For the Nets in New Jersey, an Often Sorry State of Affairs

Abstract: Months after Mount St. Helens erupted in May 1980, the New Jersey Nets ignited a blast of their own at what was then known as the Rutgers Athletic Center. Timing it to a visit by the Portland Trail Blazers — a franchise based about 50 miles southwest of the volcano — the Nets commemorated the event by handing out key chains filled with authentic Mount St. Helens ash. So they thought, or claimed. The architect of the stunt was the team’s promotions manager, Howard Freeman, who had commissioned a local school’s shop class to build a six-foot papier-mâché volcano. “We had traded for Maurice Lucas the year before from Portland, and he said he had a bunch of Mount St. Helens ash,” Freeman said in a recent interview. “Honestly, it could have come from his fireplace, for all we knew.” Triggered by a hired dwarf wielding a fire extinguisher loaded with a chemical compound, the makeshift volcano discharged without a hitch during halftime of a Nets overtime victory on Feb. 20, 1981. It was, in retrospect, perfect imagery for the Nets’ 35-year run in New Jersey, which will end on Monday night at Prudential Center in Newark. Many eruptions, little fallout on a largely indifferent fan base. While often bad, the Nets were never boring. Be it in Piscataway, East Rutherford or Newark, they were a reporter’s dream team — uncommonly accessible and forever afflicted with a case of arrested development. From the time the Nets returned from Long Island to the Garden State — where they made their debut as the Americans a decade earlier in the American Basketball Association — an explosion, or implosion, could occur anytime, anywhere. October 1977: In the fourth quarter of a road game against the Buffalo Braves, Mike Weber of The Star-Ledger took pity on me, a greenhorn covering his first road game. He leaned over and whispered, “Keep your eye on Averitt after the game.” William Averitt , known as Bird, who had played the previous season with the Braves, was one of four left-handed Nets guards. After scoring 18 points in defeat, he was promptly arrested, cited for writing a fraudulent check and for unpaid tickets related to letting his German shepherd roam a Buffalo suburb. Hence, my first article for The New York Post with a glamorous dateline was about the Nets’ posting bond for Averitt — and not even the racy tabloid rated this news all that sensational. It was just the Nets, the strapped team that had introduced itself to the N.B.A. by selling the contract of Dr. J, Julius Erving, to the Philadelphia 76ers. On the wrong side of the Hudson, with a suburban aura that never quite fit the so-called city game, maybe it never really mattered what the Nets did on the court. Their best years (excluding two A.B.A. championships), making consecutive N.B.A. finals in 2002 and 2003 with the crowd-pleasing Jason Kidd, did not make them a bigger draw than the establishment Knicks. But they tried every which way to lure fans, starting with the late ’70s slogan “Thataway to Piscataway.” They staged giveaways, contests, everything Freeman could think of short of a seat on the bench next to the coach. For those early home games at Rutgers, players would take turns participating in a halftime shooting duel with fans, with Freeman compensating the player by writing a modest check to his favorite charity. “Who should I make it out to?” he asked Super John Williamson, a high-scoring but impulsive guard who once — in full view of reporters — flung an ice pack at the head of General Manager Charlie Theokas after reading in a newspaper that a lesser player was making more money. “Make it out to John Williamson,” he told Freeman. “No, Supe,” Freeman said. “What charity?” “Bertha Williamson,” he said, referring to his wife. A Legacy of Controversy Who knew what the Nets might say or deal with next? In fall 1981, when they moved north to a new arena in the Meadowlands, the power went out as the teams took practice layups before the first exhibition game. Brendan Byrne Arena — named for the state’s sitting governor — was ominously nicknamed Byrne-out Arena. So it went as the Nets lurched from coach to coach — credentialed men like Larry Brown, Bill Fitch and Chuck Daly — and era to era, spanning the talented but troubled likes of Bernard King, Micheal Ray Richardson and Derrick Coleman. The future always looked bright until the inevitable, and metaphorical, power failure. “Every time we seemed to be getting close to respectability, something knocked us back,” said Herb Turetzky, who has been the team’s official scorer since the Americans first played in the Teaneck Armory in 1967. “There was always this cloud.” It was a dark one in April 1983 when the 42-year-old Brown, who had a young team on the rise, secretly negotiated for the University of Kansas job for the next season. When the controlling owner, Joe Taub, found out, he demanded that Brown choose immediately. Brown picked Kansas. Taub sent him packing , and a 49-victory season crashed with a first-round playoff defeat to the Knicks. Into the mid-1980s, the Nets still had a solid nucleus with Buck Williams, Otis Birdsong and Darryl Dawkins, but holding it together, barely, was Richardson, a mercurial point guard. As a Knick, he had uttered his famous quotation, “The ship be sinking.” As a Net, his career and life hit rock bottom. Sugar, as he was known, had a string of drug episodes, including one after the team’s Christmas party in 1985. Months later, he was barred under the league’s drug policy for a minimum of two years — permanently, as it turned out. Players and coaches kept disappearing, or not showing up. From 1982 to 1985, the Nets were jilted in some fashion by three coaches — Brown, Stan Albeck and Villanova’s Rollie Massimino. Massimino’s snub was probably the most embarrassing because the other two actually coached the team. Fresh off Villanova’s upset of Georgetown in the 1985 N.C.A.A. championship game, Massimino shook hands with the Nets’ president, Bernie Mann, on the contours of a 10-year deal, and the Nets made plans to introduce him at a news conference on June 20, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the arena. Then Massimino changed his mind , leaving the Nets with no news conference and no coach. Trouble Never Far Away Mann was part of the ownership group of North Jersey businessmen — often but not always fronted by the silver-haired Taub — that came to be known as the Secaucus Seven. (I claim to be the originator of the nickname, having used it in an article on Nov. 1, 1991, after making a brief return to the Nets beat upon joining The New York Times.) The owners were often as fractious as the players. There was no better reporter’s training ground than the Nets, who were as unstable as George Steinbrenner’s Yankees but without the big-city pressure. When the Nets became part of the made-for-TV partnership called YankeeNets for a few years, they discovered that the championship pedigree was nontransferable. In 1975, when the Nets were still on Long Island, a player named Wendell Ladner died in a plane crash. Mike Wise arrived on the beat for The Times after the worst New Jersey episode in Nets history, the 1993 death of a rising shooting guard from Croatia, Drazen Petrovic, in a car accident in Germany. By the time Butch Beard took over as the coach in 1994, Coleman and Kenny Anderson — teammates of Petrovic’s and each talented enough to have been an N.B.A. All-Star — had become underachieving inmates running the asylum. “It was this amazing cast of characters and such a contrast from the Knicks,” Wise said. “While Pat Riley was dining at Elaine’s, the Nets were cleaning out the potato skins at Houlihan’s” — among other service establishments. Anderson blew off a game-day shootaround one day and, just his luck, was spotted by The Post at a Manhattan gentleman’s club, Scores. (The Post found this much juicier than Averitt’s arrest and headlined the article, “He Scoots, He Scores.”) When Coleman asked reporters the next day why it was such a big deal, one responded that Anderson was the Nets’ captain. To which Coleman uttered the line that probably best captured the essence of the Nets: “Whoop-de-damn-do.” There was no shortage of other memorable sayings or scrawlings. Chris Morris, an enigmatic forward, showed up one night with “Please” written on one sneaker and “trade me” on the other. Morris is also remembered for debating Beard — who had a particularly hapless Nets coaching tenure — on the value of tying his shoelaces at a shootaround. When it was time to replace Beard, Taub tried to hire Rick Pitino from Kentucky and settled for John Calipari, another insulated college type who flamed out of his first professional job on Selena Roberts’s watch for The Times. “I remember once we were talking about the state of the Nets and Calipari asked me out of frustration, ‘Why aren’t you buying in?’ as if that was the media’s role,” Roberts said. “The real trouble was that his players weren’t buying in. And yet for months, Cal pushed on with a remarkable, upbeat energy — until the moment he snapped . That was the afternoon he called The Star-Ledger’s Dan Garcia a ‘Mexican idiot’ across a parking lot.” Calipari was reprimanded by the Nets and the league for that 1997 incident, and was fired 20 games into his third season. When the team flew to Toronto from Miami without him, he insisted on following it to deliver the news himself. One problem: Ray Chambers, a new co-owner, had arranged for Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, to address the team in Toronto. By the time Calipari got to address the players, Robbins had informed them that Don Casey would be their new coach. Nets Nuttiness Riding high as the N.C.A.A. champion at Kentucky, Calipari has long since recovered. He survived the test of the Nets in much better fashion than some of the Nets survived one another. It was just the franchise’s luck that Jayson Williams — a hard-working rebounder and the team’s most popular player — was in the first season of a $90 million contract in April 1999 when he collided with a teammate, Stephon Marbury, during a game at the Meadowlands. Williams sustained a severely broken leg, ending his career and setting him on the path to ruin, and jail, after he shot a limousine driver in his home while showing off a gun to friends. Talk about access. Only in New Jersey could a player’s mother run onto the court to attend to her child, as Marbury’s mother, Mabel, did that night while Williams stretched out in agony a few feet away. Marbury was merely dazed. And confused. Despite his mother’s proximity, the Brooklyn-bred Marbury found little happiness in New Jersey, borrowing from the Chris Morris School of Communication, offering his own sneaker commentary on life with the Nets. “All alone,” he wrote. In 2001, Marbury was traded to Phoenix for Kidd, a visionary point guard who unified the Nets as never before in their N.B.A. history. But after the two finals ended in defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs, that era also hastily turned sour, just as Lee Jenkins arrived on the beat for The Times. “I thought it was going to be the easiest assignment in the world,” Jenkins said. “They would win and nobody would care.” On cue, the team was sold (to the developer Bruce C. Ratner); Kidd had a shouting match with the coach, Byron Scott; Scott was fired; and a brawl almost broke out at practice — again, with reporters watching — when Kenyon Martin raised the ire of Alonzo Mourning. Mourning had chided Martin for not working hard, for hiding in the training room, crying “my ankle, my ankle.” Martin responded, cruelly, “My kidney, my kidney,” in reference to the transplant Mourning had received. It was pure Nets nuttiness, which ranged from comic to tragic. “You always wondered, What if?” Turetzky said. What if Larry Brown hadn’t left, or if Richardson had stayed clean, or if Taub had listened in 1991 to Willis Reed, his general manager, and endorsed the drafting of the intimidating center Dikembe Mutombo over Kenny Anderson? What if Petrovic had never driven on the autobahn? What if Roy Boe, the owner in 1976, had been able to afford the millions in payments to the Knicks for territorial rights without having to sell Erving to the 76ers? Super John Williamson wondered about that, too. “If only you had stayed to guide me,” he told Erving one night in New Haven, at a benefit to raise money for Williamson’s treatment for kidney failure related to diabetes. Williamson brought tears to Erving’s eyes with his heartfelt speech that night and again when Williamson died in 1996 at 44 . Surreal Life Erving by then had an N.B.A. championship ring, won with Philadelphia in 1983. The sale of Erving to the 76ers guaranteed that the Nets would remain bitterly connected to Philadelphia. The rivalry included one of the weirdest games the Nets — or any team — may have ever played. On Nov. 9, 1978, the Nets were in Philadelphia when Bernard King, their best player, incurred two technical fouls for protesting a call. Kevin Loughery, his excitable coach, began screaming and he, too, was assessed two technicals, which meant his automatic ejection. But a strange thing happened. The referee Richie Powers gave both King and Loughery a third technical. After taking the free throws, the Sixers went on to win in overtime as Phil Jackson, a part-time Loughery assistant and broadcaster, coached his first N.B.A. game. A Nets protest was subsequently upheld, and the N.B.A. ordered the game to be resumed at the point in the third quarter when Powers assessed the illegal technicals. Except by the time the resumption occurred on March 23, 1979, — before another scheduled game between the teams in Philadelphia — the Nets had traded Eric Money and Al Skinner to the 76ers for Harvey Catchings and Ralph Simpson. In the final box score of the suspended game, which the Nets naturally lost, before also dropping the second game, three of the four players — Skinner being the exception — appeared on both sides. “The craziest thing,” said Turetzky, who was not working that road game but who has scored and seen it all in New Jersey, including Rod Thorn’s defection from the Nets’ front office to Philadelphia’s after Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian tycoon, took over the team in 2010. That has left the Nets’ personnel matters to the current general manager, Billy King, who formerly had the same title in Philadelphia. King’s decision last season to make a huge gamble on the Nets’ future on the free-agent-to-be Deron Williams could make the Nets, or break them, before they ever turn on the lights in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, the N.B.A. schedule maker must have a cruel sense of humor. The 76ers will be the opponent Monday night for the final game in New Jersey. Not to be outdone, the Nets have announced that Coleman, Anderson and Morris will be among the former players on hand, and possibly Richardson, too. Howard Freeman, who now produces a balloon and music festival in North Jersey and considers himself a man of letters, D.H.A. (doctor of hot air), said he was also planning to attend. He wonders if the Nets will give New Jersey fans anything to help them remember 35 years of well-intentioned aspirations turned to ashes.


Archer Daniels Profit Weaker Than Expected

Abstract: The Archer Daniels Midland Company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings on Tuesday, hampered by inventory charges and lower profit in its agricultural services business. Archer Daniels, a large corn processor and ethanol producers, said net profit fell 30 percent despite strong corn and oilseed processing results and better-than-expected revenue. Operating profit fell 25 percent in Archer Daniels’s agricultural services segment, the company’s largest in terms of sales, as a result of “negative impacts from supply shifts” and “government actions” in the Black Sea region, which was affected by a drought, the company said. The drought slashed crop production in the region this year, prompting export curbs by Ukraine and a grain export ban by Russia that is expected to last through July. Net income fell to $345 million, or 54 cents a share, from $496 million, or 77 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected earnings of 75 cents a share. Revenue rose to $16.8 billion from $14.9 billion, beating the analysts’ average forecast of $15.66 billion. Archer Daniels said rising commodity prices resulted in an accounting charge of $123 million, or about 12 cents a share, compared with a $76 million credit in the comparable quarter a year earlier. Stronger oilseed crush margins and increased volumes lifted Archer Daniels’s oilseeds processing profit 8 percent to $308 million. Corn processing profit jumped to $341 million from $188 million. Stock in Archer Daniels, which is based in Decatur, Ill., fell $2.20, or 7 percent, to close at $31.19 a share.

Archer-Daniels-Midland Co
Company Reports


Nadal Falters but Ultimately Beats Fish

Abstract: Mardy Fish executed the perfect game plan for knocking off the world’s No. 1 tennis player: He routinely uncorked a booming serve, controlled action by playing at the net and took advantage of a sluggish start by a player who has admitted that winning at the Olympics was not the best preparation for the United States Open. Against Rafael Nadal , though, that game plan lasted for exactly one set. Nadal absorbed his first-set loss and quickly restored order, winning his quarterfinal match, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2, as it stretched into the wee hours of Thursday morning thanks to a long day of action at the Open. By the time they left the court at 2:11 a.m. — the third-latest finish ever at the Open — there were a few thousand holdouts left in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Most were still rooting for Fish, an American making his deepest run at the Open, to pull the upset until the very end. But the man known on tour as Rafa thanked them for staying so late nonetheless. “The night session here is unbelievable, but I prefer to finish a little earlier,” Nadal said. Nadal and Fish had not even taken the court until 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, after the Williams sisters played a spirited two-tie-breaker quarterfinal match that lasted nearly two and a half hours. That followed a day session that stretched overtime, thanks largely to a marathon four-set match between Britain’s Andy Murray and Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro. Nadal will play Murray in the semifinals. But if Nadal seemed weary at the start of the match, knocked back on his heels by a dominant serve-and-volley performance by Fish in the first set, he found a second wind quickly thereafter. “Mardy played unbelievable in the first set,” Nadal said. “He was very aggressive, serving very well. He was playing very well, so congratulations to him.” In the second set, Nadal was able to reassert his trademark sideline-to-sideline style, ripping winners from far behind the baseline and playing with the flair that has marked his rise to No. 1. Here, Nadal is trying to add an exclamation point to a busy year that has already included winning the French Open and Wimbledon — a five-set classic victory over Roger Federer — and the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics just two and a half weeks ago. This will be his first trip to the semifinals at the Open. “This court has always been very difficult for me,” Nadal said. He lost a late-night match last year to fellow Spaniard David Ferrer in the fourth round. This year’s schedule has left Nadal, who relies on his speed and ability to track down shots anywhere on the court, a bit weary for his Open matches. He needed two tie breakers to get out of his first-round match against the qualifier Bjorn Phau of Germany and went four long sets in beating the American upstart Sam Querrey in the fourth round. Fish, seeded 21st, pounced on that weariness early with the best weapon he has: a big serve and a willingness to play where so few men play these days, at the net. Coming into this match, Fish was 0-4 against Nadal, not managing a single break of Nadal’s serve in any of those matches. So it was a big boost when Fish broke Nadal on his first service game and slammed so many volley winners on his serve that Nadal never got a toehold in the first set. Nadal got his game in gear in the second set when Fish’s serve began to falter. Fish began piling up errors (he finished with 53) to go with his winners (48 in all), and the high-risk, high-reward approach began to get low on rewards. By the end, Fish had little answer for a man who seemed to get stronger as the night grew longer.

Nadal Rafael
United States Open (Tennis)
Fish Mardy
Tennis


Gas Shortage Persists in N.Y.C. and Nassau County

Abstract: Peter Lanci spent two days trying to find gasoline in Nassau County, on Long Island, driving by nine closed gas stations and finding only one that was open — with about 150 cars waiting in line. But on Wednesday, Mr. Lanci, an accountant, decided to try his luck 25 miles away in neighboring Suffolk County. He was able to fill up his tank, and two gas containers, all in just 25 minutes. Even as the gas shortage gripping the New York region has eased, relief has not come equally to everyone. Drivers like Mr. Lanci have found to their frustration that shuttered pumps and long lines persist in New York City and Nassau County, while they have dwindled in much of New Jersey, Suffolk and New York north of the city. “This is hitting us really hard because we have to drive the kids back and forth to school, so we need gas,” Mr. Lanci said. Industry experts offered one explanation for this story of gasoline’s haves and have-nots. A critical factor, they said, is where an area’s supply normally comes from. The gasoline distribution system is a sprawling, decentralized network made up of gas stations that have different contracts with distributors to transport gasoline from regional terminals. Those terminals, in turn, receive and store gas deposited by barges and tankers. Many New York City gas stations rely on distribution terminals in Brooklyn and Queens that were damaged by the storm, or lost power, and have not come back fully, the experts said. Similarly, a major fuel terminal for Nassau County located in Inwood, N.Y., has been operating at reduced capacity. “It’s a lot of logistics behind the scenes that will determine why the shortage is better in some areas than in others,” said Patrick DeHaan, who works for Gasbuddy.com , which has been tracking which stations have fuel in the New York region. By Wednesday, 75 percent of New York City’s gas stations were still without gas, compared with a regional average of 24 percent, according to the site. Mr. DeHaan added that such logistical problems had been made worse by panic buying among drivers who saw the lines and felt the need to stock up themselves. Drivers, he said, have shown “a sudden, insatiable demand for gasoline. That’s placing the system under enormous stress.” Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA, pointed out that many gas stations initially could not sell gas because the power failure had cut off their pumps. But as power has been restored to more stations, he said, the continuing gas problems have focused attention on the gas distribution network. “This week, it is shifting more to being a supply-system problem: getting gasoline from storage to distribution terminals to gas stations to the car you drive,” he said. At a Getty station in the Bronx, an attendant sat glumly behind the counter on Wednesday because he had no gas to pump. The attendant, Kofi Osobaye, said that the station never lost power after the storm, but that its distributor had not brought any more gas despite his repeated pleas. “I’m still waiting; I don’t know when it’s coming,” said Mr. Osobaye, who has been turning away more than 30 customers a day. “It’s very bad for business.” Federal energy officials reported that 9 of 57 petroleum terminals affected by the storm remained shut on Wednesday. Of those, seven were in New Jersey, one in Brooklyn and one on Long Island. Still, industry experts said that the gas shortage had abated more quickly in New Jersey because most terminals in the southern part of the state were not damaged, and gas stations there are closer to major refineries and transportation routes than, say, their New York City counterparts. In addition, state officials adopted a rationing system that helped control demand, the experts said. Even though New York distributors have been trying to find alternatives to damaged terminals, they are still transporting less gas to stations than they normally do, said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops . He estimated there were about 800 distributors in the state. Mr. Bombardiere said federal and local efforts to address the gas shortage had been slowed by a lack of understanding about the gas distribution system. For instance, he said, barges carrying oil were unable to dock at regional terminals for days after the storm because New York Harbor remained closed. “Someone in a tie should have said, ‘Where are the barges?’ ” he said. “It must have taken 10 to 15 telephone calls to get that message out. In case of a crisis, they have to start at the beginning.”

Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Shortages
Automobile Service Stations
New York Metropolitan Area
Hurricane Sandy (2012)


Gingrich Opts Out

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (AP) — Newt Gingrich , the former speaker of the House, will not run for president in 2008 after determining that he could not legally explore a bid and remain head of his tax-exempt political organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, a spokesman said Saturday. “Newt is not running,” said the spokesman, Rick Tyler. “It is legally impermissible for him to continue on as chairman of American Solutions and to explore a campaign for president.” On Friday, Mr. Gingrich said he had set a deadline of Oct. 21 to raise $30 million for a possible campaign, adding that the task was difficult but not impossible.

Gingrich Newt
Presidential Election of 2008
United States Politics and Government


Job Search Firms: Big Pitches and Fees, Few Jobs

Abstract: NAPERVILLE, Ill. — In retrospect, Kerry Fischman said he should have paid more attention to the nagging concern he felt when the saleswoman from the job search company kept pressing him to sign the contract and send in his credit card number. But it had been just two weeks since he lost his management job in safety and compliance at Georgia Pacific, the paper products company, and the maelstrom of emotions was still fresh. “Obviously, the anxiety and the fear were there,” Mr. Fischman said. “That’s all you ever heard on the news, how many more thousands, tens of thousands, lost their jobs.” Seeking an edge, Mr. Fischman paid the company, the ITS Corporation, $8,250 in December, believing it would help him land a six-figure job in the Denver area, which he said the saleswoman promised. But the company did little more than redo his résumé and push him to cold-call employers, he said. Mr. Fischman, 58, now believes the company misrepresented its services and exaggerated its capabilities. He eventually found a job, but without the help of ITS, and received a partial refund after threatening to report the company to the authorities. Company officials deny that ITS misrepresented itself. But Mr. Fischman’s experience highlights the vulnerability of job seekers as they cast about for help in the most difficult job market in decades and encounter a bewildering and largely unregulated array of individuals and businesses offering assistance. While some customers have benefited from their work, others have accused the companies of using misleading sales tactics. “Career management” or “career marketing” companies like ITS, which charge large up-front fees, are easy to stumble upon on employment Web sites. Often, as in Mr. Fischman’s case, they contact job seekers after they post their résumés. They usually focus on professionals and managers, massaging their egos by boasting that they accept only the most marketable candidates. Some companies place advertisements that appear to be job postings but instead are lures for sales pitches. The offices of several state attorneys general said they had fielded complaints about career counseling companies during this recession. “Many employment services provide valuable help, but others misrepresent themselves and their services in an attempt to take your money,” said the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan , who succeeded several years ago in having one career counseling company, Bernard Haldane Associates , banned from doing business in the state. “To find legitimate agencies for your needs, it’s critical to do your homework first.” Over the years, several state attorneys general have filed lawsuits after consumers said they had been misled. In the mid-1980s, the New Jersey attorney general’s office sued several career counseling companies founded by Robert J. Gerberg Sr., whose son, Robert J. Gerberg Jr., now runs ITS. (The elder Mr. Gerberg is a senior consultant to the company.) A judge later found that the companies had violated state consumer fraud laws “through the use of various misrepresentations and misleading statements to consumers.” The company was ordered to change its practices. The elder Mr. Gerberg said the complaints in the lawsuit represented a tiny fraction of the companies’ clients. The younger Mr. Gerberg said ITS had tens of thousands of satisfied customers but declined to let The New York Times talk to any clients chosen at random. Many of the companies do little more than provide ordinary job search assistance: overhauling résumés and cover letters, giving advice on how to network and helping sort through public job listings. While this can be a legitimate and useful service, much of it can be obtained more cheaply. Edward Bockman, 44, who managed the technology center of an Illinois college before losing his job during a restructuring, paid a career management company $5,000 in late 2007 after responding to what he thought was a job posting for professionals looking to earn $100,000 a year. Instead, he got a sales pitch from Benchmark Professional Careers in Chicago . He said he was told that a search for someone his age would normally take 13 months but that the company would cut that in half. Mr. Bockman said he believed that the company was a high-end recruiter, with access to a vast “hidden job market,” as he said company officials put it, that gave it connections to positions unavailable to regular job seekers. Only later, after he began working with the company, did he realize it did not have any special pathways to job openings. He demanded a refund but got nowhere. Two years later, he still does not have a job, and the company’s $5,000 charge on his credit card helped push him and his wife to file for bankruptcy. Corporate records show Benchmark is one of several business names for the same company, KHTX Management, which lists an address in Harlingen, Tex., that is a U.P.S. store. According to records, it is run by Larry Keim, who has been quoted in newspaper articles as a job search expert. Mr. Keim’s phone number is unpublished, and messages left at Berkeley Palmer , a different name for the company in Overland Park , Kan., were not returned. The company’s advertisements, now under the name BCS, still appear on job search Web sites. In the case of ITS, Mr. Fischman made an appointment to stop by the company’s Denver office when he was in town visiting his daughter. He asked a representative of the company whether it could get him a job in Denver, with a relocation package, at a low-six-figure salary similar to his old one. The representative immediately said the company could, he said, claiming ITS had a 95 percent placement rate. Mr. Fischman said later that he knew no one could guarantee him a job but that he was under the impression he would have an inside track on positions the company scouted out for him. He also was intrigued by promises of access to “unpublished” jobs. But he was never given access to a list of such jobs. Instead, he said, his counselor directed him to an online database of companies and executives, telling him he should contact them himself to inquire about openings. “They were just giving me names and information,” he said. The company told him it had faxed or e-mailed his résumé to hundreds of companies, but he said he never heard from any. Mr. Fischman said he should have been more careful. But it is difficult to find much about the company on the Internet. It has several Web sites and operates under different names. The Denver Better Business Bureau lists 58 complaints in the last three years under ITS Corporation — there are nearly two dozen more under related company names — but gives the company an A-plus rating because it is classified as a large company, so the number of complaints is considered relatively small. Bureau officials, however, conceded that the classification of the company’s size was based solely on its word. The younger Mr. Gerberg, chief executive of America’s Job Network, which he described as the parent company of ITS, said what set the company apart was specialized software that filtered through listings from hundreds of job sites. He said the company assisted 500 to 700 people a month, including “lots of celebrity clients.” Mr. Gerberg noted that ITS’s contract clearly said it did not guarantee jobs. It is also carefully worded to say that the company merely provides leads to unpublished openings. “It’s very difficult to imagine our clients that come on board have some misunderstanding on what we do and don’t do,” Mr. Gerberg said. He also said the company had a money-back guarantee, but Mr. Fischman said the period for requesting a refund passed very early, before he understood what the company was doing. Interviews with three other disgruntled former ITS clients who filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau found that one got a full refund after filing his grievance; another got half of his money back, and another got nothing. The company gave The Times a list of 11 clients who ITS said were satisfied. One of them, Ira Glasser, 50, a hedge fund executive from New York, was enthusiastic in an interview about his experience, saying he found the structured assistance useful. Another, Bruce Reid, 49, a product engineering manager from Sullivan, Ill., said that he might have, in retrospect, paid too much, but that he was satisfied because he found a job. In Mr. Fischman’s case, after much back and forth with company officials, he threatened to report the company to the Colorado attorney general. ITS then offered to refund him $2,450, but only if he signed a release that pledged him to keep his experience confidential. Mr. Fischman was hardly satisfied but accepted the offer. By then, he had taken a job with United Airlines . He got the job on his own, using his old résumé.

Employment agency
Lawsuit
Careers and Professions
KHTX Management


No Winner or Loser When a No. 1 Pick Goes Under the Knife

Abstract: In the movie “The Program,” Alvin Mack, a college linebacker played by the actor Duane Davis, appears destined for the N.F.L. That is, until a knee injury instantly rewrites his future. In a span of minutes, Mack goes from a potential first-round pick to a former player considering a future in coaching. A similar situation seemed to play out in real life last week when Brady Aiken, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 baseball draft, announced that he had undergone Tommy John surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow. Having declined a lowball offer from the Houston Astros, Aiken was pitching at the IMG Baseball Academy in preparation for this year’s draft. The bet on himself, which reportedly involved turning down a last-minute offer for $5 million, appeared to have gone bust. But in 2015, nothing is that simple. As observers scramble to declare the winners and the losers, the theme of the day should be this: patience for everyone. Less than 10 months ago, Aiken sat on a conference call after being selected by the Astros and compared himself to Clayton Kershaw and David Price. It may have seemed boastful, but as a 17-year-old left-hander with a mid-90s fastball and command of three major league-quality pitches, he was probably not that far off the mark. The team seemed just as enthusiastic about the latest piece in its rebuilding project. “I couldn’t be more excited for the Houston Astros and their future by adding this player to what already is a very strong system,” Jeff Luhnow, the team’s general manager, said in an introductory news release. The team and the player agreed on a deal in which Aiken would receive a $6.5 million signing bonus, well short of the $7.9 million slotted for his draft position. Before the contract could be signed, the team requested a magnetic resonance imaging of Aiken’s elbow, and that was when things unraveled. While the team has never directly addressed what it was told about Aiken’s pitching elbow, reports surfaced that his U.C.L. was unusually narrow and could make him susceptible to future injury. The Astros’ offer shrank to $3.1 million — the minimum required for the team to get draft-pick compensation should Aiken not sign — and a public relations battle started, with Aiken’s camp professing that the player was healthy and accusing the Astros of shenanigans, and with the Astros contending that they were just exercising their rights to protect their interests. The negotiation became even more complicated when it became apparent that Aiken’s fate would directly affect the team’s ability to honor its deals with two other draft picks, Jacob Nix and Mac Marshall, whom the Astros intended to pay above-slot rates based on the money they would save by not paying Aiken the maximum salary allowed under the collective bargaining agreement. If Aiken failed to sign, the team would forfeit the entire amount allotted to him, so at the last minute Houston reportedly increased its offer to $5 million, but Aiken chose to walk away. Even after the operation, Aiken was still proclaiming his belief that he had made the right decision in not signing with Houston, while clearly implying that he had been wronged by the team. “I can honestly say I don’t regret not signing,” Aiken said in an essay on The Players’ Tribune , the website founded by Derek Jeter. “It was a very difficult decision, but it also was an informed decision based on circumstances only a few people know the truth about.” Image Aiken after Tommy John surgery, in a picture from his Twitter account. Finding a middle ground between the team and the player on this issue can be difficult, but Jim Callis, a draft expert for MLB.com who previously ran Baseball America, said people were making a mistake by trying to find a winner. “I don’t think this was a case of one side was right and one side was wrong,” Callis said. “The Astros had the No. 1 pick in the draft and they took the best player at the time and they couldn’t sign him. This isn’t a win for anyone.” Making things especially hard to evaluate at this point is the fact that both sides could end up happy. The Astros, having made what M.L.B. would consider a good-faith attempt to sign Aiken, will receive the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft as compensation for failing to get a deal done. And Aiken, despite being in the early stages of recovery from an operation that instills fear in the casual fan, is still very likely a first-round pick. Callis cited numerous examples in recent years of players who had undergone U.C.L. repair and were still drafted at or near the position they would have gone before the surgery, including Jeff Hoffman, who went to the Toronto Blue Jays with the No. 9 pick in last year’s draft. Although Hoffman was still recovering from the operation, Toronto signed him to his full slotted salary of $3.1 million. “If Hoffman went No. 9 in what was a better draft, why couldn’t Aiken go higher in a lesser draft?” Callis said. In recent years, U.C.L. repair has become a common occurrence. In a number of recent studies, the rate of return for pitchers undergoing U.C.L. repair was over 80 percent. One of the few studies to raise a red flag was performed by a group of doctors at Columbia who produced a paper entitled “Performance, Return to Competition, and Reinjury After Tommy John Surgery in Major League Baseball Pitchers.” Of 147 pitchers in the study, 80 percent returned to pitch, but only 67 percent reached the same level of performance, and 57 percent again landed on the disabled list. Their study found performance declined along several major metrics after the operation, but noted that the declines were largely present in age-matched control groups of players who had not had the operation. Aiken, at 18, has youth on his side in his recovery and will go into this year’s draft as an intriguing case of a player with the upside of a No. 1 overall pick, but a huge question mark hanging over him in terms of his chances of a full recovery. “The Cubs and Red Sox might be two teams prepared to take a gamble like that,” Callis said. “He could go pretty high. It’s a mediocre draft shaping up so far, where most of the college pitchers have either been hurt or inconsistent.” The picture Aiken posted to Twitter of himself in a hospital bed was nothing like the fictional Mack, who was crying at his lost future. Aiken was smiling broadly and his essay was entirely upbeat. The potential for a soft landing with a marquee team, and the bonus slot of a top-10 pick, takes much of the sting out of the situation. At the same time, the Astros can move on by drafting a player with a less cloudy future. Without throwing a pitch, though, Aiken may have had a large impact on the game. His predicament has reportedly spurred M.L.B. and the players union to consider the possibility of a draft combine to avoid situations like this. Whatever team ends up drafting him will have to hope that is not his only legacy.

Baseball
Brady Aiken
Sports Drafts and Recruits
Sports injury
Surgery
Astros


India Discussing Uranium Deal With Australia

Abstract: CANBERRA, Australia , Aug. 16 (AP) — Australia and India have agreed to negotiate a uranium trade pact to help meet the growing demand for power in India, Prime Minister John Howard of Australia announced on Thursday. The agreement signals a major shift in the Australian government’s policy on global nuclear proliferation. All of Australia’s current uranium customers have ratified the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and have agreed to ensure that radioactive material is not put to any military use or passed on to a third country. Mr. Howard’s cabinet agreed in principle on Tuesday to sell the nuclear fuel to India despite its refusal to sign the nonproliferation treaty. The government contends that nuclear power is important to efforts to curb global warming as the Indian and Chinese economies’ hunger for energy grow. In April 2006, Australia signed an agreement with China to sell uranium for use in China’s nuclear power plants. “Our officials will now enter into negotiations regarding the conditions,” Mr. Howard said. “We want to be satisfied that the uranium will only be used for peaceful purposes.” The Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman, Navtej Sarna, confirmed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had agreed to start negotiations. Earlier Thursday, Mr. Howard told Parliament that India would have to agree to international inspections of its nuclear power plants and to complete the details of its nuclear partnership pact with the United States. The United States and India have sealed a technical pact that details how nuclear cooperation between those countries, the world’s two largest democracies, will work.

India
Australia
Atomic Energy
International Trade and World Market


Nadal Coasts on the Clay in Madrid

Abstract: The defending champion Rafael Nadal pushed aside his clay-court doldrums Friday by reaching the Madrid Open semifinals with a dominant performance against Tomas Berdych. The top-ranked Nadal had lost his previous two quarterfinal matches on clay for his worst run on the surface in a decade. But buoyed by a partisan crowd, Nadal overpowered Berdych, 6-4, 6-2. In the women’s tournament, the two-time defending champion Serena Williams withdrew with a leg injury, giving Petra Kvitova a walkover to the semifinals. Williams, 32, said the injury would not keep her out of Rome next week or the French Open in about two weeks. Maria Sharapova ousted Li Na in a quarterfinal, 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3.

Tennis
Madrid Open Tennis
Rafael Nadal
Serena Williams


Details of the Corruption Case Against Joseph L. Bruno

Abstract: Joseph L. Bruno , the former State Senate majority leader, is charged under a law that makes it a crime to deprive citizens of honest services from their elected officials, and is accused of mixing government and private business and trying to conceal it from the public. Here are details of the eight counts against him: 1. Mr. Bruno received $1.37 million from Wright Investors’ Service, a Connecticut company, to solicit pension fund investments from state unions. He is accused of failing to properly disclose his relationship with the firm. 2. Mr. Bruno hosted a meeting in 2004 in his Capitol office to introduce officials from Asentinel, a Tennessee company that manages telephone bills, to representatives from state agencies and the State University of New York. He is accused of not revealing that the company had promised to pay him a portion of any business he generated for the company as a result of the introduction. 3. Mr. Bruno received $468,000 from Leonard J. Fassler, a Westchester County businessman. Prosecutors say that no work was ever done and that the payments were mostly gifts to Mr. Bruno for helping Mr. Fassler when he had business before the state. 4. Mr. Bruno received numerous payments from Jared E. Abbruzzese, an Albany-area business executive, or from companies controlled by Mr. Abbruzzese, for work that prosecutors say was not legitimate. 5. One of Mr. Abbruzzese’s companies, the Motient Corporation, paid Mr. Bruno $120,000 and, according to prosecutors, the payments were gifts for Mr. Bruno’s efforts to secure grants for the company. 6. Another company affiliated with Mr. Abbruzzese, TerreStar Networks, ended a contract with Mr. Bruno early, and to make up the shortfall Mr. Abbruzzese bought a broken-down horse from Mr. Bruno for $80,000, according to prosecutors. 7. Mr. Bruno received $270,000 in consulting fees from a company, BB Gardner Management, connected to Russell C. Ball, a business executive whose companies had interests before the Legislature. Mr. Bruno, prosecutors say, did not perform any legitimate work for the money. 8. Mr. Bruno failed to disclose his business relationship with Mr. Abbruzzese as part of a partnership involving thoroughbred racehorses and for which he received payment from one of Mr. Abbruzzese’s companies, prosecutors said.


Sergio Ramos Suspended for Five Games

Abstract: Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos was suspended for five games after he insulted the referee who sent him off during Wednesday’s victory over Celta Vigo in the Copa del Rey. The Spanish federation said Ramos repeatedly called the referee shameless.


Obama and Romney Gamble on Wealth Divide

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The complex and fraught politics of wealth and class, undercurrents all along in the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney , are surfacing in increasingly visible ways in the presidential campaign, presenting big risks and opportunities to both sides. The contrasting images of the week could hardly have been more evocative. There was Mr. Obama on Thursday at a carefully scouted location, the Kozy Corners diner in Oak Harbor, Ohio, downing a burger and fries and chatting with a group of working-class voters about pinochle and trips to Disney World. The next day , as he continued a campaign swing, he reminisced about a Greyhound-and-train trip he took around the country with his grandmother when he was 11, staying at Howard Johnson and getting a thrill from leaping into the motel pool and fetching ice from the ice machine. And there was Mitt Romney on Thursday , roaring across Lake Winnipesaukee on a powerboat large enough to hold two dozen members of his family who had gathered for a weeklong vacation at his estate in New Hampshire. On Sunday, Mr. Romney will raise money among wealthy Republicans in the Hamptons, with his final stop a $75,000-per-couple dinner at the home of David Koch, the billionaire industrialist, who with his brother Charles has been among the leading patrons of the conservative movement. It was a vivid manifestation of calculations made by both camps. Mr. Obama and his allies are testing the proposition that they can avoid tripping over the line into a full-tilt attack on the wealthy and still make an aggressive case that Mr. Romney’s success came at the expense of American workers and that the Republican Party is doing the bidding of its wealthy benefactors. Mr. Romney’s bet is that with the economy failing to gain steam and Americans deeply concerned that the nation is on the wrong track, voters will not really care if he jets across a lake on a water scooter during his vacation and once had a Swiss bank account as long as he can credibly promise to spur job creation and economic growth. Implicit and explicit efforts by the president and his inner circle to advance the argument that Mr. Romney is an out-of-touch and rapacious capitalist, in the Romney team’s view, will be seen by voters as a transparent and hypocritical attempt by a group of Democrats, millionaires themselves, to divert attention from Mr. Obama’s failure to preside over more job creation. “I don’t think what they’re talking about is relevant to people’s lives,” said Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mr. Romney’s campaign. “This race is about the economy and Barack Obama ’s responsibility for the economy.” Presidential campaigns are never just about policies or even personalities. They tend to turn as much as anything on values, and the values in this case go to central questions about the psyche of the American electorate in 2012. In an era of populist backlashes against the 1 percent and increased concern about the economic and social ramifications of income inequality , will the long-held assumption that the United States is an aspirational society that admires rather than resents success hold true? At a time when individual billionaires and moneyed interests can play an outsize and often shadowy role in shaping politics and policy, do political leaders have less incentive to put the needs of the poor and the middle class ahead of the agendas of their benefactors? Those questions provide a particular opportunity for Mr. Obama, who is eager to raise the stakes in the election and make it something more than a march through four more months of unemployment and job creation reports. Without explicitly invoking Mr. Romney’s wealth as a reason to oppose him, Democrats have sought to portray him as the embodiment of a kind of capitalism that works only for the megarich. “Mitt Romney made over $100 million by shutting down our plant and devastated our lives,” a worker from a factory closed by Bain Capital , Mr. Romney’s private equity firm, says in an advertisement by Priorities USA Action, the pro-Obama “ super PAC .” That leaves Mr. Obama free to make the more elevated pitch that his policies would give a fair shot to the middle class, while suggesting that Mr. Romney would put the nation on a path back to the policies that brought about widening inequality, stagnant wages and corporate malfeasance. “The viability of the middle class is not a class issue,” said David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s senior adviser. “It’s an American issue.” Polling suggests that the Bain-based attacks on Mr. Romney are filtering through to voters in swing states. But wealth, class and politics are a combustible mix that can blow up in unpredictable ways, and Mr. Obama is not without his vulnerabilities on that score. Like Mr. Romney, he has spent a good part of the campaign prospecting for donations among the 1 percent, rubbing shoulders with Anna Wintour and George Clooney and exhorting his wealthiest backers to give more. Although he canceled plans to spend time on Martha’s Vineyard this summer and is emphasizing his real-guy side on the campaign trail, he has had troubles connecting with the white working-class voters who are likely to decide the election. The question of how hard to press the wealth and class argument has already created splits within the Democratic Party; it was only weeks ago that Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark said the Bain-centered attacks on Mr. Romney were as “nauseating” as attacks on Mr. Obama over his association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his former pastor. Most of all, even Mr. Obama’s inner circle seems cognizant of the risks of making wealth an issue. Asked whether Mr. Obama’s emphasis on fairness for the middle class and his contrast with Mr. Romney pushed that line, Mr. Axelrod replied: “It is not right to say that to work for and hope for and fight for some basic economic security means that you resent people who’ve done very, very well.” Mr. Romney even invoked the aspiration defense when asked about his vacation on Friday. “I hope that more Americans are able to take vacations,” he told reporters after criticizing Mr. Obama’s record on job creation. “And if I’m president of the United States, I’m going to work very hard to make sure we have good jobs for all Americans who want good jobs — and, as part of a good job, the capacity to take a vacation every now and then with their loved ones.” But Mr. Romney faces the challenge of appealing to the middle class as head of a party that is increasingly reliant on wealthy interests that are powering super PACs and other outside groups advertising heavily on behalf of Republicans. His stewardship of Bain brought populist-themed attacks from within his own party during the primary season. His own words — challenging a rival to a $10,000 bet, citing friendships with Nascar owners, casually mentioning his ownership of “a couple of Cadillacs” and asserting that “corporations are people” — have given Democrats ample fodder to portray him as detached from the anxieties of middle-class life. In a New York Times/CBS News poll in April, 34 percent of respondents said Mr. Romney was someone they could relate to; the figure for Mr. Obama was 47 percent. “Being rich is not a problem,” said Bob Shrum, a Democratic consultant who helped Senator Edward M. Kennedy defeat Mr. Romney in their 1994 Senate race in Massachusetts. “Being rich and out of touch is a problem.” Mr. Romney’s campaign has pushed back hard against some of the wealth-themed attacks, which have included assertions that at Bain he enriched himself by promoting the outsourcing of American jobs. Increasingly the Romney campaign is turning Mr. Obama’s attacks back on him by suggesting that the president is in denial about his record and is out of touch with the economic strains felt by most Americans. “They just can’t come to grips with the reality of what’s happening out there and the president’s responsibility for it,” said Mr. Stevens, the campaign strategist. But for the most part, Mr. Romney has tried to refocus attention on the economy and avoid tussles that detract from his central message that Mr. Obama has failed. Some Republicans say his strategy amounts to a low-risk, run-out-the-clock approach that could give Democrats more room to define him on their terms. “It just seems there’s been a hole in Romney’s biography that invites this stuff,” said Nelson Warfield, a Republican strategist who last worked on the presidential campaign of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. “It invites a shorthand: He’s the fat cat from the Monopoly board who has stacks of cash and doesn’t care about someone like me,” he said. “How effective it will be, I don’t know. But my suspicion is it probably works because the Obama people are pretty smart and there’s got to be a reason they’re doing it.”

Presidential Election of 2012
Obama Barack
Romney Mitt
Bain Capital
Political Advertising
United States Economy


Odors on PATH Trains Tease the Senses

Abstract: There comes a moment for riders of the PATH train, a shared, unspoken experience when the air is pierced by a distinct odor. Sometimes it hits while descending from the street to the station. Sometimes it strikes inside the train. Then just when the nose adjusts, another distinctive smell emerges as the train goes beneath the Hudson River. For decades, PATH riders have wondered about the smells of their trains. Brian J. Cudahy mentioned the smells in his 1975 book, “Rails Under the Mighty Hudson.” He speculated that PATH stations smelled different from New York City subway stations because they tend to be deeper underground, and posited that a moldy odor could be caused by Hudson River water seepage into the tunnels. The only thing he could confirm was that it was distinctive. “If you had me blindfolded in 1950 and you walked me into Hudson Terminal, I would have known where I was,” Mr. Cudahy said in an interview. That is because while the subways “always had the smell of brake shoes,” PATH trains smelled of “a touch of dampness.” No one really knows why PATH trains smell the way they do. New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trains also pass under the Hudson yet do not have the same issues. PATH riders say, perhaps a bit defensively, that no matter how bad it gets during their ride, the subway is far worse. And yet, there is no denying their own predicament. “What is that smell?” Bryan Ulrich asked as he settled onto a PATH bench at the 33rd Street station and waited for a Hoboken-bound train. He sniffed and searched for words. “Mold and chemicals? Something unpleasant? At least it doesn’t smell like urine.” A more precise answer might be available from Larry Sunshine, president of Plasma Air International, which tries to smooth over unpleasant smells from apartment buildings, schools and airports. Mr. Sunshine, whose experience includes helping to remove smells coming from toilets on 300 train cars in Sydney, Australia, accepted an invitation to try to identify the odors peculiar to PATH trains. He eagerly arrived at the 33rd Street PATH station, and immediately identified ammonia after stepping into the terminal and spotting the sparkling floors. Minutes later, Mr. Sunshine suffered from what can be one of the perils of olfactory identification: he adjusted to the scent and it no longer bothered him. “I know I’m not in a flower patch,” he said. “You get used to it very quickly.” That changed as soon as he boarded a Hoboken-bound car. He curled up his nostrils, rolled back his eyes and lapsed into unflappable concentration. “I smell something here,” he said. “It’s some chemicals.” He glanced down at the car’s scratch-free, shiny blue seats and asked a PATH official rapid-fire questions about the car’s age. Then he had his answer: The smell was from the new plastic seats and the newly printed advertising posters. He noticed that PATH trains smell different from PATH stations. At every Manhattan stop he jumped up and identified smells like “mildewy steam” and “lack of ventilation.” Just inside the Hudson River tunnel, these smells seemed to blend together. Mr. Sunshine’s ears popped from the air pressure, and his face contorted with curiosity. The new-plastic smell was overwhelmed by an even more potent odor that he said he often eliminates from the basements of homes and schools. “I smell that mildewy, moldy — it’s definitely organic,” Mr. Sunshine said. A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said that PATH was in the process of replacing its 350-car fleet, which explains the new-car smell. He emphasized that the agency did everything it could to give its customers a comfortable experience, even if the tunnels could not be lined with roses. Mr. Sunshine made a point of noting that the smells did not seem to be hazardous, but he acknowledged that their origins were more puzzling than those found on the subway. When he stepped out of the PATH terminal back at 33rd Street and into a subway station, he had no trouble identifying the scents around him. With a heightened degree of confidence, he said, “It smells like French fries.”


Iraqi Christians Flee Mosul in the Wake of Attacks

Abstract: BAGHDAD — A church in the northern city of Mosul was bombed Tuesday as Christians continued to leave the city to escape recent violence that has been directed at them. Several church leaders accused the Iraqi government of trying to cover up the extent of the problems facing Christians there and of overstating its success in improving security in Mosul, one of the country’s most volatile cities. As the government announced plans on Tuesday to send officials to Mosul to assist the Christian community, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr , who is believed to be in Iran, sent some of his most senior aides from the holy Shiite city of Najaf to Baghdad to meet with church leaders in an expression of solidarity. “For Christians in Mosul this is a time for tears, because from the beginning we did not get support, least of all from state officials,” Msgr. Shlemon Warduni, the auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Patriarchate, told the Shiite delegation during a meeting on Tuesday at the Virgin Mary Church in eastern Baghdad. “The government acted only belatedly,” he said. One of Mr. Sadr’s representatives at the meeting, Sheik Muhanned al-Gharrawi, said that he had just spoken to Mr. Sadr by telephone and that he was instructed to convey a message from his leader: “We will not hesitate to turn into human shields for our Christian brothers if need be.” Another Shiite cleric, Hazem al-Araji, said that some of the families that had fled Mosul to predominantly Christian villages in the Nineveh Plain, northeast of the city, sought the protection of his movement. “We told them that we cannot provide military help but that we will exert pressure on the government,” Mr. Araji said. He added that his movement would send trucks with food, mattresses and blankets to aid displaced families. Mr. Sadr’s followers say their militia, the Mahdi Army, has been dismantled. Both Monsignor Warduni and a Christian community leader, Iyad al-Ashouri, accused the Iraqi government, notably the Ministry of Defense, of belittling the extent of the crisis in Mosul. The government, which ordered additional forces to Mosul on Sunday, said in a statement that it was sending a ministerial delegation there to “address the problems and needs of our Christian brothers.” On Tuesday, a homemade bomb placed at the door of the Miskinta Church in the Old City district of Mosul detonated and caused some damage to the building but no casualties, Monsignor Warduni said. Security officials in Mosul confirmed the episode, the first known attack on a Christian site on the city’s west side since a wave of attacks against Christians began in late September. Most of the violence has been on the east side of the city. Ramzi Mikha, a Christian member of the Nineveh provincial council, said that although the pace of Christians leaving Mosul had slowed on Tuesday, dozens were still leaving, with some heading to the relative safety of some neighborhoods in Baghdad. It is unclear who is responsible for the attacks. Some Arab politicians have blamed the Kurds; Kurdish politicians have said that former Baathists and “terrorists” are responsible. Five Sunni insurgent groups issued separate statements over the past few days disavowing the attacks, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militants’ Web sites. The Rev. Nadheer Dakko of the St. Georges Chaldean Church in the Ghadeer neighborhood of Baghdad, who is also acting as a liaison for various Christian groups, said he had compiled a list of 1,795 families who had left Mosul since late September. He said 10 families had come from Mosul to his church seeking food, supplies and shelter. Shukria Youssef, a member of the St. Georges congregation whose sister is a nun at an orphanage in Mosul, said many of the Christians remaining in the city were destitute and could not afford to leave. “As long as there are people my sister and the other nuns will not leave,” she said. “They consider themselves spiritual soldiers.” Haitham Haazem, a Christian who fled to Baghdad from Mosul with his wife on Sunday, said Iraqi forces had restricted themselves to fixed checkpoints and had little control over entire neighborhoods on the east side, where killings and intimidations took place. In other developments, an American soldier was killed Tuesday in an attack while he was on patrol in western Baghdad, the United States military said in a statement. In London, Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, met on Monday with representatives of 35 oil companies that have qualified to bid on long-term service contracts at six major oil fields and two gas fields. The winning bids will be announced next summer. Major foreign oil companies are returning to Iraq 36 years after losing concessions when the industry was nationalized.

Mosul (Iraq)
Christians and Christianity
Religion and Churches
Sadr Moktada Al-
Iraq War (2003- )


Derek Jeter’s House Is a Hot Topic

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — If Derek Jeter owns the largest home in Hillsborough County, then he probably has the most garbage, right? Well, not yet. On Friday morning, only three green trash receptacles and two blue recycle bins sat by the curb outside Jeter’s house. “It’s about the same amount” as at nearby homes, said a sanitation worker who gave her name only as Brenda. “It’s a big house, but he don’t have no yard.” Lloyd Foster, who drove the City of Tampa garbage truck, added: “No yard, but a six-car garage? I want to know how many people live in that house.” At least one. A Yankees spokesman said Jeter was living in the house, located on Davis Islands, a few minutes south of downtown Tampa. The 30,875-square-foot mansion, which overlooks Hillsborough Bay, features seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a pool, two boat lifts, a drive-through portico and a pair of three-car garages flanking the north and south ends of the property. Jeter is a famously private individual, willing to discuss all matters related to baseball but making most off-the-field queries off limits. His home, which has generated dozens of articles in local newspapers in the past few years, drew national attention last week when the Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner remarked that some players were “too busy building mansions” last season and not concentrating enough on winning. Steinbrenner added that he was not singling out anyone, but the remark was interpreted as directed at Jeter, a Tampa resident since 1994. Steinbrenner subsequently backed off his comments , and Jeter played down the situation, saying, “I don’t think my name came out of his mouth.” Still, the question remained: how big is The House That Jeter Built? Well, it is slightly smaller than an average Best Buy electronics store, and twice as big as the late owner George Steinbrenner’s 13,480-square-foot house in South Tampa. Rodney Kite-Powell, curator for the Tampa Bay History Center, said Jeter’s house was bigger than all but two of the original 1920s-era apartment/hotel buildings originally built on Davis Islands. Tampa Bay Manager Joe Maddon joked that if Jeter sold the property, the Rays could build a stadium on the site. “We could actually play there,” Maddon said Saturday from Port Charlotte, Fla. All right, so it’s not that big, it does not have its own ZIP code and does not receive an electoral vote, but that has not stopped Tampa residents from referring to the mansion as St. Jetersburg. To build the home, which sits on three lots , Jeter’s corporation, Kered Connors L.L.C. , bought the adjacent lots on Bahama Circle in 2005 and 2006. The developer paid $7.7 million for the properties. Since construction began last year, the house has become a tourist attraction of sorts. On Thursday night, Patty Fields was walking past a few of the restaurants and bars that line Davis Boulevard, the quasi main street of Davis Islands, when two women stumbled out of one of the establishments. “They came out and said, ‘Now we have to go find Jeter’s house,’ ” Fields said. Fields works the morning shift at a 7-Eleven less than a mile from Jeter’s house. She said she used to have “five or six” customers a day ask for directions to Jeter’s house. “I just send them in the general direction,” Fields said. “Find the water over there, you’ll find it.” The influx of sightseers prompted the city to post signs saying, “5 minute parking, City Code 15-43,” on a tree and telephone pole across the street. Larry Dougherty, a 47-year-old lawyer who lives opposite the compound, said Jeter was a quiet neighbor. “I haven’t talked to him, but one of our neighbors met him and said he was pleasant,” Dougherty said. Because of Jeter’s privacy and security concerns, he wanted a six-foot wall built around the house, requiring a variance because it was two feet taller than allowed by a city ordinance. The Davis Islands Civic Association board voted, 12 to 6, to oppose the request for the variance, but Tampa’s seven-member variance board voted unanimously to allow the exemption for the fence. The six-foot wall has provided yet another nickname for the mansion: The Great Wall of Jeter. Since construction began, Jeter has rarely discussed his house. Even last year, when asked about the building, he told reporters, “I’m not going to talk about that.” A Yankees spokesman added, “No more questions about the fence around his house, either.” Three other Yankees — Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Nick Swisher — own million-dollar homes north of Tampa in the exclusive gated and guarded enclave in Lutz. Francisco Cervelli and Curtis Granderson own south Tampa condominiums, according to the Hillsborough County property appraiser’s Web site. Rivera owns two homes, with the larger one (9,250 square feet, seven bedrooms, seven full bathrooms, three half-baths, five-car garage) listed for sale for $8.990 million. Only a mile away is Posada’s 9,788-square-foot home (six bedrooms, six full bathrooms, two half-baths, five-car garage), for sale for $6.495 million. None of those, however, compare with Hillsborough County’s Hearst Castle. Tom McEwen, the 87-year-old former sports editor and columnist for The Tampa Tribune, lives a mile south of Jeter on Hillsborough Bay, the northeast arm of Tampa Bay. “I just think it’s wonderful,” said McEwen, one of George Steinbrenner’s closest friends. “I haven’t heard any complaints about it. My view is just as good as Jeter’s — there’s just not as much of it.” Kite-Powell, 38, a native of Tampa, said visitors to the Tampa Bay History Center occasionally asked about Jeter’s house. “I’ve also seen people taking photos of it from the sidewalk along Bayshore Boulevard,” Kite-Powell said, referring to a street located across Hillsborough Bay. “If only Carl Crawford had the connection to Tampa that Jeter seems to have.”

Jeter Derek
Mansions
New York Yankees
Tampa (Fla)
Florida
Housing and Real Estate


India’s Nuclear Pact With U.S. Near Completion

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India ’s prime minister went to the Group of 8 summit meeting in Japan on Monday with his government intact and enough political strength to complete a landmark nuclear agreement with the United States, ending months of speculation that either his government or the agreement, on which he has staked his reputation, would collapse. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh , told reporters traveling with him to the summit meeting that his administration would “soon” complete an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, though he did not offer a date, his spokesman, Sanjaya Baru, said here. Mr. Baru added that the text of an agreement was near completion, and that India could swiftly finish it and go on to secure approval from the 45 member nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Only after those two steps have been completed can the United States Congress vote on the final agreement. A Congressional delegation came here last week to urge India to hurry it along, so that Congress could vote on the deal in early September. The nuclear agreement would allow India access to nuclear fuel and technology on the world market. Mr. Singh’s comments on Monday were the first in many months to sound a note of political confidence. His Congress Party-led coalition government has been beleaguered by a difficult political choice: going through with the nuclear deal would mean losing the vital support of its Communist allies and in turn its majority in Parliament. The Communists have resolutely opposed the nuclear deal, on the ground that it would fortify strategic ties with the United States. Saving the deal required a political gamble. Late last week, Mr. Singh’s administration secured the support of an old rival, a north Indian faction called the Samajwadi Party, and in so doing, seems to have preserved its majority in Parliament and deferred early elections, which it can hardly afford at a time of rising food and fuel prices and growing public disaffection. “He said the government is not afraid to face the Parliament, we have the numbers,” Mr. Baru quoted the prime minister as saying, adding that Mr. Singh continued to hope that the Communists would “see reason” and lend their support to the deal. That is unlikely. The Communist parties are expected to withdraw their backing of the government in the coming days. Mr. Singh’s successful maneuver on the nuclear agreement does not diminish the government’s other problems. It continues to be buffeted by economic woes, along with a range of political fires across the country. A Congress Party-led government collapsed on Monday in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir. The crisis in that Muslim-majority state had nothing to do with the nuclear agreement. It stemmed instead from a bitter dispute over using government land for temporary camps for Hindu pilgrims. But it signaled a setback for the Congress Party, which now governs only 9 of India’s 28 states, and ushered in the election season in earnest. Analysts said that the bargaining over the nuclear agreement may cost the Congress Party the next national election, and that it had already weakened the administration and the prime minister’s personal credibility. “Hanging back on the deal has cost it its aura of authority, and has damaged the standing of the P.M.,” said Salman Haidar, a retired Indian diplomat. “It’s legacy time for him: no other way of restoring his position than to push for the deal, even at this stage.”

India
Singh Manmohan
International Atomic Energy Agency
Group of Eight
Congress Party
Atomic Energy
Legislatures and Parliaments
Summit Conferences


New Guidelines for Handling Athletes With Concussions

Abstract: The American Academy of Neurology said Monday that it had revised its guidelines for handling concussions to emphasize treating athletes case by case rather than according to a predetermined scale. The move brings the group more in line with best practices followed by the N.F.L. and other leagues and associations, and it essentially acknowledges that concussions are too idiosyncratic to be categorized neatly. “We’ve moved away from the concussion grading systems we first established in 1997 and are now recommending concussion and return to play be assessed in each athlete individually,” said Christopher C. Giza, a doctor at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Mattel Children’s Hospital at U.C.L.A. and one of the lead authors of the new guidelines. “There is no set timeline for safe return to play.” Concussions, Giza and other authors of the report said, are clinical diagnoses. “Symptom checklists, the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC), neuropsychological testing (paper-and-pencil and computerized) and the Balance Error Scoring System may be helpful tools in diagnosing and managing concussions but should not be used alone for making a diagnosis.” The revised recommendations were announced at the academy’s annual meeting in San Diego on Monday, and they have been published in Neurology, the medical journal of the academy, which includes more than 25,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals. In noting that more than a million American athletes experienced concussions each year, the authors of the study noted that the risk of concussion was greatest in football and rugby, followed by hockey and soccer, and that the risk of concussion for young women and girls was greatest in soccer and basketball. Critically, the authors found “no clear evidence that one type of football helmet can better protect against concussion over another kind of helmet.” Signs and symptoms of a concussion include headaches; sensitivity to light and sound; changes in reaction time, balance and coordination; changes in memory, judgment, speech and sleep; and loss of consciousness or blackouts. The guidelines recommend that athletes suspected of having a concussion should be immediately removed from play. “If in doubt, sit it out,” said Jeffrey S. Kutcher, a doctor at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor and a member of the academy. “You only get one brain; treat it well.”

Concussion
American Academy of Neurology
Football
Sports
Neurology Journal


Pakistan Christians Issue Call for Protection

Abstract: LONDON — With its Muslim-style minarets topped by a large black cross, the All Saints Church in Peshawar has for more than a century offered a daring architectural expression of Muslim-Christian harmony and cohabitation. This is how the Taliban destroyed it: two suicide bombers rushed the church doors as worshipers streamed out on Sunday. One attacker exploded his vest inside, the other just outside. The death toll had risen to 85 by Monday evening, when Christians across the country protested the worst atrocity their community has suffered in Pakistan’s history. Crowds blocked roads, burned tires and waved wooden crosses as they marched in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. Many shouted demands for government protection, while voicing skepticism about whether Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government could stave off attacks. Mission schools announced they would close for three days. For government critics, the atrocity highlighted the continuing failure of the state to protect minorities against hate attacks. Hundreds of Shiites, in particular, have been killed in devastating attacks over the past year. But it also further stirred a debate about a recent political decision to start peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, billed as an attempt to stem the bloodshed. Image The burial on Monday of a victim of the church attack, in which 135 were wounded. Credit Arshad Arbab/European Pressphoto Agency “Pakistan’s politicians are failing at the most basic of questions — about what kind of Pakistan they want to shape and lead,” said Cyril Almeida, a writer with Dawn newspaper. “Whether out of sympathy, fear or cowardice, no one is willing to stand up to radical Islamists and say: ‘No, enough is enough. We are taking our country back.’ ” Christians in Pakistan already contend with deep-rooted prejudice. Most are poor and traditionally carry out menial work like sweeping street garbage and cleaning sewers. Muslim mobs, enraged by rumors of blasphemy, occasionally rampage through Christian slums, and have burned hundreds of houses. Extremists killed the Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti in early 2011. Still, Sunday’s attack touched a raw nerve across sectarian lines. Clerical organizations and all major political parties issued statements of condemnation. On Monday, Parliament passed a resolution condemning the bombing as “an attack on Pakistan.” Perhaps the sharpest political fallout has been felt by Imran Khan, the former cricket star who has long urged a truce with the Taliban and whose political party runs Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, where the bombing took place. On Sunday, Mr. Khan, who is more used to adulation at his appearances, was jeered by Christians with cries of “shame” and “Imran is a dog” at a Peshawar hospital where victims were being treated. Visibly rattled, Mr. Khan claimed the hostile reception had been whipped up by his political rivals. But he couched his reaction in vague terms, saying he condemned “whoever carried out the bombing.” (Some other Pakistani politicians went further in suggesting that the bombing had not been by the Taliban, but instead had been engineered to sabotage the prospects of talks with the militants.) Deadly Attack at Pakistan Church 10 Photos View Slide Show › Image Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press Mr. Khan also stuck by his longstanding support for peace talks. “There are only two solutions: either fight or have dialogue,” he said. Mr. Khan’s stance has become mainstream, with most major parties supporting negotiations. But that has led to tensions with the military leadership, which has given conflicting signals about its stance. The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, supported a recent all-parties conference that authorized Mr. Sharif’s government to initiate talks. But the army is also furious at the killing of a two-star general in a Taliban ambush near the Afghan border a week ago. Recent statements suggest the military high command’s enthusiasm for talks is wavering. While officials are mired in the debate, the Taliban and their allies have kept up their campaign of violence. Over the past year, militants have stepped up attacks against Shiites and other religious sects, continued a drive to close girls’ schools, targeted the military and police, and deeply bloodied liberal political parties before the May elections. Now, the bombing at the church, which is a member of the Church of Pakistan and part of the Anglican Communion, stands as a fresh reminder that the Taliban have been happy to drive deeper wedges into any division Pakistan presents. “This was an attack on everyone who doesn’t subscribe to obscurantist agendas,” read an editorial in The News, a daily newspaper, on Monday. “We have remained silent for far too long, and silence now will have blood on its hands.”

Pakistan Terrorism Taliban Christianity Bombs


Economic Data Points To a Steady Fed Policy

Abstract: WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A range of economic data on Thursday like claims for unemployment benefits, factory activity and consumer prices pointed to a still-tepid recovery and supported the argument for the Federal Reserve to maintain its monetary stimulus. The Fed is currently buying $85 billion in bonds a month and has said it would keep up purchases until the labor market outlook improves substantially, although officials are increasingly divided over the wisdom of that course. “The economy is in a holding pattern. It’s not going to strengthen sufficiently to justify an end of the current program,” said Millan Mulraine, senior economist at TD Securities. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 20,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 362,000, unwinding the bulk of the previous week’s decline, the Labor Department said. A second report from the department showed that consumer prices were flat for a second consecutive month in January as gasoline prices fell and the cost of food held steady. In the 12 months through January, consumer prices rose 1.6 percent, the smallest gain since July, suggesting there was little inflation pressure to worry the Fed. News on the manufacturing sector, which has supported the economy’s recovery from the 2007-9 recession, was downbeat. The Philadelphia Fed’s business activity index dropped to minus 12.5 in February, the lowest level since June. The index, which measures factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region, had fallen to minus 5.8 in January. A reading below zero indicates contraction in the region’s manufacturing sector. The survey covers factories in eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. The American economy braked sharply in the fourth quarter, but grew at a 2.2 percent clip for the full year. Output is being hampered by lackluster demand as employment struggles to gain traction. Job growth has been far less than the at least 250,000 a month over a sustained period that economists say is needed to significantly reduce the ranks of unemployed. The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 7.9 percent in January. Last week’s data on initial jobless claims covered the survey period for the government’s closely watched monthly tally of nonfarm jobs. Jobless claims were up 27,000 between the January and February survey periods. However, the increase probably does not suggest any material change in the pace of job growth given that claims have been very volatile since January because of difficulties smoothing the data for seasonal fluctuations. Despite the weak factory and jobs data, there is reason for optimism about the economy. The housing market recovery is gaining momentum. A report from the National Association of Realtors showed existing home sales rose 0.4 percent last month, pushing the supply of homes on the market to a 13-year low. The median home price rose 12.3 percent from a year ago. Although consumer prices excluding food and energy rose 0.3 percent — the largest gain since May 2011 — most of that reflected outsize increases in apparel and education costs. “January is a tough month because you get a lot of price hikes at the start of the new year and the seasonals have a hard time sort of adjusting,” said Omair Sharif, an economist at RBS. “I don’t expect the core C.P.I. to maintain that pace of increase in the near-term.” The Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.2 percent in January to 94.1, after an 0.5 percent increase in December.

Jobs
Unemployment benefits
US Economy
Federal Reserve


Liberty Inn Focuses on Romantic Moments, by the Hour

Abstract: MAYBE you’ve seen it: the triangular three-story brick building at the west end of 14th Street. The peculiar location, on an isolated block beside the West Side Highway, allows for easy access by car, and maximum discretion. Inside the lobby, the concierge sits behind a pane of bulletproof glass. A vending machine displays boxes of condoms and bottles of lubricant beside packs of Oreos and Skittles. Every so often, luggageless couples inquire about a room. This is the Liberty Inn , the last of the meatpacking district’s hourly-rate hotels; in 2008, New York magazine called it “unabashedly the place to go for some afternoon delight.” Robert Boyd, who has managed the establishment since 1977, prefers the term “romance hotel.” “We take in your everyday business and travel clientele,” he said. “But we focus on couples looking for a romantic moment, if you will.” Such couples tend to behave a bit awkwardly at first: stifling giggles and carefully avoiding eye contact with others as they wait in the lobby or the Bar and Cafe — a six-stool niche the size of a master bathroom. Overnights are available for $180, but short stays are more popular. Visitors can rent a room for two hours for $60, or three hours for $70. Because of the small number of units — 30 — and the rapid turnover, which keeps the housekeeping staff on its toes, no reservations are taken. During a visit on a recent Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Boyd showed off one of the Romantic Interlude Rooms, which go for an extra $15. These have two-person whirlpool tubs, dramatic wall and ceiling mirrors, nude-themed artwork and neon mood lighting. “A lot of hourly-rate hotels in Manhattan have been bought by developers and turned into better hotels or apartment complexes,” Mr. Boyd said. The Liberty, at 51 10th Avenue, has survived partly because the management owns the building, but also because Mr. Boyd has always made a commitment to civility. That has been no easy task. Until 1986, the hotel shared its first floor with the Anvil, a gay club known for its live sex shows. Transvestite prostitutes crowded the streets at night. “The ’80s and ’90s were terrible around here,” Mr. Boyd said. “It was difficult to attract a regular clientele.” Today the Liberty stands half a block from designer boutiques and the High Line elevated park. The management is adapting to the area’s new demographics by updating the décor. On the third floor, carpenters were installing varnished floorboards in place of the carpet. (“It’s the most sanitary way to go,” Mr. Boyd whispered.) Management plans to replace the floral bedspreads with duvet covers, and the nude paintings with something “more current,” Mr. Boyd said. The hotel is impeccably clean. West-facing windows — soundproofed against West Side Highway traffic — offer unobstructed views of the Hudson River. “We watched the fireworks from the roof on the Fourth of July,” Mr. Boyd said, gazing out toward New Jersey. No need for advertising; word-of-mouth and the buzz from blogs bring in plenty of couples. For Valentine’s Day the marketing campaign was low key. “We don’t have to do much,” Mr. Boyd said. “It’s always our busiest day of the year.”

Hotels and Motels
Meatpacking District (NYC)
Sex


Report in India Rape Case Condemns Nation’s Treatment of Women

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Women in India face systemic discrimination and are regularly confronted with sexual harassment and violence, even as the police often fail to provide protection and the government has failed to enforce laws and policies intended to safeguard women’s rights, according to a scathing special report released on Wednesday. The government report, drafted in response to the deadly gang rape of a young woman last month in New Delhi, amounted to a broad and damning indictment of the treatment of women by India’s democratic institutions. It also was intended as a call to action: the three-person commission, led by a former chief justice of India’s Supreme Court, challenged Parliament to act swiftly on its recommendations. “We have submitted the report in 29 days,” the retired chief justice, J.S. Verma, said during a nationally televised news conference, noting that the commissioners worked quickly in order to present their findings before Parliament next meets in February. “If we are able to do it in half the time available, the government, with its might and resources, should also act fast.” The commission recommended a number of far-reaching changes. Among them were requiring police officers to register every case of reported rape; punishing crimes like stalking and voyeurism with prison terms; changing the humiliating medical examinations endured by rape victims; re-examining every appointed state police chief in the country; cracking down on extralegal village councils, known as khap panchayats, which often issue edicts against women; and making new legal requirements so it is much more difficult for people charged with criminal offenses to hold political office. India does not lack adequate laws on sexual violence or gender bias, the commissioners found, but rather lacks the political and bureaucratic will to enforce them. “Failure of good governance is the obvious root cause for the current unsafe environment eroding the rule of law, and not the want of needed legislation,” the report said. India’s government has often proved immutable to calls for progressive reform. Over the years, different commissions have issued recommendations on a variety of subjects, only to see their reports gather dust. Indeed, even a major 2006 Supreme Court ruling calling for significant changes in policing remains largely stalled, with its recommendations far from being put in place. Video A special report on women’s rights and sexual assault in India after the death of a young woman who was raped in New Delhi by several men in a moving bus. But public outrage over the brutal Dec. 16 gang rape of a young woman on a private bus moving through New Delhi has remained fierce, prompting political leaders to promise swift action. The trial of the five adult defendants in the case is expected to begin as soon as Thursday in a new fast-track court. Moreover, many lawmakers have promised legislative changes to address shortcomings in policing and gender bias. “Women must enjoy freedom,” said Leila Seth, herself a former Supreme Court justice and one of the commission’s three members, speaking at the news conference. “The state must practice equality.” The commission, with Justice Verma as chairman, was created last month by India’s Home Ministry and charged with making recommendations to improve laws dealing with sexual violence. Justice Verma said that public interest was extremely high and that the commission received more than 80,000 suggestions. He praised the youthful protesters whose demonstrations over the rape case created mounting pressure on the government. Rather than focusing on narrow changes in criminal law, the commission’s sweeping report goes beyond the issue of rape to assess widespread discrimination against women, societal biases against daughters, workplace sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, the trafficking of women and children and the deep-rooted problems with Indian policing. In particular, the commission said that many states still needed to comply with the 2006 Supreme Court ruling, which, among other mandates, called for eliminating political influence over police departments, notably in the appointment of police chiefs. Moreover, the commission called on the police to prevent stalking and other harassment on public transportation and urged the construction of separate facilities inside police precincts for women and improved officer training for investigating sex crimes. But, most of all, the commission urged what it called holistic changes, including nationwide education campaigns on gender equity and related issues. Indeed, blame was not affixed solely on the Indian state. Justice Verma said the Dec. 16 rape case also exposed a shameful public apathy, noting that many motorists drove past the half-naked victim and her beaten male friend after the suspects had dumped them on the side of a busy highway. “The nation has to account for the tears of millions of women,” the report concluded.

India
Women and Girls
Women's rights,Feminism
Rape
Discrimination
Sexual harassment