‘Exposure,’ the Story of a British Whistle-Blower in Japan

Abstract: THE 2011 financial scandal at the Olympus Corporation , the big Japanese maker of optical equipment, was a head-shaking spectacle. It was rare enough that a Tokyo-based company had elevated Michael Woodford, a Westerner who spoke no Japanese, to its presidency. But when Mr. Woodford discovered loss-hiding shenanigans and turned whistle-blower, he set off a tumult unlike anything that the cosseted world of Japanese business had quite seen. Barely a year later, Mr. Woodford, a Briton who spent his career rising through Olympus’s ranks, has produced a memoir of the scandal, “Exposure — Inside the Olympus Scandal : How I Went From C.E.O. to Whistle-Blower” (Portfolio, $27.95). One could be forgiven for meager expectations. This book was written quickly, and by a chief executive with no professional writing experience and no co-author. Yet “Exposure” is a cut above many C.E.O. memoirs, and is at least equal to most business-scandal books you are likely to find. It is also a harsh indictment of the clubby and unquestioning ways that still flourish in some quarters of the Japanese corporate world. At its best, especially in the first half of the book, Mr. Woodford’s story is as suspenseful as a minor John Grisham novel. It begins last year, barely four months after his elevation to president when, after a long day of meetings at Olympus’s European headquarters in Hamburg, he opens an e-mail sent by one of his aides in Tokyo. It contains an article from a Japanese business magazine called Facta, contending that Olympus had been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on questionable and money-losing acquisitions. When Mr. Woodford rushes back to Tokyo, he expects to find the company in an uproar. What he finds instead is business as usual. He asks two executives if they have seen the article. Yes, they acknowledge, they have. Then why, he asks, hadn’t they told him about it sooner? Because Olympus’s chairman, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, told them not to, they answer. When Mr. Woodford confronts the imperious Mr. Kikukawa about the matter, Mr. Kikukawa brushes off the whole matter as insignificant and unworthy of his attention. Though the two men had been close, Mr. Woodford paints a devastating portrait of Mr. Kikukawa as vainglorious and ignorant of product details. “While it was often patently obvious he didn’t understand what he was talking about, my colleagues never dared expose this,” he writes. “I quickly learned that no one ever asked why the emperor wasn’t wearing clothes.” When the two men were photographed together for a corporate portrait, Mr. Kikukawa stood on a box to minimize the obvious height differential. It turns out that no one at Olympus wants to explain to Mr. Woodford the first thing about the acquisitions in question, much less dig into the Facta allegations. Alarmed, Mr. Woodford brings in Ernst & Young to investigate. At a subsequent board meeting, one Japanese director criticizes him about bringing “outsiders” in. Mr. Woodford writes: “His message was clear to me: Olympus was a family, and families require loyalty.” The author adds: “It reminded me of the speech Michael Corleone delivered to his hapless brother Fredo when he disagreed with him in front of the Las Vegas crowd in ‘The Godfather.’ ” Three days later, a nattily dressed Mr. Kikukawa calls another board meeting, at which point Mr. Woodford is fired. “I stared at Kikukawa: at the cut of his expensive suit, at the precision of the knot in that silk tie, at the curt, pinched smile that played beneath his nose,” the author writes. “He struck me as a ludicrous figure, and so delusional. He resembled little more than the captain of a sinking ship who believed that by throwing out the dead weight, his vessel would suddenly right itself and resume its calm drift toward the horizon.” Mr. Woodford is escorted from the building, at which point he decides to go public, igniting a storm of controversy. He holds news conferences and appears on news programs in New York, London and Tokyo, coming away with a new appreciation for the Fourth Estate. The Olympus board tries to fight back, and here one sees vividly the ways that some sectors of corporate Japan are still firmly mired in the last century — well, make that the 19th century. In such circles, executives may have little sense of how transparency has transformed international business. The books loses much of its energy about two-thirds of the way through, when the $1.7 billion cover-up is finally and fully explained; after that, the writing is on the wall. It turns out that after a currency devaluation in the 1980s, Olympus, like any number of Japanese corporations, found ways to hide the resulting losses. Looking to right itself, Olympus engaged in risky derivative trades that its senior executives barely understood, leading to still larger losses. Eventually, a complex scheme was devised to inflate the purchase price of three nonsensical acquisitions; the extra money was then channeled back to Olympus — in one case, via a titanic $687 million “advisory fee” — erasing the hidden losses. This fall, Mr. Kikukawa and two other former executives pleaded guilty over charges related to the accounting cover-up. MR. WOODFORD has emerged as a hero, named by at least one British newspaper as its 2011 executive of the year. And rightly so. His gift for candor, so evident as a whistle-blower, serves him well as a memoirist. He acknowledges that at the depths of the scandal, he took to self-medicating with alcohol; he wakes up with a bad hangover more than once in this book’s pages. About the worst one can say about “Exposure” is that Mr. Woodford can come off as preachy and a tad self-righteous at times. But after all that Olympus and its board put him through, it’s probably fair to say he deserves a bit of time on his soapbox.

Woodford Michael C
Olympus Corp
Kikukawa Tsuyoshi
Exposure (Book)
Japan
Books and Literature


ESPN Rejects CBS Bid to Share Vitale

Abstract: Few people are as identified with a sport as much as Dick Vitale, a connection forged by nearly 27 years of calling college basketball games at a very high volume, complemented by an idiosyncratic hoops lexicon and a shiny head. But when his sport peaks during the N.C.A.A. men's tournament, he is not at a regional site calling a game, but in an ESPN studio breathlessly dissecting bracketology. He has, in fact, never announced an N.C.A.A. tournament game. CBS Sports wanted to remedy that omission by borrowing him for one or two games next week, but in late February, ESPN rejected the bid to share him. Vitale is deemed indispensable by ESPN, even if CBS would have let him file reports to ESPN from the games' locations. "Vitale is our signature voice, and not to have him here would be a mistake," said Norby Williamson, an ESPN executive vice president, citing Vitale's ubiquitous role on various ESPN programs and ESPN.com. "What he provides here you just cannot replicate, with his energy, his enthusiasm and his knowledge. Our first obligation is to our viewers." Vitale said yesterday that he was not bothered by ESPN's decision. "Early in my career, I might have been, but I'm 66 years old, I act 12, and whatever my bosses want, I'll do it," he said, adding, "I'm on so much, on so many shows, that I'm on the air more than the guys who do the games." Sean McManus, the president of CBS News and Sports, said, "I think it would have been a great showcase for the tournament, ESPN, CBS and, especially, Dick Vitale."

ESPN
CBS INC
VITALE DICK
NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
TELEVISION
BASKETBALL


Few Options For a Lagging T-Mobile

Abstract: T-Mobile USA, the weaker partner in the now-collapsed proposed merger with AT&T, has few good options to thrive in the competitive wireless market in the United States. After AT&T said on Monday that it would abandon its $39 billion proposal to buy the smaller wireless carrier, T-Mobile was at a loss to explain what its strategy will be. “There’s no Plan B,” said Andreas Fuchs, a spokesman for Deutsche Telekom, the German telecommunications company that owns and operates T-Mobile. “We’re back at the starting point.” Industry analysts also could not predict a course for the company. “T-Mobile is probably going to be profoundly damaged by this,” said Tero Kuittinen, a senior analyst at M.G.I. Research. “They should have done some strategic rethinking instead of chasing this mirage, this dream of a merger. Now they’ve lost a lot of time.” The merger had been seen as a last-ditch effort to salvage T-Mobile’s weak finances and dwindling pool of subscribers, many of whom were jumping to the larger carriers Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint. The deal dissolved after government regulators raised antitrust concerns and skepticism over the benefits of the merger . Some analysts thought that T-Mobile might pursue a partnership with another wireless carrier, or even the satellite TV operator Dish, which had expressed interest if the deal with AT&T did not go through. Mr. Fuchs declined to comment on speculation about alliances with a new partner in the United States. Short of another merger, though, T-Mobile does not have a lot of attractive options, analysts said. “Both companies will have to go back and lick their respective wounds and consider their options,” said Craig Moffett, a research analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. T-Mobile is in a precarious position because it has not yet begun to significantly deploy its infrastructure for a speedy fourth-generation, or 4G, network. That tardiness could cause it to slide even further behind the three larger competitors. The carrier is already far behind. This year so far, while both AT&T and Verizon have each added more than five million wireless subscribers, T-Mobile lost 23,000 customers, according to Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile researcher and analyst. Even Sprint, which has struggled against AT&T and Verizon, added almost 3.5 million wireless customers during the first three quarters of the year. Even without a strong 4G network, T-Mobile’s spectrum is still a valuable asset. The company could negotiate with Sprint to share its 4G infrastructure. In the United States, carriers have historically not done that, but it is a common practice in other countries, like China, where AT&T recently agreed to share a cell network with China Telecom. Recent upgrades to Sprint’s network, which is not compatible with T-Mobile’s infrastructure, have been designed to help Sprint’s towers host other spectrum bands. That could help bridge the technical incompatibility issues between Sprint and T-Mobile. “Looking forward, the problems that existed before that would prevent Sprint and T-Mobile from working together are less problematic now, given Sprint’s new network architecture,” said Charles Golvin, a wireless analyst at Forrester Research. “And devices will increasingly be able to at least have the technology in place to access both networks.” Other analysts are skeptical. Mr. Moffett, the Bernstein analyst, pointed out that in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, René Obermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Telekom, made it clear that he was still actively looking for a way to withdraw the company’s foothold in the United States. Even if T-Mobile were to try a partnership with a candidate like Sprint, Mr. Moffett said, it is unlikely that it would get a green light, given the obstacles that AT&T faced while trying to get approval from the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. “It’s unlikely that T-Mobile would enter into another merger in the U.S.,” Mr. Moffett said, adding that the Justice Department “wants four competitors in this market, not three.” A few analysts say that a bid from a technology company like Google, which recently announced plans to buy Motorola Mobility, or Facebook, which works closely with Skype, or even Amazon could help those companies better leverage sales of their own devices and communication services. But they are likely “out of the question,” said Mark Winther, group vice president of telecommunications analysis at IDC, a research firm. He thinks they would be unlikely to invest in a beleaguered company caught in the middle of an extremely tough business. “At some point the government’s going to have to say, what we’re left with are two relatively strong players, AT&T and Verizon, and two really weak players — and one really, really weak player is T-Mobile,” Mr. Winther said. “Does the government really want that?” Spectrum is increasingly crucial to a network’s quality and service, given the growing appetite among consumers for smartphones and tablets and the bandwidth-guzzling applications and services that run on them. AT&T’s chief rival, Verizon, is rapidly expanding its 4G network known as L.T.E. and recently struck a $3.6 billion deal with several cable companies for wireless spectrum . The deal has still not received government approval. As a condition of the dissolution of the T-Mobile deal, AT&T will pay Deutsche Telekom a $3 billion cash payment, as well as transfer $1 billion in wireless equipment to the smaller carrier. But that compensation is not significant enough to finance the development of a next-generation wireless network, analysts say, at least not over the long term. T-Mobile will gain some access to AT&T’s network as part of a seven-year roaming agreement that is also a condition of the breakup, but T-Mobile is likely to need more bandwidth than that to support the growing demands of consumers on its network. “With the spectrum we’re getting, we have a better chance of expanding the network in many markets,” Mr. Obermann said during the conference call with reporters. “That is not a final solution. In the long term, we need more spectrum and network capacity. We are working on that.” “Probably the only people rejoicing at the news are the current T-Mobile customers,” said Mr. Golvin. “Most of them weren’t happy about being pushed onto AT&T.” But even that celebratory period might be short-lived, he said. “If T-Mobile finds itself unable to invest in the network, that leads to a decline in service for customers and no one is happy,” he said.

T-Mobile
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Wireless Communications
AT&T Inc. (AT&T T-Mobile Deal)
Deutsche Telekom AG
Cellular Telephones
AT&T Inc
DISH Network Corporation


Arizona: Prosecution of Border Smuggling Is Frozen

Abstract: Maricopa County halted prosecutions of both smugglers and those being smuggled on Monday, after Judge Robert Broomfield of Federal District Court ruled Friday that a 2005 state law does not allow Sheriff Joe Arpaio or county prosecutors to charge immigrants with conspiracy to smuggle themselves across the border. He said the policy criminalizes actions that federal law treats as a civil matter. The county attorney, Bill Montgomery, said the judge’s order does not specifically bar prosecutions of smugglers, but he said he cannot ethically allow any prosecutions because the judge’s reasoning may have broader implications. A lawyer for the county said it would ask the judge to clarify the scope of his ruling while it considers whether to appeal.

Smuggling
Illegal Immigration
Joseph M Arpaio
Maricopa County AZ


Walgreen Withdraws Forecasts for 2016

Abstract: Walgreen, the largest drugstore operator in the United States, withdrew its profit and revenue forecasts for 2016, saying it had yet to work out aspects of its planned acquisition of the European drug retailer Alliance Boots. Walgreen, which bought 45 percent of Alliance Boots in 2012, said it would update investors by late July or early August. The company, whose shares fell as much as 2.7 percent on Tuesday, also reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit because of a slowdown in the introduction of high-margin generic drugs and lower reimbursement by insurers. Helped by a lower tax rate, Walgreen’s net income rose about 16 percent to $722 million, or 75 cents a share, in the quarter that ended May 31, from $624 million, or 65 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the company earned 91 cents a share, falling short of the average analyst estimate of 94 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 12 Afghan Army Recruits on Bus

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck a bus of army recruits in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens, officials said on Monday. The Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement that all those killed in the attack, at 4 p.m. in the Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar Province, were army recruits, and that at least 26 people were wounded. Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar, put the number of injured at 38. “The bus was coming to Kabul from Jalalabad city when a bomber riding a Zarang three-wheeler blew himself up,” the Defense Ministry statement said. The Afghan Army, which has struggled with casualties and attrition as it has taken the combat lead after NATO’s drawdown, recruits heavily in the east and north of the country. The army and the police lost a combined total of about 6,000 men in 2015, nearly half of those casualties coming in the southern province of Helmand, which is the country’s largest province both in terms of territory and opium production. A lack of alternative job opportunities has kept young Afghan men coming to the security forces for the entry-level salary of roughly $200 a month, despite a grim picture of what they are signing up for. While no group has taken responsibility for Monday’s attack, the targeting of the recruitment centers has long been a Taliban strategy. A suicide attack near the police academy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, in August killed more than 20 people. And in northern Kunduz Province in 2011, a Taliban bombing outside an army center left 36 people dead and 40 others wounded. The attack on Monday came just a few hours after yet another deadly bombing in Kabul, in which at least two people were killed and seven wounded after a magnetic bomb exploded on an Education Ministry commuter bus. That bombing happened early in the morning, soon after staff members had left the suburb of Bagrami for the ministry’s headquarters in the city. “In the attack on our commuter bus, two of our colleagues were martyred and seven others wounded,” said Kabir Haqmal, head of communication and information at the Education Ministry. “The Education Ministry is neither a political nor military organization,” Mr. Haqmal said. “We educate everyone’s child, so why were we targeted?”

Terrorism
Afghan National Army
Nangarhar Province
Afghanistan War


25 Plead Not Guilty in Standoff at the Oregon Wildlife Refuge

Abstract: PORTLAND, Ore. — Defendants charged with leading an armed occupation at a federal wildlife refuge in rural southeastern Oregon this year formally pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in a hearing here at Federal District Court, saying little and sitting obediently — a stark contrast to the days when they drew world attention by broadcasting their view that the United States government had illegally usurped lands across the West. The 25 men and women face up to six years in prison on charges that they impeded federal government employees from performing their duties in occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in a 40-day standoff. At a pretrial hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors in Federal District Court said they still intended to file more charges based on evidence compiled after the last occupation holdouts surrendered earlier this month. “The government anticipates that the discovery issues in defendants’ case will be some of the most complicated in the history of the district,” prosecutors said in a filing with the court earlier this week. Supporters of the defendants have said the trial, which could start as early as mid-April, would be another venue for articulating the occupiers’ anti-government message. But at Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Anna J. Brown, made it clear that she would be in charge, and that grandstanding or delaying would not be tolerated. When an assistant United States attorney on the case, Ethan D. Knight, told the court that 90 days of further work lay ahead in marshaling the new evidence, she told him flatly that that was too long. “I do not intend to have this matter delayed,” Judge Brown said, adding, “Ninety days is beyond belief.” The occupation group’s leader, Ammon Bundy — the lead defendant in the case — and his brother Ryan were arrested in January and the occupation itself ended peacefully on Feb. 11. One occupier, LaVoy Finicum , was shot and killed after he tried to run a police blockade during an arrest operation and reached for a weapon, according to the F.B.I.’s account. The Bundy brothers’ father, Cliven — who is also viewed as a leader among people in Western states who object to government land ownership — was arrested earlier this month and faces separate charges in Nevada related to a dispute with the authorities there in 2014 over his grazing his cattle on public land without paying fees. In recent weeks, Bundy supporters and allies have said they hoped to put a focus on government power at the occupation trial. But Judge Brown clearly conveyed at Wednesday’s 90-minute hearing that she was in charge, not the lawyers for either side — or the defendants themselves. When Ammon Bundy stood up at one point, for example, hoping to personally address the judge on a question, she snapped him back in place and told him to sit down. He meekly complied. When she asked the defense lawyers if they had yet received any evidence from the prosecution — so-called discovery materials — and was told no, Judge Brown turned her gaze back on the prosecution team. “I need to know when, and I need to know now,” she said, demanding a date when they could provide the materials. When one of the assistant United States attorneys told her 14 days, she snapped at him, too. “Can you do it in 10?” she said. She then ordered prosecution to comply by a week from Friday. “They’ve been in custody for weeks,” she said, referring to the defendants. “They need to get information.” The prosecutors said their evidence was sprawling and complicated. It includes social media posts and videos taken during the occupation, as well as physical materials gathered by F.B.I. teams after the occupation ended. Defense lawyers, who have pressed for access to the refuge site, will be allowed to go on Thursday and Friday, under rules that were also discussed at Wednesday’s hearing. But when some suggested that the terms of the visit were too constrictive, the judge called their argument out of order and hypothetical because the visits had not even taken place. “You can’t show any harm yet,” Judge Brown said. Several defendants did try to speak out during the hearing, including Jason Patrick, who was asked by the judge if he understood his rights. “I understand I have no rights at all,” he responded. “You’re the federal government, you’re going to do whatever you want.” Judge Brown let the comment go by. But when one defense lawyer said she feared that the mechanisms of coordination among the separate cases were problematic, the judge told the lawyers that they would just have to make it work. “You’re going to figure it out,” she said.

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
Federal lands
Civil Unrest
FBI
Ammon Bundy
Ryan Bundy
LaVoy Finicum
Anna J. Brown


Pacers Star Sustained Concussion

Abstract: MIAMI — The long gap between games in the Eastern Conference finals could turn out to benefit the Indiana Pacers, whose top player — guard Paul George — was found Wednesday to have a concussion that will force him to complete several N.B.A.-mandated procedures before he can return to the court. The series between the Pacers and the Miami Heat, now tied at a game apiece, does not resume until Saturday night in Miami. George was injured halfway through the fourth quarter of Miami’s 87-83 Game 2 victory Tuesday in Indianapolis. He poked the ball away from Dwyane Wade of the Heat but could not keep control and wound up tumbling face-first to the court. Wade, also going for the ball, struck the back of George’s head with his left knee and then appeared to scrape George’s head with his right leg as he also fell to the court. George remained down for a few moments but played the remainder of the game. He said afterward that he “blacked out” on the play, something that the Pacers said was not relayed to their medical staff right after the play. “George exhibited no symptoms of a concussion and, in response to questions from the Pacers’ medical staff, he denied dizziness, nausea, and issues with his vision,” the Pacers said Wednesday in addressing why he was allowed to stay in the game. But after George’s comment following the game, the Pacers evaluated him again Wednesday morning and concluded he had sustained a concussion. “This case illustrates that concussion evaluation is an ongoing process, and manifestations of the injury may not always present immediately,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, the director of the league’s concussion program. Last season, Pacers guard George Hill was struck in the head by the Knicks’ Tyson Chandler in the first quarter of Game 4 of the Eastern semifinals. As in the case of George, the injury was not immediately detected, and Hill ended up playing all of Game 4, scoring 26 points. He then sat out Game 5. Under the league’s concussion policy, instituted in December 2011, a player who exhibits concussion symptoms cannot return to action until he is symptom-free and passes a battery of tests. On Wednesday, the N.B.A. fined Indiana’s Lance Stephenson $5,000 for flopping in Game 2. Stephenson was chasing LeBron James as James dribbled up the court in the third quarter of Tuesday’s game. Stephenson lightly bumped into James, then fell backward to the court feigning a real collision. Stephenson was also fined in last year’s series against the Heat, the first year the N.B.A. began penalizing players for the act of exaggerating contact to fool referees into calling fouls.


Where Candy Machines Are Eyed With Suspicion

Abstract: DOVER, N.J., Oct. 11 — Frank Poolas, a burly ex-marine who has been an alderman here for eight years, simply did what many of his fellow politicians have done since Sept. 11: He raised the specter of terrorism. Specifically, he warned of the hidden dangers lurking in gum balls and other loose candy dispensed by coin-operated vending machines. The machines, he said at a City Council meeting last month, were vulnerable, and “in times like these,” they might be used for nefarious purposes. But on Thursday, after his concerns were publicized in an article in The Star-Ledger of Newark, Mr. Poolas spent much of the afternoon explaining — or some might say, back-pedaling. He was not, he told the reporters and photographers who assembled in this northern New Jersey town, really all that concerned that candy posed a terrorist threat. “Our main concern was health. Period,” Mr. Poolas said, explaining why he and some colleagues started a project six months ago to inspect all of the town’s candy and gum vending machines to make sure they were properly licensed. Sure, he had mentioned terrorism, Mr. Poolas said, but only as a “worst-case scenario.” Mr. Poolas and the town’s mayor, James P. Dodd, who joined him in an impromptu press conference, explained that the idea for the project came after Mr. Poolas noticed unlicensed pinball machines in a store. Then they found 96 candy machines that had licenses and 103 that did not. For the safety of residents, Mr. Poolas said, “we felt there should be accountability.” In the Star-Ledger article, Mr. Poolas was quoted as saying, “Someone who wanted to do harm surely could” by tampering with the vending machines. Mr. Dodd was also quoted in the article. “It would be very easy for someone to put poison in one of these coin-operated devices that distribute candy to children,” he said. All in all, it was a jarring day for this town of 18,000, which sits on the Rockaway River. It is a former industrial town, where old brick buildings stand out against the flat architecture of the 1970s, and most of the residents are Hispanic. There are Mexican restaurants everywhere. And candy machines. By the early afternoon, news trucks had started appearing on the town’s streets, and TV cameras were filming old-fashioned glass-globed gum machines in stores. By 2 p.m., Mr. Poolas, a tavern keeper, and Mr. Dodd, an entrepreneur, had had enough, and they called the reporters and cameramen into a room that doubles as the municipal court house. Meanwhile, nearly a dozen people who had appointments in court had to wait, and by the end of the afternoon, some were not happy about it. They included Keesha Faines and her husband, Garrick Faines. “That was silly,” she said of the press conference. Mr. Faines said he was there to contest a fine on behalf of his brother, who is now dead. There were varied reactions in the town to the inspection program. Raymond Danon, the longtime owner of Danon’s Auto Parts on East Blackwell Avenue, said state health inspectors had removed five of his candy machines last year. And Mr. Danon did not entirely dismiss the idea that terrorists could use the machines to their advantage. “Anything is possible,” he said, adding that he had started to feed his Siamese cats fresh food because of poisoning fears. Mr. Danon’s store now has new candy machines, in sight of a door with a window etched with a bucking stallion. Other residents said there were more important things for town officials to spend their time on. Maria Barrera, a sales associate at Towers Realtors, on North Sussex Street, said that the housing market in Dover was collapsing. “There were 99 houses in foreclosure here last week,” Ms. Barrera said. Her boss, Daniela Diaz, complained that overzealous housing inspectors were driving many residents out of town. Meanwhile, she said, no one had ever asked for a licensing fee for the gum machine they had had in their office for the last two months. Reached a few hours after the press conference, Mr. Poolas told a reporter he was happy to talk but would tape the conversation, to prevent any further misunderstandings. Mr. Poolas, who owns a tavern called At the Hop, said he has an M & M machine in his restaurant, but it is free, and so he has not had to license it. He said that he did not regret what he had said, but that if he were doing it again, he would probably not use the word "terrorism." “It was all blown out proportion,” Mr. Poolas said. “The next thing you knew, they were invading Dover.”


The Reinvention of Silk

Abstract: As some silk researchers see it, if spiders were gregarious vegetarians , the world might be a different place. For spiders are nature’s master silk makers, and over millions of years of evolution have developed silks that could be useful to people — from sticky toothpastelike mush to strong and stretchy draglines. “There’s not just one kind of material we’re talking about,” said Cheryl Hayashi, who studies the evolutionary genetics of spider silk at the University of California, Riverside. “You can look in nature, and there are a lot of solutions already made. You want a glue? There’s a silk that’s already a glue.” For years there has been talk of the bright promise of spider silk: that it might one day be used to make cables that are stronger than those of steel, for example, or bulletproof vests that are more effective than those made of Kevlar. There has been a big fly in the ointment, however: spiders cannot spin enough of the stuff. Although a typical spider can produce five types of silk, it does not make much of any of them. Obtaining commercial quantities is a practical impossibility — spiders are loners and require a diet of live insects; some are cannibals. In other words, spider ranching is out of the question. Researchers have worked to overcome this fundamental limitation by trying to unlock the secrets of the spider’s silk-making abilities so silk could be made in the laboratory, or by genetically transferring those abilities to other organisms that could produce silk in quantity. But so far the materials produced lack the full strength, elasticity and other qualities of the real thing. Some scientists are making an end run around the spider problem and working on reinventing the one silk that is plentiful — that of silkworms. They are reconstituting it to make materials that have the potential to go far beyond the dream of bulletproof vests. Among these researchers are David Kaplan and others at Tufts University, whose creations have potential applications in medicine and other fields. “Here’s a material that’s been around for 5,000 years and used in sutures for about that long,” Dr. Kaplan said. “Yet there’s this untapped territory.” Dr. Kaplan’s group and colleagues at the University of Illinois and University of Pennsylvania have recently produced electrode arrays, for example, that are printed on flexible, degradable films of silk. The arrays — so thin they can conform to the nooks and crannies of the surface of the brain — may one day be used to treat epilepsy or other conditions without producing the scarring that larger implanted electrodes do. For centuries, beginning in China, commercial silk has been produced by cultivating silkworms — the larvae of a moth, Bombyx mori — which, unlike spiders, are content to loll about cheek by jowl, munching on mulberry leaves, spinning the material in quantities large enough to be harvested. “The advantage of silkworms is that they’re easy to grow,” Dr. Hayashi said. “They’re vegetarians. And they produce silk conveniently in this cocoon.” “But if you look at a silkworm, it only has one kind of spinneret,” she added. “Only one kind of fiber can come out of it. Spiders have this whole toolbox.” Efforts to make analogues of spider silks, however, have resulted in materials that are not much different from other polymers, said David Porter, a scientist at the University of Sheffield in England who works with a group at Oxford that studies the biology of silk making. “The consensus is that almost anybody can make a reasonable silk,” Dr. Porter said. “But you really can’t differentiate it from a good nylon.” “To differentiate the natural product, really you’ve got to get the advantages that nature builds in,” he added. Silk is a fibrous protein, produced in glands within the spider or silkworm and some insects. What these creatures do is something no laboratory has been able to achieve: control the chemistry so exquisitely that the silk, which is a liquid inside the organism, becomes a solid upon leaving it. Chief among the advantages of natural silk is the way the proteins are organized. They are folded in complex ways that help give each silk its unique properties. Scientists have not been able to replicate that intricate folding. “We’re still not getting at the complexity of what’s going on in inside an individual spider,” Dr. Hayashi said. “There’s no lab anywhere in the world where somebody has an artificial silk gland.” Producing spider-silk proteins in other organisms — bacteria, goats, plants and, most recently, silkworms themselves are among those that have been genetically engineered — has limitations because the process of reconstituting the proteins ruins any folding pattern. “As soon as you extract the silk, you basically randomize the protein structure,” Dr. Porter said. “You destroy all the capacity of that material to do what it wants.” At Tufts, Dr. Kaplan thinks that eventually, genetically modified plants will produce useful spider-based silk that could be harvested like cotton. Until then, however, he is working with reconstituted silkworm silk, making novel films and other materials. Dr. Kaplan has been researching silk for 21 years — “sad but true,” he joked — and spent much of the first decade learning about the fundamental mechanisms by which silk assembles. “We learned how important water is,” he said. “It may sound trivial, but the entire process has been built around controlling water content.” Over the past decade, Dr. Kaplan’s group has focused on biomedical applications in fields like tissue engineering. In 2005, a postdoctoral researcher in his laboratory developed a water annealing process, reconstituting the silks slowly in a humid environment. “We got these films that were crystal-clear,” Dr. Kaplan said. “No one had ever seen this before with silk.” That led to thoughts about how to make an artificial cornea from silk. But a cornea has to be permeable, so Dr. Kaplan got the idea to involve a laser scientist down the hall, Fiorenzo Omenetto. “I said, ‘Take it down to Fio and have him poke some holes in it,’ ” Dr. Kaplan recalled. “That led to a whole optical platform based on silk.” It also led to a long collaboration with Dr. Omenetto, who has developed ways to pattern silk films, making diffraction gratings and other structures. The grating can act as a substrate for other proteins or compounds, raising the possibility that silk films could be used for implantable biosensors or in drug delivery, with the silk dissolving in the body at a controlled rate to release the drug. One advantage with silk, Dr. Omenetto said, is that the process of making films or other structures is “green” — water-based and at low temperatures. “You can make incredibly sophisticated diffraction gratings out of glass or plastic,” he said. “But those are made at high temperatures or in a very harsh chemical environment,” conditions that would make it difficult to incorporate drugs or other compounds. Researchers elsewhere have further developed the idea of using silk films for medical applications. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, Eugenia Kharlampieva experimented with depositing silver nanoparticles on films of silk as a way of strengthening them. “Silk is a wonderful material because it’s biocompatible,” said Dr. Kharlampieva, who is continuing her research at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. “The main drawback is it’s soft. If you want to use it for optical applications, you need to reinforce it.” The films she uses are extremely thin, and she layers them. “We make this nanocomposite which is flexible, still soft, but mechanically stronger.” Because the films remain flexible, Dr. Kharlampieva is experimenting with fashioning them into tiny capsules that could contain minute quantities of drugs. Potentially as small as blood cells, they could be used to deliver drugs through the bloodstream. At Tufts, Dr. Omenetto’s work on patterning silk has led to even more exotic potential applications. Among the latest, developed with colleagues at Boston University, is the idea of using silk as the basis for metamaterials, which can manipulate light or other electromagnetic radiation in ways that nature ordinarily cannot. By producing intricate structures in the films and depositing metal on them, metamaterial antennas may be produced that could be used inside the body as a means of monitoring health — the signal from the antenna changing as conditions inside the body change. Such applications may be far off, Dr. Omenetto said, but the potential is vast — a fact he realized when he was first asked to poke holes in silk. “It looked like a cool optical material,” he said. “And I haven’t been sleeping that much ever since.”


U.N. to Renew Syria Talks, Seeking Aleppo Cease-Fire

Abstract: GENEVA — The United Nations will resume talks with the Syrian government next week in the hope of achieving a cease-fire around Aleppo, the largest city in the north, the special envoy for Syria said Thursday. But the specifics remained hazy. “We are aiming at a reduction of violence and possibly a freeze of all military activities,” the envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said in Geneva. “Our hope is that Aleppo could be a signal of good will, a confidence-building measure which could and can facilitate the restarting of a political process with a clear political horizon.” He said world leaders had agreed on the need to break the deadlock in Syria and halt a civil war that he said had left over 220,000 dead, a million wounded and millions more displaced. Yet the response to proposals for a freeze around Aleppo has so far been tepid from both the Syrian government and opposition factions. Mr. de Mistura met with Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday and Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Thursday to discuss the situation. How the Air Campaign Against ISIS Grew The American-led air campaign against the Islamic State began as a limited operation, but quickly grew into what officials said will be a multi-year effort to destroy the group that will require local forces on the ground. The positions of the sides may become clearer after a meeting of opposition factions in Cairo, planned for next week, and after peace talks that Russia plans to convene later in the month. But diplomats say they see little sign of an imminent breakthrough. “No one wants to take the first step, not the government and not the opposition,” said one official who is closely monitoring the process, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with diplomatic protocol. Mr. de Mistura said he would send his deputy, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, to Syria to resume the talks with the government. His spokeswoman said, though, that the Syrians had yet to set a date for that meeting, or for a visit Mr. de Mistura wants to make to Damascus. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has expressed some interest in the freeze proposal, but “the devil is in the details,” Mr. de Mistura said. “That’s why we are fine-tuning what we understand are the areas of concern both by the government and the opposition.” He said the United Nations’ talks with the government would “bear in mind” the Geneva communiqué of June 2012 , which called for the formation of an interim government, among other steps. But he said they would also take into account “new factors which have come up in the reality of the area,” such as the Islamic State, which now controls about one-third of Syrian territory. These new factors, Mr. de Mistura suggested, have created a “need to adjust aspirations without preconditions.”

Syria
UN
Aleppo Syria
Staffan de Mistura


Penn State to Pay Nearly $60 Million to 26 Abuse Victims

Abstract: Penn State has agreed to pay $59.7 million to 26 sexual abuse victims of the former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky in exchange for an end to their claims against the university, Penn State announced Monday. Of the 26 settlements, 23 are fully signed and three are agreed to in principle, with final documentation expected in the next few weeks. Rodney A. Erickson, the president of the university, called the settlement “another step forward in the healing process for those hurt by Mr. Sandusky, and another step forward for Penn State.” He added, “We cannot undo what has been done, but we can and must do everything possible to learn from this and ensure it never happens again at Penn State.” University officials emphasized that the settlement money did not come from tuition, taxpayers or donations, but from various liability insurance policies, which the university believes will cover the settlements and defense of claims brought against Penn State and its officers, employees and trustees. Whatever is not covered is expected to be financed from interest revenue related to loans made by the university to its self-supporting units. The settlements are sealed by confidentiality agreements. In all, the university has been in talks with 32 individuals who were victims of Sandusky or claimed to be. In a statement, the university said some of the six remaining claims were without merit and others were in possible settlement discussions. The university retained the law firm Feinberg Rozen L.L.P. to act as an independent third-party facilitator of the settlement negotiations between the university and the victims. “The board of trustees has had as one of its primary objectives to reach settlements in a way that is fair and respects the privacy of the individuals involved,” Keith E. Masser, the board’s chairman, said in a statement. Clifford Rieders, a lawyer who negotiated one of the settlements, said the average payout matched other recent cases of child abuse, such as those involving the Roman Catholic Church. The amount of payment for each of Sandusky’s victims, however, was decided on individual claims. Eight young men testified against Sandusky at his trial, describing abuse at his hand when they were boys that included psychological manipulation, fondling, oral sex and anal rape. Rieders said his client received a “substantial” settlement and asked for, and received, a face-to-face-meeting with a top university official whom he would not identify. He said his client had an emotional exchange with the official about “how to make things right,” including noneconomic reparations, which included continued counseling. “You can never make whole anyone who is raped by another individual,” Rieders said. “My client found the settlement acceptable under the circumstances.” Jeff Anderson, a lawyer for two victims, said his clients were focused on Penn State’s changes to prevent future abuse. “They wanted to see new training and protocols before we got to the numbers,” Anderson said. “Over all, it was a very mixed feeling and experience for them. They broke the silence and stood up to the man who overpowered them. At the same time, there’s some deep and open wounds that can’t be closed or healed. They’ve gotten the voice back they didn’t have as kids, but it isn’t a celebration or victory.” Sandusky, 69, is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence. He was convicted in June 2012 of abusing 10 boys , some of them at Penn State sites. All of the children were from disadvantaged homes. Sandusky, using his access to the university football program, had befriended the children and then repeatedly violated them. He was found guilty of 45 of the 48 counts against him. The scandal led to the dismissal in 2011 of Penn State’s head football coach, Joe Paterno, who died in January 2012. Three former Penn State administrators await trial on charges that they were part of a criminal cover-up of the Sandusky scandal. The former president Graham B. Spanier, the retired vice president Gary Schultz and the retired athletic director Tim Curley have denied the accusations. Over the past year, Penn State has moved aggressively to put the scandal behind it with reforms to the university’s management and oversight. The football program initially received heavy penalties from the N.C.A.A. But last month, citing a positive report by George J. Mitchell, the former United States senator who was appointed athletics integrity monitor at Penn State, the organization decided to ease the penalties. The Penn State football team, for example, will be allowed to issue 20 scholarships to recruits, instead of 15, starting the next academic year, then the standard 25 starting the year after that. As a whole, the team will be able to offer 75 scholarships, instead of 65, starting next year, and that number will increase until it reaches the standard 85 by the 2016-17 academic year. The team is still banned from bowl games for three more seasons. Victims advocate groups have been less forgiving. “No amount of money can restore the innocence that was taken from the victims,” said Barbara Dorris, a spokeswoman for Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “It’s only because of their generosity and courage in speaking up that Sandusky was removed from his powerful position.” On the day Sandusky was convicted, Erickson pledged that the university was determined to compensate the victims and put into place a system of control that would prevent a similar scandal from happening again. “We have made great strides, but a great deal of work remains,” Erickson said Monday “Our university is a better institution today as a result of the work and dedication of our trustees, administrators, faculty, staff and students.”

Penn State
Jerry Sandusky
Rape
Child Abuse
College
College football


Antti Raanta’s Hot Hand in Goal Steers Rangers to Shutout of Devils

Abstract: No more than three or four Rangers fans joined in a chant for goaltender Antti Raanta after his first big save Sunday against the Devils — as if the rest of the crowd were a little afraid to hurt the feelings of the $9.5-million-a-year star goalie plopped on the bench, Henrik Lundqvist. Raanta makes a mere $1 million a year and was brought in last year strictly to be Lundqvist’s backup. But for the third time in four nights, Raanta showed why Coach Alain Vigneault had decided to lean on him, at least for now, as Raanta blanked the Devils in a 5-0 victory. Raanta stopped 19 shots for his second shutout in three nights. The Rangers (20-9-1), who seemed to be flailing when they fell to lowly Buffalo on Dec. 1, won for the fourth time in five games. The Devils (12-10-6) lost for the third straight time and for the seventh time in nine games. “If you want to win in this league, the goaltender — no matter who it is — has to step up and make the saves,” Rangers center Derek Stepan said. Raanta had started Thursday at Winnipeg and Friday at Chicago, winning both while allowing one goal on 44 shots. It still stood to reason that Lundqvist would be back in goal on Sunday, because Lundqvist always faces the Devils at home when he is healthy. Not so fast. When the Rangers waddled from the dressing room at Madison Square Garden to take on their longtime rivals, Raanta led the team out, skated to the crease and stayed put. “He’s a wall back there right now, and he’s got to keep it going,” said the Rangers rookie defenseman Brady Skjei, who scored his first N.H.L. goal Sunday. The Rangers face Chicago again on Tuesday, this time at the Garden, and Vigneault said late Sunday that he had already decided who his starting goaltender would be for that big game — although he said he would not disclose that information until he had told the player. Raanta tried to play down his streak as a starter, saying: “It’s still a pretty small amount of games in a row. I don’t think we have to do anything with this yet.” Lundqvist started the season well, posting a 9-5-1 record, a 2.27 goals against average and a .918 save percentage. But he was pulled in the second period on Nov. 23 after allowing four goals on 17 shots in an unsightly 6-1 loss to Pittsburgh, and he has been mediocre since. Including that loss, Lundqvist is 3-3 in his last six starts, with a 3.27 goals against average and an .890 save percentage. Including Sunday’s game, Raanta has gone 3-1-0 in that same stretch, with a 1.12 goals against average and a .952 save percentage. Lundqvist said after the morning skate that “there were a few things I need to do a little better,” but he also said of Raanta: “If he didn’t play well and I’d be sitting here, that would be hard to accept. I understand it when he’s played that well.” Raanta was fortunate during a frenzied 11-second stretch early in Sunday’s game. He stopped the first shot he faced, from Devils forward Taylor Hall, but lost track of the puck. Rangers forward Kevin Hayes swept it away after it sat in the crease. Devils center Adam Henrique then appeared to have knocked the rebound of a shot by P. A. Parenteau between Raanta’s legs 67 seconds into the game, but the goal was waved off after a video review determined that Henrique had steered the puck into the net with his right skate. Chris Kreider gave the Rangers the lead at 16 minutes 43 seconds by taking a pass from the industrious Mats Zuccarello and beating Cory Schneider. With Jimmy Vesey serving a tripping penalty for the Rangers, Raanta drew more cheers by snatching a wrist shot by Kyle Palmieri with his glove. It was the first of three straight penalties the Rangers killed. The third was a tripping penalty on Skjei. But Palmieri slipped while trying to collect the puck, leading to a two-on-one rush for the Rangers. J. T. Miller took a pass and swatted in his second short-handed goal at 16:07 of the second period. Kreider, Skjei, Brandon Pirri and Vesey scored to roll up a fat lead for Raanta. And Raanta’s shutout bid survived a scare — without his even being on the ice. The Rangers pulled Raanta for an extra attacker on a delayed penalty late in the game, but the puck was deflected out of the Devils’ zone and slid slowly toward the net Raanta had just vacated. It hit a goal post and bounced away. “That happened to me one time,” Raanta said. “I know the feeling.”


U.S. Tracking Killers in Attack on Libya Mission

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The United States is laying the groundwork for operations to kill or capture militants implicated in the deadly attack on a diplomatic mission in Libya , senior military and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday, as the weak Libyan government appears unable to arrest or even question fighters involved in the assault. The top-secret Joint Special Operations Command is compiling so-called target packages of detailed information about the suspects, the officials said. Working with the Pentagon and the C.I.A. , the command is preparing the dossiers as the first step in anticipation of possible orders from President Obama to take action against those determined to have played a role in the attack on a diplomatic mission in the eastern city of Benghazi that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three colleagues three weeks ago. Potential military options could include drone strikes, Special Operations raids like the one that killed Osama bin Laden and joint missions with Libyan authorities. But administration officials say no decisions have been made on any potential targets. Spokesmen for the Defense Department and C.I.A. declined to comment. The preparations underscore the bind confronting the White House over the Benghazi attack. Mr. Obama has vowed to bring the killers to justice, and in the final weeks of the presidential campaign Republicans have hammered the administration over the possible intelligence failures that preceded the attack — including a new accusation that repeated requests for strengthened security in Benghazi had been rejected. But any American military action on Libyan soil would risk casualties and almost certainly set off a popular backlash at a moment when support for the revolt against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had created a surge in good feeling toward the United States that is unique in the region. Reflecting a surge in nationalism, the Libyan government has opposed any unilateral American military action in Libya against the attackers. “We will not accept anyone entering inside Libya,” Mustafa Abu Shagur, Libya’s new prime minister, told the Al Jazeera television network. “That would infringe on sovereignty and we will refuse.” At the same time, the Libyan government still depends almost entirely on autonomous local militias to act as the police, complicating any effort to detain the most obvious suspects. Libyan and American officials acknowledge the possibility that some of the perpetrators may have fled the country, perhaps across the porous southern border. “It is a kind of hypocrisy really,” said Fathi Baja, a liberal former member of the Transitional National Council from Benghazi. Despite promises of swift retribution, he said, the government had not taken any steps to confront or interrogate those most widely believed to bear responsibility. Both American counterterrorism officials and Benghazi residents are increasingly focused on the local militant group Ansar al-Shariah as the main force behind the attack. Counterterrorism officials in Washington say they now believe that Ansar al-Sharia had a rough attack plan for the American diplomatic mission “on the shelf” and ready for some time just in case, as one official put it. Then, the officials said, reports of the breach of the United States Embassy in Cairo, on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks provided the impetus. In the hours after the Benghazi attack, the American official said, spy agencies intercepted electronic communications from Ansar al-Shariah fighters bragging to an operative with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb , an Algerian insurgency that has made itself a namesake of the global terrorist group founded by Bin Laden. Another intercept captured cellphone conversations by militants on the grounds of the smoldering American Mission in Benghazi that suggested links to, or sympathies for, the regional Qaeda group. In Benghazi, Ansar al-Shariah’s role in the attack has been an open secret since it began. The group’s leaders had boasted of their ability to flatten the United States Mission compound. Witnesses saw trucks emblazoned with the logo of their brigade at the scene, fighters who assaulted the compound acknowledged their affiliation with the group and witnesses saw their faces. Some Libyan guards at the compound saw them close up, and injured attackers were then treated at local hospitals. Although in the immediate aftermath of the attack Libyan officials issued conflicting and unverifiable reports about arrests, the Libyan government has never identified anyone detained, and in recent days officials have declined repeated requests to provide any details. Members of the new national congress, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation, acknowledged with frustration on Tuesday that Ansar al-Shariah members had not been questioned and remain at large. Mustafa el-Sagizli, a senior official in the transitional government and an officer in one of Benghazi’s main militias, the February 17 Brigade, said the government had detained a few looters. But he said he did not believe anyone had been detained in connection with the attack itself. “It was a mess,” he said, “and it was hard to tell who did it.” Leaders of the large militias that provide the only law enforcement in Benghazi all say they are awaiting further evidence or formal orders before any move to round up or bring in members of Ansar al-Shariah. Privately, militia leaders complain that detaining Ansar al-Sharia’s leaders and fighters could mean a bloody clash within their own close-knit community. In an interview on Tuesday, Ibrahim el-Sharkasi, a top official of the Interior Ministry, said he had no knowledge of any detentions or interrogations. He insisted that a special judge had been appointed to lead the investigation. But he said he could not name the judge. And there have been no reports of such an appointment. Investigators from the F.B.I. , meanwhile, remain in Tripoli, working in concert with other American government agencies from the well-guarded residential compound now serving as the United States Embassy. Security concerns have deterred travel to Benghazi. Moving ahead with a roster of potential targets, the military planners in Washington started by culling pre-existing lists of suspects that are continuously updated by the Joint Special Operations Command and the C.I.A. American officials say that since the Benghazi attack, Special Operations planners have sharply increased their efforts to track the location and gather information on several members of Ansar al-Shariah as well as other militants with ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It is unclear precisely how many of the target packages are being prepared — perhaps a dozen or more. But military and counterterrorism officials said that Libyan authorities had helped by at least identifying suspected assailants based on witness accounts, video and other photographs from the scene. “They are putting together information on where these individuals live, who their family members and their associates are, and their entire pattern of life,” said one American official briefed on the planning. Intelligence officials are focusing on militants in Benghazi and eastern Libya, but they must also survey elsewhere because of the possibility that some have fled. And to help prioritize which militants to watch, the Pentagon has stepped up its use of surveillance drones flying over eastern Libya, collecting electronic intercepts, imagery and other information that could help planners compile their target lists. “You need to be constantly updating and refining the information on the top targets so that when you get approval, you’re absolutely ready to take action,” said Rick Nelson, a former Special Operations planner who directs the homeland security and counterterrorism program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Benghazi
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates
US Military
US Foreign Policy
J Christopher Stevens
Libya
Ansar al-Shariah
US Special Operations Command
Barack Obama
Benghazi Attack 2012


Fitting Hugs Into Chipping Practice, Tiger Woods Makes a Cheery Return

Abstract: AUGUSTA, Ga. — On the sixth hole of the par-3 contest at Augusta National Golf Club, Tiger Woods called his caddie over to confer on strategy. Woods’s regular caddie, Joe LaCava, held back as the golfer’s son, Charlie Axel, wearing a white pint-size coverall, went over and listened. Woods pointed to where he wanted to land his tee shot. As Woods prepared for his 20th Masters, and his first competitive round since Feb. 5, the change in him was striking. Not in his short game, although Woods’s play around the greens looked much improved from the hackerlike whacks he made in Scottsdale, Ariz., and San Diego. Woods, 39, is noticeably more lighthearted. When he won the 1997 Masters for the first of his 14 major championships, Paul Azinger, one of Woods’s playing competitors that week, described being “outconcentrated” by him. Where Woods once thrummed with intensity and had an unblinking focus, he now comes across as an old softy. On Wednesday, in the practice area, he mingled with other players and interrupted his chipping practice to hug his children, his daughter, Sam Alexis, who is 7, and 6-year-old Charlie. “He seems in a good mood and happy out there,” said the Australian Geoff Ogilvy, who is making his eighth start at Augusta National. Woods, who shares custody of his children with his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, is here this week with his girlfriend, Lindsey Vonn. She shepherded his son and his daughter around the course while LaCava enjoyed a leisurely walk unspoiled. “I’m feeling older; there’s no doubt about it,” Woods said. “Try chasing around 6- and 7-year-olds all day; you start feeling it. But the good news is my soccer game has gotten a lot better.” Would the Woods of five years ago have offered up an image of kicking a soccer ball around in the backyard with his children? If Woods has mellowed, he is the last to notice. Asked if he was looser, Woods laughed and said: “I have no idea. I’m just enjoying just competing again. Whether I have blinders on or not, I don’t feel any different. I feel like I’m preparing to try and win the Masters.” The par-3 contest, which was won Wednesday by Kevin Streelman, had not been a part of Woods’s preparation since 2004. Woods, a four-time Masters champion, once described the event as an unnecessary distraction. Then he had children, and as they have grown older, he has better appreciated the parent-child bond that sports facilitates. Woods grew reflective in his news conference Tuesday , talking about the 1997 Masters and how special it was to have his father, Earl, who had had heart bypass surgery earlier in the year, at the course on the final day. “To now have come full circle and to have a chance to have my kids out there and be able to share that with them, it’s special,” Woods said, adding, “It just means the world to me.” Woods was on the sixth green when there was a roar almost as loud as a plane taking off. On the fourth hole, Jack Nicklaus, whose 18 major titles Woods is chasing, had recorded his first ace at Augusta. Woods did not summon that kind of magic, but he did summon his daughter to stroke a putt, which she made. Before teeing off in the par-3 contest, Woods said he had two goals: have fun and don’t win (the winner of the Wednesday event has never won that year’s Masters). Check and check. “We had an absolutely great time,” Woods said in a statement released by Augusta National. “These were memories for a lifetime.” He also wrote on Twitter : “I’ll always have memories of my pop at Augusta, and now Sam and Charlie. An amazing day.” Now comes what used to be the easy part. On Thursday, Woods, who is paired with Jamie Donaldson and Jimmy Walker, will search for the peaceful, easy feeling inside the ropes that he has found away from the course. He will officially return to competition after a two-month absence knowing every errant shot will be thoroughly dissected. Woods said the scrutiny had not cut into his affection for the game he fell in love with as a toddler. “I’ve come to the understanding that I live it,” he said. “I know exactly what I’m doing out here, and I’ve hit the shots, and I don’t really need someone else’s secondhand opinion of what I was thinking of. I know exactly what I’m doing out there.”


Iran Barkley Is Hoping to Fight Again, This Time to Be a Benefactor

Abstract: Among the lean, glistening bodies of young boxers at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, a man in his 50s climbed into a boxing ring and began circling slowly, throwing a few easy jabs and soft hooks. “Yo, Blade — looking good,” a fighter yelled to the older boxer, Iran Barkley, who padded around the ring, shadowboxing at half speed. Mr. Barkley was known as the Blade during his professional boxing heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, when he won several championship belts and several million dollars in the ring. “My age is catching up,” he admitted, shaking his sweat-beaded head as he climbed out of the ring. “Everyone says Father Time catches up to you, but I still feel good.” Mr. Barkley is now 54. It has been 40 years since he ran with gangs in his old South Bronx neighborhood, more than 25 since he knocked out the great Thomas Hearns — the first of his two victories against Mr. Hearns — and 15 years since his last sanctioned professional fight. But after all these years, Mr. Barkley is penniless and says he wants to fight again. “The only way I know how to make a living is in the ring,” he said. The millions of dollars he earned during an illustrious boxing career are long gone, as are the championship belts, which he sold for a few thousand dollars apiece when hard times hit. A few years ago, he was homeless for a time, sleeping on subway trains. Now he has a government-subsidized apartment in the Bronx and gets by on monthly federal benefits, including food stamps. But he says he needs another paying boxing match to help the family of his niece Nicola Barkley, who is being treated for lung cancer at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. “She’s fighting the good fight, but her family needs my help,” Mr. Barkley murmured as he leaned over his niece’s bed and clasped her hand during a recent visit. “I’m just trying to pull off one more payday, for her and myself,” he said afterward. “People tell me, ‘Iran, you don’t have to fight no more.’ I tell them, ‘Yeah? Then pay my bills.’ If I had money, I’d just walk away.” Bruce Silverglade, who owns Gleason’s, said he had known Mr. Barkley for years, and hired him sporadically as a trainer. But he had warned Mr. Barkley that getting in the ring, even with an unranked young fighter, could be dangerous. “His way of making a living is boxing, and now his time has come and gone, and he’s left with nothing in his pockets,” Mr. Silverglade said. Image Mr. Barkley, 54, who was a champion fighter in the 1980s and 1990s, is trying to return to the ring to raise money for his niece, who has cancer. He works out at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times Matt Farrago, president of Ring 10 , a Bronx-based organization that helps retired professional boxers, said the group had provided Mr. Barkley with some financial assistance over the past few years and helped him apply for government benefits. He had also cautioned Mr. Barkley that fighting at his age could leave him vulnerable to head trauma and other health risks. “Nobody on the planet is going to give him a license to fight,” Mr. Farrago said, adding that he had told Mr. Barkley it was common for retired fighters to want to fight again, but that, “You’ve got to let that go.” But Mr. Barkley remains undeterred. At 205 pounds, he insisted he was close to being in shape. “I just need to put in some road work.” Because of his age, Mr. Barkley is unlikely to get a license for a sanctioned fight from any of the regulatory bodies that oversee professional boxing. Instead, Mr. Barkley is seeking to arrange an exhibition match. Mr. Barkley said he was also trying to sell a book proposal he helped write, filled with details of his career, during which he earned $5 million. After fights in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, he often cashed his check at the casino where he had fought and kept large amounts of cash stashed in his house, instead of in a bank. His lifestyle included expensive cars and clothes and a home in Las Vegas. He was generous with family and friends, and held block parties in his old Bronx neighborhood. Some money went to two former wives and to certain investments, including a carwash and an apartment building, that “didn’t work out,” he said, in front of the Patterson Houses on Third Avenue and 142nd Street, the housing project in the Bronx where he grew up, the youngest of eight children. As a teenage member of the Black Spades street gang, he engaged in years of turf wars and bloody fights. He is sometimes recognized as a once-great fighter, but also as a former Black Spade member. “I get guys testing me, telling me, ‘You ain’t nothing now,’ ” he said. “It bothers me, but if I hit them, I’ll get locked up.” At age 14, he was persuaded to take up boxing by his sister Yvonne , herself a professional fighter. He dropped out of Morris High School and began fighting professionally later, in 1982. In 1988, he stunned Mr. Hearns with a third-round knockout to win the World Boxing Council middleweight title, the first of several titles he won. He later lost one of them in a close 12-round decision to Roberto Duran, a bout that was named Fight of the Year by Ring Magazine. But by the time Mr. Barkley retired in 1999, he had lost six of his last seven fights. He feels that lesser fighters were directed toward better matchups and bigger paydays, while he was kept away from champions like Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. Fueled by this resentment, he lined up exhibition matches in 2006 in Aruba (a win) and in 2008 on an Indian reservation in Idaho (a draw). He is now in discussions with a promoter who would organize a similar fight for him “down South,” he said. As he trained at Gleason’s, he picked the largest, heaviest punching bag in the gym and pounded away, creating a thud that hinted he still packed some power. “I may not be the same physically,” he said, “but I’m smarter and wiser now.”

Boxing
Iran Barkley
Bronx
Gleason's Gym
Brooklyn
Thomas Hearns
NYC


I.B.M. Unveils Software to Find Trends in Vast Data Sets

Abstract: New software from I.B.M. can suck up huge volumes of data from many sources and quickly identify correlations within it. The company says it expects the software to be useful in analyzing finance, health care and even space weather. Bo Thidé, a scientist at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, has been testing an early version of the software as he studies the ways in which things like gas clouds and particles cast off by the sun can disrupt communications networks on Earth. The new software, which I.B.M. calls stream processing, makes it possible for Mr. Thidé and his team of researchers to gather and analyze vast amounts of information at a record pace. “For us, there is no chance in the world that you can think about storing data and analyzing it tomorrow,” Mr. Thidé said. “There is no tomorrow. We need a smart system that can give you hints about what is happening out there right now.” I.B.M., based in Armonk, N.Y., spent close to six years working on the software and has just moved to start selling a product based on it called System S. The company expects it to encourage breakthroughs in fields like finance and city management by helping people better understand patterns in data. Steven A. Mills, I.B.M.’s senior vice president for software, notes that financial companies have spent years trying to gain trading edges by sorting through various sets of information. “The challenge in that industry has not been ‘Could you collect all the data?’ but ‘Could you collect it all together and analyze it in real time?’ ” Mr. Mills said. To that end, the new software harnesses advances in computing and networking horsepower in a fashion that analysts and customers describe as unprecedented. Instead of creating separate large databases to track things like currency movements, stock trading patterns and housing data, the System S software can meld all of that information together. In addition, it could theoretically then layer on databases that tracked current events, like news headlines on the Internet or weather fluctuations, to try to gauge how such factors interplay with the financial data. Most computers, of course, can digest large stores of information if given enough time. But I.B.M. has succeeded in performing very quick analyses on larger hunks of combined data than most companies are used to handling. “It’s that combination of size and speed that had yet to be solved,” said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata, a technology industry research firm. Conveniently for I.B.M., the System S software matured in time to match up with the company’s “Smarter Planet” campaign. I.B.M. has flooded the airwaves with commercials about using technology to run things like power grids and hospitals more efficiently. The company suggests, for example, that a hospital could tap the System S technology to monitor not only individual patients but also entire patient databases, as well as medication and diagnostics systems. If all goes according to plan, the computing systems could alert nurses and doctors to emerging problems. Analysts say the technology could also provide companies with a new edge as they grapple with doing business on a global scale. “With globalization, more and more markets are heading closer to perfect competition models,” said Dan Olds, an analyst with Gabriel Consulting. “This means that companies have to get smarter about how they use their data and find previously unseen opportunities.” Buying such an advantage from I.B.M. has its price. The company will charge at least hundreds of thousands of dollars for the software, Mr. Mills said.

International Business Machines Corporation


Thunder Finish Off Mavericks and Will Next Face the Spurs

Abstract: Russell Westbrook had 36 points, 12 rebounds and 9 assists, and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Dallas Mavericks, 118-104, on Monday night to win the teams’ first-round playoff series, 4-1, and advance to the Western Conference semifinals. Westbrook was 13 of 23 from the field and 7 of 8 on free throws. Kevin Durant scored 33 points and Steven Adams added 15 points and 10 rebounds for the host Thunder, who will play the San Antonio Spurs in a series that begins Saturday. Oklahoma City shot 50.6 percent from the field and outrebounded the Mavericks, 42-35. Dirk Nowitzki scored 24 points for the Mavericks, who were hampered by injuries throughout the series. A 3-pointer by Westbrook put the Thunder ahead, 93-79, and Oklahoma City took a 93-83 lead into the fourth quarter. The Mavericks trimmed it to 107-103 with 4 minutes 8 seconds left before the Thunder pulled away. HORNETS 89, HEAT 85 Kemba Walker scored a playoff career-high 34 points, Jeremy Lin added 21 and Charlotte beat visiting Miami to even their first-round series at 2-2. Walker scored 11 straight Charlotte points in the fourth quarter after Miami had cut the lead to 2 with 6:07 left. Courtney Lee made two free throws with 4.6 seconds left after being fouled on an offensive rebound to seal the win. Lee finished with 11 points and helped hold Dwyane Wade to 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting. Joe Johnson led Miami with 16 points. LAKERS’ COACHING SEARCH Los Angeles Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak does not think his search for a new coach will take a long time. Kupchak told the team’s official television network Monday that he has a large list of candidates to be the Lakers’ fourth full-time coach since 2011, but expects to narrow the field quickly. “I think it’s unlikely there will be anything done in the next week or two,” Kupchak said on Time Warner Cable SportsNet. “But certainly I don’t anticipate this dragging into the summer. We’d like to get it done.” The Lakers fired Byron Scott on Sunday night after the two worst seasons in the franchise’s history. Los Angeles went 38-126 under Scott, including 17-65 in Kobe Bryant’s farewell year. Kupchak did not name any candidates for the job, but he is quite familiar with the Golden State assistant coach Luke Walton, already a popular candidate among Lakers fans. Walton was a Lakers forward for nine seasons before becoming an assistant in their organization and briefly a broadcaster on their network.

Basketball
Playoffs
Miami Heat
Charlotte Hornets
Lakers
Oklahoma City Thunder
Mavericks


Top Investigator in Case of Missing Students in Mexico Resigns

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — The chief of criminal investigations for Mexico ’s attorney general resigned late Wednesday amid an internal affairs inquiry into his office’s handling of the case of 43 college students who vanished nearly two years ago. A brief government statement said the attorney general, Arely Gómez González, had accepted the resignation of Tomás Zerón de Lucio from his post as head of criminal investigations, and “wished him success in his personal and professional projects.” The statement did not explain the reasons for the resignation, but an official in the attorney general’s office said it was intended to repair relations with the students’ families, who have maintained relentless pressure on the government to solve the case and had demanded Mr. Zerón’s removal. But Mr. Zerón was not leaving government entirely. Hours after his resignation, President Enrique Peña Nieto named him as the “technical secretary” of Mexico’s National Security Council. Mr. Zerón could not immediately be reached for comment. Mr. Zerón was deeply involved in some of the country’s highest-profile criminal cases, though arguably none were as big as that of the 43 young men. The students, undergraduates from a teachers college in Ayotzinapa, in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, disappeared in September 2014 during a night of violence involving Mexican security forces in the city of Iguala. The remains of only one student have been found. The case has become an albatross for Mr. Peńa Nieto, who took office in 2012 promising to reduce violence, and it has contributed to his plunging approval ratings. The government has been widely criticized for its adherence to its preferred narrative that the students were killed by a drug gang that incinerated their bodies and dumped the ashes in a river. The former attorney general declared that conclusion “the historic truth,” yet independent investigators have systematically dismantled it. In two voluminous reports, a panel of foreign human rights and legal experts who spent a year examining the case at the invitation of the Mexican government questioned the authorities’ ability and intentions to thoroughly investigate the disappearances, and raised doubts about the integrity of the Mexican judicial system. Mr. Zerón’s behavior was singled out for criticism in the panel’s final report , and at an accompanying news conference in April, just as the group’s mandate ended. The panel highlighted events that took place on Oct. 28 and 29, 2014, along the banks of the San Juan River near the town of Cocula, where the government said it believed the students’ ashes had been dumped. At the news conference, the experts showed video clips of Mr. Zerón accompanying a detained suspect to the scene on Oct. 28, and of plastic bags that resembled one recovered from the river the next day and that contained incinerated bones, including a fragment that provided the only known DNA link to one of the missing students. Yet none of that day’s investigative activities were recorded in the case file, the panelists said, raising the possibility that investigators had manipulated or planted evidence. Mr. Zerón defended his actions, declaring them legal and transparent. Nonetheless, the attorney general’s office opened the internal affairs inquiry. Mr. Zerón remained in his post but was reportedly quarantined from the investigation into the missing students. It was unclear whether Mr. Zerón’s resignation was prompted by findings in the internal affairs investigation, which, officials said Wednesday, was continuing. Several weeks ago, the missing students’s relatives, who had been meeting regularly with the attorney general or members of her staff, suspended those meetings in protest over the administration’s refusal to fire Mr. Zerón. An official at the attorney general’s office, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue, said Wednesday that the resignation was intended “to reactivate the dialogue with the parents.” The news was welcomed by the students’ relatives and their advocates, who have been clamoring for months for Mr. Zerón’s removal from the case. “We hope this resignation can make possible a greater deepening and transparency in the investigation,” said Mario Patrón, director of Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, an organization in Mexico City. “The Mexican state is still in debt to the students’ families and relatives,” he added.

Mexico
Human Rights
College
Iguala
Appointments and Executive Changes
Missing person
Tomas Zeron de Lucio


Invokana Wins F.D.A. Approval for Diabetes Treatment

Abstract: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first of a new class of medicines to treat diabetes. The drug, Invokana, will be sold by Johnson & Johnson and treats patients with type 2 diabetes in a new way, by causing blood sugar to be excreted in the urine. Many existing drugs work by affecting the supply or use of insulin. “We continue to advance innovation with the approval of new drug classes that provide additional treatment options for chronic conditions,” Dr. Mary Parks, who oversees drugs for metabolic diseases at the F.D.A., said in a statement. Invokana will have a wholesale price of $8.77 per tablet, with one tablet taken daily. Johnson & Johnson said the price was competitive with that of some other diabetes drugs. Clinical trials of more than 10,000 patients showed that Invokana improved patients’ blood-sugar levels and also led to weight loss and reductions in blood pressure. But the drug, whose generic name is canagliflozin, also has potentially serious side effects. The clinical trials revealed some signs of elevated stroke risk and a small increase in patients’ experiencing heart attacks within the first 30 days of taking the medicine. The drug also was shown to raise LDL, or “bad” cholesterol levels, although it also raised the level of HDL, or “good” cholesterol. However, an F.D.A. spokeswoman said Friday that the significance of those findings was unclear, and the label of the drug includes no warnings about heart attacks or strokes. The F.D.A. is requiring Johnson & Johnson to conduct five post-marketing studies, including a clinical trial to determine more definitively if the drug increases those risks. The F.D.A. said the drug’s most common side effects were vaginal yeast infections and urinary tract infections. In January, an F.D.A. advisory panel voted 10 to 5 in favor of approval. But panel members called on Johnson & Johnson to closely monitor patients enrolled in long-term safety studies. Some of the members said they did not think the drug should be prescribed to people with moderate kidney disease. The drug wasn’t as effective in such patients, and they were at a higher risk for the negative side effects, compared to people with normal kidney function. Invokana is not recommended for patients with severe kidney disease. An estimated 26 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, and many of the medications on the market come with side effects like weight gain and hypoglycemia, or a dangerous drop in blood sugar. Patients taking Invokana experienced fewer episodes of hypoglycemia than those taking another diabetes drug, glimepiride, or Amaryl, but a similar number as patients taking the drug sitagliptin, or Januvia. Invokana is in a class of drugs called SGLT2 inhibitors. They block the action of the sodium-glucose co-transporter 2, which puts sugar removed from the blood by the kidneys back into the bloodstream. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration rejected another drug in that class, dapagliflozin from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, because of safety concerns, including a possible increased risk of breast and bladder cancers. But it was approved in Europe in November under the name Forxiga. Johnson & Johnson is also seeking approval in Europe for Invokana, which it licensed from Japan’s Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma. Wall Street analysts have predicted that Invokana could be a good seller for Johnson & Johnson. Lawrence Biegelsen, of Wells Fargo, estimated early this year that the drug could bring in $111 million in 2013, with sales increasing to $667 million by 2016.

Pharmaceuticals
Diabetes
Johnson & Johnson
FDA


Renewing Call to End Turkey Conflict, Kurdish Rebel Leader Hails ‘New Era’

Abstract: ISTANBUL — The jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Saturday renewed a call for his fighters to disarm and end a long conflict with Turkey, hailing a “new era” in relations between Turks and Kurds. Mr. Ocalan, who continues to exercise influence over Turkey’s Kurdish population from a prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara where he has been serving a life sentence since 1999, urged the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known here as the P.K.K., to hold a congress in the spring to end a Kurdish insurgency that has fractured society and claimed nearly 40,000 lives since the 1980s. “I call on the P.K.K. to convene a congress to end the 40-year-long armed struggle against the Republic of Turkey and to determine political and social strategies and tactics in accordance with the spirit of the new era,” Mr. Ocalan wrote in a letter that was read to a crowd of hundreds of thousands celebrating the traditional spring festival of Nowruz in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey. Television images showed women in bright dresses and men in uniforms dancing and cheering jubilantly, waving scarves and flags of the militant group as the letter was read in both Kurdish and Turkish. Kurds, who account for roughly 20 percent of Turkey’s population of about 80 million, have been demanding greater rights and more autonomy after decades of being ostracized by the Turkish state. While Mr. Ocalan’s call for disarmament is likely to add momentum to a fragile peace process, which is now in its third year, Kurdish rebels are waiting to see whether the Turkish government can deliver on the democratic reforms outlined in a 10-point framework for peace that is to be safeguarded by a new constitution. In 2013, Mr. Ocalan called for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Kurdish rebels from Turkish territory. But the Kurds said that the government failed to keep its promises and instead focused on consolidating its power and winning elections. Thousands of Kurds took to the streets across Turkey in October to protest the government’s inaction and lack of military support against the Islamic State, whose fighters had besieged the Kurdish border town of Kobani in Syria. Turkey’s reluctance to intervene in the conflict stemmed, in part, from its opposition to an autonomous Kurdish region on its borders. At least 40 people died in demonstrations in 30 Turkish cities, and P.K.K. commanders threatened to break the two-year cease-fire if Turkey failed to help Kurdish forces in Kobani. Mr. Ocalan urged both sides to reopen negotiations, and talks resumed late last year after Turkey allowed Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga fighters to cross into Kobani through Turkish territory. Last month, Kurdish lawmakers and the governing Justice and Development Party delivered a joint statement reaffirming the 10-point peace framework. But tensions grew again last week when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that there had never been a “Kurdish problem” in Turkey. “Now, when you take a look at them, they keep talking about a Kurdish problem,” Mr. Erdogan said during a ceremony in the province of Balikesir. “What are you talking about, brother? What Kurdish problem?” Analysts said that Mr. Erdogan’s comments were mainly intended as a tactical maneuver to secure the nationalist vote ahead of parliamentary elections in June. Mr. Erdogan is working to help his party secure an absolute majority so that he can push through a new constitution that would allow him to consolidate his presidential powers. “It is likely that Erdogan made that statement because of concerns that the Kurdish vote would shift to the main Kurdish party, while the nationalist votes would shift to the Nationalist Movement Party following the government’s joint declaration about the framework of the process,” said Verda Ozer, a scholar at the Istanbul Policy Center. “Ultimately if Erdogan were against the peace process, it would not be taking place.” Much is at stake for Turkey ahead of the elections as it grapples with the threat posed by the Islamic State at its borders. The Kurdish peace process has taken on a new sense of urgency as Kurdish fighters have become the most effective ground force, coordinating with the American-led coalition, in the fight against the Islamic militants. On Saturday, following Mr. Ocalan’s statement, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc reiterated the government’s commitment to the peace process and dismissed Mr. Erdogan’s remarks as “emotional.” The responsibility for running the country and guiding the peace process “belongs to the government,” Mr. Arinc said, “and we can regard his statements as his personal views.”

Abdullah Ocalan
Kurdish
Turkey
Iraq
Istanbul
Kurdistan Workers' Party,PKK


Pakistan: Province Bars Entry to Those Not Vaccinated for Polio

Abstract: In the wake of World Health Organization travel restrictions imposed on Pakistan to stop it from spreading polio abroad, one Pakistani province said Tuesday that citizens from anywhere else in the country would not be able to enter it without proof that they had been vaccinated. According to the news service Dawn, the health adviser to the chief minister of Punjab Province said vaccination booths would be set up at airports and all roads leading into the province, which includes the country’s second-largest city, Lahore. While many countries impose vaccine requirements on foreign visitors, vaccine requirements within a country’s borders are almost unheard-of. Almost all of Pakistan’s polio cases occur in the northwest frontier areas, where resistance to vaccine is high. Travel restrictions were also imposed Monday on Cameroon and Syria; they must ensure that anyone leaving their borders is vaccinated against polio.

Vaccines Immunization
Polio
WHO
Pakistan
Syria
Cameroon


Michael J. Maye, 82, Dies; Scrappy Leader of Firefighters’ Union

Abstract: In the early 1970s, fires ravaged New York City as arson, neglect and racial tensions ran rampant. The city’s firefighters, almost all of whom were white, were sometimes attacked — with guns, rocks, peashooters and even refrigerators dropped from rooftops — when they responded to alarms in minority neighborhoods, where most of the blazes erupted. Adding insult to injury, hundreds of the alarms were false. But as fires increased by more than half, the number of firefighters decreased by a third. With the city spiraling toward a fiscal crisis, the firefighting budget was, in increments, cut by $100 million. More than 50 firefighting companies were eliminated. Throughout these years, Michael J. Maye, who died on Feb. 15, had the thankless job of heading the firefighters’ union, the Uniformed Firefighters Association. Making his position more difficult, state law prohibited him from calling job actions, like slowdowns or strikes. Making the position almost impossible, his own membership had passed a bylaw requiring an immediate job action when a labor contract expired and no new one had been signed. As a result, much of his membership would call in sick at the same time for several days, or would stop doing every task except responding to alarms. Even so, Mr. Maye, a former professional heavyweight boxer, did not shrink from threatening to use the ultimate weapon, a strike, legal or not. “God knows the city is sure as hell asking for it,” he said. Mr. Maye died of a heart attack in Delray Beach, Fla., his daughter, Susannah Maguire, said. He was 82 and lived in Boca Raton. Mr. Maye’s combativeness drew death threats from people who resented firefighters’ use of ordinary labor tactics when lives could be at stake. But it also helped win the firefighters wage increases that kept pace with raises for the police and sanitation workers. Nonetheless, he could irritate opposing negotiators with his habit of lighting matches, one after the other, during meetings. And the deals he struck with the city often seemed to satisfy no one. Mayor John V. Lindsay called a 1972 settlement ruinous; Mr. Maye’s membership called it paltry. Mr. Maye said he had picked up his hard-nosed ways from his father, a construction worker and labor leader also named Michael, who claimed to prefer fighting to eating. The younger Michael Maye seemed to adopt the same attitude in 1972 when, at a dinner at the New York Hilton attended by city officials and reporters, he attacked a gay protester, Morty Manford, beating him and kicking him in the groin. Mr. Manford and other members of the Gay Activists Alliance had interrupted the affair to protest the news media’s coverage of issues important to gay men and lesbians. A criminal court cleared Mr. Maye, citing conflicting testimony. But the episode inspired Mr. Manford’s mother, Jeanne, who died in January , to help found a national advocacy organization, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (or Pflag). Mr. Maye insisted that he was not prejudiced against gay people, citing his experience as an employee at a gay club. But he continued to oppose the hiring of gay men or lesbians as teachers and firefighters. The Advocate, a gay newspaper, included him last year on its list of “biggest homophobes.” Michael Joseph Maye was born on June 25, 1930, on East 138th Street in the South Bronx, where he grew up. He was dismissed from several grammar schools for unruly behavior. His father counseled him and his three brothers on union tactics. Michael graduated from Samuel Gompers High School, named for the labor leader, and became a “sandhog,” digging water and subway tunnels. Encouraged to take up boxing, he won several Golden Gloves titles before turning professional and winning his first nine fights. During the Korean War he was in the Army, serving on a reconnaissance team. After the war, he returned to construction and became active in union affairs. He also went back to prizefighting, compiling a record of 19 wins and no losses, but he broke his hands so often that he was forced to retire. During a construction lull, he took tests for the Police and Fire Departments and passed both. He chose Fire on the advice of two of his brothers, both police officers. Mr. Maye became active in the Uniformed Firefighters and was elected its president in 1968. He remained in the post until he was defeated by Richard J. Vizzini in 1973. Two years later Mr. Maye defeated Mr. Vizzini, to reclaim the presidency. He retired from the union in 1978, then worked as an official of the Teamsters union until the late 1980s. Mr. Maye’s wife, the former Catherine Craig, died last year. In addition to his daughter Susannah, he is survived by two other daughters, Cathleen Maye and Maryalice Kindred; two sons, Michael and Daniel; and 10 grandchildren.

Michael J Maye
Fires
Boxing
Obituary
Labor Unions
NYC