Report Assails Parks Dept. Over Slowness in Finishing Projects

Abstract: David G. Greenfield, a city councilman from Brooklyn, is passionate about parks, having allocated $12.9 million to green spaces in his district since taking office in 2010. “Parks are a great equalizer,” he said. “Whether you’re rich, poor, young, old, you use parks. There really is no better expenditure of government funds than parks.” But so far, none of the projects he has financed — including rehabilitated handball courts at Colonel David Marcus Playground and a bathroom renovation in Gravesend Park — has been completed. His frustration over the delays is shared by other members of the City Council and parks advocates, who say that capital projects in the park system take far too long. With many small- to medium-size projects financed by council members and borough presidents, the delays are not merely frustrating for park users. They also threaten the well-primed spigot of money that flows from lawmakers’ discretionary funds into neighborhood parks. Often, elected officials miss out on the political payoff of their contributions: a ribbon-cutting with beaming constituents. “We’ve started calling these ‘legacy projects,’ because it’s a legacy you’ll leave for your successor,” said Mr. Greenfield, whose district includes Bensonhurst, Borough Park and Midwood. “In the outer boroughs, we have council members who refuse to fund parks because they know that the likelihood that the project will be completed while they are in office is not very high.” This month, New Yorkers for Parks , an independent advocacy group, released a study comparing the management of capital projects by the parks department with that of other public agencies, including the Department of Environmental Protection, the School Construction Authority and the Economic Development Corporation. The study, which was prepared with Public Works Partners, a consulting firm, revealed that in many instances, the other agencies delivered projects faster and cheaper than the parks department. The report describes a building process that drags on, beginning in the planning stages and continuing through construction. “There is no clearly defined process for achieving consensus on design and reaching the ‘pencils down’ moment,” the report said, “nor serious ramifications for not sticking to scope, budget or timeline.” The parks commissioner, Mitchell Silver, who started in May, embraced the report, saying that he, too, was concerned about the lengthy process. Declaring the issue a priority for his first 100 days as parks chief, Mr. Silver said he was meeting with his staff to address the problem and would issue recommendations by late summer. “I’ve heard from elected officials and the public, and they really want to know why the projects are taking so long,” he said. “We’re committed to moving projects along as quickly as possible so that the public can get to enjoy some of these wonderful amenities.” Over the past 12 years, the city invested nearly $5 billion in capital projects in parks, including big-ticket destinations like the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park. The 400-member department now has 425 projects underway and a four-year capital budget of $2.6 billion, with $538 million allotted for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Image A pedestrian bridge spans a construction site in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times Tupper Thomas, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, said that project delays were a common complaint from park users. “There was a huge change in the amount of money being put into parks capital projects,” she said. “There are many small things that accumulate into creating a much longer process. The agency may have been slower on the uptake than it should have been. But I’m really impressed that the commissioner is taking it so seriously.” Among other proposals, the study suggested that parks officials standardize designs for things like bathrooms and playgrounds to shorten the time projects sit on the drawing board. Mr. Silver said that the department would soon unveil a feature on its website to allow residents and lawmakers to track the progress of specific park projects. One project that has emerged as Exhibit A in the department’s famously lengthy capital process is a dog run in Councilman Brad Lander’s Brooklyn district. In 2010, Mr. Lander chipped in $225,000 to pay for renovations to the DiMattina Playground dog run in Carroll Gardens. The former borough president, Marty Markowitz, matched that amount a year later. Four years after Mr. Lander’s allocation, it is still not open. (The department, which cannot start design until all funding is in place, says the run will open by July.) “It is an existing dog run,” said Mr. Lander, who helped pay for the capital project study. “They are making the drainage better and adding lovely doggy drinking fountains. But I really think that someone could design it in an afternoon.” Part of the reason for the delay was the need to put both the design and construction work out to bid. Across the city, about 30 percent of design work for landscaping projects and 40 percent for building projects are outsourced by the parks department. In the case of the dog run, Mr. Lander said that when the project was finally put out to bid, there were no takers at first. “The level of bureaucracy in the parks department causes headaches for contractors,” he said. “The capital process needs an overhaul.” In addition to the infusion of capital money for parks under former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the department has had to manage a deluge of projects related to Hurricane Sandy. On Thursday, the Council held a hearing on rebuilding parks and beaches in the wake of the storm, which flooded more than 5,700 acres of parkland and damaged 430 park sites. “The parks department’s capital division has been tested like never before over the past year and a half by the massive post-Sandy reconstruction needs,” testified Councilman Mark D. Levine, who is chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee. “This has impacted the pace of capital projects systemwide.” In an interview, Mr. Levine pointed to the lightning-quick rebuilding effort in the Rockaways after the hurricane. The parks department waged an aggressive campaign to reopen the heavily damaged seven-mile beach and gutted concession buildings by Memorial Day 2013. “What that says to me is that there’s no inherent reason why we can’t do these projects more quickly, as long as there is political will,” he said. “It showed it can be done.”

Parks
NYC Parks and Recreation
David G Greenfield
New Yorkers for Parks
Mark D. Levine
Mitchell J Silver
NYC


Frosted Wins in Pennsylvania

Abstract: Frosted rallied from fifth place under the jockey Joel Rosario and won the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby by two lengths over Iron Fist at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. Frosted finished the one-and-an-eighth-mile race for 3-year-olds in 1 minute 50 seconds and is likely to take on American Pharoah in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31.


‘We’re Coming to Get You!’ It’s Vintage Giuliani at G.O.P. Convention

Abstract: Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani stood before the nation, fists clenched, eyes wide and arms cast to the heavens. His message, on the opening night of the Republican National Convention, was as clear as it was apocalyptic: The world is full of danger and terror. Enemies abound. “You know who you are and we’re coming to get you!” he promised. Every line was met with rapturous applause in the Cleveland Convention Center on Monday night, as he hit on the same Republican themes that have helped propel Donald J. Trump to the top of his party’s ticket. For Mr. Giuliani, his spotlight appearance was something of a full-circle moment for a man who rose to power as a federal prosecutor, and then became the first Republican mayor of New York since John V. Lindsay, seizing on high crime and joblessness rates. His profile soared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, becoming “America’s mayor” to some, helping to heal a wounded city and nation, and warning against being guided by anger. But his political career soon ebbed: A promising run for president in 2008 imploded, and Mr. Giuliani, especially in recent months, had evolved into a reliable firebrand of cable-news conservatism. Mr. Giuliani, in a phone interview on Tuesday, said that his passion was real and that he did not think he had changed in the intervening years. Rather, he said, it was the nation that had changed after eight years of President Obama’s leadership. “That was a hell of a speech,” the former mayor said. “The emotion came from the heart.” He did not deny that he was tapping into fear, but said it was a fear that exists and must be addressed. “I think fear is a legitimate feeling,” he said. It was true in a different context in 1993, he said, when he ran for mayor and crime was the concern. “I believe I was elected mayor of New York City because they were afraid,” Mr. Giuliani said. “You can call it a campaign of fear because people were afraid they were going to be killed.” By 1997, he said he was able to run an optimistic campaign because the fear had faded as crime fell. Now, he said, the nation faced a different peril, adding that his speech had not stoked fear, but addressed the legitimate fears of the public. He acknowledged that the news in recent weeks — dominated by police shootings and terrorist attacks — fueled his anger but did not change his core principles. “I take these things very personally,” he said. Mr. Giuliani said he was still working on his speech on Sunday morning when three police officers were slain in Baton Rouge, La. As he sat in the green room waiting to speak, he said, he grew even more upset. “I was getting ready for my speech watching the woman talk about Hillary being the cause of her son’s death,” he said, referring to Patricia Smith, whose son was killed in Benghazi. “I see her as someone very, very dangerous for our country,” he said of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Longtime observers of Mr. Giuliani were not surprised by his ability to go for the jugular of political opponents or his desire to cast himself as the lawman striding to the rescue. Republican Convention Day 2: Analysis We analyzed the second night of the Republican National Convention in real time. The highlights. But his performance on Monday night was different. Even observers not reflexively critical of Mr. Giuliani were surprised by how much his words were animated by a seething emotion. “This is a very different Rudy Giuliani than the person who right after 9/11 was so conciliatory and calming,” said William T. Cunningham, a political strategist and former adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent. “One of the reasons he became America’s mayor is that he was such a positive force at a time when it would have been easy to vent and rage,” Mr. Cunningham added. And it was not just the words. “I was struck by how angry the gestures, the facial gestures, the clenched hands, that went along with the words,” he said. In some ways, Mr. Giuliani’s speech was a reflection of the political moment and how much has changed since 2001. It has been a long time since a terrorist attack actually brought political opponents together in any meaningful way. No one even pretends anymore that politics stops at the water’s edge. Mr. Giuliani touched on themes in his speech that would be familiar to any Republican audience. He castigated President Obama for what he said was a failure to recognize the terrorist threat for what he said it is: Islamic extremists. He blamed Mrs. Clinton for the chaos in Libya, accusing her of a “dereliction of duty” after four Americans were killed in Benghazi. “Hillary Clinton is for open borders,” Mr. Giuliani claimed. “She is in favor of even taking Syrian refugees even though the Islamic State has told us they are going to put their operatives in with the Syrian refugees,” he thundered. “Operatives who are terrorists, who are going to come to Western Europe and here and kill us.” Mr. Giuliani, in the interview, said he still did not favor deporting the millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally, as Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, has proposed. But he saw no contradiction in either tenor or tone on his broad stance on immigration and his tough words at the convention. “There isn’t a different tone,” the former mayor said. “I oppose Islamic extremist killers and I embrace decent Muslims.” “It is the same passion I had about crime in New York,” he added. “A man without passion does not go after the Mafia like I did.” And like with the Mafia, he said, he went after the bad Italians in organized crime and defended decent Italians. As mayor, Mr. Giuliani was widely credited with helping to make New York City safer and he sought to revive those memories on Monday night, even as he avoided the more contentious parts of his legacy having to do with racial tensions that critics contend were exacerbated by both his policies and his tone. “What happened to, ‘There is no black America, there is no white America, there is just America,’” he said in his convention speech. “What happened to it? Where did it go? How has it flown away?” Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, said the speech was perhaps Mr. Giuliani’s last chance to claim a mantle as a national figure. “Trump has given him a new lease on life,” Professor Moss said. “It is a chance to reassert his political identity as the nation’s leading fighter against crime and terrorism.” But the speech, he said, was “like a trombone player who loses his lip by not playing too often.”

2016 Presidential Election
9/11,Sept 11
Republican National Convention,RNC
Republicans
Rudolph W Giuliani
Donald Trump


Virginia: Pre-Abortion Ultrasound Mandate Enacted

Abstract: Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a bill requiring a woman seeking an abortion to undergo an abdominal ultrasound first, making Virginia the eighth state to have such a requirement. Democrats and abortion rights groups criticized the legislation, which does not require the woman to look at the image, saying its effect will be to shame women. But abortion opponents say it offers the woman a chance to make a more informed decision. Mr. McDonnell softened the bill, making the requirement for an abdominal ultrasound, not a vaginal one.

Abortion
Ultrasonic Imaging and Sonograms
Virginia
McDonnell Robert F
Law and Legislation


Greece Is Closer to a 2nd Bailout

Abstract: ATHENS — Greece moved closer on Friday to receiving a second bailout after agreeing to new measures to bring down its debt. A statement from the International Monetary Fund , the European Commission and the European Central Bank said on Friday that Greece had agreed to the measures, which include a new austerity plan and the creation of an independent fund to privatize 50 billion euros in state assets. The next installment of international aid under the original bailout, which had been in doubt, “will become available, most likely, in early July,” it added. Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads a group of European finance ministers, said in Luxembourg that he expected his colleagues to agree on further aid for Greece. Fresh money would be provided under “strict conditionality,” Mr. Juncker said after a meeting with the Greek prime minister, George A. Papandreou. “This conditionality will include private-sector agreements on a voluntary basis,” said Mr. Juncker, suggesting that any new European package would include a voluntary pledge by private investors to extend the maturity of Greek debt. Mr. Juncker also highlighted “with satisfaction” the fact that Greece was willing to set up a new fund to manage privatization. While the announcement on Friday left many details unknown, it clears the path toward a second bailout for Greece, a little more than a year after an international rescue worth 110 billion euros, or $159 billion at current exchange rates. Officials have been considering whether to make additional loans of up to 60 billion euros to give Greece more breathing room while it struggles with a deep economic downturn. But several euro zone countries, including the Netherlands, had made it clear that if the I.M.F did not make available its share of the next installment of original aid, worth 12 billion euros, they would not step in to make up the difference, let alone offer further help. Under its internal rules, the I.M.F is unable to make such a payment if there is a financing gap in the Greek government’s budget plans. A low level of economic growth has widened the hole in the Greek budget, which has in turn prompted a scramble for more cost-cutting measures. The talks that concluded Friday addressed that issue. The Greek government is set to announce a new austerity plan that envisions raising 6.4 billion euros through spending cuts and tax increases this year. That is in addition to the plan to raise 50 billion euros by 2015 through privatizations. The ministry said the additional measures would be discussed by the government “in the coming days” before being voted on in Parliament. European officials view Greece’s privatization program as central to averting a default. They have been so concerned at the slow pace of asset sales that the Netherlands proposed the creation of an outside agency to manage it. Though the announcement did not state that European officials would be involved in the process, there were suggestions that the Greek government would tap outside experts. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said he was open “to explore possibilities for further and reinforced assistance should there be a need, for instance in taxation and privatization matters.” The announcement came amid mounting public opposition in Greece to its austerity drive and growing rifts within the governing Socialist Party, which has failed in two attempts to secure a broad political consensus for more austerity measures. European Union and International Monetary Fund officials have pushed the government to persuade all political parties to sign on to the measures to ease their adoption. The Socialist government has a comfortable six-seat majority in Parliament, but several Socialist lawmakers have suggested they might vote against the new austerity proposals. A letter sent to Mr. Papandreou on Thursday by 16 Socialist members of Parliament framed the question being posed continually in the Greek media: “A year after signing the memorandum, we are at a crucial juncture again. Why?” Public opposition to the new measures has been clear. Thousands of Greeks, including many young people, filled the main square outside Parliament for a 10th day Friday, calling on the government to revoke the austerity measures and for foreign creditors to “go home.” The protests have been small by Greek standards but are growing in intensity, and there have been sporadic incidents of stone-throwing at politicians. Government officials have said that some of those incidents have been orchestrated by the Communist Party and Syriza, the radical left party, which are both represented in Parliament. On Friday, members of PAME, the Communist-affiliated labor union, stormed the Finance Ministry offices, which are opposite Parliament, and strung up a banner calling for “an organized overthrow” and strike action. The country’s main labor union, GSEE, which represents around two million workers, has called a one-day strike for June 9 and is joining the civil servants’ union, which represents about 800,000 people, for a general strike on June 15.

European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Greece
International Monetary Fund
European Union


A Measure of Business Spending Rises 4.6%

Abstract: WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A gauge of investment plans by American businesses improved in December, a sign that companies were betting that the economy would pick up despite fears over tighter fiscal policy. The Commerce Department said on Monday that new orders for capital goods increased 4.6 percent last month. The category of nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for investment plans, edged up 0.2 percent in December. In a further sign of business confidence, the November reading on capital spending plans was revised higher to show a 3 percent gain, up from the 2.6 percent rise reported a month ago. Many economists had expected businesses to invest more timidly late last year because of uncertainty over government spending cuts and tax increases that had been scheduled to begin this month. But Congress struck a deal to avoid or postpone most of the austerity measures. Image Credit The New York Times Despite the uncertainty, the new data pointed to growing economic momentum as companies sensed improved consumer demand. “It certainly seems to us that companies are slowly but surely expanding,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at the Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, N.Y. A second report showed that a measure of pending home sales slipped 4.3 percent in December. Still, the housing sector posted a rebound last year and economists expect it will add to growth again in 2013. New orders for overall durable goods — long-lasting factory goods as diverse as toasters and automobiles — jumped 4.6 percent in December, beating economists’ expectations for a 1.8 percent gain. The gains were broad-based, with orders for machinery, cars and primary metals all increasing. Orders for civilian aircraft surged 10.1 percent.


Europe Considers Energy Plans, and U.S. Labor and Trade Figures

Abstract: EUROPE’S ENERGY LEADERS CONSIDER PIPELINE CHANGE European Union energy ministers, led by Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, below, hold talks on Tuesday expected to be dominated by the announcement by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that his country is abandoning plans to build a natural gas pipeline under the Black Sea to supply central and southern Europe. The stated aim of the talks, scheduled before Mr. Putin’s surprise cancellation of the South Stream project, is to discuss the bloc’s energy strategy to 2020 as well as linking national energy systems. But since Mr. Putin’s announcement, ministers were expected to assess whether South Stream has been definitively called off and the implications for relations with Russia. JAMES KANTER TRADE AND RETAIL SALES REPORTS FROM COMMERCE DEPARTMENT The economic front is relatively quiet this week. On Tuesday, the Commerce Department will report on wholesale trade inventories for October and the Labor Department will release its job openings and labor turnover survey for October. On Thursday, the Labor Department issues its weekly report on initial claims for unemployment benefits and the Commerce Department reports on retail sales data for November. On Friday, the Labor Department reports on the Producer Price Index for November. THE NEW YORK TIMES


Diet Drug Optimism Lifts Shares of Vivus

Abstract: Shares of Vivus, a drug manufacturer, rose 26 percent as investors bet it would be able to convince regulators to approve its experimental weight loss drug, Qnexa. This week, the Food and Drug Administration told Vivus in a letter that it required additional information about the drug’s safety before it could be approved. The F.D.A. did not, however, ask for lengthy new clinical trials, leading some analysts and investors to think that the company would be able to address the agency’s concerns in a short space of time and that the drug would be approved next year. Shares of Vivus, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., rose $1.62, to $7.75.


Law Firm Fraud Trial; Silk Road Sentencing

Abstract: Here are some of the top business stories to pay attention to in the coming week. Trial Begins Opening arguments in the criminal trial of three former top executives of Dewey & LeBoeuf, the once-mighty New York law firm that collapsed in May 2012, are scheduled to begin on Tuesday in a courtroom in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The trial is expected to last up to six months and will delve into some of the arcane accounting maneuvers that prosecutors charge the former executives, all of whom are lawyers, used to hide the law firm’s failing finances from creditors, bond investors and lenders. The three defendants — Steven Davis, Dewey’s former chairman; Stephen DiCarmine, the firm’s former executive director; and Joel Sanders, the former chief financial officer — are charged with dozens of criminal counts and could spend years in prison if convicted. —Matthew Goldstein Confidence Check A gauge of consumer spending, which is one measure of consumer confidence, will be out Tuesday from the Conference Board. Rising gas prices and stagnant wages are probably to blame for what is expected to be a relatively low showing of confidence. —Dionne Searcey Money Meeting Finance ministers and the heads of central banks from the Group of 7 nations will meet in Dresden, Germany, on Wednesday through Friday. While Greece is not on the formal agenda, the risk of the country soon going bankrupt and leaving the eurozone is likely to be a major theme. The meeting comes ahead of a summit meeting of the G7 heads of government, including President Obama, in Bavaria next month. —Jack Ewing Trade Pact Vote The influential Committee on International Trade at the European Parliament is expected to vote on Thursday on a report assessing a planned trade and investment deal between the European Union and the United States. The role of the lawmakers is advisory at this stage. But the full parliament would have a final say on whether to approve an eventual Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The planned deal, which is being negotiated by trade officials in Washington and Brussels, has attracted strong criticism from some lawmakers who are concerned that it would diminish the ability of European Union member states to make rules protecting food quality, the environment and labor rights. The full Parliament is expected to vote on the report next month. —James Kanter G.D.P. Correction Revised Commerce Department data on the gross domestic product, due out on Friday, is expected to show that the economy shrunk during the first quarter of the year. Earlier data on first-quarter G.D.P. indicated that the economy barely grew, at 0.2 percent. If analysts’ predictions hold true for the revised data, it would be the first contraction in a year. Economists blame a bigger gulf than anticipated in the trade deficit, among other causes. —Dionne Searcey Silk Road Sentencing Ross Ulbricht, below, the founder of the Silk Road, the online drug bazaar, will be given his prison sentence on Friday in federal court in Manhattan. Image Mr. Ulbricht was convicted in February on seven counts related to his operation of the Silk Road, which grew into a huge global enterprise before Mr. Ulbricht’s arrest in October 2013. The site was often compared to an eBay for drugs and relied on the Bitcoin virtual currency for payments. The charges in Mr. Ulbricht’s case carry a minimum sentence of 20 years. Federal prosecutors have argued that Mr. Ulbricht should be sentenced to a life in prison, in part because of the drug overdose deaths of six Silk Road customers that the government plans to discuss at the sentencing. Mr. Ulbricht’s lawyer has argued that the overdose deaths cited by the government cannot be directly attributed to the Silk Road, and that the site actually created a safer environment for drug users who would otherwise have had to buy from street dealers. —Nathaniel Popper

Dewey & LeBoeuf
Oil and Gasoline
Consumer Confidence
G8,G7,G-7,Group of Seven
European Parliament
International trade
GDP
Silk Road


A Scorer England's Fans Can Be Proud Of

Abstract: LONDON — If there is to be enduring love for a game that appears now to be run by decadent men, then soccer surely needs what is about to unfold on the field of Wembley Stadium here in London. Shortly before the 5 p.m. kickoff between England and Slovenia on Saturday, Sir Bobby Charlton, a legend in the sport, will present the 100th cap to Wayne Rooney. It will be a meeting across two lifetimes devoted to playing the game. Many of Charlton’s records, set nearly 50 years ago for Manchester United and for England’s national team, look destined to fall to Rooney. But records aside, only nine men have made 100 appearances for the country that invented soccer. Rooney, at 29, is the youngest by far to reach that milestone. He follows Billy Wright in the 1950s, and after him Charlton, Bobby Moore, Peter Shilton, David Beckham and the three recently retired England players Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. Given that England has been playing other nations since 1872, this is indeed select company. And given that Rooney’s personal struggle has always been more a question of temperament than talent, it is poignant that Sir Bobby, still a director at Manchester United, has the honor of making sure the cap fits. They have that in common — and the fact that Charlton’s feat of scoring 49 times in 106 games for England is within reach of only one other player — Rooney. Charlton is content that his England record and also his United club record of 249 goals, are both on Rooney’s near horizon. Rooney is six short of Charlton’s England score and needs another 30 goals to equal the knight’s Manchester United career tally. The older gentleman, now 77, says (and means) that he is happy that Rooney is the one expected to eclipse his records. Moreover, Charlton advises “young Wayne” to be a bit more selfish, to shoot on sight of the goal. They are not similar types. Charlton’s game was all about graceful gliding and extraordinary power shooting, often from a great distance. Rooney is a bull of a man and seemed to emerge that way ever since, at age 9, he rampaged through kids soccer games in his native Liverpool. There was, and is, a belligerence to Rooney that never entered the head of Charlton. He had a big brother, Jack Charlton, who could be difficult and was not always too careful whether he booted the ball or the opponents. Bobby Charlton, a survivor of the Munich Airport crash that decimated United’s team in 1958, espoused toughness in a more refined and skilled way. Image Bobby Charlton, center, scored a goal against Portugal in the 1966 World Cup. Charlton scored 49 times in 106 games for England. Credit Central Press/Hulton Archive — Getty Images In that sense, Rooney is a combination of the brothers. He can, when his mood is right, beat opponents with breathtaking audacity, such as when he announced himself in the Premier League with a goal from 30 yards that to this day is remembered by Arsène Wenger, the manager of the opposing side, Arsenal. Rooney was 16 at the time, and playing for his first love in football — Everton FC. Very soon, he would be propelled into the senior England team, and before he was old enough to know anything different, he was the star player not simply of his country, but of all the nations at the 2004 European Championships. That came to an abrupt and painful end when he broke a bone in his foot playing against Portugal in the quarterfinal. Without him, England went no further. Many of us who witnessed that tournament believe that Rooney then was a man-child, not fully developed as a player yet physically like a bull. He had the mind of a fighter, like the young pugilist he was on the streets of Croxteth in Liverpool, and it was burdened by neither great expectations nor great wealth. Then things took a turn. The media illuminated his every misdemeanor and all his red cards. When United paid 25.6 million pounds, now about $40 million, to sign Rooney from Everton in 2004 while he was still a teenager, the manager Alex Ferguson realized that there was no taming the boy without losing the competitive edge. And so he didn’t. The coaches at Old Trafford reckoned on six missed games through suspension in each 60-plus game season. Fast forward a decade, and still Rooney possesses that streak. Still he might kick out at an opponent, many of whom set out with the intention of needling him. What they cannot do is subdue the endeavor, desire and stamina with which Rooney covers any area of the field that the team needs him to. His goal records are the more appreciable because Rooney spends months playing wide on the wings, or deep in midfield, while still trying to lend his explosive presence up front when opportunity arises. Does this make him a United great? The record mounts up, but older fans put him behind Charlton, Denis Law, George Best, Eric Cantona, Cristiano Ronaldo or Ryan Giggs. But that tells you how spoiled club fans have become. England has had no such abundance, no trophy since the 1966 World Cup won at the original Wembley Stadium. Rooney hasn’t won a tournament with England, though he was accused of losing one. He was sent off for stamping on the chest of Portugal’s Ricardo Carvalho during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Again the Portuguese knew how to goad him. Again, Rooney let himself down. The bottom line is that he has played at three World Cups, and scored only once in 11 games at them. Today, he captains both United and England. And Rooney doesn’t need anyone to tell him the score. “I could sit here with 200 caps and 100 goals for my country,” he said at a news conference. “But I’ll never be as big as Sir Bobby Charlton — well, only maybe if England wins the World Cup. “I’ll be proud for my family this weekend, but trophies rather than individual landmarks are why we play football.”

Soccer
England
Slovenia
Wayne Rooney
Bobby Charlton


In Village, Palestinians See Model for Their Cause

Abstract: BILIN, West Bank — Every Friday for the past four and a half years, several hundred demonstrators — Palestinian villagers, foreign volunteers and Israeli activists — have walked in unison to the Israeli barrier separating this tiny village from the burgeoning settlement of Modiin Illit, part of which is built on the village’s land. One hundred feet away, Israeli soldiers watch and wait. The protesters chant and shout and, inevitably, a few throw stones. Then just as inevitably, the soldiers open fire with tear gas and water jets, lately including a putrid oil-based liquid that makes the entire area stink. It is one of the longest-running and best organized protest operations in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it has turned this once anonymous farming village into a symbol of Palestinian civil disobedience, a model that many supporters of the Palestinian cause would like to see spread and prosper. For that reason, a group of famous left-leaning elder statesmen, including former President Jimmy Carter — who caused controversy by suggesting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank amounted to apartheid — came to Bilin on Thursday and told the local organizers how much they admired their work and why it was vital to keep it going. The retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu , also on the visit, said, “Just as a simple man named Gandhi led the successful nonviolent struggle in India and simple people such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King led the struggle for civil rights in the United States, simple people here in Bilin are leading a nonviolent struggle that will bring them their freedom.” Mr. Tutu, a South African Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke on rocky soil, surrounded by the remains of tear gas canisters and in front of coils of barbed wire, part of the barrier that Israel began building in 2002 across the West Bank as a violent Palestinian uprising was under way. Israel said its main purpose was to stop suicide bombers from crossing into Israel, but the route of the barrier — a mix of fencing, guard towers and concrete wall — dug deep into the West Bank in places, and Palestinian anger over the barrier is as much about lost land as about lost freedom. Bilin lost half its land to the settlement of Modiin Illit and the barrier and took its complaint to Israel’s highest court. Two years ago, the court handed it an unusual victory. It ordered the settlement to stop building its new neighborhood and ordered the Israeli military to move the route of the barrier back toward Israel, thereby returning about half the lost land to the village. “The villagers danced in the street,” recalled Emily Schaeffer, an Israeli lawyer who worked on the case for the village. “Unfortunately, it has been two years since the decision, and the wall has not moved.” The village is back in court trying, so far in vain, to get the orders put into effect. Ms. Schaeffer was explaining the case to the visitors, who go by the name The Elders . The group was founded two years ago by former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa and is paid for by donors, including Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, and Jeff Skoll, founding president of eBay. Its goal is to “support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.” Both Mr. Branson and Mr. Skoll were on the visit to Bilin, as were Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland; Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil; and Ela Bhatt , an Indian advocate for the poor and women’s rights. Their visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories has also included meetings with young Israelis and young Palestinians. Mr. Cardoso said that he had long heard about the conflict but that seeing it on the ground had made a lasting impression on him. The barrier, he said, serves to imprison the Palestinians. Like every element of the conflict here, there is no agreement over the nature of what goes on here every Friday. Palestinians hail the protest as nonviolent, and it was cited recently by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a key step forward in the struggle for a Palestinian state. Recently, one of the leaders here, Mohammed Khatib, set up a committee of a dozen villages to share his strategies. But the Israelis complain that, along with protests at the nearby village of Nilin, things are more violent here than the Palestinians and their supporters acknowledge. “Rioters hurl rocks, Molotov cocktails and burning tires at defense forces and the security fence,” the military said in a statement when asked why it had taken to arresting village leaders in the middle of the night. “Since the beginning of 2008, about 170 members of the defense forces have been injured in these villages,” it added, including three soldiers who were so badly hurt they could no longer serve in the army. It also said that at Bilin itself, some $60,000 worth of damage had been done to the barrier in the past year and a half. Abdullah Abu Rahma, a village teacher and one of the organizers of the weekly protests, said he was amazed at the military’s assertions as well as at its continuing arrests and imprisonment of village leaders. “They want to destroy our movement because it is nonviolent,” he said. He added that some villagers might have tried, out of frustration, to cut through the fence since the court had ordered it moved and nothing had happened. But that is not the essence of the popular movement that he has helped lead. “We need our land,” he told his visitors. “It is how we make our living. Our message to the world is that this wall is destroying our lives, and the occupation wants to kill our struggle.”

Bilin (West Bank)
West Bank
Palestinians
Israel
Demonstrations and Riots
Tutu Desmond M
Elders The


Vote to Impeach Rousseff Prompted Cheers, But Won’t End Turmoil in Brazil

Abstract: BRASÍLIA — To those unfamiliar with the cacophonous tenor of Brazilian politics, the legislative session on Sunday night that approved the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff could have been mistaken for a soccer match. As the outcome of the vote became clear, deputies in the lower house of Congress hooted, pumped their fists and hoisted onto their shoulders the man who had cast the pivotal vote. One lawmaker, wearing a flag as a cape, fired a gun that shot confetti. The unrestrained merriment was mirrored on the streets of cities across Brazil, where thousands of people celebrated what they hope will be the ouster of Ms. Rousseff on charges that she illegally used money from state-owned banks to hide a catastrophic budget deficit and bolster her chances of re-election. But on Monday, Brazilians awoke to the sobering reality that the political and economic turmoil that has consumed their country, Latin America’s largest, for the past two years is far from over. Inflation is running at 10 percent, unemployment is at a seven-year high and the economy is expected to contract by as much as 3.8 percent for a second year in a row. A Zika epidemic is coursing through the northeast, and a cash-strapped local government in Rio de Janeiro is racing to prepare for the Summer Olympics. If the impeachment process moves forward as many experts predict, Brazilian televisions this August are likely to feature a split-screen spectacle of sporting events and their president on trial. “We may be witnessing the end of Dilma but not the end of the Brazilian crisis,” Sylvio Costa, the founder of Congresso em Foco, an anticorruption watchdog group. And the political paralysis that has hobbled the government is not likely to ease anytime soon. Ms. Rousseff will have to step down temporarily next month if the Senate votes by a simple majority to take on her impeachment trial, an outcome that many analysts say is all but assured. Ms. Rousseff, whose résumé includes a stint as a Marxist guerrilla, has vowed to fight on. “Despite much sadness, I have sufficient spirit, strength and courage to confront this injustice,” she said in a televised news conference on Monday. “I won’t be taken down.” The man who is expected to replace her, Vice President Michel Temer, is not exactly a knight in shining armor. Mr. Temer, 75, a career politician whose Brazilian Democratic Movement Party has been ensnared in the nation’s ever-expanding corruption scandal, is almost as unpopular as Ms. Rousseff. A survey released on Monday by the polling firm Datafolha found that 68 percent of those who supported Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment think Mr. Temer should not be president; more than half thought that he, too, should be impeached. Writing in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the columnist Bernardo Mello Franco took stock of the troubling state of affairs, among them legislative gridlock and at least five leaderless ministries. “In the next weeks Brazil will be in an exotic predicament,” he wrote on Monday. “Dilma is almost an ex-president and Temer is almost a future president. And because their relationship is broken, the sum of the two cannot give the country one head of government.” Though a large majority of deputies voted for Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment, this nation of 200 million remains deeply divided. Many of her supporters have promised to take to the streets in an effort to stave off her removal from office. In recent days, a growing number of officials have been calling for new elections, a process that would require the consent of Congress and the nation’s highest court. “It is clear to society that the party of Vice President Temer is as responsible for the political, ethical and economic crisis as is the party of President Dilma,” said Marina Silva, a former minister and outspoken critic of Ms. Rousseff. The vast majority of Brazilians also have little faith left in their leaders. A third of the deputies in the lower house have been charged or are being investigated for corruption, including its speaker, Eduardo Cunha, the man who orchestrated Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment. Mr. Cunha, who faces charges that he accepted $40 million in bribes, is especially disliked, with nearly 90 percent of Brazilians calling for him to step down, according to Datafolha. Senate President Renan Calheiros has his own ethical challenges. He is under investigation on accusations of receiving bribes, evading taxes and allowing a lobbyist to pay child support for a daughter of his born from an extramarital affair. “We have two thieves leading our Congress and they should both be in prison,” said Mr. Costa, the anticorruption activist. As he watched the balloting on Sunday night on television, Julio Barboza, 33, an environmental scientist from São Paulo, grew despondent as a stream of deputies cited God, clean government and democracy as they cast their votes against the president. He noted that just a handful used their brief speeches to mention the accusations Ms. Rousseff is facing. “It made me realize that the impeachment process has little to do with fiscal crimes,” Mr. Barboza said. For the moment, all eyes are on Mr. Temer, the vice president, a taciturn man who has long preferred operating behind the scenes. Although he is also the subject of an impeachment petition, most experts believe the matter will be dropped in the interest of national stability. Despite his dismal popularity on the street, many business leaders believe Mr. Temer, a centrist, is the best hope for righting the Brazilian economy. Expectations that Mr. Temer would replace Ms. Rousseff have had one tangible effect on the nation’s financial outlook: As the impeachment process moved forward in recent months, Brazilian stocks rallied 35 percent, though they lost two points on Monday. A former speaker of the lower house and an adroit deal maker, Mr. Temer will need to build a coalition to enact the economic reforms, tax increases and painful austerity required to contain a ballooning deficit. The road will be steep. Mr. Temer’s party enjoys scant public support and members of Ms. Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, angry over his defection to the opposition last month, are likely to stymie his work in Congress. And any effort to pare back social spending and trim bloated public pensions will stir up fierce resistance from labor unions and left-leaning activists. “The economy is in disarray and most Brazilians are hopeless about the current political class,” said Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva, a senior consultant at the São Paulo Research Foundation. “Temer is the personification of the old political class, so he will have a big challenge.”

Brazil
Dilma Rousseff
Impeachment
Zika Virus
Michel Temer
Economy
Embezzlement
Inflation


China: Democratic Reforms Risk Plunge Into ‘Abyss,’ Leader Says

Abstract: The leader of China ’s quasi-legislature said Thursday that China would never embrace Western political tenets like multiparty democracy or the separation of governmental powers because loosening the Communist Party’s hold on power risked plunging the nation into “the abyss of internal disorder.” The statement by the chairman of the National People’s Congress, Wu Bangguo, echoed his statements at the legislature’s last annual meeting in March 2010, when he said that a China without absolute Communist Party control would be paralyzed by internal divisions. Mr, Wu, the party’s second-ranking official, made the remarks during a speech in which he said the government last year had completed a “socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics based on the situation and realities in China.”

China
Politics and Government
Communist Party of China
Wu Bangguo


Syrian Forces Kill 12 Rebels in an Ambush

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Syrian government troops trying to relieve a besieged military base in the country’s northwest ambushed a rebel checkpoint on Saturday, killing at least 12 opposition fighters, activists said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government troops surprised the rebels on the outskirts of the village of Baboulein in Idlib Province. The Observatory, which is based in Britain and relies on a network of local activists in Syria, said many opposition fighters were also wounded in the attack. Rebels have wrested much of the countryside of Idlib and other provinces in northern Syria from government forces. The government still controls many military bases in the region, however, from which it launches attacks on opposition-held areas. The Observatory’s director, Rami Abdul Rahman, said the assault on Saturday was part of government efforts to resupply the military base at Wadi Deif, outside the town of Maaret al-Numan, which is just north of Baboulein on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. Rebels have been trying for months to capture the base, which government troops use to pound the now largely abandoned Maaret al-Numan with artillery fire regularly. The government must push convoys through rebel-held territory to prevent the base from running short of troops and supplies. On Thursday, activists said rebels had shot down a helicopter carrying food and supplies to the base, killing the pilot and three other soldiers. In the northern city of Aleppo, a government air raid on the disputed Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood killed at least 3 people and wounded 16, the Observatory said. Doctors treating the wounded, it added, said that many showed signs, like severe vomiting, runny nose and eye irritation, of having inhaled toxic gas. Each side in the Syrian civil war has accused the other of using chemical weapons. The United Nations has been asked to investigate a report of a chemical weapons attack in Khan al-Assal, outside Aleppo, in March, for which each side has blamed the other.


A Major Victory for a Conference, Too

Abstract: WASHINGTON, March 26 - The George Mason players clipped pieces of the net, tucked them beneath baseball caps and raised their arms. Tom Yeager, the commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association, stood about 20 feet from the celebration and flashed a wide grin that was far more major than midmajor. Minutes after the No. 11-seeded Patriots defeated No. 1-seeded UConn, 86-84, in overtime Sunday in the Washington Regional final, Yeager bubbled as he thought about what this victory would do for his conference. "I really can't imagine the impact this will have," he said. "I think it's going to change everything, from television to recruiting to sponsorship. This takes all 12 of our programs up a big notch." George Mason is the first team from a midmajor conference to reach the Final Four since Utah made it in 1998 as a member of the Western Athletic Conference. "I hope people see our conference and think, 'That's a Final Four league,' " Patriots guard Gabe Norwood said. "I want all the C.A.A. teams to share a piece of this win. Now we're going to see where this takes our conference." This season, North Carolina-Wilmington received the C.A.A.'s automatic N.C.A.A. tournament bid by winning its conference tournament, and George Mason got an at-large bid, giving the conference two tournament teams for the second time. In 1986, Navy (which David Robinson led to the Round of Eight) and Richmond were selected. The conference has also had success in the National Invitation Tournament this season, as Old Dominion and Hofstra faced each other in a quarterfinal, with Old Dominion advancing to Tuesday's semifinals at Madison Square Garden. When teams from power conferences have success in the N.I.T., it does not generate much buzz. But in the C.A.A., all postseason victories are noteworthy. At Sunday's Washington Regional final, the conference's public relations department provided an N.I.T. schedule and results for the news media. George Mason's athletic director, Tom O'Connor, said almost all the other athletic directors in the conference called him and sent congratulatory e-mail messages last week as the Patriots barnstormed the N.C.A.A. tournament. "This just raises our league's level and gives us better brand identity," he said. "It's great for everyone, in ways that go beyond basketball." With teams from his league winning three national championships in the past eight years, Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese said the nation had a short memory when it came to success. "I've seen it, and I've seen that you have to prove yourself every year," Tranghese said. "But there's no doubt this will give them a real boost visibility-wise." George Mason Coach Jim Larranaga even used his conference's relative obscurity to motivate his players during their victory Sunday. Before the game, he told them they were in the C.A.A. -- the Connecticut Assassin Association. During timeouts, Larranaga continued to yell the new acronym to his players, and they loved it. They want everyone to know where they are from. As the postgame celebration moved off the Verizon Center court, Yeager prepared for his next C.A.A-studded tournament. "I'm off to Madison Square Garden to see O.D.U.," he said, smiling. "I'm taking the George Mason green off and putting on the Old Dominion blue. I'll have the green back on next weekend, though." And 11 other C.A.A. teams will be watching.

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
BASKETBALL


Leadership Void Seen in Pakistan

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is in a leaderless drift four months after elections, according to Western diplomats and military officials, Pakistani politicians and Afghan officials who are increasingly worried that no one is really in charge. The sense of drift is the subject of almost every columnist in the English-language press in Pakistan, and anxiety over the lack of leadership and the weakness of the civilian government now infuses conversations with analysts, diplomats and Pakistani government officials. The problem is most acute, they say, when it comes to dealing with militants in the tribal areas that have become home to the Taliban and Al Qaeda . Although the political parties and the military all seek a breather from the suicide bombings and nascent insurgency that have roiled Pakistan in recent years, there are fundamental disagreements over the problem of militancy that they have not begun to address, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats say. The confusion is allowing the militants to consolidate their sanctuaries while spreading their tentacles all along the border area, military officials and diplomats warn. It has also complicated policy for the Bush administration, which leaned heavily on one man, President Pervez Musharraf , to streamline its antiterrorism efforts in Pakistan. If anyone is in charge of security policy in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats say, that remains the military and the country’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence , or ISI, which operate with little real oversight. While the newly elected civilian government has been criticized for dealing with the militants, it is the military that is brokering cease-fires and prisoner exchanges with minimum consultation with the government, politicians from the government coalition, diplomats and analysts said. Politicians in both the provincial and central governments complain they are excluded from the negotiations and did not even know of a secret deal struck in February, before the elections. “You see a lack of a coordinated strategy between the federal level and provincial level, and that includes the ISI and the military, who are clear players,” said one Western diplomat with knowledge of the tribal regions, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “You see it even on principles of negotiation and combined strategy.” One newspaper, the weekly Friday Times, satirized the situation with a front-page cartoon showing the country’s main political players riding in a plane, all issuing different instructions. Since coming to power in February, the fragile coalition government, run by Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, has been engrossed in internal wrangling over removing President Musharraf. The coalition is barely functioning after half its ministers left the cabinet in May in a dispute over whether to reinstate 60 high court judges dismissed by Mr. Musharraf last year. For now it is just accepting the military’s decisions regarding the militants, said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general who is now a political analyst. He characterized the country as suffering from “institutional paralysis and a dysfunctional government, signs of which are showing already.” The American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, also described the government as “dysfunctional” just before leaving his post earlier this month. “I have a feeling that no one is in charge and that is why the militants are taking advantage,” Mr. Masood said. “It is a very dangerous situation because what is happening is the Afghan government is getting desperate.” The frustration is such that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan threatened this month to send troops into Pakistan to pursue Pakistani militant leaders. That Pakistan’s government appears broken is not surprising, analysts say. Pakistan’s civilian institutions were atrophied by eight years of military rule, and the country’s major political parties were left rudderless by the absence of their leaders, who lived in exile much of that time. The assassination of Ms. Bhutto in December left her party in even deeper disarray. The military remains the country’s strongest institution, having ruled Pakistan for about half of the country’s 61 years of independence. But it is proving to be an increasingly fickle and prickly partner for Washington. United States and NATO officials are still struggling to decipher the intentions of the army’s new chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Last fall, at the time of his appointment, American officials spoke approvingly of General Kayani, who seemed well aware of the threat the militants posed to Pakistan, and of the dangers of peace deals that have allowed the militants to tighten their grip in the tribal areas. But despite at least $12 billion in aid to Pakistan from Washington for the fight against the militants since 2001, General Kayani has recently shown a reluctance to use the military for counterinsurgency operations, suggesting that the task be left to the much weaker tribal force, the Frontier Corps. He has encouraged the civilian government to take the lead. Part of the confusion stems from the shift in power from military rule, after President Musharraf stepped down as head of the army in December, to the new civilian government, one Western military official said. “Kayani is being careful not to get too far out in front and is trying to determine who is in charge,” he said. “We all are.” The uneasy balance between civilian and military authority was demonstrated this month when the finance minister, Naveed Qamar, revealed details of the defense budget to Parliament for the first time in 40 years. While Mr. Qamar called it a “historic moment,” the document was a mere two pages. Parliament, tied up with budget negotiations until next month, has not discussed security or militancy. “We do understand this is the biggest issue, and after the budget session it will have to be addressed,” said Farah Ispahani, a Pakistan Peoples Party legislator. Meanwhile, the military under General Kayani has quietly pursued its own policies, politicians from the government coalition, diplomats and analysts say. The military and ISI negotiated a little-known truce with the tribes and militants of North Waziristan just days before the Feb. 18 elections, a senior government official in Peshawar confirmed. The deal was so secretive that few in the government know its contents even today. “The civilian government is in the back seat, or not even in the back seat,” said the Western diplomat, who did not want to be identified because of the critical nature of the remarks. The military also began negotiations with the most powerful of the Taliban commanders, Baitullah Mehsud, in January, just weeks after the government accused him of masterminding Ms. Bhutto’s assassination. An official agreement with the Mehsud tribe has not been completed, but the military has already pulled back from some positions, put in place a cease-fire and exchanged prisoners with the militants. Western officials are suspicious of the deal. Mr. Mehsud is accused of dispatching scores of suicide bombers in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the agreement initially included no prohibition on cross-border attacks. Only after strong pressure from the United States and other allies did the military insert such a clause this month, according to a senior official close to the negotiations. In the meantime, cross-border attacks increased by 50 percent in May, NATO officials in Afghanistan say. The provincial government in the North-West Frontier Province has also expressed its reservations about the deal. Officials from the Awami National Party, a Pashtun nationalist party that leads the government in the province and which is also part of the national coalition, complained that they have not been included in the military’s decisions. “Our main demand is that we should be included in negotiations,” said Wajid Ali Khan, a party official. “We don’t know with whom they are talking.” Moreover, the central government’s point man for counterterrorism, the acting interior minister, Rehman Malik, has appeared to have an uneven grasp of developments. This month he announced in Parliament that the peace deal with militants in the Swat Valley, just outside the tribal areas, had been scrapped. But he retracted the statement the next day, after the provincial government insisted the deal was still on. Officials of the Awami National Party have complained that his comments undermined their negotiating position. Afrasiab Khattak, a senior official of the party, and other party officials are confident they can make the peace deals in their province work. But few believe that the deals brokered by the military in the tribal regions will last more than a few months, including military officials themselves, senior government officials in Peshawar say. More fighting and violence is almost certainly on the horizon. What the plan will be then, no one seems to know.

Pakistan
Politics and Government
Musharraf Pervez
Inter-Services Intelligence
Taliban
Al Qaeda
Bush George W
Armament Defense and Military Forces
Tribes and Tribalism


A Consultant in Dean’s Run in 2004 Joins With Edwards

Abstract: WASHINGTON, April 19 — Joe Trippi, a Democratic political consultant who ran Howard Dean’s upstart presidential campaign in 2004, said Thursday that he had signed on with John Edwards in the 2008 race. Mr. Trippi, who oversaw the pioneering presence on the Internet for Mr. Dean, the former Vermont governor, as well as his rise and fall, will be a senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat. Four years ago, Mr. Dean was the favored candidate of antiwar Democrats. This time, Mr. Edwards is seeking to fill that position in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. In a blog posting Thursday on the Edwards campaign’s Web site, Mr. Trippi, 51, said he had thought his campaign days were over but “too much is at stake.” Mr. Trippi, who was praised for elevating Mr. Dean from a little-known, small-state governor to a leading presidential contender, was also criticized by some Democrats for failing to run a disciplined, frugal campaign. The campaign spent $40 million but experienced humiliating defeats in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, leading to Mr. Trippi’s resignation. Mr. Trippi has worked in presidential politics nearly every four years since his first campaign in 1980, when he was an aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. But his rise to prominence, particularly among Democratic loyalists in the blogosphere, came during the Dean campaign, where he developed something of a cult following. For Mr. Edwards, Mr. Trippi will be an adviser on media strategy and the Internet. By integrating social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.com with traditional political campaigns, he said, the Web is shaping the 2008 race in far greater ways than it did four years ago. “As far as the Internet, this is still the wagon trains coming across the prairie,” Mr. Trippi said in an interview Thursday. “Everyone is still a pioneer out there. Everything is learn by doing it.” In the 2004 Democratic primary campaign, 650,000 people joined the Dean campaign’s online community, and the Internet played a critical role in raising $59 million. This time, with the advent of video-sharing sites like YouTube, the Internet is expected to be more critical than ever. “You can’t run a modern campaign in 2008 without a significant part of your media and communications happening over the Internet,” Mr. Trippi said. “The Edwards campaign is trying to take a bigger, bolder step.” Mr. Trippi said he had had conversations with all the major Democratic candidates, but there were natural ties to Mr. Edwards. Matthew Gross, who oversees Internet operations at the Edwards campaign, worked for Mr. Trippi four years ago.

Trippi Joe
Presidential Election of 2008
Edwards John
Democratic Party


Remembering Cuba’s Minor League Team

Abstract: HAVANA — When the Havana Sugar Kings were mentioned to Asdrubal Baró, a smile crept across his wrinkled face, revealing missing teeth. Seated in a wheelchair on the balcony of his Havana apartment surrounded by cactus plants, he said, “I must show you something.” Baró, 84, reached for a worn green book on the small table in front of him. He opened it to reveal newspaper box scores from each game of the Sugar Kings’ 1955 season, when Baró was one of their stars. “We were going to be Havana’s major league team,” he said in Spanish, leafing through the yellowed clippings. Luis Zayas, believed to be the only other former Sugar King living in Cuba, later said, “We had a slogan around the team that said, ‘One step from the big leagues,’ and we believed it.” No ordinary minor league team, the Sugar Kings were the Cincinnati Reds’ International League Class AAA affiliate based in Havana for six and a half seasons in prerevolutionary Cuba. Though the team’s existence was brief, the Sugar Kings drew a strong following in Cuba and became a springboard for Latin American players. The Sugar Kings remain a relic of 1950s Cuba, before Fidel Castro took power and an American embargo was put into place. But unlike the Chryslers and Studebakers that still roam Havana’s streets, Baró and Zayas are all that is left of the Sugar Kings’ legacy, vestiges of a time when the United States and Cuba had friendly relations and the major leagues truly seemed as close as Miami, 90 miles away. Baró and Zayas, 75, live only blocks from the pile of concrete that is Estadio Latinoamericano, once the home of the Sugar Kings and the stadium where Industriales, Havana’s National Series team, now plays. Zayas makes frequent trips to the stadium during the season, and Baró did, too, until leg trouble forced him to hold a cane in each hand to get around. In Zayas’s living room, a wall of photographs pays tribute to the great Cuban baseball players of the past, many of them his friends. Among them are Cookie Rojas, who played for the Sugar Kings; Luis Tiant; and Camilo Pascual. “There is much history here,” Zayas said, puffing on a cigar. “But for me, the greatest part of my career was the Sugar Kings.” The Sugar Kings evolved from the Havana Cubans, a Class B affiliate of the Washington Senators that joined the Florida International League in 1946. Ahead of the 1954 season, Bobby Maduro, a Cuban entrepreneur, bought the team, and the Sugar Kings made their debut in the International League that summer. Image The Sugar Kings star Luis Zayas has photographs of Cuban players on his wall. Credit Ben Strauss for The New York Times They wore blue and red, a combination of the colors of the top Cuban league teams of the time, Havana and Almendares. At Estadio Latinoamericano, then known as the Gran Estadio, the Sugar Kings sometimes drew 30,000 fans — an impressive feat for a minor league team. “I can tell you that it was very different than playing in Omaha,” Baró said. Sugar Kings games grew famous for exotic pregame entertainment that included beauty pageants, fashion shows and clowns, and always live music. And with the Cuban league playing its season in the winter, it left the summer spotlight to the Sugar Kings, who came to be known as the Cuban Sugar Kings to represent the entire island. “Everyone loved us,” said Zayas, the Sugar Kings’ second baseman in 1958. “I think I must have had 20 girlfriends that year.” Baró, who also played during parts of 1954 and 1956 for the team, said there was a song written about him with one line declaring, “Some men can give you beautiful children, but only Baró can give you a hit.” There was plenty of talent, too. Mike Cuellar started for the Sugar Kings and later won 185 games and a Cy Young Award in the major leagues, and Leo Cardenas played 16 seasons in the majors after wearing the Sugar Kings uniform for a time. A young Tiant, winner of 229 games in the majors, failed to make the team. As to whether the city of Havana might have been on a path to the major leagues — a goal Maduro often talked about — it is worth noting that Montreal and Toronto, Canadian cities with International League teams, had major league teams by the 1970s. Instead, Cuba was enveloped by a civil war and then cold war politics. Fulgencio Batista, defeated by Castro’s rebels, fled the country Jan. 1, 1959. Revolutionary fever reached its peak at the Gran Estadio that year at midnight on July 26 — the Castro- and Che Guevara-led movement was celebrated on the July 26 anniversary of the rebels’ first attack — during a game against the Rochester Red Wings. Revelry included fireworks and gunfire, and stray bullets grazed two members of the teams. The Red Wings’ third-base coach, Frank Verdi, was struck, as was Cardenas, the Sugar Kings’ shortstop. Neither was seriously injured, but the game and the series were canceled. “It was an itchy time,” said Rojas, who played for the Sugar Kings in 1959 and 1960 and is now a broadcaster for the Miami Marlins. “You never really knew what was going to happen.” The season, though, continued, and that fall, the Sugar Kings had their greatest success when they claimed the International League crown. They then faced the American Association champion Minneapolis Millers, a team that included Carl Yastrzemski, in what was known as the Little World Series. The seven-game series, played in Cuba because of the cold in Minnesota, was attended by Castro and won by the Sugar Kings in seven games. The team began the next season in Havana, but during a July trip in Miami, after the diplomatic situation between the United States and Cuba became untenable, the team was moved to Jersey City. The franchise lasted only a season and a half there before moving to Jacksonville, Fla., and folding a few years later. Image Fidel Castro threw a ceremonial pitch at the team’s 1960 International League season opener. Credit Associated Press As relations between the United States and Cuba continued to deteriorate, the baseball commissioner, Ford Frick, advised American players not to play in the Cuban winter league in 1960. On Jan. 3, 1961, the two countries severed diplomatic ties for good, leaving Cuban baseball players with a decision many still struggle with. Chasing their major league dreams would come at the cost of leaving their country forever. Baró and Zayas chose to stay. Rojas left Cuba with his family for the United States. “My career was in the United States, so I went,” said Rojas, who played 16 seasons in the majors. Zayas said: “The door was open to the big leagues, and I had to give that up, which was very, very difficult. But I knew that I could not live anywhere but Cuba.” He added that a Ku Klux Klan rally he witnessed during a season in Savannah, Ga., also weighed on him. Baró and Zayas finished their careers in the Mexican league before returning to Cuba, where Baró managed in the National Series and Zayas, who was married at Estadio Latinoamericano in 2001, was a coach for the Cuban national team until last year. Today, Havana has few reminders of the Sugar Kings. Signs of baseball surrounding Estadio Latinoamericano are dedicated to the Industriales. One apartment building across the street is painted in the Industriales’ colors, blue and white. The Sugar Kings are a faded memory. Sigfredo Barros, the longtime baseball writer for Granma, Cuba’s communist newspaper, said: “The Cuban revolution was a success, and we forgot the professionals. We started to love the National Series.” Baró said he gave away his Sugar Kings hats and jerseys over the years. All that remains from Zayas’s stint with the team is a single photograph the size of a playing card, so worn that some parts are no longer visible. They watched the World Baseball Classic intently this month, cheering on their countrymen in their quest to compete with major leaguers (Cuba was eliminated in the second round). They, too, embraced the National Series and maintain a fierce national pride. But sometimes, just for a moment, they let their imaginations wander. “We were a Triple-A team, and we were a big deal,” Zayas said. “Just think if we were a major league team.” Then, in English, he added, “Oh, man.”

Baseball
Cuba
Minor league
Reds
Hispanic Americans


‘Bond King’ William Gross Sues Pimco Over Dismissal

Abstract: The man known as the bond king, William H. Gross , is suing the company that he built into one of the largest asset managers in the world, providing his own colorful version of an ugly feud that led to his departure last year. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, represents a bold effort by Mr. Gross to repair the damage that was done to his reputation in the year before and after he was fired from Pimco. News media reports have portrayed Mr. Gross’s departure as a product of his erratic and domineering behavior at the firm he helped found in 1971. Mr. Gross is seeking “in no event less than $200 million” from Pimco for breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, among other causes of action. But to underscore the degree to which the suit is motivated by Mr. Gross’s desire to correct the public record, he has promised to donate any money he recovers to charity, his lawyer, Patricia L. Glaser, said. A Pimco representative said: “This lawsuit has no merit and our legal team will be responding in court in due course. Our focus remains on our clients and their investment portfolios.” The lawsuit presents a picture of Pimco — an asset manager based in California that is responsible for billions of dollars in retirement savings — as a den of intrigue riven by back stabbing and competing egos. The first sentence of the suit says that Mr. Gross was pushed out by a “cabal” of Pimco managing directors who were “driven by a lust for power, greed, and a desire to improve their own financial position.” “Their improper, dishonest, and unethical behavior must now be exposed,” the opening paragraph concludes. The suit takes aim at the man who was once in line to succeed Mr. Gross, Mohamed El-Erian, and at the man who has succeeded Mr. Gross as Pimco’s group chief investment officer, Daniel J. Ivascyn. Mr. El-Erian is now the chief economic adviser at Allianz , Pimco’s parent company. Both men, the suit says, were eager to take Pimco away from its traditional focus on bond funds and into riskier investment strategies that would earn it higher fees and lead to bigger bonuses for top executives. Mr. Gross, on the other hand, is said in the suit to have consistently advocated for keeping the firm focused on lower-fee investment products. The suit goes into detail about Pimco’s secretive bonus plan, saying that Mr. Gross was entitled to 20 percent of the firm’s bonus pool — a staggering $300 million in 2013. Mr. Gross’s overthrow was motivated, the suit says, by the desire of other top executives, such as Mr. Ivascyn, to take home more of the money. The suit says that Mr. Ivascyn told Mr. Gross that he “wasn’t a long-term player” and would leave for more money. With its bold claims and theatrical language, the suit could end up playing into Mr. Gross’s reputation as a unpredictable and volatile character, something that was cited as part of the reason for his problems at Pimco. The tone of the document is reminiscent of some of Mr. Gross’s famous letters to investors, in which he often went on at great length about his personal life, pets and philosophy. The legal challenge may become an unhappy and potentially costly distraction for Pimco, which has recently appeared to be recovering from the damage done by Mr. Gross’s departure. Gross’s Pimco Lawsuit William H. Gross is suing the company to repair the damage that was done to his reputation in the year before and after he was fired. While investors pulled over $100 billion from the enormous Pimco bond fund that Mr. Gross used to run, those outflows have slowed and the fund’s returns have been relatively good. Mr. Gross, by contrast, has attracted only around $1 billion to a new bond fond he created at the Janus Capital Group , the Denver company he joined immediately after leaving Pimco. The new Janus fund has significantly underperformed both its benchmark and the Pimco fund Mr. Gross used to lead, data from Morningstar shows. While Janus’s stock rose more than 60 percent in the months after Mr. Gross joined the company, it has since given back over half of those gains. Even before he left Pimco, Mr. Gross’s results were lagging partly as a result of bad calls on the timing of when the Federal Reserve would end its huge stimulus programs and begin raising interesting rates. The uneven returns led investors to pull money from the fund. The lawsuit locates the beginning of the problems in Mr. Gross’s decision to bring Mr. El-Erian to Pimco in 2007 to groom him as a potential successor. Mr. El-Erian was at Pimco previously, but in 2007 he was running Harvard University’s endowment. When Mr. El-Erian returned, the suit says, he was eager to push Pimco beyond the bond funds that had traditionally been its strength and wanted to use “a host of high-risk derivative asset classes” he had learned about at Harvard. The suit says the returns on the funds that Mr. El-Erian ran at Pimco were “abysmal.” According to the suit, Mr. Gross offered to step back from everything but his bond funds, but this scared Mr. El-Erian and led him to “abruptly” announce his resignation in early 2014. At the time, Mr. El-Erian said he was stepping back to write another book and spend more time with his family. Almost immediately after Mr. El-Erian’s departure, leaks to the news media attributed the blame for his departure to Mr. Gross. An internal Pimco investigation determined that the leaks had come from Andrew Balls, a fast-rising star at Pimco who previously worked as a journalist at The Financial Times, the suit says. When Mr. Balls was confronted, the suit says, Mr. Balls initially denied that he was responsible but then, when shown the evidence, changed his story. According to the suit, Mr. Gross pushed for Mr. Balls to be fired, but instead Pimco executives had him sign a document suggesting that he had only given out general information about Pimco and agreed that Mr. Balls would remain at Pimco. Mr. Balls is now one of five co-chief investment officers under Mr. Ivascyn. Mr. Gross, the suit says, was eventually forced from the firm after Mr. Ivascyn and a few others threatened to resign if Mr. Gross was not forced to leave. Ultimately, Mr. Gross was given an offer to leave the firm but in a way that would “conceal the news from investors, the press, and the market generally.” “Mr. Gross could not agree to participate in this deceit on investors and the public by accepting this so-called offer of his effective termination,” the suit says. “As a result, he was forced out of the company he had founded and led for over 40 years.” Mr. Gross’s lawsuit, filed in a state court in Orange County, asks for a jury trial, for his lawyers fees and for damages.

PIMCO Pacific Investment Management Company


Sports Legends Selling Relics? Hey, That Glove Really Is Gold

Abstract: There comes a time when a sports legend must decide whether to hang on to this championship ring and that game-worn jersey, or to cash in on the memorabilia market, which can fetch stunning sums for rare and historic artifacts. Bill Mazeroski, the former Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman best known for his World Series-winning home run against the Yankees in 1960, was the latest to choose to purge his house of decades-old keepsakes. This summer, as the Pirates were heading to the playoffs for the first time in 21 years, he received an offer from the Hunt Auctions company to sell the uniform and many other items cluttering his basement. “My wife, Milene, goes along with me, that we might as well get rid of it,” he said by telephone. “One of our sons said, ‘Ah, it’s hard to get rid of,’ and the other said, ‘O.K., get rid of it.’ ” The Mazeroski auction heads into a memorabilia market in which Chris Chambliss recently received a combined $121,874 for the home run bat he swung, and the ball he hit, to win the 1976 American League Championship Series for the Yankees, and in which Mike Eruzione, the captain of the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team, sold the “Miracle on Ice” uniform he wore during the defeat of the Soviet team for $657,250 . Sam Snead’s family sold the claret jug he received for winning the 1946 British Open for $262,900. And the son of Angelo Dundee, the boxing trainer who died last year, received $385,848 for the boxing gloves Muhammad Ali wore when he beat Sonny Liston in 1964. Dan Imler, a vice president at SCP Auctions, said that some former athletes regarded their game-used wares with sentimentality. “But to a lesser extent than most people think,” he said. “It’s not that they don’t value the memories or the accomplishments. They just don’t equate the objects to their achievements.” And if they want fans to see their wares, few have the opportunity to put it in a museum of their own, as Yogi Berra did. Image The uniform Bill Mazeroski wore as he hit a title-winning home run will be auctioned. Credit Hunt Auctions Mazeroski, 77, had kept the uniform and the socks he wore when he hit the home run 53 years ago Sunday in a cedar chest at home in Greensburg, Pa. Once, years before he received the offer from Hunt to sell his collection, he opened the chest to see if moths had damaged it. Seeing the uniform was intact, he closed the chest again. He did not weep over the Champagne-stained flannel even though he is a softy; in 2001, he broke down as he tried to deliver his Hall of Fame induction speech. But those tears were ignited by memories, not memorabilia. Now, with nearly all his trove gone, Mazeroski said, “I won’t miss it because it hasn’t been a part of my life.” Although Mazeroski said he did not need the money, he was thinking of his sons. “I want to see the joy on their faces when the boys get it,” he said. Mazeroski’s sons could benefit considerably from next month’s auction, at the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. The uniform alone could sell for $250,000 or more, said David Hunt, the president of Hunt Auctions, which displayed the uniform last month at its memorabilia store at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. In all, the auction will include more than 200 Mazeroski items. “It’s not like there was a master plan to do this a year ago,” Hunt said. “But in June, I got a chance to talk to Bill and I said, ‘Do you know what happened to the jersey?’ And he told me where it’s been. I told him if he wanted to evaluate it, I’d be glad to.” In deciding to sell his collection, Mazeroski dealt with some of the personal issues and business forces that other former players and families face. Some need the money or are estate planning. Others want to finance their grandchildren’s educations or vacations, and some no longer want to house the old uniforms, caps, bats, balls and trophies — sometimes, they do not have the room or are moving to smaller quarters. And the costs of storage, preservation and insurance can loom large as the artifacts rise in value. Bob Cousy, the Boston Celtics great, kept his memorabilia in a somewhat haphazard state in the cellar of the house he has lived in for 50 years in Worcester, Mass. He did not see his collection much except to take people downstairs to visit it. But his daughters, both schoolteachers, needed money, one to pay off a mortgage and another to help with her children’s college tuition. So he sold nearly all of his collection in 2003, netting about $160,000 for each daughter. “That was a much greater priority than hanging on to it,” Cousy said. “It was a godsend.” Robin Roberts, the Hall of Fame pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, was quite fond of his collection, and he used the artifacts to decorate his homes in Pennsylvania and later, Temple Terrace, Fla. But when he died in 2010, his four sons were left to wonder what to do with it. Sell it? Divide it in an N.F.L.-style draft? Very quickly, they realized that they did not want the responsibility of keeping it. Image The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bill Mazeroski, rounding third after winning the 1960 World Series with a home run against the Yankees, agreed to sell his uniform, a glove and other personal artifacts. Credit Associated Press Roberts’s memorabilia included a ball signed by Babe Ruth at the Phillies’ spring training camp in 1948, Roberts’s rookie season. That raised a serious question: “How do you split that ball four ways?” Robin Roberts Jr. said in an interview. And who would get the oil portrait of their father? His 1952 player of the year award? His Hall of Fame ring and replica plaque? His 1952 All-Star Game bat? “I told one of my brothers, ‘This stuff is for collectors; they’re serious about it and they want to display it in their houses,’ ” Roberts said. “I’d have loved to have kept stuff and pass it on to my son, but all I would have done is get a giant safe deposit box for it.” Ultimately, the brothers shared $300,000 from an auction. As the oldest child of Warren Spahn, the winningest left-hander in baseball history, Greg Spahn inherited a vast collection. “I remember he sold a 1957 World Series jersey when I was in college, and when I found out, I threw a fit,” Spahn said. “I think he got $1,200 and gave me the money. But I told him, ‘This stuff will be worth a lot more later.’ His attitude was that he didn’t care — they were just artifacts of his career.” Indeed, Spahn created a personal category of collectibles: he kept one ball from each of his 363 wins. Spahn waited a decade after his father’s death in 2003 to sell the memorabilia that had been stored in several places. “I didn’t have the time to catalog and preserve it,” he said from his ranch in Broken Arrow, Okla. “I have five kids. How would I split a Cy Young Award five ways or four gloves five ways? I would regret turning it over to them and turning it into a big fight. So I just decided that money was more splittable than memorabilia. And I do have three more kids to put through college.” Spahn’s 1957 Cy Young Award sold for $110,000 in an auction in July. His Hall of Fame induction ring brought $48,000. “I have no regrets,” Spahn said. “I don’t have a security problem any longer, and I don’t have the fact that the balls and gloves are not being properly stored.”

Souvenir
Baseball
Collecting
Auction
Babe Ruth
Bill Mazeroski
Muhammad Ali


Declaration of Independence by the Yankees’ Captain

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Derek Jeter subtly expressed his support for Alex Rodriguez as Rodriguez grapples with repercussions from admitting to steroid use. But Jeter was much more forceful in distancing himself from any connection to the steroid era and, ostensibly, any connection to what Rodriguez did. After the Yankees finished their first full-squad workout on Wednesday, Jeter parked himself in the first-base dugout to discuss his teammate. He described Rodriguez’s situation as the biggest distraction during his 14 seasons with the Yankees, but he was chiefly focused on separating himself from the cheats. “One thing that’s irritating and really upsets me a lot is when you hear people say that everybody did it,” Jeter said. “Everybody wasn’t doing it.” As the Yankees’ captain, it is Jeter’s responsibility to help Rodriguez through what will no doubt be a stressful season. The two have a complicated relationship, one that has dwindled from best buddies to co-workers. Jeter said he did not condone Rodriguez’s behavior, but, as someone trying to snare another title, he has a vested interest in helping Rodriguez succeed. “I think everybody is disappointed,” Jeter said. “He’s disappointed in himself. It’s one of the things that he stressed yesterday. He’s admitted it. Everyone is disappointed, but you’re there to support him and get him through it.” Although Jeter’s scheduled interview was expected to center on Rodriguez, he massaged the message to emphasize his dissatisfaction with the perception of an era. Since so many players from the last 15 or so years have been tied to performance-enhancing drugs, Jeter offered a reminder that there were innocent players, too. “The thing that I was most frustrated with is people making this blanket statement that it was the steroid era and everybody was doing it,” Jeter said. “I’ve heard that on more than one occasion. That’s not true. That’s the thing that’s most upsetting to me.” Over the years, Jeter has admitted that he has had discussions with teammates about who “might be doing this or might be doing that.” After a player belted a mammoth homer, Jeter said he and teammates probably wondered aloud if the player was using performance-enhancing drugs. Jeter, whose father, Charles, was a drug and alcohol counselor when Jeter grew up in Kalamazoo, Mich., said no player had ever recommended that he try steroids. Still, several high-profile players have been linked to steroids or, in Rodriguez’s case, have acknowledged using them. Roger Clemens, Jeter’s friend and former teammate, has been suspected of steroid use. So has Barry Bonds, the career home run leader and a player who once asked Jeter for an autographed jersey. With the home run king, the man who may pass him someday and one of the best pitchers ever connected to steroids, other players get splattered with doubt. “I understand people have questions,” Jeter said. “I understand there are a lot of big names coming out. But that’s not everybody. You know what I mean? That’s the point I’m trying to make.” Rodriguez was the last player to run through the bullpen at Steinbrenner Field and go to right field for stretching exercises. When he appeared, the fans cheered. The Yankees want the Rodriguez saga to vanish, but they have acknowledged it will have staying power. Before Rodriguez took batting practice, a few photographers crept into the dugout to snap pictures. Rob Thomson, the third-base coach, marched off the field to chase them away. The additional attention did not seem to bother Rodriguez, who kept talking with Johnny Damon and never acknowledged the photographers or Thomson. A few minutes later, Rodriguez smashed a homer on his second swing. Rodriguez also volunteered to be a runner in a situational hitting drill, something that is usually handled by a player wearing a uniform number in the 70s or 80s. “He looked like he was happy to be on the field,” Manager Joe Girardi said about Rodriguez. “I saw him with his teammates, I saw him in uniform and I think he’s been looking forward to that day, obviously, for the last couple of weeks.” Other than brief conversations with some familiar reporters, Rodriguez did no extended interviews. “I’ll talk tomorrow, guys,” Rodriguez said as he glided toward the door. Jeter said he still had respect for Rodriguez “as a player” because Rodriguez explained that his steroid use was in the past . When Jeter was asked if he believed Rodriguez’s story of a cousin buying a banned substance in the Dominican Republic, Jeter said that he did because he liked to give people “the benefit of the doubt.” If Jeter’s repeated references to the notion that there were clean players in the steroid era did not make his point clearly enough, he provided one closing mention. “I’ve never taken performance-enhancing drugs, I’ve never taken steroids,” Jeter said. “I mean, that’s it.” INSIDE PITCH Hideki Matsui will not play the outfield in spring training because the Yankees want him to be cautious on his surgically repaired left knee. He will open the season as the designated hitter. With Matsui limited to being a D.H., the possibility of the Yankees trading outfielder Xavier Nady or Nick Swisher is more unlikely. ... Manager Joe Girardi said Mark Teixeira would likely hit third and Alex Rodriguez fourth.

Jeter Derek
Steroids
Baseball
Rodriguez Alex
New York Yankees


Video Feature: Apps for Keeping New Year’s Resolutions

Abstract: IT’S that special time of year again — a new year — where resolutions to celebrate the arrival of 2016 will be coming thick and fast. To prevent those promises from promptly being forgotten, many smartphone apps can help people stick to their new year’s goals of saving money, getting fit, losing weight and more. One such app is a goal-tracking program called Strides, which is ideal for monitoring the progress in keeping to your resolutions. This elegantly designed app is flexible enough to help track multiple goals and it has built-in templates to help you meditate, save money, keep a journal and so on. Whether you use a template or construct a goal by yourself, the app works the same way: You type in the goal’s name, enter data about your target (like a dollar value to save, or target weight to achieve), select a meaningful time scale, then set up regular alerts and reminders. The app will remind you when it’s time to act on one of your goals or log your progress. Strides shows all of the goals on a dashboard with an at-a-glance indicator. To log your progress, tap the goal’s checkmark in the dashboard. Selecting the goal’s name takes you to a page that shows your historical progress, as well as statistics like the number of days you have kept up with your resolution and your percentage success rate so far. The app is free and is iOS only. A similar Android equivalent is Goal Tracker by Mobillion. This app , with a minimalist style and an easy-to-use interface, also has the flexibility to track your progress on multiple resolutions. It is also free. Coach.me is another goal-tracking and habit-forming app that’s free for both iOS and Android . The app has a social networking aspect that lets people share their progress toward goals with a community and earn praise, as well as being able to ask other users for advice. You can also use the app to find and hire a real-life coach to keep you motivated. The app is popular, with a clean look, useful statistical feedback and built-in templates for different goals. Its makers have added an Apple Watch extension so you can get reminders or see progress on your wrist for convenience. I use this app on iOS, as Android app-store reviewers have criticized the app for being slow and not working well. Learning a new language is a common new year’s resolution, and my favorite app for this task is Duolingo. This app can help people learn Spanish, French, Portuguese and a handful of other major languages. Its interface is cheerful. The app has motivational goals that help students progress through its levels. It’s free for iOS , Windows and Android users, but offers fewer languages on Android. Tracking your finances is another common aim when a new year arrives, and the Level Money app may be useful. The app helps in calculating how much you can sensibly spend each day, tracks how you spent money in previous months, and predicts your bank balance and spending for the month ahead. It can connect directly with a number of banks to automatically pull in information on your balance. Level Money is free on iOS and Android . If you’re planning on getting into shape next year, try the Human app. This free iOS app runs mainly in the background on your phone, automatically tracking and logging your exercise activity and prompting you to get up and do some mild activity if you’re behind your usual schedule. It has great graphics and is easy to use. Though the app is iOS-only, its makers say an Android edition is coming soon. Lastly, keeping a gratitude journal is both a great new year resolution and a useful way to keep your spirits up during any dark winter days. The Bliss Gratitude Journal app is a free and user-friendly Android app for this purpose. On iOS, there’s a $5 app called Day One that works either as a general journal app or as a gratitude journal. Quick Call Post is a new app from Adobe that, according to its makers, can help quickly combine photos and text to “create stunning graphics.” The app has many templates and fonts so people can really personalize their images. If you’re the type of person who likes annotating images with text and sharing them on Instagram, this is the app for you. Post is free on iOS .


Texas Tech Suspends 3 for Meineke Car Care Bowl

Abstract: Three Texas Tech players will not play against Minnesota in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on Friday because they violated team rules. Blayne Beal, a team spokesman, did not specify the violations. The suspended players are Cornelius Douglas, a starting defensive back; Chris Payne, a linebacker who plays mostly on special teams; and Leon Mackey, a backup defensive tackle.

Football
Football (College)
Texas Tech University
Bowl Games
University of Minnesota
Douglas Cornelius
Payne Chris
Mackey Leon