No one notices the punter until he boots a kick that travels minus-1 yard. That was last October.

Of the several position battles at UCLA, punter is by far the least glamorous, but an important one nonetheless. The Bruins consistently lost the field position game last season: On average, opponents started drives 7.6 yards ahead of UCLA.

Sophomores Austin Kent and Stefan Flintoff shared punting duties last season. Kent boomed 70-yard punts in high school and practice, but was inconsistent on game days as a true freshman and lost his grip on the starting job after a rough outing at Washington State. Flintoff, a walk-on, pinned eight of his 23 punts inside the 20-yard line last season with a 40.3-yard average, 2 yards longer than Kent’s.

MILAN — Dsquared2 founders and creative directors Dean and Dan Caten are supporting Haitian kids.
In particular, the twins designed customized dresses and tuxedos for the children’s chorus of Andrea Bocelli’s “Voice of Haiti,” which will perform at the 12th edition of the “Theater of Silence” event taking place at the Italian tenor’s native town close to Pisa on Thursday.
Bocelli and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, focused on finding opportunities for talented young Haitians in need, launched the “Voice of Haiti” project last September in New York with an event hosted at the Lincoln Center.
“We met these talented and passionate children for the first time last year in New York. It is such a blessing and a great pleasure to be part of this special journey again,” said Dean Caten. “We created something that could emphasize the strength and the beauty of the Haitian singers. Through their amazing singing, the young choristers spread pure love and joy.”

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