Comedy Central Ponders How to Replace Jon Stewart

Abstract: Jon Stewart’s announcement that he will give up his anchor chair on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” by the end of the year reverberated on Wednesday through the corridors of power in Washington, New York publishing houses and most important, the network’s parent company, Viacom. Mr. Stewart’s departure, after a 16-year run skewering the foibles of a self-impressed news media and political class, presents Viacom with the delicate decision of finding a replacement for a show that, along with “South Park,” defines Comedy Central. And it means the cable network will enter the 2016 election year without two of its signature late-night personalities — Mr. Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who is taking his talents to CBS. Viacom executives learned only recently that Mr. Stewart had definitively decided to leave the show he joined in 1999 and they have not settled on a successor. But they understand the need to tread carefully so as not to disturb the show’s successful concoction of current events and pointed satire. “We’re not interested in doing a celebrity show,” said Doug Herzog, president of the Viacom Entertainment Group. However Viacom executives proceed, a lot of money rides on their choice. “ ‘South Park’ and ‘The Daily Show’ are the foundations on which Comedy Central was built,” said Mr. Herzog. Though Viacom doesn’t break out revenue numbers for its media networks, SNL Kagan reports that Comedy Central took in $780.4 million in 2014 (behind Nickelodeon and MTV), and has been steadily rising each year. Image A scene from “Inside Amy Schumer.” Credit Matthew Peyton for Comedy Central In the last three years, Comedy Central has nearly doubled the number of its original shows; with the rise of Netflix and Amazon, not to mention increased competition from other TV networks, it cannot rely as much on movies and repeats of old sitcoms. Shows like “Broad City,” “Inside Amy Schumer” and “Key & Peele” have received much critical acclaim. Larry Wilmore, a “Daily Show” alum, recently moved into Mr. Colbert’s old time slot with his own late-night show. This spring, Comedy Central will delve into the serial genre with “Big Time in Hollywood, FL” from Ben Stiller’s production company. And later this year comes “Another Period,” a mash-up of “Downton Abbey” and “Real World.” “Comedy Central has always been in the business of finding new voices,” said Mr. Herzog. “The water is always a little cold when you jump in, but we can swim. We’re really good swimmers.” Still, the importance of “The Daily Show” to the network is unquestioned. For the current television season, “The Daily Show” has averaged slightly more than 2.1 million viewers, which places it fourth among late-night talk shows, according to Nielsen. (The offerings from three broadcast networks — “The Tonight Show,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and the “Late Show With David Letterman” — lead the pack.) But among adults 18-34, prime bait for advertisers, the show rises to No. 2. And among men 18-24, the most elusive audience for television networks as they increasingly forsake watching shows at their appointed times, it is No. 1. Overall ratings, however, have slipped 18 percent from the same period last season. (Viacom executives point out that the figure does not include online viewing on platforms including Hulu and Facebook.) Brian Hughes, senior vice president for audience analysis at Magna Global, said a study his company conducted when John Oliver filled in for Mr. Stewart in 2013, when he was filming his feature directorial debut, “Rosewater,” offers some encouraging tea leaves for a post-Stewart “Daily Show.” Ratings for Mr. Oliver’s 31 first-run episodes among adults 18-34 were only slightly below those of Mr. Stewart in the comparable period the previous year. “With the right host in place, there’s no reason to think that audiences will scatter,” he said. “The brand of ‘The Daily Show’ is still strong.” Advertisers, however, may take more of a wait-and-see approach. Though Comedy Central does not allow advertisers to cherry-pick an individual show in which to place their commercials, there may be some clients who do business with the network mainly because of Mr. Stewart’s program. Image A segment from Comedy Central’s “Key & Peele.” Credit Danny Feld Envisioned by Mr. Herzog back in the 1990s as Comedy Central’s version of ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” the basic premise of “The Daily Show” is to give the network’s viewers its take on the day. With its original host, Craig Kilborn, the show took delight in mocking celebrities, as well as local news and the explosion of network newsmagazines which trafficked in exposés like “Your Mattress: What You Don’t Know Can Kill You.” When Mr. Stewart took over in 1999, he switched gears. “What Jon did brilliantly was pay attention to how the media landscape had changed” with the growth of Fox News and MSNBC,” said Lizz Winstead, the co-creator and former head writer of “The Daily Show.” “He was our voice,” she added, ringmaster to the stable of correspondents who satirized the tropes of the news media. “I don’t envy the next people who sit in the chair,” Ms. Winstead said. Whoever the new host, the sharp-toothed political satire will remain. “Someone’s going to bring something different to it than Jon Stewart did,” Mr. Herzog said. “But it’s hard to believe that taking a look at politics in general is not going to be a big part.” Other people watching with great interest are publishers. Not since Oprah Winfrey’s original book club has a TV program had the sales impact on as many books as Mr. Stewart’s show. Jonathan Karp, publisher of Simon & Schuster, witnessed that power most recently this past week, when Bill Browder, the author of “Red Notice,” a nonfiction account of an American businessman’s taking on the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, appeared on “The Daily Show.” The book immediately jumped into the top 50, and it will land at No. 11 on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction list for the week that ended Feb. 7. “ ‘The Daily Show’ put it over the top, no doubt about it,” said Mr. Karp. He attributed that influence to the trust the audience placed in Mr. Stewart’s endorsements. “He only looked in the camera and said this is a great book sparingly,” Mr. Karp said, adding “The ability to mix humor and gravitas in an entertaining way is rare, and maybe unique.” That’s a sentiment Mr. Herzog can agree with. “Make no mistake about it,” he said. “These are gigantic shoes to fill. He is the undefeated champion of a weight class he created.”

Jon Stewart
Comedy Central
Viacom
TV
Cable television
Stephen Colbert


Bill Backer, Who Taught the World (and Don Draper) to Sing, Dies at 89

Abstract: Bill Backer, a lapsed lyricist whose classic 1971 commercial taught a fractious world of potential Coca-Cola consumers to sing in perfect harmony and was featured in the finale of “Mad Men,” died on Friday in Warrenton, Va. He was 89. His death was confirmed by his wife and only immediate survivor, the former Ann Mudge. Mr. Backer and his team immortalized jingles and slogans that proclaimed “Things go better with Coke” and defined the soft drink as “the real thing”; declared that Miller Lite was “everything you ever wanted in a beer… and less”; elevated the Campbell’s brand by asserting that “soup is good food”; and allowed that “little girls have pretty curls, but I like Oreo.” He also anointed the break devoted to beer drinking as “Miller Time,” reserved festive occasions for Löwenbräu (“Here’s to good friends, tonight is kind of special”), and created advertising campaigns for Fisher-Price, Hyundai cars, Parliament cigarettes, Philip Morris, Quaker Foods and Xerox. But Mr. Backer had no illusions about what collaboration he would be remembered for, as he told The New York Times in 1993 when he was about to retire as vice chairman and worldwide creative director of Backer Spielvogel Bates after a four-decade career in advertising. “Nobody out there has heard of J. Walter Thompson or Backer Spielvogel Bates,” he said. “Those are temporal, self-aggrandizing entities. But if you come up with what’s basically a little hymn to getting the world together, it’s a contribution.” His little hymn, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony),” became a memorable commercial for Coca-Cola, a hit record, the inspiration for a sequel Super Bowl advertisement in 1991 and a coda for “Mad Men” on AMC last year. In the scene, it is the advertising executive Don Draper, the series’ protagonist, while meditating at a spiritual retreat in California, who conjures up the original commercial, with its utopian vision of apple trees and honeybees and snow white turtledoves and a youthful multicultural chorus singing from an Italian hilltop about how they’d like “to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.” Matthew Weiner, the creator of “Mad Men,” was quoted as describing the series finale as “a love letter for a brand.” Mr. Backer’s own epiphany behind what became known as the hilltop commercial was not quite as blissful. According to his account in a company-sponsored video , he was on his way to London in January 1971 to meet with the songwriters Billy Davis and Roger Cook when his flight was diverted by fog to Shannon Airport in Ireland. The next morning, Mr. Backer was stunned to see the diverse group of passengers who had been angry the night before cheerfully conversing in the coffee shop. “People from all over the world, forced by circumstance, were having a Coke — or a cup of coffee or tea — together,” he wrote in his 1993 book, “The Care and Feeding of Ideas.” “They were making eye contact over a Coke, and they were keeping each other company.” Image A still from the hilltop Coca-Cola commercial. Credit The Coca-Cola Company He added, “That was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be — a liquid refresher — but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples.” By the time he flew to Liverpool and was bused to fog-shrouded London, he recalled: “I could see and hear a song that treated the whole world as if it were a person — a person the singer would like to help and get to know. I’m not sure how the lyric should start, but I know the last line.” On a paper napkin, he had scribbled, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.” The three songwriters concurred on the lyrics, and the vocal group the New Seekers recorded it for radio (adapting the tune from a song by Mr. Cook and Roger Greenaway). Coca-Cola’s president deemed it too sappy. Coke bottlers hated it. So Mr. Backer persuaded the company to try a video version instead. Harvey Gabor, a young art director, envisioned a diverse chorus in native outfits lip-syncing. A near-record $250,000 was approved for production. A cast was rehearsed at the white cliffs of Dover, but after a three-day downpour, production was shifted to a hillside outside Rome. At first, hundreds of impatient and parched schoolchildren unharmoniously stampeded to grab free bottles of soda. A new cast was finally recruited, the commercial became a success, and recordings by both the New Seekers and the Hillside Singers (with the reference to Coke removed) hit the Billboard charts. The commercial succeeded, Mr. Backer told Slate in 2014, because “it’s not phony.” “The product itself is a product that brings people together,” he said. “It was a simple observation of the product performing one of the functions it does so well: It’s a social catalyst.” William Montague Backer was born in Manhattan on June 9, 1926, to William Bryant Backer, a real estate developer, and the former Ferdinanda Legare. His father died when he was 6, and he moved with his mother to her native South Carolina. He wrote musical comedies in high school, served in the Navy and graduated from Yale in 1950. He hoped to become a songwriter but was persuaded by his mother and stepfather, Dr. Joseph I. Waring, to go into a more legitimate business, like real estate, which he did briefly. He then started a jingle business before leaving for Columbia Pictures, but was so critical of the commercials being produced there that he was fired. His boss suggested an ad agency. In 1953, he went to work in the mailroom at McCann Erickson . He was named creative director in 1972 and vice chairman in 1978. A year later, he and Carl Spielvogel, a former advertising columnist for The Times and an executive at McCann’s owner, Interpublic , formed their own agency. By 1984, Backer & Spielvogel was billing more than $400 million a year. In 1986, it was bought by the British company Saatchi & Saatchi for a reported down payment of $56 million, with $45 million more paid over six years, and merged with Ted Bates Worldwide. After Mr. Backer retired, he moved to Virginia, where he owned a thoroughbred horse farm and was president of the Piedmont Foundation , which supports land conservation.

Obituary
advertising,marketing
Coca-Cola
Bill Backer


Woolworth Building’s Grand Arcade Is Once Again a Sight All Can See

Abstract: The Woolworth Building long ago lost its title as tallest in the world. But its grand arcade, designed by Cass Gilbert, has never lost the distinction of being the most sumptuous office lobby in New York, with a dazzling mosaic ceiling that brings a delectable taste of the Byzantine Empire to Lower Manhattan. “Its owner thought of it as a monument for public view,” the Landmarks Preservation Commission said in 1983, when declaring the tower an official city landmark, “and Cass Gilbert brought to the interior the same type of treatment he accorded public monuments.” One problem: The grand arcade has been off limits to the public for more than a decade. Oh, you can walk through the Woolworth lobby if you look purposeful enough and are destined for one of the building’s tenants. But don’t dare pause for even a moment to contemplate what the commission called “one of the finest skyscraper interiors in New York and one of the most significant nationwide.” Image With 30-, 60- and 90-minute tours offered almost every day, visitors can once again view the mosaic tiles on the ceiling. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times As Mr. Gilbert’s great-granddaughter, Helen Post Curry, put it, “If your jaw drops, you’re out of here.” In a 2006 sampling of landmark interiors downtown, I found that the Woolworth security staff was the quickest to bar entry , only 12 seconds after I walked through the door. To emphasize the ban, the Witkoff Group, which bought the building in 1998 from the remnants of F. W. Woolworth & Company, posted a sign outside the main entrance on Broadway: “Tourists are not permitted beyond this point.” Lately, however, visitors have found a heartening addendum: “Guided lobby tours are offered at www.woolworthtours.com .” Image The grand arcade of the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan looks today much as it did in 1918, when this photographic illustration was published. Credit E. K. Carter/"The Cathedral of Commerce" Quietly and promisingly, a partnership has developed between Witkoff and Ms. Curry, an interior designer and color consultant in New Canaan, Conn. It began in the planning of the building’s centenary in 2013, when Ms. Curry met with Roy A. Suskin, the vice president for development at Witkoff, who knows the tower inside and out. (He can even tell you that the building may not be 792 feet tall, as just about every reference work states, since the plans indicated that it would be 787 feet 6 inches from a benchmark at the northwest corner of the building.) At first, the idea was to give a day of tours during the April celebration . Those were subscribed so quickly, Ms. Curry said, that she asked Mr. Suskin if two days of tours might be offered. He agreed. “Fortunately,” she said, “it went off perfectly. People were thanking him.” Then it was Mr. Suskin’s turn to approach Ms. Curry, about a month later. “If you want to organize tours on a regular basis, we should talk,” she recalls him saying. Did she ever. “There is a tremendous pent-up demand,” Ms. Curry said. Image A sculptural grotesque depicting Frank W. Woolworth holding one of the nickels that created his five-and-dime empire. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times Woolworth Tours now offers 30-, 60- and 90-minute tours almost every day, conducted by a number of knowledgeable and well-recognized guides . The group cautions in advance that walk-ins cannot be accommodated, that no restrooms are available and that there is no place to sit during the tour. On the other hand, photographs are permitted, which ought to delight anyone who has been waiting more than a decade to zoom in on the scarlet parrots of the mosaic vaults, or the delightful sculptural grotesques depicting Frank W. Woolworth, holding one of the nickels that created his five-and-dime empire, and Mr. Gilbert, contemplating a model of his tower. (The tours will not affect a separate new lobby planned on Park Place as part of the residential conversion of the upper 30 stories by Alchemy Properties, which bought the top of the building from Witkoff and its partner in 2012.) Tours range from $20 to $45. Ms. Curry said she and her brother, Charles, pay a “small” fee to Witkoff for each visitor and also pay the guides. Image A sculpture depicting Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Woolworth Building, holding a model of the tower. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times Mr. Suskin said the guided tours, which had been suggested by one of his interns, Lisa Renz, allowed people to see the lobby while not interfering with operations or security. He said the management had no choice but to impose a no-sightseeing rule in the late 1990s, when the entrance to the grand arcade grew so crowded with tourists that tenants could barely get through. “Tenants have a higher priority than anyone,” Mr. Suskin said. “Like everyone else, they have to get to work and have free access to their offices.” Magnificent as it is, the grand arcade is so narrow that it takes only one admirer blocking the doorway to tie up lobby traffic. The landmarks commission said through a spokeswoman that it was “very pleased” that the grand arcade was once again publicly accessible. Though the agency has little power to compel greater public access, Robert B. Tierney, the chairman under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, had tried to use his powers of persuasion with Witkoff. Mr. Suskin said the lobby could not operate efficiently with groups of tourists showing up unannounced. “It is no different,” he said, “than anyone else finding it a problem to have 45 people standing in their front door when they are trying to get to work.”

Woolworth Building
Historic preservation
Witkoff Group
Alchemy Properties
Manhattan
Helen Post Curry
Cass Gilbert


Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Feb. 22

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.30 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.45 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.27 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida Department of Transportation, $301.2 million of debt securities. Competitive. TUESDAY Baltimore County, Md., $254.9 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Highland Park Independent School District, Tex., $203.1 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Ohio, $276.4 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Snohomish School District, Wash., $91.6 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. WEDNESDAY Alabama, $99.1 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. North Carolina, $330 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Wisconsin, $297.7 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Allen Independent School District, Tex., $145 million of unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Bosc. Arizona Board of Regents, $179 million of University of Arizona revenue bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Bonneville Joint School District, Idaho, $54 million of general obligation bonds. Piper Jaffray. Chester County, Pa., $60.8 million of general obligation bonds. Piper Jaffray. Columbus City School District, Ohio, $57.2 million of school facilities construction and improvement refinancing bonds. Stifel Nicolaus. Friendswood Independent School District, Tex., $83.5 million unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Raymond James. Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Va., $206 million of wastewater revenue bonds. Bank of America. Hays County, Tex., $59 million limited tax refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Iowa Finance Authority, $51.1 million of single-family mortgage bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Maryland Economic Development Corporation, $135.3 million of University of Maryland student housing revenue refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Missouri City, Tex., $71.7 million of general obligation refinancing bonds. Loop Capital Markets. Napa Valley Unified School District, Calif., $87.2 million of general obligation refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn., Health and Educational Facilities Board, $62.5 million of Lipscomb University revenue financing and improvement bonds. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. New York City, $800 million of general obligation bonds. Jefferies. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $401 million of taxable general revenue refinancing bonds. Bank of America. Northern California Transmission Agency, $181 million of Oregon transmission project debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. Plano Independent School District, Tex., $305.2 million of unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Bosc. Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation, $50 million of multifamily development bonds. Bank of America. San Mateo-Foster City School District, Calif., $74 million of general obligation refinancing bonds. Stifel Nicolaus. Waxahachie Independent School District, Tex., $50 million of unlimited tax school building bonds. Raymond James. Willis Independent School District., Tex., $66.6 million of unlimited tax school building bonds. Bosc. Willoughby-Eastlake City School District, Ohio, $115.8 million unlimited tax general obligation bonds. Piper Jaffray.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions


Review by NASA Clears Shuttle for Launching

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 — The space shuttle Atlantis is to launch on schedule Thursday for a mission to the International Space Station after being cleared by a review of all elements of the flight, NASA managers said Friday. After an all-day meeting at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in which engineers reviewed and debated technical issues, managers decided that the shuttle and its seven-member crew could take off on Thursday. N. Wayne Hale Jr., manager of the space shuttle program, said in a televised news conference that there were no technical issues standing in the way of the 11-day mission that will install the European Space Agency’s new Columbus laboratory in the growing station. The shuttle has a launch window of Dec. 6 to Dec. 13, Mr. Hale said, and must leave the station by Dec. 23 in order to return home by Christmas. Launching the Columbus module, which has long been delayed by shuttle program problems, will give Europe a foothold on the station and greatly expand the station’s research capability. The mission, the fourth and final shuttle flight to the station this year, will include at least three space walks to link the Columbus module to the Harmony connection module installed last month by a previous shuttle crew, and to remove a large nitrogen tank. In addition, a European Space Agency astronaut, Léopold Eyharts, a French Air Force general, will change places with an American, Daniel M. Tani, as a member of the crew. Michael T. Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager, said officials were not concerned about indications this week that there was an air leak between the United States’ Destiny laboratory module and the newly installed Harmony module. Mr. Suffredini said several subsequent tests indicated the initial measurement was incorrect. He said a fourth spacewalk might be added to the mission to have astronauts further check out a huge gear that rotates a set of the station’s solar power arrays. On the last shuttle mission, astronauts discovered metallic shavings in the mechanism that caused managers to curtail motion of the solar panels. If the fourth excursion is approved, Mr. Suffredini said, astronauts would remove most of the thermal coverings over the 10-foot-wide gear, conduct a detailed inspection of the mechanism and bring back more samples of the metal debris for analysis. In addition, he said, they would retrieve one of 12 large bearings that are part of the device so that it can be closely examined for damage, which will help engineers work out a plan to correct the problem.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Does the Messaging Service Telegram Take Privacy Too Far?

Abstract: PARIS — The encryption of digital information is considered the best protection against hackers, snoops or potential enemies looking to poke around into private exchanges of all sorts. That is why technology experts and privacy advocates in Europe went on high alert last month when the French Ministry of the Interior suggested that it might limit encryption as part of the fight against terrorist threats. That fear abated somewhat on Aug. 23 when the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, at a joint news conference with his German counterpart, Thomas de Maizière, stepped back from a more sweeping proposal. Instead, he pressed for a coordinated international effort to get messaging services to comply with judicial warrants for information. Mr. Cazeneuve named one such service: Telegram, a three-year-old messaging application, that is a favorite of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which has claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years. According to news reports, killers in two attacks in France this summer — one against two police officers and the other in a church in Normandy, during which they slit the throat of a Catholic priest — were exchanging messages on Telegram, even boasting of their plans. In August, Telegram was again used in two abortive cases, one involving a 16-year-old girl. Telegram’s vaunted privacy safeguards, involving multiple servers in different countries, are designed to prevent access to information about its users, even by the service itself. At the news conference, Mr. Cazeneuve admitted as much but claimed that French investigators, armed with a court order, had been unable to even contact “an interlocutor” at Telegram. In response to a query on his Telegram account, Pavel Durov, co-founder of the service, batted back the widely reported French claims. “We haven’t received any such request and have no idea what the French officials are after,” he wrote. “In any case, Telegram Secret Chats and information on them are not logged on our servers.” Image Pavel Durov, a founder of the Telegram messaging application, in 2015. He left his native Russia in 2014 after refusing to give intelligence information about Ukrainian protesters. Credit Steve Jennings/Getty Images Last November, after attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead, Telegram scrubbed 78 Islamic State- related public channels hosted on its servers, but Mr. Durov insisted that privacy would remain paramount on the rest of the service. Mr. Durov’s background explains his die-hard libertarian attitude on privacy. He left his native Russia in 2014 after refusing to give intelligence information about Ukrainian protesters. However, most privacy advocates agree that messaging services should cooperate with court-issued warrants, even if they are unable to provide investigators with complete information about their users. “There is an issue with Telegram,” said Mounir Mahjoubi, president of the National Digital Council, an independent advisory group established by former President Nicolas Sarkozy that focuses on privacy issues. “They had done everything to make it a technological nightmare to find where their server is.” At a time of heightened public anxiety over terrorism, technology companies and privacy advocates are wary about politicians looking to mandate “back door” access to encrypted data. This, they say, would not only violate privacy rights but put the wider public at an even greater risk, leaving users even more vulnerable to terrorists and other criminals. Mr. Mahjoubi, for one, supports alternative approaches, such as an international network that could call on judges in individual countries to swiftly react to requests from antiterrorism investigators. These ideas also are also backed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a lobbying organization that counts Amazon, Google and Microsoft among its members. “Cyberspace blurs the notion of national jurisdictions, and companies are caught in the middle,” said Christian Borggreen, the organization’s Europe director. “The tech industry encourages like-minded nations to develop international frameworks for quicker response to law enforcement requests while respecting users’ right and the rule of law.” That kind of targeted approach — aimed at criminals, not at privacy — would be more effective than a blank check for law enforcement to break open encoded messages, Mr. Mahjoubi said. “I am deeply and heartily against any effort to limit encryption,” he said, “and I will fight my whole life against that possibility.”

Terrorism
Privacy
Instant messaging
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
France
Pavel Durov
Telegram


Bangladesh Skeptical of Claims That ISIS Was Behind Shootings of Foreigners

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Bangladesh ’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Sunday dismissed claims that the Islamic State was behind the fatal shootings of two foreign citizens last week, instead suggesting that the killings may have been the work of homegrown militants aligned with her political opponents in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or B.N.P. “I can surely say that I.S. or any such type of organization or their activities have not sprouted in Bangladesh yet,” Ms. Hasina told reporters who visited her home for a briefing on Sunday, according to an account by the state-owned news service. Within the space of five days last week, an Italian aid worker and a Japanese man were shot dead, in each case by unidentified gunmen who raced away from the scene on a motorbike. Hours after each killing, a social media account believed to be used by the Islamic State posted a statement claiming responsibility for killing men they described as “crusaders,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islamic websites. The claim could not be independently confirmed. However, the Bangladeshi authorities expressed skepticism that the Islamic State was involved. The country’s home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the claim was “absolutely rubbish.” “There is no I.S. in the country, no way,” he said. “Why would I.S. do this here? These are incidents for creating instability in the country.” Ms. Hasina said militants might be carrying out attacks in retaliation for ongoing war crimes trials in which leaders of the B.N.P. and its ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami, have faced charges over actions during the country’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. She said leaders of the B.N.P. hoped to use violence to “overshadow Bangladesh’s achievements,” The Press Trust of India reported. “We will take action and track down the culprits,” she said. “But if we get carried away by these murders and overlook our achievements, the B.N.P.-Jamaat conspiracy will be successful.” Attacks on foreigners are a new development in Bangladesh, but targeted assassinations have been occurring with grim regularity. Since the beginning of the year, militant cells have carried out four nearly identical killings of Bangladeshi secular activists who posted writings that were critical of Islam on social media. This spring, the leader of Al Qaeda’s branch in the Indian subcontinent published a video in which he took responsibility for several of those killings. Foreign intelligence services have received warnings recently of a heightened threat of terrorist attacks in Bangladesh. Even before the first killing — of the Italian aid worker, Cesare Tavella, who was shot while jogging in the capital, Dhaka — Britain had warned its officials to “limit attendance at events where Westerners may gather.” On Thursday, the Australian cricket team canceled a planned series of matches in Bangladesh. The team’s chief executive said the decision had been made after consultations with Australian government agencies and the team’s security advisers.

Murders and Homicides
Sheikh Hasina
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Cesare Tavella
Terrorism
Bangladesh


With African Cup Over, City Gets Its Linchpin Back

Abstract: LONDON — Yaya Touré and Wilfried Bony are players on perhaps the impossible mission. Late Sunday, in the heat of Bata, Equatorial Guinea, they took part in the long night of a penalty shootout, which eventually ended with their Ivory Coast team’s winning the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 23 years. Their sport has yet to find a better way to decide a tournament than to ask exhausted and fearful men to take potshots at one another’s goals until one poor fellow misses the target. In this case, who got the gold medals came down to the goalkeepers. After each side scored on eight kicks and missed two, the Ivorian goalkeeper Boubacar Barry saved a weak shot from his Ghanian counterpart, Brimah Razak, to win the Cup, 9-8, following two hours of scoreless soccer. After celebrating, Touré and Bony were expected to fly to England and the icy grip of winter. Their club, Manchester City, has a vital league game at Stoke City on Wednesday. Modern players — aided by the wonders of medical science and the comforts of executive jets — have extraordinary powers of recovery. Yet not even Touré, voted Africa’s finest soccer player for the last four years, nor Bony, whose $38 million transfer from Swansea City to Manchester City was the highest ever for an African, can be expected to play Wednesday at Stoke. It may, in any case, be too late. Manchester City might have lost the Premier League title in their absence. Bony has yet to play in its attack, but the presence of Touré would appear to be decisive to his club’s fortunes. City has won the league twice in the past three season, with the big Ivorian acting as a colossus in its midfield. With a long, loping stride and a deft touch that is uncanny for someone so tall (6-foot-2), he has stridden out of midfield for City and scored goals that turned the tide in tight contests. He did the same for Ivory Coast in the semifinal with a shot so fierce and accurate that the ball zoomed over the opposing keeper’s head and hands before he could even react. No team should be overly dependent upon a single player, particularly City, which has world-class talents like Sergio Agüero and David Silva . However, the statistics are damning. With Touré playing, City had won 14 league matches, drawn two and lost two. But without him, it has failed to win in the league this season; its goals scored are down, the number conceded has almost doubled and the club’s ability to play a physical match has been gutted. There is no question that Africa deserves to see its players, just as South Americans deserve to see a glimpse of the Brazilian, Argentines, Chileans, Uruguayans and others who are purchased at a young age by Europe’s rich clubs. But this has been the third African Cup of Nations in four years, coming after Ghana and Ivory Coast — the best teams on the continent — also had to play at the World Cup in Brazil last year. There is no easy solution to the physical and emotional tug-of-war between a national team and the club that pays the salary. But if it is possible to feel sorry for a man earning $300,000 a week, it has to be because of his dubious privilege of being wanted in two places, thousands of miles apart, at the same time. Yaya Touré and his older brother, Kolo, the Liverpool defender, have lived with those dual demands throughout their adult lives. They and the rest of their “Golden Generation” had been classified as underachievers because Ivory Coast had never been able to live up to what was expected of it and win the African Cup. Didier Drogba had to retire without winning a continental title, but on Sunday, the Elephants delivered, with Yaya Touré as captain. It had been a final etched by fear of failure from both sides, one destined to go to the penalty shootout. Hervé Renard, the Frenchman who in 2012 coached Zambia to an emotional African Cup title — also won on penalty kicks — now guides Ivory Coast. As he stood and watched Sunday’s shootout, he at one point aimed a finger to the sky, suggesting that fate would decide it. Ghana had taken a two-goal lead after the Ivorians missed their first two kicks, first with Bony shooting against the bar, then with Tallo Gadji missing the target. After that, though, Ivory Coast scored with nine successive kicks. The sight of grown men crying over their nation’s failure — André Ayew was particularly emotional after Ghana’ loss — will outlive the scenes of joy as the Ivory Coast players danced over their good fortune. This was a tournament that pushed acts of ill temper, as well as fine performances, to the extreme. A referee from Mauritius referee was suspended for six months for his awful performance in the quarterfinals after he gave Equatorial Guinea, the host country, a penalty kick that knocked Tunisia out of the tournament. The event saw hooligans from Equatorial Guinea attempting to stop the semifinal as their team lost, 3-0, to Ghana. The event was in chaos before it even started, after Morocco was booted out of the tournament and fined for refusing to host it over Ebola fears. But ultimately, the tournament ended with the right result. Ivory Coast proved to be the finest team, as good as the sum of its parts. At last.

Soccer
Africa Cup of Nations
Ivory Coast
Ghana


Anthrax-Case Affidavits Add to Bizarre Portrait of Suspect

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A judge unsealed a new batch of court documents in the anthrax case on Wednesday, filling in further details of the bizarre behavior of Bruce E. Ivins , the Army scientist who the F.B.I. has said carried out the letter attacks of 2001. Last September, according to a sworn statement from an F.B.I. agent, Dr. Ivins sent himself an exuberant e-mail message under the heading “Finally! I know Who mailed the anthrax!” He did not identify the perpetrator but said he was close to assembling the final proof. “I’m not looking forward to everybody getting dragged through the mud, but at least it will all be over,” Dr. Ivins wrote, adding, “I should have been a private eye!!!!” and signing the message “Bruce.” The documents do not speculate about his motive, though Dr. Ivins was aware by that time that he was under suspicion and might have believed that his e-mail — he maintained at least eight e-mail addresses — was being monitored. Dr. Ivins, 62, an anthrax vaccine specialist at Fort Detrick, Md., killed himself with an overdose of medication in July after learning that he was likely to be charged in the death of five people exposed to the anthrax-laced letters. The F.B.I. has said he carried out the attacks alone, but friends, colleagues and lawmakers have said they remain skeptical about the evidence the bureau has made public. The hundreds of pages of search-warrant affidavits made public on Wednesday, after a request by The New York Times, offer no major disclosures. Rather, the documents, unsealed by Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court here and posted online by the Justice Department, add to a portrait of Dr. Ivins’s eccentric personality and threatening statements as he faced possible murder charges. For instance, the documents give a fuller account of a group therapy session on July 9 where Dr. Ivins said that he was a suspect in the anthrax investigation and “that he was angry at the investigators, the government and the system in general.” “He said he was not going to face the death penalty but instead had a plan to kill co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him,” an affidavit by a federal agent said, citing accounts of those present. A search of Dr. Ivins’s home in Frederick, Md., three days later found ammunition, a bulletproof vest and a homemade body armor plate, the documents say. F.B.I. agents had already taken guns and ammunition from the house in a search the previous November. In a further development related to the case, an Army document released this week to The Frederick News-Post revealed that Dr. Ivins was placed on administrative leave and barred from all laboratory space at Fort Detrick in March after spilling anthrax on himself and failing to report the incident immediately. Before telling anyone, he walked home and washed and dried his clothes, the report said. Earlier, after the November search of his home, he had been barred from the most secure laboratories. But until March, he had been allowed to use less secure areas, where, Army officials said Wednesday, he spilled a nonlethal strain of anthrax.


Clinton Seeks ‘Amnesty’ for 2 Held by North Korea

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the United States was now seeking “amnesty” for two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea , a remark that suggests that the Obama administration was admitting the women’s culpability in a bid to secure their freedom. “The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Mrs. Clinton said Friday morning during a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with State Department employees. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.” The two journalists, Laura Ling , 36, and Euna Lee , 32, both reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor after a trial in which they were accused of entering the country illegally and committing “hostile acts.” Ms. Ling reportedly called her sister, Lisa Ling, also a journalist, this week and said in the course of a 20-minute conversation that they had broken North Korean law, but her sister did not say how. Human rights advocates in South Korea have said they were on a reporting assignment about the plight of North Korean women sold through human traffickers and refugees fleeing hunger in North Korea when they were detained March 17. Mrs. Clinton at first said the charges against the women were “baseless,” while the administration pressed for them to be freed on humanitarian grounds. Her comments on Friday appear to reflect a changing picture that has been complicated by the North’s test of a nuclear missile in May and its decision to fire seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on the Fourth of July. A scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday in a South Korean daily that the two women were not in a prison camp, but rather in a guest house in Pyongyang, a development that seemed to suggest that the North still wanted talks with Washington on the women’s release. The scholar, Han Park, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, was quoted by the JoongAng Ilbo as saying the North Korean authorities told him the two women were “staying well in a guest house in Pyongyang.” Mrs. Clinton’s comments during a town-hall-style meeting at the State Department came in response to an employee who did not identify herself, creating the appearance that the question was planted in an attempt to send a message to North Korea. A department spokesman, P. J. Crowley, avoided questions about whether the administration had been in direct talks with North Korea. Experts said that Mrs. Clinton appeared to be trying to keep the issue of the journalists separate from the conflict over the North’s nuclear ambitions. “It’s clear to me they don’t want this tail to wag the nuclear dog,” said Michael Green, a top Asia expert for former President George W. Bush. “They are trying to keep it in a separate lane.” But Mr. Green said the North was unlikely to release the women without getting something in return. Although North Korea does not expect the Obama administration to abandon its effort to impose sanctions on the North for its recent nuclear test, he said, it is likely to want a “high-profile visit” by an administration official to demonstrate that “it’s possible to return to business as usual.” At a later appearance on Friday morning, Mrs. Clinton was asked if the State Department intended to send Professor Han as an emissary. “We have nothing to respond to about that,” she said.

Ling Laura
Lee Euna
North Korea
News and News Media
International Relations
Prisons and Prisoners


California Employees Take Pay Protest to Movies

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — State workers across the country have long complained about budget-cutting by way of furloughs and pay cuts. Now California’s state employee unions are taking the fight to the wellspring of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ’s popularity: the big screen. The workers, scheduled by the governor to be on unpaid leave on Friday, say they will demonstrate outside theaters across the state showing the new action thriller “The Expendables,” which features a rare cameo by the actor turned governor, who is likely to become an actor again when his term expires early next year. “While state workers are being asked to do their job with less money, he is restoring his movie star status,” said Jim Zamora, a spokesman for Service Employees International Union Local 1000. “It’s another slap in the face.” Mr. Schwarzenegger and about 150,000 state workers are at loggerheads: he wants them to continue taking furloughs to help close the state’s huge budget gap, while they are declining the honor of making such a sacrifice. The service workers, the Association of California State Supervisors, the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and other unions are suing to stop the furloughs. The cuts amount to a 15 percent reduction in pay. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Steven A. Brick said Monday that the unions had raised “serious questions” about the governor’s ability to order the unpaid vacations. Pending a resolution of the court case, Judge Brick canceled the furloughs. Lawyers for the governor appealed the decision on Tuesday. Whatever the outcome, state workers are trying to raise a little havoc with “The Expendables.” The title alone is a gift from Hollywood, allowing the unions to post such declarations on their Web sites as, “Tell Arnold We’re Not Expendable.” A demonstration on Aug. 3 during the premiere of “The Expendables” at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood forced Mr. Schwarzenegger to skip the red carpet and enter the building from the back, the service workers said. The governor’s spokesman, Aaron McLear, said Mr. Schwarzenegger often enters buildings from the back as a security measure. Mr. McLear said he had not heard of any demonstrations against the movie, but said that the state workers “are certainly free to do whatever they want.” From the evidence of its trailer, the Sylvester Stallone comeback vehicle employs every action movie cliché (“A job no one wanted is becoming a mission no one expected”) and every aging action movie hero this side of Steven Seagal (Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li and Jason Statham, and Mr. Stallone himself). The movie is expected to be a big commercial hit, not because of the governor. His role is uncredited.

Schwarzenegger Arnold
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Government Employees
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
California


Raiders’ Coach Ends 2-Day Hospital Stay

Abstract: Oakland Raiders Coach Lane Kiffin returned to practice yesterday in Napa, Calif., after missing the previous two days while being hospitalized for a viral infection. Kiffin, 32, spent two nights in the Queen of the Valley Medical Center, undergoing tests and observation. He missed three practice sessions before returning yesterday afternoon. Kiffin, hired Jan. 23 to replace the fired Art Shell, is the youngest head coach in the N.F.L. The offensive coordinator Greg Knapp and the defensive coordinator Rob Ryan ran practice in Kiffin’s absence. ROMO TURNED DOWN BRONCOS Long before Tony Romo was a Pro Bowl quarterback for the Cowboys, he was a rookie free agent who turned down twice as much money to sign with Denver. Not even Broncos Coach Mike Shanahan, a fellow Eastern Illinois product, could persuade Romo to go to Denver instead of Dallas in 2003. “I tried to sign him very hard,” Shanahan said yesterday. “I really liked him coming out of school.” Shanahan added that Denver offered Romo $20,000 to the Cowboys’ offer of $10,000. “He said, ‘Coach, I thought I had a much better chance to make the team here than at your place,’ ” Shanahan said. “So he’s a politician as well.” CHANGES FOR CHIEFS’ STADIUM Arrowhead Stadium, with the family of Lamar Hunt kicking in $125 million, is going to get a $375 million renovation. The stadium, the 35-year-old home of the Chiefs, will expand by approximately 500,000 square feet and will include a roughly 50 percent increase in concessions and an 80 percent increase in bathroom facilities. The concourse width will double, and there will be a Chiefs Hall of Fame. Construction will take about three years and include a new training facility with a 100-yard indoor field and a separate building to house coaches and front-office executives. OKEAFOR MAY MISS SEASON Arizona Cardinals outside linebacker Chike Okeafor will probably miss the season after having surgery Tuesday to reattach a torn biceps tendon. Okeafor was holding out hope for a return this season, Coach Ken Whisenhunt said, but the normal recovery period is four months. JONES TO SING HIP-HOP The suspended Titans cornerback Pacman Jones is not expected to play in the N.F.L. this season, so he keeps looking for new ways to stay busy. First, there was wrestling, now there is hip-hop. His National Street League Records, based in Atlanta, announced yesterday that Jones would team with the producer Spoaty in a duo called Posterboyz, with their first single “Let it Shine” being released Aug. 27. The song talks about big money, cars and jewelry. The N.F.L. is looking into whether the record label’s name, National Street League Records, infringes on the league’s trademark, the league spokesman Greg Aiello said. AROUND THE LEAGUE Facing pressure to strike a deal with prosecutors, Falcons quarterback Michael Vick conferred with his lawyers for hours yesterday. The conference call came two days after two remaining co-defendants scheduled plea hearings, presumably agreeing to testify against Vick if his federal dogfighting conspiracy case goes to trial as scheduled Nov. 26. ... Eagles defensive end Jerome McDougle injured his right triceps in Philadelphia’s preseason opener and will probably miss the rest of the season. Running back Ryan Moats could also be out for the year with a broken ankle. ... Dolphins receiver Chris Chambers will plead not guilty to driving while impaired, his lawyer said. The lawyer, George Laughrun, said Chambers would fight the charge stemming from his arrest July 14 near Charlotte, N.C. He was also charged with reckless driving and speeding.


Joe Johnson Says Nets Not Following Plays; Coach Cites Trust

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Nets returned to their practice court here Friday for the first time since Hurricane Sandy , but the topic of conversation was not about being back home so much as it was about a struggling team in need of fixing. After an 11-4 start that earned Avery Johnson recognition as coach of the month for November, the Nets have gone 2-8 in December. The Nets have steadily stumbled toward mediocrity, poor play highlighted by blown leads, a declining defense and Deron Williams’s comments about the team’s offense . Joe Johnson, usually laconic, was forceful in talking about the Nets and their struggles. Johnson spoke of a team that was happier and playing more freely in November — incidentally when Johnson was struggling with his shot — and pledged not to go down a pessimistic path that, at times, he said, some of his teammates have. “It’s a new chapter in my career,” he said. “There’s no way I’m going to take a day for granted and not come in here and have a good time. So I know I don’t show it, express it a lot, but that’s just my demeanor, it’s just who I am.” He added: “We have the best jobs in America, man. There’s no way we should not have fun.” Despite Johnson’s insistence on enjoying his work, he did not ignore how the Nets’ defense has been faltering. “We have to stick to our schemes,” he said. “If you look at tape, if you’re watching tape, we have so many breakdowns defensively, we don’t even give our defensive schemes a chance to work. So we don’t even know if they work.” But Johnson understands the Nets have also been inconsistent on offense recently. Johnson scores points in bunches, only for his production to halt for long stretches, a concern germane to all of the Nets’ main scorers. “If something’s working, regardless of if it’s me, Deron, Brook, Gerald, if something’s working, we got to stick with it,” he said. He added that Avery Johnson tells them: “The same play, the same way. You got to keep running it until they stop it because that’s what teams do on us.” After Nets General Manager Billy King addressed the team at practice Friday, Avery Johnson spoke to the players about trusting one another. He cited Wednesday’s 100-86 loss to the Knicks during which the Nets’ defense was repeatedly exploited on similar plays. “One guy doesn’t want to go and help because he doesn’t trust that his teammate will get Tyson Chandler off the glass,” he said. “Or one guy may be going one-on-one because he doesn’t trust to pass it and move it to his teammate so he can make a play.” Avery Johnson said he thought that early struggles for newly formed rosters were just part of the growth process. He has mentioned “the cycle of the season” numerous times this year to explain the Nets’ peaks and valleys. “If most of this group is together and I’m coaching this group next year, we’ll have a history,” he said. “We don’t have a history. We just don’t. So everything that we’re doing right now, we’re kind of learning it together. That’s why I’m getting back to the trust factor.” Johnson said he empathized with Nets fans who are frustrated with him, speaking about his own experiences as a fan of the New Orleans Saints. “I’m thinking about, ‘Hey, Sean, why didn’t you run the ball on that play,’ ” Johnson said of Sean Payton, the New Orleans coach who is serving a suspension for his role in a bounty program. “And I’m friends with the guy.” Johnson sifts through N.B.A. history — sometimes history he has been a part of — to find examples of coaches who have gone through what he is going through now, only to rise to the top. He points to Rudy Tomjanovich, the former Rockets coach whom he played for in part of the 1991-92 season, and Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich as two examples. Of Popovich’s first championship, in 1998-99 (a season shortened by a lockout), Johnson, then his point guard, said: “There was a point where I think we were 7-9 or something and we weren’t very good and he was supposedly about to get fired and Doc Rivers was going to take over. And then we got hot and the rest is history.” It was a positive thought for a team that understandably may not know what to think at the moment.


Gander Mountain Expands Shoe Offerings - Campaign Spotlight

Abstract: One of the most popular trends in retail is the expansion of shoe departments, which is taking place at stores like Macy’s, Barneys New York and Saks. Another retailer is joining the parade, encouraging shoppers to wear shoes that are more sensible than the Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks being sold by the department stores. The retailer is the Gander Mountain Company , which operates 115 stores and a Web site that sell equipment and gear for consumers who enjoy outdoor pursuits like camping, fishing and hunting. Beginning this week, Gander Mountain is expanding its footwear offerings to add more than 20 brands of so-called performance footwear, among them Adidas, Asics, Brooks, New Balance, Oakley, Saucony and Under Armour. Gander Mountain will promote its selection of 63 brands and 550 or so styles of shoes, boots and sandals with an elaborate campaign that includes a sweepstakes, shoe giveaways, promotions, advertising, public relations and content in social media like Facebook and Twitter . There will also be a significant presence for the campaign in Gander Mountain stores, meant to highlight the doubling, to 120 feet, of the length of the footwear walls in many locations. Calling attention to the larger selection will be eye-catching displays, made of cardboard, of photographs of shoes piled high to form footwear mountains. Gander Mountain is hiring 400 additional employees for its footwear expansion. At sessions the retailer is calling Footwear University, hundreds of employees and managers are being trained to sell the new merchandise. Fleishman-Hillard in St. Louis, part of the Diversified Agency Services division of the Omnicom Group, is the agency of record for Gander Mountain for public relations and social media. The Richards Group in Dallas is the retailer’s agency for advertising, creating campaigns that carry the theme “We live outdoors.” The decision by executives of Gander Mountain to pay more attention to their footwear departments came after unseasonable weather last year — a cool, wet spring and a warm, dry fall — hurt revenue. Demand for shoes, boots and sandals is more steady and less seasonal than demand for merchandise tied to weather-related activities. “Like all retailers, we’re looking to capture more dollars,” says Steve Uline, executive vice president for marketing at Gander Mountain in St. Paul, Minn. “And looking at areas to expand, footwear is a great opportunity.” The fact that footwear sales are more “weatherproof” than the “hunt, fish, camp” items that Gander Mountain is known for, he adds, makes it “definitely a 12-month play.” The shoes being added to the Gander Mountain lineup are intended to be worn by women and children as well as men. That is intended to stimulate sales because much of the merchandise now in the stores appeals more to men. The goal among Gander Mountain executives is to double footwear revenue in the next two years. Could the new focus on performance footwear run the risk of muddying the Gander Mountain brand identity? “That’s a great question,” Mr. Uline says, asking one of his own: “Are we staying true to our core?” “If you alienate your everyday customer, you’ll hurt yourself,” he acknowledges, but that should not be a problem because “outdoor enthusiasts were buying that footwear; they were just not buying it from us.” Fleishman-Hillard was asked to help publicize the footwear initiative, Mr. Uline says, after the success of two recent promotions handled by the agency. One, last Thanksgiving, was called “Camo Thursday,” which took Black Friday holiday sales, advanced them a day and cloaked them in camouflage coloration. The other effort from Fleishman-Hillard was for the retailer’s annual First Cast spring sale, which is centered on fishing merchandise. “We saw the power of the P.R.,” Mr. Uline says, so “we elected to go this route” as well for the footwear expansion. The cardboard displays that are meant to bring to life the expansion are scheduled to go up in 67 stores. The displays are 10 feet high, 20 feet wide and about 4 feet deep. The displays are composed of photographs of the 550 styles of shoes being sold at Gander Mountain, Mr. Uline says, “from sandals to hikers to water shoes to work boots.” “It will be dead center when you walk into the store, the first thing you see,” he adds. The sweepstakes will offer three grand prize winners — a man, a woman and a child — a pair of each men’s, women’s or children’s shoe sold by Gander Mountain. And 354 people will be selected to win gifts cards that can be applied to shoe purchases. There will also be shopping sprees and giveaways in stores, plus 10 percent discounts on footwear and apparel purchases for students with valid college IDs. In the realm of social media, Gander Mountain has almost 492,000 fans on Facebook and about 15,000 followers on Twitter. As a result, “we’ve worked hard to insure that all programs incorporate a social media component,” says Sabrina Crider, senior vice president for brand marketing at Fleishman-Hillard and global co-chairwoman for the word-of-mouth marketing practice at the agency. “To date, those efforts have been focused on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube,” Ms. Crider says, “although we’re currently exploring additional, emerging platforms as our fans’ social media usage expands.” “It’s most important for us to be active where our fans are,” she adds. The elements of the footwear campaign that are meant to help “engage fans,” Ms. Crider says, include “a ‘surprise and delight’ gift card giveaway on Twitter, for fans talking about the new selection at Gander.” The amount of shoes is to be determined, she adds, “based on volume of conversation and engagement.” Likewise, there will be “spot giveaways on Facebook,” Ms. Crider says, which are to be “specific to brand mentions.” “For example, if someone mentions how excited they are that Gander is carrying Adidas or Oakley brands,” she adds, “we’ll send them a pair of that brand in their size.” “This not only demonstrates that we’re listening,” Ms. Crider says, “but we hope it will show that we’re just as excited as our customers about this expanded selection.” There are to be numerous posts on Facebook and Twitter to send fans in local markets to stores and to the Gander Mountain Web site, she adds, to “check out the expanded footwear selection.” In terms of the advertising aspects of the campaign, there will be newspaper circulars to promote the various merchandise and gift card giveaways. Gander Mountain also typically runs outdoor, radio and online ads, along with a bit of television in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market. According to Kantar Media, a unit of WPP, Gander Mountain spent $11.3 million last year to advertise in major media, compared with $13.5 million in 2010, $14.1 million in 2009 and $7.2 million in 2008. --------- If you like In Advertising, be sure to read the Advertising column that runs Monday through Friday in the Business Day section of The New York Times print edition and on nytimes.com . And read coverage anytime of advertising, marketing, television, print, movies and new media on the Media Decoder blog at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com .

Shoes and Boots
Advertising and Marketing
Sporting Goods


Wizards Beat the Magic

Abstract: John Wall scored 24 points with 13 assists, and the Wizards extended their dominance over the Orlando Magic with a 103-91 victory in Washington. The Wizards won their 11th straight game over the Magic. ■ Hassan Whiteside had 25 points and 19 rebounds, and the Heat rolled past the Dallas Mavericks, 106-82, in Miami. ■ DeMar DeRozan had 23 points as the Raptors rallied to beat the Charlotte Hornets, 104-94, in Toronto.


Maria Sharapova Is Finding Her Stride on Clay at Roland Garros

Abstract: PARIS — “Uh, where’s the grunt?” Chris Evert asked on the eve of the women’s final at the French Open. Evert, a seven-time champion at Roland Garros, was simultaneously watching two screens on Friday in the NBC television compound. On one screen was footage of Maria Sharapova’s full-throated, three-set victory over Eugenie Bouchard in Thursday’s semifinal. On the other was footage of a much more muted Sharapova playing in the quarterfinals of the 2004 French Open, when she won just four games against the Argentine veteran Paola Suárez. Ten years ago in Paris, Sharapova was only a few weeks from becoming a global star by upsetting Serena Williams to win Wimbledon at 17. But at Roland Garros, she was still a rising teenager with a relatively low profile who was searching for her game and footing on clay and who played her drizzly day match against Suárez on a show court that was not even half full. These were what Sharapova would later call her days of being a “cow on ice.” But to watch her long before she became a French Open champion, the phrase “fawn on ice” seems closer to the mark. In 2004, she was slight to the point of being spindly, and instead of sliding into her shots like a true clay courter, she would take a couple of abrupt, often imprecise steps after contact in an urgent attempt to change direction. “She dictates the middle of the court a lot better now and she moves in aggressively, and it seems like she was a little more passive 10 years ago,” Evert said. “But the biggest difference I see in her moving is her recovery — recovering from wide shots and getting back into the court.” The point of the double-screen approach was to appreciate just how far Sharapova had traveled on her dusty road to being a perennial French Open contender. After reaching two semifinals, she won the title in 2012 and then lost in the final last year to Williams, her longtime tormentor. This year, she will be the favorite on Saturday against Simona Halep, a subtle Romanian talent who is seeded higher (4) than Sharapova (7) but who will be playing in her first Grand Slam singles final. Sharapova has won each of the Grand Slam titles once, and if she capitalizes on her much greater experience and prevails against Halep, she will have won more major trophies in Paris than anywhere else. That would be some career twist for a woman who grew up largely on American hardcourts and who has never been the game’s smoothest mover. Sharapova’s career record on clay is 131-24, and 10 of her past 12 victories over top-five players have come on the surface, which is perhaps her best. “That she is in this position just shows her determination, her determination to set that goal for herself,” Evert said. “It also shows that power is still winning. Power still reigns over finesse.” That, of course, remains to be reconfirmed Saturday. Halep, who has lost her three previous matches to Sharapova, is more about finesse than power, even if she can still produce plenty of pop with her fluid, technically sound ground strokes. Image Maria Sharapova serving during her quarterfinal loss to Paola Suárez at the 2004 French Open. Credit Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Evert, 40 years after her first French Open victory, in 1974, is scheduled to award the trophies and expects to be handing the bigger one to Sharapova — even if she thinks Sharapova was playing better and more confident tennis a year ago in Paris. “I think she’s going to come out and overpower Halep, who, if she’s human, will be a little overwhelmed by being in the final, which is natural,” Evert said. “But I could be wrong.” A victory for Sharapova would also be a full-circle moment for a women who missed the United States Open and the end of last season with her latest round of serious right shoulder problems. “I’m very proud because I worked hard to get myself injury-free,” Sharapova said. “I had to work through some tough losses in the beginning of the season that I didn’t want to accept. I worked through them. I worked hard, and I’m in this position, giving myself a chance.” Sharapova tore her right rotator cuff in two places in 2008 and missed nearly a year of competition. Her serve has not been as consistent since her return, particularly her second serve, and the difference between her motion in 2004 and now is striking. “Her serve was much more fluid, much more of an easy, natural motion,” Evert said as she watched the footage on both screens. “I just think she has so many hitches now. She kept her elbow higher in the take-back in 2004, and she was reaching for it and snapping the ball at the top, getting good snap.” Paul Annacone, who coached Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, passed by the room, greeted Evert and took a look of his own. “Maria’s serve is a lot more manufactured now,” he said. “It was long and smooth and fine in 2004. I actually think her motion now looks more likely to cause a shoulder problem because it’s a little more rigid. She also has a bit of a lag in her take-back and doesn’t go all the way up to the back-scratch position. She kind of stops halfway, which I don’t think is great for your shoulder, or rotator cuff, either.” But what is clearly smoother and improved is Sharapova’s court coverage on the crushed red brick that passes for clay in Paris. Instead of a fawn on ice, she is a woman in her element: sliding laterally and expertly into open-stance forehands and backhands; sliding forward in pursuit of the drop shots that Bouchard rightly deployed to bring her out of her comfort zone and to the net. Sharapova, at 27, looks stronger in the legs; stronger in the core; much harder to knock off balance and off rhythm and also much easier to hear as the occasional grunts through clenched teeth of that 2004 quarterfinal have, depending on one’s tastes and perspective, evolved or devolved into today’s soundtrack of extended, open-mouthed shrieks. “I think that helps her nerves when she lets it out,” Evert said. “She’s thinking about that rather than the nerves.” But Sharapova, who has needed to rally to win her past three matches in three sets, has often cranked up the volume loudest just after match point in Paris this year. Despite all the titles won and millions of dollars earned, Sharapova looks and sounds even hungrier than she was in 2004. “We’re wired differently,” Evert said of enduring tennis champions. “I can relate to Maria in that aspect. It’s hard to let it go. “I remember when I got married to Andy,” Evert said of her second husband, the alpine skier Andy Mill. “He’d had 11 surgeries on his knees, and I remember him saying: ‘Chrissie, milk it as long as you can. It’s going to be over before you know it. You have the whole rest of your life, but right now, you are great at something.’ “So the desire was there, and the desire is there for her, too,” Evert said of Sharapova.

French Open
Roland Garros Stadium Paris France
Maria Sharapova
Tennis
Simona Halep


Obama’s Ad Hoc Strategy to Reverse Manufacturing’s Fall

Abstract: If the Obama administration has a strategy for reviving manufacturing, Douglas Bartlett would like to know what it is. Buffeted by foreign competition, Mr. Bartlett recently closed his printed circuit board factory, founded 57 years ago by his father, and laid off the remaining 87 workers. Last week, he auctioned off the machinery, and soon he will raze the factory itself in Cary, Ill. “The property taxes are no longer affordable,” Mr. Bartlett said glumly, “so I am going to tear down the building and sit on the land, and hopefully sell it after the recession when land prices hopefully rise.” Though manufacturing has long been in decline, the loss of factory jobs has been especially brutal of late, with nearly two million disappearing since the recession began in December 2007. Even a few chief executives, heading companies that have shifted plenty of production abroad, are beginning to express alarm. “We must make a serious commitment to manufacturing and exports. This is a national imperative,” Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric, said in a speech last month, while acknowledging that G.E. was enriched by its overseas operations too. President Obama , agreeing in effect, has declared, “The fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America’s future.” The United States ranks behind every industrial nation except France in the percentage of overall economic activity devoted to manufacturing — 13.9 percent, the World Bank reports, down 4 percentage points in a decade. The 19-month-old recession has contributed noticeably to this decline. Industrial production has fallen 17.3 percent, the sharpest drop during a recession since the 1930s. So far, however, Mr. Obama’s administration has not come up with a formal plan to address the rapid decline. Instead, it has pursued ad hoc initiatives — bailing out General Motors and Chrysler, for example, and pushing green energy by supporting the manufacture of items like wind turbines and solar panels. “We want to make sure that we grow a manufacturing base for renewable energy,” said Matthew Rogers, a senior adviser in the Energy Department, explaining that this is being accomplished in part by “accelerating loan guarantees from zero” in the Bush years. Xunming Deng, a physicist and the chairman of the Xunlight Corporation, sees himself as a beneficiary of what he describes as the Obama administration’s more flexible loan guarantees. His factory in Toledo, Ohio, with 100 employees, is in the early stages of making solar panels, and Dr. Deng is already planning to quadruple the plant’s size. He has applied to the Energy Department for a $120 million loan guarantee. If he gets it, he will not have to pay the hefty fees charged for loan guarantees before Mr. Obama took office. “Getting rid of that fee makes the loan guarantee very attractive and very helpful,” Dr. Deng said. “We can’t grow as fast without it.” Beyond energy, the administration’s approach gradually outlines the elements of a manufacturing policy — what Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council, described as “a number of things to support manufacturing.” The auto bailout, for all its improvisations, served notice that the administration would probably rescue any giant manufacturer it deemed too big (or too iconic) to fail, and would help the suppliers of failing giants transition to other industries. The Buy America clause in the stimulus package pointedly favors the purchase of American-made goods for infrastructure projects. The Commerce Department is adding $100 million, more than double the current outlay, to a program that helps American manufacturers operate more effectively. And trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration — agreements that would make the United States more open to imported manufactured goods — have been allowed to languish in Congress. “The administration’s policy is evolving in the right direction,” said Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who is particularly concerned about auto imports. “I think they have essentially shed the political chains that prevented government from having a role in manufacturing. They are working their way toward what makes sense.” Not everyone agrees. “Bush and Obama,” Mr. Bartlett said scornfully, “one is as bad as the other in terms of manufacturing policy.” He acknowledged that the recession was the immediate reason for the demise of his family’s business. But what really did it in, he said in an interview, was the competition from less expensive Chinese circuit boards — less expensive, he argued, because the Chinese undervalue their currency and this administration, like the ones before it, lets them get away with it. “Our orders went from $8 million at an annual rate to $4 million, which was not enough to make money,” he said. Mr. Bartlett, who is co-chairman of an organization called the Fair Currency Coalition, said that Chinese competitors charged only $1 for each printed circuit board sold in this country, while he charged $1.40. Like many economists and government officials, he says he believes the Chinese currency is artificially undervalued. As a countermeasure, he said the Obama administration should impose a 40 percent tariff on imported Chinese goods. “I can compete against Chinese entrepreneurs, and Chinese labor cost is not that big a factor,” he said, “but I cannot compete against the Chinese government’s manufacturing policies.” Manufacturing has long been viewed as an essential pillar of a powerful economy. It generates millions of well-paid jobs for those with only a high school education, a huge segment of the population. No other sector contributes more to the nation’s overall productivity, economists say. And as manufacturing weakens, the country becomes ever more dependent on imports of merchandise, computers, machinery and the like — running up a trade deficit that in time could undermine the dollar and the nation’s capacity to sustain so many imports. One tactic for strengthening the manufacturing sector, in the administration’s view, would be a shift in tax policy. The research and development tax credit, which is now subject to renewal by Congress, would be made permanent, encouraging much more R.& D. among manufacturers, a senior Commerce Department official argued. And foreign taxes paid on profits earned overseas would not be deductible in this country until the profits were repatriated, a restriction that might discourage locating factories abroad. The goal is to arrest manufacturing’s dizzying decline. It “was the pillar on which we built the middle class,” said Thea Lee, policy director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., “and it is hard to see how you rebuild the middle class without reviving manufacturing.”

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009)


Redskins General Manager Bruce Allen Defends Team Name

Abstract: Washington Redskins General Manager Bruce Allen said the team was not considering a new nickname, adding that it was “ludicrous” to suggest the franchise was trying to upset Native Americans. Allen told reporters that there was “nothing that we feel is offensive, and we’re proud of our history.” Participants at a symposium at the Smithsonian last week were heavily critical of the use of the word, citing its history as an offensive term.


Last Days for U.N. Court Trying Suspects in Rwanda Genocide

Abstract: ARUSHA, Tanzania — This town, near the edge of the Great Rift Valley, has long been a jumping off point for safaris. But intermingled with the zoom-lens-wielding tourists and camouflage-green safari trucks has been another common sight: buttoned-up legal staff members drawn from all over the world. They have long converged here in a conference-center-turned-fortress in the center of town, guarded by United Nations police officers. But now, after 21 years, 93 cases and $2 billion, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is closing down. The last defendants to appear before the tribunal sat beside their robed lawyers in a cramped courtroom on Monday, waiting nervously for a decision in their appeals. This special court, set up by the United Nations in 1994 in response to a genocide of nearly one million people in Rwanda that year, was intended to bring to justice the orchestrators of the mass killings. All of those on the tribunal’s suspect list had fled Rwanda, and most were hunted down and arrested elsewhere. The tribunal’s prosecutor deployed a team to Rwanda in the 1990s to speak to victims and witnesses. The tribunal’s early years were tainted by missteps. Critics said it was too slow, too expensive and too biased, failing to try any crimes committed by the side that ended the genocide and won the war — the side that now governs Rwanda. In the past few months, as the last cases have wrapped up, courtrooms and floors of office space have gradually been rented back to the conference center’s landlord. “A liquidation team is in place to sell all that is remaining behind, be it furniture, vehicles and computers,” said Danford Mpumilwa, a tribunal spokesman. “Naturally some of the items have been donated to schools and other local institutions, which desperately need them.” The United Nations is building a much smaller facility that will house the tribunal’s archive — a point of contention with the Rwandan government, which is demanding that the archive be brought to Rwanda. For one last session Monday, the court convened in the Kilimanjaro Wing of the tribunal. Seats set aside for family were the first to fill up. Wives, nephews and grandchildren of the accused flashed thumbs-up and jumped up from their chairs to wave through the finger-smudged glass separating the public gallery from the courtroom. Many of the spectators were carefully watching Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a prominent suspect, who served as the Rwandan government’s minister for family and women’s development during the 1994 genocide, when soldiers, militia and everyday farmers — whipped into a frenzy by their leaders — killed their neighbors. Ms. Nyiramasuhuko’s role drew particular interest because she is the only woman the tribunal has tried. In 2011, she was found guilty on seven counts, including genocide and incitement to rape. Ms. Nyiramasuhuko was tried with her son Arsène Shalom Ntahobali and four other members of the local administration in the town of Butare in southern Rwanda, who were all convicted on multiple counts. The “Butare Six,” as they became known, all appealed their convictions. Judges on Monday upheld the six verdicts. But family members watching from the courtroom gallery were jubilant as Judge Fausto Pocar, from Italy, announced reduced sentences for the defendants. For Ms. Nyiramasuhuko, though, it apparently will not make much difference. Her sentence was changed to 47 years from life; she is 69. Monday was the end of an era. The court officially closes its doors at the end of the year, and this was the last case to be heard in its current incarnation. After that, any unfinished business, such as supporting prosecutions in other countries or trying any of the remaining suspects at large, will fall to a slimmed-down institution known as the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals , headquartered in The Hague. The Mechanism, as United Nations officials call it, will continue to run an office in Arusha, but it will be about a tenth of the size of the tribunal at its height. The Mechanism has been preparing for this transition for several years. It will also track residual issues from the United Nations court for the former Yugoslavia when it closes, most likely in late 2017. Eight Rwandan fugitives are still at large, with $5 million bounties being offered for their capture by the United States through the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. One high-profile suspect was captured last week in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Beyond the eight most-wanted fugitives, the Rwandan government has issued indictments for more than 400 people accused of involvement in the genocide. “Let us remember that these are full-size human beings, not pins or grains of salt, which disappear or melt,” said Johnston Busingye, Rwanda’s justice minister, at an emotional ceremony this month. “Some are hidden in plain sight, preaching the word of God to the faithful, treating patients in hospitals or engaged in other activities in various countries.” He called the failure of countries to apprehend suspects — despite being members of the United Nations, which backed the tribunal — “another U.N. paradox.”

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


Genome Research Points to Adaptation Among Early African-Americans

Abstract: Researchers scanning the genomes of African-Americans say they see evidence of natural selection as their ancestors adapted to the harsh conditions of their new environment in America. The scientists, led by Li Jin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, report in the journal Genome Research that certain disease-causing variant genes became more common in African-Americans after their ancestors reached American shores — perhaps because they conferred greater, offsetting benefits. Other gene variants have become less common, the researchers say, like the gene for sickle cell hemoglobin, which in its more common single-dose form protects against malaria. The Shanghai team suggests the gene has become less common in African-Americans because malaria is much less of a threat. The purpose of studying African-American genomes is largely medical. Most searches for variant genes that cause disease take place in people of European ancestry, and physicians want to make sure they have not missed variants that may be more common in African-Americans and helpful for developing treatments or diagnosis. Such searches often reveal events in a population’s history by pinpointing genes that have changed under the pressure of natural selection. The unusually common variants identified by the Shanghai team are associated with higher risk of hypertension, prostate cancer, sclerosis and bladder cancer. “Most of the genes associated with African-American ethnic diseases,” they write, “may have played an important role in African-Americans’ adaptation to local environment.” But the authors have not yet been able to identify the benefits they believe such genes conferred. Mark D. Shriver, a geneticist at Penn State, said it was plausible that some versions of a gene would become more common as African-Americans adjusted to a new environment. “It’s very valid to expect that there will be factors subject to genetic adaptation and that are now more prevalent in contemporary African-Americans than in the ancestral group,” he said. But Alkes L. Price, a geneticist at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the Shanghai team’s results, though plausible, fell short of proof. “This paper does not provide evidence of selection having occurred post-Africa,” he said. The Shanghai researchers used a method for studying admixture, a geneticist’s term for when two populations or races intermarry; China has several such populations, perhaps accounting for the team’s interest. Using gene chips that analyze common variations in the human genome, researchers can deconstruct the chromosomes of an African-American, say, assigning each chunk of DNA to an African or European origin. The scientists found that of the African-American genomes in their sample, 22 percent of the DNA came from Europeans, on average, and the rest from African ancestors, a figure in line with other estimates. They then looked for sites along the genome where either European or African ancestry was present at statistically significant levels above the average, finding four regions with very common European ancestry and two with very common African ancestry. Most of these sites harbored genes of unknown function, but one, of European origin, holds a gene that combats influenza, suggesting it has become more common in African-Americans by conferring protection from the disease. Dr. Price, however, said that two other research teams had applied the same method to African-American genomes without finding any statistically significant excess of European or African ancestry. The Chinese team, in his view, should have applied a correction factor to their statistics and, had they done so, would have obtained the same result. In another approach, the Shanghai team focused on all the DNA segments of the African origin in the African-American genomes, discarding all the European DNA. They then compared the African component of African-American genomes with the DNA of the Yoruba of Nigeria, a well-studied population that happens to be genetically very close to the West African population from which many slaves were taken. The Shanghai team then asked how the African genome had changed after Africans arrived in the United States. They found that versions of some genes had become more common and others less so. The less common genes included several known to be involved in protection against malaria. Dr. Price, however, said the decrease in gene frequency might have another explanation — the fact that resistance to malaria varies in strength in different regions of West Africa. The Shanghai team may be looking at the difference in malaria resistance between the Yoruba and other African populations, not the difference between today’s African-Americans and their African ancestors, he said. Researchers can analyze the ancestry of admixed populations because of the way the hereditary material is shuffled between generations. People have a double set of chromosomes, of which one member of each pair comes from the mother and one from the father. When the egg or sperm is made, the maternal and paternal copies of a chromosome line up and swap large chunks of DNA. The swapped segments are so large that it takes many generations before they are whittled down to a length too small to be recognized. Meanwhile, the ancestry of each segment can be identified from its pattern of single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, the sites on the human genome where there is commonly variation in the A, T, C and G units that make up DNA. Among human populations, there are very few absolute differences, meaning those in which all members of one population will have, for example, unit T at a site and all members of another will have unit G. But populations do have characteristic percentages. Among Europeans, 70 percent may have C and 30 percent A at a particular SNP site, whereas in Africans the ratio may be 40 percent C and 60 percent A. So a section of genome with C at this SNP site is somewhat more likely to be European. This is hardly decisive in itself. But take a row of 10 SNPs, and if European ancestry is more likely for most of them, then that section of DNA is probably European in origin. Geneticists can thus deconstruct the genomes of admixed populations into a mosaic in which each segment can be traced back to one or the other of the two parent populations. This is the basis of the Shanghai team’s approach. But proving that natural selection has been at work in very recent times — in this case, the last 300 years — is very difficult, because the traces of selection are still small. To be sure of detecting such weak selection signals, Dr. Jin and his colleagues conclude, researchers in the future should analyze many thousands of genomes.

Genetics and Heredity
Blacks
Genealogy
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
Medicine and Health
Li Jin
Sickle Cell Anemia
Genome Research
Chinese Academy of Sciences


Unraveling of Glasgow Rangers Jeopardizes Entire League

Abstract: LONDON — Scotland, together with England, formalized organized soccer and to this day retains a powerful voice over the laws of the game worldwide. But with the insolvency of Glasgow’s most successful club, Rangers F.C., comes an unraveling that threatens the future of the entire pyramid of the country’s professional soccer. On Wednesday, the remaining 11 clubs of the Scottish Premier League voted overwhelmingly against allowing a re-formed and rebranded Rangers to play in their league. Next Wednesday, the remainder of Scotland’s pro and semipro clubs will decide at what level, if any, the so-called “newco” Rangers can start afresh in the Scottish Football League, which has three tiers of soccer below the level of the Premier League. The precedent has been clearly set. Clubs like Gretna and Livingstone that could not pay outstanding bills — not just taxes, but other creditors like the police, first-aid responders, printers or caterers — were demoted to the very foot of the pyramid, Division Three of the Scottish League. And down there, among the part-time players, clubs can, and have, disappeared. An exodus of Rangers players has already started. Scotland national team defender Steven Whittaker has defected to Norwich City in England, striker Kyle Lafferty has a deal with Sion in Switzerland, midfielder Jamie Ness has gone to Stoke City, and forward Steven Naismith is wrapping up a contract with Everton. The rest of the ’Gers multinational squad, including three Americans (Carlos Bocanegra, Maurice Edu and Alejandro Bedoya), are being advised that they do not need to regard as binding the contracts that were taken over by the new Rangers’ consortium. The Americans are important because Fox acquired the U.S. television rights to the S.P.L. in March. And while Fox will say only that it is evaluating its options, it is clear that a Scottish league without the “Old Firm,” the historically dominant Rangers vs. Celtic matchup, is not what Fox and other broadcasters signed up for. The feeling is that television companies — not just Fox in the United States — would tolerate one year, but not more, without Rangers. With that in mind, the 30 lower-division clubs are being pressured to allow Rangers to be parachuted into division one of the S.F.L.. Scotland’s soccer administrators fear the apocalypse: the unraveling of the structure of more than 122 years of the national sport. Stewart Regan, the F.A. chief executive, talked of “social unrest,” of “Armageddon” and of a slow withering of the pro game in Scotland. Some fans, even fans of Rangers, say that if the club was living so far beyond its means, then it should go to the very base of the pyramid and start over. Their view is that the new consortium, led by an Englishman, should not be allowed to pick up the Rangers brand for just £5.5 million while dodging debts of £134 million, or $208 million, that would be written off via bankruptcy. Other clubs face the vote next Wednesday defiantly. “What kind of game are we running?” asked Raith Rovers’ chairman Turnbull Hutton on BBC radio on Tuesday. He answered his own question with one word: “Corrupt.” Hutton sees the ultimatums coming from the soccer authorities as tantamount to threats and bullying. He referred to a leaked report that legislators were discussing the possibility of a dozen clubs signing up to form a breakaway league if Rangers were not voted into Division One next week. What is at stake is a television deal worth £80 million over five seasons. That deal, like Scottish soccer these past 122 years, is dependent on the two biggest clubs — some would say the only big clubs left in Scotland — competing against each other. The threat of social unrest is also very real. Rangers is the bastion for Protestants, many of whom arrived from Ireland over the last century for jobs in the shipyards and coal mines in and around Glasgow. Celtic’s fans are predominantly Roman Catholic. And while sectarian violence around the Old Firm has been a blight on Scottish soccer for generations, it has also been a way of channeling the divide in society. In that respect, the importance of Rangers versus Celtic is unique to Scotland. In financial terms, Rangers’ fall from being one of the world’s 20 wealthiest clubs less than a decade ago has to be more worrying to those abroad. Other leagues, like those in England, Spain, Italy and even France, are becoming more and more financially dependent on two or three omnipotent clubs. In England’s case they are financed by foreign investors, from the United States, Russia and the Gulf. In Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid have separate television deals, paying each of them 10 times what other clubs get from broadcasting rights. But Rangers has something else that clubs the world over could envy. Put the team’s blue shirt on 11 players and 50,000 people will pay to come through the gates of the Ibrox Park stadium in Glasgow. How the club, with that kind of faith translated into game-day income, along with broadcasting and sponsorship rights, could have misspent to such a withering degree has to be a concern way outside of Scotland. The smaller clubs now have a shotgun held to their heads. They are told, by their elected representatives in the leagues and the F.A., that they either compromise and allow Rangers to leapfrog the punishment meted out to lesser, bankrupted teams — or they bring down the edifice of Scottish soccer. Even the Scottish Parliament will be unnerved, because the sport is a salve in harsh times. The balance between Protestant and Catholic is, rightly or wrongly, reflected in soccer — Rangers has been the national champion 54 times and Celtic 43. The last team to break that domination was Aberdeen in 1985. Since that time, Aberdeen’s manager, a Glaswegian, Alex Ferguson, moved down to Manchester where his team, United, is among the richest in the world. United’s American owners, the Glazers, are seeking a new floatation on the New York Stock Exchange. Soccer, everywhere, is a struggle between its roots and its endless thirst for sustainability.

Rangers (Soccer Team)
Celtic (Soccer Club)
Scotland
Soccer