Bertelsmann Weighs End to Its Privacy

Abstract: BERLIN, March 22 - Bertelsmann, the global media empire, reported upbeat financial results on Wednesday, propelled by pop-culture sensations like the singer Kelly Clarkson and Dan Brown's thriller "The Da Vinci Code." But the company's most talked-about suspense story continues to be its own. Senior executives of Bertelsmann, a family-controlled German company, turned away a barrage of questions at a news conference here about how it would respond to a plan by a minority shareholder, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, to push for an initial public offering, possibly later this year. "I can only say that we are prepared and we haven't any problem with it at all," said Bertelsmann's chief executive, Gunter Thielen. "Whether we are publicly listed or not, what determines our work on the executive board is that we define the right long-term strategy for Bertelsmann." Behind the claim of business-as-usual is a flurry of activity, according to current and former executives, as Bertelsmann weighs whether to avoid selling shares by buying back Bruxelles Lambert's stake. To do that, the executives said, Bertelsmann, a company that has always struggled to balance global ambitions with a penchant for privacy, may consider selling one of its six divisions. The family of Bertelsmann's 84-year-old patriarch, Reinhard Mohn, which controls the company through a 75 percent voting stake, is reluctant to sell shares, these executives said, even though it would retain control. Bertelsmann took on the Brussels-based Bruxelles Lambert as an outside shareholder in 2001 as part of a complex swap in which it acquired the investment firm's 30 percent holding in the RTL Group, Europe's largest television broadcaster. The deal transformed Bertelsmann, a 170-year-old company that had concentrated on publishing and book clubs, into a multimedia powerhouse. RTL, which is now 90 percent owned by Bertelsmann, generates more profit than the combined earnings of four other Bertelsmann's units: Random House, BMG music, the Gruner & Jahr magazine group, and book clubs. But the RTL deal also put a very private empire on an uncomfortable course to the public market. Disagreements over whether Bertelsmann should sell shares to the public contributed to the Mohn family's ouster of Mr. Thielen's predecessor, Thomas Middelhoff, who negotiated the deal with Bruxelles Lambert. Buying back the shares would be expensive. In a recent research report, Goldman Sachs estimated that Bruxelles Lambert's 25.1 percent stake in Bertelsmann was worth about 3.5 billion euros ($4.26 billion) -- a valuation that includes a 15 percent discount because the shares cannot currently be publicly traded. To raise cash for a buyback, Bertelsmann may have to sell major assets, according to the executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. One possible candidate, they said, would be its stake in BMG music, which is now part of a joint venture with Sony. In its report, Goldman values Bertelsmann's half-share in Sony BMG, as well as its wholly owned music publishing unit, at 1.6 billion euros ($1.93 billion). That still leaves a substantial shortfall, but these people said that Bertelsmann, with a sturdy balance sheet, could line up additional bank loans. Bertelsmann recently succeeded in replacing the chief executive of Sony BMG, Andrew Lack, with its own representative, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz. But Sony BMG's revenues plummeted 16.5 percent in 2005, reflecting both the turmoil in the recorded music industry and infighting at Sony BMG. Mr. Thielen said that Mr. Schmidt-Holtz faced a difficult task knitting together the corporate cultures of Sony and BMG. He said the company also needed to do a better job of discovering new talent. Mr. Thielen did not say whether Bertelsmann was considering a major divestiture. But he said the company regularly studied its portfolio of assets -- it recently retained Boston Consulting Group to conduct one such study -- and that it was always open to buying or selling properties. The hiring of a consultant, Mr. Thielen insisted, is not linked to its minority shareholder's plan. "We wanted to see how our view of the assets related to the outside view of the assets," he said. As scrutiny intensifies, Bertelsmann's executives are responding with a mix of diplomacy and mild frustration. They can say little until they receive formal notice from Bruxelles Lambert, which they expect on May 23, a day after Bertelsmann's shareholders meet. Groupe Bruxelles Lambert is a canny investment firm. It is run by the Belgian billionaire Albert Frère, who amassed his fortune through well-timed investments in a variety of European energy and media companies. The firm has left itself plenty of flexibility as to when, or even whether, it will make a move. In a one-paragraph statement last January, it said it would ask for the "possibility that is offered to list Bertelsmann if the market conditions are favorable." The questions surrounding Bertelsmann's future clouded a generally strong financial performance. The company's operating income rose 13 percent in 2005, to 1.6 billion euros ($1.93 billion), lifted by strong profits at RTL, Gruner & Jahr and Arvato, its huge printing division. Net profit fell slightly, to 1.04 billion euros ($1.25 billion), largely because Bertelsmann booked some one-time gains, like the sale of its office tower in New York, in the previous year. Mr. Thielen said Bertelsmann would achieve a 10 percent return on sales, compared with 9 percent last year, by 2007, when he is scheduled to retire as chief executive. The company, he said, will announce his successor in January or February of next year, and the person will probably come from its executive board. Bertelsmann says it has taken steps to prepare itself to sell shares, which would rank among the largest stock sales in German history. Virtually every major investment bank is angling for a role in a possible future company offering. But in other ways, Bertelsmann still seems culturally unsuited to the demands of being a public company. It does not disclose the compensation of its top executives, for example, listing only an aggregate number of 39.6 million euros ($47.9 million) for its seven-member executive board. When asked whether Bertelsmann would reconsider this policy if it went public, as some German companies have done, Mr. Thielen suggested that was unlikely. The Mohn family could still legally limit the disclosure of individual salaries. Besides, he added, "Our shareholders know how much we make."

BERTELSMANN AG
GROUPE BRUXELLES LAMBERT
COMPANY REPORTS


For Small Businesses, Bank Loan Alternatives

Abstract: After years of a small-business credit crisis, conditions seem to have improved. But with the economy still struggling and new regulations meant to eliminate bad lending, bank loans continue to lag. “The days of yesteryear when you could go to your corner bank are over,” said Kenneth Walsleben, who teaches in the entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises department at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University. “Small, emerging, growing businesses have few traditional sources to turn to. You have to get a little creative.” Some creative alternatives have been around forever; others emerged during the crisis. Almost all are substantially more expensive than traditional bank loans, which is why they have been sources of last resort. But as demand for alternative options has increased, some prices have come down. This guide, based on conversations with lenders, brokers and business owners, suggests which products make the most sense for different types of businesses. Asset-Based Lending HOW IT WORKS Companies sell their receivables, or invoices, to a factoring company, which gives the companies 80 to 90 percent of the value upfront and the rest when the invoices are paid off. Some lenders offer loans based on a company’s purchase orders, contracts or inventory. WHO USES IT Business-to-business companies that cannot wait for payment and especially troubled companies, because an invoice factor depends on the client’s ability to pay, not the borrower’s solvency. Purchase-order, contract and inventory loans require more creditworthiness from the borrower. “If you’re in the office supplies business and you get an order from Staples, you can use purchase-order financing, and it can level the playing field,” said Neil Seiden, managing director of Asset Enhancement Solutions , a financial adviser in Port Washington, N.Y. COST Purchase-order financing costs 4 to 5 percent monthly; factorers usually charge an effective annual interest rate of 18 to 30 percent, said Mr. Walsleben, who is also a co-owner of the Hamilton Group , a factoring company. SUPPLIERS Liquid Capital , the Interface Financial Group , Triton Business Solutions , Simplified Leasing , Rosenthal & Rosenthal and scores of other firms offer factoring and other asset-based lending services. Many are members of the International Factoring Association trade group. Lease-Back HOW IT WORKS A company sells its real estate or equipment for cash and simultaneously leases it back. WHO USES IT Healthy companies with warehouses, manufacturing locations or other properties that hold value that could be put to use elsewhere. The borrower sells at market value, usually the average of several appraisals, and leases the property back at the market rate for 10 to 25 years. COST The lease-back adds a monthly lease payment where previously there was none. Companies get less value from equipment than real estate because, unlike real estate, equipment depreciates over time, and lenders tend to value it at what is known as forced liquidation value, a lowball price based on what it would fetch at auction. Equipment lease-backs can create tax burdens as well. “If I own a press outright for 10 years and it’s worth $1 million, but it’s on the books for $250,000, and I sell it for $1 million, I’ll have to pay tax on a gain of $750,000,” Mr. Walsleben said. SUPPLIERS AIC Ventures , W.P. Carey , Calkain Companies and many others. Borrowers can search on the Commercial Finance Association trade group’s Web site. Cash Advances HOW IT WORKS A business receives a lump sum from a lender, which then takes a percentage of the business’s daily card receipts until the loan, plus a predetermined fee, is paid. WHO USES IT Restaurants and other retailers. Business-to-consumer companies generally have more limited financing options because they do not have wholesale invoices to factor or factories to borrow against. COST Twenty percent and up, but highly variable. EXAMPLE When he needed money last year to cover utilities and taxes during the slow winter months, Dennis Sick, owner of the Mohegan Manor restaurant in Baldwinsville, N.Y., took out a $45,000 advance on credit card receipts. The lender said he would take 13 to 18 percent of Mr. Sick’s daily credit card sales until he had received $64,000, which would take 12 to 15 months and give him an annual rate of 60 to 75 percent. But Mr. Sick ended up paying the $64,000 in seven months, giving the lender an annual return of some 130 percent. SUPPLIERS AdvanceMe , RapidAdvance and many others. The North American Merchant Advance Association trade group gathers many providers. Nonbank Loans WHO USES IT Seasonal businesses, microbusinesses and other businesses that cannot meet bank requirements. HOW IT WORKS Lighter Capital , a revenue-based finance company in Seattle, offers loans of $50,000 to $500,000 to small businesses with high gross margins. The borrower pays Lighter Capital 2 to 8 percent of its monthly revenue until the repayment amount is reached, and usually gives the lender warrants for 1 to 5 percent of the company. The country’s 400 or so nonprofit community development financial institutions , on the other hand, fill the role of small community banks, lending to microbusinesses. “Our clients are supplemental income businesses, like cupcake trucks and Main Street businesses whose lines of credit got called,” said Claudia Viek, chief executive of the California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity , a network of California C.D.F.I.’s. COST Lighter Capital’s chairman, Andy Sack, said the cost of obtaining financing from his company was around 20 percent annually. Ms. Viek said she expected California C.D.F.I.’s to make some 2,000 three- to five-year loans of up to $50,000 this year, at an average interest rate of about 8 percent. The rates can go as high as 14 percent. EXAMPLE “In the past, we would go to the local bank and get loans on signature,” said Christi Riggs, 40, co-owner of Lone Star Linen laundry service, based in Taylor, Tex. When the bank said no, Ms. Riggs took out a loan from On Deck Capital , a New York-based company that analyzes business performance data — cash flow, credit, even social media information — to review loan applications from small businesses. Once granted, the loans, up to $150,000, are repaid through automatic daily bank account withdrawals, much as a merchant cash advance works. The short-term loans, typically for three to 18 months, charge an annual rate of 18 to 36 percent, said Noah Breslow, chief executive of On Deck. Ms. Riggs ended up paying $27,750 on a six-month loan of $25,500, or an annual rate of about 35 percent. SUPPLIERS Lighter Capital, On Deck Capital, Kabbage and others. Many C.D.F.I.’s are members of the CDFI Coalition . Peer-to-Peer Loans HOW IT WORKS Individual investors combine to lend money to small-business owners through online vetting platforms like Lending Club . WHO USES IT Small-business owners with good credit scores who need money to expand or to buy equipment. COST Depending on the owners’ credit ratings, annual rates can run from less than 7 percent to more than 25 percent. The loans are small, however, with a maximum of $35,000 at Lending Club. EXAMPLE When Hannah Attwood wanted to raise money to open a cloth diaper supply and cleaning service, she went to four banks. “They just kind of laughed at me,” said Ms. Attwood, 34, founder of Adore Diaper Service , based in Ventura, Calif. She applied to Lending Club on a friend’s suggestion, and within a week, 61 investors had jointly given her a three-year, $6,000 loan at 11.36 percent. She combined the loan with an equal amount of savings to buy industrial washers and dryers and cloth diapers. SUPPLIERS Lending Club and Prosper dominate the peer-to-peer market in the United States.

Small Business
Entrepreneurship
Banking and Financial Institutions
Credit and Debt
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Minimizing the Tax Drag on Your Investments

Abstract: Unless you happen to be a certified public accountant, or related to one, the topic of taxes you pay on your investments probably has as much appeal as a root canal. Understood. Nonetheless, it’s a topic well worth focusing on. That’s especially true if you invest in mutual funds, which are required to distribute realized gains and income to shareholders. Over the 10 years through 2012, the actual return to investors in the average stock mutual fund shrank by eight-tenths of a percentage point, annualized, because of taxable distributions, according to research from Lipper , the fund data supplier. That represents more than 10 percent of the annualized gain for stock funds over that 10-year stretch. Taxable bond funds received a tax haircut of 1.8 percentage points, annualized, during that period, amounting to more than 20 percent of the annualized return for those funds. “Annual expense ratios get a lot more attention, but not understanding the potential tax drag of what you own and what type of account you own it in can be a bigger issue,” says Tom Roseen , head of research services at Lipper. Even if you’re not partaking of mutual funds — or at least those with a habit of generating big tax bills — and you’ve been pleased with your portfolio’s tax efficiency in years past, Robert S. Keebler , a certified public accountant in Green Bay, Wis., expects many investors to suffer “painful sticker shock” when they complete their 2013 tax returns. Last year, a net investment income tax of 3.8 percent came into play for couples with modified adjusted gross income above $250,000, and for individuals with more than $200,000. (The figure is typically close to your adjusted gross income reported on Line 37 of your federal Form 1040.) Last year, the top income tax rate rose to 39.6 percent from 35 percent, and gains on investments sold in less than a year are taxed as ordinary income. The top long-term capital gains rate also rose, to 20 percent from 15 percent. “There’s not one big thing you can do to minimize taxes, but there are a series of small decisions you can make at the margins that in the aggregate will leave you with more money,” said Timothy M. Steffen , director of financial planning for the wealth management group at Baird. To shield as many investment dollars as possible from taxes, you can maximize what you tuck into tax-deferred retirement accounts. This low-hanging fruit still seems to elude many people. Vanguard reports that 30 percent of participants in 401(k) plans it administers who had income of at least $200,000 in 2012 did not contribute the maximum. For those with an income of at least $100,000, the figure was 64 percent. In 2014, anyone under 50 years old can contribute up to $17,500; if you’re of AARP age — 50 and older — you can contribute up to $23,000. And don’t forget individual retirement accounts. Anyone can invest in a nondeductible I.R.A., regardless of income, and receive the benefit of tax-deferred growth. And couples filing a joint tax return with modified adjusted gross income below $181,000, or single filers with income below $114,000, can stuff up to the maximum of $5,500 a person into a Roth I.R.A. ($6,500 if you’re at least 50). With a Roth I.R.A., contributions are made with after-tax dollars, so there’s no upfront tax break. But your money grows tax-deferred and withdrawals in retirement will be tax-free. If you have investments in tax-deferred accounts as well as regular taxable accounts, it’s worth considering the art of asset location. The standard advice has always been that investments that throw off income taxed at your income tax rate belong in a tax-deferred account. The theory is that for most of us, our income tax rate is higher than our capital gains rate. That has typically been an argument for keeping your bond holdings in your 401(k) and I.R.A., since bond interest is taxed as income. But Michael E. Kitces , director of planning research at the Pinnacle Advisory Group in Columbia, Md., says that today’s low interest rates on high-grade bonds make that rule of thumb less important. Even if you are paying federal income tax of 39.6 percent on the interest from a core bond fund, the fact that the fund’s yield is just 2 percent or so means that there’s not much income in the first place. Mr. Kitces suggests a twist. “Focus on making sure your highest-returning and least-tax-efficient investment is inside your 401(k) or I.R.A., and your most tax-efficient investment is in your taxable account,” he said. “And don’t worry about everything else. Just get those two right and you’ve done yourself a ton of good.” Likely suspects for a tax-deferred account include high-yield, or junk, bonds and real estate investment trusts, and any actively traded portfolio that generates frequent short-term gains. Low-turnover stock index mutual funds or exchange-traded funds and municipal bonds are often the best bets for taxable accounts, as they are prone to generate low, or no, taxable distributions. While it may be heresy to index purists, actively managed funds can still be a solid investment, even with their typically higher tax bill. Yes, the performance of the average equity stock fund has failed to keep up with its indexing brethren. But there are exceptions. “What matters is your after-tax return, not whether a fund is 99 percent tax-efficient,” said Daniel P. Wiener , chairman of Adviser Investments. “If an actively managed fund delivers superior returns after tax, that’s what I care about.” That said, if you own an actively managed fund, it may be a candidate for your 401(k) or I.R.A. If you were subject to the new 3.8 percent net investment tax in 2013, you may be able to reduce this year’s bite. Here’s how the tax works: If you have investment income and your modified adjusted gross income is above $250,000 ($200,000 for individuals) you are in its cross hairs. The 3.8 percent tax is levied on the lesser of these two figures: the amount of your income that exceeds those thresholds of modified adjusted gross income, or the sum of all the net investment income you had in the year. If your income is well above the appropriate modified adjusted-gross-income threshold, it’s likely that your net investment income is what will come into play. In that case, Mr. Keebler says that one tax reduction strategy is to consider municipal bonds, because their interest is not part of the calculation for net investment income. Just make sure you steer clear of private-activity municipal bonds, because interest from such bonds is subject to the alternative minimum tax. Alas, even tax-exempt investing has its traps.

Federal Taxes
Stocks,Bonds
Asset allocation
IRS
Capital gains tax
Mutual fund
Income tax
401k
IRA


Market Gyrations Aid CNBC in Battle for Viewers

Abstract: When Nik Deogun was running the financial coverage of The Wall Street Journal during the crisis in 2008, he kept a constant eye on CNBC as the events played out on television. “It was news being made, all the time, in real time,” he said. Having left The Journal in 2010 for CNBC, Mr. Deogun is now in charge of the network’s coverage of the gyrating global markets, a fresh crisis that has restored CNBC to prominence among retail investors who temporarily tune into business news in turbulent times. This time, however, there is stiffer competition from the Fox Business Network and Bloomberg Television, both of which are hoping to take advantage of what they perceive as CNBC’s vulnerabilities. The markets’ wild swings are not necessarily profit-generating for TV news outlets because most advertisers buy airtime far in advance, meaning that the prices do not rise in tandem with the ratings. But coverage of crises can burnish reputations, as the networks attract worried viewers who sample news and stock-picking shows for the first time — or at least for the first time in a long while. So far, CNBC — not its smaller rivals — seems to be benefiting the most from interest this month in the last-minute agreement on the United States debt ceiling , the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s debt rating and concern over the stability of European banks. Through the first two weeks of August, CNBC, a unit of NBC Universal, had on average 378,000 at-home viewers during the New York market hours of 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., up sharply from 224,000 in July. Fox Business, a unit of the News Corporation, had an average of 107,000 viewers at those hours, up from 76,000 in July. Bloomberg Television is not publicly rated; private ratings indicate that it too had a surge in recent weeks, though its audience is smaller than that of Fox Business. It is exceedingly hard to estimate the reach of the business networks. CNBC, despite being dominant, flatly declines to talk about ratings because it says Nielsen’s sample does not count out-of-home viewing or affluent viewers, exactly the kinds of viewers it says it attracts. The Nielsen ratings nonetheless serve as a barometer of sorts in good business times and bad. CNBC’s at-home audience has not been this big since the so-called flash crash of May 2010, reaffirming that people are once again paying attention to the ups and downs of the markets. Kevin Magee, the executive in charge of the Fox Business Network, said that periods of big financial news usually helped “the new guy.” Fox Business started in October 2007, and Mr. Magee is quick to point out that CNBC has both a 20-year head start and enviable distribution. (CNBC is available in about 100 million households, while Fox Business is in about 57 million.) Still, he said that once viewers found his network, “they have a tendency to stay with us after that.” Fox Business broke even for the first time in the fiscal year that ended June 30. “It’s a better channel today than it was 12 months ago,” the News Corporation chief operating officer, Chase Carey, said on a conference call with reporters last week. Among other changes, it has added a program featuring Lou Dobbs at 7 p.m. and a libertarian-oriented talk show, “Freedom Watch,” at 8. Those two hours occasionally outperform CNBC, but during market hours, CNBC is always on top. Some at CNBC have said they regard Fox Business as another political flavor of Fox News, though Mr. Magee said that notion “has no credibility in the industry other than in the hallways of Englewood Cliffs,” the New Jersey town where CNBC is based. Nielsen data shows 81 percent of Fox Business viewers also watch Fox News, while 31 percent of CNBC viewers also watch Fox News. Of course, as the third-biggest channel on all of cable, Fox News is an asset for its little brother — which is why it simulcast Fox Business for two hours on Aug. 7. When asked about the Fox Business Network and Bloomberg Television, Mr. Deogun said that CNBC saw competition “everywhere” and suggested that his staff members spent more time competing for guest bookings with each other than with external rivals. CNBC says its bookings tell the story: on Aug. 7, the network had the first interview with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner after S.& P. announced its downgrade of the United States debt rating; on Tuesday, it had the only interview with the Bank of America chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, after the bank’s stock plummeted; and on Wednesday, the Société Générale chief executive, Frédéric Oudéa, called in to dismiss speculation about France’s creditworthiness. “I have a Delta Force of reporters and producers around the globe, all of whom are attacking the story of the day every day,” Mr. Deogun said. (The New York Times has a content-sharing deal with CNBC.) The networks, though, are careful not to appear to be benefiting from a market free fall. Andrew Morse, who took over the United States operations of Bloomberg Television six weeks ago, said, “You don’t want to take advantage of the situation, but you do want to distinguish yourself through the quality of your work.” Bloomberg Television has struggled to stand out since its inception in 1994. Recently it has replaced staid graphics, refashioned its schedule, taken out ads in New York for its morning anchors, Margaret Brennan and Betty Liu, and battled for better distribution. (It is available in about 60 million homes.) Over time, the network may reorient itself toward more general news, a bit more like CNN. For now, the situation suggests what many analysts said at the time of the Fox Business debut: there just may not be room enough for three all-business networks. But having three in the mix does allow for some diversity and some occasional infighting. When the government reached a deal on the debt ceiling on July 31, and when S.& P.’s downgrade was made official on the evening of Aug. 5, CNBC stayed with taped feature programming while Fox and Bloomberg showed lengthy live reports. On that Sunday, “when we were up with a special report, they had a dog dressed in pajamas,” said Mr. Magee of Fox Business. Mr. Deogun said he did not regret the decision not to go live on those nights; what mattered more, he said, was the network’s live special report on the Sunday after the Aug. 5 downgrade, when investors were anxious about the Asia market opening. That night, Mr. Geithner “spoke to one outlet, and that was us,” Mr. Deogun said. All three channels have added hours of special programming to cover the current market unrest, and producers at CNBC concede privately that the aggressive posture of Fox Business and Bloomberg Television is probably good for their network. “Don’t get complacent,” one CNBC producer said he had told his staff members.

Television
News and News Media
CNBC
Fox Business Network


U.S. Continues to Assure Israel About Efforts on Iran

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama and his senior advisers have said little publicly about Iran since the resumption of negotiations over its nuclear program in April, preferring to let the diplomats hash out the issues in the hope that tensions with Tehran can be managed, at least until the election in November. In Israel , however, the United States is still saying plenty, with a stream of current and former officials traveling there to threaten additional sanctions on Iran and to reiterate Mr. Obama’s readiness to use military action against Iran if diplomacy fails. “When the president said all options are on the table, let me reassure you that those options are real and viable,” said Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense, speaking at a security conference in Tel Aviv last week. Referring to the Pentagon’s planning for a possible military strike, she said, “Having sat in the Pentagon and spent a lot of my time on this issue, I can assure you of the quality of that work.” David S. Cohen, a Treasury Department under secretary who oversees financial sanctions, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that if the next round of nuclear talks, in Moscow on June 18, break down, “there is no question we will continue to ratchet up the pressure.” Israel and the United States, he said, are considering unspecified new measures that would build on the oil sanctions set to take effect at the beginning of next month. And their remarks followed a speech last month by the American ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, who said that the United States not only was willing to use force, but had also made preparations for a military operation. The White House says it has not coordinated a message campaign in Israel; Ms. Flournoy, who stepped down earlier this year as chief policy adviser to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, said she did not discuss her remarks in advance with either the Pentagon or the White House. But her statements dovetail with a concerted American effort that also includes frequent high-level meetings with Israeli officials — all aimed at giving Israel enough confidence in the diplomatic effort that it will hold off on a unilateral military strike. “There is, and has been, a consistent interest in reassuring the Israelis that we’re not going to be played,” said Dennis B. Ross, who was one of the president’s senior advisers on Iran and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That the goal is to raise pressure, not to relieve it, and that the objective remains prevention, not containment.” Mr. Ross did his part for the effort at a public gathering in New York City last week, in which he recounted a meeting he had with King Abdullah II of Saudi Arabia in April 2009 when Mr. Ross was still in the administration. The king, he said, warned him explicitly that Saudi Arabia would press for its own nuclear bomb if Iran acquired nuclear weapons . Though Saudi Arabia’s alarm about Iran was well known through leaked State Department cables, it was the first time a former Obama official had publicly confirmed the king’s threat. Mr. Ross’s remarks flew largely under the radar in the United States. But they were published prominently in Israel, where he is a well-known figure after decades as a negotiator on Middle East peace issues. By underscoring the danger of a nuclear arms race in the region — something Mr. Obama himself has emphasized in speeches and interviews — Mr. Ross was trying to reassure Israelis, some of whom harbor lingering suspicions that the White House would rather contain a nuclear Iran than go to war to prevent it. Israeli jitters have hardly been eased by the first two bargaining sessions between Iran and the major powers, which in addition to the United States include Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The second meeting, in Baghdad last month, ended badly amid signs that the Iranians were unwilling to suspend enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity — a demand by the major powers that was intended to build confidence for a broader deal. For some Israelis, the latest signs of an impasse vindicate their worries that Iran will use the negotiations as a way to stall the West, delay the oil sanctions and buy itself time to stockpile more enriched uranium. In an interview published Wednesday in the German newspaper Bild, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained that the major powers were making “inadequate” demands of Iran at the bargaining table. Israeli officials also balked when the senior American nuclear negotiator, Wendy R. Sherman, an under secretary of state for political affairs, declared on a visit to Israel after the Baghdad meeting that the United States and Israel were on the same page when it came to dealing with Iran. “We believe that the Iranian goal is to drag this out as long as possible,” said an Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “We’re happy to hear what they have to say,” this official said of the visiting Americans. “We’re happy to try to be reassured.” Ms. Flournoy, who now advises the Obama campaign, devoted most of her remarks in Tel Aviv to making the case that Israel should not launch a premature or unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Such an attack, she said, would set back the Iranian nuclear program, at most, one to three years. And it could splinter the coalition the United States has assembled to impose crippling sanctions on Tehran. “Here’s the rub,” Ms. Flournoy said at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. “If Israel or any other country were to launch a unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear program prematurely, before all other options to stop Iran have been tried and failed, it would undermine the legitimacy of the action.” In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Flournoy said she was encouraged because several Israelis approached her at the conference to express opposition to an Israeli strike and skepticism of the government’s assertions that the window was fast closing for a military attack that would incapacitate Iran’s nuclear abilities. But she added that the diversity of opinion among ordinary Israelis did not ease her fears of military action since, she said, Mr. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak “are getting clearer and clearer in their intentions.”

Iran
Israel
United States International Relations
Embargoes and Economic Sanctions
Obama Barack
Netanyahu Benjamin
Flournoy Michele A
Nuclear Weapons


Home Sales Fell Sharply in November

Abstract: Home sales declined dramatically last month and housing prices posted their sharpest decline in four decades as a rapidly slowing economy discouraged many potential buyers from tip-toeing into the market. Sales of existing homes declined 8.6 percent last month, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.49 million, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade association. The median price of a home fell 13 percent in November, to $181,300 from $208,000 a year ago. That was the lowest price since February 2004. “They’re about as god-awful as they can get,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at ITG. “This is pretty breathtaking stuff.” The troubles plaguing the housing market, which is at the heart of America’s financial crisis , are only multiplying as the broader economy deteriorates. Even though mortgage rates dropped after the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to record lows near zero percent, economists said that housing would continue to lag as unemployment increases and the spiral of slumping consumer spending and waning industrial growth continues. “Housing dragged down the markets this summer,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight. “Now it’s the economy and financial markets that are dragging down housing.” The economy was shrinking over the summer and corporate profits were falling even before the financial crisis struck with full force. On Tuesday, the Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product , the broadest measure of the economy, declined at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter as corporate profit fell 1.2 percent. Analysts are forecasting that those declines will be followed by much larger decreases this quarter as the longest recession in a quarter century gains intensity. Stock markets dived into negative territory as investors took in the economic news. Just before the market closed, the Dow Jones industrial average was down about 100 points or 1.25 percent while the wider Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 0.8 percent. Shares of major homebuilders such as Toll Brothers and Pulte Homes were trading lower. Sales of single-family homes dropped 8 percent from October to November while the sales of condominiums and co-ops fell an even sharper 13 percent, the Realtors association reported. The pool of unsold homes grew slightly to 4.2 million last month. At the current sales rate, it would take 11.2 months to burn off the excess inventory, which is up from a 10.3-month supply in October. The Commerce Department also reported that new home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 407,000 in November, from a downwardly revised rate of 419,000 in October. The median price of a new home sold in November was $220,400, down 11.5 percent from the period a year ago. It was the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 12.7 percent drop in March. Investors on Wall Street seemed to take the economic news in stride. Housing values have plummeted since the peak of the market in July 2006, when the median home price was $230,200. But the housing bubble burst, sales declined, credit dried up and a flood of foreclosed homes hit the market, a combination of events that pulled median prices down 21 percent to their November levels. Still, some economists said that home prices will fall even farther before they dip low enough to entice potential home buyers. Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR, said that some parts of the country may only be halfway through such a retrenchment. “You need to have a correction, you need to have an adjustment,” Mr. Shapiro said. “The faster it happens, the better.” Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, said that 45 percent of all home sales in November were so-called “distressed sales,” meaning that the sellers faced foreclosure, or they were forced to sell their home for less than the value of the mortgage. That was slightly higher than the previous month. “It’s probably the largest price drop since the Great Depression ,” Mr. Yun said. “There needs to be some measure to counter this pessimism. Without housing market stabilization, it’ll be very difficult for the economy to recover.” That trend is especially pronounced in regions of the country hit hardest by housing’s boom and bust. In parts of Southern California, more than half of all houses sold in November had gone through foreclosure at some point in the last 12 months, according to MDA DataQuick, a real-estate research firm. “Outside of distressed properties, the market is nonexistent almost,” Frederick Cannon, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said of the California market. “You don’t want to sell into it. Most people are saying, ‘I’ll just stay in this house.’ ” In California’s Riverside County, real-estate agent Gary Crutchley said that he had sold six homes in the last four months. Three were foreclosure sales, two were “short sales” in which homeowners sold to avoid a foreclosure, and one was a traditional sale — a couple who had saved their money, and were now looking to buy into a distressed market. “They’re few and far between,” Mr. Crutchley said.


Digging Deeper for Missing Mac Mail Messages

Abstract: Q . I tried the Rebuild command to find missing messages in Mac Mail on the El Capitan version (OS X 10.11), but it didn’t fix my problem. What else can I try? A. Depending on the version of El Capitan your Mac is running, the mail accounts in question and where you check messages, you may have a few other troubleshooting steps available if the Rebuild command under the Mailbox menu has not helped. If you have not updated your Mac’s operating system software in the last few months (or do not have the automatic updates feature enabled in the App Store area of your System Preferences), your Mac may be missing the latest incremental updates Apple has made to OS X 10.11. In October, the company issued its 10.11.1 update designed to fix a number of bugs with Mail, including message display and issues with outgoing server information. Some users reported issues with the update freezing the Mail app, but another update for the system, called 10.11.2 , arrived in November and was intended to fix the freezing issue, among other things. If you are not sure if your Mac has the latest software, you can check by going to the Apple menu in the top left corner and selecting About This Mac . The version number is displayed along with other software and hardware information about your Mac. If your version of OS X looks out of date, you can update it by clicking the Software Update button in the box; you can also look for updates to software by going to the Apple menu and choosing App Store. If you want to see if your Mac is set to check and download updates automatically, open the System Preferences (from the Apple menu option or the icon in the desktop Dock), click App Store and see if “Automatically check for updates” is enabled. If your Mac is already up to date but the mail account is synced to other devices with Apple’s iCloud service, message management on the iPhone or other gadget could be the issue with the missing mail. Messages in an iCloud mail account that you send to the Trash on a mobile device or on the web also moves them into the Trash on the Mac; messages stay in the Trash for 30 days before they are permanently deleted. As problems with the Mail application can be influenced by number of factors, a visit to Apple’s online support forums may also help narrow down your specific solution. In some cases, mail issues can be messy (as when old mail suddenly reappears, as can happen in some situations) and take some time to sort out. Once you do, adding a backup drive and program — like Apple’s free Time Machine software — can help guard against future problems with Mail or other applications on your Mac.

Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Software
Apple
Email


Danny Salazar Shines as Indians Top Blue Jays for Their Sixth Straight Win

Abstract: Jerry Sands singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh inning, Danny Salazar struck out 10 and the Cleveland Indians won their sixth straight game, beating the Blue Jays by 4-2 on Monday night in Toronto. Salazar (12-7) allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings. He reached double digits in strikeouts for the fifth time this season and the first time since he struck out 10 against Baltimore on June 6. Bryan Shaw got two outs in the eighth, and Cody Allen finished for his 28th save. Ryan Raburn doubled home the tying run as the Indians matched their longest winning streak of the season and halted Toronto’s run at four. Toronto’s Edwin Encarnacion, who was named A.L. player of the week after batting .391 (9 for 23) with six home runs and 17 R.B.I., extended his hitting streak to 26 games with a leadoff single in the sixth. Encarnacion finished 2 for 4 with a double. It is the ninth straight game he has recorded at least one extra-base hit, matching Shawn Green’s 1999 team record. But Encarnacion failed to record an R.B.I., ending an eight-game run. ASTROS 8, MARINERS 3 Dallas Keuchel allowed one run and struck out eight in seven innings to become the American League’s first 16-game winner and lead Houston past visiting Seattle. The rookie Carlos Correa, who returned after missing four games with a hamstring injury, hit a two-run homer, and Jed Lowrie and Hank Conger added solo shots to help the A.L. West-leading Astros to the victory. Keuchel (16-6), who gave up six hits, improved to 12-0 at home this season and has won 13 straight in Houston dating to last year, tying a franchise record set by Danny Darwin in 1989 and 1990. Earlier, Mariners outfielder Austin Jackson was traded to the Chicago Cubs on Monday in exchange for a player to be named and money for an international draft slot. MARLINS 4, BRAVES 0 Martin Prado and Justin Bour each had R.B.I. doubles in the eighth inning, and visiting Miami extended Shelby Miller’s winless streak to 19 starts with a victory over Atlanta. Miller, an All-Star with a sparkling 2.56 E.R.A., began the night with the worst support in the majors, and the Braves, losers in six straight and 13 of 14, stayed true to form. Beginning the night with the worst average (.227) in the N.L. with runners in scoring position since the All-Star break, Atlanta has scored two runs or fewer in 20 of Miller’s 27 starts. Miller (5-12) gave up six hits and struck out seven in seven innings. The Braves traded Jonny Gomes to the Kansas City Royals for minor league shortstop Luis Valenzuela during the game. Gomes went 0 for 2 and left after the fifth inning. RAYS 6, ORIOLES 3 Chris Archer pitched six scoreless innings, and Tampa Bay hit three home runs in a win over host Baltimore. Asdrubal Cabrera and Evan Longoria connected off Wei-Yin Chen (8-7), and Tim Beckham added a solo shot against Brad Brach. Logan Forsythe had three hits for the Rays, coming within a home run of the cycle. Archer (12-10) gave up four hits, walked three and struck out six to earn his first win against Baltimore in seven starts since June 7, 2013. Archer, a right-hander, finished the month with 50 strikeouts, tying the club record for August held by Scott Kazmir (2007). Archer left after throwing 113 pitches and with Tampa Bay ahead by 6-0. Brad Boxberger, the third Rays reliever, worked the ninth for his 33rd save. The defeat was the 11th in 12 games for the Orioles.

Baseball
Danny Salazar
Cleveland Indians
Blue Jays


More Cows and More Milk Mean More Headaches

Abstract: HANFORD, Calif. — Three years ago, a technological breakthrough gave dairy farmers the chance to bend a basic rule of nature: no longer would their cows have to give birth to equal numbers of female and male offspring. Instead, using a high-technology method to sort the sperm of dairy bulls, they could produce mostly female calves to be raised into profitable milk producers. Now the first cows bred with that technology, tens of thousands of them, are entering milking herds across the country — and the timing could hardly be worse. The dairy industry is in crisis, with prices so low that farmers are selling their milk below production cost. The industry is struggling to cut output. And yet the wave of excess cows is about to start dumping milk into a market that does not need it. “It’s real simple,” said Tony De Groot, an early adopter of the new breeding technology, who milks 4,200 cows on a farm here in the heart of this state’s struggling dairy region. “We’ve just got too many cattle on hand and too many heifers on hand, and the supply just keeps on coming and coming.” The average price farmers received for their milk in July was $11.30 for 100 pounds, down from $19.30 in July 2008. The retail price of milk has not dropped as much, but it is down 24 percent in a year, to an average of $2.91 a gallon for milk with 2 percent fat. Desperate to drive up prices by stemming the gusher of unwanted milk, a dairy industry group, the National Milk Producers Federation, has been paying farmers to send herds to slaughter. Since January the program has culled about 230,000 cows nationwide. But the sorting technique, known as sexed semen, is expected to put 63,000 extra heifers into milk production this year, compared with the number that would be available if only conventional semen had been used, researchers estimate. That number will jump to 161,000 next year, and farmers fear it could double again in 2011. While that is a fraction of the 9.2 million milk cows nationwide, the extra cows this year and next could roughly equal those removed from production by the industry’s culling program. Economists expect milk prices to recover only gradually, which has farmers worried about the impact of so many extra heifers and the milk they could produce. “Just as the industry starts to recover from these difficult times, we’re going to see these heifers enter the marketplace,” said Ray Souza, president of Western United Dairymen, which represents farmers who produce about 60 percent of the milk in California. “At the very worst it could certainly stop the recovery altogether and send us into another price recession.” The sorting technology relies on slight size differences between the Y chromosome, which produces male offspring, and the X chromosome, which produces female offspring and has a slightly larger amount of genetic material, or DNA. After it is collected from a bull at a stud farm, semen is mixed with a dye that sticks to DNA. A machine detects the extra dye sticking to X chromosomes and sorts the sperm. The sorted semen is frozen and sold to farmers who use it to inseminate their livestock. (A fertility institute outside Washington is studying whether the same technique can be used safely in people. If it won approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the technology would let parents choose their baby’s sex.) When the technology was first marketed widely to farmers in 2006, it represented a long-awaited breakthrough, and was embraced because global milk demand was outstripping supply. A typical Holstein herd using conventional breeding methods will produce 48 percent female offspring and 52 percent male. The male calves are usually sold for little money to be raised as meat, and the females are raised as milk producers. But the sorted sperm produces 90 percent or more female offspring, allowing farmers to expand their herds more efficiently. At Mr. De Groot’s farm on a recent afternoon, a worker removed a slender pink tube of sexed semen from a liquid nitrogen canister, where it was kept frozen. He passed it to a colleague who inserted it into a heifer’s body. The cow munched on feed, seemingly oblivious. If the insemination took, her calf would almost certainly be female. The technology’s impact is being felt now, at the depths of the dairy industry’s hard times, because of the long lag time in raising cows born of sexed semen to the point that they have calves of their own and thus enter milk production. Mr. De Groot, 74, first turned to sexed semen during the long economic boom because he wanted to expand his herd. “When the world was short of milk we were all told, ‘We need more milk!’ Everybody was crying for more milk,” he said in his farm office, decorated with trophies for the high quality of his milk. But his plans were interrupted by the economic crisis, which caused booming dairy exports to dry up and curbed demand at home, sending prices tumbling. At the same time, feed costs remained high, squeezing farmers from both sides. Mr. De Groot, who has used the technology with only a portion of his livestock, estimated that he would get up to 350 additional heifers a year by using sexed semen. But he cannot expand his herd because dairy processors will not buy the extra milk. So for the time being, as the sexed semen offspring come of age, he will put them into the herd in place of lower-producing animals. That will drive up output too, though not as much as expanding the total number of cows. Scott Bentley, dairy product manager at ABS Global, in DeForest, Wis., a major producer of sexed semen, said that in the long run, the technology should be a boon. But first, the industry has to get through its worst economic crisis in decades. “This is a really exciting thing,” Mr. Bentley said of the technology. “And this is very difficult times. And you combine the two and realize it didn’t work as well as we hoped.”

Reproduction (Biological)
Cattle
Dairy Products
Milk
Factory Farming


Merkel Visits Flood-Stricken Regions of Germany and Offers Aid

Abstract: PIRNA, Germany — When Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in this Baroque town on Tuesday to wade through ankle-deep floodwaters and dole out human sympathy, Toni Schacha laid down his caulking gun on a stack of sandbags and strained to catch a glimpse of her. He had put up plywood across the front of his cafe and needed more sealant to keep some of the highest floodwater in five centuries from seeping in. “Silicone! I need more silicone!” Mr. Schacha, 33, called out. But only other residents engaged in the same battle with the elements — emptying homes and businesses of furniture and inventory and barricading doors and windows with sandbags — could hear. The chancellor was already hurrying to her next destination, an inundated village in the neighboring state of Thuringia. Mr. Schacha went back to applying sealant. “Moral support,” he said. “All anyone can give us now is moral support.” Image Houses flooded by the Elbe River in Dresden, Germany, on Tuesday. Credit Arno Burgi/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Ms. Merkel was thinking of something a bit more concrete. She pledged 100 million euros, about $130 million, in immediate aid for all flood-stricken regions. “What is important now is that we are able to get the aid quickly to people,” Ms. Merkel said in Passau, in southeastern Germany, where water still filled the streets of the medieval Old Town, although it was beginning to recede. On Monday, the Danube there reached a record level of 42 feet, which the authorities said was the highest in 500 years. In Pirna, on the Elbe River, the chancellor spoke with volunteers readying sandbags and with first responders who had helped evacuate nursing homes. Then she waded into the rapidly rising water in the city’s Old Town, which was struck by the 2002 floods and had been largely renovated and refurbished since. Mayor Klaus-Peter Hanke said the city had only recently made efforts to capitalize on the brightly repainted and repaired historic downtown, immortalized in the paintings of Bernardo Bellotto in the 18th century. Now he pondered aloud how it would fare, given an obviously shortened tourist season on top of the flood damage. The city authorities have canceled a parade celebrating the city’s 780th anniversary and a festival later this month. Image Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with relief workers in Passau, Germany, on Tuesday. Credit Andreas Gebert/European Pressphoto Agency “Especially our small businesses will need financial assistance,” Mr. Hanke said. Helmut Gregert, a retiree who said he had spent Monday emptying out a church and helping friends clear basements, agreed. Remembering the devastating effects of the 2002 flood, he welcomed the chancellor’s visit, albeit in restrained tones. “It is important that she is here and shows solidarity with people,” he said. Others were less convinced. Several in Pirna who watched Ms. Merkel’s being whisked in to view the damage before speeding out as the waters continued to rise grumbled about campaign tactics but declined to speak on the record with a reporter. About 4,000 soldiers from the German Army have been sent to help shore up local police officers and volunteers, along with 2,000 more disaster workers. Many worked through the night Monday filling and stacking sandbags to reinforce dikes and other barriers along the Danube, Elbe and Inn Rivers, swollen with rainwater and runoff from the neighboring Czech Republic and Austria. Residents in Dresden, just north of Pirna, began evacuating its downtown on Tuesday afternoon, as water there was expected to rise an additional five feet or so in coming days. The city’s Semper Opera House altered its schedule, shortening some performances. Officials warned that the flood could reach 2002 proportions, when the river crested at nearly 31 feet. In Pirna, authorities said the flood could be even higher than in 2002. Asked if he had not taken a risk building a business in the flood-prone inner city, Mr. Schacha shook his head. “The flood of a century is supposed to happen once in a lifetime,” he said. “Not once every 10 years.”


F.C.C. Will Continue Plan to Subsidize Broadband for the Poor

Abstract: The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted 3 to 2 along party lines to approve a proposal to explore subsidizing broadband Internet for poor Americans. The plan, introduced last month by the agency’s Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, helps pave the way for sweeping changes to a $1.7 billion phone subsidy program. Republicans have opposed extending the phone subsidy — known as Lifeline and initiated in 1985 under President Ronald Reagan — pointing to past instances of fraud in the program and suggesting that any expansion would generate more fraud. On Thursday, the two Republican commissioners delivered strongly worded dissents. “Adequate controls and deterrents against waste, fraud and abuse should be in place before considering expanding the program to broadband,” said Michael O’Rielly, a Republican commissioner. Part of Mr. Wheeler’s plan approved on Thursday was an effort to allay those concerns. In its vote, the commission adopted stricter measures to ensure that eligible households claim only one subsidy of $9.25 a month. Those antifraud measures — including new record-keeping requirements for service providers, which are charged with verifying a person’s income — are expected to take effect this summer. “I am befuddled at how this Republican program has suddenly become so partisan,” Mr. Wheeler said in responding to the dissents on Thursday. “But I am proud to cast my vote with the majority.” The commission will now begin to discuss the logistics of how exactly to incorporate broadband into the program and write specific rules. Those changes would need to be approved by a separate vote, one not expected for at least several months. A principal question that regulators must address is how far, exactly, the current subsidy can go in financing broadband. Republicans and Democrats alike have wondered about the economic feasibility of offering a mix of phone service and broadband at the same price, which Mr. Wheeler has suggested would be possible. On Thursday, both Mr. O’Rielly and his fellow Republican commissioner, Ajit Pai, said they wanted to establish a firm budget and spending cap on the program to keep its cost from multiplying. Mr. Wheeler called those concerns “a rhetorical snowstorm to distract” from the basic premise of the proposal. Still, Democrats celebrated the significance of taking aim at the so-called digital divide, the social and economic gap between those with access to technology and those without it. Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic commissioner, on Thursday called a broadband subsidy essential to bridging the “homework gap” in particular, pointing to children’s increasing need for Internet access. “Students who lack regular broadband access are struggling to keep up,” she said, noting that as many as seven in 10 teachers assign homework that requires online connectivity. “Now is not a moment too soon, because this is about the future.” The proposal, Mr. Wheeler said, was about attacking problems in America that the commission should be united against. “Both political parties are now engaged in serious campaigning as to who’s going to be responsible for the country and the commission in a few years,” he said. “But both political parties are in violent agreement that our country is challenged by economic inequality.”

Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
FCC
Telecommunication
Income Inequality
Tom Wheeler


On Long Island, Police Find 2 Teeth at Remains Site

Abstract: WANTAGH, N.Y. (AP) — The police on Friday discovered two teeth not far from where a human skull was found this month, in a dense section of underbrush along a Long Island highway. Ten sets of human remains have been found there since December. The authorities suspect a serial killer could be responsible for some of the victims dumped by the roadway near Jones Beach State Park, but they have neither identified a suspect nor linked all the remains to the same culprit. Detective Lt. Kevin Smith, a Nassau County police spokesman, said that it appeared likely that the teeth came from the skull, but that a medical examiner’s evaluation would be needed to confirm that suspicion. Detective Lieutenant Smith said the police returned to the area after speaking with forensic experts, who suggested additional evidence may still be hidden along the 15 miles of thick underbrush that borders Ocean Parkway. The authorities, looking for a missing New Jersey woman who worked as a prostitute last seen in the area a year ago, uncovered the first of 10 sets of remains in December. Four bodies were later identified as women in their 20s, who all worked as prostitutes, booking clients online. The authorities said they suspected that because all the women shared similar lifestyles, they might have been singled out by the same killer. No suspects have been identified.

Serial Murders
Nassau County (NY)
Long Island (NY)


Europe and Consumer Groups at Odds Over Restricted Net Access

Abstract: BERLIN — In Europe, the debate over unrestricted Internet access — so-called net neutrality — has shifted to a core question: How much should the European Union intervene when mobile Internet service providers restrict Web access? Neelie Kroes , the European commissioner for telecommunications, raised the issue late last month when she announced an effort to require clearer and more truthful descriptions of Internet service practices, particularly for mobile contracts. Ms. Kroes made the announcement after Berec, the European Commission ’s telecommunications advisory panel, calculated that mobile operators restricted rival services for 20 percent of European consumers. In some smaller European countries, Berec said, 95 percent of consumers may have restricted access. For example, many mobile operators prohibit the use of Skype, the free Internet calling service, because they prefer consumers pay to make calls. Ms. Kroes said she intended to push operators to clearly disclose Web restrictions as well as potential minimum Internet speeds, not just the maximums that operators promote in advertisements. Ms. Kroes did not forbid operators from blocking specific Internet services, saying she would not micromanage the industry, but rather advised national regulators to create new guidelines, in effect rejecting calls by the European Parliament in November to enforce net neutrality in European law. “You don’t need me or the E.U. telling you what sort of Internet services you must pay for,” she said last week. In June 2011, the Netherlands adopted a net neutrality law on a national scale, preventing KPN and other operators from blocking Internet calling programs or messaging applications like WhatsApp Messenger. The European neutrality debate has involved greater legal scrutiny of the traffic management strategies used by mobile operators. Current law permits European operators to manage traffic and assure adequate speeds and access for all. Ms. Kroes’s plan was quickly criticized by consumer and Internet advocates as inadequate. John Phelan, a spokesman for the European Consumers’ Organization, which is based in Brussels, called on Ms. Kroes to penalize operators that block Internet-based rivals. “Her approach is to stand back and rely on an open market and consumer choice, but we don’t think that is enough,” Mr. Phelan said. “We think she needs to enshrine the concept of network neutrality into the European regulation of the sector.” Harry Small, a technology and communications lawyer in London at the firm Baker & McKenzie, who advises Internet service providers and large companies buying broadband service, said Ms. Kroes’s push for clearer contract language would help improve consumer choice and access. There was also some debate about whether the restricted Web access should be termed something other than “Internet.” Mr. Small said it was not likely that Ms. Kroes would try to restrict the commercial use of the term under fair advertising regulations. “You cannot restrict use of the word Internet unless you are falling below the general European standards of conduct to consumers,” Mr. Small said. Jérémie Zimmermann, the co-founder of a French net neutrality activist group, La Quadrature du Net, said the report by Berec underlined the growth of restricted Internet service in Europe and should alarm consumers. “When 20 percent, maybe even half, of Europeans have only restricted Internet access,” Mr. Zimmermann said, “I would argue that network neutrality is failing in Europe.” Marco Fiorentino, the co-founder of Messagenet, an Internet phone operator, said that European operators were increasingly selling broadband plans that block services like Messagenet. TeliaSonera, the Swedish operator, and Yoigo, an operator in Spain, recently added broadband plans that excluded Internet calling, or made it available at an additional charge, Mr. Fiorentino said. “This is happening more and more now,” he added. “But it is unclear whether the E.U. is going to do anything to stop it.” Messagenet is working to hide consumers’ use of its services from the screening techniques operators use to identify and block Internet calling operators. The company’s Internet voice service uses software that disguises signs of voice-over Internet traffic from operators, so the Internet calls can evade operators’ filters. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Mr. Fiorentino said. Operators block or restrict potential Web rivals by using a technology called deep packet inspection, which scours groups of data for markers indicating the use of a competing services. Ms. Kroes said she intended to draft guidelines for operators on the appropriate use of this analysis. Thierry Dieu, a spokesman for the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, said operators endorsed Ms. Kroes’s push for greater transparency in consumer contracts as a way to ensure wider Internet access. He said that new restrictions should not interfere with operators’ need to manage rising traffic levels to guarantee service for all consumers.

Kroes Neelie
Net Neutrality
European Union
European Commission
Computers and the Internet


Gunman Said He Shot Philadelphia Officer for ISIS, Police Say

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — A man who wounded a Philadelphia police officer in a patrol car, emptying his gun and even reaching through the car window to shoot the officer, told investigators that he did it in the name of Islam and the Islamic State, police officials said Friday. Using a stolen police handgun, the man fired at least 11 times late Thursday night, striking Officer Jesse Hartnett three times in the left arm, said Richard Ross Jr., the city’s police commissioner. Though badly wounded, Officer Hartnett, 33, chased his attacker and returned fire, striking him in the buttocks. Arrested minutes later, Edward Archer, 30, “has confessed to committing this cowardly act in the name of Islam,” Commissioner Ross said at a news conference. “According to him, the police defend laws that he believes are contrary to Islam.” Capt. James Clark, commander of the Police Department’s homicide division, quoted Mr. Archer as telling investigators: “I follow Allah and I pledge allegiance to the Islamic State. That is the reason why I did what I did.” Image Edward Archer, the suspect Credit Philadelphia Police Department Dramatic images of the shooting, taken by a security video camera, swept across the national media, showing a gunman wearing a long robe — the kind of loose outer garment, known as a thobe or dishdasha, often worn by Muslim men — running toward the patrol car and firing, until finally he was reaching into the window. Then he ran away, firing at least once more as he fled. Officials said that while the video left little question about what happened, there was some doubt as to why. Mr. Archer’s mother, Valerie Holliday, said he had serious psychological problems. But officials said they did not know if that was true. Beyond repeating his allegiance to Islam, Captain Clark said, “he wouldn’t give us anything more than that.” Officials said they did not know whether Mr. Archer had any contact with radicals or terrorist groups, or whether he had been influenced by such groups from afar and become “self-radicalized.” In talking with investigators, the man appeared “savvy enough to stop short of implicating himself in a conspiracy, if there was one,” Commissioner Ross said. “He doesn’t appear to be a stupid individual, just an extremely violent one.” “He certainly was targeting police,” he said. “He was trying to assassinate this police officer.” In the wake of the massacres in San Bernardino, Calif., in December and in Paris in November, the Philadelphia shooting and its video images stoked fears of a continuing trend of young people inspired to violence by radical groups. That prompted Mayor Jim Kenney, standing with the commissioner at the news conference, to say, “In no way, shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam have anything to do with what you’ve seen on this screen.” Image Officer Hartnett Credit Philadelphia Police Department Mr. Archer has recently lived at addresses in West Philadelphia and in Yeadon, Pa., a small suburban town nearby, and the police and F.B.I. were searching those locations Friday. Court records show he was found guilty in November of several charges, including fraud and forgery, and was awaiting sentencing. Last year, he was sentenced to nine to 23 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of carrying an unlicensed gun and assault. Ms. Holliday told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Mr. Archer, the oldest of seven siblings, had suffered head injuries and had been hearing voices, and laughing and muttering to himself. Natalie King, 68, who lives across the street from Mr. Archer’s Yeadon residence, said that she considered mental illness a more likely explanation than religious extremism. “He wasn’t what you would call radicalized or nothing like that,” she said. Mayor Rohan Hepkins of Yeadon said, “To think that we have been harboring not just a criminal but a potential terrorist, it just shows that this can happen anywhere in the United States.” The gun used to shoot Officer Hartnett, which was recovered at the scene, was a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol taken from an officer’s home in October 2013, Commissioner Ross said. He said that it was reported stolen at the time, and that the officer it was issued to had been disciplined. Image Commissioner Ross at a news conference Friday about the shooting of Officer Hartnett. Credit Mark Makela/Getty Images “How many hands it may have passed through in the last couple of years, we have no way of knowing,” he added. The gun battle took place at about 11:41 p.m. Thursday in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood, a low-income area on Philadelphia’s western edge. The officer, patrolling alone on low-rise residential streets, reached 60th and Spruce Streets, an intersection with a few small shops and a restaurant. Officer Hartnett, who has been on the force for five years and previously served as an officer with another department, suffered a broken bone and serious nerve damage in his arm, and “he lost a significant amount of blood at that scene,” the commissioner said. After the officer fired back at the gunman, he radioed for help, yelling: “I’m shot! I’m bleeding heavily!” The intersection is only about a quarter-mile from where, in 1985, the Philadelphia police, trying to end an armed standoff with the black liberation group MOVE, dropped explosives on a house , starting a fire that killed 11 people and destroyed dozens of homes. The shooting Thursday resembled the December 2014 ambush of two New York City officers as they sat in a patrol car in Brooklyn. In that case, Ismaaiyl Brinsley fatally shot Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, then killed himself.

Philadelphia
Attacks on Police
Jesse Hartnett
Edward Archer
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Richard Ross
Pennsylvania


Snowboarding Revolution Rolls On

Abstract: Turin, Italy - SETH WESCOTT was 10 when he first felt the establishment wrath, when he was spit at in a lift line by a man who was apparently blinded in the snow to the inescapable forces of change. He was just a boy on his board, climbing the steepest mountain, the one resistant to upheaval, to what it doesn't recognize or know. "All I wanted to do was to be out there on the mountain and there I was feeling prejudice from adults," Wescott said. "It was disheartening." Now here he is, a 29-year-old United States Olympian, the reigning men's world champion of snowboardcross, a flashy four-person race that makes its Olympic debut here next week. "A good bizarre," Wescott called the sensation of being part of the latest boarder invasion, the outsider suddenly in. "I was part of a group that was the first snowboarders on Aspen Mountain," he said. "To see the sport get to the point where people are putting their little kids right onto a board, to see it as a focus of NBC leading into the Games, it is kind of amazing to me." Does the snowboarders' indisputable transformation of the ski world and the Olympic infiltration of Generation X Games represent success or a sellout? That depends on one's definition of being a rebel. Wescott is from Sugarloaf, Me., and he has known Bode Miller, the American Alpine bad boy from Franconia, N.H., since he was 13. He believes Miller has been unfairly vilified recently, exploited by CBS and "60 Minutes" when the network stretched the bounds of context in the promotion of an interview that touched on Miller's well-advertised drinking habits. "Bode wasn't saying he was going out on the mountain hammered," Wescott said. "He said he was out celebrating after doing something amazing, winning the overall World Cup title, and he had a hangover the next day when he raced. There's a big difference and I thought that was the shame of it all." Miller had to apologize in the face of a potential pre-Olympic marketing meltdown and maybe he was manipulated for a little ratings sizzle, but for a guy who is characterized and even celebrated for being counterculture, it is fair to wonder just what he represents, besides Nike and the rest of his corporate sponsors. I know the area of the White Mountains in which Miller grew up, having had several friends who in the early-to-mid-1970's attended Franconia College, a now-defunct institution that offered an alternative educational environment. Miller lived nearby as a child, in a cabin without basic utilities. Supposedly all grown up, he seems to me to be mimicking or distorting his parents' social values more than practicing them, rebellious as a convenient rationalization for breaking all the rules. The snowboarders are the true ski revolutionaries, and not because of their well-documented penchant for partying, or their lifestyles of the young and restless. They at least made their own choices and wound up changing the system. They were the rebels with a cause. "I was up at the top of the mountain with my acid-washed jeans because I was too cool to wear my ski pants," said Nate Holland, 27, another snowboardcross Olympian, from Sandpoint, Idaho. "The only reason I took up snowboarding was because it was the rebel thing to do." In all snowboarding disciplines, it was never about the big money, at least not until recently. According to Wescott, most snowboarders make a decent living on the pro circuit -- though exceptions to the rule, like the halfpipe star Shaun White, are living large. The women's snowboardcross and halfpipe gold medal contender, the 20-year-old Lindsey Jacobellis, is cashing in on her flowing hair and disarming smile, starring in commercials for Visa, Kellogg's and Dunkin' Donuts. She doesn't recall anyone spitting on her when she was the curly haired blond girl on a snowboard at Stratton Mountain in Vermont, but, she said, "People didn't respect it." Miller will be the headline act in what remains the premier Olympic ski event, the men's downhill, Sunday afternoon. "Bode's a rebel, too," Holland said, graciously. "He's skiing so fast, like a madman." Miller, the rebel of rowdy, nonetheless pales as a practitioner with a purpose in comparison with those boarders who forced their way onto the mountain that belonged to others and turned it into a residential cooperative. Wescott is predicting a grand future for snowboardcross, comparing it favorably to short-track speed skating, the sport that launched Apolo Anton Ohno's celebrity. "More speed, big air," Wescott said. None of these sports is going to challenge the National Football League, usurp the Super Bowl, but there will be no moving off the mountain now for the snowboarders, even if a few harsh critics remain. "Just last week in Aspen, we got on a chair in Aspen and all of a sudden, this old guy is screaming at us -- 'We can't ride with snowboarders up here! You guys don't belong!' " Holland said. Guess he hadn't heard the war was over. The rebels won. "The old-school way of thinking," Holland called it. "We just laughed." Sports of The Times E-mail: hjaraton@nytimes.com

OLYMPIC GAMES (2006)
WINTER GAMES (OLYMPICS)
OLYMPIC GAMES
SNOWBOARDING


Most Carmakers Report Increase in November Sales

Abstract: DETROIT — New-vehicle sales in the United States rose nearly 17 percent in November, setting the stage for the industry to end the year on a high note and enter 2011 with considerable momentum. But one carmaker, Toyota, has been left out of the strong gains. Toyota, still struggling to overcome the damage done to its image by numerous recalls, reported a 3.3 percent decrease in sales last month. Among the 10 largest manufacturers, all but Toyota reported increases of at least 12 percent. All three Detroit companies posted sizable gains last month. Ford’s sales were up 20 percent, General Motors 12.2 percent, and Chrysler 16.7 percent. Toyota is on pace to end the year with its lowest market share since 2005 and to sell the fewest passenger cars since 2003. Its share in November fell to 14.8 percent, from 17.9 percent a year earlier. “They just don’t seem to be able to catch a break,” Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insight at TrueCar.com , which tracks vehicle sales, said. “Toyota has a tough road ahead. They have not been able to take advantage of the recovery this year.” Mr. Toprak said he thinks Toyota’s slow reaction and inability to reassure many consumers after widespread complaints about its vehicles accelerating suddenly, “has hurt them permanently.” Toyota officials attributed last month’s decline to a decision to sell fewer vehicles to businesses and governments that pay discounted rates — known as fleet sales — and a shift in demand toward trucks and away from smaller cars, Toyota’s forte. Robert S. Carter, a Toyota group vice president, noted that the Toyota brand, which he heads, remained the industry’s most popular brand among individual buyers, even though its sales for the year were down. The Toyota Camry sedan is the top-selling car in the United States for the ninth consecutive year, despite a 24 percent decline in November. “Over all, we believe our retail volume is right on track. We’re pleased with the month,” Mr. Carter said on a conference call with reporters. “We just chose not to participate in some of the fleet business that’s out there.” But he conceded that the recalls, totaling more than 10 million vehicles globally this year, have taken a toll, hurting the company’s ability to attract new customers. On Tuesday, Toyota began a “limited service campaign” — short of a full-blown recall — to repair a coolant pump on 650,000 Prius hybrid cars. “I won’t say that the opinion of our brand is where it was 18 months ago,” Mr. Carter said. “But we’re really pleased with the progress that we’re making. Our retention of our current owner body has not wavered one bit.” Toyota has been offering some of its best-ever deals this year in the hopes of drawing in shoppers. Meanwhile, the Detroit automakers have been largely successful in ending their dependence on big discounts, a tactic that helped cause many of their financial troubles. “Without new product to compete with and stripped of its bulletproof quality reputation, Toyota is forced to sell on the deal,” Jessica Caldwell, a senior analyst with Edmunds.com, which provides car-buying advice to consumers, said. “This lack of profitability is a growing concern for dealers.” Ford is on track to outsell Toyota for the first time since 2006 with its sales in 2010 up 16.6 percent. The Ford brand sold 31.3 percent more passenger cars in November than a year ago, compared to an 18 percent decline for the Toyota brand. Ford said it planned to build 11 percent more vehicles in the first quarter of 2011 — 635,000 — than it did a year earlier. Ford’s 20 percent overall increase accounts for sales last year by the Volvo brand, which Ford no longer owns, while sales of its remaining brands were up 24.3 percent. Excluding the brands G.M. closed, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer, and the one it sold, Saab, sales of the brands it still operates were up 21 percent. “Consumers are still cautious,” said Jim Bunnell, a G.M. executive who oversees the company’s dealer network and sales, “but we’re starting to see people show an inclination to come back into dealerships and go back into malls. As we go into 2011, we’re going to continue to see a nice improvement.” Among imports, sales were up 48.2 percent for Kia, 45.2 percent for Hyundai, 26.8 percent for Nissan and 21.1 percent at Honda. The Detroit automakers, all of which have operating profits for three straight quarters, are being helped financially by higher truck sales in recent months. Sales of light trucks, which generally sell at higher prices and generate more profits than cars, were up 24 percent at Ford and Chrysler and 21 percent at G.M. November was the second straight month in which the industry’s seasonally adjusted annualized selling rate was more than 12 million. The rate was below 10 million in parts of 2009 but still far below the 17 million rate in the early 2000s. Analysts expect the industry to sell about 11.5 million vehicles in 2010 and project that 2011 sales could reach 13 million.


For New Mets Manager, Handling Reyes Is a Delicate Balancing Act

Abstract: It was vintage José Reyes : a line-drive single, a stolen base, moving to third on a catcher’s errant throw and scoring on a groundout. As Reyes bounded in from home plate in the first inning Wednesday night, his black jersey and gray pants already covered in dirt, the first person to greet him was the new Mets manager, Jerry Manuel . “I got out of the dugout to ask if he’s all right,” Manuel said afterward with a grin. Manuel was wryly referring to another moment that was vintage Reyes: the fit he threw the previous night when Manuel pulled him from the game in the first inning after Reyes felt a twinge in one of his occasionally balky hamstrings. As Manuel tries to turn the Mets back into something more than expensive underachievers and remove the interim tag that he was given after replacing Willie Randolph on Tuesday, his ability to succeed figures to hinge in large part on how he manages Reyes. That Reyes, the shortstop and leadoff hitter, is the catalyst for the Mets may be an understatement. He is, actually, the embodiment of the team. The usual descriptions of Reyes — plenty of talent, inconsistent, questionable attention span — are often apt adjectives for the Mets, too. And as he has shown during Manuel’s first two games, Reyes is just as likely to wreak havoc in one dugout as the other. “He’s a tremendous talent,” Manuel said after Reyes scored three runs Wednesday in the Mets’ 5-4, 10-inning victory over the Angels, one of the very few games this season in which the Mets rallied late in the game to win. “I think he’s got to take his rightful place as one of the top shortstops in the division,” Manuel said, alluding to Reyes as well as Florida’s Hanley Ramírez and Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins. Ramírez was the National League rookie of the year last season, and Rollins was the league’s most valuable player. Reyes? He was the player who went into a second-half tailspin that contributed to the Mets’ September collapse. Manuel, 54, and Randolph, 53, are products of the same generation. From the start, Randolph seemed to appreciate Reyes’s special value, even if he was far more flamboyant than Randolph had been as a player. He tolerated Reyes’s celebratory antics on the field and in the dugout, made efforts to talk to him in private, but ultimately embarrassed him when he pulled him from a game last July when Reyes failed to run out a ground ball for the second time in four days. In the end, the somewhat restrained Randolph got along with Reyes but never seemed able to establish a special bond. Manuel’s approach to Reyes already appears to be more personal and contemporary than Randolph’s. It may be the difference between formal and familiar — or, in Reyes’s native tongue, tú and usted. When Randolph did criticize Reyes last season, he paused in his remarks, choosing his words cautiously. Manuel seems to have no such filter. Manuel said at his introductory news conference Tuesday that he wanted his players to be “gangsters on the field, ladies on the bus,” descriptions he would later use in regards to Reyes. When he was discussing giving his starters more rest, Manuel said of Reyes: “Last night, Reyes — she acted up. I brought her home with me. She had a day off.” While the comment may have evoked memories of Bill Parcells mocking the toughness of receiver Terry Glenn by referring to him as “she,” Manuel’s comment appeared to be a benevolent stab at humor — with a needle rather than a knife. And that metaphor came up later, when Manuel joked that if Reyes acted out again, as he had in that first game, he’d go “gangster” on him, and would have to cut him with a knife. Through his first two games in charge of the Mets, it has been hard not to notice how involved Manuel has been with Reyes. When he went out to stretch with the team before his managerial debut, he took a spot near Reyes, first baseman Carlos Delgado and second baseman Luis Castillo, sharing jokes with all of them. Not long after that, Manuel was back in the clubhouse, talking with Reyes after that first-inning tantrum, when Reyes flung his helmet and shouted as he left the field. A few innings later, Reyes returned to the bench, where he sat and talked some more with Manuel. “I think any time you step into this position, you have to be ready to react and do what you think is right,” said Manuel, who praised Reyes’s attitude while calling his behavior unacceptable. “As long as I’m doing that, yeah, it might take a while to get through, but as long as you’re doing the right thing, I think everything will be O.K.” The tantrum was more or less shrugged off in the clubhouse, in part because Reyes apologized. But his outburst did give some veterans some pause. “I feel bad for Jerry,” catcher Brian Schneider said Wednesday. “By no means should you do that out in the open like that. “If you do anything like that you always do it inside, where the cameras aren’t on you,” Schneider added. “But to do it in the open, I don’t agree with it. It put Jerry in a bad position. “But I don’t think there will be any grudges. José realizes what he did.” Time will tell, of course. But when it was suggested that Manuel might have been fortunate to have such a moment with Reyes less than an inning into his reign, the manager was not so sure. “I wasn’t hoping that something like that would set a precedent at all,” Manuel said. “I looked up and it was like, Oh, lord, here we go.”

New York Mets
Reyes Jose
Manuel Jerry
Baseball


Frank Piasecki, a Pioneer in Helicopters, Is Dead at 88

Abstract: Frank Piasecki, an inventor of one of the first helicopters and the first to develop a tandem-rotor helicopter — the so-called Flying Banana — capable of carrying large cargo loads or troops into combat, died Monday at his home in Haverford, Pa. He was 88. The cause was a heart attack, his son John said. In the early 1940s, Mr. Piasecki developed the PV-2, a small single-seat helicopter with a three-blade rotor capable of a top speed of about 25 miles per hour. When the PV-2 took off from a field outside Philadelphia on April 11, 1943, with Mr. Piasecki at the controls, he became the second successful American helicopter engineer. (Earlier models had been designed in France and Germany.) “He was one of the three primary progenitors of the American helicopter industry,” Roger Connor, curator of vertical flight at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum , said in an interview on Wednesday. “One is Igor Sikorsky, who developed the modern helicopter and placed it in mass production. Another is Arthur Young, who built the first commercially sold helicopter. And the third was Piasecki.” That first flight by Mr. Piasecki was, in a way, more successful than intended. When he stepped into the cockpit, Mr. Piasecki had only 14 hours of flight experience, in a small plane, a Piper Cub. The PV-2 was tethered to the ground by a clothes line and was supposed to rise only a foot or two. “The line broke,” Mr. Connor said, “and he was free-flying this totally untried aircraft with no training.” Soon after, with about 10 hours of helicopter flight experience, Mr. Piasecki attached the PV-2 — tail first, and not on a trailer — to the back of his Studebaker and drove to Washington to demonstrate its capabilities to War Department officials. But the helicopter wheels had no bearings and rapidly heated. “He had to stop the car every 10 to 15 minutes and splash some water to cool them off,” Mr. Connor said. “One time, he had to hop a fence to get some water and was chased by a bull.” The demonstration was successful, and soon Mr. Piasecki’s company, PV Engineering Forum, which he started in 1940 with Harold Venzie, was receiving government contracts. That led, in 1945, to Mr. Piasecki’s major breakthrough: the tandem-rotor XHRP-X transport helicopter. While Sikorsky was the first American to develop a practical helicopter, his early designs had only one engine beneath a single rotor in front; any additional load to the rear could throw it off balance. Mr. Piasecki’s XHRP-X had two rotors, one in front and a higher one in the rear. It was called the Flying Banana because of the bend in its fuselage. At just under 48 feet long with rotor diameters of 41 feet, the XHRP-X was far larger than the early Sikorsky helicopters. By today’s standard, it was small, but at the time it was significant advance. It could carry up to 6,500 pounds of cargo, or about 10 soldiers. Today, the largest tandem-rotor helicopter, the Chinook, can carry up to 30,000 pounds or 44 passengers. In 1946, the company’s name was changed to the Piasecki Helicopter Corporation, which later became the Rotocraft Division of the Boeing Corporation. In 1955, Mr. Piasecki formed the Piasecki Aircraft Corporation, in Philadelphia. By then, the company was challenging Sikorsky as the predominant manufacturer of military helicopters. An airplane “must have landing fields,” Mr. Piasecki told The Saturday Evening Post in 1957. “A truck needs roads; a train has to have tracks. Even a ship needs wharves and channels. But a helicopter, all a helicopter needs is a clearing.” Mr. Piasecki’s company suffered a serious blow on July 1, 1986, when one of his inventions, the Helistat, crashed in Lakehurst, N.J. The Helistat was a 343-foot-long, 1-million-cubic-foot Dacron bag — about five times the volume of a Goodyear blimp — attached by an aluminum frame to four helicopters. Designed for the United States Forest Service, it was intended to transport 25 tons of lumber. The crash, a half mile from the site of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, killed one of the pilots. Frank Nicholas Piasecki was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 25, 1919, one of two sons of Nikodem and Emilia Lotocki Piasecki, immigrants from Poland. His father was a tailor. Besides his son John, Mr. Piasecki is survived by his wife of 49 years, the former Vivian O’Gara Weyerhaeuser; two daughters: Lynn Cunningham and Nicole Heymann; four other sons, Frederick, Frank, Michael and Gregory; and 13 grandchildren. As a boy, Mr. Piasecki was assembled dozens of model airplanes. In his teens, he worked for a company in Philadelphia that made autogyros, a predecessor of the helicopter that looked like an airplane with a rotor on top. After studying mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Piasecki transferred to New York University where he received a bachelor of science degree in 1940. In the fall of 1940, with Mr. Venzie and several other friends from the University of Pennsylvania, he started the PV Engineering Forum. They avoided using the word “helicopter” in its name, he said, because “people would have laughed.” There was another first in Mr. Piasecki’s career. On Oct. 20, 1943, after his arrival in Washington to demonstrate the PV-2 to the military, an inspector from the Civil Aeronautics Authority (forerunner to the Federal Aviation Administration) asked to see his commercial pilot’s license. Mr. Piasecki did not have one, and he received the first helicopter license issued to someone who did not already have a license to fly a fixed-wing aircraft.

Helicopters
Engineering and Engineers
Piasecki Frank
Deaths (Obituaries)
National Air and Space Museum


Quake Rattles the Los Angeles Area

Abstract: LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9 — An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.6 rattled the Los Angeles area on Thursday, shaking many people out of bed and causing the temporary closing of a bridge after chunks of concrete came loose. The quake, which hit at 12:58 a.m., caused no major damage. The bridge, known as the Whites Canyon Road bridge, in Santa Clarita, was closed about 2:30 a.m. after a sheriff’s deputy noticed the loose concrete in a routine postearthquake inspection. It reopened at noon after engineers concluded that the damage was cosmetic, said Gail Ortiz, a spokeswoman for the city of Santa Clarita. The concrete came from joints designed to expand when distressed, Ms. Ortiz said. She said inspectors were on heightened alert after an Interstate highway bridge collapsed on Aug. 1 in Minneapolis. “It is earthquake retrofitted,” Ms. Ortiz said of the Santa Clarita bridge, which was built in 1993. “It looks a little scary. It’s like a tree that bends in the wind. But that’s what the joints are supposed to do.” The quake’s epicenter was three miles northwest of the Chatsworth section of Los Angeles and seven miles northwest of the Northridge section, where an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude killed more than 60 people in 1994. Thursday’s quake had three minor aftershocks, the United States Geological Survey said.


Lulz Security Says It Hacked Into Arizona Data

Abstract: Lulz Security, a group of hackers who have claimed responsibility for a number of recent online data attacks, said Thursday that it had successfully breached the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s internal servers, gaining access to hundreds of law enforcement documents, police profiles and e-mails. The group posted a huge log of data it said it had obtained, releasing them on public file-sharing Web sites and a link via its Twitter account. Lulz Security said in a news release that it had chosen to attack Arizona law enforcement because it the group is opposed to the state’s law against illegal immigration . A Department of Public Safety spokesman, Capt. Steve Harrison, said the biggest worry was the release of personal information about officers, which could endanger their safety. He said the documents appeared to be authentic but were sensitive, not confidential. The content of the documents obtained by Lulz Security include what appear to be the names, addresses and phone numbers of Arizona law enforcement officials. The data also covers hundreds of documents described as “not for public distribution.” Some of the documents offer instructions and manuals for interrogating individuals who have been arrested. The documents also include intelligence the department has collected about gangs in Arizona and Mexico.. Lulz Security also said it planned to release “more classified documents and embarrassing personal details of military and law enforcement” in the coming weeks. In the last several months Lulz Security has attacked a number of government and private Web sites, including Sony, the Senate’s Web servers and the Central Intelligence Agency’s Web site.

Hackers (Computers)
Computers and the Internet
Lulz Security
Arizona
Police