Mary Laschinger of Veritiv: Leadership With Its Roots on the Farm

Abstract: This interview with Mary A. Laschinger, C.E.O. of the Veritiv Corporation , a distribution services company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. What were some early influences? A. I grew up in a large family — with four brothers and three sisters — on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin. It wasn’t a big commercial farm. Everybody worked on the farm to support the family. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I learned a lot from my father about running a business. Back then, the government got more involved in farming and, in particular, with family farms, because so many small farmers were struggling. There were more and more subsidies out there, and my father was astute enough to take advantage of those opportunities, but in a way that was sustainable. We never had the financial difficulties that many small farms had. Did you have certain jobs on the farm? I was third from the youngest, and the older kids often had to go outside and do a lot of the farm work. I was relegated to doing laundry and cleaning the house. I remember doing laundry for 10 people when I was 10 years old. I cleaned the house and scrubbed floors. My mom didn’t believe in a mop. It was on your hands and knees. What about your college years? When I got out of high school, I didn’t go to college right away. I went to tech school, worked for a couple of years and then went to college. I didn’t start college until I was 21. Because? It seemed intimidating at the time. I was a B-average student, and I didn’t have enough self-confidence, or enough direction or guidance, to go to college. So I got a fashion merchandising degree, and then I went into retail and managed a department in a store. I did that well, and that probably built up my confidence. I wanted to do more, and I quit to get my four-year degree. I worked about 30 hours a week to put myself through school. I studied business management, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do after graduation. I think a college adviser suggested, “You should look into logistics.” I said, “What is that?” I was intrigued, and I studied supply chain outside school and was fortunate to be picked up by Kimberly-Clark. As part of the interview process, they took me into a 100-year-old paper mill. They were taking trees, debarking them, making chips, making pulp. It was dirty, it was old, but I thought it was fascinating. And I was breaking ground in some of these areas because oftentimes I was the only woman. There were some pretty rough people in those kinds of environments, but growing up on a farm helped me with that. I had four brothers, and I knew how to hold my own. I would stand my ground, but use a little bit of humor and humility rather than being offended and arrogant. What were some important leadership lessons you’ve learned over your career? I learned an important one when I first became a general manager of a $150 million business for International Paper. I was euphoric. I thought, I’ve finally made it. That feeling lasted about two weeks. What happened? I looked around and realized we weren’t doing very well. But the most important thing was that I said to myself, “Why do I feel this huge sense of responsibility and accountability today that I didn’t feel two weeks ago?” I had to do a lot of soul-searching to try to figure out the answer. It dawned on me that in my previous roles, I didn’t feel like I could impact the results of the company. That’s when I got my first life lesson about how you’ve got to engage the people of the company — around strategy and decisions — to make things happen. I will never forget that because I felt very alone for a while until I figured out that I didn’t do anything by myself. And so we developed a guiding coalition for the company, with people who were influencers in the company. They didn’t necessarily have the top roles, but we got them together to talk about where we were as a company and what was working and what was not working. I had a few leaders on my executive team who just flat-out refused to participate. Eventually they left. But employees became more interested in what we were doing as a company, and they cared more about what was happening. Morale was better. How do you hire? I think about it on three dimensions, in this order. First, I want to know their values. Are they a team player? Are they an egomaniac? Are they here to help the enterprise succeed? Will they help their colleagues succeed? Or is it just about them and their team? The next thing I test for is their willingness to learn and grow. We are always confronted with change at a mind-boggling pace. We need people who are willing to learn and grow and adapt. We can’t teach willingness. They have to want to adjust. Then I look at their technical capabilities. We can teach them any number of things, but we can’t teach them a willingness to learn, nor can we teach them their values. But if we can get those first two right, we will have the right people, the right team. We will be aligned. I’ve been operating on that philosophy for quite a while, and it’s paid dividends. And so what questions do you ask? I’ll ask how they get things done. I want specifics. Then I’ll listen for the “I”s versus the “we”s. Did they engage across the organization? What did they have to do to get it done? Tell me about some successes with people specifically, good outcomes and bad outcomes. I’ll ask about their willingness to take on different assignments they’ve had. Why did you do that? What did you learn?

Mary A. Laschinger
Management
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Kimberly Clark


Taking Your Wi-Fi Cafe With You, but Not Everywhere

Abstract: What if you could take along your strong and speedy home Wi-Fi connection wherever you go? That’s the idea behind a new service from Sprint called Xohm, which takes Wi-Fi to its logical extreme. Fittingly, the technology behind it is called WiMax. Although it isn’t widely deployed in the United States, a test run of the service in Baltimore, where it was recently introduced, suggests that it could one day become a solid option for getting things done online and even making phone calls while on the go. Of course, there are plenty of reasons the technology could also become a historical footnote, not the least of which is that it won’t work everywhere in a given city, much less all over the country. So-called mobile hot spot Internet services sold by cell carriers, including Sprint, have much greater range. But for those living in an area Xohm covers — the service arrives in Washington and Chicago in the coming months, with Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Fort Worth and Providence, R.I., to follow — the monthly outlay of $35 to $65 could be well worth it. For $35, subscribers get home broadband service that they can share among multiple computers; $45 lets you connect at home or on the road with one laptop or other mobile device, and $65 broadens that to cover multiple devices. The prospect of getting speedy wireless service outside your house while also tearing up your contract with your home Internet service may appeal to many, because that combination is not available with data services from cell carriers. Actually, most Xohm customers will have to pay something beyond that. To receive the signal, you need a Windows laptop with a WiMax chip, and only eight WiMax-ready machines are on the market. (The cheapest is a Lenovo SL500 for $570. I used a $2,560 Lenovo X301.) If you don’t own one of those, you’ll need a wireless dongle or PC card ($60), and to set up a home network, you need a Xohm router ($80). If you’re just stopping into a Xohm city and you have the right equipment, you can buy 24-hour access for $10. Once you are in a coverage area, the service works much like a home Wi-Fi connection, where you don’t need to type in a password each time you log on. Rather, after you sign up, the network recognizes your device whenever you’re in range of the signal. When I visited Baltimore last week, Xohm operated at broadband speed no matter what kind of demands I put on it. I opened multiple browser windows, simultaneously streaming videos in each, without a hiccup. I ducked into alleys and hotel room corners and the connection still sped along nicely. So how does the speed stack up against wired and unwired competitors? Time Warner, which charges about $50 a month for cable Internet service, averaged 3 megabits a second for downloading in New York on Monday, and 1 megabit a second for uploading, according to Keynote Systems, a mobile and Internet monitoring firm. Xohm’s connections can be faster than that; the company is aiming to provide 4 megabits a second for downloading and 1.5 for uploads. Wireless Internet services from cell carriers come in various speeds, but AT&T’s Broadband Connect service, as an example, is much slower than Xohm. It averages 400 to 700 kilobits a second for downloads, and a maximum of 384 kilobits a second for uploads. That service costs $20 to $60 a month depending on data use. Individual results, as they say in weight-loss and investing seminars, may vary. Because Xohm was turned on only last month, I shared the WiMax signal with just a handful of people. But soon the network will be carrying the load of thousands of file-swapping, video-downloading bandwidth hogs. Xohm says that once the system has more users, it will either add more transmission towers or offer tiered service, forcing some people to pay more for faster data speeds. The type of device you use will also affect speed — and here’s where the WiMax story starts to get more interesting, or more complicated, depending on your stance. Xohm says that because WiMax chips are cheaper to produce than the communications chips in many smartphones, it expects manufacturers to introduce an array of new devices that can connect to the Web. The first such device is the Nokia N810 WiMax Edition, a hand-held PC of sorts that went on sale last week for $493. The Nokia is a little bigger and a lot heavier than an iPhone , and it includes a big touch screen, but you can’t use it to make standard cellphone calls. Rather, you use it with Internet telephony software like Skype or Gizmo5, and simply make calls or set up video chats that way. Video chats and phone calls over wireless Internet signals can be unstable, said Julie Ask, an analyst with Forrester Research, and it remains to be seen how reliable they’ll be on Xohm. Web surfing on the Nokia was noticeably quicker than on a 3G iPhone, but it wasn’t exactly fast. Watching NFL.com video highlights on the Nokia, I had a flashback to the days of 56k modems, when everything moved in fits and starts. Those with an N810 may find the quality of Internet calls good enough to consider ditching their landlines. Chances are, though, if you can afford a nearly $500 gadget like this, you’re not looking to scrimp on the monthly phone bill. Instant-messaging applications on the N810 operated smoothly. (SMS fans are out of luck, because Xohm is not plugged into a conventional cell network.) WiMax is already operating in other parts of the world, where cities like Seoul and Amsterdam are bathed in its waves. In the United States, however, Wi-Fi dominates — so much so that analysts like Ms. Ask, from Forrester, say WiMax could have a hard time competing. If your home city doesn’t have WiMax service, you might want to hold off springing for a new laptop with a built-in WiMax receiver and wait to see if the market comes to you. If you want to roll the dice, though, devices that pick up Xohm’s signal will also handle Wi-Fi, and will even go so far as to hand off the connection to Wi-Fi if that signal is stronger. As for those in the suburbs who want a WiMax experience, the outlook isn’t bright. Only urban areas have enough potential customers to justify the cost of building these networks, which means less choice, less competition and higher Internet prices for country dwellers. Quick Calls If you’re a text-messaging newcomer who can’t quite figure out how to type a word on a traditional number pad, device makers are meeting you halfway. The Pantech Matrix, which AT&T introduced last week for $80, is the first of four new phones from the carrier that include the traditional “qwerty” keyboard layout. Slide the Matrix’s screen vertically, and a typical phone keypad appears. Slide it horizontally, and the bigger keyboard sets you up for easy text messaging ... While the debut of BlackBerry’s first touch-screen device, the Storm, got lots of attention recently, the company also quietly began selling its first flip phone, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip. The phone, available from T-Mobile for $150, features a keyboard that’s significantly bigger than the original Pearl, plus a bigger screen. When closed, it’s slightly thicker and slightly shorter than the earlier model ... If you’d rather not be partly responsible for someone else’s cellphone-related auto accident, a solution could be on the way. The Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Aegis Mobility, a mobile technology company, announced software that will tell a caller when the other party is moving at car speeds. The technology will hit the market next year.

Wireless Communications
Computers and the Internet
Laptop Computers
Sprint Nextel Corporation
T-Mobile
Smartphones


As Olympics Near, the Iceman Emerges

Abstract: WENGEN, SWITZERLAND — Take a long walk past the chalets and through the woods and go see who is the fastest skier in the village. For 80 years, it has been a rite of winter at Wengen, the World Cup’s biggest time warp, where it is easy to forget just how much has changed as you pass the roasting chestnuts and the artfully stacked firewood with the snow and gravel crunching underfoot. Over the decades, there have been horrific crashes and tragedy: the death of Austrian downhiller Gernot Reinstadler in 1991. But above all, the race at Wengen is about man mastering the elements, and the master this year was Carlo Janka. It is an Olympic season, a time when fresh talents have extra inspiration to upset their elders. In 1998, the last time I parked my car in the town of Lauterbrunnen and took the cog railway up to the panoramic, pedestrian-only zone that is Wengen, the Nagano Olympics were looming nearly as large as the Eiger and the World Cup was in the midst of being overrun by Hermann Maier. At that stage, the hard-charging Maier skied with bulging eyes and bared teeth, ripping through turns as if he had an ax to grind, which he did, considering that he had once been passed over for the Austrian team. Janka grew up in his village in the Swiss canton of the Grisons admiring Maier above all others. But when you watch Janka ski with elegance and then listen to him communicate with reticence, it is hardly the hard-edged, charismatic Maier who springs to mind. Nobody ever would have thought to nickname Maier “Iceman.” But that is the sobriquet that is sticking to the 23- year-old Janka as he coolly, calculatingly takes advantage of his smooth technique and phenomenal feel for the snow and a daunting line. “I’ve watched him develop for a long time; I was on the Europa Cup when he was, too,” said Sasha Rearick, the head coach of the U.S. men’s team. “Back then he skied a rounder line but was super clean on the edge. He’s very subtle. He has an unbelievable touch, and he’s always in balance. He has the ability to ski clean where a lot of guys would try to push the line or something else.” After winning three races in a row in Beaver Creek, Colorado, earlier this season, Janka won the race that matters most in Switzerland on Saturday, crushing the suspense out of the long, classic Lauberhorn downhill in front of a record crowd of 32,000 that had piled into Wengen in anticipation of a Swiss victory. Wengen, it bears remembering, is not just about tradition. It is about a party. Starting 18th, Janka finished in two minutes 32.23 seconds, which was an intimidating 66/100ths of a second faster than Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Canada’s best hope for an alpine medal in Vancouver. Janka had won in Wengen before, too, taking the super-combined event last year when he was still little known internationally. The following month, he won gold in the world championships in Val d’Isère, France, in the giant slalom, which he still considers his core event. But he has been on a multidiscipline romp this season, proving a major threat in every event except slalom and wresting the overall World Cup lead from Benjamin Raich this weekend. Janka’s peers are impressed and surely a little concerned about what might happen at the Olympics next month in Vancouver if the Iceman continues to keep his cool under pressure. “Winning by over half a second anywhere is a great feat,” Osborne-Paradis said. “It pushes us to be better racers when people do that.” Marco Büchel, the extrovert from Liechtenstein who has long trained with the Swiss team, is no longer concerned with future progress. At age 38, this, he insisted, was his final Wengen downhill. How poignant then that the popular veteran, whose poor form had him close to quitting in December, finally made it onto the podium on his last attempt, taking third by the thinnest of skiing margins (1/100th of a second) over Werner Heel. Büchel also caught a break when Bode Miller, fresh off victory in the super-combined on Friday and well ahead of Büchel’s pace on Saturday, lost control in the final S turn and skidded off the course. “This feels like a victory to me,” Büchel said, even if it was definitely not a victory. Asked to name the most impressive part of Janka’s package, Büchel thought for a half beat before breaking into a grin. “That you win the Lauberhorn, and you don’t freak out in the finish area,” he said. “I think it’s very important for him not to freak out, because if he freaks out every time he wins a race he will be so tired at the end of January.” End-zone dances are clearly not the sort of thing for the Iceman, but even if Janka had wanted to channel Büchel, Janka looked far too spent when he did finish on Saturday to indulge himself. The Lauberhorn might have lost some of its teeth over the years, as Miller took pains to point out on Friday (and before it did him in on Saturday). But it is still the longest downhill on the circuit and a true physical test. The most Janka could muster from his hunched position as the crowd roared its approval was thrusting his right thumb into the air. He dropped a ski exiting the finish area and was still breathing very hard when the next competitor, Didier Defago, last year’s Lauberhorn winner from Switzerland, finished well off Janka’s pace. “I had no power in the final S,” Janka confessed. That would be as close as Janka would get to vulnerable on Saturday, but nickname aside, he should never be mistaken for an automaton. Last season, he was badly shaken when his friend and roommate, Daniel Albrecht, suffered brain injuries in a horrific crash in Kitzbühel that required doctors to place him in an induced coma for nearly three weeks to improve his chances of recovery. When Albrecht regained consciousness, the first teammate he met with was Janka. “I’d been told how much he’d been affected, and I really wanted to talk to him,” Albrecht told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps. “I had the memory of a junior member of the team, not too sturdy. But when we shook hands, I’m the one who felt like the skinny one. He seemed big and strong. He talked to me for a long time, told me how he was doing, what the team had been through in my absence. It helped me a lot.” Though Albrecht has resumed training, he has not resumed competing, which means that only Janka will be in the start in Kitzbühel this week and even though the Streif course seems like the sort of steep, highly selective downhill that would favor him, he sounded subdued at the thought of renewing acquaintance with it. “I have to go back and see how I will react emotionally after what happened last year,” Janka said.

Alpine Skiing
Olympic Games (2010)
Clarey Christopher
Switzerland


Werth and Howard Lift Phillies Over Nationals With Braves Coming Up

Abstract: Jayson Werth said he was a little dumbfounded by what he saw in the eighth inning Sunday. “It seemed like some people left there,” Werth said. “I don’t know why you’re leaving.” Werth gave those fans remaining something to go wild about: he followed Ryan Howard’s two-run single in the bottom of the ninth with a two-run homer that lifted the Philadelphia Phillies over the Washington Nationals , 7-6, for their seventh straight victory. The Phillies maintained a three-game lead over Atlanta in the National League East and improved to 28 games over .500 for the first time since 1993. Philadelphia can help its chances for a fourth consecutive division title beginning Monday night, when the Braves come to town for a three-game series. The Phillies will send out Cole Hamels against Braves starter Jair Jurrjens in the opener, followed by Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt. The three Phillies starters are a combined 10-0 with a 2.21 earned run average and 71 strikeouts in September. In the ninth, the Nationals’ rookie closer, Drew Storen (3-4), who has blown two of six save opportunities this year, entered with a three-run lead and six consecutive scoreless innings under his belt. That soon changed, as Placido Polanco singled and Chase Utley doubled into the left field corner. “Polanco did a great piece of hitting on a quality pitch,” Nationals Manager Jim Riggleman said. “Then the big boys came up.” CUBS ROOKIE INJURED BY BAT Welington Castillo homered and drove in three runs to help the Chicago Cubs beat the host Florida Marlins, 13-3, despite losing the rookie outfielder Tyler Colvin to a strange injury. Colvin was standing on third base in the second inning when a piece of Castillo’s shattered bat punctured his chest. Colvin scored on Castillo’s double but was replaced in the field in the bottom half of the inning and taken to a hospital. A Cubs spokesman said that Colvin was in stable condition, that there was minimal external bleeding, and that he was expected to remain hospitalized for a few days for observation. REDS STUMBLE AGAINST ASTROS Brett Myers pitched seven scoreless innings, and the host Houston Astros slowed the Cincinnati Reds’ drive for their first N.L. Central title since 1995 with a 4-3 victory. With the St. Louis Cardinals’ 4-1 victory over the visiting San Diego Padres, Cincinnati’s magic number remained eight. In the Cardinals’ game, Adam Wainwright pitched eight innings to earn his 19th win. GIANTS RETAKE LEAD Barry Zito ended a career-worst nine-game losing streak with his first win since July 16, and the San Francisco Giants regained first place in the N.L. West, moving a half-game ahead of the Padres with a 9-2 victory over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers. MARINERS EDGE RANGERS Doug Fister pitched seven innings, allowing one run, and the host Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1. TWINS LOSE GAME AND MAUER Twins catcher Joe Mauer left Minnesota’s game against the visiting Oakland Athletics with a balky left knee. Manager Ron Gardenhire said Mauer tweaked the knee while swinging when he grounded out in the sixth inning of a 6-2 loss. He was replaced defensively by Jose Morales in the seventh. “It’s one of these day-to-day things,” Gardenhire said. “It’s not a big deal.” RED SOX TROUNCE BLUE JAYS J. D. Drew homered in a five-run fifth, and Boston beat the visiting Toronto Blue Jays, 6-0, to avoid a three-game sweep. KAZMIR REBOUNDS FOR ANGELS Scott Kazmir won for the first time since Aug. 7, and the Los Angeles Angels beat the host Tampa Bay Rays, 6-3. DODGERS RALLY OVER ROCKIES A. J. Ellis lined a run-scoring single over a drawn-in infield in the 11th, and the host Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies, 7-6. ... Yuniesky Betancourt stole home, and the host Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-4. ... Neil Walker hit a two-run homer in Pittsburgh’s three-run eighth inning, and the host Pirates beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 4-3, for a three-game sweep. ... The Tigers blew a four-run lead in the ninth, but Gerald Laird hit a go-ahead single in the 11th, and Detroit beat the host Chicago White Sox, 9-7.

Werth Jayson
Baseball
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals


Settlement Approved With Indian Farmers

Abstract: A federal judge on Thursday approved a $680 million settlement between the Agriculture Department and American Indian farmers who say they were denied loans. The two sides agreed on the deal last year to settle a 1999 lawsuit. Individuals who can prove discrimination could receive up to $250,000.

Discrimination
Agriculture
Native Americans
Agriculture Department


Kevin Laue, One-Handed Player, Earns Division I Basketball Scholarship

Abstract: Kevin Laue, a 6-foot-10 center whose left arm ends at the elbow, was often told he would be an N.C.A.A. Division I basketball recruit if he had two hands. It turns out the second hand was not necessary. Laue, who is from California, has accepted a scholarship to play for Manhattan College next season. “For all the right reasons, Kevin deserves this chance,” Manhattan Coach Barry Rohrssen said in a telephone interview. “He’s someone who won’t take this for granted.” When Laue was born, the circulation to his left arm was cut off by the umbilical cord, stunting its growth. But the rest of his body grew quickly. He made the varsity as a 6-10 junior at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif. After breaking his leg as a senior and failing to receive a Division I scholarship offer, Laue enrolled in Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy’s postgraduate program. “He was too good of a player not to get a chance at a college scholarship,” said Fork Union Coach Fletcher Arritt, who has sent more than 150 players to Division I programs. “Kevin has adjusted to having one hand, whether it’s tying a shoe or doing a figure 8 in basketball.” Laue, 19, can palm the ball easily with his right hand, and he is an effective shot blocker. He uses his short left arm to pin passes against his right hand. After Laue was featured in The New York Times last December, Brother Thomas Scanlan, Manhattan’s president, took the article to Rohrssen and asked him to consider recruiting Laue. Rohrssen said he thought of the former pitcher Jim Abbott, who played 10 seasons in the major leagues despite having no right hand. “Years later, here I was in a position to help someone achieve their goal of getting a college scholarship and realize their dreams of playing Division I basketball,” Rohrssen said. “In some way, in doing this, it gives Kevin the opportunity to inspire many others.” Since December, Laue said he had been contacted by about 100 people with similar disabilities. Some had lost limbs; others were born without them. One couple’s newborn daughter has a condition similar to Laue’s, and her parents told Laue he was a source of hope. “Now that I’m going into a bigger pond, hopefully I can really touch some people,” Laue said. “If I can help anybody, that’s so great. But I also want to focus on playing ball.” Manhattan went 16-14 last season, and two of its top four rebounders were seniors. Laue is the tallest player on the Jaspers’ current roster, and he said he expected to compete for playing time as a freshman. Laue welcomes the chance to inspire, but when he is on the court, the ultimate compliment comes when he makes someone forget he is unlike the others.

College Athletics
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
Manhattan College
Laue Kevin
Rohrssen Barry


Lawmaker Calls for Registry of Drug Firms Paying Doctors

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — An influential Republican senator says he will propose legislation requiring drug makers to disclose the payments they make to doctors for services like consulting, lectures and attendance at seminars. The lawmaker, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, cited as an example the case of a prominent child psychiatrist, who he said made $180,000 over just two years from the maker of an antipsychotic drug now widely prescribed for children. Mr. Grassley is one of several lawmakers to propose a federal registry of such payments. Minnesota, Vermont and Maine already have similar registries, and other states are considering them. The proposals are a response to growing concerns that payments from drug makers can affect doctors’ prescribing habits, increase the cost of health care and, in some cases, endanger patients’ health. The drug industry opposes such registries, saying they would discourage doctors from receiving needed education. John Bentivoglio, a lawyer in Washington who represents drug makers, said the registries would be a burden for the companies and might be misinterpreted. “One of the concerns is that these payments are seen as bribes,” Mr. Bentivoglio said. “That’s not the case. The vast majority are lawful payments for services.” In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Mr. Grassley said he had started an investigation into these practices. Noting that most universities require academic researchers to disclose such payments, he said, “I have sent letters to a handful of universities to understand how well such a reporting system actually works.” These letters have uncovered several problems, Mr. Grassley said. First, universities do not verify the information filed by their professors, so “the only person who knows if the reported income is accurate and complete is the doctor who is receiving the money.” Also, the universities generally keep this information secret from patients, who have no way of knowing whether their doctor is on a drug maker’s payroll, he said. “So if there is a doctor getting thousands of dollars from a drug company — payments that might be affecting his or her objectivity — the only people outside the pharmaceutical industry who will probably ever know about this are the people at that very university,” he said. Mr. Grassley said that he had asked how much the child psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa DelBello at the University of Cincinnati, made from AstraZeneca, the London-based drug giant that manufactures the antipsychotic Seroquel. Dr. DelBello’s studies of Seroquel in children have helped to fuel the widespread pediatric use of antipsychotic medicines. Those studies were inconclusive, but she has described them as demonstrating that Seroquel is effective in some children. Asked in a past newspaper interview how much she was paid by AstraZeneca to help market Seroquel, she had said, “Trust me, I don’t make very much.” Mr. Grassley said this week that her disclosure forms at the University of Cincinnati show she received $100,000 from AstraZeneca in 2003 and $80,000 in 2004. Dr. DelBello consults for seven other drug makers as well. She did not respond to requests for comment this week. Richard Puff, a university spokesman, said he did not know how much Dr. DelBello made in combined payments from all eight drug makers. Asked if the institution did anything to verify its professors’ financial disclosures, he replied, “We do trust our faculty when they’re making these disclosures.” Mr. Grassley said he would propose that drug makers make public any payments made to doctors who bill the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, which would include nearly all doctors. Noting that voters can easily look up the contributions made to elected officials, he asked, “Shouldn’t we hold doctors to similar standards?”

Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Doctors
Medicine and Health
Grassley Charles E


India: Supreme Court Rejects Order That Religious Site Should be Shared

Abstract: India ’s Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court ruling that called for the country’s most disputed religious site to be divided between Muslims and Hindus. The Mughal emperor Babur built a mosque at the site, in Ayodhya, in the 16th century. Some Hindus believe that the same spot is the birthplace of the god Ram, and that Babur had destroyed a Hindu shrine to build his mosque. In 1992, Hindu activists tore down the mosque, unleashing sectarian violence in which about 2,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims. In October a court ruled that the site should be split between the two religions, but the Supreme Court rejected that solution, calling it “strange.” The Supreme Court is expected to rule later on the question of how to resolve control of the site.

Hinduism
Muslims and Islam
India
Mosques


38 Artists in Shoreline ArtsTrail Open Studios Weekend

Abstract: In 2001, six eastern Connecticut artists joined forces to do a little promotion, opening their studios to the public on the same weekend. Now, eight years later, their little promotion has become a big deal around Branford, Guilford and Madison. The Shoreline ArtsTrail Open Studios Weekend, Nov. 21 and 22, will allow visitors to peek into the work spaces, and sometimes the homes, of 38 artists who fuse glass, cut paper, sew fabrics, mold clay, join metal, paint canvas, shape gold and make photographs. The artists will be on hand to discuss their work or demonstrate their methods, and at some of the stops, refreshments will be served. The locations, spread over a trail of 40 miles, vary as much as the work does. Kristin Merrill, this year’s spokeswoman for the event, works in town, at the Branford Artists Cooperative , where she creates sinuous sterling silver jewelry studded with semiprecious stones and pearls. She shares her studio with Owen Sea Luckey, a fiber artist who uses wool, silk, angora and mohair to make knitted wearables. But picturesque country drives lead to some of the other studios, dotted along the shore. Rex Prescott Walden’s painting studio overlooks Long Island Sound. Another painter, B. Joan Hickey, dispenses cider for children and wine for adults at her shingled house a few feet from the water. Prices for the art start at $4.50 for one of Martha Link Walsh’s cut paper cards and rise to $10,000 for a metal sculpture by Stuart Alan Lerner. Shopping is part of the point — it’s no accident that the artists open their studios near the beginning of the holiday season — but it’s not required. Still, Ms. Merrill said, “it’s become a very successful event for all of us.” She estimates that last year, 150 to 200 people stopped to look at her work during the Open Studios Weekend. This year, a new component has been added to the event: A selection of works from all 38 artists is on exhibit at the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library in Stony Creek, Branford, through Nov. 25. The library, Ms. Merrill said, “is a great place to start, because you can look at all the work and decide whose studio you want to visit.” The maps and bright yellow signs posted along the route help keep trekkers on the right path. But visitors don’t need to worry about navigating from one studio to another. All you need to do is find one . “If you get lost,” Ms. Merrill said, “we all know where the next one is.” SYLVIANE GOLD


Citing Price Rise, U.S. and Mexico See Antidrug Progress

Abstract: The price of cocaine has risen sharply in 37 cities across the United States since March, suggesting the United States and Mexico have made major strides in crimping the flow of drugs over the southern border, the top White House official in charge of antidrug efforts said yesterday. The official, John P. Walters, said Mexico’s crackdown on drug cartels since December and the extradition of several high-level cartel leaders to the United States were the biggest factors in what he described as an unprecedented drop in the supply of cocaine and methamphetamine on American streets. “After 25 years of cocaine coming into the United States, there has never been the kind of disruption of this magnitude for this long,” Mr. Walters said after a news conference in San Diego. “The real challenge, and I think the real opportunity now, is to continue it.” Cocaine prices have nearly doubled in some cities in recent months because of tight supplies. Among the 37 cities studied in a White House report released yesterday, the average price for a gram of cocaine on the street rose 24 percent from January to June, to $118.70, the highest level in five years. The figures came from undercover purchases by Drug Enforcement Administration agents. The purity of cocaine dropped 11 percent over the same period, the study showed. The cities with steep drops in supply include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles and New York. Mr. Walters also pointed to a study of drug use among workers by Quest Diagnostics, a drug-testing company, as proof that supplies were low. The study showed a 16 percent decline in the number of people who tested positive for cocaine at workplaces during the first six months of 2007, compared with the average for all of 2006. Since taking office last December, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico has sent more than 10,000 troops and federal agents into cities controlled by drug cartels to restore order. He has also extradited cartel leaders and made several arrests of drug kingpins. Last Friday, for instance, the authorities arrested Sandra Ávila Beltrán, known as the Queen of the Pacific, who is said to be the mastermind behind the Sinaloa cartel, a loose confederation of dealers who control the Ciudad Juárez passage. Ms. Ávila Beltrán was arrested with Juan Diego Espinoza Ramírez, who is suspected of being a top Colombian drug trafficker. Both are wanted in the United States. The Mexican government’s assault on traffickers has unleashed a brutal underworld war. Fragments of cartels are battling for control of border crossings, further hindering their ability to move cocaine, prosecutors and law enforcement officials on both sides of the border said. According to newspaper reports, more than 1,500 people have been killed in gangland shootings this year. The dead have included about 60 police commanders, 22 soldiers and 160 police officers, according to Reforma, one of the nation’s largest newspapers. The Mexican attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said on Monday that the price of cocaine had also risen in Mexico by about 25 percent from last December to the end of May. But he acknowledged more and more of the cocaine coming up from Colombia was remaining in Mexico, where addiction has risen steadily over the last decade. The disruption in the cocaine supply comes at a time when the United States and Mexico are negotiating an agreement to provide Mexico with hundreds of millions of dollars to better equip and train its police departments. At the same time, the Mexican Congress is considering an overhaul of the justice system that would for the first time allow local police to investigate drug dealers, rather than leaving it to the federal authorities.

Drug Abuse and Traffic
Cocaine and Crack Cocaine


U.N. to Send Team to Iraq for Inquiry on ISIS Acts

Abstract: GENEVA — The United Nations Human Rights Council decided Monday to send a fact-finding team to Iraq to investigate possible war crimes by Islamic extremists after hearing senior human rights officials detail mass killings and other atrocities committed “on an unimaginable scale.” In the face of new depravities in Iraq, the Geneva-based council adopted, without a vote, a resolution sponsored by more than 100 states calling for the urgent dispatch of a fact-finding mission and required it to report back in March. Of the council’s 47 members, only South Africa withheld support, saying the resolution was ambiguous and lacked balance. The United Nations already has a 42-person team monitoring human rights in Iraq, working from Baghdad and other cities. But officials said the human rights council will now send an 11-person team that will operate separately, focusing on abuses arising from the behavior of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Sunni extremist group that has seized parts of northern Iraq and has boasted about its brutalities against nonbelievers. More than a million people have fled the ISIS onslaught in recent weeks, Flavia Pansieri, the deputy high commissioner for human rights, told the council. She reported summary mass executions, forced conversions, abductions, slavery, sexual abuse, torture and the besieging of entire communities. “The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale,” Ms. Pansieri told diplomats as she opened the emergency session. Iraqi Army Retakes Government Complex in Central Ramadi Efforts to stem the rise of the Islamic State. ISIS fighters killed at least 650 non-Sunni inmates of a Mosul prison, forcing them into ditches and shooting them, Ms. Pansieri said. Afterward, she said, “the bodies were then examined and any men that appeared to be alive were shot in the head.” Detailing other atrocities, Ms. Pansieri said that 1,500 young conscripts were missing after ISIS captured their base, and videos confirmed by witnesses showed hundreds of handcuffed men systematically shot. ISIS forces also killed at least 1,000 members of the Yazidi minority and kidnapped or enslaved 2,750 others, she said. Ms. Pansieri told the council that ISIS had ordered strict rules for women living in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and other areas in its control. “Women are not allowed to walk in the street without the presence of a male guardian, and there are more and more reports of women being beaten” for infractions, she said. ISIS and its allies were taking boys as young as 13 on patrol “carrying weapons sometimes bigger than themselves” and using children as checkpoint sentries, informants and sometimes as suicide bombers, Leila Zerrougui, the top United Nations advocate for children who are afflicted by war, told the council. Ms. Zerrougui also spoke of reports about sexual violence and abductions of young girls from minority groups for forced marriages that the United Nations had yet to verify. Iraqi security forces also committed abuses that may amount to war crimes, Ms. Pansieri said, reporting killings of detainees and citing an attack by Shiite militia fighters on a Sunni mosque killing at least 73 men and boys and wounding 38 others. The council resolution, however, called for an investigation only of ISIS violations. Iraq’s minister of human rights, Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, speaking to reporters after the session, said instances of abuses by Iraqi forces would be investigated by Iraq’s government, not the fact-finding mission. Still, defeating ISIS “begins with a united Iraqi government committed to justice for all of Iraq’s communities,” Keith Harper, the American ambassador to the council, said, calling, like many other states, including Iran, for strong international support to the new government formed by the prime minister-designate, Haider al-Abadi. Russia already demonstrated support for Iraq by delivering advanced attack fighter aircraft, its ambassador, Alexey Borodavkin, said. In a criticism of American and Arab support for antigovernment armed groups in Syria, he asserted that “all this could have been avoided” if states had cooperated with President Bashar al-Assad’s armed forces in Syria.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


After the Champagne, Compliments Flow Theo Epstein’s Way

Abstract: In early November 2004, Theo Epstein walked into a small, wood-paneled bar in a South Florida hotel that was hosting baseball’s annual general managers’ meeting. He proceeded to quietly receive handshakes and congratulations from many of his peers in the industry. Epstein was only 30 then, but he had just been part of a historic moment. The Boston Red Sox, whom he presided over as general manager, had rallied from a three-games-to-none deficit to beat the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. Then they had won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. While the handshakes from the other baseball executives in South Florida did not quite compare to the Champagne-drenched celebrations that accompanied Boston’s stunning accomplishment, they were satisfying nonetheless. On Monday in Scottsdale, Ariz., Epstein was set to be saluted yet again by the many people with whom he normally competes. And once again, the setting would be the annual general managers’ meeting, this time coming five days after Epstein’s Chicago Cubs, over whom he presides as president for baseball operations, ended a 108-year championship drought with a dramatic seven-game victory over the Cleveland Indians. The general managers’ meeting follows quickly after the World Series concludes, which allows the front office of the winning team to strut just a little in front of everyone it just beat out for the title. Not that Epstein struts, although in breaking two famous curses in a little more than a decade, he has already made himself a candidate for Cooperstown. Image The Boston Red Sox clinched the 2004 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals with a 3-0 victory in Game 4. It was the first of two titles that the Red Sox won under Epstein, who was the general manager. Credit Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images Epstein was modest and eloquent in 2004 in St. Louis, after the Red Sox had completed a sweep of the Cardinals in the World Series. He said the championship was not only for the current players and fans, but also for all the Red Sox players who had come before, and the many generations of fans who had rooted for them across so many painful years. Having grown up in Brookline, Mass., not far from Fenway Park, Epstein, now 42, knew the exact note to hit. And a dozen years later, he went back to that same script when the Cubs prevailed on Wednesday night. “I want to thank everyone who has ever put on a Cubs uniform and anyone who has ever rooted for the Cubs,” he said. “It has been 108 years of love and support and patience waiting for a team like this to make it happen on a night like this. You guys are all world champions tonight. I couldn’t be more happy for you.” When the Cubs hired Epstein after the 2011 season, everyone was aware that he was being asked to repeat what he had done in Boston. Which, just five years later, he has. And although the ability to spend money on players and some good fortune were involved in the Cubs’ success this year, there is also something about Epstein’s calm, confident attitude that probably contributed to the end of both championship droughts. Consider Epstein’s responses to questions from reporters during the 2004 A.L.C.S. With the Yankees up by three games, reporters spoke with him on the field at Fenway Park before Game 4. The premise of their questions was that the series was all but over and that it was already time for Epstein to start talking about 2005 and what changes might be in store for the Red Sox’ roster. As the reporters fired away, Epstein gracefully acknowledged why the questions were being asked but politely declined to answer them. Walking backward up the first-base line, he kept noting that the series was not over yet. The Red Sox still had a game to play that night, he said, and if they won it, there would be another. He was polite but firm in refusing to accept the thinking behind all the questions. Image Epstein greeted the crowd during a World Series victory parade in Chicago on Friday. Credit Dylan Buell/Getty Images This year, Epstein’s Cubs faced a task almost as daunting. They lost three of the first four games of the World Series to the Indians, and no team in the previous 31 Series had overcome a deficit that large. Faced with that challenge, Epstein, not surprisingly, demonstrated the same composure he had in 2004. The Cubs proceeded to win Game 5 at Wrigley Field. Then, before Game 6 in Cleveland, Epstein walked from his hotel up East Ninth Street to Progressive Field along with a few members of his staff and a sea of Indians fans expecting to celebrate their first World Series title since 1948. It was an unusual moment, but wearing a blue dress shirt and carrying his black backpack, Epstein looked calm, as if he were on his way to a seminar. The Cubs won the next two games and their first World Series since 1908. Then, after a couple of swigs of Champagne, Epstein thanked everyone in the Cubs’ organization, including the players, the coaches and the scouts, for their effort. He made note of all the time that people in the organization had spent looking at video, lifting weights, throwing batting practice and compiling scouting reports. And there was a joke, too. “I’m relinquishing my presidential duties,” he said, adding that his general manger, Jed Hoyer, would be in charge while he went on a monthlong bender. “Wake me up for the winter meetings” was his punch line. But those are in December, and all joking aside, Epstein was present and accounted for on Monday in Scottsdale. He signed a five-year extension with the Cubs in September, and just as he did with the Red Sox in 2007, he will try to win at least one more championship in Chicago. And after that? Well, there’s always Cleveland.

Baseball
World Series
Theo Epstein
Chicago Cubs
Red Sox
Jed Hoyer


Louisville Pours on the Points

Abstract: New coach. Same old Brian Brohm. Brohm, the Louisville quarterback, threw for 375 yards and 4 touchdowns and the 10th-ranked Cardinals sparkled in Coach Steve Kragthorpe’s debut, drilling visiting Murray State, 73-10, last night. Brohm led Louisville to touchdowns on each of the Cardinals’ first eight drives, guiding an attack that looked similar to the wide-open system that their former coach, Bobby Petrino, used to lead the Cardinals to national prominence. Louisville rolled up 655 yards of offense and worked with a stunning efficiency. The Cardinals averaged a touchdown once every four plays in the first half, and their longest scoring drive with the starters in took 2 minutes 58 seconds. By the time Brohm put a towel over his shoulder 20 seconds into the second half, the Cardinals led, 56-10. It did not get much better for the Racers (0-1), a member of the Football Championship Division, formerly Division I-AA. The victory extended Louisville’s home winning streak to 19, the second longest in the nation behind Southern California. L.S.U. 45, MISSISSIPPI STATE 0 Craig Steltz had three of Louisiana State’s six interceptions of Mississippi State quarterback Michael Henig and the second-ranked Tigers manhandled the host Bulldogs again in their season opener. It was L.S.U.’s eighth consecutive victory over all and eighth straight in the series with the Bulldogs. During that stretch, the Tigers have outscored the Bulldogs, 340-81, including three shutouts by 42 or more points. CINCINNATI 59, SE MISSOURI 3 Ben Mauk, returning from severe injuries to his passing arm, threw for 244 yards and 2 touchdowns as host Cincinnati romped in the debut of Brian Kelly as its coach. The Bearcats gained 615 yards. PLAYER SCORES SEVEN TIMES Omar Cuff ran for 244 yards and 6 touchdowns and added another touchdown on a pass reception, leading Delaware to a 49-31 victory over host William & Mary in the inaugural football game for the Colonial Athletic Association. Cuff’s seven touchdowns tied a Division I-AA record set in 1996 by Northern Arizona’s Archie Amerson and equaled in 1998 by McNeese State’s Jessie Burton.

Football
College Athletics
Kragthorpe Steve
University of Louisville


Odds Steep, but Masters’ Rookie Crop Is Confident

Abstract: Fuzzy Zoeller says he has lost track of how many interviews he has given before the Masters, surprising for a guy who plays a limited schedule on the Champions Tour and stopped competing at Augusta National five years ago. He does not need to follow golf to figure out what is going on. Jordan Spieth started his rookie season without a card, finished at No. 10 on the money list, became the youngest American to play in the Presidents Cup and ended his remarkable year at No. 22 in the world. This will be his first Masters. Patrick Reed won three times in seven months, including a World Golf Championship, and told a national television audience he thought he was among the top five in the world. This will be his first major. They are joined by plenty of others, most of them in the top 50 in the world, who until now have seen the Masters only outside the ropes or in front of a television. That is why Zoeller’s phone keeps ringing. “I think I’ve done a hundred interviews now,” Zoeller said, laughing and adding, “I don’t have any answers.” There is really only one question: Why has it been 35 years since a Masters rookie won the green jacket? That was Zoeller in 1979. He leapt in the air when his birdie putt dropped on the second playoff hole at No. 11. He joined Gene Sarazen (1935) and the inaugural winner, Horton Smith (1934), as the only players to win at Augusta on their first attempt. “All the talent that has gone through that marvelous place, it’s kind of weird that it hasn’t happened,” Zoeller said. Dan Pohl almost did it in 1982. He made up a six-shot deficit on Craig Stadler, only to miss a 6-foot par putt on the first playoff hole. John Huston played in the final group in 1990 in his Masters debut, two shots behind Raymond Floyd. Nick Faldo beat Floyd in a playoff. Huston shot 75 and tied for third. Most recently, Jason Day had a share of the clubhouse lead with Adam Scott in 2011 until Charl Schwartzel birdied his last four holes to win by two. Is this the year? The odds have never been so stacked. Spieth and Reed are among 23 players in the Masters for the first time, accounting for nearly 25 percent of the field. That includes six amateurs, as always. It also includes 20 percent of the world’s top 50 players. “I don’t think it’s out of the question to win,” said Spieth, who turns 21 in July. “If my game stacks up and I catch the right breaks, then sure. I don’t see why not. I’ve been playing against these guys for a year now, so I feel comfortable.” Harris English is receiving as much attention as anyone, and knows the course better than most rookies. He played college golf at Georgia, and the Bulldogs played Augusta National once a year. English won a Web.com Tour event while in college. He has won twice since the Masters last year, at the St. Jude Classic and in Mexico at the end of last year. The highest praise comes from other players, so it was intriguing when Graeme McDowell walked to the back of the 17th green at Bay Hill, nodded toward English, raised his eyebrows and said, “This boy can play.” English, 24, is well-mannered, pays respect to stars on tour and sets a high standard for himself. It helped, no doubt, watching his college teammates Russell Henley winning in his rookie debut on the PGA Tour and Reed winning a World Golf Championship at Doral. “It just seems like guys coming out of college are more prepared,” English said. “All these guys know how to win and seem to not be scared of the veterans.” Justin Rose, who tied for 39th in his first Masters, 11 years ago, said the learning curve at Augusta was steep. “You make the cut the first time going to Augusta, that’s a successful performance,” he said. “Certainly that’s how it was framed in my mind in 2003.” Times have changed. The most abrasive of the bunch is Reed, a portly 23-year-old with a great short game and no fear. He became the youngest winner of a World Golf Championship and saw no reason he could not win whatever he played. “Whoever shows up at an event nowadays has a chance to win,” Reed said. “Any week, it seems like, whether it’s a veteran or whether it’s a rookie, if they’re playing great golf, they’re going to win the event.”


Glavine Agrees to Add Option to Contract

Abstract: Tom Glavine and the Mets have restructured his contract, delaying some payments and adding an option for 2007. Glavine, a 40-year-old left-hander, was due to make $10.5 million this year, of which $5.25 million was to be deferred. Under the new deal, which the Mets confirmed yesterday, Glavine's salary this year is reduced to $7.5 million, of which $2.25 million is payable during the season, with the rest deferred. Glavine, who signed a three-year contract with an option for a fourth year before the 2003 season, is 4-2 with a 1.94 earned run average, second lowest in the majors. The new contract contains a 2007 player option at $5.5 million and a $12 million team option, both with a $3 million buyout. The player option would increase by $1 million if he pitches 180 innings, by $2 million for 190 innings and by $3 million for 200 innings. The team option would increase by $2 million if he throws 180 innings.


Somalia: Kenyan Jets Bomb Militants

Abstract: Kenyan fighter jets have attacked two bases belonging to the Shabab insurgent group in Somalia and killed at least 80 militants, African Union peacekeepers said Monday. The African Union mission in Somalia said Kenyan planes carried out the raids on Anole and Kuday in the southern Lower Jubba region. It did not say when they took place. The militants denied that any of their fighters had been killed. The Shabab’s spokesman for military operations, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, said that the group did not have any bases in the area of the raids, which it said took place on Thursday.


Fraud Against Seniors Often Is Routed Through Banks

Abstract: The pitch arrived, as so many do, with a friendly cold call. Bruno Koch, 83, told the telemarketer on the line that, yes, of course he would like to update his health insurance card. Then Mr. Koch, of Newport News, Va., slipped up: he divulged his bank account information. What happened next is all too familiar. Money was withdrawn from Mr. Koch’s account for something that he now says he never authorized. The new health insurance card never arrived. What is less familiar — and what federal authorities say occurs with alarming frequency — is that a reputable bank played a crucial role in parting Mr. Koch from his money. The bank was the 140-year-old Zions Bank of Salt Lake City. Despite spotting suspicious activity, Zions served as a gateway between dubious Internet merchants and their marks — and made money for itself in the process, according to newly unsealed court documents reviewed by The New York Times. The Times reviewed hundreds of filings in connection with civil lawsuits brought by federal authorities and a consumer law firm against Zions and another regional bank that has drawn even more scrutiny, First Bank of Delaware. Last November, First Delaware reached a $15 million settlement with the Justice Department after the bank was accused of allowing merchants to illegally debit accounts more than two million times and siphon more than $100 million. The documents, as well as interviews with state and federal officials, paint a troubling picture. They outline how banks profit handsomely by collecting fees while ignoring warnings of potential fraud and, in some instances, enabling dubious merchants to prey on consumers. Anyone, young or old, can be targeted by unscrupulous marketers. But for several reasons — financial worries, age, loneliness — older people are particularly vulnerable to what is known as mass market fraud, deceptive pitches that arrive by telephone, mail and the Internet. The problems at Zions and First Delaware, where the banks became financial conduits and quiet enablers for questionable businesses, extend well beyond those two institutions, federal authorities say. Indeed, banks across the country, from some of the largest to smaller regional players, help facilitate billions of dollars of fraud each year, according to interviews with consumer lawyers and state and federal prosecutors. Officials at the Justice Department say they are taking aim at banks’ role in giving predatory lenders and fraudulent merchants access to the United States financial system. The department is considering civil and criminal actions against a number of banks for allowing tainted money to flow through branches, for failing to safeguard against suspicious merchants, and for originating transactions on behalf of businesses that they know make unauthorized withdrawals from customer accounts, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. “You can’t close your eyes anymore to the fraud that you are allowing to happen,” said Michael Blume, the director of the consumer protection branch at the Justice Department. “Banks are in business to make a profit. Unfortunately, this is a moneymaking operation at consumers’ expense.” Zions did not interact directly with the company that called Mr. Koch, National Health Net Online. What the bank did was establish a banking relationship with an intermediary, Modern Payments, that handled payments for National Health. Mr. Koch’s account at a small Virginia bank was debited by National Health, which in turn paid Modern Payments for processing the transaction. Modern Payments gave its bank, Zions, a cut of its fee. In all, Zions in effect let roughly $39 million be withdrawn from hundreds of thousands of accounts from 2007 to 2009. Much of that money was ultimately transferred to bank accounts in Canada, India and the Caribbean, according to a Times review of court records. Many of the Internet merchants’ customers were older people and others on shaky financial footing. But that, too, worked in banks’ favor: the withdrawals set off a cascade of insufficient fund fees — more than $20 million in all, court records show. “Zions takes seriously the need to prevent the banking system being used for fraudulent purposes; however, it is our general policy not to comment on pending legal matters,” said James R. Abbott, director of investor relations for Zions. “There is another side to this story, other than that told by the plaintiff. Our side of the story will be told at the appropriate time through the legal system.” A spokesman for First Delaware declined to comment. Neither National Health Net Online nor Modern Payments responded to e-mails and telephone messages. Mr. Koch, a retired teacher, said that he was usually skeptical of telemarketers. But when his phone rang one afternoon in November 2007, he recalled, he listened as the caller identified himself as a Medicare official and suggested that Mr. Koch update his health insurance card. Mr. Koch, as requested, supplied his bank information. But instead of a new insurance card he received notice that he had been enrolled in National Health Net Online’s discount health plan. The company had withdrawn $299.95 from his bank account as payment, according to records reviewed by The Times. National Health, a unit of NHS Systems Inc. of Collegeville, Pa., has a troubled history. In April, the Federal Trade Commission permanently banned the company from telemarketing and ordered it to pay a $6.9 million fine after accusing NHS Systems of defrauding consumers. NHS Systems did not return multiple telephone calls seeking comment. “I was so angry,” Mr. Koch recalled. He demanded a refund from NHS Systems but was not reimbursed. Between 2007 and 2009, tens of thousands of Americans, many of them over age 65, lodged complaints with state attorneys general, banking regulators and the F.T.C., requesting refunds for bank charges that they say were unauthorized, according to court records. Lawyers at Langer, Grogan & Diver sued Zions, representing several hundred thousand consumers who said that NHS Systems and other telemarketers took money from their accounts without authorization. The lawsuit, which is pending in a federal court in Pennsylvania, claims that Zions effectively gave “fraudulent marketers direct access to every bank account in the United States.” According to internal e-mails and other documents filed in connection with that suit, Zions bankers recognized something was amiss early on. An outsize number of customers were disputing payments to certain processors. The rates of return — that is, the percentage of payments that are returned for insufficient funds and lack of authorization — stood out. “WOW,” one Zions officer wrote in an e-mail after seeing the numbers. Others inside Zions raised alarms, too. Zions executives told colleagues that the high return rates were a troubling sign. In January 2007, one warned that the rates were “staggering.” In 2007, more than half of the payments that one Internet merchant was routing through Zions were bounced back — roughly 40 times the industry standard. Reviewing complaints about one Internet merchant, a Zions vice president wrote, “Every red flag possible went off in my head.” And yet the bank kept handling the transactions, court records show. Why? One payment processor executive suggested an answer: the business was a gold mine. “Turning them off and sending them somewhere else is not an option,” this executive told Zions in an e-mail in September 2007. Officials at the F.T.C., the Justice Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation say this is just the tip of the iceberg, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In a move that prosecutors say is a harbinger, the United States attorney in Philadelphia sued the First Bank of Delaware in November, claiming the bank effectively abetted “fraudulent Internet and telemarketer merchants,” court records show. The bank, the lawsuit claims, stayed “willfully blind” to the fact that the merchants were illegally taking money from customers, including a disproportionate number of seniors, through “fraud, trickery and deceit.” Like Zions, First Delaware dealt with intermediaries rather than directly with the merchants. But as Zane David Memeger, the United States attorney in Philadelphia, said in the lawsuit against First Delaware, bad actors “must access the banking system to gain access to the consumer’s money.” At First Delaware, return rates for some merchants exceeded 80 percent. Yet the more questionable the merchant, the more fees a bank stands to collect, prosecutors say. Every time victims flag an unauthorized charge and demand money back, banks collect fees to process the return. Those fees are far larger, according to banking documents, than the ones charged for processing the original transactions. First Bank of Delaware anticipated that revenue from its processing business would swell by more than 1,300 percent, from $150,000 in 2010 to roughly $2 million a year later, court records show. Bradly D. Swartz, of Meshoppen, Pa., learned firsthand how much such practices can cost consumers. Mr. Swartz, 59, was trying to stretch his retirement savings when a telemarketer called in 2007 with what sounded like good news: Mr. Swartz had won a prize. All he had to do to collect was fill out a money order. Then, starting in 2007, Mr. Swartz said, a subsidiary of NHS Systems — the same company that Mr. Koch had dealt with — started withdrawing $19.95 a month from his checking account. After emptying the account, National Health referred him to a debt collector, Mr. Swartz said. Mr. Swartz said his credit was ruined. He now works part time at Walmart to supplement his savings. “I have to work until the day I die, and these greedy banks just profit,” he said. Federal officials say banks not only must know their customers, but also their customers’ customers in order to ensure that consumers in general, and older Americans in particular, are not at risk. The First Delaware case, they say, is a warning to the industry. “Nothing sharpens the focus for banks like an enforcement action,” said Michael Bresnick, the director of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement unit.

Banking and Finance
Fraud
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Old age,elderly,senior citizens
Personal finance
Zions Bancorporation
First Bank of Delaware


Bernie Sanders Takes on Wall Street With ‘Art of the Steal’ Ad

Abstract: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has made Wall Street banks public enemy No. 1 throughout his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he now comes after the financial industry in its home market — with a tongue-in-cheek tweak of Donald J. Trump — in an ad titled “The Art of the Steal.” On Screen A book titled “The Art of the Steal” with a nondescript man staring out floor-to-ceiling office windows on its cover — a takeoff on Mr. Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” — slides across a wooden table. It opens to the first page, complete with images of suit-clad lobbyists and a blaring headline: “Ultrarich employ an army of lobbyists to write tax policy to avoid paying their fair share.” The page turns to how this is an example of the “corrupt political system” keeping in place a “rigged economy,” as an animated graphic of a pulley scale, with a “rigged economy” being lifted by the weight of Wall Street and Congress, churns on the page. The final page of the book ends with how “Wall Street buys off elections and stops meaningful oversight.” The advertisement then moves to the skyline of New York City, as the female narrator proclaims, “Nothing will change until we reject Wall Street money.” She then encourages viewers to “send a message to Wall Street banks” as the ad closes with images of a Sanders campaign rally. The Message The focus of the ad is the same as the driving force of the Sanders campaign’s central message, marrying the “corrupt political system” of campaign finance with income inequality. The spot also renews a previous criticism of politicians who don’t “reject Wall Street money,” a hardly veiled attack on Hillary Clinton and her ties to the financial industry. With the title — “The Art of the Steal”— Mr. Sanders is also implicating Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner who has admitted to donating to both parties because he was “in business.” Fact Check A New York Times investigation found that the “very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield billions in income.” But the ad also oversimplifies the issue to a degree: As Republican megadonors found in 2012, money alone cannot win elections. That said, the ability of the rich to set their own tax policy is important precisely because it persists even when they lose at the polls. Where In New York City markets starting Friday. Takeaway With a grabby title sure to turn into a catchphrase on the trail, Mr. Sanders injected some new energy into the argument he has been making throughout his campaign. Airing the ad in New York has potential to rile up support at the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has only just come around to supporting Mr. Sanders .

2016 Presidential Election
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Campaign advertising
NYC
Democrats


Knicks Rest Chandler, and Are Able to Exhale at the Finish

Abstract: ATLANTA — The first step in the Knicks ’ playoff preparation was to stop fixating on their playoff preparation, or at least the part about improving their postseason position. Before they took the court against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday, the Knicks took a calculated gamble, choosing to rest Tyson Chandler, their defensive conscience, even if it might mean giving up a game and a chance to change the standings. It all turned out O.K. — albeit by mere inches and mere tenths of a second — when Atlanta’s Marvin Williams blew a driving dunk at the final buzzer, allowing the Knicks to escape with a 113-112 victory. Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony converged on Williams as he drove the lane, challenging him just enough to prevent the basket. On a day when neither team played much defense, that was the only stand that mattered. “It was a good drive by him,” said Stoudemire, who looked lively in his second game back from a back injury. “He attacked the rim well. I think Melo and myself both had our hands on the ball, so it was tough for him to make that basket.” Replays showed that Williams did not release the ball before the buzzer sounded, which was also a credit to the Knicks, for delaying him just long enough on the drive. Williams had intended to hand the ball back to Joe Johnson, but Iman Shumpert cut off the pass. Replays also appeared to show some contact between Stoudemire and Williams, although Stoudemire denied it. “I drove the ball and I felt like I got fouled at the end,” Williams said. “But they didn’t call it, so you just move on to the next one.” It was an encouraging moment for the Knicks all the way around — for the victory it preserved and for Stoudemire’s stout effort in Chandler’s place. He finished with 22 points and 12 rebounds and absorbed several hard hits, appearing every bit recovered from the bulging disk that cost him 13 games. “I felt great, I felt strong,” he said. “My back feels phenomenal.” Anthony, who struggled Friday in Cleveland, regained his touch with a 39-point, 10-rebound effort while alternately dueling with Johnson (22 points), Williams (29) and Josh Smith (14). Jeff Teague added 23 points for the Hawks (38-26), who are practically locked into the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. The victory kept the Knicks (34-30) in seventh place, with a half-game lead on the Philadelphia 76ers (33-30), with two games to play. The Knicks also kept alive their slim hopes to catch Orlando (36-28), which lost to Denver on Sunday night, for sixth. Coach Mike Woodson agreed to Chandler’s request for a day off, concluding it was more important to protect his defensive anchor than to jockey for playoff position. “I think so,” Woodson said. “For him, it is.” Chandler plans to return to the lineup Wednesday night, when the Knicks close their home schedule against the Los Angeles Clippers. They conclude the regular season Thursday in Charlotte. The playoffs begin two days later. Chandler is not injured, but he has played a team-high 2,029 minutes and is averaging 36 a game in April. “I want to be fresh for the playoffs,” Chandler said. “And the coaching staff and medical staff thought it would be best for me to get rest here, because we have one game in four days.” Without Chandler to hold the defense together, the Knicks turned porous, giving up 65 points in the first half and allowing the Hawks to shoot 58 percent through three quarters. They finally responded in the fourth, holding Atlanta to 7-for-18 shooting. “It just shows how valuable Tyson Chandler is to our ball club,” Woodson said, adding: “We missed him. We stayed the course.” Woodson smiled as he called the game an “old-school shootout,” but then admitted: “Yeah, I hated it. I’d like to see some defense.” The Knicks’ offense more than compensated, as all five starters scored in double figures, including a resurgent Landry Fields, who produced 18 points and went 7 for 8 from the field. The lead changed hands four times in the final 3 minutes 7 seconds, with the Knicks finally taking a 113-112 lead on Anthony’s 22-footer with 1:40 left. The Knicks blew two chances to pad the lead in the final minute, with J. R. Smith throwing the ball away and Anthony missing a quick 3-pointer with 5.9 seconds left. REBOUNDS Jared Jeffries rested his sore right knee again Sunday and will be held out of the final two games as well, Mike Woodson said. He is expected back for Game 1 of the playoffs, however. “We’re playing well right now,” Jeffries said. “I can take this time to get myself back ready.” Assuming he skips the final two games, Jeffries will have played in just 6 of the 19 final regular-season games. He reiterated that he did not need surgery. “It’s just playing 10 years in the league,” he said. “It’s just a bad knee.” ... Woodson said he also considered resting Carmelo Anthony but that Anthony preferred to play. “He knows his body,” Woodson said. “I’m sure if there’s any issues there, he’ll tell me and we’ll back off.”

New York Knicks
Atlanta Hawks
Teague Jeff
Anthony Carmelo
Basketball
Stoudemire Amar'e
Chandler Tyson
Alanta Hawks


Villanova Tops Temple to Run Big 5 Streak to 13 in a Row

Abstract: No team in the 52-year history of the Big 5 has ever been on a winning streak like Villanova’s. Scottie Reynolds scored 27 points last night and the 25th-ranked Wildcats made it a record 13 consecutive victories against their Philadelphia series rivals with a 101-93 victory at Temple. “It’s an honor, a great honor,” Villanova Coach Jay Wright said of the record. Antonio Pena and Shane Clark each scored 17 points for the Wildcats (7-1). Villanova, which rallied from a 21-point deficit with 8 minutes 50 seconds left to beat Louisiana State on Thursday night, needed a second-half surge to take control against the Owls. Temple (4-5) was the last Big 5 team to beat Villanova, on Dec. 4, 2004, at the Palestra. Last night, the Owls had one of their largest home crowds supporting them at the Liacouras Center. Dionte Christmas had 20 points and 11 rebounds, Mark Tyndale scored 24 points and Ryan Brooks had 22 for Temple. GEORGETOWN 87, JACKSONVILLE 55 The freshman Austin Freeman scored 15 points to help No. 5 Georgetown (7-0) defeat Jacksonville (3-6). WASHINGTON ST. 72, PORTLAND ST. 60 Aron Baynes was 9 for 9 from the field and scored 23 points as No. 8 Washington State (9-0) beat visiting Portland State (6-4). BOSTON COLLEGE 81, MARYLAND 78 Boston College (7-1) won at Maryland (6-4) in the Atlantic Coast Conference opener for both teams. NEBRASKA 63, RUTGERS 51 Aleks Maric scored 19 points to lead host Nebraska past Rutgers. Nebraska (5-2) held Rutgers (6-3) to one field goal in the last seven minutes of the first half. IN OTHER GAMES Loyola of Maryland (5-5, 1-1 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) never trailed, scoring the first 15 points in a 77-54 victory against visiting Manhattan (5-4, 1-1). ... Siena (5-3, 2-0 MAAC) made 31 of 39 free throws in an 81-76 victory against visiting Iona (2-7, 1-1). ... Bryan Geffen had 16 points to lead Quinnipiac (4-4) in a 58-54 victory at Army (4-5). ASSIST RECORD David N. Arseneault shattered the N.C.A.A. assists record when he had 34 in Grinnell College’s 151-112 win over North Central University of Minnesota in a Division III game in Des Moines. The previous high, 26, was set in 1989 by Robert James of Division III Kean University. Arseneault made a total of 86 passes. Women MARYLAND 64, TEMPLE 46 Kristi Toliver scored 15 points and added 11 assists, and No. 3 Maryland (13-1) never trailed in a victory against visiting Temple (4-6). NORTH CAROLINA 102, WOFFORD 42 Cetera DeGraffenreid scored 17 points for No. 5 North Carolina (10-1) in a rout of visiting Wofford (3-4). GEORGIA 79, DAVIDSON 65 Angel Robinson scored 17 points to lead No. 7 Georgia (9-0) past visiting Davidson (5-3).

College Athletics
Basketball
Athletics and Sports


Scans Could Aid Diagnosis of C.T.E. in Living

Abstract: In a finding that could eventually lead to ways to identify and perhaps treat athletes who have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Boston-based researchers announced on Wednesday that a new imaging technique found chemical changes in the brains of living athletes with a history of head trauma. C.T.E., whose diagnosis in more than a dozen deceased N.F.L. players and one collegian has helped lift the dangers of sports concussions to national prominence, can be confirmed only through a specialized examination of brain tissue after death. As such, the question of whether a particular living athlete who is showing symptoms of the disease — anger control, memory loss and more — has C.T.E. has remained only gnawing speculation. At the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago, Dr. Alexander Lin of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston described how magnetic resonance spectroscopy scans identified biomarkers in five athletes showing signs of C.T.E. The subjects were three retired N.F.L. players, one boxer and one wrestler; their scans were compared with those of nonathletes of the same age and relative lifestyle. “We measured the brain chemistry of men with a broad history of brain trauma and found these changes that indicate something biochemically abnormal,” Lin said. “We don’t know whether they have C.T.E. We don’t know at this point if these living changes are related.” One of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Robert Stern of the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, expressed similar caution that these preliminary results not be over-interpreted, particularly given the public’s growing understanding of C.T.E. and its effects. It remains unknown whether brain trauma caused the chemical changes, Stern said, something that further studies could help determine. Stern said that potential treatments would be best pursued through the identification of living people with the disease. “This is a first step in a long process,” Stern said. “This is an initial study with a very small sample that shows us that the technology may be of use in C.T.E. diagnosis. It does not, however, suggest that we are close to being able to use the technology in the near future.” Any proven method to diagnose C.T.E. in a living person could have major economic effects on the N.F.L. Retired players with cognitive problems still cannot prove their condition was caused by football, which has limited their ability to obtain benefits either through the league’s disability plan, state worker’s compensation or lawsuits. Given California’s unique worker’s compensation system, which allow players who played one game in the state to file claims years after their retirement, proof that cognitive decline was related to their N.F.L. career could lead to teams’ owing millions of dollars for medical treatment (including institutional care) for each retiree.

Concussions
National Football League
Boston University
Research
Football
Brain


Harvey’s Moral Victories Move the Mets Closer to Real Ones

Abstract: None of the Pittsburgh Pirates had faced Matt Harvey before Sunday, but they were familiar with him. It is hard to miss the first pitcher in the last 100 years to strike out at least 125 and allow fewer than 25 runs in his first 17 career starts. “You watch him on TV; you see the clips,” Clint Hurdle, the Pirates’ manager, said before batting practice. “We’re looking forward to it, absolutely.” Start No. 18 was not among the best of Harvey’s blossoming career as the latest savior of the Mets. He struck out four, a season low. His changeups lingered too long in the strike zone; his breaking balls were not crisp; his fastballs sailed up and away. He walked two in an inning for the first time this season. “It was tough,” Harvey said. “It was definitely a battle. You’re going to have those days when you’re not going to have your pinpoint location every time. I needed to throw up zeros today, and I wasn’t able to do that.” Not all the time, anyway. Not the way he did last week against the Chicago White Sox, when he allowed an infield single and retired the other 27 hitters he faced. This time, Harvey worked seven innings and allowed two runs. When you are the best pitcher in the league, as Harvey has been this season, that qualifies as a struggle. “I can’t say that it looked like he was fighting himself,” Pirates shortstop Clint Barmes said. “I thought he threw the ball pretty well over all. Looking at the numbers and the way the game turned out, he did all right.” Barmes, who entered the game hitting .207 and batted eighth, hit a solo home run off Harvey in the third inning and singled in the seventh. The Harvey he saw on Sunday, Barmes said, was similar to the version on video. Harvey was aggressive, and Barmes said he knew he had to be the same way. “You can’t sit up there and take and try to work a count against a guy like that because you end up behind very quickly,” Barmes said. “To try to hit one of his chase pitches, it’s hard to battle a guy that throws like that.” Image Matt Harvey was not sharp early but held Pittsburgh to two runs and five hits in seven innings. His record remained 4-0. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times So Barmes swung hard at the first strike he got, with a 1-0 count, and drilled a fastball over the wall in left. It offset a home run by the Mets’ Lucas Duda and was the first time this season that Harvey had given up a lead. The Pirates soon broke the tie, taking advantage of Harvey’s only walks. After the game, an eventual 3-2 Mets loss, Harvey praised his defense and said he was comfortable letting the Pirates put the ball in play and trusting the fielders to support him. For the fourth start in a row, he was not credited with a decision. Harvey remains 4-0, in eight starts, and has a 1.98 earned run average in the streak of no-decisions, with more strikeouts than innings pitched. The Mets have scored just six runs in that stretch while Harvey was still in the game. Lately, the Mets have gotten what they paid for with their low-budget offense. Until the Mets find a way to build, or buy, a better lineup, they will consign their young ace to weeks like the one Harvey just had: 16 innings, 2 runs, no decisions. With the Mets, though, there is nothing more important than the development of Harvey and Zack Wheeler, who took another step forward Saturday by working seven and a third innings at Class AAA Las Vegas, allowing two runs and six hits. A better offense, presumably, will arrive in time, but the plan collapses without Harvey and Wheeler succeeding. Terry Collins, the good soldier of a manager who is guiding the team through an obvious transition, mentioned Sandy Koufax after Harvey’s start Sunday. Collins, who worked for the Los Angeles Dodgers for years, said Koufax told him that a starter had more games with his mediocre stuff than with his best stuff. The trick is to succeed both ways. “The nights when it’s working, like the last time, when he’s pounding the strike zone with everything, that’s easy,” Collins said. “When you’ve got to work to get through a game like he did today, that’s character-building stuff.” Harvey has the blinding repertory. His fastball averaged 95 miles per hour before Sunday — the second best mark of any starter in the majors, according to Fangraphs, trailing only the 95.4-m.p.h. average of Stephen Strasburg. Harvey’s slider and changeup have been baffling. John Buck, a veteran catcher, said he challenged Harvey in the middle innings, urging him to keep his composure and stay aggressive without trying to overpower hitters. That might sound like a contradiction, but Harvey understood. “A lot of young guys, when they’re kind of that flamethrower, usually have good stuff, and when it’s not there, then they go south,” Buck said. “But he’s able to pull back and pitch and go more on location and changing speeds. For some guys, that’s hard, even older guys.” Harvey is just 24. He did not dazzle on Sunday, but he was savvy enough to survive. It was more encouraging than exciting. For these Mets, even in defeat, that counts as something close to a victory.

Baseball
Mets
Matt Harvey
Pittsburgh Pirates


Al Jazeera English Tries to Extend Its Reach

Abstract: PARIS — The English-language offshoot of Al Jazeera , the Arabic television news network, is pushing for a “breakthrough” that would make the channel available to American TV viewers and help it move beyond a turbulent start-up phase, according to its new managing director, Tony Burman. The hiring of Mr. Burman, a former editor in chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian public broadcaster, was announced last week. Al Jazeera English’s first year and a half has been marked by intense scrutiny of its coverage and by the recent defection of several high-profile Western journalists who had been recruited to lend credibility to the channel. Al Jazeera English, which is part of the Al Jazeera Network, based in Qatar, also announced distribution agreements last week in markets as far-flung as Portugal, Ukraine and Vietnam, increasing its potential audience to 110 million homes. Conspicuously absent, however, was the United States, where Al Jazeera is still largely unavailable on television. Viewers can watch it on the Web through a deal with YouTube, the online video service. In the United States, a market of 300 million people and hundreds of pay-television services, “the idea that certain channels would effectively be banned is medieval,” Mr. Burman said. Al Jazeera English is not actually banned, but the reputation of its Arabic sibling as the preferred outlet for videos from Osama bin Laden has made the English-language version too hot to handle for some cable operators. A lack of space on crowded cable systems has also made it difficult for operators to offer Al Jazeera English. In an effort to make Al Jazeera English more appealing to American operators and audiences, Mr. Burman said he planned to increase coverage of American news, particularly as the presidential election approaches. Mr. Burman said Al Jazeera also planned to invest in new bureaus; it already shares more than 60 bureaus with its Arabic sister organization. And the channel plans “more provocative” current affairs programming and investigative journalism, he said. “Our goal is to go in the opposite direction to so many other news organizations which are, sadly, cutting back on their coverage of the world,” said Mr. Burman, who left the CBC last year. In an effort to control costs, he said, there will be more collaboration between the Arabic and English services, with news crews sharing equipment, for example. Mr. Burman insisted that the channels would still be able to keep separate identities. “The reality is that Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English are two different channels that cater to different audiences,” he said. Some critics say, however, that the tone of Al Jazeera English has been shifting away from the neutral, international approach it initially took. David Marash, an American journalist who left the channel in March, said at the time he saw signs of anti-Americanism creeping into the coverage as more of it was directed from Doha, Qatar, rather than its other news hubs, in Washington, London and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mr. Marash, a former correspondent on the ABC News program “Nightline” who served as an anchor on Al Jazeera English, quit in March, one of a handful of big names to have left recently. Some of the departures have resulted in disputes. Jo Burgin, a former head of planning at the channel, has sued Al Jazeera English in London, contending that she was a victim of discrimination because she is white, Christian and a woman. Her husband, Steve Clark, the former head of news at the channel, left in March. “You’ve got to keep it in perspective,” Mr. Burman said. “After a few years, it’s inevitable that some people move on. I don’t think three or four months from now we’ll look back and say there was a morale problem.” As managing director, Mr. Burman succeeded Nigel Parsons, a former BBC executive; Mr. Parsons has been named managing director for business acquisition and development. With so many prominent Western journalists and broadcast executives in leading roles — other big catches were David Frost and Rageh Omaar, a former BBC correspondent — Al Jazeera initially modeled itself on news broadcasts like those from BBC World and CNN International. Some cable channels in the United States were disappointed that it wasn’t hanging people or torturing people, said a former executive, Paul Gibbs, who served as the first director of programs at Al Jazeera English, but left before it began broadcasting. One cable company, he said, complained about Al Jazeera English: “If it looks like the BBC, why should we add it?” BBC World, the BBC’s round-the-clock news channel, is also largely unavailable in the United States. Because Al Jazeera English reaches audiences in places that are thinly covered by ratings agencies, it is difficult to estimate audience sizes, but analysts say the service has struggled in many places to make inroads against the likes of the BBC and CNN. Meanwhile, competition has been growing from new channels like France 24 and BBC Arabic. As Al Jazeera English pursues new audiences, Mr. Burman said there were characteristics of the Arabic Al Jazeera that were worth emulating. “It is fearless, bold and provocative,” he said. “I don’t think Al Jazeera English should shy away from that, without departing from the norms of credible journalism. Being unbiased doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t challenge authority, from whatever side.”

Television
Al Jazeera
News and News Media
Executives and Management
Burman Tony


In Texas, Fund-Raising for ’12 Elections Sets Fast Pace

Abstract: With the last Congressional campaign barely over, another has already begun, and candidates in Texas are not wasting any time. Members of Congress from Texas — and potential candidates — have raised more than $9 million in the first quarter of this year in advance of the 2012 federal elections, campaign records show. The speed at which Texas candidates are pulling in money to pay staff members, buy advertising and spend on other campaign needs is on pace to surpass that of the last election cycle. In that election, which helped propel Republicans to a majority in the lower chamber, candidates and incumbents in Texas raised about $57 million in two years, records show. The fund-raising effort reflects the modern campaign cycle and the $2,500 limit on individual donations — both of which require candidates to seek campaign money all the time rather than only during the immediate prelude to an election. “They have to do it year-round,” said Jason Stanford, a political consultant in Texas who manages campaigns for Democrats across the country. “These races are unfathomably expensive.” The fund-raising this cycle is intensified by the competitive race for the United States Senate, in which at least seven Republicans are vying for the seat being vacated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison . Those candidates have amassed more than $5 million, a figure higher than the money raised by the more than 40 candidates and incumbents in House races combined. In the first three months of 2011, the various candidates for federal offices spent about $3.7 million, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics , a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that researches and reports on the effects of money and politics. Including sums raised in previous years, the various candidates now have about $24 million left in the bank. Among House candidates, the fund-raising leader is Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Dallas, who heads the Republican Conference. He has collected more than $450,000, followed by Representative Lamar Smith , Republican of San Antonio, who heads the House Judiciary Committee. He has raised more than $380,000. Leadership roles and chairmanships can make members cash magnets, allowing them to help their current and future colleagues financially, and also to fend off potential challengers in their own districts. “Those who are in leadership, and those who want to get into leadership, know that it’s part of their duty to help elect other members,” said Carla Eudy, a political consulting fund-raiser who served as finance chairwoman for former Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas. So far, only Republicans have declared in the Senate race. Tom Leppert, the former mayor of Dallas, led the way with more than $2.6 million raised, a figured increased by a $1.6 million personal loan. Mr. Leppert is followed by Ted Cruz, a former state solicitor general, who raised just over $1 million without loans. Not including loans and other types of receipts, including investments with campaign money, the candidates have raised a total of about $5.6 million from individuals. Another $1.6 million has come from political action committees. While political candidates need campaign money to run for election or perhaps to help their colleagues in vulnerable districts, some observers worry that the endless fund-raising may distract legislators from doing the jobs they were elected to do. “The more time you spend fund-raising, the less time you have for governing, or meeting with your constituents,” said Dave Levinthal, a journalist and communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. “At the end of the day, the job that they are being elected to do is becoming less of an overall part of what they are doing, for better or worse.”

Campaign Finance
Presidential Election of 2012
Texas
Hutchison Kay Bailey
Hensarling Jeb
Smith Lamar S


Back in Los Angeles, Rams Lose in a Rare N.F.L. Shutout

Abstract: In football, the shutout is the ultimate failure: 60 minutes and not a point to show for it, not even a measly field goal. In college play, the shutout is fairly common, from Georgia Tech’s notorious 222-0 rout of Cumberland College of Lebanon, Tenn., in 1916 to Texas A&M’s 67-0 beatdown of Prairie View A&M on Saturday. In the pros, the shutout is rarer, making the first game played by the Los Angeles Rams since 1994 all the more embarrassing. The Rams lost to the 49ers on Monday night, 28-0. I seriously think the 49ers could take a knee on every offensive snap the rest of the way and win this one — easily. — Jeff Duncan (@JeffDuncan_) September 13, 2016 “Well, that wasn’t what we expected,” Rams Coach Jeff Fisher told The Los Angeles Times . “Certainly not what I expected with our first game back in L.A.” In this decade, there have been only 29 N.F.L. shutouts , less than 2 percent of all games. Last season, there were two: The Bears, with Jimmy Clausen subbing for Jay Cutler, lost to the Seahawks, 26-0, in Week 3 and the unbeaten Panthers pummeled the Falcons, 38-0, in Week 14. Monday night’s game was the first Week 1 shutout since 2009, when the Rams, then playing in St. Louis, lost to Seattle, 28-0. Those Rams went on to finish 1-15. Still, there have been worse results: In recent years, three teams have been shut out while allowing at least 50 points. The grim roll of ignominy: 2014, Rams 52, Raiders 0; 2013, Seahawks 58, Cardinals 0; 2009, Patriots 59, Titans 0. The Rams gained 120 yards passing and ran for 65 yards Monday night. They recorded 10 first downs and were 3 for 15 on third-down conversions. The game was so brutal that the highlight might have been when a fan ran on the field and was tackled by security. (The radio announcer Kevin Harlan narrated it memorably.) Quarterback Case Keenum was 17 for 35 for 130 yards and two interceptions (and, needless to say, no touchdowns). It was the second lowest completion percentage of the week, ahead of only the now injured Robert Griffin III of the hapless Browns. His performance is sure to amplify calls for the team to turn to the No. 1 overall draft choice, Jared Goff of Cal. At this point, Goff is still No. 3 on the depth chart, behind Keenum and Sean Mannion, and he was inactive for Monday’s game. The Eagles, who selected Carson Wentz of North Dakota State No. 2 over all, started Wentz in Week 1 with positive results. “He plays to play, and I want him to play,” Fisher told the Los Angeles Times earlier in the week, referring to Goff. “We’re not there yet.” If they do turn the team over to a 21-year-old rookie, the Rams certainly can’t score fewer points.