Sanofi Said to Plan a Bid of $70 for Genzyme

Abstract: Sanofi-Aventis is likely to make an unsolicited offer of up to $70 a share for Genzyme , raising the stakes for what could become one of the year’s biggest deals, people briefed on the matter said Wednesday. Sanofi’s board met on Wednesday and agreed to let management make a formal proposal, one of these people said. At $70 a share, Sanofi’s bid would be worth about $18.6 billion. Sanofi would likely issue a bear hug letter that would outline its proposed bid, these people said. Such a letter is friendly on its surface, but signals a willingness to go hostile if necessary. Such a move could put pressure on Genzyme’s directors, some of whom have been more receptive to Sanofi’s informal approach than others, these people said. A bear hug letter could also rally Genzyme shareholders. Genzyme’s shares have climbed about 26 percent since reports surfaced last Friday of Sanofi’s approach. Sanofi approached Genzyme earlier this year about a potential combination, one that would bolster Sanofi’s drug pipeline and significantly increase its presence in biopharmaceuticals. Adding Genzyme, one of the four largest biotechnology companies and a maker of vaccines for genetic disorders, would be one of Sanofi’s largest deals to date. Genzyme’s market value last Thursday was about $14.5 billion, the day before reports of Sanofi’s approach. If Sanofi continues to pursue Genzyme, it will need to deal with two formidable activist investors who have stakes in the biotech company: Carl C. Icahn and Ralph Whitworth, both of whom have representatives on the Genzyme board. Both have pushed Genzyme to take steps to increase its stock price. Genzyme makes drugs like Cerezyme, a treatment for Gaucher’s disease, and Fabrazyme, for Fabry disease. The company has struggled to improve its stock performance after it battled a viral contamination problem at its main production plant in Boston last year. Concerns about the manufacturing may limit what Sanofi would be willing to pay, one of the people briefed on the matter said.

Sanofi-Aventis SA
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Genzyme Corp
Biotechnology


Central African Republic: Bodies Found in the Capital

Abstract: Volunteers have collected 78 bodies from the streets of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, since rebel fighters seized control of the city last week, the Central African Red Cross reported Friday. Many of the bodies lacked identification documents, a Red Cross official told Agence France-Presse, and other medical officials said it was not immediately clear whether the dead were rebels, government soldiers, foreign soldiers or civilians. Hospitals in the capital are overflowing with rebels and others wounded in the fighting, above, officials said. A loose coalition of armed groups from the country’s northeast ousted President François Bozizé on Sunday; the rebels, who are reported to have child soldiers among their ranks, accused Mr. Bozizé of breaching the terms of a January peace deal. He first fled to Cameroon but has since requested refuge in Benin, news reports said Friday.

Central African Republic
Murders
Francois Bozize


Delayed Report on Britain’s Role in Iraq War Is Expected in Summer

Abstract: LONDON — After more than six years of work and a succession of embarrassing delays, a report on Britain ‘s role in the Iraq war is finally taking shape and is likely to be published in June or July, its lead author said on Thursday. Expected to run to two million words, the document should be complete by April 2016, but it will then need to be vetted by national security agencies, John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant who is leading the inquiry, said in a statement. Prime Minister David Cameron , who has previously expressed frustration, said in a letter issued by his office on Thursday that he would make available additional resources if it would speed up publication, though he did not specify any figure. “Whilst it is welcome, of course, that there is now a clear end in sight for your Inquiry,” he wrote, “I am disappointed — and I know the families of those who served in Iraq will also be disappointed — that you do not believe it will be possible logistically to publish your report until early summer.” Mr. Cameron added that he “would welcome any further steps” to speed completion of the investigation. The inquiry, which was created by a Labour government in 2009, is expected to cover the run-up to the conflict, military action in Iraq and its aftermath. It is expected to assess Britain’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made, and to identify lessons for the future. Those objectives have been overshadowed by delays to the inquiry, which have cast doubt on the practicality of completing such an exercise in a timely and cost-effective manner, while still respecting the rights of those whose decisions are being scrutinized. Critics note that the inquiry has now lasted longer than did British combat operations in Iraq, and that it has cost more than $15 million. The families of some of those who died in the conflict have expressed anger over the delays, as have many politicians. Mr. Chilcot told lawmakers this year that he had underestimated how long it would take to study about 150,000 documents. He also said there had been protracted negotiations over the release of classified documents, including correspondence between Tony Blair, prime minister when the allied forces invaded Iraq, and George W. Bush, the president who ordered the invasion. The inquiry was also set back when one of its five members, Martin Gilbert, died this year. One of the main delays was caused by a process in which significant witnesses were given the opportunity to respond to criticisms of themselves. Another result of this policy is that, even before the report is completed, the central players are aware of the likely criticisms they will face. Some people say that they may already be seeking to pre-empt these criticisms by getting in first with their version of events. Mr. Blair, who decided to join the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, said on Sunday that removing Saddam Hussein from power had inadvertently helped give rise to the Islamic State. Although he told CNN that it was “hard to apologize for removing Saddam,” he said he also accepted that there were “elements of truth” in the view that the war in Iraq helped pave the way for the Islamic State. When the inquiry began in 2009, Mr. Chilcot said that he hoped to conclude it in “if not a year, a year and a half, maybe a bit more.” He also said he hoped to avoid the fate of other lengthy inquiries that, he said, had become engaged in “tortuous and, dare I say, legalistic proceedings.”

Iraq War
Great Britain
Labour Party Great Britain
David Cameron


A Major League Umpire Dies

Abstract: The umpire Wally Bell, who worked the National League division series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals that ended last week, died. He was 48. The commissioner’s office confirmed Bell’s death Monday. He died, apparently of a heart attack, in his home state, Ohio. Bell, who returned to the field after having open-heart surgery in 1999, became the first active major league umpire to die since John McSherry died of a heart attack on the field in Cincinnati on opening day in 1996. Bell, a veteran of 21 seasons, worked the 2006 World Series and three All-Star Games, including this year’s event at Citi Field, at first base.

Baseball
National League
Fatalities,casualties
Wally Bell


Guatemala’s Highest Court Overturns Genocide Conviction of Former Dictator

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — Guatemala’s highest court on Monday threw out the genocide conviction and prison sentence of the former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt. The decision by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court was a dramatic legal victory for General Ríos Montt, 86, and a blow to human rights advocates who had called his conviction a sign that Guatemala’s courts would no longer allow impunity for the country’s powerful. General Ríos Montt was sent to prison immediately after the verdict on May 10 when a three-panel tribunal found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison but was soon transferred to a military hospital for medical tests. Monday’s decision means that he will return to house arrest, where he had been held since the case against him began in January 2012. The additional effects of Monday’s court ruling were unclear. The court did not invalidate the entire trial, which began on March 19. Instead, the court ordered that the proceedings be rolled back and reset to April 19, when a complex decision by another judge sent the trial into disarray, causing a brief suspension. By April 19, the tribunal had heard all of the prosecution’s case and most of the defense’s. That testimony still stands. But the court’s ruling invalidated everything after that date. Legal experts said repeating the final days of the trial before the same tribunal would be unlikely because it would amount to a form of double jeopardy for the general. But it was unclear if the rest of the trial would remain in limbo or could be restarted before a new tribunal. General Ríos Montt was found to be responsible as commander in chief for a series of massacres and rapes and the forced displacement of the Maya-Ixil ethnic group during his 17-month rule in 1982 and 1983. During a month of prosecution testimony, the court heard wrenching descriptions by survivors of the army’s scorched-earth policy through the hamlets of the Mayan highlands. His co-defendant, Gen. José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, was acquitted. The Constitutional Court’s ruling effectively throws out his acquittal, and it was unclear whether he would be rearrested. The attorney general’s office is expected to appeal the court’s 3-2 ruling on Tuesday. Although the conviction was celebrated by international human rights organizations, it was controversial in Guatemala. The Constitutional Court was the target of a lobbying campaign by opponents of the verdict. Perhaps the most important campaign was by Guatemala’s powerful business federation, known as Cacif for the initials of its Spanish name. Representing the country’s deeply conservative oligarchy, Cacif urged the court to overturn the verdict.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


Novak Djokovic Would Face Roger Federer in Wimbledon Semifinals

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have met in the last two Wimbledon finals, but if Federer is to stop the dominant run Djokovic is on, he will have to do it in the semifinals. Federer, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, is seeded third here after missing the French Open with a back injury, and on Friday he was placed in Djokovic’s half of the draw, which will begin play Monday. Friday’s draw laid out the possible obstacles to a historic summer for the top-ranked Djokovic, who currently holds all four Grand Slam titles. Djokovic has won Wimbledon the past two years, and another victory at the All England Club would set up an attempt at the first men’s singles Grand Slam since Rod Laver in 1969 at the United States Open. Image Roger Federer has won seven Wimbledon tournaments, the last in 2012. Credit Peter Klaunzer/European Pressphoto Agency With an Olympic gold medal also at stake this summer, Djokovic would have a shot at a Golden Slam, a feat only achieved in singles by Steffi Graf in 1988. Djokovic, who opens against 177th-ranked James Ward of Britain, has a favorable draw until the quarterfinals, where he could face sixth-seeded Milos Raonic before a potential meeting with Federer in the semifinals. Whether Federer is in strong enough form to make a deep run is one of this tournament’s biggest questions. He lost in the semifinals of grass-court events in Stuttgart and Halle coming into Wimbledon, but said he was “fairly satisfied” with his rehabilitation from knee and back injuries this year. The seeds in Federer’s quarter of the draw include No. 5 Kei Nishikori, No. 9 Marin Cilic and No. 17 Gaël Monfils. Second-seeded Andy Murray, who lost to Djokovic in the final of the Australian and French Opens this year, will open against his fellow Briton Liam Broady. Image Serena Williams is seeking her first Grand Slam title since she won at Wimbledon last year. She opens play on Tuesday against a qualifier. Credit Peter Klaunzer/European Pressphoto Agency His half of the draw, which begins play Tuesday, is a who’s who of the future of men’s tennis, featuring eighth-seeded Dominic Thiem , 22; No. 24 Alexander Zverev, 19; and No. 15 Nick Kyrgios, 21, a potential fourth-round opponent for Murray. Thiem, coming off a semifinal berth at the French Open, achieved his highest seeding at a Grand Slam event, but in the first round will face Florian Mayer, who beat Thiem in the semifinals in Halle last week. Zverev or No. 10 Tomas Berdych are possible fourth-round opponents for Thiem. Also in Murray’s half of the draw, fourth-seeded Stan Wawrinka will face the American teenager Taylor Fritz in the first round before a possible second-round meeting with Juan Martín del Potro, a former semifinalist here before wrist injuries derailed his career. In the women’s draw, top-seeded Serena Williams, who is seeking her first Grand Slam title since last year’s Wimbledon, begins play Tuesday against the qualifier Amra Sadikovic of Switzerland. The highest seed in her quarter of the draw is No. 6 Roberta Vinci, who upset Williams in the semifinals of the United States Open last year. But Vinci faces a difficult first-round test against the American Alison Riske, who excels on grass courts. Image Andy Murray, above, who won at Wimbledon in 2013, lost to Djokovic in the final of the Australian and French Opens this year. Credit Peter Klaunzer/European Pressphoto Agency In the third round, Williams could play Heather Watson of Britain, who came within two points of beating Williams at Wimbledon last year, or Kristina Mladenovic of France, who lost a tight third-round match to Williams at the French Open. No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska; No. 7 Belinda Bencic, who has struggled with injuries this year; and No. 10 Petra Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion, are also in Williams’s half of the draw. The French Open champion, Garbiñe Muguruza, is seeded second after reaching the final here last year as the No. 20 seed. She plays Camila Giorgi of Italy in the first round on Monday. The eighth-seeded Venus Williams is a possible quarterfinal opponent for Muguruza, while No. 4 Angelique Kerber, the Australian Open winner; No. 5 Simona Halep; and No. 9 Madison Keys, who entered the top 10 for the first time this week, loom in the other quarter as possible semifinal challenges. Muguruza’s quarter also features a first-round match between the doubles partners Lucie Safarova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who have won two Grand Slam titles together. Sixth-ranked Victoria Azarenka withdrew from the tournament on Thursday because of a knee injury. Rafael Nadal will also miss Wimbledon with a wrist injury.

Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon
Tennis
Novak Djokovic
Andy Murray
Roger Federer
Serena Williams
Garbine Muguruza


U.S. Sets Rules for Digital TV Payments

Abstract: The government will offer households as much as $80 each to help convert televisions to receive digital broadcasts under a $1.5 billion program. Households with one or more TV sets can ask for as many as two $40 coupons as long as the first allotment, of $990 million, is not depleted, according to Commerce Department rules published yesterday. If the initial amount is inadequate, an extra $510 million in coupons may be offered to households without pay-TV service. The subsidies are intended to help consumers prepare for the end of analog TV broadcasts in February 2009. After that, TVs without digital receivers will not be able to show over-the-air broadcasts. Sets connected to cable TV and satellite systems will not need converters, the Commerce Department said. Converters are expected to cost about $50 each, according to Congressional testimony. Households can apply for the coupons starting Jan. 1, 2008, the Commerce Department said. Retailers who want to participate in the program must apply for certification by March 31, 2008.


Prosecutors Suggest 145-Year Term for the Lawyer Marc Dreier

Abstract: Federal prosecutors recommended on Wednesday that a judge impose a 145-year sentence on Marc S. Dreier , the prominent New York lawyer who pleaded guilty to an elaborate scheme in which hedge funds and other investors, as well as clients, lost more than $400 million. In a letter to the judge, Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the prosecutors cited statements that the judge had made when Mr. Dreier pleaded guilty in May: that he “has shown that he is to be ranked with those who have committed some of the most egregious frauds in history,” and that “he has disgraced the honorable profession of law.” The requested sentence is just five years less than the term prosecutors successfully sought against Bernard L. Madoff for his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme ; that sentence was cited by both sides. Mr. Dreier, 59, a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, sold more than $700 million worth of fake promissory notes to hedge funds and other investors, and stole more than $46 million from clients, the government has said. He is to be sentenced on Monday. His lawyer, Gerald L. Shargel, offered a sharply differing view of what Mr. Dreier’s sentence should be, recommending a term of 10 to 12 1/2 years. “In seeking some measure of leniency,” Mr. Shargel wrote to the judge on Wednesday, “we appeal not to sympathy but to reason.” Mr. Shargel said such a sentence would be “both rational and proportionate.” He said his client was “profoundly remorseful” and had cooperated extensively with investigators as they tried to track down the millions lost. Mr. Shargel briefly cited the Madoff sentence, saying that the facts of that case were unique and that the sentence was “far out of line” and “likewise unique and unsuitable for comparison.” The government’s papers, submitted by the office of Lev L. Dassin, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, said a big sentence was appropriate, and cited Mr. Madoff’s sentence and other substantial if lesser terms meted out in large fraud cases. Mr. Dassin’s office emphasized that Mr. Dreier had orchestrated his fraud “while holding himself out as a legitimate and prominent lawyer.” The office said thousands of lawyers in New York and elsewhere were “surrounded by the wealth and lifestyles of the clients they serve.” “Imposing a long term of imprisonment in this case,” the prosecutors said, “will serve to deter other lawyers who are tempted to steal, cheat or otherwise dishonor their profession to achieve personal wealth.” In his own letter to the judge, Mr. Dreier acknowledged that his crimes were “inexcusable” and said he deserved “a significant prison sentence.” “I have already been disgraced beyond anything I could ever have imagined,” he wrote, adding that despite any good he had accomplished, he would “always be remembered as a thief.” “I have lost all my friends,” he said. “I have lost my law firm, my law license and all that I ever owned. I have seen my family suffer the unimaginable. I have lost my past and my future. I have lost everything a man can lose. And now I will lose my freedom as well, and rightly so.” Prosecutors said in their letter that Mr. Dreier had been earning about $400,000 a year before committing his crimes, and that he told court investigators he had been “dissatisfied” with his life and envious of others “who had achieved greater success.” The government has said he used much of his money to maintain a lavish lifestyle. He had a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side, beachfront properties in the Hamptons, expensive cars, an $18 million yacht and a valuable art collection, with some works bought for more than $6 million.


A Galaxy Still Expanding

Abstract: I FEEL like my life has been a series of ever-expanding circles. I grew up in Barberton, a small suburb of Akron, Ohio, just an hour from Cleveland. But we never got to Cleveland. It was too far away. I had Depression-era parents, and one thing you learned growing up in Barberton was a work ethic. Where I lived was all tire factories and chemical plants. I worked in a lot of factories growing up, including a boxboard factory and a rubber toy factory. I started working at age 14 at a local restaurant, and I've been working since. My insulated life began to change when I won a National Merit Scholarship and my older brother, David, suggested I go to Oberlin College. Wow, talk about an awakening. Oberlin had the first co-ed dorms and students from all over the place. You grow up in a small town in the Midwest, you have zero exposure to foreign cultures. If you think, "What's the minimum possible exposure to foreign culture?" that would be eating Chinese food. No. We never ate Chinese food. The thing that really cracked up my friends at Oberlin, where a huge percentage of students came from New Jersey and New York, was that I'd never seen or eaten a bagel. I was thinking about the law boards when it hit me that being a lawyer is such an adversarial life, and that's not me. Instead, I went to business school at Berkeley, where I got an M.B.A. When you look at my résumé and see Oberlin and Berkeley, I look like a radical. But compared with the people I went to school with, I was pretty conservative. During business school, I fell in love with Australia during a vacation trip there. When I graduated, I joined a consulting firm that offered to send me to live and work in Australia. I did 100 percent travel for five years. Living in Australia definitely expanded my universe. I met my future wife, Yumiko, at a bus stop near the beach in Sydney. I had parked illegally, and when I came back, I came upon two women waiting for a bus. I offered them a ride into town. From an American perspective, it makes me sound like some sort of predator. But in the Australian context -- low crime rate, superfriendly people -- it made sense. The woman in the back seat was Japanese and didn't speak much English, but I managed to start a little conversation and got her phone number. We've now been married for 17 years. While I was living on the beach in Australia, I got a call from my brother, asking me to come to work for him. He had started the company that is now IDEO, and he needed some help on the business side. My brother has been my mentor all my life. I thoroughly trust him, and working with him completely enriched my life. But when I showed up to work, he didn't even have a desk for me. I sat at the end of his desk for the first six weeks, until I demanded a phone and a desk. Though our company is built on creativity, I was not born with this attribute. My brother was. He was wildly creative from age 3. But it grew on me slowly. I just hung around with these incredibly optimistic, creative people, and coming from the world of business -- which no one else at the firm did at that time -- I was able to map this remarkable creativity to things I had known in the business world. That combination led me to innovation. I tend to shy away from the word creativity because being creative is an inherent trait. Innovation feels more like something that can be acquired. One thing I've learned is that it is important to surround yourself with the kind of people you aspire to be. If you hang around with deadbeats and pessimists, you'll end up with a negative view of the world. Turning 50 made me realize that I now need reverse mentors. When you are 22, you need a mentor to figure out how to be more mature, how to have an impact. Now I have young, reverse mentors inside IDEO who have taught me about video gaming, about blogging, about how to keep from getting stuck in my ways. TOM KELLEY General manager, IDEO, a design firm in Palo Alto, Calif. BOOKS WRITTEN "The Art of Innovation," "The 10 Faces of Innovation" BOOKS TO BE READ "Freakonomics," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner CURRENT FAVORITE MOVIE "Memoirs of a Geisha" ("My wife is an extra in it.") FAVORITE MODE OF TRANSPORTATION Rides bike to work six months of the year.

IDEO PRODUCT DESIGN CO
MENTORS
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION


Chinese Jews of Ancient Lineage Huddle Under Pressure

Abstract: KAIFENG, China — The rooms where ruddy-faced Chinese men and women once assembled to pray in Hebrew and Mandarin are silent. Signs and exhibits that celebrated centuries of Jewish life have disappeared. An ancient well, believed to be the last visible remnant of a long-demolished synagogue, was recently buried under concrete and a pile of earth. After locking down Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and tearing down church crosses in eastern China, President Xi Jinping’s campaign against unapproved religion and foreign influence has turned to an unlikely adversary: a small group of Jews whose ancestors settled in this now faded imperial city near the banks of the Yellow River more than 1,000 years ago. A few hundred residents had staged a lively, sometimes contentious rebirth of Kaifeng’s Jewish heritage in recent decades, with classes, services and proposals to rebuild the lost synagogue as a museum. Some residents even migrated to Israel. For years, the city government tolerated their activities, seeing the Jewish link as a magnet for tourism and investment. But since last year, the authorities have come down hard on the revival, in an example of how even the smallest spiritual groups can fall under the pall of the Communist Party’s suspicion. The government has shut down organizations that helped foster Jewish rediscovery, prohibited residents from gathering to worship for Passover and other holidays, and removed signs and relics of the city’s Jewish past from public places. “The whole policy is very tight now,” said Guo Yan, 35, a tour guide who advocates a distinctively Chinese strain of Judaism and runs a small museum in an apartment filled with pictures of Kaifeng’s Jewish past. “China is sensitive about foreign activities and interference.” Only about 1,000 people claim Jewish ancestry in this city — a drop in China’s ocean of 1.35 billion people or Kaifeng’s population of 4.5 million — and only 100 or 200 of them have been active in Jewish religious and cultural activities, experts say. Nobody outside the government seems to know for sure why this tiny band of believers came to be viewed as a threat. But officials appear to have become alarmed about their growing prominence sometime last year as Mr. Xi’s government demanded that religious groups and foreign organizations bow to tighter controls. Judaism is not one of China’s five state-licensed religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Taoism. “Xi has said that religion is a major issue, and when he speaks, that has consequences,” said a burly local businessman who has supported the Jewish revival and who, like others here, asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation by the authorities. “They don’t understand us, and worry that we’re being used.” He and many of Kaifeng’s Jews, as well as their supporters abroad, said the clampdown did not spring from outright anti-Semitism, which is relatively rare in China. Shanghai and Harbin, a northeast city, have organized displays and events celebrating their role protecting Jews who fled persecution in Europe. “It’s fear about religion, not just us Jews,” the businessman said. Until a few decades ago, the Jews of Kaifeng seemed destined to fade away, an obscure memory at the intersection of two ancient civilizations. Their forebears, possibly merchants from Persia, settled in Kaifeng when it was the vibrant capital of the Northern Song dynasty and built a synagogue here in the 12th century. For hundreds of years, they prospered largely free of persecution, surviving the rise and fall of successive dynasties. Image Guo Yan in her private museum near the site of the old synagogue and Jewish neighborhood in Kaifeng. “China is sensitive about foreign activities and interference,” she said. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times But their numbers dwindled as they intermarried with China’s ethnic Han majority. The synagogue crumbled away. By 1851, when European missionaries acquired a 17th-century Hebrew Torah in Kaifeng and later presented it to the British Museum, few if any residents could read it. Still, even after decades of Communist rule, some residue of Jewish identity survived in Kaifeng. Parents and grandparents told children of their roots and warned them not to eat pork. The revival here took off in the 1990s as Jewish tourists, scholars and businesspeople from around the world who were curious about this remote outpost of Judaism began to visit and share their knowledge. Several years ago, two organizations, the Sino-Judaic Institute and Shavei Israel , set up offices and offered classes in Hebrew, Judaism and Jewish history, partly to counter Christian missionaries operating in Kaifeng. “We began with our old generation, which had no foundation,” Ms. Guo said. “But then all these different Jewish groups came in, bringing in different ideas and values.” The authorities were ambivalent, hopeful that the interest from abroad could help economic development in Kaifeng — a charming yet dilapidated backwater amid China’s frenzied growth — but also wary of foreigners and of Judaism, a little-understood religion here. “Anytime it seemed to cross the line of publicity, that’s when there always would be a pushback against the Chinese Jews,” said Moshe Yehuda Bernstein , a researcher in Perth, Australia, who has written about the revival in a forthcoming book . “The idea was: We’ll let you do it, but don’t let anybody know about it.” Image Tourists in front of a building that housed a display of Jewish history in Kaifeng at the Millennium City Park. The display has been closed during the recent clampdown. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times But the current clampdown has gone much further than previous ones, residents said. Some blamed a report in The New York Times last year in which a city official attending a Passover banquet spoke sympathetically about the revival, apparently violating government guidelines. Others cited accounts through the community grapevine that a Jewish woman from Kaifeng had won asylum in the United States after claiming religious persecution. “The Kaifeng Jews are in a kind of survival mode again,” said Anson Laytner, a retired rabbi in Seattle and past president of the Sino-Judaic Institute, who has worked with the Jews in Kaifeng and drawn attention to the clampdown. The institute pulled out of Kaifeng last year after its community worker there, Barnaby Yeh, came under police scrutiny. “I think it was the actions of a government that’s paranoid,” said Mr. Yeh, a Taiwanese-American convert to Judaism now living in Maryland. Shavei Israel, which had been helping Kaifeng Jews visit and settle in Israel, was forced by the police to close its community center in 2014. Residents tried to keep the center going in a rented apartment, but that was ordered closed this year, one of them said. Even signs of the Jewish historical presence have been erased. An inscribed stone marking the site of the old synagogue was removed from the front of a hospital that occupies the grounds, and workers buried the ancient well behind the hospital. Two hospital employees said city officials had ordered the changes. “All this says that there are no Jews here,” one Jewish man said as he nervously looked around during an interview in a teahouse. Image A house construction site in what was the Jewish neighborhood next to the site of the long-demolished synagogue in Kaifeng. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times He was one of several Jewish residents I met in Kaifeng who said they wanted to reassure the government that they were law-abiding patriots. But they also said they were afraid of speaking publicly, even to declare their patriotism. “Please remember, don’t make us out to be political,” the man said. “We just want recognition as Jews.” Jews can still gather in small groups in their homes to pray, and there have been no arrests, they said. But many said police or state security officers were monitoring them. “Before, the Chinese government was very relaxed, but now we’re under more restrictions,” said You Yong, a member of one of the city’s eight historically Jewish clans, who now observes Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, at home. The local office of the party’s United Front Department, which manages ethnic and religious affairs, referred questions to the city’s state security service, which deals with political threats and espionage. Officials there declined to comment. Jewish descendants in Kaifeng do not automatically qualify as Jews under Israeli law because their ancestry has been so diluted. But Michael Freund, the chairman and founder of Shavei Israel, said the Israeli government should raise their treatment with Chinese officials. “It needs to be done respectfully and delicately, but it needs to be done,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, Efrat Perri, said the embassy “recently became aware of the mentioned developments in Kaifeng” and would “look into it in order to gain a better understanding of the facts.” The Jewish families I met in Kaifeng seemed determined to preserve their revived identity. Some decorated their homes with traditional candlesticks for Shabbat, grainy black-and-white photos of grandparents, drawings of Kaifeng’s destroyed synagogue, and maps of Israel. One Friday evening, two couples invited me to join their Shabbat service, for which they had been studying a Torah reading. “You don’t recognize me as a Jew,” the host said, “but I recognize myself as a Jew, and that’s what is most important.” He broke bread with his brawny hands, and after ceremoniously drinking homemade wine, his guests shared shots of baijiu, a potent Chinese liquor. “Judaism,” the host said, “is all about endurance.”

Judaism
China
Kaifeng
Freedom of religion


Issa Voices Concerns That D.E.A. Operation Needs Oversight

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The powerful chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform increased his pressure on the Justice Department on Friday, raising new questions about how the Drug Enforcement Administration conducts its undercover money-laundering investigations and whether those operations cross the line between fighting and facilitating crime. In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. , Representative Darrell Issa , a California Republican who is chairman of the committee, accused the Justice Department of dragging its feet in responding to his request more than a month ago for a briefing on the operations, which allow D.E.A. agents to pose as money launderers and smugglers in order to infiltrate drug-trafficking organizations. Mr. Issa wrote that he was concerned about whether there was sufficient oversight of these operations. He said an inquiry by his office had revealed evidence of potential impropriety, including the arrests of two American pilots who were held in a Panamanian jail for seven months. Mr. Issa’s investigators on the oversight committee, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to talk about their inquiry, said it appeared that the two pilots, who work for a charter jet company, were unwitting participants in a D.E.A. money-laundering operation gone wrong. They said the pilots were arrested in Panama when the authorities there discovered they were transporting millions of dollars in cash. The investigators said the pilots were unaware the money was on board. They said the Latin American businessman who had chartered the flight told the pilots that the money was the property of the United States government and that the D.E.A. would clear their names. But that did not happen. Congressional investigators said that D.E.A. agents in Panama did speak to the pilots, but stood by while they were detained. The two Americans have been released from custody, the committee investigators said, but their passports had been confiscated, rendering them unable to leave the country. “As this case illustrates all too vividly, innocent people have been ensnared in a high-stakes game with transnational implications,” Mr. Issa wrote. “It is imperative that proper controls be put in place to ensure innocent bystanders do not suffer needlessly at the hands of the D.E.A.” A senior law enforcement official knowledgeable about the pilots’ arrest said that the case had nothing to do with a DEA money laundering operation, but instead was part of an investigation started and led by Panamanian authorities. News reports about the case published last May said Panamanian authorities were tipped off about the bulk cash being smuggled aboard the private jet. The reports also indicated that the pilots worked for a Houston-based company called American Jet International. Justice Department officials refused to discuss Mr. Issa’s letter, saying only that they were reviewing it. Previously, both the D.E.A. and the Justice Department have defended the so-called Attorney General Exempt Operations, saying that they are tightly controlled, and that they are crucial in helping determine how drug-trafficking organizations move their money and in locating high-value suspects. Mr. Issa has been pressuring the Justice Department for answers about its efforts against Mexican drug-trafficking organizations since early last year when he uncovered information about an Arizona operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, called Fast and Furious, in which agents seeking to identify high-level gun smugglers did not always move to arrest straw-purchasers or seize the guns they were buying. Mr. Issa expanded his investigation of the Justice Department to include the D.E.A.’s money-laundering operations after they were described last month in an article by The New York Times. “A very successful, accountable program is getting unfairly slammed,” said a former D.E.A. official who is knowledgeable about the agency’s money-laundering investigations. Then, referring to the D.E.A., he added, “They’re hoping it survives.”


The Epocrates App Provides Drug Information, and Drug Ads

Abstract: Epocrates has won over nearly half of the nation’s doctors for its free smartphone apps that lets them look up information on drug dosing, interactions and insurance coverage while seeing a patient. But like so much else on the Web, “free” comes with a price: doctors must wade through marketing messages on Epocrates that try to sway their choices of which drugs to prescribe. The apps can select messages based on each doctor’s search and prescription histories, and the company has ambitious plans for expanded smartphone offerings. One possibility is a virtual sales rep that would help drug makers get their wares in front of physicians who decline to see human sales representatives. The marketing messages are difficult to ignore. For example, a psychiatrist in Massachusetts who recently opened Epocrates (pronounced ee-POC-ra-teez) on his iPhone said that before he could look up any drugs, he had to click past “DocAlert” messages on hypertension , bipolar disorder and migraines. Two of the three showed they had been paid for by pharmaceutical companies promoting their products. “Some doctors will not have time for that nonsense,” said the psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel J. Carlat, who also writes a blog and newsletter on medical issues. Of course, any casual user of the Web is bombarded with ads derived from their browsing history. However, the marketing through Epocrates is more insidious, according to Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University and founder of PharmedOut , a nonprofit group critical of drug companies’ marketing practices. “With targeted ads in Google, you may buy something that’s an unwise purchase,” she said. “But when a physician is influenced in Epocrates, it’s the patient who’s bearing the financial and health risk.” Dr. Fugh-Berman and other critics of drug marketing say the apps promote more expensive and sometimes less effective drugs. The companies say they are helping doctors find the best medicines. Dr. Rachel E. Sherman, associate director of medical policy at the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency was trying to get a handle on all the emerging electronic channels of communication used by drug makers.“It’s a mess,” she said. Epocrates is betting that the 320,000 physicians who use its apps, much like those who use Google and other advertising-supported data services, will tolerate some marketing to get the information they want at no charge. Epocrates is also used by a million nurses, pharmacists and medical students. One in five doctors will not see drug sales representatives at work, according to the market research firm SK&A , and Epocrates says that getting a smartphone sales pitch in front of doctors just as they are writing prescriptions is immensely valuable to pharmaceutical companies. Epocrates says drug makers get $3 in increased sales from every dollar spent on DocAlerts. The claim comes from comparing prescription records of doctors who see DocAlerts with those who do not, company officials said. But they declined to share the research, saying it was paid for by drug companies and was confidential. Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, has certainly found the marketing channel to be an effective way to reach doctors. “The beauty of the work we do with Epocrates is that we literally put ourselves in the palm of their hand,” said Dr. Freda Lewis Hall, chief medical officer at Pfizer. Epocrates says drug makers can present alerts to doctors based on specific drugs or classes of drugs they have looked up and by specialty, geography and insurance plan. The company will also send alerts to “customer target lists” — specific physicians, like those identified by pharmaceutical manufacturers as being the most frequent prescribers. Epocrates acknowledges the challenges of balancing the needs of its two groups of customers: medical professionals and drug companies. “The credibility of our brand is dependent in large part on the medical community’s continued perception of us as independent from our health care industry clients, particularly pharmaceutical companies,” the company said in a securities filing this year. Pharmaceutical companies provide at least 70 percent of Epocrates’s revenue, which totaled $104 million last year and is projected to be $125 million this year, according to analysts at William Blair & Company, the investment house that helped underwrite the company’s initial public offering in February. (Shares sold for $16 then and closed at $16.50 on Thursday.) “Our first commitment is the value to the physician,” Rosemary A. Crane , president and chief executive of Epocrates, said in an interview. Ms. Crane said the company’s drug descriptions were unbiased and opened “a trusted channel” for drug makers to communicate with physicians through doctor alerts, which are downloaded each time the doctor updates the frequently changing drug information on the app. Ms. Crane said that having alerts based on tracking what doctors look up made the alerts more relevant to the physicians receiving the messages. But such data tracking is opposed by some doctors and lawmakers. The Supreme Court last month overturned a Vermont law that would have restricted IMS Health, an industry data firm, from providing to drug marketers the prescription histories of individual physicians. “The physicians know we never share their identities with the pharmaceutical companies,” Ms. Crane said. Epocrates acts as a middleman in focusing the alerts and proving they work based on prescription data from IMS. Some doctors say they easily look past the commercial messaging in Epocrates, although studies suggest otherwise. Doctors exposed to drug company information often prescribe more often, at a higher cost and with less quality, according to a review of 58 studies published last year in PLoS Medicine, a journal of the Public Library of Science. Epocrates is far larger than its main competitors. Medscape Mobile , from WebMD, offers a free but less comprehensive smartphone look-up service with pharmaceutical sponsorship. UpToDate , from Wolters Kluwer Health, has a Web-based disease reference guide that, it emphasizes, does not accept money from pharmaceutical companies. But UpToDate costs $395 to $495 a year, and its first iPhone app just became available on Monday. Dr. Robert M. Schiller, chairman of family medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, said he often uses Epocrates to look up drugs and advises medical students to use it, too. “I have it on my iPhone,” he said. “It’s great for the convenience, being in a room with a patient and checking a medication. But the biggest problem is that it’s supported by the pharmaceutical industry.” Drug companies, Dr. Schiller said, sponsor information that favors them. “To extent that this is a product that will influence physician prescribing behavior because it’s so efficient and useful, it really needs to have minimal bias,” he said. “And how do you assure that?” Epocrates has a staff of some 15 doctors of medicine and pharmacy, Ms. Crane said, who write their own unbiased content and are protected by firewalls against industry influence. But the company as a whole is becoming more ingrained in drug maker’s plans. The company is used by all of the top 20 drug makers, and in doctor’s offices, as smartphones permeate the medical profession. Epocrates introduced a product for small medical practices on Wednesday to help with electronic health records. It provides clinical advice, too, in disease areas selected by drug company sponsors. Ms. Crane said Epocrates picks the authors of those resource guides. Epocrates was founded in 1998 by two Stanford students. Ms. Crane is the first former pharmaceutical executive to lead Epocrates, joining in 2008 after 26 years at Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb. She succeeded Kirk Loevner, who had come from Apple and the Internet Shopping Network and declined to comment for this article. “It is a unique market, unlike any I have seen before,” Mr. Loevner said in a 2009 interview with a Silicon Valley consultant. “You have a drug industry that spends $14 billion a year to influence people who prescribe drugs. There are only 600,000 people who are allowed to prescribe drugs, so there is $14 billion spent against 600,000 people. If you have a channel to reach these physicians, it is a gold mine.”

Epocrates Inc
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Mobile Applications
Doctors
Advertising and Marketing
Smartphones


Rare Qualifying Defeat for Spain

Abstract: Slovakia stunned Spain, 2-1, in European Championship qualifying Thursday, breaking the run of 14 straight away wins for the titleholder. It was Spain’s first away loss in qualifying for the European Championship and the World Cup since 2006. Slovakia leads Group C. Also, Macedonia record a 3-2 win at home over Luxembourg, while Ukraine won, 2-0, at Belarus. ■ Sweden held Russia to a 1-1 tie in Stockholm in European Championship qualifying. Russia kept first place in Group G with 4 points, the same tally as Montenegro, which drew, 0-0, with Liechtenstein. Austria beat Moldova, 2-1. ■ England sent San Marino to its 60th consecutive loss, 5-0, in a Group E European Championship qualifier at Wembley Stadium. Wayne Rooney scored his 42nd international goal to move within seven of England’s career top-scorer, Bobby Charlton.


Service Held for School Bus Driver in Alabama

Abstract: OZARK, Ala. — The service for the school bus driver had the feel of a state funeral. Members of the local high school R.O.T.C., in their olive dress uniforms, stood in the parking lot of the Ozark Civic Center, directing the scores of cars into overflow parking lots. Sixty-two bikers with the Patriot Guard Riders rumbled into the streets around the civic center, and a half dozen of the riders flanked the entrance, holding American flags aloft. “We come to funerals for veterans and first responders,” said a spokesman for the Patriot Guard Riders, who gave his name as Mouse. Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was a veteran. Last week he was a first responder. On Tuesday afternoon , Jimmy Lee Dykes, to whom Mr. Poland had given a gift of yard eggs and homemade jam days earlier, boarded Mr. Poland’s bus and handed him a note demanding that he hand over two young children. Mr. Poland opened the emergency door in the rear of the bus and blocked Mr. Dykes’s way as the children escaped. Mr. Dykes shot him four times and took a 5-year-old boy named Ethan, whom he has been holding in an underground bunker ever since. Twenty children got away. “You didn’t deserve to die, though you died knowing that you kept everyone safe,” wrote a student named Courtney H., whose letter the school superintendent read at Mr. Poland’s service. “Being on your bus has been the best times of my life.” The hundreds of attendees came from all over the Wiregrass, as the southeastern corner of Alabama is known, a quiet, rural region where the main lines of work are growing peanuts or building helicopters. Neighbors of the Polands came, along with bus drivers from Florida; black-ribbon-draped school buses lined the route to the cemetery. Many came from the places in between, like Echo and Wicksburg and Skipperville. “He was a county bus driver and I have a brother who’s a coach in the county and an alternate bus driver, so he knew him,” said Theresa Locke, 62, of Ozark. “People in this area, everybody’s connected in some way.” Mr. Poland has been hailed as a national hero, as the speakers noted. But he was also a quiet and simple man whose wife, known as Mrs. Jan, had his coffee waiting for him every afternoon when he returned from his bus route. He would have been uncomfortable with all the attention and pomp, one speaker said. Within his coffin, which was draped with a flag, Mr. Poland was wearing no tie. A dozen miles to the south, Mr. Dykes and Ethan remained in the underground bunker. Law enforcement officials have kept all but silent on their efforts to rescue the boy. Uncertainty also surrounds Mr. Dykes’s motives, other than what neighbors, as well as people familiar with Mr. Dykes’s statements in the early hours of the kidnapping, said was a desire to air his grievances about the government, among other things. Some neighbors have speculated that the timing was related to a coming court appearance; Mr. Dykes had been arrested on suspicion of firing a gun to scare a neighbor in December and was scheduled to be in court last Wednesday, the morning after his raid on the bus. But a seven-page letter that Mr. Dykes wrote by hand and circulated among witnesses and others involved in the case suggests little of what was to come. In the letter, Mr. Dykes denied the charges, and he denied even having a handgun, saying it was the neighbor who should be facing legal action for driving recklessly on his property. He wrote at length about the effect of erosion on his land. But while Mr. Dykes was liberal with insults and charges of harassment, his anger was limited to the neighbors in the dispute. At Mr. Poland’s service, the Rev. Ray Layton asked what may have led to the violence of last week. Guns were not to blame, he said, but a nationwide movement away from God and prayer. He urged a change and believed it was possible, even in Mr. Dykes’s case. When Mr. Dykes confronted Mr. Poland, Mr. Layton said, some may think that the Devil won. “But,” he added, “I’m here to tell you the Devil picked on the wrong person this time.”

Charles Albert Poland Jr
Jimmy Lee Dykes
Funerals
Hostage
Alabama
Kidnapping
Murders
Midland City Alabama


Bobby Frankel, Trainer of Champion Horses, Dies at 68

Abstract: Bobby Frankel, one of the most successful American thoroughbred trainers of the last 40 years, whose horses included the champions Bertrando, Ghostzapper and Empire Maker, the winner of the 2003 Belmont Stakes , died Monday at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 68. The cause was cancer, the jockey agent Ron Anderson said. Frankel, who trained in California for most of his career but never lost his Brooklyn accent, quickly rose to prominence after taking out his trainer’s license in 1966. Working with modestly talented horses bought from other stables in claiming races, he turned losers into winners at a remarkable rate, winning a record 60 races at Hollywood Park in 1972, the year he relocated to Southern California from New York. He soon graduated to stakes-caliber horses and blue-chip owners, winning the top-graded Pacific Classic at Del Mar six times and saddling six winners in the annual Breeders’ Cup championships, the sport’s equivalent of the World Series or the Super Bowl . Although he never won the Kentucky Derby , Frankel denied Funny Cide the Triple Crown in 2003 with Empire Maker in the Belmont Stakes . With nearly $228 million in purses, he ranks second only to D. Wayne Lukas on the list of leading career earners. Frankel was voted the top trainer in the United States five times in the annual Eclipse awards, the racing industry’s Oscars. His first award came in 1993. He later won it four years in a row, from 2000 to 2003. In 1995, he was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame. “He had a natural sense of what the animal was feeling,” said Jay Hovdey, a California-based columnist for the Daily Racing Form. “For all his urban angst and the New York in him that was never California-ed out, he was attuned to the natural, the rural, that horse racing is all about. That’s why his horses lasted so long.” Robert J. Frankel was born on July 9, 1941, in Brooklyn, where his parents ran a kosher catering business and bet horses on the side. Growing up in Brooklyn and in Far Rockaway, Queens, he accompanied his parents to the races at Monmouth Park on the Jersey Shore and at Pimlico in Baltimore. His aptitude for math helped him develop into an astute handicapper and a successful bettor. “I’d go down to the candy store in Far Rockaway every night at 7:30 when the Form came out," he told The Independent of London in 2005. “I’d handicap all night long and then go out to the races the next day." After giving up on college after one day, he got started in racing as a hot walker, a stablehand who walks horses after their workout runs to cool them down. His first mentor was Buddy Jacobson, a leading trainer on the New York circuit in the 1960s. After taking out his trainer’s license, he saddled his first winner, Double Dash, at Aqueduct in November 1966. In 1970, he won his first important race, the Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park, with Barometer, a horse he had bought in a claiming race for $15,000. That summer he tied for first place in the trainer standings at Saratoga. Like many aspiring trainers, Frankel concentrated on claiming races, lower-level contests in which all the competing horses are offered for sale. Shrewd trainers learn to spot horses with potential, buy them and improve them. Frankel excelled at this game, and after taking his act to California, established himself as one of the sport’s brightest talents. “He was very patient with horses,” said Chad Brown, a trainer who worked under Frankel for more than five years. “He let the horses come to him; he didn’t push them. He individualized them, training each one a little differently.” Backed by deep-pocketed owners like Edmund Gann, Stavros Niarchos and Bert Firestone, Frankel began winning the sport’s most prestigious races. He won his first Breeders’ Cup race in 2001 with the sprinter Squirtle Squirt and last year won the filly and mare sprint with Ventura, for his sixth Breeders’ Cup victory. Frankel trained 11 Eclipse award winners, including Aldebaran, Bertrando, Ginger Punch, Possibly Perfect and Ghostzapper, who won 9 of 11 lifetime starts, set a stakes record in the Breeders’ Cup Classic and was voted horse of the year in 2004. In all, Frankel won 3,654 races from 17,657 starters. His last major victory came Oct. 17 at Woodbine, near Toronto, when Champs Elysees won the Canadian International, run at a mile and half on grass. Frankel’s two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by a daughter, Bethenny Frankel, a star of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” a reality series on Bravo. In a sport populated by tight-lipped trainers and owners, Frankel stood out for his pungent, off-the-cuff comments and visible emotions; he often fought back tears when a favorite horse turned in a great performance or headed off to retirement. “Isn’t that the kind of horse you’d want to see Roy Rogers riding off on?” he said to a New York Times reporter as his horse Native Guest prepared for the Preakness in 1975. When asked if the horse, which had raced only four times, might lack seasoning, Frankel said, “I’ll put salt and pepper in his hay, that’ll be seasoning enough.”

Frankel Bobby
Horse Racing
Deaths (Obituaries)


Red Bulls Surprise the First-Place Crew

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Dane Richards made a 50-yard run with a loose ball off a corner to give the Red Bulls a 1-0 upset victory over the first-place Columbus Crew on Sunday at Giants Stadium. The Red Bulls (4-16-4) handed the Crew (10-4-9) its first loss since June 20, ending a five-game winning streak. The win was the second straight for the Red Bulls since Richie Williams became the interim coach after Juan Carlos Osorio resigned. Columbus still holds a 1-point lead over Chicago in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference. Richards scored his third goal of the season off a spectacular run after a Columbus corner attempt in the 63rd minute. It was broken up by midfielder Seth Stammler, and the ball rolled out near midfield, where Richards ran to it. He carried the ball more than 50 yards, with midfielder Brian Carroll as the lone player back for the Crew. Richards juked his way past Carroll, then fired a right-footed shot that rolled past Crew goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum. The Red Bulls had the better scoring opportunities. Forward John Wolyniec bounced a shot off the right post in the 59th minute, and Juan Pablo Angel just missed with a header in the 32nd.


President’s Drive for Carbon Pricing Fails to Win at Home

Abstract: President Obama stood in the chamber of the United Nations General Assembly last week and urged the world to follow his example and fight global warming. But a major new declaration calling for a global price on carbon — signed by 74 countries and more than 1,000 businesses and investors — is missing a key signatory: the United States. The declaration, released by the World Bank the day before Mr. Obama’s speech at the United Nations Climate Summit, has been signed by China, Shell, Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola. It calls on all nations to enact laws forcing industries to pay for the carbon emissions that scientists say are the leading cause of global warming. The United States, which is under growing international pressure to price carbon, is missing from the declaration for a key reason: conservative opposition to Mr. Obama’s climate change proposals, specifically a carbon tax. The opposition will only intensify if Republicans win control of the Senate in November and the new majority leader is Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, where coal — the world’s largest source of carbon pollution — is the lifeblood of the state’s economy. “It’s time for the global elites to face facts,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “President Obama’s war on coal won’t have any meaningful impact on global carbon emissions. What it will do is ship American jobs overseas, raise the cost of living substantially for middle and working-class families and throw thousands more Kentuckians out of work.” Although the nonbinding World Bank declaration is meant largely as a show of resolve ahead of a 2015 climate summit in Paris, it signals the broadest, most explicit effort to date of world leaders and financial institutions to push all nations to enact new taxes on old forms of energy. The declaration notes that governments can either directly tax carbon pollution or create market-based cap-and-trade systems, which force companies to buy government-issued pollution permits. “The most powerful move that a government can make in the fight against climate change is to put a price on carbon,” said Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s vice president of sustainability. To many Republicans on Capitol Hill, such statements are anathema. In 2010, after Mr. Obama tried but failed in the face of conservative opposition to push a national cap-and-trade bill through Congress, victorious Republicans galvanized against the idea and launched campaigns against politicians who support carbon pricing. Mr. Obama in turn circumvented Congress and in June released a new Environmental Protection Agency regulation under his executive authority that requires states to submit their own plans to cut emissions — but does not tell them explicitly how to do so. Nonetheless, California and nine Northeastern states have already enacted cap-and-trade programs, and seven states — California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — signed on to the World Bank declaration. In order to avoid more opposition from conservatives, Mr. Obama and other top administration officials no longer call publicly for a national price on carbon. But they have nonetheless signaled their support for international and state efforts. In his speech at the United Nations, Mr. Obama quoted the Democratic governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, who is urging other states to pass carbon pricing laws: “As one of America’s governors has said, ‘We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.’ ” The Obama administration has also enacted a policy signaling its readiness to price carbon should the politics of Congress ever shift: a metric it calls “the social cost of carbon,” designed to account for the cost of one ton of carbon dioxide pollution. Mr. Obama’s economists have determined the cost to be $37 a ton. Secretary of State John Kerry, a longtime advocate of government policy to fight climate change — and the chief author of the failed 2010 cap-and-trade bill in the Senate — last week told a meeting of the Major Economies Forum that “when it comes to climate change, we know exactly what it takes to get the job done.” But Mr. Kerry did not specifically mention carbon pricing at the forum, a gathering of foreign ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies, and said only, “It takes energy policy.” About 40 countries have already implemented carbon pricing policy, while dozens of others are now exploring it. In 2005, the European Union enacted a cap-and-trade plan for carbon pollution, and at the United Nations last week, European leaders pushed hard for the rest of the world to sign on. “We need to define a new economy of the world,” President François Hollande of France said in his remarks at the climate summit. “There will have to be a new pricing system for carbon.” The weekend before the summit, more than 300,000 people protested at a climate change demonstration in the streets of New York, where marchers waved signs reading “Tax carbon!” The new carbon pricing push comes as countries and institutions that once fought the idea are now embracing it. “On carbon pricing, there’s a perfect storm taking place,” said Robert N. Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard. “There is increasing recognition that approaches that have been taken in the past haven’t worked, and that the only way one can affect the hundreds of millions of decisions is through price signals.” Over the last year China has enacted seven pilot cap-and-trade programs in its provinces, although outside experts remain skeptical of Beijing’s plans as the nation’s carbon emissions continue to rise. At the same time, the political power of the coal industry to fight such laws remains potent. Australia, a major coal-producing nation, offers a case study in the political dangers of supporting a carbon tax in a coal-heavy democracy. A former Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, made tackling climate change a signature issue and enacted a carbon tax — a move that was seen as political suicide. Last year Australians voted her out of office and this past summer, the new prime minister, Tony Abbott, pushed through a bill to repeal the carbon price.

Greenhouse gas
World Bank
Climate Change
Global Warming
Coal
Barack Obama
UN
US Politics
Republicans
US


Novelist Given 3 Years for Insulting Thai King

Abstract: BANGKOK — An Australian writer was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for insulting the Thai monarchy in a self-published novel. The writer, Harry Nicolaides, 41, originally received a six-year sentence, which the court said it had reduced because he had pleaded guilty. The book, “Verisimilitude,” was published in 2005 and reportedly sold fewer than a dozen copies. The case was brought under the country’s strict lèse-majesté laws, which call for a prison term of up to 15 years for anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the regent.” The boundaries of the law are unclear, and cases can be brought by any citizen, involving a variety of alleged offenses. Dozens of cases are now pending. In addition, the government has closed more than 2,000 Web sites that it says include material insulting to the monarchy. Speaking to reporters before the verdict was announced, Mr. Nicolaides said he had endured “unspeakable suffering” during five months of detention. “I would like to apologize,” he added. “This can’t be real. It feels like a bad dream.” Mr. Nicolaides, who had been an English teacher in Thailand , was detained on Aug. 31 as he was about to board a plane home, apparently unaware that an arrest warrant had been issued against him. Promotional material about the novel called the book “an uncompromising assault on the patrician values of the monarchy.” Mr. Nicolaides reportedly printed only 50 copies of the book — a paperback, with a bright blue butterfly on the cover — and sold 10. “I think Thailand is trying to send a message to international media, to writers, to bloggers, to people who are putting material on the Internet, that the royal family is out of bounds,” Andrew Walker, a fellow in the Asia-Pacific program at Australian National University, said on Australian television. The lèse-majesté cases come at a time of growing concern about the eventual succession of the revered king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is 81. He has no official political role, but he is a unifying force and peacemaker in a nation that has become increasingly factionalized and acrimonious. Last week, the new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, said that the monarchy must be protected because it offered “immense benefits to the country as a stabilizing force.”

Thailand
Royal Family
lese majeste
Sentences (Criminal)
Decisions and Verdicts
Writing and Writers


Pakistan Sends Envoy to Afghanistan, Pledging a Push for Regional Peace

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — Facing growing hostility in Kabul, the new government of Pakistan sent its top diplomat to Afghanistan on Sunday, and the envoy pledged that his country would do its best to help open peace talks with the Taliban. The diplomat, Sartaj Aziz, the foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, visited Kabul at a particularly difficult time. Since the failure last month of an American-orchestrated attempt to open peace talks with the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai and other senior officials have begun accusing the United States and Pakistan of plotting with the insurgents to divide Afghanistan. On Sunday, Mr. Aziz tried to counter that assertion. He insisted that Pakistan, which faces its own insurgency by an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, wanted to see “a peaceful and a stable and a united Afghanistan.” “Without peace and security in Afghanistan, peace and security in Pakistan cannot be ensured,” he told reporters, adding that he had come to Kabul to formally invite Mr. Karzai to Pakistan. There was no word from the presidential palace whether the invitation had been accepted. American and European officials have for years actively tried to win Pakistan’s backing for peace talks. The Taliban uses Pakistan as a rear base, and the Pakistan Army and intelligence service are believed to aid the insurgents, though Pakistan denies it gives the Taliban any material support. Mr. Aziz on Sunday said Pakistan would do its best to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, acknowledging that his country has “some influence and contacts” with the insurgents. Pakistan had already helped bring Taliban representatives to Qatar, where the failed attempt to begin peace talks played out last month, he said. “But we do not control them,” Mr. Aziz said at the news conference, which was held with the Afghan foreign minister, Zalmay Rassoul. Despite such statements, Pakistani control of the Taliban is often taken as undisputed fact among Afghan officials, and mistrust of Pakistan runs deep among Afghans of all classes and ethnicities. The Taliban’s reliance on Pakistan for shelter and support during the past 12 years has only deepened that historical enmity between the two countries, and many Afghans think their larger, richer and more powerful neighbor aims to dominate their country. In a reflection of the tension, Mr. Rassoul, the Afghan foreign minister, was measured in his comments on Sunday. He said his government had tried to improve relations with Pakistan, but until now had gotten only tepid responses to its overtures. “Unfortunately, so far these efforts of the Afghan government haven’t borne positive results,” Mr. Rassoul said. For Pakistan, sending Mr. Aziz to reset relations with Afghanistan was in itself a risky move. Earlier this year, he was accused by Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry of privately suggesting to Afghan officials that their nation effectively cede some provinces to the Taliban as part of a power-sharing arrangement to help end the war. The idea appears to have fed the suspicion among Mr. Karzai and some members of his inner circle that Pakistan is in league with the United States and the Taliban. Abdul Kharim Khurram, the chief of staff to Mr. Karzai, detailed the suspicions in an interview last week with an Afghan television station, 1TV, accusing all three of killing innocents in Afghanistan and seeking to divide the country. Pakistan, he told 1TV, could end the war “in weeks” if it wanted to. Mr. Aziz did not directly address those comments on Sunday. Alluding to the period after the NATO combat mission ends here, he said, “It is for Afghans themselves to decide what system and what kind of post-2014 arrangement they would like to have.” After the Qatar talks failed, Mr. Karzai suspended talks between the United States and Afghanistan on a deal to keep American troops here beyond 2014. Among the items Afghanistan wants in the deal is a security pact that would compel the United States to defend Afghanistan from Pakistan. American officials have scoffed at the idea, which they say is a nonstarter for the Obama administration.

Afghanistan War
Taliban
Hamid Karzai
Nawaz Sharif
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Kabul


Time Slipping, U.S. Ponders Afghan Role After 2014

Abstract: WASHINGTON — American and allied military planners are drawing up the broad outlines of a force that would remain in Afghanistan following the handover to Afghan security after 2014, including a small counterterrorism force with an eye toward Al Qaeda, senior officials say. Under the emerging plan, the American counterterrorism force might number less than 1,000, one military official said. In a parallel effort, NATO forces would advise Afghan forces at major regional military and police headquarters but most likely have a minimal battlefield role, with the exception of some special operations advisers. Final decisions on the size of the American and NATO presence after 2014 and its precise configuration have not been made by the United States or its allies. But one option calls for about 10,000 American and several thousand non-American NATO troops. The planning for a post-2014 mission has emerged as an early test for President Obama in his new term as he tries to flesh out the strategy for transferring the responsibility for security to the Afghans. But it is not the only challenge: After the White House decides what sort of military presence to propose to the Afghan government for after 2014, it must turn to the question of how quickly to reduce its troop force before then. As one of his last acts as senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen is expected to submit a formal recommendation for how quickly to begin withdrawing the United States’ 66,000 troops. Two American officials who are involved in Afghan issues said that General Allen wants to keep a significant military capability through the fighting season ending in fall 2013, which could translate to a force of more than 60,000 troops until the end of that period. Afghan forces are to assume the lead role for the war next year, and a military officer said that such a troop level would enable the United States to better support them, maintain the initiative and control critical terrain. But such an approach may entail a heavier military involvement than the White House, which appears weary of the war, might like. The White House is expected to ask General Allen to submit a range of options for drawing down forces next year, including some involving substantial reductions in troop levels. “The White House has not yet asked General Allen for his assessment, nor have we begun considering any specific recommendations for troop numbers in 2013 and 2014,” said George Little, the Pentagon spokesman. “What is true is that in June 2011 the president made clear that our forces would continue to come home at a steady pace as we transition to an Afghan lead for security. That it still the case.” The issue is already a politically contentious one. Some leading Democratic lawmakers have signaled that they would like to see steady troop reductions next year while Republicans have argued that speedy withdrawals would jeopardize hard-won gains. There are also questions about General Allen’s future: his e-mails to a woman linked to the F.B.I. inquiry that disclosed David H. Petraeus’s affair are being investigated by the Pentagon inspector general. But General Allen has resumed his duties in Kabul, and Mr. Obama has said that he thinks highly of his military performance. The Marine general who has been nominated to replace him, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., is not scheduled to take up the post until early February and recently told Congress that he had not been part of the planning process. The planning for a post-2014 force is the Obama administration’s first order of business on Afghanistan for several reasons. The United States has opened talks with the Afghans on a security agreement that would authorize an American troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014. So American officials need to define what role American and NATO forces might play then. In addition, NATO’s political arm has authorized the alliance’s military planners to develop a concept for how to carry out the post-2014 mission, which is to be approved by the alliance’s defense ministers early next year. The planning for after 2014 turns on troubling questions on how to guard against the expansion of terrorist groups and advise an Afghan military that has little airpower, poor logistics and difficulties evacuating and treating its own wounded. But it will also depend heavily on the willingness of allied nations to contribute troops and funds. One question is the scope of the mission for the American counterterrorism force. The targets of the counterterrorism force would include Al Qaeda and possibly Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group linked to Al Qaeda that was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and which is found in small numbers in northeast Afghanistan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan might also make the list. But it was unclear whether the Pakistani-based Haqqani network, which American commandos have focused on for the past two years, would also be a potential target of the American force. Officials say that does not appear to be contemplated by the White House. An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy they would advise. It is generally expected that they would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters. The arrangement would largely insulate the NATO advisers from the battlefield, though officials said advisers might accompany Afghan brigades on major operations. It is unlikely that NATO officers would advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield. That would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster and would entail more risk than most nations seem prepared to assume, though some American experts believe it would make the Afghan military more effective. Still, NATO special operations advisers would be likely to accompany Afghan Army commandos and police SWAT-type units on the battlefield, under the emerging plan. A major challenge is that Afghanistan will not have an effective air force before 2017, if then. American officials said that NATO airpower would remain in Afghanistan after 2014 but will likely only be used on behalf of NATO and American troops and perhaps Afghan units that are accompanied by NATO advisers. NATO forces rely heavily on airpower for airstrikes, supply and medical evacuation since Afghanistan’s roads are poor and often seeded with bombs. To compensate for Afghanistan’s limited airpower, American officials are working on a number of fixes, including providing Afghan forces with armored vehicles that would be equipped with mortars and assault guns. The United States is also looking into expanding the purchase of turboprop planes for the Afghans and is trying to help Afghan pilots learn to fly at night. Equally troubling is the problem of medical evacuations. After 2014, the Afghans will almost certainly need to rely on a system that depends more on ground transportation than helicopters. The Americans want to help them develop more field hospitals. Senior Afghan military officials are well aware of their deficiencies and are counting on American support. “Until 2017, we will have American pilots and engineers flying with us,” said Gen. Abdul Wahab Wardak, the Afghan Air Force Commander. “They will start the handover of the air force at the beginning of 2017 and at the end of the year it will be complete.” General Wardak also noted that the Afghan military needed NATO help to provide “close air support and medevac.” And he ticked off a long list of equipment he hoped to receive from the United States, including transport airplanes and parts. Still, in the broader sense, a senior American military officer acknowledged that the United States faced formidable difficulties in getting the Afghans ready to operate on their own. The challenge, the officer said, is “building the back end” of the army and the police: “We’ve been focused on their fighting ability. Now it’s the time we need to focus on getting them the ability to get what they need so they can fight.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Donald Trump the Candidate Promotes Trump the Brand on Campaign Trail

Abstract: As his poll numbers have declined in the closing weeks of the presidential race, Donald J. Trump has begun to engage in barely veiled promotions of his business brand off the campaign trail, dragging reporters to his marquee properties in between his campaign events. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump added an abrupt appearance at the Trump National Doral, one of his gilded golf courses and resorts in Florida, ostensibly to demonstrate how many employees he has there and how much they admire him as a boss. On Wednesday, instead of spending the morning in one of the battleground states where polls show him trailing Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump held a ribbon-cutting at his elaborately remade hotel at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The stops are a remarkable display of personal promotion by a presidential nominee, raising questions about whether the businessman, who has lived by the mantra that “all publicity is good publicity,” is at least partly casting his eye beyond the 2016 race, and toward bolstering the brand that bears his name. In a telephone interview, Mr. Trump rejected such questions and said he was demonstrating his credentials for the presidency at such events by showing the type of efficiencies he would bring to government. “Today, it was about jobs. Tomorrow, it’s about being under budget and ahead of schedule,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the Washington hotel. Video Donald J. Trump turned his attention away from the presidential race long enough for a ribbon-cutting at his new hotel in Washington. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times His critics saw a different motive. “This is the worst message to send to all of those true and loyal Trump supporters out there who actually did believe in him and actually did have a stake in this election,” said Kevin Madden, a former adviser to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee. “With less than two weeks to go until Election Day,” Mr. Madden added, “Mr. Trump is repaying them by using their campaign to showcase his hotel. He said he wouldn’t let them down, but he already has. They have a right to be disappointed.” During the Republican primaries, Mr. Trump often used his properties as a backdrop for election night news conferences. He has regularly sprinkled references to his hotels into his speeches, intertwining his business and campaign interests. But those news conferences were at least tethered to the rhythms of the election cycle. Even a raucous one at Mr. Trump’s Washington hotel in September, where he haltingly tried to unwind his false claims about President Obama’s birthplace, was initially intended to highlight his support from military leaders. Mr. Trump’s event on Tuesday at Doral, and the ribbon-cutting on Wednesday at the new Trump International Hotel in Washington, had nothing to do with the daily grind of the final two weeks of the national campaign, burning valuable time that could have been spent courting voters. The Doral event was announced with little notice on Tuesday morning. “Would anybody like to say a few words about working for Trump?” Mr. Trump asked his housekeeping staff and other employees in front of nearly two dozen members of the news media. When an employee took Mr. Trump up on his request, the candidate joked, “Better say, ‘Good,’ or I’ll say, ‘You’re fired!’” Framed by a grand beige building, with marble fountains in the background, Mr. Trump opened his remarks at Doral promoting the success not of his campaign, but of his golf resort. He insisted that his new hotel in Washington was doing great business, asserting that “bookings are through the roof.” In fact, the hotel opened in September, and it has struggled and slashed some rates as it coped with a lack of bookings for major holiday parties, according to reports, which Mr. Trump denied. “Every night, it’s become the place where Washington is going,” he said. The hotel event Wednesday was less a ribbon-cutting than a condensed version of a Trump campaign event, as he quickly moved from thanking his family to criticizing Mrs. Clinton’s embrace of Mr. Obama’s health care plan, lamenting the status of the “depleted military” and vowing to fix a broken tax code and educational system. “Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country,” Mr. Trump said. Mrs. Clinton, at a campaign event Wednesday in Florida, seized on the hotel event, accusing Mr. Trump of relying “on undocumented workers to make his project cheaper.” Underscoring the oddity of the event, the political reporters who attended the ribbon-cutting were handed a four-page glossy brochure with a property overview, accommodations listings, amenities, and photographs of guest rooms, the grand atrium and “The Spa by Ivanka Trump.” Brand promotion is perhaps not surprising for a candidate who kicked off his campaign at the Trump Tower in Manhattan. When Mr. Trump contemplated running for president in 2000, he said that he might be the first candidate to run for the White House and actually make money doing it. He made the remark in reference to paid speeches he was giving when he was exploring whether to run. For a time in the 2016 race, that boast was prescient: Mr. Trump used money raised from campaign donors to pay for his private aircraft, to reimburse his children for expenses and to buy copies of his first book, “The Art of the Deal.” But Mr. Trump’s brand has taken some nicks during the course of a slashing campaign in which he has repeatedly made incendiary remarks about women, Muslims, immigrants and African-Americans. There have also been efforts to take his name off several residential towers he built years ago on the West Side of Manhattan. For Republicans like Mr. Madden, the former Romney adviser, Mr. Trump’s recent behavior is confirming suspicion that the candidate sees the campaign for the highest office in the country as an advertising soapbox for the Trump brand. Not everyone sees a downside to his behavior. Rob Gleason, the Republican Party chairman in Pennsylvania, shrugged off questions about the candidate’s schedule. “He’s been here a lot in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Gleason said, adding that Mr. Trump was simply showcasing “positive things that he’s been able to do.” “That’s why people like him,” he said. “That’s the change message that we’re trying to get across.”

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Trump National Doral Miami
Trump International Hotel


Jeff Sessions Appears Headed to a Trump Cabinet Position

Abstract: The lobby of Trump Tower had a frenetic pace on Thursday as a parade of current and former officeholders and others came to meet with President-elect Donald J. Trump as he works to build his nascent administration. Image Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, center (in blue tie), at Trump Tower on Tuesday. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times Strong signal for Senator Jeff Sessions in the cabinet. The transition team appeared to hint Thursday that Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, would be in Mr. Trump’s cabinet. In a statement, the team said that Mr. Sessions had met with Mr. Trump in his New York office on Thursday. “While nothing has been finalized and he is still talking with others as he forms his cabinet, the president-elect has been unbelievably impressed with Senator Sessions and his phenomenal record as Alabama’s attorney general and U.S. attorney,” the statement said. “It is no wonder the people of Alabama re-elected him without opposition.” Son-in-law talks to lawyers about joining administration. Jared Kushner , Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, has consulted with lawyers about the possibility of joining the new administration, a move that could run afoul of federal anti-nepotism laws and would all but certainly invite lawsuits and ethical challenges. Mr. Kushner has talked to at least one lawyer and believes that by forgoing a salary and putting his business holdings into a blind trust he would not be bound by such laws, according to a person who had been briefed on the talks. Under federal statute, the president cannot accept voluntary services that are not permitted by law, and a separate statute bars public officials from employing family members in any capacity. Ambassador says Israel will work with Trump administration, including Bannon. The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ronald Dermer, said Thursday that Israel would work with all members of the Trump administration, including Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Bannon to be his senior counselor on Monday. The move has been widely criticized by Democrats and minority groups who say that Mr. Bannon’s website, Breitbart.com, promotes anti-Semitic and racist views. “We look forward to working with the Trump administration, with all the members of the Trump administration, including Steve Bannon, in making the U.S.-Israel alliance stronger than ever,” Mr. Dermer said. The elevators are crowded at Trump Tower. Image Rudolph W. Giuliani arrived at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump’s campaign confidants who has been mentioned as a possible secretary of state, arrived at Trump Tower in the morning, and left an hour later saying only, “I’m going to get some rest.” Two candidates for Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, who worked on Mr. Trump’s campaign, and Representative Jeb Hensarling , a Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, also paid a visit to Trump Tower on Thursday. “I’ve got a great position in public policy today,” Mr. Hensarling said. “If he wants to talk to me, obviously about serving somewhere else, we’ll look at serving somewhere else.” When former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger arrived at Trump Tower on Thursday, he did not have to pass through the building’s lobby, allowing him to avoid the news media. Mr. Trump and Mr. Kissinger “have known each other for years and had a great meeting,” the transition team said, adding that the two men talked about China, Russia, Iran, the European Union and “other events and issues around the world.” Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, a possible candidate for secretary of state or another position, also met with transition officials. “We’re just happy to have her here for her advice and counsel and to hear about the great success story of South Carolina,” said Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager. Image Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, second from right, at the Capitol on Wednesday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Trump is asked to sever business ties. Lawyers from both parties and government ethics groups on Thursday called on Mr. Trump to sever all ties with the vast real estate and business empire that bears his name and to place it in a blind trust, warning that failure to do so could result in contentious conflicts and even threats of impeachment. In a letter to Mr. Trump on Thursday, a group including Norm Eisen, President Obama’s former ethics lawyer, and Richard Painter, who had the same post under George W. Bush, said the president-elect must transfer control of all of his businesses assets and investments to an independent trustee who would sell them and not disclose how the proceeds were invested. If he chooses to put his children in charge of the businesses, as Mr. Trump has said he plans to do, they added, “a clear firewall must by established” barring family members from being involved in policy decisions at the White House and forbidding them from discussing the business with their father or anyone in his administration. Ted Cruz: From bitter enemy to ‘eager and committed’ to Trump. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who battled with Mr. Trump during the Republican primary contest, said Thursday that he was “eager and committed” to working with the president-elect. In an interview on Fox News, Mr. Cruz said that he met with Mr. Trump on Wednesday and that they had a “far-reaching” conversation about the challenges facing the country. There is speculation that Mr. Cruz could be a potential nominee for attorney general or the Supreme Court, but on Thursday he dodged questions about his future. “I’m eager to work with the president in whatever capacity I can have the greatest impact defending the principles I was elected to defend,” Mr. Cruz said. “I am excited for the opportunity we have to come together and get the job done.” Tim Ryan of Ohio challenges Nancy Pelosi for minority leader. Image Representative Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, center, in Washington on Thursday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times In a renewed sign of turmoil among Democrats after their bruising loss last week, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio said Thursday that he would challenge Representative Nancy Pelosi of California as leader of the House Democrats. “I have spent countless hours meeting and talking to members of our caucus, and the consensus is clear,” Mr. Ryan said in a letter to his Democratic colleagues. “What we are doing right now is not working. Under our current leadership, Democrats have been reduced to our smallest congressional minority since 1929. This should indicate to all of us that keeping our leadership team completely unchanged will simply lead to more disappointment in future elections.” In a news conference Thursday before Mr. Ryan announced his plans, Ms. Pelosi seemed to brush off any challenges, noting that she was the architect of the 2006 takeover of the House by Democrats. “I’m very, very proud of that, and I see that as an opportunity now.” The leadership vote will be held Nov 30. A short-term fix is seen to keep the government open. House and Senate Republicans have agreed to pass a short-term spending measure through March, kicking the appropriations process, which leaders in both chambers vowed to do this year, into the next Congress and administration. The bill is expected to pass before the current spending measure expires on Dec. 9. Appropriations bills have been contentious because they are often filled with conservative policy riders that have made those spending bills subject to presidential veto in the Obama administration. With Mr. Trump in the White House, there will be a fresh test of the appropriations process, including a new debate on earmarks. Janet Yellen on the economy: ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen.’ Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, was asked by members of Congress at a hearing Thursday about the economic impact of Mr. Trump’s election. Markets have rallied on optimism that Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans will stimulate growth by cutting taxes and increasing spending on defense and infrastructure. Ms. Yellen struck a more cautious note. “We don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “There’s a great deal of uncertainty. We will be watching the decisions that Congress makes and updating our economic outlook as the policy outlook becomes clearer.” A tech round table at the 19th hole? The work on a new administration will have a brief site change on Friday when Mr. Trump heads to his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., for additional meetings. Among the possible events being discussed within his campaign is a round table with tech industry leaders, many of whom view Mr. Trump suspiciously after his more provoking oratory during the campaign.

Donald Trump
Trans-Pacific Partnership
International relations
Shinzo Abe
Mike Pence


HealthBridge Managemant Ordered to Reinstate Striking Workers

Abstract: A federal judge in Hartford has ordered a Connecticut nursing home chain to reinstate nearly 600 workers who have been on strike since July 3, and to rescind the pension and health care cuts it had imposed. Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the United States District Court in Connecticut ruled on Tuesday night that the nursing homes’ owner, HealthBridge Management , had broken the law by refusing to bargain in good faith and by imposing the cuts before a true negotiating impasse had been reached. Judge Chatigny issued an injunction that ordered HealthBridge to reinstate the workers by next Monday, even if it means ousting hundreds of the replacement workers hired to run the nursing homes after the strike began. “Everybody is quite happy about the decision,” said Vern Scatliffe, a nurse’s aide, as he picketed outside Danbury Health Care Center , one of the five nursing homes — the others are in Milford, Newington, Stamford and Westport — where the workers walked out to protest the cuts HealthBridge had imposed. “The judge’s order is a big relief to me. I can now go back to work and earn my living again.” Saying the company was disappointed by the judge’s decision, Lisa Crutchfield, a HealthBridge spokeswoman, said it had filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the injunction. “We are acting in the best interests of our residents — their well-being is paramount to us,” she said. Ms. Crutchfield said the order to reinstate the strikers would “expose residents to the very people who sought to do them harm” during the walkout. HealthBridge has accused the strikers of several acts of sabotage, including changing the names on several patients’ doors and wheelchairs and switching the names of some residents in Alzheimer’s units. Deborah Chernoff, a spokeswoman for the strikers’ union, the New England Health Care Employees Union , said it had opposed any sabotage. She suggested that the allegations themselves were suspicious, noting that they were first made two weeks after the strike began. The strike began after HealthBridge declared the negotiations deadlocked and then imposed changes that included freezing the workers’ pensions, requiring many to pay at least $6,000 more a year for family health coverage and eliminating six paid sick days and a week’s vacation for many workers. Two weeks after the strike began, the striking employees, who belong to a branch of the Service Employees International Union , offered to return to work, but the company refused to take them back. Judge Chatigny said it was “just and proper” to reinstate them “because there is a pressing need to restore the status quo” from before the company made the changes, which he found to be illegal. The judge acted only after the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Hartford sought an injunction. David Pickus, president of the strikers’ union, said, “This ruling is a decisive victory for workers and a sign that HealthBridge cannot get away with its unfair and illegal treatment of its employees.”

Organized Labor
HealthBridge Management
Service Employees International Union
Connecticut
Strikes
Nursing Homes
Chatigny Robert N