Westchester

Westchester may refer to:

See also

The Westchester

The Westchester is a 890,000-square-foot (83,000 m²), upscale shopping mall in downtown White Plains, New York. It is operated by Simon Property Group, which owns 40% of the mall, and is home to some of today's most fashionable and well-known retailers, many with their only location in affluent Westchester County, New York. It is anchored by Neiman Marcus and New York state's first Nordstrom, the fourth in the New York City metropolitan area to open after locations in Short Hills, Menlo Park, and Paramus, New Jersey.

Opened in 1995, The Westchester was built on the site of one of the first suburban branch department stores in the United States, a B. Altman & Co. store which opened in 1930, as well as the terminal for the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway White Plains branch. B. Altman's was located where Nordstrom is now situated. The mall was built adjacent to the (once) freestanding location of Neiman Marcus, which originally opened in 1972 as the only out-of-town location of its sister chain, New York-based Bergdorf Goodman. An interesting feature of the mall is that an old fountain, once located in the original Altman store in New York, is featured in one of the lobbies leading from the parking garage into the mall.

What Happened

What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is an auto-biographical bestseller by Scott McClellan, who served as White House Press Secretary from 2003 until 2006 under President George W. Bush. The book was scheduled to be released on June 2, 2008; however, excerpts were released to the press a week before publication. The book quickly became a media sensation for its candid, insider's critique of the Bush administration and ran as a leading story on most top news outlets days after the content became public. It was listed as a number-one bestseller by the New York Times and on Amazon.com when it first went on sale.

Content

McClellan harshly criticizes the Bush administration over its Iraq war-making campaign, though he writes in detail about his personal admiration for President Bush. He accuses Bush of "self-deception" and of maintaining a "permanent campaign approach" to governing, rather than making the best choices. McClellan stops short of saying Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq (in fact, stating flatly that he did not believe that Bush would intentionally lie), writing that the administration was not "employing out-and-out deception" to make the case for war in 2002, though he does assert the administration relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war. The book is also critical of the press corps for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the Iraq War, and of Condoleezza Rice for being "too accommodating" and overly careful about protecting her own reputation.

X-Men

The X-Men are a fictional team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, the characters first appeared in The X-Men #1 (September 1963). They are among the most recognizable and successful intellectual properties of Marvel Comics, appearing in numerous books, television shows, films, and video games.

The X-Men are mutants, a subspecies of humans who are born with superhuman abilities. The X-Men fight for peace and equality between normal humans and mutants in a world where antimutant bigotry is fierce and widespread. They are led by Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X, a powerful mutant telepath who can control and read minds. Their archenemy is Magneto, a powerful mutant with the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. Professor X and Magneto have opposing views and philosophies regarding the relationship between mutants and humans. While Professor X works towards peace and understanding between mutants and humans, Magneto views humans as a threat and believes in taking an aggressive approach against them, though he has found himself working alongside the X-Men from time to time.