Antidoping Agency Delays Publication of Research

Abstract: Doping experts have long known that drug tests catch only a tiny fraction of the athletes who use banned substances because athletes are constantly finding new drugs and techniques to evade detection. So in 2011, the World Anti-Doping Agency convened a team of researchers to try to determine more accurately how many athletes use performance-enhancing drugs. More than 2,000 track and field athletes participated in the study, and according to the findings, which were reviewed by The New York Times, an estimated 29 percent of the athletes at the 2011 world championships and 45 percent of the athletes at the 2011 Pan-Arab Games said in anonymous surveys that they had doped in the past year. By contrast, less than 2 percent of drug tests examined by WADA laboratories in 2010 were positive. The researchers were eager to publish their results, which they believed would expose a harsh reality of modern sports: that far more athletes are doping than might be imagined, and that current drug-testing protocols catch few of the cheaters. But after a final draft of the study was submitted to the antidoping agency, the organization ultimately told the researchers they could not publish their findings at this time, according to three of the researchers, who requested anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements with the agency. The agency said track and field’s world governing body needed to review the findings first, the researchers said. “It was going to be a really sensitive issue, and they needed time to figure out how to deal with it,” one of the researchers said. “What was going to be the international response?” Nick Davies, a spokesman for track’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, said in an e-mail that the original study “was not complete for publication,” adding that it was “based only on a social science protocol, a kind of vox pop of athletes’ opinions.” Davies indicated blood tests from the world championships this month in Moscow would be combined with the previous research to produce what the I.A.A.F. believed would be a more comprehensive study. In an e-mail, WADA confirmed “the position as set out by the I.A.A.F.” The researchers said that their work was important and sound enough to stand alone, and that it made little scientific sense to combine their work with that of a study they did not conduct. The project began in 2011 when the researchers created a randomized-response survey, a common research technique that is used to ask sensitive questions while ensuring a subject’s confidentiality. The researchers conducted their interviews at two major track and field events: the world championships in Daegu, South Korea, and the Pan-Arab Games in Doha, Qatar. Athletes at the events answered questions on tablet computers and were asked initially to think of a birthday, either their own or that of someone close to them. Then, depending on the date of the birthday, they were instructed to answer one of two questions that appeared on the same screen: one asked if the birthday fell sometime between January and June, and the other asked, “Have you knowingly violated anti-doping regulations by using a prohibited substance or method in the past 12 months?” The study was designed this way, the researchers said, so only the athlete knew which of the two questions he or she was answering. Then, using statistical analysis, the researchers could estimate how many of the athletes admitted to doping. The researchers noted that not every athlete participated, and those who did could have lied on the questionnaire, or chosen to answer the birthday question. They concluded that their results, which found that nearly a third of the athletes at the world championships and nearly half at the Pan-Arab Games had doped in the past year, probably underestimated the reality. The team examined its data and in the spring of 2012 had a manuscript it was prepared to publish. But when the final draft was submitted to WADA, the agency told the team not to publish. WADA wanted it to do more research at another event. The agency’s reasoning was not exactly clear to the researchers, who mostly opposed the idea, the three researchers said. For the next several months, the team and WADA exchanged correspondence, debating whether to publish. In January 2013, after WADA gave permission, an inquiry was sent to the journal Science, which decided not to consider the study for publication. The researchers said it was rejected because the subject matter did not fit. A spokeswoman for Science said she could not comment specifically, but said the journal declined the vast majority of submissions. WADA expressed support in submitting the study to other journals. Then, in March, the researchers said, the agency told them not to publish but to wait for the I.A.A.F. to review the findings. The researchers said they were blindsided. John Hoberman, a University of Texas professor who is an expert on performance-enhancing drugs, said the study’s findings dispelled the notion that doping was a deviant behavior among a few athletes. “Either the sport is recruiting huge numbers of deviants,” he said, “or this is simply routine behavior being engaged in by, more or less, normal people.” He added, “That’s dangerous for WADA, because that’s a character issue.” In May, Dick Pound, a former WADA chairman, presented a report, ordered by the agency, on the current state of drug testing. In part, he and his team concluded, “There is no general appetite to undertake the effort and expense of a successful effort to deliver doping-free sport.” Pound said in a telephone interview Thursday: “There’s this psychological aspect about it: nobody wants to catch anybody. There’s no incentive. Countries are embarrassed if their nationals are caught. And sports are embarrassed if someone from their sport is caught.” Don Catlin, a prominent antidoping scientist, said he was not sure that WADA had the resources to rein in doping. “Those are profound numbers,” Catlin said about the researchers’ findings. “It’s disturbing. I’m not surprised, though.”

International Assn of Athletics Federations


Senate Candidate in Brazil in Hiding After Slapping Voter on Election Day

Abstract: A retired police colonel who failed to win a seat in Brazil’s Senate on Sunday still managed to seize the nation’s attention by slapping a voter in the face — in full view of witnesses and at least two cameras — when she objected to his attempt to cut the line at a polling place. The candidate, Marcos Antônio Cardoso de Brito , was in hiding Monday after video of the incident spread online, and officials in the northern state of Alagoas ordered his arrest . Video of a candidate for the Brazilian Senate slapping a voter in the face at a polling place on Sunday. Credit Credit Gazetaweb Pronto, via YouTube Colonel Brito was a marginal candidate, finishing in seventh and last place with just 0.16 percent of the vote , in a contest won by a disgraced former president of Brazil, Fernando Collor de Mello. But the fact that the former police colonel reacted so violently to the woman, and was last seen being ushered away by a police escort, seemed to resonate with Brazilians who complain that the nation’s military police force still acts with impunity, three decades after the end of dictatorship. Video of the slap was widely shared on social networks, forcing the state’s military police force to issue a statement saying that an investigation had been opened into the conduct of the officers who witnessed the assault. A second recording of the incident broadcast on Monday offered an even clearer image of the colonel’s hand snapping the woman’s head back. Image A screenshot from video of a Senate candidate in Brazil slapping a voter at a polling place in the northern state of Alagoas on Sunday. Credit TNH1 The ease with which Colonel Brito continued to evade arrest, however, led a senior election official in the state to suggest on Facebook that the force simply did not want to arrest him. The woman who was slapped, Dr. Marta Celeste de Oliveira, told a local broadcaster that officers providing security at the polling station said later that they did not intervene because they were afraid of the former colonel. The doctor also said that she intervened only after the colonel tried to have officers arrest a senior citizen waiting to vote who had objected first to the candidate’s attempt to cut the line. By winning the support of just 1,922 voters in his Senate race, Colonel Brito failed even to match the raw vote total of his National Ecological Party ’s most outrageous candidate, Manoel dos Santos Silva Irmão, a gray-bearded São Paulo resident who ran for Congress under the nickname Bin Laden .


As Prime Russian Trading Partner, Germany Appears Crucial to Ending Crisis

Abstract: In the face of the diplomatic maneuvering over how to confront a bellicose Russia in Ukraine, one country appears to hold the key to any long-lasting entente: Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse and one of Russia’s primary trading partners. Whether it is importing fuel from Gazprom or selling Mercedes-Benz to billionaire oligarchs, trade with Russia has played an important role in Germany’s emergence as an economic superpower over the last decade. Germany is now heavily reliant on Russia for its energy needs, importing more natural gas from Russia than any other country in Europe. But Germany’s enhanced status on the world stage — combined with the end of the commodity boom and the onset of economic stagnation in Russia — has also shifted the balance of power. Some analysts argue that it is Russia that has the most to lose if economic sanctions are ever imposed. This dynamic could offer insight into the role that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, will play in any negotiations with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. So far, German diplomats have tacked away from a plan, pushed by the United States, to impose sweeping sanctions and remove Russia from the Group of 8 developed economic nations. Instead, the German chancellor has called for a more diplomatic solution, preferring more limited actions like many of her European counterparts. But Ms. Merkel, a champion of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union, has also shown a willingness to take a hard line with Mr. Putin. In recent months, Ms. Merkel has been particularly forceful on human rights issues. For example, she played a crucial part in the release of the jailed oil executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. “The German attitude toward Russia has changed in a very substantial way,” said Anders Aslund, an economics expert on Russia, Ukraine and Europe at the Peterson Institute in Washington. “The tables have been turned.” Ten years ago, Mr. Aslund points out, it was Russia that was in ascendance, as high energy prices, robust economic growth and political stability made the country a darling for foreign investors. By comparison, the German economy was seen as dull and less than competitive. Now, Germany has a current-account surplus that amounts to 6 percent of gross domestic product — an important indicator of economic strength and competitiveness. And Russia is being lumped together with other struggling emerging countries and has witnessed a fast erosion of its once-sizable surplus. There are two sides to Germany’s economic relationship with Russia: a reduced reliance on the country as an export market, countered by energy imports that remain strong. While companies like Mercedes and Volkswagen are significant exporters to Russia, over all it ranks 11th, behind Poland, as a market for German goods. In fact, many of Germany’s top exporters have for years been focusing on China and other more dynamic markets in Asia. Jörg Howe, a spokesman for Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes, said that at the moment the company did not expect the crisis to affect sales of its cars. He described Russia as an important market, though not on the same scale as China, Germany or the United States. “The situation is so fluid and volatile and fast-changing it would be irresponsible to speculate,” said Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of Daimler, speaking during a company event in Geneva. “It’s far too early to make any comment.” Russia has become a more difficult country for business during a time of increased financial and corporate scrutiny, making German companies less excited about investing in the country. Russia ranks near the bottom in global surveys that assess levels of corruption and how easy it is to do business, said Mr. Aslund. The worsening political situation with Ukraine has already hurt trade with Germany, which fell to 76.5 billion euros ($105 billion) in 2013 from 80.5 billion euros ($111 billion) in 2012. Still, some 6,000 German companies are active in Russia, and it is an important market for midsize companies like Martin Kannegiesser, a firm in Vlotho, Germany, that supplied industrial laundry equipment for the Sochi Olympics. And there is clearly concern that the conflict in Ukraine could further hurt trade, as the market jitters on Monday underscored. German stocks were off more than 3 percent for the day. From an economic perspective, Ukraine is much less important to Germany than vice versa. German foreign direct investment in Ukraine stands at about $6.3 billion, a relatively modest sum that still accounts for more than 10 percent of the total in Ukraine, according to the German Foreign Ministry. Germany is the second-largest foreign investor in Ukraine behind Cyprus, which is a transit point for Russian money. Still, Germany does not have the upper hand entirely in its relationship with Russia. About three-quarters of the gas and oil that Germany imported in 2013 came from Russia. The country also acts as a major gas transit hub for countries like France. If there was a long-term shutdown of Russian gas, Germany would not be the only country to suffer. Prices would increase and supplies would be squeezed for countries like Turkey and Italy that also rely on Russian energy imports. “Germany in particular is dependent on Russian gas,” said Trevor Sikorski, an analyst at the London research firm Energy Aspects. Still, analysts point out that as energy sources multiply and gas storage levels remain high in Europe, the prospect of a long-lasting energy crisis as a result of the recent turmoil seems fairly remote. This shift in status notwithstanding, Germany has taken pains to play an engaged and nuanced diplomatic role that reflects not just its economic heft in the region, but its ability to bridge the widening chasm between Russia and the United States. It is a sensitive balance for the country, which, unlike France, has tended not to take aggressive diplomatic stands on pressing global issues. But Germany’s economic power is on the rise, lifted by export success in Asia and a calming of the debt crisis in the euro zone. So economists like Mr. Aslund say the next trick — and it is a challenging one — will be for Germany to leverage that influence into a lasting diplomatic agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

International trade
Ukraine
Russia
Germany


United States National Basketball Team Defeats Brazil, 80-69

Abstract: WASHINGTON — It could be considered nitpicking to identify a blemish on a basketball team that includes LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. But the United States national team’s post presence induces less fear than its other assets. On Monday night, the Americans had their first true test of this steamy summer in an exhibition game against the Brazilian national team, which features three 6-foot-11 N.B.A. players. Although the United States overcame a shaky start for an 80-69 win in front of President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., signs of weakness in the middle were apparent. The Brazilians out-rebounded the Americans by 38-30 and led by as many as 10 points in the first half. The United States had only two blocked shots, and Tyson Chandler, the team’s lone true center, had one rebound in 19 minutes. “I was out of position,” Chandler said. “A lot of times we didn’t get bodies because we had two people rotating at the same time, so we let guys free on the glass. We’ve only been together maybe two weeks now. We’re still learning one another and we’re still learning what our defense is about.” James led the Americans with six rebounds, but Anderson Varejao of Brazil, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, had a game-high 13. Brazil’s top big men — Varejao, Nene of the Washington Wizards and Tiago Splitter of the San Antonio Spurs — are each 6-foot-11, taller than every player on the United States roster except the 7-foot-1 Chandler. “The good thing is we got a chance to get tested against bigs that like to post up, bigs that like to hit the glass offensively,” Carmelo Anthony said. The American players have said they plan to make up for their lack of size with their athleticism and their ability to score in transition. When Chandler is not in the game, they do not have a traditional center, but for the most part, they will not need one. In the second quarter on Monday, for example, the Americans had a stretch in which the wiry, 6-foot-9 Durant was their tallest player on the court. The team’s lack of size was not entirely planned. Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh and Blake Griffin will miss the Olympics because of injuries. When Griffin hurt his left knee at a practice last week, the team summoned Anthony Davis, 20, who led the N.C.A.A. in blocked shots as a freshman at Kentucky before being drafted by the New Orleans Hornets. Davis is the team’s intriguing unknown. He sprained his ankle in a workout in New Orleans and practiced little at the start of the national team’s training camp in Las Vegas, which began July 6. But Griffin’s injury gave him a new opportunity. Davis did not play on Monday, despite the chants of “We want Davis” that rang through the sold-out Verizon Center with less than two minutes remaining. “I think I can rebound,” Davis said. “I think I can rebound, and with my length offensively, tap the ball out. I definitely think I can do those things.” Varejao gave Brazil a 27-17 lead, its largest of the game, with 15.9 seconds left in the first quarter. With 3:20 left in the second quarter, the United States took a 30-29 lead after a steal and layup by Chandler. It never trailed again, but it did not lead by more than 14 points, either. Afterward, several of the United States players praised their team’s defense, although Brazil shot 50.9 percent from the floor. At the Olympics in London, the United States will expect contributions in the paint from wing players like James, Durant and Anthony. Otherwise, there could be games that are even closer than Monday night’s. When asked if other teams might take advantage of the United States in the post during the Olympics, Varejao smiled and shook his head slightly, as if to say he would not stir up trouble with his response. “I’m not sure,” he said. “We’ll have to see.” REBOUNDS The loudest cheers and jeers of the night were directed at President Obama. When he and the First Lady, Michelle Obama, appeared on the scoreboard’s “Kiss Cam” during a first-half timeout, they declined the chance to pucker up and were lustily booed. But the couple had another chance in the fourth quarter, and this time President Obama planted a kiss on his wife as the crowd roared. ... In the first game of a double-header, Lindsay Whalen scored 21 points as the United States women beat Brazil, 99-67. “Every time we come together on the court, our mission is to take care of business,” center Sylvia Fowles said.

Olympic Games (2012)
Basketball
United States
Brazil


At Big on Mars, Trying to Get a Handle on Tomorrow’s Tech

Abstract: A LEADING digital agency is starting a unit devoted to mobile technology in another example of efforts on Madison Avenue to keep up with the fast-changing landscape embodied by the term “the Internet of Things,” shorthand for a world of connected devices, sensors and applications. The agency, Digitaria , known for developing websites and mobile platforms, is part of the JWT division of WPP, the world’s largest agency holding group. Plans call for the new unit, named Big on Mars, to eventually be spun off from Digitaria and operate autonomously. For now, six Digitaria employees in the agency’s Salt Lake City office are being assigned to Big on Mars; the intent is to someday have a presence for Big on Mars at the Digitaria headquarters in San Diego and at its offices in Minneapolis, New York and San Francisco. Among the marketers involved with Big on Mars are Ford Motor, through the Team Detroit division of WPP; GoPro, the camera maker; Mazda; MD Revolution, which develops technology in the realm of health and wellness; Qualcomm; and USA Network, part of the NBCUniversal unit of Comcast. “We’ve worked with Digitaria for a long time on building and designing our websites,” said Jason Woodmansee, senior manager for digital marketing at Qualcomm, “and it makes a lot of sense to me that they’re doing this.” “It’s hard to find people who understand the technology of making things work on smaller screens, on cellular, instead of screens plugged into a wall,” he added, “and they have those skills.” Oh, about the Big on Mars name. It was inspired, according to Jim McArthur, who has been named managing director of Big on Mars, by the idea of trying “to build a company that would hit its stride when humans get off this rock” — i.e., Earth. It is also “a play on being ‘big in Japan,’ ‘big in India,’ ” said Mr. McArthur, who had been senior vice president for global business development and strategic partnerships at Digitaria, and riffs off the way he often introduces himself: “I say, ‘You haven’t met me before, but I’m big in India’ ” — a wry reference to his appearance on a reality competition series on Indian television, the “Capgemini Super Techies Show.” On the Big on Mars website, there is this explanation: “It’s not just about your phone. Or your tablet. It’s about everything: Your house. Your car. Your clothes. Your pets. Your job. Your kids. Your life. The philosophers have long said, ‘Everything is connected.’ Their words are true. We’re living on a whole new world. Or maybe a different planet. That’s why we’re Big on Mars.” Image From left, Jim McArthur of Big on Mars; Doug Hecht of Digitaria, the parent of Big on Mars; and Matt Weight of Big on Mars. Credit Ben Evans Also, the web address bigonmars.com was available, Mr. McArthur said, which when trying to coin a name these days is “a huge thing.” “Digitaria has had digital products work for years, but we’ve never really owned it; it’s been an undercurrent,” Mr. McArthur said. “I said, ‘Let’s take the undercurrent and make it a current, put a fine point on this capability, consolidate it around a brand and go to market.’ ” Big on Mars is about the concept that “you are you, plus the sum total of the Internet, and that’s amazing to me,” he added, and it will become increasingly important as “the young people who are involved with these technologies as an inherent part of their lives” enter the work force or build their careers. To that end, a goal of Big on Mars will be to hire graduates who “are coming out with razor-sharp skills and the ability to hit the ground running,” Mr. McArthur said. He and Matt Weight, director for technology at Big on Mars as well as Digitaria, are working with academicians like Bernhard Schroeder, director of the Lavin Entrepreneurship Center at San Diego State University. “When you talk about the Internet of Things, all these kids on a university campus are playing in that ecosystem every day, whether through the curriculum or on their own time,” said Mr. Schroeder, who held senior posts at the digital agency CKS Partners and has been involved with Digitaria since the agency’s founding in 1997. “When they see something that doesn’t quite work, they hack into the code,” he added. “They’re not afraid of trialing and experimenting.” “Doing something like Big on Mars, a skunkworks, a tool shop, so to speak, makes sense because clients are asking that their brands come alive in different ways,” Mr. Schroeder said. “What Digitaria has to do is make sure Big on Mars is not defined as a little app unit, but as a technology solution unit that can handle any type of technology interface.” Mr. Weight, who is based in Salt Lake City, and Doug Hecht, president and chief operating officer at Digitaria in San Diego, acknowledged that challenge. “If we just get known as a mobile company, it’s a failure,” said Mr. Hecht, who will probably take the additional title of president at Big on Mars, “and if we do things you’ve seen or heard a lot of, then we’re not at the heart of where we’ll want to be.” Mr. Weight said: “Clients are becoming more aware of these emerging technologies, and they’re having conversations with us. Employees who have pet projects are bringing them in to us so we could develop them. The work’s there, and we can respond to it.”

advertising,marketing
Mobile Apps
Digitaria


Seeking Bold Tax Overhaul, Texas Lawmaker to Test Congress

Abstract: HOUSTON — Over two decades in Congress, Representative Kevin Brady has always been popular with colleagues. Now that the genial Texas Republican has become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Brady has got real power, too. Or does he? The committee has authority over taxation, health policy and retirement benefit programs, and it holds the potential to significantly influence the economy not just in the United States but the entire world. “It can do big things,” he said during an interview in his Houston district. Yet he has assumed the gavel in an era when congressional leaders, following partisan imperatives, have increasingly curbed the independence of committee chiefs. Complicating matters for Mr. Brady is that Speaker Paul D. Ryan is unusual among leaders in his passion for the issues before the committee — which Mr. Ryan himself chaired before becoming speaker last year. Mr. Brady says that doesn’t bother him. “It’s a great advantage to have a speaker who knows the issues and knows the importance,” he explained. John A. Boehner, Mr. Ryan’s predecessor, once dismissed a previous chairman’s tax plan by saying “blah blah blah.” After chuckling at the memory, Mr. Brady added, “Paul Ryan is all green-light thinking on tax reform.” Mr. Brady’s bigger problem is whether Congress can act at all. Both parties complain of skewed tax incentives that push companies based in the United States toward so-called inversion deals , in which an American company acquires a foreign one and then moves its headquarters abroad to shrink its tax liabilities. But partisan strategy and differences on policy have foreclosed serious negotiations on an international tax overhaul this year, leaving the Treasury Department to issue new regulations last week intended to curtail inversion deals. Mr. Brady, a longtime Chamber of Commerce executive before arriving in Washington, eyes something bigger: the first comprehensive rewrite of corporate and individual taxation in 30 years. Image From left, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mr. Brady and Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in 2013. Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press He is looking at more fundamental changes, like a shift toward taxing consumption rather than income. “Let’s not tweak what we have and call it a day,” Mr. Brady said. “Let’s think bold about tax reform, and look at it with fresh eyes.” Recent predecessors have found only eyestrain. In 2014, Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, who was the chairman of the committee at the time, labored to design an overhaul to maximize bipartisan appeal. The plan raised the same amount of revenue as the existing system. Unlike many Republican tax plans, including those of the 2016 presidential candidates, it didn’t confer disproportionate benefits on wealthy Americans that would make the system less progressive. Mr. Camp’s product went nowhere, as Mr. Boehner’s sarcastic reaction signaled. But Mr. Brady said the episode encouraged him by showcasing how lower rates and fewer loopholes could improve the economy. “Those were the tightest constraints that you could possibly accept in new tax reform,” Mr. Brady said. “I think we can loosen those constraints.” Loosening them would increase Republican enthusiasm by permitting deeper rate cuts; Mr. Camp could only pare the top rate for high earners to 35 percent from 39.6 percent. Yet those “tightest constraints” represent a bare minimum for cooperation from congressional Democrats. “Major changes in American government almost always require buy-in from both parties,” Mr. Brady acknowledged. If Democrats emerge from the November elections with more clout, he’ll need more buy-in. His good humor masks a fierce competitive streak. Mr. Brady once broke his shoulder sliding headfirst into home plate in the annual Democrats-against-Republicans congressional baseball game. He understands the difficulty of repeating the triumph of Dan Rostenkowski , the congressional Democrat who struck a landmark tax deal with a Republican Senate and President Ronald Reagan in 1986. “We don’t have rose-colored glasses on,” Mr. Brady said. But he insisted that a tax overhaul was “inevitable.” That’s something he’ll have to prove.

Kevin Brady
Tax
House Committee on Ways and Means
2016 Presidential Election
Paul D Ryan Jr


This Time, All the Stars at Citi Field Are Phillies

Abstract: For much of last season, and of April and May, Jeremy Hefner had epitomized these hapless Mets. He was the back-end starter whom the Mets had little choice but to rely on. His starts were largely forgettable, or at worst unsightly, and afterward, he would answer questions in a soft-spoken, modest, almost helpless way. Then Hefner adjusted his delivery. His fastball became more deceiving and a tick faster. His confidence grew. And over the course of June and July, he pitched better than the Mets’ two younger players, Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler. Hefner’s latest test came Friday against the Philadelphia Phillies, against whom he had an earned run average of 11.02, his highest against any team. He seemed back to his old self: he was pulled in the third inning, and was charged with eight runs. The Citi Field crowd booed him as he left, then was subjected to the rest of a 13-8 Mets loss. It was the first game at the park since the Mets hosted Tuesday’s All-Star Game, and the break, combined with the Mets’ recent 16-10 surge, had Manager Terry Collins optimistic. Before Friday’s game, he indicated that the Mets hoped to finish the season with a .500 record, which would require them to win 40 of their final 71 games. The way they were playing, Collins said, it was “very attainable.” Considering, he said, “You lost three-fifths of your starting rotation at the beginning of the year. Didn’t have your closer. Your fourth hitter has had a rough time of it. You’ve had to get production out of other people that you didn’t expect to.” So to finish 81-81, Collins concluded, “I think it’d be a tremendous achievement.” The Phillies did their part Friday to kill the Mets’ enthusiasm. Against Hefner, Jimmy Rollins hit a leadoff single. After a strikeout, Chase Utley tripled off the wall in center field, scoring Rollins. Then Domonic Brown singled home Utley. Then Darin Ruf plopped in a single, just past the infield. Hefner seemed hopeless. Delmon Young nicked a ball down the third-base line, reached safely, and scored Brown. Then John Mayberry Jr. ripped a single into left field, driving in Ruf. When the top of the first finally ended, after Hefner had allowed four runs and six hits, he walked off the mound to a smattering of sarcastic cheers. “He probably didn’t hit a spot the entire first inning,” Collins said. For several weeks Hefner had been perfecting a new delivery. He had begun lifting his left knee up and in, toward his belly button, while turning his torso a tad toward second base, so as to deceive the batter. He had practiced lifting his knee and holding it there to feel the turn. In eight straight starts, he had allowed two earned runs or fewer. In his three most recent starts, he had lasted seven innings. He had improved, just as the Mets had. But Hefner did not deceive the Phillies, not in the slightest, and Brown made that clear when he crushed a hanging curveball into the night sky, way over the right-field fence, to start the third inning. Then Ruf doubled, Young singled and Mayberry Jr. doubled, and Collins came to the mound to take the ball from Hefner. When the inning finally ended, the Phillies led, 11-0. Hefner’s E.R.A. rose to 3.93 from 3.33 in one start, and his fastball, which had improved with the new knee lift, appeared to be a bit slower, or perhaps, back to what it was. Afterward, addressing reporters, his eyes glossed over. “I just didn’t execute,” Hefner repeated. With the early deficit, the Mets’ offense did what it could. Kyle Kendrick, the Phillies starter, was good early but regressed. Marlon Byrd hit a three-run home run, his team-high 16th of the season. Juan Lagares and Ike Davis had two hits apiece and sparked rallies in the fifth and sixth innings. In the sixth, with two outs and the bases loaded and Josh Satin at the plate, the crowd stirred, but just as soon, Satin grounded out and Citi Field went quiet. David Wright added a two-run home run in the ninth. Then the Mets went quietly. Before the game, as Collins discussed the prospects of finishing with a .500 record, he qualified himself. He reiterated that, regardless of the Mets’ record, he wanted to ensure that their young, talented core improved as much as possible. “That’s what’s going to make 2014 be a fun year,” Collins said. Wheeler is scheduled to pitch Saturday, and Harvey the day after that. INSIDE PITCH Manager Terry Collins said that Justin Turner, the infielder who has been on the disabled list for about five weeks, was likely to rejoin the team for its series starting Monday against the Atlanta Braves.


China Purges a Party’s Rolls (and Tissues)

Abstract: BEIJING — The authorities in southern China have seized about 8,000 rolls of toilet paper and 20,000 packages of tissues containing unflattering images of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, according to an official of the small political party that placed the order. The items were to be sold at a market in Hong Kong during Lunar New Year celebrations later this month, the official, Lo Kin-hei, a vice chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, said Saturday. Late last year, Hong Kong was shaken by protests organized by a pro-democracy movement whose supporters demanded greater electoral freedom than the authorities in Beijing were willing to grant. Protesters expressed anger at Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive, calling him a puppet of Beijing and asking him to step down. No reason was given for the seizure of the paper products, worth about $12,900, in the city of Shenzhen, outside Hong Kong, Mr. Lo said. He said he guessed that the Chinese authorities “don’t like people mocking government officials, especially high-ranking government officials, after the movement.” “They have become more cautious about criticisms about them,” he said. The party’s 4,000 rolls of toilet paper with Mr. Leung’s image sold out at last year’s seasonal market, and party officials decided to get more this year from a factory in Shenzhen, Mr. Lo said. The images of Mr. Leung on the novelty products were cartoonish and unflattering. One shows him with two fangs, and another has the equivalent of the word “lying” on his forehead. The sickle-and-hammer symbol of the Communist Party of China also appears on some products. Citing the need to protect the manufacturer, Mr. Lo declined to reveal the factory’s name and said he had no information on the whereabouts of the factory owner. “We are worried about what has happened to him,” Mr. Lo said. Calls to the Shenzhen police rang unanswered on Saturday, and there was no official report about any seizure of toilet paper.

China
Hong Kong
Leung Chun-ying
C.Y. Leung
Bathrooms
Lunar New Year
Communist Party of China
Democrats


Mexico Rebuilds Its Old Soccer Edge on U.S.

Abstract: The United States has been playing Mexico in soccer since 1934 but has yet to win a game on Mexican soil. The Americans’ overall record there is 0-23-1, with Game No. 25 set for Wednesday night, when a United States team with many novices and hopefuls will take on Mexico’s national team at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Although the United States and Mexico meet often enough in tournaments and World Cup qualifiers, this will be the first time since 1984 that the two countries have played a friendly at the mile-high stadium. When they first met on a soccer field, in a play-in game in Rome before the 1934 World Cup, the United States won, 4-2. After that win, however, it was 46 years and a couple of dozen games later before another American victory, this one in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in November 1980. Two decades later, the United States appeared to be on the verge of staking its claim as the new power in the Concacaf region, which includes countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean, when it ousted Mexico in the second round of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea . As the American team continued to defeat Mexico in games in the United States, the perception that the two nations had changed places grew stronger. “Yes, we felt the U.S. had reached a different level, not better, different,” said Rafael Márquez, a past captain of the Mexican national team who now plays for the Red Bulls of Major League Soccer. But that perception no longer holds. Last weekend, Mexico defeated Brazil to win the gold medal in men’s soccer at the London Games. Mexico has won the past two Gold Cup tournaments and will represent Concacaf at next year’s FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil, one year before that country hosts the World Cup. In addition, Mexico won the last Under-17 World Cup and has a crop of promising young players who seem poised to reassert Mexican dominance in the region and become an elite team that could contend for major international titles. “There is a gap,” the American coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, said during a telephone conference call Sunday. “It would be foolish not to recognize that. If one team doesn’t qualify for the Olympics and the other team wins the Olympics, there is a gap. On the senior level, they’ve done well over the last two years, too. You’ve got to give them compliments for that.” The Mexican Olympic team was led by Marco Fabián and Oribe Peralta, but neither will play on Wednesday. (Peralta scored both goals in the 2-1 victory against Brazil.) Instead Mexico’s coach, José Manuel de la Torre, has called in a prodigious lineup that includes Javier Hernández of Manchester United, Andrés Guardardo of Valencia in Spain and the veteran goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa of Ajaccio in France. Until recently, few Mexican players ventured outside the country’s lucrative domestic league to play in Europe. That has changed. By contrast, Klinsmann is using an experimental roster . Some of the most recognizable American players like Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore are not with the team. Dempsey has been training on his own while he tries to sort out his contract status in England’s Premier League, while Bradley is with his new club, A.S. Roma of Italy. Altidore scored two goals for Alkmaar last week as it opened its season in the Netherlands by tying Ajax. So instead, Klinsmann will rely on a half-dozen players who play for clubs in Mexico — Jose Torres, Joe Corona, DaMarcus Beasley, Herculez Gomez, Edgar Castillo and Michael Orozco Fiscal — and the now usual contingent of German-Americans that includes Terrence Boyd, Fabian Johnson, Danny Williams and Jermaine Jones. Landon Donovan, a mainstay, will also play. The match will be the final one for the American team before it begins another cycle of World Cup qualifying games with a home-and-away series against Jamaica (Sept. 7 in Kingston and Sept. 11 in Tampa, Fla.). Theories abound about why Klinsmann did not summon veteran defenders like Steve Cherundolo, Clarence Goodson, Carlos Bocanegra and Oguchi Onyewu (all of whom are 30 or older) for the game and instead chose six defenders with a combined 21 international appearances for the United States. The message appears to be that while Cherundolo and Company might get the United States through World Cup qualifying, a new generation of players will be manning the back line come the 2014 World Cup.

International Federation of Association Football (FIFA)


Theater, Disguised as Real Journalism

Abstract: Is it O.K. to lie on the way to telling a greater truth? The short answer is also the right one. No. It’s worth examining that question now that we have learned about the lies perforating the excerpt of Mike Daisey’s one-man show on Apple ’s manufacturing processes in China , broadcast in January on the weekly public radio show “This American Life.” No one is suggesting that everything about Apple’s supply chain is suddenly hunky-dory, but the heroic narrative of a fearless theater artist taking on the biggest company in the world is now a pile of smoking rubble. Mr. Daisey’s one-man show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs ,” closed its very successful run at the Public Theater in New York on Sunday. The show played a significant role in raising public consciousness, not just about the ethics of offshore manufacturing, but about whether those of us who fondle those shiny new iPads every day are implicated as well. It was a fine bit of theater. It worked less well as a piece of journalism, which is how it was represented when it was broadcast on “This American Life.” The episode was a huge hit, downloaded as a podcast more than any other in the history of the program. But it fell apart after Rob Schmitz, a reporter from “Marketplace,” another public radio show, fact-checked the specifics. When Ira Glass, the host of “This American Life,” and his colleagues found out that Mr. Daisey had not done the work he said he had, they put together an hour of very compelling radio retracting the piece in full, and in very specific detail. Mr. Daisey, to his credit , appeared on the show for an awkward and occasionally excruciating interview, but was mostly evasive, arguing that some characters and events had been invented in service of a greater narrative truth. He said it was only when his theatrical piece was pushed through the crucible of journalism that it became false. Mr. Glass said plainly at the beginning of the show that after Mr. Daisey failed to provide contact numbers for his translator, “we should have killed the story.” And he went to some lengths to explain that “This American Life” was not just about the story, but about the facts as well. Usually a calm and perpetually amused presence at the microphone, Mr. Glass’s voice conveyed quiet rage and regret. His voice seemed especially pinched at the end, when he said the show was financed in part by Reputation.com . “I and my co-workers on ‘This American Life’ are not happy to have done anything to hurt the reputation of the journalism that happens on this radio station every day,” he said. I don’t think they did. The story came up bad, they found out about it from someone else, and they amended it with an hourlong retraction that was straightforward and very powerful. During an interview punctuated by brutal, long stretches of silence, Mr. Glass asked Mr. Daisey why he had not just come clean when the fact-checking process began. “I think I was terrified,” Mr. Daisey said after a very long pause. Mr. Glass: “Of what?” Another halting pause by Mr. Daisey, followed by: “I think I was terrified that if I untied these things, that the work, that I know is really good, and tells a story, that does these really great things for making people care, that it would come apart in a way where, where it would ruin everything.” It did. I am a longtime fan of “This American Life,” but I have never assumed that every story I heard was literally true. The writer and monologist David Sedaris frequently tells wonderful personal yarns on the show that may not be precisely true in every detail, but this was not a story about a family car trip gone bad. Mr. Daisey admits to cutting corners, but “stands by his work,” in part because it moved people to care about other people’s suffering in a far-flung land. Unfortunately, the parts of his show with which his audience connected so viscerally were the ones that seem to have been based on nothing more than a need for drama. That former worker who maimed a hand while manufacturing the iPad , then hovered over that magical device when Mr. Daisey handed him one? Remarkable. And fictional. The 13-year-old who worked the assembly line? The translator does not recall meeting such a person. Writing about the implosion on The Atlantic’s Web site, Max Fisher said : “By lying, Daisey undermined the cause he purported to advance. That’s the real scandal.” I take his point, but I’m more concerned about the suggestion that you have to cheat to come up with remarkable journalism that tilts the rink. As it happens, Charles Duhigg, David Barboza and Keith Bradsher, reporters who work at The New York Times , spent a great deal of time last year investigating Apple’s suppliers and published a series in January that may have contained a bit less drama, but landed hard. Apple subsequently announced an audit of its Chinese supply chain by an independent group. It also stayed written: No corrections or retractions, just solid reporting that Mr. Duhigg described in a phone call as “independently sourced and independently confirmed.” Even as Mr. Daisey found himself in the stockade, another nonjournalist turned big player in current events ended up in the news himself. Jason Russell , the producer of a video titled “Kony 2012” that went viral on Twitter , YouTube and elsewhere — about Joseph Kony , leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda — had come under criticism for cutting some corners as well. Word came on Friday that Mr. Russell had been detained by the police after he was found running around naked and yelling incoherently in a San Diego neighborhood. His wife, Danica Russell, said in a statement, “Because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal, and Jason took them very hard.” The easy lesson might be that journalism is not a game of bean bag, and it would be best left to professionals. But we are in a pro-am informational world where news comes from all directions. Traditional media still originate big stories, but many others come from all corners — books, cellphone videos, blogs and, yes, radio shows built on storytelling. But there is another word for news and information that comes from advocates with a vested interest: propaganda. It is worth mentioning that professional credentials are not insurance against journalistic scandal. “Marketplace,” the highly regarded business show from American Public Media that uncovered Mr. Daisey’s untruths, recently had to retract a first-person account from Leo Webb, who portrayed himself as an out-of-work former Army sniper who was also a minor league baseball player. Turned out he was neither a veteran nor a ballplayer. There is nothing in the journalism playbook to prevent a determined liar from getting one over now and again. It is partly because seekers of truth expect the same from others. On the broadcast this weekend, Mr. Glass seemed stunned by Mr. Daisey’s ability to look him in the eye and dissemble. “I have such a weird mix of feelings about this because I simultaneously feel terrible for you, and also I feel lied to,” Mr. Glass said. “And also, I stuck my neck out for you.” I sent an e-mail to someone I know who is an expert on journalistic malfeasance to ask if, in a complicated informational age, there was a way to make sure that someone telling an important story had the actual goods. “All the good editing, fact-checking and plagiarism-detection software in the world is not going to change the fact that anyone is, under the right circumstances, capable of anything and that journalism is essentially built on trust.” I think Jayson Blair, who responded to my e-mail query, may be on to something.

Mike Daisey
Ira Glass
News media,journalism
Radio
Theater
Jason Russell
China


Pro-Russia Candidate Appears Likely to Win Bulgarian Presidency

Abstract: SOFIA, Bulgaria — A pro-Russia former air force commander with no previous political experience appeared headed for a decisive victory on Sunday in a runoff election to become Bulgaria’s president. The results prompted the current governing party’s prime minister to say he would resign, setting the stage for early elections in the spring. A presidential runoff was also held Sunday in Moldova. There, too, a pro-Russia candidate appeared certain of victory over his pro-Western opponent, a former World Bank official. That would put a Moscow-leaning socialist in the Moldovan presidency for the first time since 2009. The two elections provided further evidence that nationalism is on the rise in many parts of the globe and delivered another burst of good news for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has aimed to weaken ties among European Union nations and erode international sanctions on Moscow. Mr. Putin also warmly welcomed the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States. Growing nationalism, driven by a rejection of Western liberal attitudes and inflamed by the largest refugee crisis since World War II, has further frayed ties among many European Union member nations as populist demands for national sovereignty increasingly drown out pleas for Western unity. At the same time, stubborn levels of corruption and national economies that continue to lag far behind the West have driven a rising number of voters in the region to cast a more approving eye toward Mr. Putin. When asked which city he intended to visit first, Moscow or Washington, the presumed victor in Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, said he intended to have close relationships in both capitals and praised Mr. Trump for his warmer attitude toward Mr. Putin. “During his election campaign, the new American president-elect openly said that he was ready to develop a more in-depth relation with Russia,” Mr. Radev, 53, said. “This brings big hope for finding a peaceful resolution to the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine and avoiding further confrontation and escalation.” In both Bulgaria and Moldova, the presidency is largely a ceremonial post, with power concentrated in the prime minister’s hands, a common arrangement in Europe. But the presidents are generally elected by a vote of the whole nation, rather than just one constituency. In Bulgaria, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov’s coalition government took power two years ago, ending a period of fierce political turmoil that peaked with a major financial crisis in 2014 involving the collapse of the country’s fourth-largest bank. Like other populist leaders, Mr. Radev has adopted a tough anti-migrant stance, pledging to prevent Bulgaria, which shares a border with Turkey, from becoming “Europe’s migrant ghetto.” He also vowed to repair ties with Moscow and to push for the end of international sanctions against Russia that were imposed after the seizure of Crimea. Bulgaria remains very dependent on Russia for energy and trade and as a prime source of summer tourists. “The big question is whether Radev would translate all this political talk during the campaign into actions,” said Daniel Smilov, a program director at the Center for Liberal Strategies, a research group in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. Since 2009, Moldova has been pursuing a pro-European Union path. In 2014, it signed an association agreement with the union, and Russia retaliated by imposing import restrictions on a number of Moldovan goods. The campaign of the likely winner in Moldova’s presidential election, Igor Dodon, featured photographs of him with Mr. Putin. Mr. Dodon, 41, has said he wants to call a referendum on whether to extricate Moldova from its European Union agreement, in favor of membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Union. The election was held at a time of increased dissatisfaction in Moldova. A separate banking scandal there in 2014 involved the disappearance of $1 billion, roughly an eighth of the country’s gross domestic product, from three of the country’s banks. Many people blamed those in power, as well as the influence of oligarchs, for the rampant corruption. “It is a sort of protest vote,” said Igor Munteanu, the executive director of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives, a Moldovan research group. “This is not a victory for Putin per se, but it is a defeat for pro-democratic forces.”

Bulgaria
Election
Moldova
Boiko M Borisov
Rumen Radev
Russia


UBS Private Bank Is Attracting Cash Again

Abstract: LONDON — UBS said on Tuesday that it had reversed a two-year outflow of cash from its private bank in the third quarter, but the shares dropped after the Swiss bank reported that its investment banking division had returned to a quarterly loss. The surprise pretax loss of 406 million francs ($418 million) at the investment banking unit came after three profitable quarters. That had convinced some investors that the division, which was responsible for most of the bank’s huge losses during the financial crisis, was on the mend. The chief financial officer, John Cryan, called the unit’s performance “very disappointing” and “unacceptable.” The results overshadowed an overall profit at UBS of 1.66 billion Swiss francs ($1.7 billion) in the third quarter, in contrast to a loss of 564 million Swiss francs in the period a year ago. That beat a forecast of 1.23 billion francs in a Reuters poll of analysts. UBS also attracted 1.2 billion francs of net new money from clients at its wealth management units, mainly from customers in the Asia Pacific region and so-called ultrahigh-net-worth clients. Mr. Cryan said the client money inflows were “another milestone on the road to recovery” but that it was yet too early to “call it a victory” and that money flows were expected to be “lumpy.” The chief executive, Oswald J. Grübel, who was brought out of retirement last year to overhaul the Swiss bank after the financial crisis, had made the turnaround of the private banking operation a priority. Clients had fled the Zurich bank since early 2008, taking more than 250 billion francs with them, because of huge subprime-related losses, a United States tax investigation and the departure of some staff members to rival banks. Under Mr. Grübel, UBS settled the tax dispute and hired new managers to run the wealth management business. The investment banking unit, led by a former Goldman Sachs manager, Carsten Kengeter, continues to struggle. Revenue in its bond, currencies and commodities business dropped by half in the quarter. The loss came after a pretax profit of 1.31 billion francs in the second quarter, but was better than the pretax loss of 1.37 billion francs in the third quarter of last year. Like many rivals, UBS suffered from lower trading activity in the third quarter. But some analysts said UBS also has a comparably high cost base. The bank added 500 workers to its fixed-income division earlier this year. “The third quarter was unusual in that there were very low levels of client activity as well as a strengthening of the Swiss franc against most major currencies,” Mr. Grübel said in a statement. He said he was optimistic that the market environment would improve again in the fourth quarter. In an interview, Mr. Cryan said the bank had noticed an uptick in client activity in October. “We remain confident about our future and believe that we are on track to achieve our medium-term goals,” Mr. Grübel said. Christopher Wheeler, an analyst at Mediobanca in London, said he was worried that UBS had lost market share in some investment banking products and that some clients might have left the bank. Credit Suisse disappointed investors last week when it reported a 74 percent drop in third-quarter profit to 609 million francs, missing analyst estimates. UBS also said it continued with its cutbacks, slashing 731 million francs in costs, mainly from personnel expenses, in the third quarter from the second.

Banking and Financial Institutions
UBS AG
Company Reports


Jaime Nared - Scary Isn’t She?

Abstract: On the third day of the End of the Oregon Trail basketball tournament, the 2,000-girl extravaganza that kicks off the West Coast N.C.A.A. women’s summer scouting season, Jaime Nared walked into the upstairs gym at Oregon City High School, her pink-and-white athletic sandals shuffling like slippers, her face so smooth and calm she appeared to have just woken up. July is one of the few times of the year when Division 1 coaches are allowed to comb the country, watching elite youth games, filling their legal pads with notes on who has a smooth jumper or is a strong rebounder, who might turn out to be the next Candace Parker , the next big thing. N.C.A.A. rules prohibit coaches from talking directly to players. Shirts and bags with college logos announce their presence, and silence only adds to the mystique. Until this past spring, Jaime had been quietly going about her life, as unnoticed as a mocha-skinned 6-foot-1 12-year-old can be in predominantly white Portland , Ore. It was then that she found herself at the center of a controversy about sports and gender: she’d been kicked off a boys’ basketball team for being too good. Now, as she entered the gym, Jaime didn’t even glance at the 25 coaches lined up on folding chairs. She just walked over to the bleachers and bent her lanky frame into a seat alongside her best friend, Kailee Johnson, who is 6-foot-2. “Did you get your bottom ones off?” Jaime asked, lacing her size-11 1/2 basketball shoes. Kailee pulled down her lower lip, showing off her braces-free teeth and her sparkle-and-rainbow manicure. Just six weeks earlier, Jaime finished sixth grade and Kailee finished seventh, but both have such prodigious basketball talent that they play with high-school girls in an elite youth program called Team Concept. Their saggy, light blue uniforms almost masked the fact that while the older girls already possessed the full complement of curves and muscles that come with puberty , Jaime and Kailee did not. Just before the jump, Team Concept huddled with their assistant coach, Edniesha Curry, a former Los Angeles Sparks player. “You know how you tell a coach?” Curry joked, pulling the waist of her shorts nearly to her chest. “Their pants are always like this.” The older girls laughed nervously, but Jaime, who stood with Kailee a step behind everybody else, kept her eyes on Curry’s clipboard. Since the second grade, Jaime has been studying basketball strategy, often walking around the house with her own notepad, scribbling X’s and O’s. Her long-term goals include playing in the W.N.B.A. , playing in the N.B.A. and being the first female coach in the N.B.A. To that end, she watches pro and college games as frequently as possible, sometimes decoding the moves with her father and then practicing them in the gym. “Jaime, you’re going to be the high post,” Curry said. “You really don’t have anybody. You’ve watched Phoenix play, right? Diana Taurasi ? She’s jumping up and down, not really guarding anybody?” Jaime nodded silently. The girls, some with powder blue eye shadow to match their uniforms, then stacked their hands in the huddle and yelled, “One, two, three, hard work!” Jaime won the jump, but not everybody appreciated her presence on the court. After all, every minute she played in front of the coaches was a minute another girl — one who might actually attend college before 2014 — was not playing, not making a pass or basket that might get her noticed. But where should Jaime have been playing instead? When I asked her father, Greg Nared, about his daughter playing with girls her own age, he rubbed his shiny bald head and smiled in that humble-on-the-outside, confident-on-the-inside style trademarked by Michael Jordan . Nared is a former University of Maryland basketball player who for eight years worked as Tiger Woods ’s business manager at Nike . “To be quite honest with you,” he said, “it just wouldn’t be fair.” Kailee’s mother, Britta Johnson, a former high-school basketball coach who quit her job in order to be available to drive Kailee to after-school practices and games, has a similar response: “You just can’t. These girls could go to the basket every time, and that’s not a game.” Jaime insists that she likes playing with anybody and everybody, but the last time she played organized ball against girls her age, the final score was 90-7. Michael Abraham, Nared’s head coach, described the dynamic as “like having Shaq on a high-school team.” The controversy surrounding Jaime and the Team Concept boys’ team blew up in April after she had one of those games that fill athletes’ dreams — behind-the-back passes, each shot on target. She scored 30 points. A couple of days later, Abraham, who also coached Jaime on the boys’ team, informed Greg Nared and Jaime’s mother, Reiko Williams (the couple are divorced), that their daughter had been banned from competing with the boys. The management of the Hoop, a private gym that runs the league that Team Concept plays in, cited a previously unenforced rule against mixed-gender play, but Jaime’s parents and coaches found the timing conspicuous. Abraham has coached girls’ and women’s basketball for 32 years — he used to be an assistant coach of the Sparks — and says Jaime is the best 12-year-old girl he’s ever seen. “If she were 5-foot-1 and a mediocre player,” he told me, “do you think we’d be having this discussion?” So now Jaime, her kewpie-doll ponytail bouncing, is playing with Abraham’s top high-school girls, much to the chagrin of many of their parents, who are protective of their daughters’ court time. But what’s she supposed to do? She can’t play with boys her age. She can’t play with girls her age. She’s as tall as anyone on the team except Kailee (who turned 14 last month) and one other player, and she has a great court sense and strong ball skills — though, to be honest, the fast-paced game of the more muscular postpubescent girls seems to take a lot out of Jaime. Out on the court, she played aggressively, like she always does, but her age showed: she looked mentally drained. Abraham offered so much advice, at such close intervals, that he sounded as if he was coaching Jaime by remote control. “Back up, Jaime! ” “ Toes on the 3-point line, sweetie.” “Hands up. Up! Toes on the line!” Within the first few minutes, Jaime secured two rebounds. She made a layup and a moment later drove to the basket from the corner, drawing the foul and sinking her free throws. Beverly Smith, the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Oregon , described Jaime to me as “a wonderfully gifted athlete. She moves very well, she’s got those coltish movements, though to me everything looks like it’s in slow motion.” Team Concept won, 49-46, but Abraham was not impressed. Afterward he let his players know it. “We should have killed that team,” he barked, bringing tears to some of the girls’ eyes. Jaime, leaning against the hallway wall, took a few deep breaths to help internalize the criticism. Then she pulled off her basketball shoes, slid into her sandals and bounded down the stairs, to recap the game with her father and ask if please, pretty please, Kailee and another friend could sleep over. One afternoon in July, Jaime’s 18-year-old sister, Jacklin, drove Jaime and Kailee to a basketball camp at a Portland Salvation Army . En route they discussed how boring Portland is (“just malls, malls, malls”) and learning to dunk (Kailee can touch the rim). It’s nearly impossible to remember that a 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-2 girl is still a kid. People often mistake Jaime and Kailee for college-age twins ; once, when Jacklin, who will be entering her freshman year at the University of Maryland this fall on a basketball scholarship, was with them, they were mistaken for triplets. Predictably, Jaime and Kailee get teased at school — classmates call them Shrek, Shaq, She-man; “I’ll miss you, Godzilla,” someone wrote in Jaime’s yearbook. One increasingly annoying problem with being so tall is that the boys their own ages are so short. “The tallest guy in my class comes up to right here,” Kailee said as we drove, gesturing to her armpit. “The tallest boy in my class is down here,” added Jaime, pointing to her chest. Jaime says that she likes her height, that she wants to be 6-foot-7 and wear high heels. Kailee admits that she wishes she’d stop growing. Recently, to ease Kailee’s anxiety , Britta Johnson took her daughter for a bone scan to check if her growth plates had fused; they hadn’t. When Jaime and Kailee are alone together they’re playful and tender; they call themselves “bestest friends.” Jaime, shy and big-eyed like a fawn, hews to Abercrombie & Fitch and bemoans her father’s rules, which include no dating until age 16 and no playing in more than two basketball games a day (“I have no freedom,” she gripes). Despite being a good student, Jaime told me: “I don’t like school. Too much drama.” She defines drama as “girls talking about guys, girls talking about other girls.” This month she’ll be turning 13. She told me, “This year I think I might get into the drama.” Kailee, by contrast, is more talkative and overtly girly. In games she wears one ankle sock and one knee sock for good luck. Off the court she favors Rock & Republic jeans. Both Kailee and Jaime view Kailee’s parents as more lenient (which is why they tend to hang out at Kailee’s house). Kailee travels with their high-school girls’ team; Jaime generally does not. “It’s not that my dad lets me do more things,” Kailee explained to me. “But my parents trust my judgment about boys, and Greg is just firm when he says no.” The games at the Salvation Army were chaotic — no positions, no plays, just a deafening bunch of Lilliputian middle-schoolers hoping to huck the ball near the net. Jaime and Kailee were both in the game and above it, occasionally easing their boredom by pulling down a rebound and making a shot and then letting the other kids control the game. When their court time was over, the girls, along with the rest of their group, were escorted out of the gym for an etiquette class, where they wrote thank-you notes to their counselors. At the end of the day those counselors — who appeared to be in their late teens — flirted with Jaime and Kailee in the parking lot. Life can be overwhelming when you’re a beautiful, talented, age-bender of a kid. (Earlier this year, Kailee was mistakenly given a wristband by a bowling-alley attendant so that she could buy a beer.) The constant, the stabilizer, in both girls’ lives is basketball. Once, when I was exchanging text messages with Jaime, I asked if she was happier on the court than off. She rejected the terms of my question: “When I’m not playing I’m trying to get better, so I would say both. But being on the court, I just love it!” After camp, Jacklin grudgingly chauffeured the girls to what she called “Jaime’s little friend’s house,” where Jaime and Kailee escaped to Kailee’s pink-and-white attic bedroom. Kailee’s family had recently moved, but she’d already lined the shelves above her desk with rows of trophies — from basketball, of course, and from her former life as a soccer player. When not at school, or at practice, or at a game, or messing around at the hoop in front of Kailee’s house, the two friends are often up in Kailee’s room, legs sprawled on the floor like fishing poles, snacking on Chipotle burritos or powdered donuts, watching “Run’s House” and “The Hills.” Jaime describes Kailee as “very tall and very pretty, and in the morning she’s quite rude, but in the afternoons and at night she’s very nice.” Kailee informed me that “people think Jaime’s really quiet if you don’t really know her.” Then she added, “I can’t believe how much she’s talking to you!” Jaime and Kailee have enjoyed just about every lucky break possible for a young female basketball player. In addition to their heights, the girls’ fathers are good athletes (Kailee’s father played Division 1 football at the University of Oregon), and both men encouraged their daughters’ interest in basketball rather than steering them toward more traditional female sports. Jaime started following Jacklin to basketball practice at 4 years old; she could tie her own shoes at 2. Kailee, too, grew up on a court, watching her grandfather and mother coach the game, though Britta Johnson reports that when she was very young, Kailee’s primary interest was not in the ball but in the snacks. According to sports scientists, the most significant predictor of an athlete’s skill is the time spent in practice. “It’s not just genetics ,” says Jean Côté, the director of the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University in Ontario , Canada , who has extensively studied the development of athletic talent in children. “There’s no magic to it. To become an expert in music or sport, it takes about 10,000 hours.” Jaime and Kailee both began playing so much basketball at such a young age that by the time they were eligible for organized leagues, at age 9, their abilities far outstripped their peers’. “It was awkward,” Britta Johnson admitted. “Kailee didn’t know what to do. On a high-school team, you run plays. So she was out there looking at these third-grade girls like, ‘You’re the point guard, you’re supposed to run the ball across the court.’ She knew it wasn’t supposed to be one person running back and forth, and I’m sure in the back of her mind she was thinking if she did that people would get mad.” The story of the kid who’s “14 going on LeBron,” as Sports Illustrated described the California basketball phenom Demetrius Walker in 2005, is not a new one when the kid in question is a boy. Girl sports prodigies are stock characters, too, though the athletes have tended to be gymnasts, figure skaters or swimmers, kids who excel at what Côté calls “closed sports — sports in which you learn a very specific skill and competitors don’t try to prevent you from performing that skill.” Given the post-Title IX explosion in girls’ basketball and the emergence of the W.N.B.A., the girl who’s 12 going on Candace Parker is just around the corner — maybe she’s already here — and that’s a mixed blessing. Basketball players tend to peak late, at around age 25. As a result, the best player in junior high does not consistently turn out to be the best player in college and beyond, and that can be heartbreaking for all involved. “At a population level, the kids who peak early are often the kids who will drop out,” Côté says. “There’s too much pressure. Stories like Tiger Woods’s are not very good for sports. For each Tiger Woods you produce, how many dropouts do you create?” Both Jaime’s and Kailee’s parents are trying to protect their daughters — from burnout, from predatory scouts, from inflated expectations — though of the four, Greg Nared is the most intense. After working at Nike for 15 years, Nared was hired in 2006 by the William Morris Agency to be its vice president of golf . His first client was a young 6-foot-1 female golfer who liked to play with the men: Michelle Wie . (Nared and Wie parted ways after only a year, when Nared left William Morris to start his own sports management agency.) “Jaime’s just a sixth grader,” Nared told me. “I know how hard it is just to get to that next level. And then there’s a whole other level to get to after that.” But no parent can protect a daughter from her dreams. Oregon State has already called Abraham to offer Jaime a spot, and who knows how good she’ll be by that time? Not long ago she beat her older sister for the first time in one-on-one. (Jacklin insists she hadn’t played in a month and was out of shape.) I asked Jaime what happens when she plays her dad. “I get killed,” she said with a wince. But she has a strategy to defeat him one day as well. “I’m gonna let my dad get real old,” she said. “I want to follow in his footsteps, in a way, but I want to be better.” Elite women’s basketball is filled with players who grew up beating male opponents and parents who didn’t like it. “I saw plenty of parents just walk out of the gym because of some of the things I’d done to their sons, like crossovers and stuff like that,” says Seimone Augustus, the No. 1 W.N.B.A. draft pick in 2006, who now plays for the Minnesota Lynx. “We had plenty of coaches sit down in the third quarter, saying, ‘We’re going home.’ It was real crazy.” Playing with boys is a standard part of girls’ basketball training. Often it’s where talented girls can find the game best suited to their skills. It’s also de rigueur for college and professional women’s basketball teams to bring in male practice players, so the women can gain experience battling big, fast opponents. “If you can box out a guy who outweighs you by 60 or 70 pounds, it really increases your confidence,” says Sue Bird, the 5-foot-9, 150-pound guard for the Seattle Storm, “even if the guy doesn’t have the same shooting or ball-handling skills you do.” When Jaime’s mother, Reiko Williams, heard that her daughter had been kicked off the boys’ team, she says she felt she needed to act. “I have three daughters,” she told me. “The world is going to give them pink and dolls. My two older daughters, Jackie and Jaime, want to play basketball. I feel it’s my job as a parent to help them be the best they can be at what they choose to do.” Williams was accustomed to the sexist rage directed at her daughter. “In games, there would be such an intense reaction when she would foul,” Williams says. “If she’d catch the ball and pivot, and one of the boys fell out, the parents would be outraged. ‘Get that girl away from him!’ I know we’re not always on our best behavior as parents, but it shocked me that an adult would react that way to a kid. One time a coach came yelling out on to the court: ‘You better get her, ref!’ ” After the league cut Jaime from the boys’ team, Williams called the Portland media. A local TV station aired Jaime’s story, and a couple of weeks later she and her family were featured on “Good Morning America” and “CNN Headline News.” Through the summer, Jaime received an outpouring of support — text messages from her former male teammates and notes from total strangers, including a 55-year-old woman who said she’d hoped to play basketball in the Olympics, but by the time women’s basketball became an Olympic event, it was too late. To date, however, the Hoop has not reversed its decision, and Williams is considering a civil claim. (Hoop management did not return phone calls for this article.) “Sports brings out the best and worst in us,” Williams says. “For me, it begs the question of how we do sports at the beginning. Particularly before puberty, why do we separate boys only, girls only? We say boys are stronger, faster, but that’s a generalization.” For now Jaime’s best option remains “playing up” — playing with older girls — and on the final day of the End of the Oregon Trail Tournament she scored a quick 15 points in a scrimmage against the Colorado Hoopsters; the actual game couldn’t start until the referees showed up. Britta Johnson, in the stands with her two younger children, told me she’d been receiving even more flak than usual from the other parents about Kailee. But she felt it best just to accept their hard feelings and continue to encourage her daughter to play. Greg Nared, too, watched from the bleachers, working out his tension by squeezing 5-year-old Luke Johnson’s Nerf football. “You can’t burn ’em out, but you also have to make sure you get better every year,” he told me. “As an athlete, you can’t stay stagnant.” The game finally began, and early in the second half, things started to disintegrate. After four days of tournament play, everybody was exhausted. When a player asked Coach Abraham if this was their last game, he replied, “Yes, thank God.” Wide open, Jaime missed a shot from the 3-point line. She grabbed the rebound and rolled in a layup, but when it came time to run back down the court, she just stood there in the paint, spaced out, her body fully relaxed in the enviable manner of the very young. “C’mon, Jaime, get out of the starting blocks!” Abraham started yelling. “Jaime, be awake!” “Jaime, she’s left-handed, in case you haven’t figured that out.” “Jaime, you’re too far off her, honey. Get tight. I’m not sure how you can be that far off your man.” Even Greg Nared slipped out of his usual composure. “Rebound, Jaime! There you go,” he shouted. “You better box somebody out. Box, box!” Near the end of the game, Jaime looked tired and overwhelmed, but when she found herself in a scrum of older girls, chasing a loose ball, she came away with the prize, her ponytail bouncing like a pom-pom while she sprinted down the court. En route to the basket she drew a foul. At the line, she sank her first shot. Prepping for her next free throw, the pressure mounting, she cleared the sweat from her face with her jersey. Like most great athletes, Jaime hates to lose. She trained her eyes on the net and made her shot. .

Elizabeth Weil
Basketball
Oregon Trail
NCAA
WNBA


In Aaron’s View, Bonds Is Home Run King

Abstract: On the night in 2007 that Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron ’s home run record, Aaron, by way of video message, congratulated Bonds. Aaron said the feat required “skill, longevity and determination.” ”I move over and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement,” he continued. “My hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.” In an eye-opening column by Terence Moore in Friday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution , Aaron repeated his contention that Bonds was the true home run king. “There are things out there besides worrying about a home run record that somebody now holds,” Aaron told Moore. “Barry has the record, and I don’t think anybody can change that.” Last week, in the wake of Alex Rodriguez’s admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs between 2001 and 2003, there were suggestions that Commissioner Bud Selig might consider suspending Rodriguez and adjusting baseball’s record books to restore Aaron as the career home run leader. While it seems unlikely either would happen, Selig said in Thursday’s USA Today that he did not dismiss the idea of erasing Bonds’s record of 762 homers. Bonds is awaiting a March 2 court date in connection with charges that he lied to a federal grand jury in December 2003 when he said he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. He has pleaded not guilty. Aaron said he hoped Selig would leave the record book alone and simply allow Bonds’s career to speak for itself. “It’s sort of a tricky call when you start going down that road of who is legitimate,” Aaron said. “I don’t know if Barry would have hit as many home runs or hit them as far — if that’s the case that he did use steroids — but I still don’t think it has anything to do with him having the kind of baseball career that he had.” He added of Bonds: “He could have had an excellent career, regardless of what he did. So it would be something that I don’t think the commissioner would like to get involved in, really.”  Once you start down the road of erasing records, there’s no coming back. Major League Baseball did not allow African-American players until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Have there been calls to strike all records before baseball was integrated? Would Ty Cobb have set stolen base records if Cool Papa Bell, the legendary Negro leagues base-stealing king, had been allowed to play? Would Babe Ruth had been the home run king in his time had Josh Gibson, the Negro leagues home run king, been allowed to play? In the 1960s and ‘70s, hundreds of players used amphetamines to get through a season, though hundreds did not. Why not find out who did and who didn’t and strike the records of those who did? “In all fairness to everybody, I just don’t see how you really can do a thing like that and just say somebody isn’t the record holder anymore, and let’s go back to the way that it was,” Aaron said. Some would apparently like to roll back to 1974, when Aaron broke Ruth’s home run record; probably some would like to return to the 1935, when Ruth hit his last home run and let that stand as the “real” record. While the government was not after Aaron and he was not under a cloud of suspicion, he was still under immense pressure. He has described his pursuit of Ruth’s record as the most agonizing period of his life. He was a private man forced into the limelight; a man born in Alabama who was exposed to venom from fans who regarded Ruth as a cultural safety net. Many of the thousands of hate letters he received during his pursuit of Ruth came from those who saw the toppling of the record as annihilating a way of life that involved blacks being relegated to secondary roles. During an interview in his office in the early 1990s, I asked Aaron about his attitude toward celebrating the anniversary of breaking the record. He said that “April 8, 1974, really led up to turning me off on baseball.” “My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp,” he said then. “I had to duck. I had to go out the back door of the ballparks. I had to have a police escort with me all the time. I was getting threatening letters every single day. All of these thing have put a bad taste in my mouth, and it won’t go away. They carved a piece of my heart away.”  In acknowledging Bonds now, Aaron has chosen not to pile on. Some have written that no matter the outcome of Bonds’s perjury case next month, he has already been convicted in the court of public opinion. Hank Aaron has not. For those who consider Aaron to be the greatest, who still consider him to be the legitimate king, listen to what he says and move on. Even if the government produced 3,000 witness, Aaron said that Bonds would be the home run champion. “It’s probably the most hallowed record out there, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s now in the hands of somebody else,” he said. “It belongs to Barry.” Take heed: the king has spoken.

Baseball
Bonds Barry
Aaron Hank
Selig Bud
Steroids


Colombian Wins Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy

Abstract: Nairo Quintana of Colombia won the Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy despite finishing well off the pace in the seventh and final stage, an individual time trial. Fabian Cancellara won the stage, but Quintana hung on for the overall victory, finishing 18 seconds ahead of Bauke Mollema.

Road Cycling
Nairo Quintana
Fabian Cancellara


U.S. Military Deaths in Operations Against ISIS

Abstract: The Department of Defense has identified 17 American service members who have died supporting the operation to eliminate the Islamic State militant group. It confirmed the death of the following American recently: TOBAR, Anais A., 25, First Lt., Air Force; Miami; Fourth Maintenance Squadron.


Before and After Massacre, Puzzles Line Suspect’s Path

Abstract: AURORA, Colo. — Killing a dozen people and wounding more than 50 others was apparently not enough for James Eagan Holmes , according to the police. Inside his otherwise ordinary apartment lay an intricate series of explosive booby traps, seemingly designed to kill anyone who entered while pursuing his trail. Mr. Holmes, 24, who the police say brought terror to a midnight movie screening in this Colorado community, also left behind a litany of questions, many of them focused on how and why a once-promising student could now stand accused of being the lone gunman behind the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado since the 1999 Columbine High School attacks. Mr. Holmes had been a shy, awkward boy who once seemed bound for big things. He was a science student from Southern California who won scholarships and internships, graduated “at the top of the top” from the University of California, Riverside, and moved to Colorado last year to take the next step: a doctoral program in neuroscience. Mr. Holmes had an appointment at the university under a one-year Neuroscience Training Grant from the National Institutes of Health, a spokeswoman for the university said. The federal grant pays for six pre-thesis doctoral students in the university’s neuroscience program at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Such grants are usually quite difficult to obtain, going to only the top students. But Mr. Holmes struggled through his first academic year at the University of Colorado, Denver, and had dropped out by this spring. Neighbors from his gang-ridden neighborhood in Aurora described him as a solitary figure, recognizable as one of the few white residents of a largely Hispanic neighborhood, and always alone. Alone as he bought beer and liquor at neighborhood shops, as he ate burritos at La California restaurant or got his car fixed at the Grease Monkey auto shop. Alone as he rode his bicycle through the streets. He appears to have sought companionship through the Web site Adult Friend Finder, posting a photo of himself with bright orange hair and saying that he was “looking for a fling.” In an online profile, he described himself as a nice guy, or as nice as any man “who does these sorts of shenanigans,” though its authenticity could not be independently verified. Some nights, neighbors heard loud music throbbing in his third-floor apartment, and often complained about it, or noticed a strange purple light in the windows. Sometimes, the windows were masked by newspaper, as if he wanted no one to see inside. On Saturday, Aurora’s police chief, Daniel Oates, offered an explanation for why that might have been. When the police arrived after apprehending Mr. Holmes outside the theaters where the shootings had occurred, they found an apartment full of explosives and shells. The array had been designed “to kill whoever entered it,” Chief Oates said. For more than four months, Chief Oates said, the suspect had been getting large mail-order deliveries both at his home and at his college. “What we are seeing here is evidence of some calculation and deliberation,” he said. After more than a day of efforts involving bomb-defusing robots and painstaking patience, law-enforcement officers said they had defused the main threats inside the apartment by Saturday afternoon. They set off controlled detonations that could be heard from across the street. By the afternoon, teams of firefighters in heavy gear appeared to be entering the apartment — a place that may hold some hints about Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes’s background was science. Before dropping out he took a class that explored the biological origins of psychiatric and neurological disorders, and was scheduled to give a presentation on “MicroRNA Biomarkers,” according to a class schedule published online. The topic appears to demonstrate an interest in the genetic basis of mental illness. With his academic career in tatters, law enforcement officials say, Mr. Holmes began to assemble another plan. Over the last two months, he bought two handguns, a shotgun and an assault rifle from local gun dealers. He bought and stockpiled 6,000 rounds of ammunition online. The police said he began to receive large deliveries to his home and work. He outfitted himself with black body armor and a gas mask. And early Friday morning, the police said, he walked into a darkened multiplex here in Aurora — a sprawling city east of Denver — where a midnight showing of the new Batman movie had just begun, and began firing bullets at the families and teenagers packed into the sold-out auditorium. The police said that when he was arrested, he compared himself to the Joker character in the Batman movies. Twelve people were killed, and 58 were wounded, and the authorities said that 11 remained hospitalized in critical condition on Saturday. The initial spasms of shock and disbelief soon turned to open grief and outrage. Memorials sprang up near the site of the shooting. The White House said Saturday that President Obama would fly to Aurora on Sunday afternoon to meet with families of the victims of the killing spree and with local officials. Neighbors, acquaintances and teachers who knew the suspect found themselves searching for any glimmer that could offer some small clue as to how the quiet man from their memories came to be arrested in such horrific crimes. Apart from a speeding ticket, Mr. Holmes had no previous encounters with the police in Aurora. He had no history of trouble with the police at college in California. He left no easily identifiable online messages or videos that might offer any insight to his mind-set. It also remained unclear how Mr. Holmes was able to afford the large amount of weapons, ammunition and protective gear he had, and how he learned to booby-trap his apartment. He was being held away from other inmates at the Arapahoe County Jail on Saturday because of the case’s high profile, Sheriff Grayson Robinson said. Mr. Holmes is due to make his first court appearance at 9:30 Monday morning. In interviews, neighbors and friends from Southern California and Aurora described a young man as anonymous as a glass of water, more Invisible Man than Joker, who left the lightest of impressions on people. He grew up on a pleasant street of Spanish-style tract homes in northeast San Diego. His mother, Arlene Rosemary Holmes, is a registered nurse. News reports and a LinkedIn profile suggest that his father is a software company manager in the area. When he was younger, Mr. Holmes dabbled in soccer and running cross-country, but seemed to give them up for academic pursuits. Breanna Hath, 23, a classmate who graduated from Westview High School with Mr. Holmes in 2006, said he had a small group of friends who played video games and were “a little nerdy.” “He was really shy, really quiet, but really nice and sweet,” Ms. Hath said. He won merit scholarships to the University of California, Riverside, and graduated in 2010 as an honors student in neuroscience, school officials said. “I think he was kind of quirky, just the way you expect smart people to be,” the school’s chancellor, Timothy P. White, said in an interview on Saturday. “Quirky in the sense that he probably had a wry sense of humor. He kept to himself more than he socialized. But he was social. He wasn’t a hermit or an introvert. He wasn’t a loner.” But some friends and neighbors said Mr. Holmes was hesitant to make small talk if seen on the street, slow to smile in conversations with strangers, often seemingly tucked away inside himself. They described him as pleasant and benign. A law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the tripwire was about waist high and that among the hazards found in the roughly 800-square-foot apartment were bullets in jars that were rigged to detonate. And there were about 30 aerial shells, typically used in fireworks, which had been fashioned to be explosive devices. With the major tripwire and explosives defeated, the police said they could soon enter the apartment and search for clues as to what spurred the gunman to go on his shooting rampage.

Murders and Attempted Murders
Aurora (Colo)
Holmes James Eagan
Aurora Colo Shooting (2012)


Midfielder Signs With Cosmos

Abstract: Marcos Senna, a 36-year-old former Spanish national team midfielder, signed with the Cosmos, who start play in August in the second-tier North American Soccer League. Senna made 28 appearances for Spain from 2006 to 2010. ■ Patrick Nyarko’s diving header in the 78th minute earned the Chicago Fire a 2-1 victory over the Columbus Crew in the fourth round of the U.S. Open Cup. (AP)

Soccer
New York Cosmos Soccer Team
North American Soccer League
Chicago Fire Soccer Team
Columbus Crew Soccer Team