Vitamins’ Old, Old Edge

Abstract: In 1602, a Spanish fleet was sailing up the Pacific coast of Mexico when the crew became deathly ill. “The first symptom is pain in the whole body that makes it sensitive to touch,” wrote Antonio de la Ascensión , a priest on the expedition. “Purple spots begin to cover the body, especially from the waist down; then the gums become so swollen that the teeth cannot be brought together, and they can only drink, and finally they die all of a sudden, while talking.” The crew was suffering from scurvy , a disease that was then both bitterly familiar and deeply mysterious. No one knew why it struck sailors or how to cure it. But on that 1602 voyage, Ascensión witnessed what he considered a miracle. While the crew was ashore burying the dead, one sick sailor picked up a cactus fruit to eat. He started to feel better, and his crewmates followed his example. “They all began to eat them and bring them back on board so that, after another two weeks, they were all healed,” the priest wrote. Over the next two centuries, it gradually became clear that scurvy was caused by a lack of fruits and vegetables on long-distance voyages. In the late 1700s, the British Navy started supplying its ships with millions of gallons of lemon juice, eradicating scurvy. But it wasn’t until 1928 that the Hungarian biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi discovered the ingredient that cured scurvy: vitamin C. Szent-Gyorgyi’s experiments were part of a wave of early-20th-century research that pulled back the curtain on vitamins. Scientists discovered that the human body required minuscule amounts of 13 organic molecules . A deficiency of any of the vitamins led to different diseases — a lack of vitamin A to blindness, vitamin B12 to severe anemia, vitamin D to rickets. Today, a huge amount of research goes into understanding vitamins, but most of it is focused on how much of them people need to stay healthy. This work does not address a basic question, though: How did we end up so dependent on these peculiar little molecules? Recent research is providing new answers. It appears that vitamins were essential to life from its earliest stages some four billion years ago. Early life-forms could make their own vitamins, but some species — including ours — later lost that ability. Species began to depend on each other for vitamins, creating a complex flow of molecules that scientists have named “vitamin traffic.” A Universal Chemistry Every vitamin is made by living cells — either our own, or in other species. Vitamin D is produced in our skin, for example, when sunlight strikes a precursor of cholesterol. A lemon tree makes vitamin C out of glucose. Making a vitamin is often an enormously baroque process. In some species, it takes 22 different proteins to craft a vitamin B12 molecule. While a protein may be made up of thousands of atoms, a vitamin may be made up of just a few dozen. And yet, despite their small size, vitamins expand our chemical versatility. A vitamin cooperates with proteins to help them carry out reactions they couldn’t manage on their own. Vitamin B1 , for example, helps proteins pull carbon dioxide from molecules. Vitamins carry out these chemical reactions not just in our own bodies but in all living things. “If you talk about bacteria, fungi, plants, humans — everybody needs them,” said Harold B. White III , a biochemist at the University of Delaware. This universal chemistry is likely the result of evolution. Scientists generally agree that life on earth today evolved from a chemically simpler form perhaps four billion years ago. Those primordial organisms relied on a single-stranded variant of DNA, called RNA. Back then, RNA did double duty, carrying genes, the way DNA does today, and catalyzing chemical reactions, as proteins do now. Dr. White was one of the first scientists to think seriously about this primordial “RNA world.” In 1975, he proposed that vitamins helped RNA molecules carry out their chemical reactions. While proteins took over those reactions, they still rely on the same vitamins. “There’s no way we’re going to get rid of them now,” he said. When Dr. White offered up his theory, other scientists were skeptical. “People were saying, ‘How are you going to test it?’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘I can’t.’ I didn’t see any way to do that work at the time.” It took nearly four decades for technology to catch up. Dipankar Sen , a biochemist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, set out in 2007 to test Dr. White’s idea. After six years of tinkering and testing, Dr. Sen and a graduate student, Paul Cernak, found an RNA molecule that could use vitamin B1 to pull carbon dioxide from another molecule. That is what proteins use B1 for today, just as Dr. White had predicted. Dr. Cernak and Dr. Sen described their experiment in Nature Chemistry. Image The Ability We Lost Once the ability to make vitamins evolved, some species became especially good at making them. Plants, for example, evolved into vitamin C factories, packing their leaves and fruits with the molecule. At first, vitamin C probably defended plants against stress — a function it carries out in other species, including us. But over time, the vitamin took on new jobs in plants, like helping control the development of fruit. It took hundreds of millions of years for plants to become such proficient vitamin C manufacturers, but vitamin production can change in far less time. Our own ancestors needed just thousands of years to alter their production of vitamin D. When humans left equatorial Africa and spread to higher latitudes, the sun was lower in the sky and supplied less ultraviolet light. By evolving lighter skin, Europeans and Asians were able to continue making a healthy supply of vitamin D. Aside from vitamins D and K, we humans can’t make any of the vitamins we need to stay healthy. In some cases, our ancestors could make them, but lost that ability. Our mammalian ancestors 100 million years ago never got scurvy, for example, because they could make their own vitamin C. Many vertebrates can make vitamin C, and use an identical set of genes to do so. “We should be able to make it, too, since we have all the genes,” said Rebecca Stevens of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research . Unlike a frog or a kangaroo, however, we have crippling mutations in one of those genes, known as GULO. Unable to make the GULO protein, we cannot produce vitamin C. “It’s not just us — it goes back a long time,” said Guy Drouin , a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Ottawa. He and other researchers have found that apes and monkeys, our closest primate relatives, have disabled GULO genes, with many of the same mutations. Dr. Drouin has concluded that the common ancestor we share with those other primates lost the ability to make vitamin C around 60 million years ago. It Wasn’t Just Us Primates are not the only animals with a damaged GULO gene, however, and that’s why scientists were able to discover vitamin C in the first place. Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi made his breakthrough thanks to a discovery that guinea pigs, unlike other rodents, get scurvy. It turns out that their GULO gene is disabled by a different set of mutations from the ones we carry. As it did in primates and guinea pigs, the GULO gene became disabled in a few other lineages, like bats and songbirds. Scientists have found that animals tend to lose vitamin C after a switch to a diet rich in it. Our primate ancestors, for example, started eating fruit and leaves that supplied them with far more vitamin C than they needed. “It may seem counterintuitive that you would lose a gene that enables you to be independent,” said Katherine E. Helliwell of the University of Cambridge, co-author of an August review about vitamin decay in Trends in Genetics . “But if you’re always surrounded by a vitamin for a long period of time, then you don’t need to use the gene.” Now that scientists can scan genomes of thousands of species, they’re discovering many more cases in which vitamin genes have either decayed or disappeared altogether. Sergio Sanudo-Wilhelmy of the University of Southern California and his colleagues recently surveyed the genomes of 400 of the most abundant species of bacteria in the oceans. As they report in a paper to be published in the Annual Review of Marine Science , 24 percent of the bacteria lack genes to make B1, and 63 percent can’t make B12. These recent studies are especially surprising because bacteria have long been considered self-sufficient when it comes to vitamins. Now scientists need to figure out why many species of bacteria in the ocean aren’t dead from a microbial version of scurvy. “Somebody’s making it for the good of the community, but we don’t know who,” Dr. Sanudo-Wilhelmy said. Only recently have scientists made measurements of vitamins in the sea. They are finding some places that are abundant with them and others that are vitamin deserts. It is possible that the difference influences not just bacteria and algae, but the animals that feed on them. Vitamins flow in complex routes, not just in the ocean, but on land. We humans can’t make our own supply of vitamin B12, for example, so we need to get it from food. One way is to eat meat like beef, which contains B12. It turns out that the cows and other animals that we consume don’t make B12 in their own cells. Instead, the bacteria in their guts manufacture it for them. We are also home to thousands of species of bacteria, which synthesize vitamins as they eat our food. Does that mean we depend on our internal vitamin traffic? “It’s still theoretical,” said Douwe van Sinderen , a microbiologist at University College Cork in Ireland. “But evidence is building that bacteria can provide some vitamins that we need.” If that’s so, we may need to think of our bodies as self-contained oceans of vitamin traffic — a continuation of the traffic that has occurred on earth for four billion years.


Dutch Government to Proceed With Sale of ABN Amro Shares

Abstract: LONDON — The Dutch government announced plans on Friday to proceed with a sale of shares of the state-owned lender ABN Amro, possibly via an initial public offering as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. The move, which must be approved by Parliament, is the next step for the Dutch government in its efforts to recoup tens of billions of euros it pumped into the bank in a rescue seven years ago. In a letter to Parliament on Friday, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said an I.P.O. would be the best option for selling the government’s stake. “We agree with the finance minister’s conclusion that an I.P.O. is the best option for selling ABN Amro,” Gerrit Zalm, the chairman of ABN Amro’s managing board, a post that is the equivalent of chief executive, said in a news release . “This is a logical next step in the bank’s development,” Mr. Zalm said. “The internal preparations we have made this past year are well on track, and both the managing board and the supervisory board believe that ABN Amro is ready for an I.P.O.” The bank itself has been valued at 15 billion euros, or about $16.7 billion, in previous estimates by the outside experts, the government said on Friday. It also could be one of the largest I.P.O.s in the Netherlands. The Dutch government said it planned to sell shares of the bank in stages and was likely to remain a shareholder for a number of years. The first sale will probably represent a 20 percent to 30 percent stake in the lender and could come as soon as the fourth quarter. The bank traces its roots to ABN Amro Holding, which was broken up in 2007 after a €71 billion deal in which the Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander of Spain and the Belgian bank Fortis acquired pieces of the former company. The Dutch assets of Fortis and the Belgian lender’s share of ABN Amro were nationalized during the 2008 financial crisis, costing the Dutch government more than €21 billion. It also led to the loss of thousands of jobs at the bank. The Dutch finance ministry has said it would only seek to return the bank to the private markets if the financial sector was stable and there was sufficient interest in the market for the shares. It also is seeking to recover as much of the capital spent on the lender as possible. The move comes less than two months after Mr. Dijsselbloem delayed a decision on an I.P.O. following a disagreement with lawmakers about executive salaries at the lender. A group of ABN Amro’s top managers eventually gave up a pay increase after the outcry. ABN Amro’s prospects have improved in recent years as it has shed operations and reduced its provisions for bad loans. The bank’s underlying profit, which excludes certain special items, more than doubled in 2014, to €1.55 billion from €752 million in 2013.

IPO
ABN AMRO Holding
Jeroen Dijsselbloem
Gerrit Zalm


Washington: Seattle Votes Against Coal Terminals

Abstract: The Seattle City Council has unanimously passed a resolution opposing development of coal -export terminals in Washington over concerns about increased train traffic and potential harm to health and the environment. The vote Tuesday came as the federal government is reviewing the first of at least six port facilities proposed in Washington and Oregon to ship coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia. If all of them were built, trains could carry at least 100 million tons of coal a year through the Northwest. Councilmember Mike O’Brien says mining and burning more coal is not consistent with the city’s goal to fight climate change . Opponents say the resolution is premature and that the council should let an environmental review be completed.

Washington (State)
Mines and Mining
Coal
International Trade and World Market
Seattle (Wash)


Russia: Shake-Up at Space Agency

Abstract: Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev fired the general director of Russia’s beleaguered space agency on Thursday as part of a shake-up that had been expected after a series of embarrassing rocket failures. The dismissed official, Vladimir A. Popovkin, was appointed to lead the agency, Roscosmos, in 2011 after a failed rocket launching destroyed three satellites needed for a Russian global navigation system. Mr. Medvedev said that Oleg Ostapenko, a deputy defense minister with long experience in space operations, would be the agency’s new chief. A leadership change at Roscosmos was widely expected after the failed launching of an unmanned Proton-M rocket in July. It was the fourth failed Proton launching in three years.

Russia
Dmitri A Medvedev
Roscosmos
Space
Vladimir A Popovkin
Oleg N Ostapenko


Chicago Said to Be Choice Over New York as Obama Library Site

Abstract: CHICAGO — Chicago can breathe a sigh of relief: New York City will not be home to the Barack Obama Presidential Library and Museum. Mr. Obama’s library will be in his adopted home, Chicago’s South Side, according to two people who were briefed about the decision. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak before the official announcement. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was Mr. Obama’s chief of staff and led the lobbying effort to bring the library to the city where Mr. Obama first won elected office, is expected to make the announcement public within the next two weeks. The president’s foundation considered awarding the library to Columbia University , where Mr. Obama earned his undergraduate degree, but, after some local zoning issues were cleared, it became all but certain that Chicago would be the choice. Hawaii, where Mr. Obama spent his boyhood, also bid on the library. From the earliest planning stages for President Obama ’s library, Chicago appeared to be the natural front-runner. The Obamas’ have personal ties to the city: Michelle Obama was born and raised on the South Side and often speaks of her devotion to her hometown. Mr. Obama, who has roots in Hawaii and Indonesia, came to Chicago after college and got his start here as a community organizer and an elected official. This year, however, Chicago’s bid appeared to be in danger. Two colleges in the city, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago, were competing against each other, a battle that some worried would weaken the city’s overall prospects to land the library. They were competing against Columbia and the University of Hawaii. The University of Chicago had proposed two sites near its campus on the South Side. One is in Washington Park, a 380-acre expanse designed by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The other, Jackson Park, is on the South Side lakefront. It remained uncertain which of the two South Side sites would ultimately be chosen. Officials from the University of Chicago had no comment on Thursday evening. Martin Nesbitt, an executive in Chicago who is one of Mr. Obama’s best friends, is the chairman of the Barack Obama Foundation, which is overseeing the creation of the library. Susan Sher, who is leading the University of Chicago ’s bid, is a close friend and former chief of staff for Mrs. Obama. Opposition, though, has come from preservationist groups that have argued that parkland should not be used for a museum. Last week, Illinois state lawmakers aimed to assure that a library could survive legal challenges over the parkland question, swiftly passing legislation that explicitly authorized such construction in the city. Mr. Emanuel publicly vowed to make Chicago’s bid competitive with New York’s, so that Mr. Obama could choose “his hometown for where his presidential library, in my view, belongs.” When Mr. Emanuel was forced into a mayoral runoff last month, library officials said they would wait until after the election before they made a decision. Mr. Emanuel won the runoff on April 7.

Chicago
Obama's Library
Barack Obama
Library
University of Chicago
Columbia
Rahm Emanuel
NYC


Toronto’s Mayor Is Challenged on the Left

Abstract: TORONTO — A left-leaning politician popular in downtown Toronto on Thursday opened her campaign to replace Mayor Rob Ford, a conservative who has said he is convinced he will win despite his acknowledged use of crack cocaine. The challenger, Olivia Chow, who resigned from Parliament this week ahead of her campaign launch, made no mention during her speech of the episodes of drug use, drunken public appearances and erratic behavior that have given Mr. Ford international notoriety. But she said the mayor had disappointed his city. “The current mayor is failing at his job, and he is no role model for my granddaughters,” Ms. Chow said at a packed church hall. “We deserve better. It’s time for a change.” Mr. Ford has said he is not concerned about the challenge from Ms. Chow, whose candidacy was widely expected. A native of Hong Kong who immigrated to Canada when she was 13, Ms. Chow, 56, is the widow of Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, who died of cancer in 2011. She is the only prominent left-leaning candidate in the Oct. 27 election.

Toronto
Rob Ford
Mayoral races
Olivia Chow


M.L.S. Moves to NBC

Abstract: Major League Soccer and NBC Sports on Wednesday announced a three-year agreement to televise 45 league matches and four United States national team games on NBC and the NBC Sports Network, which will be the new name of the current cable channel Versus. The deal will end the league’s relationship with Fox Soccer, which had a one-year deal to carry matches in 2011. In each year of the deal, NBC will broadcast two regular-season M.L.S. games, two playoff games and two national team games. The NBC Sports Network will televise 38 regular-season games, 3 playoff games and 2 national team matches. ¶ The Norwegian and Czech national teams paid homage to the 77 people killed in last month’s attacks in Norway at a friendly match. Players on both teams wore black armbands and held a minute’s silence before kickoff. It was the first major international sports event in Norway since the July 22 bombing and shooting rampage. Norway won the game, 3-0. In other friendlies, host Germany beat Brazil, 3-2, and host Italy beat Spain, 2-1. (AP)

Soccer
Major League Soccer
National Broadcasting Co
Versus
Television
NBC Sports
NBC Sports Network


Fox and Telemundo to Show World Cup Through 2026 as FIFA Extends Contracts

Abstract: Fox and Telemundo have not shown a second of World Cup action, but on Thursday they added the 2026 Cup to their rights to broadcast the 2018 and 2022 soccer tournaments in the United States. The networks extended their contracts in direct talks with FIFA, soccer’s world governing body. There was no bidding with competing networks as there was when Fox and Telemundo, the Spanish-language network owned by NBCUniversal, agreed to pay about $400 million (Fox) and $600 million, which was enough to outbid ESPN and Univision for the 2018 and 2022 rights. An ESPN executive who was not authorized to speak publicly said the company had received no advance warning that the 2026 rights were being sold. FIFA’s brief and surprising announcement of the new contract offered no financial details. But by agreeing to add the 2026 rights, it is possible that the two networks received a financial break by agreeing to a potential move of the 2022 World Cup from the extreme heat of the Qatari summer to the winter. A shift in seasons has been under discussion within FIFA and is expected to be approved. A winter World Cup in early 2022, for instance, would mean facing stronger competition for sports advertisers and viewers in the United States than it would encounter in the summer. “They need Fox to agree to different economics in the winter,” said Neal Pilson, a sports industry consultant and a former president of CBS Sports. “I don’t think Fox’s agreement to cover the World Cup in the winter of 2022 would result in no increase in 2026, but a smaller one than it might have paid otherwise,” to make up for what might be a reduced profit in 2022. FIFA also extended its deal to 2026 in Canada with CTV and TSN. Niclas Ericson, FIFA’s TV director, did not address what, if any, financial adjustments were made to please the networks. But in a statement, he said, “FIFA is constantly reviewing the market for its media rights and has ongoing discussions with media companies around the world.” He added that the extension “underlines the continuously growing interest into football in these major territories.” It is not unusual for networks to make deals that preclude bidding from their competitors. NBC has specialized in that form of negotiations to preserve its place as the Olympic network. Most of its Summer and Winter Olympics rights — which now extend through 2032 — were acquired in one-on-one transactions with the International Olympic Committee, rather than in auctions. World Cup rights include a portfolio of international competitions, including the Women’s World Cup. The first Women’s World Cup in Fox’s and Telemundo’s contracts will be held in June, with others to follow in 2019 and in 2023. Television rights for soccer got a financial jolt this month when Sky Sports and BT agreed to pay $7.8 billion for three years of English Premier League rights starting in 2016, a 70 percent leap from the value of their current deals. To retain its Premier League rights in the United States, NBC will most likely have to pay “substantially more” than its current three-year, $250 million deal, Pilson said.

Soccer
Fox Broadcasting
Telemundo Communications Group
FIFA World Cup
TV
2022 FIFA World Cup
2018 FIFA World Cup


Nets’ Newfound Confidence Passes the First Part of a Road Test

Abstract: DALLAS — The Nets these days have oozed self-confidence at home. They charged to three wins at Barclays Center last week, stretching their winning streak there to 11 games. And with the postseason on the horizon, the atmosphere in Brooklyn, often lukewarm, has seemed to heat up — something many players have pointed out and tried to encourage. On Sunday, the Nets were here to start a three-city trip that will test how well their new swagger travels. The answer, on this first leg at least, was quite well. After getting off to a sleepy start and falling to a 14-point deficit, the Nets switched on late to snatch a rousing 107-104 overtime victory against the Dallas Mavericks. The victory provided further evidence that the Nets are hitting their stride as the playoffs come into sight. It helped their positioning, too, pulling them to a game and a half behind the Toronto Raptors for the Atlantic Division lead and a game behind the Chicago Bulls for fourth place in the Eastern Conference. “Any win on the road is huge,” Joe Johnson said, “and to come into Dallas, man, against a team that has been playing well and is very high-powered offensively, it says a lot.” Johnson scored a team-high 22 points and helped send the game to overtime when he swooped to the basket, leaving Shawn Marion grasping behind, and made a layup with 9.9 seconds remaining to tie the score at 91-91. Monta Ellis, who had a game-high 32 points for the Mavericks, missed a 3-pointer just before the buzzer in regulation. The Nets’ doggedness was noteworthy, particularly given that they were often criticized earlier this season for giving subpar efforts. The game’s symbolic end — the moment that sent many fans at American Airlines Center streaming into the aisles — came when Deron Williams (15 points) sank a straightaway 3-pointer with 1 minute 26 seconds left in overtime to push the Nets’ lead to 8 points. “It’s the first game of the road trip, and we stressed the importance to get this one,” Williams said. Coach Jason Kidd was asked before the game about the team’s relative mediocrity on the road compared with its excellence at home since Jan. 1. The Nets entered Sunday 9-8 on the road since Jan. 1. He shrugged and said all the Nets could do was try to stay in striking distance into the fourth quarter. The Nets did exactly that, owing a lot to Marcus Thornton, a reserve guard with a quick trigger, whose 20 points off the bench kept them close. The Nets were behind by 7 as the fourth quarter got underway. Thornton hit the first two shots, both 3-pointers, to bring them to 1 behind. Williams then hit two free throws with 10:09 left to give the Nets their first lead since early in the game. The Nets also benefited from Dirk Nowitzki’s atrocious shooting night. Nowitzki came into the game averaging 21.5 points, but he went just 2 for 12 from the field and had 10 points. Samuel Dalembert had 12 points, 15 rebounds and 7 blocks for the Mavericks. Nowitzki had a chance to put the Mavericks ahead by 4 with 23 seconds left, but he missed the rim completely on an off-balance jumper. The ball fell into Johnson’s hands, and he took it end-to-end to sink the game-tying shot. “I didn’t want to settle for a jump shot,” Johnson said. “Down the stretch, those are the moments I relish and I love.” After the game, the Nets boarded a plane again to face the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night. They will finish their trip Wednesday night against the Charlotte Bobcats, who occupy the Eastern Conference’s seventh playoff spot. And they will go on short-handed. Kevin Garnett, who has not played since Feb. 27 because of back spasms, did not travel with the team Saturday and will be out at least until Friday, when the Nets return to Barclays Center to face the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Nets lost another key player early Sunday. About two minutes into the second quarter, Andrei Kirilenko took a spill and came up hobbling after landing awkwardly on Brandan Wright’s foot. He limped off the court and was soon ducking into the locker room to get examined. The Nets said Kirilenko sustained a “mild left ankle sprain” — the result of an X-ray was negative — and he did not return. Kirilenko has battled various ailments. He sprained his right ankle earlier this month and missed two games. And he missed a practice last week after bruising his left big toe. Kirilenko said after the game that the ankle was swollen, which did not seem to bode well for his availability. The injury was part of a messy start for the Nets, who made only five of their first 20 shots. They were 14 points behind after just one quarter. But they stayed close and made it competitive. Their moxie, they found, had made the trip.

Basketball
Brooklyn Nets
Mavericks
Jason Kidd
Marcus Thornton
Joe Johnson


U.S. May Have Troubles Gauging North Korean Nuclear Test

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — Even if North Korea follows through with its threat to conduct a third nuclear test , Washington and its allies will have difficulty determining whether the device detonated is made of plutonium or uranium, a prominent American nuclear scientist and South Korean officials said on Tuesday. Whether North Korea will set off a uranium bomb is a question high on the minds of policy makers and analysts in Northeast Asia. An inability to answer that question would complicate their efforts to assess North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities. Until a few years ago, North Korea’s atomic bomb fuel had been believed to be composed solely of plutonium gleaned from its small nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, north of the capital, Pyongyang. That reactor was partially dismantled in 2008 and remains offline after yielding enough plutonium for half a dozen bombs, according to American estimates. Until a new reactor being built in Yongbyon goes online, North Korea’s plutonium stockpile is limited. A uranium detonation, however, would indicate that North Korea might be well on its way to substantially expanding its nuclear arsenal through uranium enrichment, a harder-to-detect means of making bomb fuel. That would also make the North’s nuclear program more menacing, its government probably more recalcitrant and its neighbors more anxious, as seen in South Korea’s recent decision to extend the range of its missiles. Ever since North Korea announced last month that it would conduct a new nuclear test, officials and analysts in the region have suspected that North Korea would soon detonate a uranium device. Two earlier tests, in 2006 and 2009, were believed to have used plutonium; both were conducted in tunnels at its main underground nuclear test site, Punggye-ri. But to find out which type of bomb is used, “you have to be very lucky,” said Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and now a professor at Stanford University in California. He was speaking on the sidelines of a forum organized by the South Korean news agency Yonhap and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. Though scientists can determine the size of a bomb from its seismic signals, determining whether it is made of plutonium or highly enriched uranium requires quick detection and analysis of the different types of xenon gases produced in an atomic explosion. “The problem with xenon gases is that 10 to 20 hours after the detonation, it gets extremely difficult to tell their ratio difference between a plutonium and atomic bomb,” said a nuclear scientist affiliated with the South Korean military, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk on the record. “Since North Korea conducts its nuclear tests underground, it takes two to four days for the gases to get out, if they do at all. By then, it would be too late to tell the difference.” Dr. Hecker shared the concern. “If a next test is well contained, then we may learn nothing about the device detonated,” he said in an article posted Tuesday on the Web site of Foreign Policy magazine . “However, one of the risks Pyongyang takes in trying to demonstrate a test at a higher level is that they may produce fissures that allow radioactive seepage, or possibly cause a major blowout from the tunnel.” American officials said they relied on offshore airborne monitors and radiological monitoring stations around the world to detect leaking gases in the 2006 test, but did not specify whether it was a plutonium or a uranium device. In the 2009 test, when the tunnel used at the time was believed to have been sealed, there was no report of leaked gases. After the United Nations Security Council voted on Jan. 22 to tighten sanctions against North Korea as punishment for its most recent rocket launching, on Dec. 12, the North vowed to expand its nuclear program “both quantitatively and qualitatively” and conduct a third nuclear test at a “higher level.” Dr. Hecker visited the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex in 2010, and after years of denying its existence, North Korea revealed to him a uranium enrichment facility. He said he believed that North Korea must have another such facility, still hidden. A former United States defense secretary, William J. Perry, speaking during the forum in Seoul on Tuesday, said there were “at least two” uranium enrichment facilities in the North. Unlike a plutonium program, which involves a highly visible nuclear reactor, centrifuge plants can be easily hidden in North Korea’s estimated 8,000 underground military installations, South Korean military officials said. Another possibility is that North Korea could detonate two or more nuclear devices at the same time, Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president, told the South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo in an interview published Tuesday. The North Koreans have been active around two of the three known portals to underground tunnels at Punggye-ri, in northeastern North Korea, David Albright and Robert Avagyan of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based group that tracks nuclear proliferation, said in an analysis of recent satellite imagery posted Monday on the group’s Web site. The North’s two previous bomb tests were considered less than successful, and it needed to conduct more tests to collect information on miniaturizing bombs to mount on its missiles, analysts said. “By a ‘nuclear test of higher level,’ the North Koreans meant their efforts to miniaturize their nuclear devices,” Mr. Lee told Chosun. “They become a real threat if they send such miniaturized nuclear weapons to Iran or mount them on intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

North Korea
Nuclear weapons testing
Plutonium
Uranium
US Foreign Policy
Nuclear weapon


For N.H.L. Players in Olympics Camps, Skate at Your Own Risk

Abstract: N.H.L. players invited to skate at orientation camps conducted by the United States and Canadian Olympic teams this month will do so at their own risk, the league has informed the players union. The league confirmed its position to the union earlier this week, league and union officials said. The N.H.L. contends that the insurance policies under which players are covered by clubs do not apply to the camps. In response to union concerns over the lack of insurance coverage for its members at the camps, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada have taken out augmented policies, officials at the federations and the union said. The new policies, paid for by USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, insure players who are injured at the camps the equivalent of their salaries for Games 30 through 82 of the N.H.L. regular season. The orientation camp for the United States men’s team will take place Aug. 17-19 in Woodridge, Ill., a Chicago suburb; 34 players, all on N.H.L. rosters, have been invited. The camp for Canada will be held in Calgary, Alberta, from Aug. 24-27 and will involve 46 N.H.L. players. Little body contact is expected at the camps, which are scheduled to have on-ice drills and controlled scrimmaging. “Activities undertaken in the orientation camps will not be deemed to be engaged in pursuant to the player’s N.H.L. standard player contract,” the deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in an e-mail message, explaining the league’s position. Daly added that covering players during the camps was “not the N.H.L.’s problem, and it shouldn’t be the N.H.L. clubs who are required to bear the risk for something they are not even involved in or have oversight over.” Players will be covered for the Games themselves under longstanding agreements between the league, the union and the International Ice Hockey Federation. The final Olympic rosters are expected to be announced in late December, ahead of the Olympic tournament at Vancouver , which begins on Feb. 16, 2010. The orientation camps being held this month are intended mostly to inform players about drug testing and other procedural matters and to discuss strategy and tactics. “The camp is not at all about a tryout; that wouldn’t be fair to the players,” Steve Yzerman, executive director of the Canadian team, said Wednesday. “It’s really about getting organized. The actual selection of the players is really based on their performance during the N.H.L. season.” Last month the players union informed members who were invited to various preliminary Olympic camps in North America and Europe that some federations’ coverage was inadequate. Although stopping short of recommending that the players skip the on-ice part of the camps, the union did point out that those who did skate could be taking a serious risk. “While our N.H.L.P.A. members look forward to the opportunity to represent their countries at the Olympics, it is unreasonable to request that players participate in on-ice summer orientation sessions without sufficient insurance against injuries,” the union’s executive director, Paul Kelly, said at the time. Shortly afterward, all eight N.H.L. invitees stayed away from Germany’s orientation camp. The players association said it was investigating whether Slovakia adequately covered participants at its orientation camp in Poprad. The camp began on Tuesday and runs through Saturday. Several players at the camp are under contract to N.H.L. teams, including the new Rangers forward Marian Gaborik and Boston’s Zdeno Chara, who won the Norris Trophy last season as the league’s best defenseman. The Sweden and Finland camps will not include on-ice elements. Russia will have an optional on-ice session that the union does not consider problematic. One invitee to Canada’s camp, San Jose forward Joe Thornton, said last month that he would skate at the camp despite the union’s concerns. On Wednesday, his brother and agent, John Thornton, said that neither he nor Joe would make any further statement “until the league, the players association and Hockey Canada have figured everything out.” Yzerman, also vice president of the Detroit Red Wings and a veteran of seven senior-level world tournaments for Canada as a player, said Wednesday that the issue over insurance was “not really a problem” in preparing to choose the Olympic team. “We knew insurance would be an issue coming in, as it was when I was a player in ’02,” he said. “But I went ahead and skated anyway. Besides, we won’t be asking the players to come to Calgary and go 100 percent and try to kill each other. On the ice it will be controlled, more of a run-through for power plays and penalty-killing and the like.” The 2010 Olympics will be the fourth consecutive Games in which the N.H.L. will participate fully, suspending its regular season. The league has pointedly avoided agreeing thus far to participation in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The N.H.L. and the top Russian league, the K.H.L., have repeatedly clashed over disputed contracts, player poaching and transfer fees.

Hockey Ice
Olympic Games (2010)
National Hockey League


Kroger Quarterly Profit Is Up 28%

Abstract: CINCINNATI, Sept. 18 (AP) — The Kroger Company said on Tuesday that its quarterly profit rose 28 percent, topping analysts’ expectations. Kroger said it earned $267.3 million, or 38 cents a share, up from $209 million, or 29 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue in the period, which ended Aug. 18 and was the second quarter of Kroger’s fiscal year, rose 7 percent, to $16.14 billion from $15.14 billion last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a profit of 34 cents a share on revenue of $16.02 billion. Sales at stores open at least a year, considered a crucial indicator of a retailer’s strength, were up 5.8 percent including fuel, and 5.1 percent excluding fuel. The company has focused on improving customer service with faster checkouts, offerings like organic foods and through new Marketplace stores double the typical size of a Kroger that also sell furniture, office supplies and other nonfood goods. David B. Dillon, Kroger’s chief executive, said Kroger expected strong same-store sales and an improved operating margin and he raised the company’s profit forecast for the year. Kroger said it expected to earn $1.64 to $1.67 a share in fiscal 2007, up from its previous estimate of $1.60 to $1.65 a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were forecasting profit of $1.67 a share. Shares of Kroger rose $2.07, or 8 percent, to $29.09.


Police Question Hingis

Abstract: Martina Hingis has been questioned by the Swiss police after her estranged husband, Thibault Hutin, said he was attacked by her and her family, a police spokesman said. Hingis, her mother, Melanie Molitor, and her mother’s boyfriend, Mario Widmer, were interviewed at Schwyz canton police headquarters. Hutin, a French equestrian athlete, said he was attacked on Sept. 23 at his home in Feusisberg. Hutin said that Hingis and Molitor hit him, and that Widmer struck him with a DVD player.


Rooting for African Success, Even If It’s Ghana’s

Abstract: Soweto, South Africa On the eve of Africa’s last hope for glory, three former soccer stars with roots in Africa met for more than an hour Friday at Soccer City and engaged one another in an intriguing dialogue about what went wrong for Africa at the World Cup and how to make it right. The three men — Kalusha Bwalya, Patrick Vieira and Jomo Sono — agreed, disagreed and discussed how customs, differences and rivalries make unity — in soccer and beyond — Africa’s great challenge of the century. Bwalya is the president of the Football Association of Zambia and the FIFA Technical Study Group; Vieira, born in Senegal, played for the French national team; Sono is a South African soccer icon and a former coach of its national team, Bafana Bafana. On Saturday, Ghana earned a historic result, defeating the United States, 2-1, and advancing to the quarterfinals in their second World Cup appearance. Despite Ghana’s breakthrough, persistent issues are cited as barriers to consistent African success. ¶Holding the African Cup of Nations in the same year as the World Cup. ¶Hastily assembling teams, and jettisoning and adding coaches at the last moment. ¶The annual exodus of seasoned African players to Europe. ¶The steering of promising young talent out of Africa by unscrupulous agents. “From an administrator’s view, everyone has something to say,” Bwalya said. “The bottom line is that this was a wake-up call for Africa.” Now that everyone is awake, what next? Ghana, the only team from Africa to make it out of the group phase, was matched against the United States on Saturday. If this were just a game, there is no question where my rooting interest would lie: Go U.S.A. But this was more than a match, just as the World Cup in Africa is more than an event. This was in part a referendum on whether a sub-Saharan nation with black leadership could pull off a mega-event. My heart was with the United States, but I was pulling for Africa. Not Ghana. Africa. As much as this match meant to United States soccer, Ghana’s success could be a catalyst for a long-term psychological boost. This isn’t about patriotism, but about continuing the push to keep this important giant on the right track. Sports can heal. Let Africa be Exhibit A. On Friday, the conversation about what went wrong invariably turned to the hiring and development of African coaches. Bwalya made the case for bringing in coaches from the outside. “As administrators, we want to bring the right kind of persons to be in charge of the team,” he said. He also spoke about new steps to make sure coaches are qualified and trained. “There’s no doubt that the number of players who have been produced in Africa are very talented, but they don’t go through the education process,” Bwalya said. “The education process of the coach today is complicated. The coaches have to be qualified. Unfortunately for our countries in Africa, sometimes, it’s very difficult to get former players or other administrators into coaching. As long as there is that variance, I’m sure Africa will still be able to bring good coaches from wherever in the world.” We have heard this line before. There has been the 40-year struggle — in American sports — to persuade the white majority to hire African-Americans as coaches and executives. That struggle continues. It is mind-boggling that in Africa, where soccer is deeply rooted in the minds, spirits and souls of the people, that the continent’s soccer powers have not been willing or able to groom, identify and train black African head coaches. There is a phrase in the United States that describes a mentality in which African-Americans fail to support other African-Americans: white man’s ice is colder. The mentality is in play at a World Cup in Africa in which none of the black African teams are coached by a black African. Nomo pointed out the number of successful and knowledgeable former players in Africa who simply need a chance. “I hope the new generation will have more African coaches motivated and qualified,” he said. “They need somebody to give them the chance, because I’m sure they can do a good job.” He pointed out that the problem of hiring European coaches goes beyond teaching the game, but in understanding the multilayered labyrinth that is Africa. “If you look at Africa as a whole, you look at Nigeria, there’s different tribes there; you look at South Africa, there’s different nationalities on the national team,” Nomo said. “You’re dealing with coloreds and blacks and you have to understand the way they think; in England, you don’t have a problem,” he added, referring to the national team. “They’re all British. In Argentina, they’re all Argentinean, but when you come to Africa, you have a lot of nationalities. It’s vital that a coach spend six months of his contract in the country where he’s going to work.” Soccer is a great metaphor applied at this World Cup. How do you put your arms around this country, with its majestic mountains, powerful waterfalls, vast open ranges and many tribes and dialects? The Friday discussion, presumably the first of many, illuminated the challenge of this ultimate soccer metaphor: how to make this sprawling continent a team.

World Cup 2010 (Soccer)
Soccer
Race
World Cup (Soccer)
Ghana
Africa


Excavation for Railyard Project Reveals a Hidden Piece of New York City

Abstract: If you think the crush is bad around Pennsylvania Station these days, you should have been here 465 million years ago. “This rock has been subjected to three periods of continental collision,” the geologist Sidney Horenstein said, as he stood in a railyard west of the station, examining a wall of gray Manhattan schist with swirls of white pegmatite. It looked like a giant marble cake. One that has broken many drill bits. “The rock was squeezed and squeezed again and squeezed again,” he said, referring to what happened in the Taconic , Acadian and Alleghenian orogenies. These mountain-building events, hundreds of millions of years ago, shaped North America and left fascinating traces in New York City. Some of those traces have come to light in the railyard over which Brookfield Office Properties is developing a mixed-use project, Manhattan West , beginning with a platform that will cover the entire yard. New Jersey Transit and westbound Amtrak passengers know this yard well. It offers a glimpse of the city before trains funnel into the North River Tubes. By the end of the year, passengers will no longer see daylight until they reach North Bergen, N.J. Image The project involves the excavation of bedrock on either side of the tracks, exposing geological features that have never been seen. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Brookfield’s project also involves the excavation of bedrock on either side of the tracks, down to about 30 feet, exposing geological features that have never been seen. So when I was invited to watch the assembly of the platform, I asked Mr. Horenstein to come along. Mr. Horenstein, 77, the environmental educator emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History, is a lively guide. With affection and humor (“The Bronx is gneiss”), he can make rocks come to life . “Not a fossilized snake but a folded intrusion,” Mr. Horenstein said of a twisting deposit under 31st Street that appeared to have been traced from splayed fingers. He marveled at this evidence of compression and deformation from the collision, or collisions, of the vast plates composing the earth’s crust. Through Mr. Horenstein’s eyes, Manhattan schist, the bedrock from which the towers of New York rise so confidently, looked as malleable as liquid. And with good reason. “These were deposits of mud on the sea floor,” Mr. Horenstein said. “Heat and pressure squeezed these layers and recrystallized them into schist” — after intermediate periods as shale, slate and phyllite. Image The new buildings will not sit on the platform, but on the bedrock outcroppings along the north and south edges of the railyard. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times The resulting folds are easy to see, because molten pegmatite penetrated the voids. Pegmatite has a high quartz content and thus provides terrific contrast to the dark schist. Brookfield executives do not look upon pegmatite so kindly. “It is particularly hard on drills and equipment,” said Henry Caso, the vice president in charge of constructing Manhattan West. From a builder’s point of view, schist and pegmatite are a blessing as well as a curse. The presence of so much rock permits Brookfield to proceed with its unusual plan for Manhattan West, a $5 billion project that is to be finished in 2019. Office towers are to be built at Ninth Avenue and 31st Street and at Ninth Avenue and 33rd Street. An apartment building is to be constructed at Dyer Avenue and 31st Street, opposite a hotel at Dyer Avenue and 33rd Street. An existing building over the west end of the yard, 450 West 33rd Street, is to be reclad in glass so that it conforms with the rest of the complex. The new buildings will sit not on the platform, but on the bedrock outcroppings along the north and south edges of the railyard. However, parts of the office towers will cantilever over the platform, which is to become a tree-lined plaza . Image A rendering of the Manhattan West project. Credit Brookfield The platform is composed of enormous, hollow concrete segments. They are 6 feet wide, 15 to 30 feet long and more than 12 feet high. They weigh up to 56 tons each. Thirty-nine of these segments are needed to stretch across the whole railyard. A traveling crane picks up the sections and assembles them on a temporary platform above the tracks. The sections are epoxied together and lashed with steel cables. Pulled taut, these cables create so much tension that the sections become a self-supporting structure, after which the platform can be removed. By analogy, imagine holding a half-dozen building blocks together with a tight rubber band. You could turn that stack horizontally and it would hold. “Amtrak has reviewed and approved the design of Manhattan West,” said Craig Schulz, a spokesman for the railroad, “and continues to work cooperatively with the developer throughout construction to ensure the safety and security of our passengers is not compromised.” As we made our way through the yard, however, it seemed that all the talk of upheavals in the earth’s crust was beginning to get to Mr. Caso. “You don’t think we’re due for another collision, do you?” he asked Mr. Horenstein. “Not yet,” the geologist said reassuringly. “Not for another 50 million years.”

Manhattan
Rocks
Geology
Sidney Horenstein
Brookfield Office Properties
Mixed-use development
Railroads
NYC
Commercial Real Estate


A Malaysian Political Cartoonist on Facing His Fears, and Prison, for Art

Abstract: HONG KONG — When protesters disrupted an art exhibition by Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, a political cartoonist, at the George Town Literary Festival in Malaysia on Saturday, he assumed that the police would want his help identifying those responsible. Instead, said Mr. Zulkiflee, who goes by the name Zunar , he was questioned by the police, detained for a day and informed that he was under investigation for producing cartoons that purportedly defamed Prime Minister Najib Razak. It was not the first time Mr. Zulkiflee, who already faces nine charges of sedition and is barred from leaving the country, has courted trouble with his pen. His cartoons frequently target Mr. Najib, who is accused of taking millions of dollars from a state investment fund . Mr. Najib has faced widespread calls to resign, most recently at an anticorruption demonstration this month that drew tens of thousands in Kuala Lumpur, the capital. In an interview, Mr. Zulkiflee, 54, discussed how social media has become an increasingly important channel for political dissent in Malaysia, and why he continues to use his art to investigate corruption and injustice without dwelling too much on the risks. Do you feel that the climate for creating your art has changed in recent years? People are really not happy with the government — more and more people — but there are laws stopping them from being in the front row and being very, very vocal. So they will use any type of form, of tool, to express their view or protest. So now, social media is something that is a very effective tool. People are starting to be creative in social media by using drawings, cartoons, posters or video clips. Image A cartoon that the artist described as a self-portrait. Credit Zunar The government feels this is very dangerous for them, so they start to introduce laws. As an example, the Sedition Act was introduced by the British government in 1948. And in 2012, the prime minister made an open pledge to Malaysia that he would abolish the Sedition Act, live on TV. But he uses it more now, and it’s going to be strengthened. Do these kinds of regulations affect your creative process? I’m facing so many laws three laws have been used against me so far. But one thing I keep in my mind — one very, very important thing — is that the biggest enemy for anyone in the world is self-censorship. For me, talent is not a gift but a responsibility. People ask, do I have fear? Yes, I have fear, I’m human. But responsibility is bigger than fear. So I don’t want to really think what the government will do next to me. I just concentrate on what I’m supposed to do. That can help me continue and draw more cartoons. If I start to think about law, I start to think about prison, I start to think about government action, I will definitely start to practice self-censorship — and this is no good. So I will draw as usual. Your cartoon about the person in chains with the Sedition Act around his neck and the Penal Code as handcuffs … That’s a self portrait. What were you trying to say there? You see that three laws, which I mentioned earlier, have been used against me. First is Sedition Act, second is penal code, third is Printing Presses and Publications Act. I was chained with these laws — hand, neck and leg. But if you go to my shirt, you can see my philosophies there. Among them are “I will keep drawing until the last drop of my ink” and “How can I be neutral … even my pen has a stand.” So this drawing shows that even though there’s a law to stop me, even though there’s a regulation to stop me, even though they tried to ban my books — actually, not tried, they already banned my book — I will keep drawing. That is why, without hands, I still use my mouth or my teeth to draw. This is to show the philosophy and determination to fulfill my duty as a cartoonist in Malaysia. You have said that you are expecting a 10th sedition charge. Even without that, you’re looking at upward of 40 years as a maximum prison sentence. How do you feel about the prospect of potentially having to serve so much time? You have to understand this is a politically motivated charge, it’s got nothing to do with the law. In Malaysia, it’s very, very difficult for us with politically motivated charges. You just need to look at what happened to the opposition leader’s case in Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim. Even though he had strong evidence and witnesses, it was political. It will be very difficult for us to fix that. But this is a very important case for me to create awareness around the world about the state of freedom of expression and human rights in Malaysia. I’m going to face it.

Cartoons
Treason,Sedition
Censorship
Malaysia
Najib Razak


Flipping Scanned Images

Abstract: Flipping Images After Scanning Q. A few months ago I digitized my slide collection. Unfortunately a few dozen slides had the image top-side down. Is there any app that can reverse (not rotate) these, so I don’t have to fish through the Big Pile of Slides again? A. Several computer programs and mobile apps can flip the contents of a picture vertically and horizontally to correct slides scanned upside-down or in the mirror image of their proper direction. The free Paint program included with Windows includes a “Flip vertical” and “Flip horizontal” menu command, along with the usual “rotate” option to spin the picture’s overall orientation. In recent versions of Paint, look under the Rotate menu on the Home tab to find the “flip” functions. Mac users can flip and rotate images with the Preview program included in OS X; the Flip commands are in the program’s Tools menu. Image-editing programs like Adobe Photoshop Elements for Windows or Mac OS X also include “flip” commands. Adobe Photoshop Express , (available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone), is among the many picture-editing apps that can flip pictures on the go with a mobile device. Childproofing A Windows Phone Q. Parental controls for Android and Apple phones have been well covered, but what can Windows Phone 8 owners do to lock children out of certain apps on the phone? A. A lock-screen password, which you can activate in the Settings, can keep children out of the phone altogether. However, if you need to offer up your handset to keep the peace during spells of boredom, you can contain the youngster to a designated area of the device with the Kid’s Corner feature in Windows Phone 8. To turn on Kid’s Corner, go to the Start screen and swipe to the App list. Tap the Settings icon, choose Kid’s Corner and tap Next, where you can select all your approved games, videos and other content. Once you finish adding apps to Kid’s Corner, tap Finish. The child can later go to the collection by swiping over to the Kid’s Corner screen from the main lock screen and then swiping up to get to the apps. Microsoft has detailed steps for customizing Windows Phone for children at bit.ly/1mjvVcY ; information about setting up a Wallet PIN to avoid unauthorized online purchases is included. The Microsoft Family Safety service can also be configured to police many Windows Phone handsets, as explained at bit.ly/1o6UTru . TIP OF THE WEEK Mac OS X allows you to customize the buttons in the toolbars of several programs just by right-clicking (or holding down the Control key and clicking) in the gray area at the top of the program’s window and selecting Customize Toolbar. When the box of available buttons appears, drag the ones you want to the toolbar and drag the ones you do not use into the box. In the OS X Mail program, for example, you can add buttons for showing message headers, isolating unread mail, changing font size and more. In the Safari browser, you can add buttons to click for History, the Autofill function and the Favorites bar. When you open a window in the Finder and use the Customize Toolbar menu, you can add one-click controls for the Mac’s Quick Look file-preview feature, disc burning and ejection, new folder creation and other common desktop tasks. Windows 8 has its own set of clickable shortcut buttons in the Ribbon or the Quick Access toolbar of folder windows; click the small black menu arrow in the top left corner to choose your icons in Customize Quick Access Toolbar, or to toggle the Ribbon on or off. Some Windows applications have similarly customizable toolbars as well. J. D. BIERSDORFER

Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Photography
Microsoft Windows
Smartphone
Mac OS
Children


Militants Attack Police Station in India

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Two heavily armed militants wearing Indian Army uniforms opened fire on a police station near the Pakistani border early Friday, killing three Indian security personnel and a civilian, officials said. The attack, for which Indian officials blamed Pakistan, was the first since a new coalition government took power in the disputed Kashmir region earlier this month. It could sway a debate over whether to overturn a contentious law that gives Indian security forces wide latitude to use force in the region without fear of prosecution. Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which makes up part of Jammu and Kashmir State’s new governing coalition, have opposed lifting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, and the attack Friday could provide them with further justification for their stance. “Our neighbor is not rectifying their ways,” Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in Mr. Modi’s office, said after the attack, referring to Pakistan. The police station, which is about 10 miles from the heavily guarded Pakistani border, came under attack from two militants dressed in Indian battle fatigues who opened fire with Kalishnikov rifles, officials said. “They asked the guard to open the door and immediately shot him dead,” Danish Rana, a police inspector general, told reporters. After a three-hour exchange of gunfire, the militants were shot dead, he said. Ten people, one a civilian, were wounded by gunfire; all were in stable condition, said Dr. Raj Kumar Sangrama, a local medical officer. The Indian-Pakistani border is dotted with small bodies of water, which Indian officials say are used by Pakistani militants to cross into India undetected.

India
Pakistan
Terrorism
Kashmir and Jammu


Obama’s Media Team Has Aggressive Ads at the Ready

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Forget hope and change. After months of planning, President Obama ’s media team has prepared an aggressive strategy to portray Mitt Romney as insensitive to the plight of working people and beholden to powerful interests. They have researched possible lines of attack and drafted language that can be dropped into an advertisement at a moment’s notice. Campaign advisers said they were willing to commit a considerable chunk of their advertising budget — expected to be the largest any presidential campaign has ever seen — to broadcasting these attacks. The work of the Obama message machine, a half-dozen outside advertising firms and in-house campaign strategists, is already on vivid display. In their ads, Web videos and online features, the president wants to thwart the influence of “big oil”; Mr. Romney cashes their campaign checks. The president saved hundreds of thousands of jobs by rescuing the auto industry; Mr. Romney shipped jobs overseas. “It’s just what you expect from a guy who had a Swiss bank account,” one ad says. At the center of this effort is Jim Margolis, and his job is to make you think of call centers in India every time you hear Mr. Romney’s name. With a reporter in his studio on a recent afternoon, an unassuming Mr. Margolis seemed harmless enough as he leaned back in a swivel chair and suggested a few revisions to a video he was editing with his staff. Their work that day would become part of the $25 million advertising blitz the Obama campaign kicked off this week. Strip a few data points out of the script, he said; too many numbers might confuse people. Swap out a clip of a smiling family and replace it with a father and son playing baseball; it will look less staged. But Mr. Margolis did not become a top chef in what Mr. Romney calls the president’s “hell’s kitchen” of negative ads based solely on his eye for a pretty picture and his flair for boiling down a good résumé in 30 seconds. His past work shows why he is such an indispensable part of Mr. Obama’s media team. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Margolis produced a commercial that repeated John McCain’s ill-advised assertion “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” over and over, helping to sear the phrase into voters’ minds as the economy imploded that fall. Two years later, he helped Senator Barbara Boxer of California win re-election against Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee and former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, with ads that showed Ms. Fiorina being ushered into a chauffeured car as an aide held the door. One of them reminded voters , “While Californians lost their jobs, Fiorina tripled her salary, bought a million-dollar yacht and five corporate jets.” Mr. Margolis, 57, maintains a low profile in a presidential inner circle filled with advisers who write books and appear regularly on “Meet the Press” — the antithesis of a flamboyant adman. His lack of visibility belies his influence in Democratic circles, where he first surfaced as a 23-year-old Congressional chief of staff in the 1980s. A contemplative man with silver hair, large blue eyes and a low, gravely voice, he has served as a close adviser to a host of top Democrats, including Senators Harry Reid, Max Baucus and Mark Warner. As a debate coach, he once made Mrs. Boxer so angry during a prep session (he stood in very convincingly as Ms. Fiorina) that she had to take a walk outside to calm down. He still travels to Capitol Hill almost every Tuesday to offer strategic advice to Mr. Reid, who says of him, “He’s very good at making you feel you’re better than you are.” If you live in a state where a presidential contest has been close at some point in the last 20 years, you have probably seen one of Mr. Margolis’s ads. During the 2004 Democratic primaries, Mr. Margolis’s commercials featuring Senator John Kerry’s crewmates from Vietnam recalling his heroism were credited with helping him win the nomination. Mr. Margolis and his firm, GMMB , first produced ads for Mr. Obama in 2007, and their work quickly stood out for its subtle edge. Using video from one of Mr. Obama’s speeches in Iowa, he created a gauzy 60-second commercial that made Hillary Rodham Clinton sound irrelevant with a line that never even mentioned her: “The same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do it.” “It was a beautiful spot,” said Mandy Grunwald, who was a senior strategist for Mrs. Clinton at the time. “Everybody knew who he was talking about.” The ad’s potency speaks to a fact about Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign that often goes overlooked. That year he ran more negative ads than any other candidate in history, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project, a nonpartisan political research group. Mr. McCain was depicted in some commercials as out of touch and feeble. One recalled him saying that he could not remember how many houses he owned. “Well, it’s seven,” the announcer said dismissively. The Obama campaign acknowledges that fiercely attacking Mr. Romney has risks. “Tonally we have to be very careful about the fact that the president does have standards and does have a brand that he feels strongly about,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior strategist. “I think it’s possible to be tough and also fair, tough and also factual. And that’s what we’re going to do. But rest assured, we will be responding when we are being attacked.” Putting the efforts to define Mr. Romney aside, the Obama campaign faces problems with its own message. One big challenge that Mr. Margolis acknowledged is conveying optimism about the country’s progress without seeming tone deaf to the struggles that many Americans still face. “If your house is under water or you can’t make your car payment, I’m not going to convince you that everything is O.K.,” Mr. Margolis said. But after he pointed out some of the president’s signature accomplishments, like the auto industry bailout, he added, “While none of us should diminish the hardships, we also shouldn’t be shy about telling the story of what this president is accomplishing.” Not that Mr. Margolis has ever held back. In the 2010 Boxer race, he sent a film crew to California to interview workers who were laid off by Ms. Fiorina. “Fiorina never cared about our jobs. Not then. Not now,” said one of the workers, his voice ringing with indignation. Mr. Margolis also created a series of commercials that year for Mr. Reid using ordinary citizens to criticize Sharron Angle, his Tea Party -backed opponent, as reckless and erratic. In one ad , a Republican who is a member of the National Rifle Association said of Ms. Angle’s position on guns, “It’s crazy.” What was most damning went left unsaid: the suggestion that he was speaking about Ms. Angle herself. Mr. Margolis declined to discuss any ads in the works for the Obama campaign. But his advice to Mrs. Boxer in 2010 may offer a hint of what is to come. “He would always say, ‘Barbara, this is a race between two choices,’ ” Mrs. Boxer said in an interview. “ ‘And you need to remind people that you’re running against someone who shipped tens of thousands of jobs overseas and made her success by stepping over other people. You can never forget that.’ ”

Margolis Jim
Presidential Election of 2012
Political Advertising
Obama Barack
Presidential Election of 2008
Romney Mitt


Kvitova to Face Radwanska in W.T.A. Final

Abstract: Petra Kvitova will chase her second W.T.A. finals title after outplaying third-seeded Maria Sharapova, 6-3, 7-6 (3), in the semifinals Saturday in Singapore. The fourth-seeded Kvitova, a Czech who won the title in 2011 on her first attempt, plays fifth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the final. Radwanska advanced to the final for the first time in seven appearances, beating second-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-5. ■ Roger Federer advanced to the Swiss Indoors final in Basel, Switzerland, to set up his first title match against Rafael Nadal since May 2013. The top-seeded Federer eased to a 6-3, 6-4 win in 64 minutes against unseeded Jack Sock in the semifinals. Earlier, the third-seeded Nadal played his best tennis of the week in beating Richard Gasquet, 6-4, 7-6 (7). Almost two and a half years after Nadal beat Federer in two sets for the Rome Masters title, the 34th matchup of their careers will come at Federer’s hometown event. ■ João Sousa reached the final of the Valencia Open in Spain by defeating Vasek Pospisil, 6-4, 6-4.

Tennis
Petra Kvitova
Maria Sharapova
Roger Federer


California: More Drug-Resistant Cases Are Linked to Medical Device

Abstract: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles announced on Wednesday that four patients had contracted a deadly, drug-resistant infection linked to a hard-to-clean medical device. The device, called a duodenoscope, also has been implicated in an outbreak of infections at Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center. The device, a long tube inserted down the throats of anesthetized patients, has microscopic crevices that may have harbored a superbug known as CRE, or carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, officials say. Cedars-Sinai said four patients contracted the infection after undergoing procedures between August and January. One later died, but the cause was an unrelated disease. Hospital officials said they had mailed letters to dozens of other patients who had had the procedures “out of an abundance of caution.”

Medical device
Infection
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center


Mourning Son Killed at 15, and Celebrating His Life

Abstract: The living room of Sharon Cherry’s third-floor apartment in Harlem looks out over a playground, yet feels like a shrine. Two walls are adorned with poster-size photographs of a fresh-faced teenage boy, staring straight at the camera; Ms. Cherry wears a T-shirt printed with an image of the same face. “My son,” she said, tears already starting to stream down her face, “George White.” On the evening of Sept. 24, 2010, George, 15, was walking on West 140th Street, just around the corner from the apartment. He was shot in the chest, in what Ms. Cherry, 45, believes was an episode in a neighborhood gang rivalry. “It looked like he was trying to come home,” said Ms. Cherry’s sister, Taenisha Scott. Instead the boy was taken to Harlem Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. “He was born there,” Ms. Cherry said, her eyes downcast, “and died there.” His murder remains unsolved. It was not the first tragedy to befall the family. Three years earlier, George’s father died after an asthma attack, and the boy entered into a period of delinquency. He started misbehaving and skipping school, actually accumulating enough absences to be sent for a short time to a nearby juvenile detention center. But by the time Mr. White was released in early 2010, it seemed that his life was starting to look up. “Georgie,” as his mother sometimes calls him, participated in Lasting Investments in Neighborhood Connections, a program for youths returning home from juvenile justice centers. The program is helped by the Children’s Aid Society, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. He was back in school and had plans to start boxing classes, but just as he was beginning to thrive, “everything just fell, fell apart,” Ms. Cherry said. Hoping to draw strength from her loss, the devastated mother set her sights on two goals. First, she vowed that her son would not be forgotten. Second, in his memory, she committed herself to working toward greater safety on the streets. Twice a year, on the anniversary of her son’s death and on his birthday in January, Ms. Cherry gives a party for his neighbors and friends, clearing away the furniture and welcoming as many as can fit into the apartment. “They even named it George Day,” Ms. Scott said. She was wearing a dog tag with a picture of her nephew on it. Ms. Cherry cooks the boy’s favorite foods. Lasagna. Barbecued chicken. Curried chicken. Baked chicken. Collard greens. “And a lot of ham, he loved ham,” Ms. Cherry said. The dinner is at once somber and celebratory. As the guests eat and exchange stories about Mr. White, Ms. Cherry encourages parents to keep their children off the streets at night and tries to spread the same message to the children themselves. “What happened to him that night could happen to anybody,” she warns. After dinner and a discussion, George Day turns into a dance party. A disco ball is hung from the ceiling in one corner of the living room, ready to spin. Ms. Cherry also bought a fog machine. “Whenever I throw his parties,” she said, “I like it to be memorable.” But after pouring her modest resources into parties to honor her slain son twice a year, Ms. Cherry was running short on money. She once worked as a neighborhood child care provider and as a taxi dispatcher, but she has been unemployed for the past two years, and her monthly household income currently falls below $600. Though she barely scrapes by on food stamps, she struggles mightily to pull the parties together and always finds a way to make them work. In August, just a few weeks before “George Day,” it looked as though Ms. Cherry’s resources would be stretched too thin to host the party. Her daughter, Shardaysha Cherry, 23, a student at Hostos Community College, needed professional attire for upcoming job interviews, and the family had used up its food stamps for the month. Unable to pay for both the party and her daughter’s clothes, Ms. Cherry sought help from the same agency that had helped her son begin to get back on his feet. The Children’s Aid Society, using money from the Neediest Cases Fund, provided the family with a $150 gift card to Modell’s and another to Old Navy, to buy new clothes. Shardaysha Cherry now works part-time at BJ’s Wholesale, and Ms. Cherry was once again ready to throw the party to celebrate her son’s too-short life. At the end of the party in September, Ms. Cherry and her guests went to a nearby park and released white balloons into the late summer sky. “I can’t let him be forgotten,” she said.

New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Children's Aid Society
Philanthropy


Italy Plans to Tax Catholic Church on Commercial Property

Abstract: ROME — Over the years, the Italian government has quietly passed scores of laws that benefit the Roman Catholic Church , but it is rare for it to issue a public statement announcing that it intends to strip the church of privileges. The government of Prime Minister Mario Monti took that step on Wednesday, telling the European Commission that it would change Italian law to ensure that the church pays property tax on the parts of its buildings used for commercial ends. The church owns vast amounts of property in Italy , and the move is aimed at making sure that convents that offer bed-and-breakfast services or church buildings that rent space to shops pay their share of taxes. The change — once it is formally drafted and approved by Parliament — could result in revenues of $650 million to $2.6 billion annually, according to municipal government associations. It could also set an example for other European countries that are struggling with debt — notably Greece and Spain — and where there is growing popular resentment over tax breaks for the church. The proposal shows how Mr. Monti, a churchgoer himself, is able to read the national mood. Facing higher taxes and their own belt-tightening, Italians are fed up with what they see as unfair privileges — be it of the political class or the church. After austerity measures were passed in December , 130,000 people signed an online petition calling on the government to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status. “It was time that they paid, too, with all the exemptions they’ve had throughout the years,” said Marco Catalano, 35, a shopkeeper in Rome, who said he goes to church twice a month. “They own the most beautiful buildings in downtown Rome, on Italian soil, and rent them out at market prices. They don’t give them for free or at low prices for charity.” Many church buildings fall into a gray area, taking advantage of a tax exemption for religious organizations’ buildings even if they are largely used for commercial purposes. In a statement to Joaquín Almunia, the vice president of the European Commission, the government said it would revoke the tax exemption for church property whose commercial use is “not only exclusive but also prevalent.” It also proposed that the Finance Ministry draw the line between taxable and tax-exempt spaces within the same building — a difficult provision to enforce. The European Commission opened an inquiry in 2010 into whether tax exemption for the church amounted to illegal state aid and stifled competition. As an antitrust commissioner on the European Commission from 1995 to 2005, Mr. Monti handled competition issues. Mr. Monti, who became prime minister in November , is following regular pendulum swings on the issue. In 2005, the government under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi quietly extended the church’s exemption from local property taxes. The next year, the center-left government reinstated a tax for buildings of “nonexclusive commercial use.” Last year, a new Berlusconi government re-extended the church’s exemption. In a statement on Thursday, the Italian Bishops Conference said, “We are waiting to find out the exact formulation of the text to be able to offer a more precise opinion.”

Roman Catholic Church
Italy
Property Taxes
Real Estate (Commercial)
Monti Mario


Turkey Strengthens Rights of Syrian Refugees

Abstract: ISTANBUL — Turkey has issued new regulations that grant Syrian refugees secure legal status in the country for the first time, clarifying and expanding rights for more than a million people who are rapidly assimilating into Turkish society. After spending nearly four years under temporary protection, in recent weeks the refugees have begun to receive new identification cards under a measure passed by the Council of Ministers in October granting them access to basic services like health care and education. The regulation stops short of granting Syrians official refugee status, which would entitle them to a broader array of benefits like housing, public relief and various social services. Nevertheless, most refugees have welcomed it as an indication of Turkey ’s commitment to easing the rigors of their lives as their displacement takes on a sense of permanence, with Syria’s civil war raging on with no end in sight. Turkey is now host to 1.6 million displaced Syrians, about half of the total number of people who have fled fighting that broke out nearly four years ago. Until now, the refugees had been labeled “guests” under a hazily defined temporary protection measure. With Turkey’s 22 refugee camps operating at capacity, around 85 percent of the Syrian refugees there have streamed into urban areas seeking jobs and more permanent living arrangements. The new ID cards have been designed to give more straightforward access to a wider range of services outside of the camps. On a recent afternoon at a police station here, dozens of Syrian refugees amassed outside the registration bureau for foreigners, waiting to collect their new cards. “Syrians used to avoid coming to the station out of fear that they would be deported,” said one of the police officers overseeing the registration process. “But these cards have brought them out of the shadows into the light. They now have physical proof of their legal rights.” The Historic Scale of Syria’s Refugee Crisis Dramatic images from the Syrian refugee crisis, which exploded to encompass six million people by October 2013. The international response to the refugee disaster has been relatively limited, forcing the neighboring countries to take on a disproportionate amount of the burden, with Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq absorbing 97 percent of Syria ’s refugees, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency. For Turkey, the ceaseless influx of refugees has greatly strained its open-door policy, while the recent drop in commodities prices worldwide has put new strains on the national budget. Andrew Gardner, Turkey researcher for Amnesty International, praised the country’s new temporary protection regime as “a big step forward,” as it grants refugees a secure legal status. “The fact that the refugees’ rights and entitlements have been written into law should mean that authorities better implement them,” he added. But not all Syrians are lining up to obtain these rights. Many have their sights set on seeking asylum in Western Europe, a prospect that some believe could be jeopardized by the new ID cards through their requirement of biometric data. “I think the data could be used by Europe to send us back when we get smuggled there,” said Mohammad, 23, who declined to give his surname. “I’m only in Turkey to leave to Europe, I don’t need the ID. When I see the police gathering Syrians in the park for registration, I run away.” Even refugees who have already received the new ID cards can be skeptical that the new provisions will have much of an impact on their quality of life, and continue to look for a way out of Turkey. Marwan Ali, 35, a tailor, said his main incentive for registering was to receive vaccinations for his daughter and regular access to health care for his pregnant wife. “Without the ID cards, the hospitals send you away,” he explained. But Mr. Ali quickly added that he had submitted an application for asylum in Europe. “Life is hard here,” he said. “You make less than $200 a month. It’s hard to survive with a family.” A vast majority of refugees who settle in large cities are destitute. The greatest challenge for Syrians living outside the camps is finding and sustaining employment. Under Turkish labor laws, Syrian refugees do not have the right to work, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Image Displaced Syrians waited with their belongings in early October for transportation to camps after crossing the border into Turkey. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times A separate proposal to regulate working conditions for the refugees was recently submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval. If the measure passes, as expected, Syrians will be able to apply for conditional work permits with their new ID cards, something that is likely to foster resentment in regions where unemployment is high. That job competition, as well as the emergence of violence and higher crime rates in cities with high concentrations of Syrians, has soured the Turkish public on the refugees, with two-thirds of Turks now favoring more restrictive policies, according to the 2014 Transatlantic Trends Survey. This month, a group of Syrian agricultural workers in the southern province of Antalya were attacked by a group of local workers, who stoned them and their houses, injuring several. The day before, the governor had sent a notification demanding the deportation of up to 1,500 Syrian refugees, citing growing concerns over “unrest," which he claimed had caused damage to the tourism ministry, local news media reported. Nurcan Onder, the deputy director general for labor, said the work permits would not put refugees in direct competition with Turkish citizens for jobs, and should alleviate some tensions. “The regulation will clearly define specific sectors and locations where Syrians can apply for work permits, and quotas will be applied in workplaces to manage the supply and demand,” Ms. Onder said. Some refugee advocates say that the new directive is too focused on the regulatory aspects of the refugee influx, such as entry and registration, and that it has failed to address the needs of refugees that are essential to meeting longer-term integration goals. “Most Syrian refugees live in urban areas, and the conditions are deteriorating as winter sets in, but none of their real needs, like housing, are met properly,” said Metin Corabatir, deputy director of the Center for Immigration and Asylum Studies. “They are considered as people under a temporary protection regime, but the regime does not provide enough assistance and protection for those outside of the camps,” he added. The directive has also come under criticism for its failure to define the time frame for the temporary protection — in theory it could be repealed at any time.

Turkey
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
Syria
Jobs
ID


Court Backs Lehman Reorganization Plan

Abstract: Lehman Brothers Holdings on Tuesday won court approval for its reorganization plan, allowing it to end the largest bankruptcy in American history, which helped lead to the 2008 global financial crisis. The approval was granted by Judge James M. Peck at a Federal Bankruptcy Court hearing in Manhattan. Lehman expects to begin payouts of an estimated $65 billion to creditors early next year. Lehman may now wind down its remaining operations, Judge Peck said at a hearing in New York. Once a mammoth investment bank and brokerage house, Lehman is now a collection of assets including real estate, private equity and banking investments. The judge spent more than three years overseeing the bankruptcy of Lehman, which filed for protection from creditors on Sept. 15, 2008. He said that while Lehman may have been “too big too fail,” it was not too big to make it through Chapter 11. Lehman proposed to the court that its bankruptcy exit occur after Jan. 31, giving it time to prepare to stand on its own, and paving the way for payouts to creditors to start in 2012. The company had $639 billion in assets when it went bankrupt. Some of that money was returned to brokerage customers in a separate proceeding. There remains $65 billion to be returned to creditors who have $450 billion in claims, a group that includes debt investors and trading partners from before the bankruptcy, like Goldman Sachs. The reorganization has cost Lehman’s bankruptcy estate more than $1.5 billion to cover fees for lawyers and advisers, as well as other expenses.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc
Bankruptcies
Suits and Litigation


Coghlan Was Miles From Home at Millrose Games

Abstract: The phone call came in December from Eamonn Coghlan, the legendary indoor miler, to Howard Schmertz, the meet director emeritus of the Millrose Games. "I have a good young runner for your high school mile," Coghlan said from Ireland. Schmertz said: "If you recommend him, he's in. Who is he?" Coghlan said, "He's my son." "Is his name Coghlan?" Schmertz said, knowing the magic of that name at Madison Square Garden, where Eamonn had won Millrose's Wanamaker Mile a record seven times. "It's John Coghlan," Eamonn Coghlan said. Schmertz, ever the promoter, had a one-word response: "Wow." That is how John Coghlan, a 17-year-old high school junior from Dublin, was chosen for Millrose's high school mile Friday night at the Garden. He had never raced indoors and had never run indoors until a workout a week ago. He had never raced a mile, although he had run 1,500 meters outdoors in 4 minutes 3 seconds, the equivalent of a 4:22 mile. In an interview with father and son last week, Eamonn Coghlan said: "He was given a chance to run in Madison Square Garden, not to win, but for the experience. I wouldn't put him there if he was far off the pace. There would be no sense in that." As it turned out, John Coghlan could not keep up. He ran last most of the race and finished eighth in the field of nine in 4:28.76. Dan McManamon of Shenendehowa High in Clifton Park, N.Y., won in 4:17.18. Despite that, the Coghlans were upbeat after the race. "I ran my own race," John Coghlan said. "I'm just happy to be here and run in the meet I've always heard of." And Eamonn Coghlan said: "He's a good lad. This is a wonderful experience for him. It was no disgrace." John played soccer until he was 9 or 10, then started jogging. Every Christmas, Eamonn and his three sons would jog a mile in a charity run in Dublin. Eamonn remembered that John never tired. In time, John became a runner, and his father coaches him and 75 other youngsters. John likes his coach. "He doesn't yell," the son said. "He's pretty easy." Coghlan does not overwork him. "He runs 30 miles or less a week," Eamonn said. "If he wants to go to college in the United States or become an international athlete, good, but I see many young runners run too much." Coghlan once told John, "I don't want to put pressure on you because of what I did." John told him not to worry. "There's no pressure on me, not at all," John said. "He's famous. I don't pay attention. I liked running and I still do." John was born in Rye, N.Y. He is 6 feet 2 inches or 6-3 (he is not sure which) and 154 pounds, with dark hair. He describes himself as quiet and happy. In September 2004, preparing for the Irish championship for high school sophomores and juniors, he showed his independence. "I dyed my hair blond, and two days before the race I put blue into it," he said. "The blue faded in a few days because it was washed-in color. The blond lasted only a couple of months. It was just as well because my school doesn't like dyed hair." But race officials did. There was a three-way photo finish in that 1,500-meter race. Minutes later, an official told Eamonn Coghlan, "The photo showed the blue hair won." Blue hair does not always enchant parents. Eamonn Coghlan did not mind. "I liked it," he said. "That was a statement. If he finished fifth or sixth, people would say he's a wise guy. He isn't." Coghlan is director of fund-raising and development for the Children's Medical and Research Foundation in Dublin. He and his wife, Yvonne, have three other children: Suzanne, 27, a corporate banker in Dublin; Eamonn, 24, a teaching golf pro in Alabama; and Michael, 18, a high school senior and aspiring actor. At 53, Coghlan will run three or four days a week, then go a couple of months doing nothing. It does not bother him. "I don't miss running, not a bit," he said. "It's not about living up to what I was." NOTES The 14,851 Millrose spectators saw only one meet record, a shot-put of 71 feet 1/2 inch by Reese Hoffa. That was a Garden and Millrose record and the best in the world this season and earned Hoffa the Fred Schmertz Trophy as the meet's outstanding athlete. In the Wanamaker Mile, Bernard Lagat, the defending champion, beat Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, running his first mile, by 35 yards in 3 minutes 56.85 seconds. In the women's 60-meter dash, Veronica Campbell of Jamaica caught Lisa Barber at the wire and won as both were given the time of 7.10 seconds. The tie was broken by going to the thousandths of a second, with Campbell running 7.095 and Barber 7.098.

COGHLAN JOHN
COGHLAN EAMONN
SCHMERTZ HOWARD
JOGGING
TRACK AND FIELD
MILLROSE GAMES