NY museum announces layoffs, budget cuts

NY museum announceslayoffs, budget cuts
NEW YORK -- The Whitney Museum of American Art says a dramatic post-Sept. 11 drop-off in tourists has forced it to cut staff and exhibitions to save about $1 million.
The 70-year-old facility will trim 14 workers from its 210-person staff and cut back on its scheduled roster of 2002 exhibitions.
The Whitney is the second major New York museum to layoff staff since the terrorist attacks. Last month, the Guggenheim Museum announced it was cutting exhibitions and 80 people, about 20 percent of its staff, to save money.
In the weeks after the attacks, attendance at the Whitney was about 9,000 per week, down from last year's average of 12,500. In recent weeks, attendance is up but paid admissions are down.
The increase in visitors was likely the result of an influx of museum members, students and other guests eligible for a discount from the usual $10 admission, Whitney director Maxwell Anderson said.
The 40 percent drop in paid admissions was largely due to a drop in tourists, he said. About half the Whitney's paid admissions are non-New Yorkers.
Hollywood directordies at age 85
RAMONA, Calif. -- Budd Boetticher, a former matador who moved to Hollywood in the 1940s and became one of the most revered Western movie directors of all time, has died. He was 85.
Boetticher died at home Thursday of complications following surgery.
Although a relative unknown to the general public, he was hailed by some of Hollywood's most prominent directors, including Sam Peckinpah, who claimed to have seen his "Bullfighter and the Lady" 10 times.
Sergio Leone, who directed the classic "Once Upon a Time in the West," called out to him at a film festival: "Budd! I stole everything from you."
Other Boetticher-directed films included "Seven Men From Now," "The Tall T," "Decision at Sundown," "Buchanon Rides Alone," "Ride Lonesome" and "Comanche Station." He also worked on the classic television Westerns "Maverick" and "The Rifleman."
He made his reputation as a director in 1951 with "Bullfighter and the Lady," starring Robert Stack as a brash American who persuades a legendary Mexican matador to teach him bullfighting. Based on his experiences as a young man, it earned Boetticher an Academy Award nomination for best story.
Among the Western stars he worked with were Lee Marvin, James Coburn, Claude Akins and Lee Van Cleef. He directed Audie Murphy in the actor's last movie, "A Time For Dying," in 1971.
Colombia rejects dealto free dying boy's dad
BOGOTA, Colombia -- The government on Saturday rejected a proposal from leftist rebels to swap a dying boy's policeman father for an imprisoned guerrilla.
The offer by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to exchange Cpl. Norberto Perez for a rebel said to be ailing in jail was seen by many Colombians as another outrage in a tale that has angered a country weary of the rebels' abuses.
Twelve-year-old Andres Felipe Perez has cancer and has asked guerrilla leaders to release his father so they can see each other before it's too late. Doctors say the boy could die within days.
On Friday, an Internet site run by rebel sympathizers posted a letter from rebel commanders saying they would free Perez if the government released Ignacio Gonzales Perdomo, a jailed comrade they described as "sadly ill."
The story of Andres Felipe, who is bald and gaunt from chemotherapy, has gripped the nation since the family announced a few weeks ago that his father was the only one who could save his life by donating a kidney.
Rebel commanders offered to release the policeman but only if the boy underwent examination by rebel doctors within a safe haven that the government granted the rebels in 1998 to get peace talks going. The boy's doctors said he was too sick to travel.
Rebels kidnap hundreds
MONROVIA, Liberia -- Rebels in Liberia have kidnapped hundreds of women and children in the West African nation's troubled north, the defense minister said on Saturday.
The abductions took place last week near the northern town of Belle Fassamah, which the rebels captured on Tuesday, Defense Minister Daniel Chea told reporters.
Chea said the location of those missing was unknown, but a special military unit had been set up to find them. He did not say exactly how many people were kidnapped. No independent confirmation of the abductions was available.
"We have ordered the special military unit to do all it can to get to and bring back the captives," Chea said.
Associated Press