For Senator Lieberman, an Exit Forged in Alienation

Abstract: Perhaps no one could claim credit for Senator Joseph I. Lieberman ’s decision not to seek a fifth term more than Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal blog Daily Kos . In 2006, Mr. Moulitsas mobilized like-minded Democrats to try to unseat Mr. Lieberman as punishment for supporting the Iraq war and for being too accommodating to President George W. Bush . Mr. Moulitsas even appeared in television commercials with Ned Lamont , the antiwar liberal who defeated Mr. Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary that year (only to lose to Mr. Lieberman, running as an independent, in the general election). On Wednesday, as Mr. Lieberman gave an upbeat valedictory speech, surrounded by 200 supporters at a hotel in his hometown, Stamford, Conn., Mr. Moulitsas took a few self-congratulatory bows of his own. “Remember when kicking Lieberman out of the Democratic Party was going to cost Democrats the support of moderates, Jewish voters and Eeyores everywhere?” Mr. Moulitsas wrote on his blog, less than two hours after Mr. Lieberman left the stage in the hotel ballroom. “And then the Democrats won everything for two cycles in a row.” The don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out digital send-off was a needless but effective reminder of just how badly Mr. Lieberman’s ties to his former party had been frayed, how influential the “netroots” had become and how hostile the political environment has been lately to his brand of middle-of-the-road politics. Mr. Lieberman barely alluded to this in his speech, saying only that “I have not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes — Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative.” The senator looked past the bad blood with Democrats, back all the way to John F. Kennedy , who he said had inspired him to pursue public service. He said Kennedy’s principles — “service to country, support of civil rights and social justice, pro-growth economic and tax policies, and a strong national defense” — were still his politics. “So maybe that means J.F.K. wouldn’t fit neatly into any of today’s partisan political boxes either,” Mr. Lieberman ventured. To his supporters, that is precisely the point: the party left Mr. Lieberman behind, not the other way around. John Droney, a former Connecticut State Democratic chairman and confidant of Mr. Lieberman’s, recalled the moment when Mr. Moulitsas and other left-wing activists seemed to overtake the primary process in 2006, elevating Mr. Lamont’s profile into a national cause célèbre and even deterring some political professionals from working on Mr. Lieberman’s re-election campaign. “It happened in a nanosecond,” Mr. Droney said. And, he added, such liberals have retained control of the primary nominating process ever since. “The Average Joe Democrat doesn’t know where to go,” he said. “We’ve become a party with no center.” Yet, if the party pushed him away, Mr. Droney conceded, Mr. Lieberman kept moving, embittered by the 2006 primary rejection. “After that happens, Joe’s very upset,” Mr. Droney said. “He says: ‘Wait a minute, I got out of Yale Law School, I was one of the youngest state senators, I was majority leader, I ran for Congress, I was the first activist attorney general, I was elected to the United States Senate in a very difficult election against Lowell Weicker, I served my country well, I ran for vice president and actually was elected by the popular vote and, now, because these people don’t like my foreign-policy position, they’re supposed to ignore 30 years? No way!’ And he resented it, and it’s been reflected ever since.” If insiders were acutely aware of Mr. Lieberman’s alienation, ordinary voters sensed it, too. Marion Percy, 54, a receptionist who lives in Stamford and described herself as a political centrist, said Mr. Lieberman’s decision to run as an independent in 2006 after losing the primary was a turning point in her opinion of him. “I felt like it wasn’t about the issues anymore,” Ms. Percy said. And Michele Beudert, 61, a nurse from Greenwich who counts herself as a longtime Lieberman supporter, said that in recent years, he had not backed Democratic causes like health care the way she had grown to expect. Ms. Beudert said she voted for Mr. Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary and again in the general election, only to lose faith as he sided more and more with Republicans. “I think he turned his back on me,” she said of Mr. Lieberman’s sporadic but high-profile breaks with his old party since 2006 — including his McCain endorsement, his opposition to a public option in President Obama ’s health care bill and his surprising death blow to a Medicare buy-in option that he had once supported. “He just felt like a little boy who hadn’t gotten his way, and we’d given him his way,” Ms. Beudert said. “He didn’t get his way, and then the Democrats of this state supported him, and I think he disappointed us. I’m not sad to see him go.” Mr. Moulitsas, in an interview by e-mail, said this was the heart of Mr. Lieberman’s problem: “The voters back home couldn’t stand his shenanigans, and that’s why he quit.” He wrote, “What we saw today was a concession speech, not a retirement one.” As for Mr. Moulitsas, he had already moved on. On Tuesday night, as news of Mr. Lieberman’s decision was breaking, Mr. Moulitsas was weighing in on his successor. “ Chris Murphy is THE candidate for CT-Sen in 2012,” he said via Twitter .

Joseph I Lieberman
Senate
Connecticut
US Politics


In Germany, Hannover Sends Bayern Munich to Third Straight Loss

Abstract: Bayern Munich lost its third game in a row to put the future of its Dutch coach, Louis van Gaal, in doubt, falling at Hannover on Saturday, 3-1, in a German Bundesliga match between two teams fighting to qualify for the Champions League. It was Hannover’s third straight win and its fifth game without a loss. It is the first time in more than 10 years than Bayern has lost three games in a row. Mohammed Abdellaoue and Konstantin Rausch gave Hannover a 2-0 lead before Arjen Robben cut the deficit in the 55th minute. Sergio Pinto restored Hannover’s two-goal advantage when goalkeeper Thomas Kraft was unable to hold on to his powerful long-range effort. Bayern defender Breno was sent off in the 73rd. Hannover climbed to second place in the standings, 5 points ahead fifth-place Bayern, pending the outcome of Bayer Leverkusen’s late game against Wolfsburg. Elsewhere, Stuttgart won two games in a row for the first time this season, with a 1-0 home win over 10-man Schalke; Christian Eigler scored four goals as Nuremberg beat visiting St. Pauli, 5-0; Filip Daems scored a penalty and Igor de Camargo sealed a 2-0 win for last-place Borussia Mönchengladbach against visiting Hoffenheim; and Eintracht Frankfurt, which has yet to score in 2011, and winless Kaiserslautern each maintained their unenviable records in a 0-0 draw. SUNDERLAND HOLDS ARSENAL Arsenal’s bid for the English Premier League title was derailed, for now, while West Bromwich Albion and West Ham picked up crucial victories at the other end of the standings. Sunderland’s Belgian goalkeeper, Simon Mignolet, played an inspired match at Emirates Stadium to keep second-place Arsenal at bay in a one-sided match that ended 0-0. League-leading Manchester United, which has played the same number of games as the Gunners, can increase its lead to 6 points if it wins at Liverpool. West Ham eased past Stoke, 3-0, to climb out of the bottom three, replaced by Birmingham which lost at home to its relegation rival West Brom, 3-1. In the other games, Bolton and Fulham both scored late goals to clinch 3-2 wins over Aston Villa and Blackburn; and Everton rallied to win at Newcastle, 2-1. The Gunners will now travel to Spain ahead of the second leg of their Champions League Round of 16 match with Barcelona. CAMERAS ON GOAL LINE IN 2014? Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, said he would welcome the use of goal-line technology at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil if a suitable system can be found. Soccer’s rule-making body agreed on Saturday to extend the technology trial after 10 systems failed to meet FIFA’s requirements last month. Blatter has reversed his opposition to high-tech aids for referees, citing the failure to award a goal to England despite the ball clearly crossing the line in a late-round match against Germany at the 2010 World Cup. He has called it an “immense error.” The goal would have tied the match, 2-2, but Germany went on to win, 4-1. In a bid to eradicate such errors at the 2014 tournament, the International Football Association Board said more tests would take place in games rather than being conducted at FIFA House in Zurich. A decision on goal-line technology is expected in March 2012. “We will go on with the technical experiments and then to bring back this item to the I.F.A.B. meeting next year in London, and then a final decision will be taken,” Blatter said. “If it works definitely, the board will say yes to the technology. And if the board says yes, then there is a no problem, then there should be no problem to have it in 2014.” ROSSI CRITICAL OF SERIE A Italian soccer is stuck in the past, according to Giuseppe Rossi, and that is why Spanish and English clubs have been dominating European competition in recent years. Rossi , a forward who was born in New Jersey but plays for Italy’s national team, has been with clubs in all three leagues. He said that Italian soccer was still playing as if it were the late 1980s or early ’90s, when the Marco van Basten-led A.C. Milan and Juventus had the country at the peak of continental competition. “Time changes, and you have to change with time,” said Rossi, who has four goals in 17 appearances for Italy’s national team and who captained the Azzurri against Romania in November. “You can’t stay with the same idea you had back then.” He added, “You’re always going to watch an English game or a Spanish game before Serie A, and this is because they were both able to evolve.” Inter Milan’s Champions League triumph last season was Italy’s third — A.C. Milan won in 2003 and ’07 — since 1997 in a competition dominated by Spanish and English clubs.

International Federation of Association Football (FIFA)


Ultralight Voter Turnout in Democratic Primary Runoff

Abstract: Inside the gold-tiled assembly room at Public School 108 in the Bronx on Tuesday, 31 poll workers, their blue pens out and white notebooks open, waited for a burst of democracy that never arrived. For 15 hours, they swapped medical histories and lasagna recipes. They sneaked outside for a smoke, or two. They traded neighborhood gossip and baby photos. “That’s my great-granddaughter,” explained one poll worker, Margaret Nigro, as she flipped through images on an iPhone , taking advantage of an idle moment, one of many. “She’s 2 ½.” “Modern technology,” marveled a colleague, Patricia Trainor. “Isn’t that something.” As for the small matter of voters? “What voters?” another poll worker, Mary Sicilia, said with a smile. “We don’t need half these people,” she said of her colleagues, who nodded in agreement. “It’s dead. What’s the point?” Tuesday was an election day in this teeming metropolis, a fact that most New York City voters either forgot or ignored. In a political season of anticlimax, it seemed impossible to sink below the record low turnout of the Sept. 15 Democratic primary: 11 percent of registered Democrats. Somehow the city’s Democratic voters seemed poised to rise to the challenge for the runoff. P.S. 108 is a polling station in the Morris Park neighborhood in a district with 10,000 eligible Democratic voters. By the time the polls closed at 9 p.m., 15 hours after they opened, 124 voters had cast ballots. That’s 1 percent of eligible voters, about 8 per hour. Joe Parone, 81, a retired sanitation worker, arrived around 2:30 p.m. with his wife, Lorraine. “They were so happy to see me,” he said. “We were the only people in there.” Taking stock of the anemic turnout, his expression became grim. “How could you not vote?” he asked, recalling his service in the military during the Korean War. “People don’t appreciate what a privilege this is,” he said. “Just look at other countries. Ahmadinejad, in Iran, who somehow gets 100 percent of the vote. Or Chávez. Or the guy in Russia, whatever his name is. It’s a joke.” Mr. Parone was typical of many voters at the school: retired; somehow connected to city government, through work, a pension or a family member; and a die-hard, lifelong Democrat. Voters were being asked to choose primary winners in two citywide offices — comptroller and public advocate — who are expected to easily prevail in November. The day started out with electoral promise. At 6:05 a.m., with the sun still not up, Michael Rivadeneyra, 32, hurried into the school, eager to vote before heading off to work. The move by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the City Council to rewrite the city’s term limits deeply offended him, and he wanted to register his displeasure at the polls. “It’s a smack in the face to voters,” he said. But over the next hour, just 4 voters cast their ballots. By 8 a.m., the number had inched up to 9. By 10:30, 28. By 11:30, 32. And the lunchtime rush? It never came, save for a giggling crowd of fourth graders, who feasted on chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers a few feet from the voting booths. Around 2:15 p.m., State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, who lives nearby, showed up to vote. He wore a crisp gray suit, and seemed eager to greet voters. But there were none to greet. Like Mr. Parone, he was the only voter in the room. He said he had predicted the abysmal turnout. “I’ve gotten so many complaints from people about the runoff,” he said. “They think it’s a waste.” He said that he had pleaded with his constituents to vote, but that he had a tough time convincing himself that a second primary election in two weeks made any sense. “We need to rethink this system,” he said. Inside the polling station, workers tallied up the cost of their wages: $200 a worker, four workers per election district, and eight election districts represented in the school. Total cost: $6,400. Multiply that across the city, toss in other costs, like moving thousands of voting booths, and the price tag is about $15 million. The workers said it made no sense to spend so much on so few voters. One colleague reminded them that city regulations require a certain number of workers to be present. Just in case. Hannibal Coscia, 83, a retiree, voted with his wife, Lucy, in the afternoon. He called it “my duty.” Besides, he said, local elections are even more important than national ones, “because this is the only place where you can actually meet with the candidates, and talk to them.” He shook his head at the desolate polling station around him. He could not shake an image from his head: long lines of excited voters in Iraq and Afghanistan, of all places, after the United States invaded both countries. “Apparently,” he said, “they recognize something we don’t.”

New York City
Politics and Government
Democratic Party
Voting and Voters
Elections


Study Proposes Steps to Better Ensure Police Officers’ Safety

Abstract: WASHINGTON — At a time of rising concern over attacks on officers, a Justice Department study released Friday urged police departments to take a number of steps to ensure officers’ safety, such as using body armor, waiting for backups on dangerous calls and correcting “dangerous behaviors” that leave them at risk. The study, analyzing the deaths of 684 officers over five years, found that domestic disputes were the most dangerous type of call, and it appealed to departments to do more to warn officers of the risks they might confront in such emergencies. Too often, the report found, officers walked into dangerous situations with only limited information. The report was issued after five police officers were killed in an ambush in Dallas, and three officers were killed in an attack in Baton Rouge, La. The killings led departments in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere to require that officers travel in pairs, but the Justice Department said departments should also move aggressively on other fronts to minimize risks from both attacks and accidents. Some of the recommendations amount to common-sense safety steps. In about one of every five traffic fatalities that researchers examined, the officer killed was not wearing a seatbelt. But other solutions may be more difficult to adopt because of limits on funding, staffing and equipment, policing experts said. In the killing of 132 officers beginning in 2010, 14 percent of them were not wearing body armor, according to the study , which was funded by the Justice Department in partnership with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a private nonprofit group. Body armor would not have prevented all of the killings, because about 20 percent of the attackers used rifles, including high-powered models like AR-15s or AK-47s that can penetrate typical armor, researchers found. Deaths in the Line of Duty Across the country, at least 66 police officers have died so far in 2016. The biggest increase is in the number of firearms-related deaths. The report noted that “the increasing use of high-powered rifles against police” — such as those used in the Dallas and Louisiana attacks — had led some departments to use stronger body armor and ballistic helmets on high-threat calls. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, in Baton Rouge on Friday to meet with police and community leaders, said in an interview that it was too early in the Dallas and Baton Rouge investigations to determine whether there had been warning signs that could have been acted upon. She said that the challenges of foreseeing such attacks, in which snipers opened fire with the explicit goal of killing police officers, were not unlike the difficulties of stopping other domestic extremists. “It’s very similar to trying to anticipate homegrown radical extremists,” she said. “Unless you have warning signs it can be difficult to detect, and so it’s a similar analysis. We ask people literally, ‘If you see something, say something.’” The Justice Department study found that there were 123 officers killed in the line of duty last year, an increase of just 1 percent over the year before but a jump of 9 percent from 2013. As of July 20 this year, there have been 67 officers killed in the line of duty — an 8 percent increase over the year before, according to the memorial fund. But killings of officers from firearms (32) and in ambushes (14) have risen much more quickly so far this year, it said. James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, which was not involved in the study, said that many of the findings aligned with the “best practices” already urged by police organizations. But he said some of the more costly ideas were unrealistic “pie-in-the-sky stuff” because of recent cutbacks in funding and staffing at many departments. The report’s findings “certainly don’t hurt to have, but it’s no surprise to us,” Mr. Pasco said.


China: Court Upholds Death Penalty for 7 Convicted in Xinjiang Violence

Abstract: The country’s highest court has upheld the death sentences of seven people in the far western region of Xinjiang who were convicted of murders and robberies aimed at raising money for a terrorist plot, state media reported Wednesday. Three others who had been sentenced to death were given a two-year reprieve, which often leads to life in prison. The attacks in Kashgar left nine people dead, the newspaper The Xinjiang Daily said. It did not cite the ethnicity of the defendants, but the names suggested that they were Uighurs , who make up a majority of Kashgar’s population. Calls to the People’s Intermediate Court in Kashgar rang unanswered Wednesday; the Supreme People’s Court typically does not release details of its rulings. The killings reportedly took place in the months after ethnic rioting left nearly 200 people dead in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. Most of the victims were Han Chinese migrants whose presence has long been an irritant to the city’s Uighurs. Nearly two dozen people were sentenced to death for their role in the violence; Uighur exile groups say scores of others simply disappeared.

Decisions and Verdicts
Capital Punishment
Xinjiang (China)
Uighurs (Chinese Ethnic Group)
Crime and Criminals


U.S. Considers Opening a Diplomatic Post in Iran

Abstract: PARIS — The Bush administration is considering establishing an American diplomatic presence in Iran for the first time since relations were severed during the 444-day occupation of the American Embassy in Tehran nearly three decades ago, European and American officials said on Thursday. The idea would be to establish a so-called interests section, rather than a fully staffed embassy, with American diplomats who could issue visas to Iranians seeking to visit the United States. But the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under diplomatic rules, cautioned that the idea had not been approved by the White House and could be delayed or blocked by opposition within the administration. The proposal comes as the White House is adopting new tactics in dealing with Iran. With six months left in office, Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appear to be looking for new ways to reach out to the Iranian people as the administration tries to bring a peaceful resolution to the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program. On Saturday, William J. Burns, the State Department’s third-ranking official, is to arrive in Geneva to participate, along with European Union nations, in talks with Iran aimed at persuading it to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for economic and political incentives. The talks are a first. A department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said on Thursday that an interests section would not be discussed. One senior European official said that Mr. Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, had told a number of his counterparts in Tokyo in recent weeks that Ms. Rice was committed to moving forward on the decision to put American diplomats in Tehran, but that the decision still faced opposition from conservatives. “My feeling is that the decision was more or less taken and the administration’s problem was when and how to announce it,” the official said. “They want to do it, but for domestic political reasons they don’t know how and when, and maybe even if, they can do it.” In Washington on Thursday, the White House and State Department declined to comment, saying they would not discuss internal deliberations. But they did not discount reports that the idea was under consideration. “We are always looking for ways to engage the people of Iran more, make it easier for them to get visas,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, the deputy White House press secretary. Iran, for its part, seems to have embraced the idea of a higher American diplomatic presence. “We welcome any move which would expand human relations,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on state television this week. But when Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, was asked about the idea during a news conference in Damascus, Syria, he pointed out, “The request of the United States has been made via the media in a nonofficial fashion.” Mr. Bush has long said he has no complaint with the Iranian people. His issue, he has said, is with the Iranian government. Ms. Rice echoed that sentiment last week in an interview with the Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She said no final decision had been made on an interests section, “but we are looking for ways that Iranians can have access to the United States.” There is a small interests section in Tehran administered by the Swiss, who represent American interests in Iran. The Swiss do not have the authority to grant United States visas. Last week, Mr. Burns testified before Congress and was asked about the possibility of establishing an interests section. He seemed to suggest it was under consideration. He said the idea “is an interesting one, and it’s one that’s worth looking at carefully.”

United States International Relations
Iran
United States
International Relations


Protesters Take On Conservative Retreat

Abstract: RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — So much for a quiet little weekend getaway. An invitation-only political retreat for rich conservatives, run out of the spotlight for years by a pair of Kansas billionaires, became a public rallying point for liberal outrage on Sunday, as 11 busloads of protesters converged on a resort in the Southern California desert. An estimated 800 to 1,000 protesters from a spectrum of liberal groups vented their anger chiefly at Charles and David Koch, brothers who have used many millions of dollars from the energy conglomerate they run in Wichita to finance conservative causes. More than two dozen protesters, camera crews swarming around them, were arrested on trespassing charges when they went onto the resort grounds. Organizers depicted the Koch brothers as symbols of the “unbridled corporate power” that they maintain was loosed by last year’s Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United campaign finance case, which lifted a ban on corporate spending in elections. “You don’t very often get a chance to be across the street from a bunch of billionaires who are scheming to do things against our democracy,” said Kathy Clearly, 63, a retired schoolteacher who arrived by bus from Los Angeles and brandished a protest sign at the rally. The political retreat, held at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, amounted to a victory lap for the Koch brothers, who helped finance conservative candidates in the fall campaigns through their company’s political action committee, which spent $2.5 million, as well as through advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity. Many candidates they supported, including a number backed by the Tea Party , gained election as part of the Republican takeover of the House. The Koch brothers themselves and their guests — Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, was expected to attend — were nowhere to be seen near the protest Sunday and made no public statements. Sport utility vehicles with tinted windows shepherded attendees in and out of the complex, and two dozen Riverside County sheriff’s deputies in riot gear, their batons out, guarded the entrance to keep out anyone not registered as a guest. Liberal groups have begun a calculated political and legal strategy in recent weeks to make the Koch brothers a target of their efforts to stop the Republican momentum. Common Cause, a liberal advocacy group that helped organize the rally and a panel discussion nearby on the brothers’ influence, filed a petition with the Justice Department this month challenging the Citizens United ruling and arguing that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should not have taken part in the case because they had attended the Koch brothers’ retreat as speakers and were biased. It was not known if the justices attended Sunday’s gathering. “This is a critical moment for us,” Mary Boyle, vice president for communications at Common Cause, said in an interview. “The Koch brothers embody this ability to tap vast corporate profits and influence policies that undermine the public welfare.” She said the Citizens United case had given the Koch brothers and others license to create “shadowy networks” of well-off but largely anonymous donors to further their agenda. But some conservatives said they considered the protest a misguided attempt to stanch the bleeding from the November elections. The protest was “an open assault on rights of association,” said Bradley A. Smith, a professor at Capital University Law School, whose writings on easing campaign finance restrictions have been influential among conservatives. The Koch retreat “will harm no one,” Professor Smith said. “They are not going to do any more than talk and listen to speakers. That this alarms these protesters is an ironic commentary on their lack of faith in the American electorate and the power of their own ideas.”

Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (Supreme Court Decision)


Bank Seizure Leaves Bulgarians Stranded

Abstract: SOFIA, Bulgaria — What seemed at first to be a short-term banking crisis is looking more like a chronic condition. But the name of the affliction probably does not matter as much to companies and consumers as the money, about $4 billion in all, that has been stranded at a big Bulgarian bank since the government seized it in late June. Most Bulgarian banks are operating as usual. But for the 200,000 or so businesses and individuals with deposits at Corporate Commercial Bank, the country’s fourth-largest institution, financial life has hardly returned to normal. The government has said the bank, known here as K.T.B., might not reopen before December. As a result, some businesses are having trouble making payroll, and many families are having to scrape by without access to cash. The trouble has pushed Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest country, which has a reputation for mismanagement and corruption and is now being run by a caretaker government, ever lower in the esteem of the international financial community. Bulgaria’s longstanding ambition to join the euro currency union is hardly being helped. “Give us back our money,” read placards carried by hundreds of depositors who demonstrated on Friday in the Bulgarian capital. The same sentiment might have been uttered by international investors holding $150 million in bonds that the bank defaulted on in early August. The bank was forced to close on June 20 after customers, unnerved by news reports of dubious deals by its main shareholder, withdrew more than a fifth of deposits in a weeklong bank run. The Bulgarian central bank, which is now supervising K.T.B., has said the lender might remain closed until late this year as officials continue to wrangle over whether the state should bail the bank out or find private investors to save it. The businesses left hanging include Rila Style, a family-run clothing company that has about $2 million on deposit in the bank. Rila Style had been planning to expand, doubling its work force to about 500, based on the strength of orders from neighboring European countries, as well as Germany and Switzerland. “Not only did we not hire 250 new people as we had planned — we had to fire 140,” said Rauf Akhundov, the 29-year-old managing director of Rila Style. Other plans now deferred include opening another factory and renovating the company’s headquarters, a rundown Communist-era building in the center of Sofia. Mr. Akhundov showed a visitor around the deserted third floor of the building, which was gutted to make way for a new showroom before Rila Style’s deposits were frozen. With the renovation suspended, all that remains is rubble, broken glass and cables hanging from the ceiling. “Now we are struggling with the salaries for those who are left,” Mr. Akhundov said. “We can hold on for another two or three months, but not much longer.” On Friday, the country’s interim finance minister, Rumen Porozhanov, said the Bulgarian authorities were considering letting depositors withdraw sums of up to 1000 leva, or $670, a month. That plan, though, would bring little solace to businesses like Rila Style. “Right now we are postponing orders because we cannot afford to buy the fabrics for our clothes,” Mr. Akhundov said. “We hope our winter collection will sell well so that we can pay salaries to those who have remained of our staff.” Some much bigger Bulgarian businesses also have deposits tied up at the bank, including Vivacom, Bulgaria’s biggest telecom operator. Another is the company that runs the Sofia airport. Most of the country’s military contractors have money at the bank, as do many state-owned enterprises, hospitals, municipalities and schools. Bulgaria guarantees bank deposits of up to 100,000 euros (about $131,000). But because K.T.B. has not been declared insolvent, that insurance has not yet kicked in. The waiting game could kill some enterprises. More than 80,000 jobs could be lost if businesses that have money parked at K.T.B. go bankrupt, according to Konstantin Trenchev, president of the Podkrepa, Bulgaria’s second-biggest labor union. That is no small number for Bulgaria, which had around 390,000 unemployed people in July, according to the most recent data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. The country, with a population of 7.3 million, has an unemployment rate of 11.5 percent, higher than the union’s average of 10.2 percent. “That’s why we worry that the K.T.B. blow will ricochet through to the whole economy, and the consequences for such a frail economy as the Bulgarian one will be enormous,” Mr. Trenchev said. Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry, in response to questions for this article, said Friday in a statement that “despite the fact that there are businesses with blocked funds, there are no systemic problems in the various economic sectors as well as delayed payments by these companies to the state budget.” After the bank was forced to close, an audit by the central bank revealed outsize exposure to companies linked to its biggest shareholder, Tsvetan Vassilev, and missing documentation for more than two-thirds of the bank’s loans. On Aug. 12, Bulgarian prosecutors charged Mr. Vassilev with embezzling about $140 million from the bank during the last three years. Interpol, the international police agency, issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Vassilev, whose whereabouts is unknown. Through his personal website, though, Mr. Vassilev has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Some experts say the financial impact may be minimal, assuming the bank can be saved soon. “Even if companies fire some of their work force, they will probably hire them back once the access to their funds is restored,” said Petar Ganev, senior economist at the Sofia-based Institute for Market Economics. Still, “if the bank goes bankrupt,” Mr. Ganev cautioned, “those businesses that have most of their funds there will go under and their jobs will be lost.” The banking turmoil comes during a period of political instability in Bulgaria. The government of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski resigned on July 23, the second cabinet to depart in less than 18 months. With a caretaker administration presiding until early elections in October, there may be no quick fix for the embattled lender. The Bulgarian Finance Ministry said it favored a market solution for rescuing the bank, including recapitalization by shareholders and other investors. “Public support should be limited and used only as a last resort,” the statement read. Last month the Washington-based Institute of International Finance estimated that a state bailout could increase Bulgaria’s budget deficit to 6.3 percent this year from the planned 1.8 percent. For K.T.B.'s 500 employees, anxiety is high. Most still go to work every day, but there is little to do. Internet access and all phone communications are cut off while the lender is under central bank supervision. “We don’t know what will happen with our jobs — we live from day to day,” said Plamen Grigorov, the bank’s treasurer. “There were also many pensioners who received their pensions at our bank — people who get €100 per month. How did they survive the past two months?” Many of the protesters who rallied in front of the central bank’s headquarters recently had bitter memories of the financial crisis in 1996 that led to the bankruptcy of more than a dozen lenders and months of hyperinflation. Similar demonstrations were held in other cities across the country where K.T.B. has branches. As about 300 protesters marched along the yellow, cobbled street in Sofia that connects the central bank and Parliament, Violeta, a construction engineer who did not want to give her surname, voiced her fury. “Most of my family’s savings are at K.T.B.,” she said. “My husband and I had to ask for an advance of our salaries to live through the past two months. Now with the school year around the corner, I don’t know how we will find the money to buy new clothes for our children.” At Rila Style, Mr. Akhundov said he worried about his workers — but also about the company’s ability to stay afloat. “We want to see the bank working again so we can access our funds, hire more people and continue with the renovation of the building,” he said. He gestured toward the building’s backyard, where a half-dozen big chipboard boxes sat, covered with dark green tarp. “These are the new elevators we’ve bought for €50,000,” he said. “Now they are just sitting there, and we are hoping it doesn’t rain.”


Art Show in Hempstead Depicts Two Centuries of American Childhood

Abstract: It is not easy to organize a historical loan exhibition on an extremely limited budget. That is the ambitious task that the Hofstra University Museum set itself with “Children’s Pleasures: American Celebrations of Childhood,” a show of about 50 works of art. The exhibition, curated by Donna Barnes, a Hofstra professor, is divided into eight themes, too many for the museum’s modestly scaled Emily Lowe Gallery. But if you overlook this, and the slightly cramped display, there is much here to enjoy, including works on loan from prestigious New York City collections like the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Historical Society. Depictions of childhood and its pleasures are immensely popular in American art. Renowned American artists like Asher Brown Durand, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer, Fairfield Porter and Norman Rockwell are represented here. Viewed together, their works reflect changing conceptions of childhood and children’s play over the past two centuries. The earliest works in the show, from the early 19th century, depict childhood as a time of sweet, cosseted innocence. But there is also a formality to much of the imagery of childhood from this period missing from contemporary pictures of children. It is especially obvious in details of behavior and dress, but also in subtle ways like posture and facial expressions. Compare, for instance, John George Brown’s “The Coquette” (c. 1870s), a painting of a girl wearing a beautifully starched white dress, stockings and shoes, pinning flowers to her hair, with Alice Neel’s “Olivia and the Red Hat” (1982), showing a girl at the beach in a bikini, legs apart, hands on hips. The thematic sections illustrate various ways children have fun. There are images of children enjoying family and friends, playing games, running around outdoors, celebrating holidays and making mischief. The section devoted to games and toys is especially captivating, partly because of the subject matter, and partly because it contains a terrific mix of works by historical, modern and contemporary artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Fairfield Porter, James Waller and George Benjamin Luks. Luks’s “Boy With Baseball” (c. 1925) is a masterpiece of the genre. Elsewhere in the show, other works of great individual merit include “Portrait of a Little Girl Picking Grapes” (1840-1850), a delicate and sensitive depiction by an unknown artist, and Edward Henry Potthast’s “Who’s Who at the Seashore,” undated, but possibly late 19th century, capturing the interaction of a pair of boys on a beach. It is beautifully painted. “Family and Friends” is an expansive section looking at the interactions of children with parents, friends and siblings. John Koch’s “Supper Table” (1939), one of the most emblematic works in this part of the show, shows a loving parental embrace of young children. The thematic arrangement provides many illuminating juxtapositions. Will Barnet’s “The Zither” (1939) and William Sidney Mount’s “The Novice” (1847), for instance, both show children playing instruments but are worlds apart in style and tone: one aggressively modernist, the other academic realist. Viewers might also compare Victoria Hutson Huntley’s print “Skating on the Pond” (1936) with Louisa Armbrust’s “Lounging Badminton” (2005), a digital drawing of reclining badminton players. The latter looks like a still from a video game, suggesting the transition from outdoor physical activities for children to indoor digital ones. You would have to be a curmudgeon not to enjoy this show. But the quality of art is uneven, ranging from wonderful to mediocre. The inclusion of half a dozen oil paintings and prints by Norman Rockwell, whose work can be repetitive, also seems like overkill. It is easy to find fault with the selection, but what is impressive about this show is the effort the curator has made to source works from museums in the New York region, highlighting the strength and diversity of collections in the area. That is to be applauded.

Art
Children and Youth
Games
Neel Alice
Benjamin George
Hofstra University


Legal Dispute Roils U.S.A. Shooting Team as Rio Olympics Approach

Abstract: As the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro approach, the sport of shooting in the United States finds itself caught in a legal crossfire, a bit of intrigue that has involved a top Army marksmanship team. No other country has won half as many Olympic medals as the 107 produced by American pistol, rifle and shotgun shooters. Yet, with the Rio Games only 10 months away, U.S.A. Shooting has taken the rare step of filing a civil lawsuit against some of its athletes and officials in a dispute over management and transparency at the national governing body. One of the athletes being sued, Jason Turner, 40, a bronze medalist in pistol shooting at the 2008 Beijing Games, said the lawsuit was distracting as he prepared for the Olympic trials. “You think about it a lot,” Mr. Turner, a civilian, said. “It spreads you kind of thin.” In August, Mr. Turner and five other current and former athletes and officials filed a grievance with the United States Olympic Committee against U.S.A. Shooting. The federation responded last month with a lawsuit. The U.S.O.C. declined to comment on Friday. The original complaint against the federation has been joined by 38 additional athletes and officials. Among the accusations are that Robert Mitchell, the executive director of U.S.A. Shooting, and two other top federation leaders run a “closed shop,” unresponsive to athletes’ views and independent voices in violation of Olympic bylaws. Mr. Mitchell is accused of buttressing his power with the backing of an influential board member who has overstayed his term limits. The grievance against U.S.A. Shooting also alleges that: ■ Federation leaders are inept at raising money and promoting the sport. ■ Minutes of meetings of the board and executive committee, and meaningful financial information, are not posted on the federation website. ■ There is insufficient oversight of auditing, ethical conduct and financial compensation. Mr. Mitchell and other federation leaders “don’t want to give up their positions of power and their perks,” said Ed Williams, a New York lawyer representing the athletes. “Those blue blazers with the Olympic rings are very important to them, as are those free trips to Europe” for meetings and competitions. Mr. Mitchell called the athletes’ grievance a baseless retaliation against him by those who attempted, and failed, to take control of U.S.A. Shooting’s board of directors in a disputed election in March. “We’ve had a very harmonious relationship with our board and our athletes over the years,” Mr. Mitchell said. Of the current complaints, he added: “Bring it up at a board meeting. We’re glad to discuss those items. But rather than they do that, they filed a complaint.” He also said that U.S.A. Shooting would spend more than $2 million in support of athletes this year, adding, “No one has suffered in any way, shape or form.” Among those filing the grievance against the federation, and being sued, is Lt. Col. Bret Tecklenburg, the commander of the United States Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, Ga., and a former board member of U.S.A. Shooting. Colonel Tecklenburg accused Mr. Mitchell of threatening and trying to intimidate him and other board members to influence voting at the federation’s board of directors’ election in March. The colonel also accused Mr. Mitchell of creating a “toxic” atmosphere of “fear of retribution” at the federation and of causing “emotional distress” among board members, athletes and employees. Supporters of Colonel Tecklenburg said U.S.A. Shooting responded by trying to have him relieved of his command of the marksmanship unit. Colonel Tecklenburg and other soldier-athletes have been subjected to investigations by the Army after filing grievances against the federation, the sued athletes said. The investigations began “as a direct result” of information sent from the federation to Army representatives, according to a memorandum written by the athletes. “These investigations have caused significant disruptions” to the Army Marksmanship Unit “as a whole and to the soldier-athletes training for the impending Olympic trials,” the memorandum said. Mr. Mitchell said he was exonerated by U.S.A. Shooting’s board of directors after an independent investigation of Colonel Tecklenburg’s claims. Mr. Mitchell also said that he considered accusations by the officer to be “slanderous.” He said he contacted Colonel Tecklenburg’s superiors, telling them that “I don’t feel this conduct is appropriate” and asking that the lieutenant colonel’s behavior be reviewed. Colonel Tecklenburg said Friday through an Army spokeswoman that it would be inappropriate for him to comment, given the pending civil lawsuit by U.S.A. Shooting. The spokeswoman said an Army review of the colonel’s conduct had been completed and that he remained commander of the marksmanship unit. A person familiar with the case, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Colonel Tecklenburg had been temporarily suspended from his command during the Army investigation and had been reinstated. According to Olympic guidelines, athletes have a right to file a grievance against a national governing body. The disputes are designed to be settled by mediation or arbitration. U.S.A. Shooting chose a different approach, filing a lawsuit against the athletes last month in state court in Colorado, where the federation is based. The federation said it had no choice because the athletes would not agree to binding arbitration. U.S.A. Shooting officials said the legal action “is not a suit against the athletes,” but rather a method for an independent judge to resolve the disputed board of directors election in March. But Mr. Williams, the athletes’ lawyer, said it was “outrageous” and “unprecedented” for a federation to sue its own athletes in a pre-Olympic year. He said federation officials were trying to intimidate the athletes, knowing “they don’t have the money to defend themselves.” A mediation hearing between the two sides is scheduled later this month. Mr. Turner, the bronze medalist, said that while the International Olympic Committee was urging greater transparency in governance, “We haven’t caught up to that yet.”

2016 Summer Olympics
Shooting Sport
US Military
Olympics


How to Capture a Wild Republican

Abstract: There are four-leaf clovers, Honus Wagner baseball cards, and postage stamps that were printed upside-down. And then there are honest-to-goodness registered Republicans in New York City, a species nearly as rare as the Cronut. On a recent summer afternoon, Isaac Baskin’s task was to find such specimens. Standing on a voter’s stoop in Forest Hills, Queens, Mr. Baskin, a petitioner for the mayoral campaign of John A. Catsimatidis, heard the sound of a car engine. It was the registered Republican, inching out of his driveway in a gray Toyota sedan. Mr. Baskin, 21, hopped down the steps and jogged after the car. “Hello!” he called to the rolled-up window, vigorously waving the other hand. “Hello?” The driver frowned. The Toyota rolled straight past Mr. Baskin and down Manse Street. Every mayoral candidate needs 3,750 voter signatures to appear on the primary ballot in September. With about 3 million registered Democrats in the city, Democratic canvassers can stand on a street corner and let the deluge pour forth. It is not so easy for Republicans, whose party counts only about 470,000 registered voters, mostly in enclaves outside Manhattan. Republican hopefuls like Mr. Catsimatidis can be so hard-pressed for signatures that they make individual appointments with registered voters. “You can’t stand outside the supermarket, you can’t stand outside the subway stop, you can’t collect signatures on the street,” said Eric Ulrich, a Republican city councilman from Queens, who said he has had his grandmother, among other volunteers, gather signatures for him. “You literally have to go knocking on doors, door to door, to gain ballot access.” As he watched the Toyota recede, Mr. Baskin, a senior at SUNY College at Geneseo who is petitioning in a handful of middle-class Queens neighborhoods, wondered aloud if he should have taken more desperate measures; rapped on the window, for instance, or stood in front of the car. “That was probably my fault,” he said. Undaunted by the signature that drove away, Mr. Baskin kept walking. He offered tips: barking dogs are often followed by people; voters are easier to persuade at doors than at windows. First impressions are important. “You want to look like an innocent person, which you are,” Mr. Baskin said. Later, on Kessel Street, Cornelia Facinelli, who is in her 70s, agreed to sign. She said, however, that she was voting for Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat. “That’s a New York Republican for you,” Mr. Baskin said when she was out of earshot, resigned but smiling. “Even if we have a 100 percent showing and the Democrats have a 50 percent showing, they still win.” Mr. Baskin knows well the value of every signature. In New York, a state that can claim about half of the country’s election litigation, most campaign-related lawsuits involve petitions, said Jerry H. Goldfeder, an election lawyer who is working for the mayoral campaign of Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. Candidates can — and do — challenge their rivals’ petitions for reasons including illegible signatures or missing dates or ZIP codes. A typo temporarily knocked Bill de Blasio off the ballot in 2009, when he was running for public advocate. The process, which dates to the 1800s, is so fraught with obstacles that Mr. Goldfeder has advocated eliminating it in favor of a system that would allow contenders to earn spots on the ballot by raising a certain amount of money or gaining a certain percentage of support in the polls. For now, it comes down to canvassers like Mr. Baskin, who knocks on doors for up to eight hours a shift. By day’s end, he had 16 signatures — not bad, though not his best work. “Eighty percent of it is to get them to the door,” he reflected. “The rest is you.”

Mayoral races
John A Catsimatidis
Voting
Republicans
New York
NYC
Primaries


Gasquet Takes 10th Title With Kremlin Cup Victory

Abstract: Top-seeded Richard Gasquet of France won the 10th title of his career by rallying to beat the qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, in the final of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. Simona Halep of Romania claimed her fifth career title by defeating Samantha Stosur of Australia, 7-6 (1), 6-2, in the women’s final. ■ Tommy Haas of Germany won his 15th career title and second this season, defeating Robin Haase of the Netherlands, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna.

Tennis
Richard Gasquet
Simona Halep
Tommy Haas


Elizabeth Warren’s Indian Claims Don’t Sway Voters

Abstract: SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. — The controversy surrounding Elizabeth Warren ’s ethnic heritage and whether she misrepresented herself as a minority in the past may have engulfed her Senate campaign and the news media, but in parts of western Massachusetts , voters seem either mystified by it or unconcerned. Desiree Smelcer, 35, a librarian here, said over lunch at the Egg and I that she had heard the buzz. But Ms. Smelcer, a Democrat who is one-eighth Apache, is more focused on the price of gas. “I think she could be a little more aggressive about fighting back,” she said of Ms. Warren, who had been shaking hands with diners here. “But I’m more concerned about my own bottom line.” A new poll out Wednesday in the closely watched Senate race indicated that Ms. Warren’s ancestry — the subject of intense media scrutiny and mockery for nearly a month — has so far not made much difference to voters. The poll, conducted by Suffolk University/7 News in Boston , showed the contest nearly even between Ms. Warren and Senator Scott P. Brown , the Republican who in 2010 snatched the seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy Jr. Taking back “Teddy’s seat” in deep-blue Massachusetts is a top priority for Democrats, and the race has become the most expensive Senate campaign in the country. Ms. Warren, who had never run for office before, joined the race last year with great fanfare, having developed a national following as a crusading consumer advocate and a darling of the press, with the ability to raise serious money from the party’s liberal base. But she was caught off guard on April 27 when The Boston Herald reported that Harvard Law School, where Ms. Warren teaches, had once spotlighted her as an American Indian — though she appears thoroughly Caucasian — when the school was under criticism for hiring too many white men. The story has ballooned since then, with opponents saying Ms. Warren has damaged her credibility; supporters say her ancestry is a nonissue. Other polls have showed the race neck and neck, but Suffolk’s is the first to be conducted since the ancestry story has been marinating. It showed Ms. Warren with 47 percent of the vote compared with Mr. Brown’s 48 percent. It was conducted May 20 through May 22 with 600 likely voters, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points. In February, a poll by the same group showed Mr. Brown ahead by 49 percent to 40 percent. David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk poll, said the results indicated that both campaigns would be spending tens of millions of dollars “in an all-out war to woo the 5 percent of voters who will decide this election.” The Warren campaign appeared relieved, given the daily drubbing by the Brown campaign and its allies in the news media and blogosphere. “It’s clear that the people of Massachusetts are not distracted by Republican Scott Brown’s negative attacks,” said Alethea Harney, a Warren spokeswoman. The Brown campaign saw the poll as a modest victory. “We’re pleased with the results, given the fact that Scott Brown has been outspent on television 3 to 1 in the months of April and May,” said Colin Reed, a spokesman for Mr. Brown. (Mr. Brown has been advertising regularly on radio.) The facts, as they have dribbled out, are these: Ms. Warren has in the past claimed an American Indian lineage, though she has no tangible proof of it. A genealogist who initially said he had discovered that she might be one thirty-second Cherokee subsequently said he could not locate the original documents. She listed herself in a legal directory in the 1980s and ’90s as a minority in what critics say was an attempt to advance her academic career. In 1996, a Harvard official described her to The Harvard Crimson as a Native American. A Fordham University law review article in 1997 quoted that same official as saying she was Harvard’s “first woman of color.” In 2005, a decade after she left the University of Pennsylvania , it listed her as one of eight “minorities” who had won a particular award. Ms. Warren has said she learned through “family lore” that she was descended from the Cherokee and Delaware tribes. She has said she listed herself in the legal directory as a minority in order to meet people like herself, though the listing did not specify her ethnicity. She has said she was unaware that Harvard and other colleges had put her forth as a diversity hire. Officials from the law schools where she has taught have insisted that her ancestry played no role in her hiring and have scoffed at such suggestions. In the poll, 41 percent of respondents who were aware of the controversy said they believed she had benefited from listing herself as a minority, while 45 percent said they believed she had not. This is potentially significant, a Republican strategist who does not speak for the campaign said, because anything that suggests affirmative action could turn off blue-collar, Reagan Democrats — the kind of voters who are up for grabs. Opponents are continuing to scour her academic records and sift through material in Oklahoma , Ms. Warren’s native state. She contributed recipes in 1984 to a “Pow Wow Chow” cookbook, but some appear nearly identical to recipes by Pierre Franey, a chef and New York Times food writer, and hardly seem Indian (one is for “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing”). The Warren campaign has declined to comment on the recipes. The Brown campaign has perceived the heritage issue as a gold mine. It first emerged — Democrats say this was no coincidence — on the day both Mr. Brown and Ms. Warren were releasing their tax returns; Mr. Brown’s showed him to be far wealthier than his pickup truck image might suggest. But since then, the Brown campaign has dominated the narrative. Reflecting in a recent interview about what she had learned from this episode, Ms. Warren said she had been most surprised by what she perceived as a symbiotic relationship between the Republicans and the news media. “I hadn’t appreciated the power of the right’s echo chamber,” Ms. Warren said. The Warren camp has tried to ride out the ancestry controversy by ignoring it, but even commenters in liberal outlets like The New Yorker and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz have urged Ms. Warren to answer questions about her background and motives more fully and forthrightly. “The campaign has bought some time,” said Mr. Paleologos of the Suffolk poll. “But that’s not to say the issue won’t bubble up again. Loose ends don’t work well in politics.”

Polls
Elizabeth Warren
Scott P Brown
Senate
Massachusetts
Native Americans


Tracing Lung Ailments That Rose With 9/11 Dust

Abstract: As they push their investigation into the health risks to workers in the recovery and cleanup operations at ground zero, medical detectives are focusing on a group of lung diseases that can lead to long-term disabilities and, in some cases, death. After nearly five years, it is still too early for these doctors, scientists and forensic pathologists to say with certainty whether any long-term cancer threat came with exposure to the toxic cloud unleashed by the trade center collapse. But there are already clear signs that the dust, smoke and ash that responders breathed in have led to an increase in diseases that scar the lungs and reduce their capacity to take in and let out air. The Fire Department tracked a startling increase in cases of a particular lung scarring disease, known as sarcoidosis, among firefighters, which rose to five times the expected rate in the two years after Sept. 11. Though that rate has declined, doctors worry that the disease may be lurking in other firefighters. Experts who regularly see workers who were at ground zero in the 48 hours after the towers' collapse expect monitoring to show many more cases of lung- scarring disorders among that group. New evidence also suggests that workers who arrived later or worked on the periphery may also be susceptible to debilitating lung ailments. "We have thousands of people who were down there with unprotected exposures," said Dr. Stephen M. Levin, a director of the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. "Many will develop asthma and a few will develop this terrible lung scarring that leads to disability or death." But even in diseases closely related to dust, making a binding connection to ground zero exposure is hard. For instance, the Fire Department has linked sarcoidosis to working at the trade center site, while the Police Department has not. The clues that led to this new area of medical investigation were stark reminders of what was lost on Sept. 11. They are drawn from cases of statistically unexpected respiratory disease among young responders. The ailments now seen are far more serious than the general hacking and congestion known as "World Trade Center cough" that initially hit most responders. Rather, these are a set of diseases and disorders that typically take a few years to develop, and in some cases get progressively worse. The most worrisome to medical experts are granulomatous pulmonary diseases, which show a particular type of swirling marks left on the lungs by foreign matter like dust. Doctors say the severity of the disease is often dictated by a patient's genetic makeup. The diseases include pulmonary fibrosis and sarcoidosis, a sometimes fatal disorder that can be set off when exposure to dust causes the body's immune system to attack itself. Some people can live with the scarring if they limit their activities, but in others the exposure to foreign material sets off a cascade of ailments that can lead to more debilitating conditions and, eventually, death. Detective James Zadroga, 34, died in January when his badly scarred lungs weakened and his heart gave out. The coroner's report gave the cause of death as "granulomatous pneumonitis," and the autopsy found swirls throughout his lungs caused by foreign material consistent with dust. Detective Zadroga's death was the first to be officially linked by an autopsy report to exposure to the ground zero dust, although the electronmicroscope comparisons that could have proved the match beyond a reasonable doubt were not done by the coroner's office. The Uniformed Firefighters Association earlier this year linked the deaths of two firefighters and a battalion chief — from lung disease and respiratory ailments — to the air at ground zero, although the Fire Department itself has not formally acknowledged that those deaths were connected to ground zero work. And three young emergency medical technicians who worked in the dust and smoke at ground zero have died from pulmonary diseases and coronary problems aggravated by their battered lungs, according to the union that represented them. The use of respirators and dust masks might have reduced the incidence of respiratory ailments, but the most effective ones issued to firefighters are meant to last only 20 minutes. Other responders and volunteers who arrived after the first two days did not use dust masks at all or were only given paper masks, an issue raised in a pending class-action suit against the city and private companies involved in the cleanup. Although the reported cases of lung disease affect a tiny portion of the 40,000 people who responded to the trade center collapse, they have already caused widespread concern among the survivors, lending urgency to medical efforts to understand the risks and illnesses involved. "When these cases come to public attention, every individual down there who has some problem breathing thinks, 'I'm next,' " said Dr. Levin, a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Levin's screening program offers the most complete picture of the health consequences of Sept. 11, apart from statistics maintained by the Fire Department on the firefighters. Nearly 12,000 union employees and other workers who were exposed to the trade center dust and debris have been examined. Dr. Levin said that more than 60 percent of those people developed respiratory problems like sinusitis. He said continued monitoring was beginning to suggest that more serious lung problems might follow; he will complete a new epidemiological study of responders in a few months. In testimony before a Congressional committee in February, Dr. Kerry J. Kelly, chief medical officer of the Fire Department, outlined the department's concerns about lung diseases. She said one responder awaiting a lung transplant had died of pulmonary fibrosis. And the department was alarmed to find that 20 firefighters had come down with sarcoidosis in the first two years after Sept. 11, "a substantial increase from prior years" that was believed to be linked to "massive dust inhalation" at ground zero. The high rate, five times the expected level, has since returned to the expected range — a clear sign, doctors say, of a link to Sept. 11. But there is still cause for concern. The disease may take longer to develop in some people than others, doctors said, just as certain groups — including Northern Europeans and African-Americans — have been shown to have a higher incidence of sarcoidosis than the general population. Medical experts say that proving that exposure to a known toxin caused an illness is notoriously difficult, even in situations where the hazards are as obvious as the thunderhead of dust and smoke that rolled through Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 and lingered over the rubble pile for weeks. In some cases, making such links causes so much discord that government agencies have come to conflicting conclusions, extending the misery of those involved. For example, firefighters who have developed sarcoidosis since Sept. 11 are thought to have contracted the disease because of their work at ground zero. Yet the Police Pension Board has ruled that working at ground zero did not cause the death of a police officer who developed the disease. "This rift between the Police and Fire Departments is ridiculous," said Michelle Haskett-Godbee, whose husband, Police Officer James J. Godbee Jr., died in December 2004. She said that Officer Godbee, who had worked at or near ground zero for more than 850 hours, suddenly developed a hacking cough and grew progressively weaker, although he had to keep working. After his lung collapsed in March 2004, Officer Godbee, a former marine and 19-year police veteran, grew frail and listless. In the weeks before he died, he could barely get out of an easy chair at his Stuyvesant Town apartment, Mrs. Godbee said. The autopsy done by the New York medical examiner's office found that Officer Godbee's lungs were pitted with the blisters and scars caused by sarcoidosis. Despite the Fire Department's well-researched information on sarcoidosis, the Police Pension Board last June denied Mrs. Godbee's application for a line-of-duty death benefit, which would have provided her widow's benefits — equal to half her husband's annual salary — every year for the rest of her life. The board said that sarcoidosis is "not known to be related to employment in the police force." Mrs. Godbee said her husband worked multiple shifts over several months in the area below Canal Street that was clouded in dust from the collapsed buildings. He often came home with the stench on his clothes, and he was never given anything but a paper mask for protection. "There's no way you can't get sick after smelling all that dust and dirt," said Mrs. Godbee, a school guidance counselor. Her lawyer, John Patrick Rudden, is trying to force the Fire Department to open the medical records of the firefighters with sarcoidosis, in the belief that such information would strengthen Mrs. Godbee's legal challenge of the pension board decision. Michael T. Murray, general counsel of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said he expected the appeal to succeed because "the government can't treat two similarly positioned people differently." Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, did not defend the board's decision, but he said police officers were usually not exposed to the same smoke and dust as firefighters. He said it was the board, which includes medical experts, and not the department that made pension decisions.

World Trade Center (NYC)
Medicine and Health
Manhattan (NYC)


Clintons Did Not Obtain Permits to Renovate Their New Chappaqua Home, Records Show

Abstract: It is a necessary evil for any homeowner: a visit to the town building office to obtain the proper permits for upgrades. Hillary and Bill Clinton apparently skipped that required step when they began ambitiously renovating the house they purchased for $1.16 million this summer in the upscale New York hamlet of Chappaqua, according to records from the town building inspector. Those records, first reported and posted online by The Journal News, based in White Plains, revealed that the town received a complaint in early October about excavation work at the Clintons’ new home that seemed related to the removal of dead trees. But when an inspector arrived, he noticed that a much bigger project was underway: The home was being renovated, complete with an updated kitchen; a new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system; walls being moved; and the backfilling of a swimming pool with gravel. Without informing the town to obtain the proper permits, the Clintons apparently set the project in motion soon after they bought the house in August, with an eye toward having everything ready for the holidays. “I was told that the owners wanted to have all work done and finished by Thanksgiving and were quite adamant about it,” William Maskiell, the building inspector for New Castle, N.Y., wrote in his inspection report after speaking to a contractor. (Chappaqua is a hamlet within New Castle.) “What started as a paint job turned into this,” he added. For the Clintons, the purchase of the home on Old House Lane gave them a second residence on the street and a significant foothold in the Westchester County neighborhood where they have lived since 1999, accompanied by a Secret Service detail. But in the final days of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, the new house and its run-in with the local building permit office are giving the Clintons something of a headache. The permit process — which comes with fees, inspections and, potentially, elevated property assessments — can be cumbersome and is familiar to the millions of voters who own homes and have made upgrades. Some may be sympathetic to the Clintons’ stumbling on the local regulations, while others could see them as feeling as though the rules do not apply to them. Brian Fallon, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign spokesman, did not return a message seeking comment on Saturday. Mr. Maskiell told The Journal News that architects or contractors usually came by to file paperwork, but that homeowners were required to sign permit applications. “If you own the house, you’re responsible on everything that goes on with that house,” Mr. Maskiell told The Journal News. He declined to comment on Saturday, referring questions to the township. “In the course of doing some renovations to their property, it became apparent that the permits required by the town were not properly secured by the contractor,” said Robert J. Greenstein, the supervisor of the town of New Castle. “Upon becoming aware of this, the Clintons immediately took steps with their contractor to make sure the situation is rectified.” Still, town records show that the Clintons’ permit violations are a continuing matter. Mr. Maskiell wrote in his report that “several building and zoning code violations now exist” and issued a letter on Oct. 17 that laid out detailed requirements for addressing the issues, including permit applications and fees. He visited the home again on Oct. 21 and wrote in a subsequent report that he had spoken again with a contractor, encouraging him to “make sure permits were submitted and to wait until everything was obtained.” A listing for the 3,600-square-foot home, which abuts the Clintons’ other residence, described it as a “beautifully renovated three-bedroom ranch.” It is “nestled on 1.51 acres of spectacular property encompassing in-ground pool, level lawns, stone walls and mature trees.” In his reports, Mr. Maskiell said the work on the home appeared to have been done during the past month and a half, while it was under the Clintons’ ownership. He also noted “several outstanding violations” at the Clintons’ neighboring property, including expired variances. That house is an 11-room Dutch colonial, which the couple purchased for $1.7 million. It is where the Clintons spend their free time, binge-watching television shows like “The Good Wife” and “Downton Abbey.” The Clintons also own a mansion in Washington on Whitehaven Street, in a neighborhood with several embassy residences. When they are in Little Rock, Ark., they stay in a private residence atop the Clinton library. Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Donald J. Trump, also has ties to Westchester County, where he owns an estate in Bedford and a golf club in Briarcliff Manor. Last year, Mr. Trump tried to minimize the value of the golf course to save on property taxes.

2016 Presidential Election
Hillary Clinton
Home Improvement
Chappaqua NY
Real Estate
Housing
Bill Clinton


M.S. Drug Can Return, With Limits

Abstract: Federal regulators agreed yesterday to let the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri return to the market, despite its risk of causing a fatal brain disease, under a program intended to closely monitor doctors who prescribe it and patients who use it. The drug was withdrawn early last year after only three months on the market, after its risks became evident, but a federal advisory panel recommended this past March that Tysabri be returned to the market. At that meeting, in sometimes tearful testimony, about two dozen people with multiple sclerosis told the committee they were willing to accept the risks of the drug because they viewed Tysabri as the best hope for slowing the progression of their debilitating disease. Tysabri's makers estimate that there may be as many as 150,000 multiple sclerosis patients in this country for whom other drugs are not effective. Tysabri, developed by Biogen Idec and Elan, is apparently only the second drug to return to the market after being withdrawn for side effects, the first being Lotronex from GlaxoSmithKline, for irritable bowel syndrome, in 2002. But Tysabri is also one of a growing number of drugs being offered under access restrictions aimed at reducing the risk of problems that can be caused by the drugs. The Food and Drug Administration acknowledged the likelihood of additional deaths from the drug, despite the new rules on its use. All doctors who prescribe Tysabri and patients who take it will have to enroll in a monitoring program. The drug, which was priced at more than $20,000 a year before it was withdrawn, will now be available only through authorized infusion centers. Those centers must go through a checklist with each patient before each monthly infusion, in an effort to ensure that patients are eligible for the drug and to detect early signs of the rare side effect. While the F.D.A.'s permission to let Tysabri back onto the market had been expected, investors were not necessarily encouraged by the agency's restrictions. On a down day for the stock market generally, shares of Tysabri's two marketers —the American biotechnology company Biogen Idec and the Irish drug maker Elan — fell on the F.D.A. news. Biogen was off nearly 5 percent, closing at $45.39. Elan fell nearly 13 percent, to $16.52. On the day before the withdrawal of Tysabri was announced in February 2005, Biogen's shares had closed at $67.28 and Elan's at $26.90. Analysts once thought Tysabri could reach sales of $2 billion a year or more. Most projections have now been reduced, though some analysts still expect sales eventually to exceed $1 billion. Geoffrey C. Porges of Sanford C. Bernstein & Company estimated sales of $35 million this year, rising to $946 million in 2011. The F.D.A.'s risk management plans, as they are known, can allow drugs that would otherwise be banned to remain on the market, like the drug thalidomide for cancer and Accutane for acne, both of which can cause severe birth defects. But as such plans proliferate, some doctors and pharmacists say it is becoming too time-consuming and confusing to keep track of each one. "This whole restrictive drug distribution system has grown up like Topsy," said Henri R. Manasse Jr., the chief executive of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, who said he knew of 26 such plans. "In every instance it takes an immense amount of time to manage this restricted distribution system," he said. "There's no similarity or uniformity from drug to drug." Some dermatologists have complained bitterly about the system intended to prevent pregnant women from taking Accutane, saying it was impeding access to the drug. Others, like Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen, the consumer group, say that the plans are sometimes used to keep drugs on the market that should be banned. But Dr. Peter A. Gross, who until May 31 was chairman of the F.D.A. advisory panel on drug safety and risk management, defended the programs, despite the extra red tape. "If some of these drugs have significant side effects, then we all have to take more time," said Dr. Gross, chairman of internal medicine at Hackensack University Medical Center. "You have to do what's best for the patient first." It was a separate advisory panel that recommended Tysabri's return. Before Tysabri's original approval, clinical trials suggested it could prevent relapses of multiple sclerosis about twice as effectively as other drugs. For that reason, the F.D.A. said in November 2004 that it could go on the market, based on only one year of data from clinical trials intended to last two years. But it was withdrawn three months later, after two patients who had taken the drug in clinical trials developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy or P.M.L., a rare brain disease caused by a virus . A third patient was later found to have had the disease. Two of the three patients died and the third remains disabled. Multiple sclerosis is a disease in which the patient's own immune system attacks nerve cells, causing vision problems, numbness, paralysis and other symptoms. Tysabri blocks immune cells from getting into the brain, which apparently allowed the dormant virus that causes P.M.L. to spring to life in the brain. But Biogen and Elan found no other cases out of the 3,000 people who had been in clinical trials, paving the way for the drug's return. The new approval is only for use of Tysabri by itself because adding a second drug may raise the risk of P.M.L. Biogen had hoped to sell Tysabri along with its multiple sclerosis drug Avonex. Instead, Tysabri will compete with Avonex. The drug is also "generally recommended" for patients who have tried other drugs first and not had adequate results. That wording does not absolutely preclude patients from trying Tysabri first, F.D.A. officials said. The new risk management plan, which the companies are calling called Touch, an acronym for Tysabri Outreach: Unified Commitment to Health, is intended to inform patients of the risks and to detect early signs of P.M.L. Doctors who prescribe the drugs are supposed to check patients after three months, six months and then every six months after that. There is no treatment for P.M.L. It is hoped that if P.M.L. can be detected early enough and the drug stopped, the patient can recover. However, some experts have said it may be not be easy to detect P.M.L. quickly because it can be confused with multiple sclerosis itself. And there is evidence that Tysabri lingers in the brain for three months, so just stopping the drug might not work. F.D.A. officials acknowledged the risks. "Yes, we expect there to be additional cases and probably additional deaths as well," Dr. Russell Katz, head of the office that regulates drugs for neurological diseases, told reporters yesterday. But he said that risk was balanced by considerable benefits of the drug. Despite the risk, Biogen and Elan expect sizable demand for Tysabri. In fact, executives have said they were thinking of raising the price. The price was $23,500 a year at the time the drug was taken off the market, making it already hundreds or thousands of dollars more than other drugs for multiple sclerosis. Dr. Burt A. Adelman, executive vice president for development at Biogen, said the drug would be available in July but many patients would not be able to get it immediately because it would take time to train all the infusion centers.

Multiple Sclerosis
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Food and Drug Administration
Biogen Idec Incorporated
Public Citizen


Croatia and Spain Win at European Championship

Abstract: Croatia rallied with a big third quarter to reach the quarterfinals of the European basketball championship with a 76-68 victory over Italy in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Spain, the defending two-time champion, cruised past Finland, 82-56. Spain, with two wins and two losses, plays Italy in its final second-round game for a place in the quarterfinals.


Truck Emissions and Fuel Economy Are Targets of New Federal Standards

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The federal government announced the first national emissions and fuel economy standards for heavy vehicles on Monday, one of a series of regulatory steps that the Obama administration is taking to increase energy efficiency and reduce atmospheric pollution in the absence of Congressional action on climate change . The administration also announced approval of a major solar power installation on public land in the California desert, a step toward weaning the nation from dependence on fossil fuels. Together they represent what President Obama has called a more “bite-size” approach to global warming that he intends to pursue while efforts to pass comprehensive legislation are stalled. The mileage proposal, which is scheduled to become final next year after a period of public comment, will apply to tractor-trailers, buses, delivery vans, heavy pickup trucks, cement mixers and many other classes of vehicles. It will cover new vehicles manufactured between 2014 and 2018. The proposed policy would apply different standards to different vehicles, based on weight and intended use. For example, over-the-road tractor-trailers would be required to achieve a 20 percent reduction in fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 2018. Heavy-duty pickups and vans would be subject to different gasoline and diesel fuel standards , with reductions ranging from 10 to 15 percent. Other work trucks would have to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent by 2018. Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency , said that the new standards were an extension of the mileage and emissions rules that the administration had already adopted for passenger cars and light trucks. She said that lower fuel costs for truckers would more than cover the costs of the technology used to meet the new standards and would create jobs in truck manufacturing and related industries. “Over all, this program will save $41 billion and much of it will stay home in the U.S. economy rather than paying for imported oil,” she said in a briefing. The standards draw from a study issued this year by the National Academy of Sciences, which found that existing technology — including low-rolling-resistance tires, improved aerodynamics, more efficient engines, hybrid electric drive systems and idling controls — could cut fuel use in trucks by a third to a half. The standards proposed by the administration, after extensive consultation with manufacturers and trucking companies and a detailed review by the White House Office of Management and Budget, are significantly less ambitious to keep costs manageable, officials said. Heavy vehicles account for more than 10 percent of the nation’s overall oil consumption and about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by the transportation sector. Because fuel use by trucks and buses is growing faster than most other emissions that contribute to global warming, even relatively modest cuts in diesel consumption will pay large environmental benefits, Ms. Jackson said. The new rules proposed by the E.P.A. and the Department of Transportation reflect the different patterns of use for varying types of trucks. Long-haul freightliners and buses typically travel 100,000 miles a year and can achieve large fuel savings with relatively small investments in technology. Fire trucks and cement mixers, on the other hand, travel relatively few miles annually and thus have a lower target. The American Trucking Associations praised the approach, saying that allowing manufacturers and truck users to find ways to meet defined new mileage standards was preferable to imposing a fuel tax or a broad program for reducing carbon dioxide emissions on the entire transportation sector. The group said that it was withholding more detailed comment until it studied the proposed regulations. Luke Tonachel, an expert on clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council , an environmental advocacy group, called heavy trucks and buses the “energy hogs of America’s roadways” and said that their fuel use could be cut beyond what the administration had proposed. “President Obama did the right thing by encouraging the creation of these standards,” Mr. Tonachel said in a statement, “but today’s proposal should be strengthened further to maximize the environmental, security and economic benefits.”

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Fuel Efficiency
Trucks and Trucking
Roads and Traffic
Air Pollution
Environment
Environmental Protection Agency
Transportation Department (US)


Pollution Accord Is Set for Global Flights, but Tasks Remain

Abstract: The great and the good of world aviation gathered in Montreal last month to do something that seemed impossible even a couple of years ago. They agreed to cap greenhouse gas emissions from international flights. The pact — the first climate change agreement to apply worldwide to a specific sector, one that produces the equivalent annual carbon dioxide output as that of Germany — was greeted with almost universal support. John Kerry, secretary of state of the United States, called the aviation deal “unprecedented.” Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, council president of the International Civil Aviation Organization , a United Nations body that will oversee the agreement, acknowledged negotiations had been tough, but added that almost all nations now had a “practical agreement and consensus on this issue.” Despite the backslapping, much still needs to be resolved before the 15-year aviation accord comes into force beginning in 2021. The first six years of the deal will be voluntary. Carriers including Delta Air Lines and Air China are expected to eke out some climate change reductions by making their aircraft fleets more efficient and increasing their use of biofuels. But most of the industry’s focus will fall on a complicated offsetting system, in which airlines buy credits from climate change projects, like renewable energy programs often in the developing world, to counterbalance their own carbon emissions. These programs allow global polluters, which do not reduce their own emissions, to fund projects in other industries that often lead to greater greenhouse gas reductions at a lower price than can be found within their own sectors. Past efforts at such so-called market-based mechanisms to mitigate the world’s worst polluters, though, have routinely missed the mark . Severe price fluctuations in the carbon credits have stalled investments, disreputable climate change projects have undermined the credibility of plans, and the public has become distrustful that companies are genuinely reducing their carbon footprints. And while the global aviation industry will spend the next two years figuring out the details of the new pact, analysts warn it is not a surefire bet that the plans will offset airlines’ carbon dioxide emissions. That is especially true because the sector’s climate change impact will rise by as much as 700 percent by midcentury, according to United Nations estimates, as more and more people fly. Much, experts say, will depend on the details of the agreement, including which climate change programs can be used to offset airlines’ carbon emissions and how such projects are monitored to ensure they lead to meaningful greenhouse gas reductions. These issues are likely to be subject to heavy lobbying by airlines, governments and environmental groups over the next two years. Amid this jockeying, the details of the agreement will be crucial if the global airline industry is to avoid previous mistakes, particularly in Europe, where the world’s largest carbon market has arguably failed to limit the region’s carbon dioxide emissions, giving these so-called offsetting programs an increasingly bad name. “It makes sense for the aviation sector to use carbon offsets, but it’s really challenging to get it right,” said Stig Schjolset, head of carbon analysis at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon , a research group in Oslo. “The experiences of all the previous carbon markets do not bode well.” The success, or potential failure, of the aviation agreement will be felt worldwide. Efforts to tackle climate change have been rekindled after world leaders, including President Obama and Xi Jinping, China’s president, among others, signed the so-called Paris Agreement that aims to limit future global temperature rises to as little as 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The international aviation sector is not included in that agreement (although domestic flights are), and the industry often has been loath to cap its own greenhouse gas emissions. Many carriers in the West had fretted that rivals in emerging markets would not face the same restrictions under previous efforts to reduce the sector’s climate change impact, including pushes to require carriers to buy carbon credits to offset international air travel. “In this game, you should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” said Cameron Hepburn, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Oxford. “We needed to get a deal done to move forward.” The latest agreement, signed on Oct. 6 , is by no means perfect. Many of the world’s largest polluters, including Brazil, Russia and India, have opted out of the initial trial phases and will only join when the agreement becomes mandatory from 2027. It also will only cover about 80 percent of the growth in the industry’s carbon emissions from 2021, according to the International Air Transport Association, a trade body. And the cost of buying these carbon credits from global climate change projects — a price that may rise from $6.2 billion, or 5.7 billion euros, in 2025 to $24 billion in 2035 — is likely to be picked up by regular travelers. “It will operate like a carbon tax,” said Guy Turner, founder of Trove Research , an environmental consulting company in London. “The cost will be pushed through as higher airfares.” Still, the aviation agreement, if successful, may eventually offset as much as 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking 35 million cars off the road each year, according to estimates from the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. For that to happen, says Nathaniel Keohane, head of the global climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, only certain carbon offsetting projects — those that would not have happened without the financial support of the aviation industry — should be included in the new agreement. That has not always been the case in previous offsetting plans, where existing projects like wind farms or efforts to reduce methane emissions at industrial plants were able to sell carbon credits, often for a significant profit, to heavy polluters in the West. Such projects, analysts say, do not lead to additional greenhouse gas reductions because they would exist even without the financial support of the likes of airlines, so should not be included in the sector’s new climate change plans. “The difference between getting the rules right or wrong is enormous,” said Mr. Keohane. “Aviation emissions are a wedge that starts small and grows exponentially over time.” Analysts stress that offsetting projects created before the aviation industry’s accord comes into force from 2021 also should be excluded, so that any carbon dioxide reductions relate to future emissions and not past climate change efforts. Already, there are almost enough existing climate change projects worldwide to offset almost all of the aviation industry’s total carbon emissions for the entirety of the new agreement through 2035, according to estimates from Point Carbon. So by excluding some, if not all, of these well-established offsetting projects, experts say, the aviation industry can ensure that its buying of carbon credits pays for future greenhouse gas reductions, instead of providing merely a potentially new revenue source for longstanding renewables or other green-friendly projects. “If you include emissions credits from before 2020, it relates to a different carbon period,” said Mr. Schjolset of Point Carbon. “Which projects they allow to airlines to use will really decide whether this works or not.”

Greenhouse gas
Carbon dioxide
Vehicle Emissions
Airlines,airplanes
Climate Change
Global Warming
Fuel efficiency
UNFCCC
Air pollution


Director of Swiss Lab Denies Cover-Up of Armstrong Test

Abstract: The director of Switzerland’s antidoping laboratory on Friday denied claims that Lance Armstrong tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs at the 2001 Tour de Suisse and that the results were covered up. Martial Saugy told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung that his Lausanne lab did find suspicious levels of the banned blood-booster EPO in four urine samples from the race that Armstrong won, but he did not know if any belonged to Armstrong. Armstrong’s former teammate Tyler Hamilton said in an interview on “60 Minutes” last Sunday that Armstrong spoke of using EPO to prepare for his third Tour de France win in 2001, and that cycling’s governing body helped him hide a positive test at the Swiss warm-up event. The report also said that International Cycling Union officials brokered a meeting involving Armstrong and Saugy’s lab, which is accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency and tested the Swiss race samples. Saugy said that he did meet with Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, then the manager of the U.S. Postal Service team, but not in Lausanne as Hamilton claimed and not about a suspicious test result.

Armstrong Lance
Doping (Sports)
Tests (Drug Use)
Tour de France (Bicycle Race)
Bicycles and Bicycling


National Geographic Wins 3 Awards, Honored Beyond Photography

Abstract: National Geographic won three National Magazine Awards on Thursday night, more than it had ever captured in a single year, including a prestigious award for general excellence the second year in a row. Vanity Fair was this year’s only other multiple winner, with two awards, a shift from the pattern in recent years of two or three magazines dominating the prizes. New York magazine and The New Yorker, which had won a combined 14 awards in the last three years, each won one. The awards, generally considered the most celebrated in the field, were established more than four decades ago by the American Society of Magazine Editors. This year the honors reflect the efforts of National Geographic, long recognized for top-flight photography, to elevate the rest of its offerings. On Thursday, it won an award solely for its written content — in this case in the reporting category for an article by Peter Hessler on the explosive growth in the Chinese economy. In addition to that award and the one for general excellence among magazines with circulation of two million or more, National Geographic won in the photojournalism category for work by John Stanmeyer on malaria in the third world. “I’m stunned,” Chris Johns, editor in chief, said in accepting the award for general excellence. “I’m not prepared for this.” In its citation, the American Society of Magazine Editors said of National Geographic, “While remaining true to traditions known to generations of readers, the magazine continues to inspire and amaze — with photography that reveals wondrous, and often threatened, corners of our planet, and reporting that is both intrepid and tough-minded.” Vanity Fair won in the profile-writing category for a piece by Evan Wright on Pat Dollard, a onetime Hollywood agent who went to Iraq to make a prowar documentary. The magazine also won in the photo portfolio category, for images showing current stars in re-created scenes from famous old films. The work was by Michael Roberts, its fashion and style director, and the photographer Annie Leibovitz, collaborating with Vilmos Zsigmond, a cinematographer. Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, seemed subdued. “I had emergency root canal this afternoon,” he said. “So if I start drooling, forgive me for that.” The winners for general excellence, grouped in categories by circulation, were, from largest to smallest, National Geographic, The New Yorker, GQ, Backpacker, Mother Jones and Print. The winer for general excellence online was RunnersWorld.com . Jonathan Dorn, editor in chief of Backpacker, said, “Could we check the envelope?” He said he had been having a recurring dream in which he was walking down the aisle to accept the award, when Adam Moss, editor in chief of New York magazine, a finalist in the same category, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Sorry, not this year.” Three magazines won awards for the first time: Atlanta, in feature writing, for an article by Paige Williams on the unlikely story of a teenage war refugee from Africa who ended up in Atlanta; Bicycling, in the interactive features category, for an online tool that allows people to map routes with G.P.S. devices and post them on the magazine’s Web site; and Condé Nast Portfolio in its first year of publication, in the magazine section category, for its Brief section. The award for personal service went to Popular Mechanics, for articles showing readers how to gauge the energy and water they use and the waste they produce. For personal service online, the winner was BusinessWeek.com , for its guide to business schools. New York magazine, the biggest winner last year with five awards, won this year in the leisure interests category for its Cartography section, a guide to New York sidewalk food vendors. In the public interest category, The Nation won for articles by Joshua Kors on how military discharge rules deprived some wounded veterans of medical and disability benefits. The essay-writing award went to New Letters, for Thomas E. Kennedy’s account of his cancer scare. In the columns and commentary category, Rolling Stone won for political profiles by Matt Taibbi. The Atlantic won in the reviews and criticism category for Caitlin Flanagan’s wide-ranging commentaries. The Virginia Quarterly Review was honored in the single-topic issue category, for an issue devoted to South America. The design award went to Wired, and Gourmet won the photography prize. In the fiction category, Harper’s magazine won for short stories by Daniel Mason, Alice Munro and Steven Millhauser.

National Magazine Awards
Awards Decorations and Honors
National Geographic