Camrys Not Subject to Recall Also Linked to Speed Problems

Abstract: This article was reported by Bill Vlasic , Hiroko Tabuchi and Jo Craven McGinty and written by Mr. Vlasic. Toyota has recalled six million cars in the United States over concerns about sudden acceleration. But an analysis of government documents shows that many Toyota Camrys built before 2007, which were not subject to recalls, have been linked to a comparable number of speed-control problems as recalled Camrys. While owners of all makes of vehicles have filed complaints with the government about speed control problems, the analysis — based on a review of 12,700 complaint records in the United States over the last decade by The New York Times — reveals that Toyota had more complaints involving crashes than any other carmaker. Many of the complaints were about vehicles not covered by recalls. The 2002 Camry, for example, had about 175 speed-control complaints. Roughly half of those involved crashes. By comparison, the 2007 Camry, which was recalled, was the subject of about 200 speed-control complaints, with fewer than a quarter of those resulting in acci-dents. In all, federal safety regulators said they had received complaints alleging that unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles caused 34 deaths. In his Congressional testimony last week, James E. Lentz III, the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., noted that other auto manufacturers had had complaints of sudden acceleration. Of the 12,700 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration consumer complaints analyzed by The Times, the Ford Motor Company had the most, about 3,500. Toyota ranked second, with about 3,000 complaints, but those were linked to far more accidents — 1,000 — compared to 450 crashes for Ford . All told, from 2000 through 2009, Toyota had one speed-control crash complaint per 20,454 vehicles sold in the United States. Ford had one complaint per 64,679 vehicles. Honda had one per 70,112 and G.M. one per 179,821. Asked about The Times’s findings, a Toyota spokesman said on Monday that pre-2007 Camrys had been investigated and cleared of defects in three previous inquiries by the safety agency. “At the conclusion of these investigations, no specific evidence of a trend regarding safety issues was found,” said Brian Lyons, the spokesman. Mr. Lyons said that the 2002 and 2003 Camrys with six-cylinder engines had also been subject to two corporate service actions aimed at addressing momentary surges in acceleration. He said the changes were “not issued to resolve any computer software or electronic throttle control concerns.” A separate examination by The Times of transport ministry records in Japan revealed a similar finding. In reports since 2001, Toyota vehicles have been cited with a greater frequency in complaints of sudden acceleration than those of other major carmakers. Toyota has blamed gas pedals that can stick and bulky floor mats for unexplained acceleration in its recalled vehicles. Camrys sold before 2007 in the United States, and almost all Toyotas sold in Japan, use a different pedal design and different floor mats. So Toyota has said that there is no need to recall those cars. Records suggesting that these Camrys and Japanese Toyotas have sudden acceleration problems have raised questions about whether there might be another explanation, including the possibility that the cars’ electronic systems malfunction, resulting in unexpected acceleration. Toyota’s chief executive, Akio Toyoda , testified before a Congressional panel last week that he was “absolutely confident” there was no problem with Toyota’s electronics. “Tests have been repeated,” he said. “However, no malfunction or problems were identified.” But transportation officials in the United States said in interviews that they were reviewing whether to expand their investigations of Toyota to include pre-2007 Camrys. N.H.T.S.A. had cleared the pre-2007 Camrys of possible defects in two previous investigations of unintended acceleration, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Department, Olivia Alair, said. She said these same models would now be part of an inquiry into the role that electronic throttle control systems may have played in Toyota’s speed-control problems. “If N.H.T.S.A. can find evidence of a possible defect trend with Toyota or other products during this review, they will open a defect investigation,” Ms. Alair said. At a hearing in Washington on Tuesday, the transportation secretary Ray Lahood that the N.H.T.S.A. was not slow to starting investigations into Toyota vehicles despite a spike in reports of sudden acceleration in recent years. The agency opened at least two inquiries, he said. Announcing new and rare investigations in Japan, the Seiji Maehara, the transport minister, said last week of Toyota’s executives, “There’s a high possibility that Toyota has not provided the state with adequate information.” Last Wednesday, the transport ministry said it would examine 38 complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyotas reported from 2007 through 2009, as well as 134 cases in cars produced by all other automakers that sell in Japan. No deaths or injuries have been reported as a result of those incidents, the ministry said. The Times’s analysis of complaints in the United States covered those filed since 2000 involving all makes and models of cars manufactured this decade. A complaint about speed control may indicate that the vehicle accelerated excessively or inadequately. The single largest source of these complaints was the 2007 model Camry. That model, along with Camrys made since, has been recalled twice, beginning last fall, in connection with unintended acceleration — first for unsecured floor mats, and then for faulty accelerator pedals that could stick when depressed. A high incidence of crashes linked to speed control has occurred in earlier model Camrys. During 2004, 125 crashes reported to the highway safety agency were linked to speed control. About 80 of those involved Camrys. In Japan, The Times examined all the reports of Toyota malfunctions brought to the transport ministry since 2001, about 3,700 in all, and, for comparison, all comparable reports on Honda over the same period, about 2,400. The examination found 99 cases of sudden acceleration or engine surge in Toyotas, compared with 18 reports of similar problems in Hondas. The transport ministry received a sudden acceleration report for every 150,000 Toyotas sold. This compares with one report for about every 300,000 Hondas sold. Although Toyota sold 1.35 million cars and trucks in Japan last year, that many reports “is not a small number,” said Tetsuo Taniguchi, a chief researcher at the Japanese government-affiliated National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory. “If pedals or floor mats are not the problem in Japan, it’s time for Toyota to investigate what is.” Ministry officials note that a small fraction of incidents make their way to the ministry because most drivers report auto malfunctions to their dealers. And in Japan dealers and manufacturers are under no obligation to give that information to the government, unless the company believes it failed to comply with national safety standards. For the government to order a recall, it must have proof of a potentially dangerous defect, which is difficult to find without cooperation from the automaker. On Monday, Mr. Toyoda also continued his campaign to shore up Toyota’s reputation, apologizing at a news conference in China to consumers there for quality concerns.

Cars
Recalls and Bans
Toyota Motor
Accidents and Safety


Alan Oser, a Times Real Estate Writer, Dies at 81

Abstract: Alan S. Oser, The New York Times’s authoritative voice in real estate coverage for more than 30 years as a writer and editor, died on Tuesday in Barcelona, where he was celebrating his 60th wedding anniversary with his wife, Janice. He was 81. The cause was a stroke, said his son, Roy. From 1969 through 2004, several years past his nominal retirement, Mr. Oser wrote about real estate in the daily Times and in the Sunday Real Estate section, which he also helped edit. In 2004, Mr. Oser — himself a violinist — founded New Paths in Music , a nonprofit organization in Manhattan that presents the work of foreign composers whose music has rarely if ever been performed in this country. His son-in-law, David Alan Miller, the music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, is the director and conductor. While Mr. Oser knew the Manhattan market well, he was equally interested in the other boroughs and the suburbs. His idea of a fine weekend excursion was to choose a subway line at random, ride its distance and explore the neighborhood into which he had emerged. Mr. Oser, who lived in Rhinebeck, N.Y., was not taken in by the outsize personalities of the real estate business. Writing in 1996 about the diminishing fortunes of Harry B. Helmsley’s real estate empire under the defensive control of Mr. Helmsley’s wife, Leona, he said she had “already turned the depleted company into Fortress Helmsley-Spear.“ Alan Stuart Oser was born on April 25, 1931, in Forest Hills, Queens, to Dr. Bernard L. Oser and Clara Kotkin Oser. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1952. His graduate education in international affairs was cut short by the Korean War draft. Mr. Oser served in the Coast Guard. His newspaper career began in 1955 at The Cape Cod Standard-Times. He also worked at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., and at The Wall Street Journal before joining The Times in 1962. Besides his son and his wife, Mr. Oser is survived by a daughter, Andrea Oser; a sister, Zelda Oser Zelinsky; and five grandchildren. Another son, Clyde, died in 2007.

Oser Alan S
New York Times
Deaths (Obituaries)


Gaza: Gunfire Erupts Along Border With Israel

Abstract: Palestinians fired at an Israeli military jeep along the Gaza border on Friday, hitting the vehicle but causing no injuries, and three Palestinian protesters were wounded by Israeli fire during disturbances along the border fence, the Israeli military said. The confrontations erupted three days after Gaza militants fired a rocket into Israel for the first time since a cease-fire agreement took hold in November. In addition, hundreds of Palestinians held rallies in several locations across the West Bank to protest the death of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail last weekend. The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, was hustled away from a protest in Bilin after he inhaled tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers, and two Palestinians were injured elsewhere, according to Palestinian reports. The military said that it had used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse rioters and that one soldier had been injured by a rock.


Arizona: Body Found in Duct at School

Abstract: The body of a man was discovered in a ventilation shaft above the cafeteria of a Phoenix elementary school after a parent noticed a foul odor coming from the school, Sgt. Andy Hill said. A maintenance worker climbed to the roof and found the body, Sergeant Hill said. The police in Phoenix, where temperatures have hovered around 100 degrees for the past week, believe that the man was trying to break in to the school, and they are investigating how long the body had been in the air duct and the cause of death. “We have an adult male who took the top off and forced his way into the vent and died,” the sergeant said. School officials evacuated about 850 students and closed the school on what was a regularly scheduled early release day.

Accidents and Safety
Phoenix (Ariz)
Arizona


Iran Says It Tested Upgraded Missile

Abstract: CAIRO — Iran announced Wednesday that it had test-fired an improved version of its most advanced missile, one capable of reaching Israel and parts of Europe, a move that appeared aimed at discouraging a military attack on its nuclear sites and to defy Western pressure over its nuclear program. But the Pentagon said the test, on Tuesday, did not reveal anything “particularly different” about Iran’s abilities. “I’m not going to get into the particulars of what our intelligence shows other than to say I don’t think there was anything here that was particularly different than what we’ve seen in the past,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, Reuters reported. Still, the announcement provoked immediate rebukes from the White House and leaders in Europe, and appeared likely to intensify pressure from the United States and other Western powers to impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran. A White House spokesman, Mike Hammer, said that the test undermined Iran’s claims that its nuclear program was peaceful, and said that it would “increase the seriousness and resolve of the international community to hold Iran accountable” for its provocations, Reuters reported. The British prime minister, Gordon Brown , said the missile test “ does make the case for us moving further on sanctions,” according to The Associated Press. Iranian television gave a brief report on Wednesday of a successful test of the two-stage, solid-fuel missile called a Sejil-2. Iran’s defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, said that the new missile was faster, more accurate and harder to shoot down than earlier versions and that it increased “the country’s technical and tactical powers,” according to Iran’s official news agency. Iran was clearly sending a warning to the West and to Israel, regional experts said. “It shows that Iran has the ability to stir unrest in the region and impact U.S. interests,” said Mustafa el-Labbad, director of the East Center for Regional and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “It can reach the oil fields on the other side of the gulf.” Iran’s test worsened already tense relations with the West over the breakdown in efforts to diplomatically resolve a dispute over its nuclear program. A deal in which Iran was to ship most of its low-enriched uranium abroad to be returned as higher processed fuel for a medical reactor was announced in October, but quickly became a political liability inside Iran. The Iranian government has tried to reshape the deal to something that could be sold at home, issuing terms the West has already rejected. At the same time, Iran’s military has put on a show of force. Last month, the military staged five days of war games specifically aimed at discouraging an Israeli attack on its nuclear sites, and officials warned they could hit Tel Aviv if they chose. The latest missile test raises the stakes for negotiators and for Iran’s neighbors. “This is the missile of greatest concern at this point,” said Valerie Lincy , a senior associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control , a nonprofit organization working to stem the proliferation of unconventional weapons that operates under the auspices of the University of Wisconsin. “So the fact that they’re testing it now is worrisome in of itself and worrisome if you put it in the context of what’s going on with the nuclear program.” Though the range of this rocket is comparable to the liquid-fueled Shahab III, which Iran first obtained from North Korea, a solid-fuel rocket is easier to use on short notice, easier to hide from attack, and more accurate, experts said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards , an ideologically driven military, political and economic powerhouse, controls both the missile program and the nuclear program. The West has accused Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons , which it has denied, insisting that it is developing civilian nuclear technology. As that conflict has burned for years, the Revolutionary Guards has worked aggressively to enhance the missile program. The decision to make this test comes against a backdrop of Iran’s own internal political crisis touched off by the disputed presidential election in June. The Revolutionary Guards has taken control of internal security and has been uncompromising domestically and internationally. Internally, the corps leaders have called for arresting leaders of the reform movement and internationally they have rejected any compromise on the nuclear program. Political analysts said that the Revolutionary Guards might benefit from heightened conflict with the West and even from tougher sanctions, allowing the force to protect its economic and political interests. “Iran is rational,” Mr. Labbad said. “It likes to appear as though it’s crazy. But they know very well to what level they are escalating this to.”

Iran
Missiles and Missile Defense Systems
Tests and Testing
International Relations
Brown Gordon
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
Vahidi Ahmad
Lincy Valerie


Letters to the Editor

Abstract: Filling the Pantries TO THE EDITOR: Re “A Hunger for Change” (June 21): Hunger on college campuses should not be a shock to anyone who has attended college on a limited budget. While the article sheds light on the steps taken by some universities and student groups to address hunger, these short-term solutions do not address the structural causes of food insecurity on campuses: exorbitant tuition, limited access to healthy, affordable food, and time shortages. Furthermore, food pantries and voucher programs are financially dependent and do not address the stigma associated with food insecurity. Elizabeth Gorman, Moorestown, N.J. TO THE EDITOR: I applaud Catherine Saint Louis for highlighting the essential role food pantries play. At Boston Medical Center, food is medicine. Doctors write prescriptions for patients identified as food insecure to our on-site therapeutic Food Pantry, established in 2001 as the first hospital-based food pantry in the U.S. Families receive food tailored to their specific health needs, such as cardiac health or diabetes. Kate Walsh, Boston The author is president and C.E.O. of Boston Medical Center. Looking for Label TO THE EDITOR: Re “A Hue Intended to Make Smokers Cry” (Global Health, June 21): It was heart-wrenching to read that America’s tobacco industry has blocked all attempts to relabel cigarettes, especially next to the article on “A Hunger for Change” where positive changes are happening for food insecurity and people with diabetes. My mother had a lobectomy for lung cancer and lived for 20 years, ultimately dying a slow death from emphysema and her cancer. For a person with diabetes, smoking is a double whammy. It can worsen some of its complications. Had my mother seen a label on cigarettes, perhaps she would still be here. Deborah Lagana-Lorber, Port Washington, N.Y. Not Adding Up TO THE EDITOR: Re “Filling Black Holes With a Few Answers” (Out There, June 21): As mentioned in the article, the appearance of infinity in scientific calculations is certainly indicative that something is missed. But it may go further, possibly suggesting that the effectiveness of mathematics in its application to physics, though already “unreasonable”, may not be without limitation. Some aspects of physics may, simply, not be entirely subject to systematic mathematical treatment. Michael Fredman, Edison, N.J.

Nutrition
Diabetes
Food bank
Smoking
Color
Mathematics
Physics


Secret Donors Finance Fight Against Hagel

Abstract: A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, saying he would make the United States “a weaker country.” Another freshly minted and anonymously backed organization, Use Your Mandate, which presents itself as a liberal gay rights group but purchases its television time through a prominent Republican firm, is attacking Mr. Hagel as “anti-Gay,” “anti-woman” and “anti-Israel” in ads and mailers. Those groups are joining at least five others that are organizing to stop Mr. Hagel’s confirmation, a goal even they acknowledge appears to be increasingly challenging. But the effort comes with a built-in consolation prize should it fail: depleting some of Mr. Obama’s political capital as he embarks on a new term with fresh momentum. The media campaign to scuttle Mr. Hagel’s appointment, unmatched in the annals of modern presidential cabinet appointments, reflects the continuing effects of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision , which loosened campaign finance restrictions and was a major reason for the record spending by outside groups in the 2012 election. All told, these independent and largely secretly financed groups spent well over $500 million in an attempt to defeat Mr. Obama and the Democrats, a failure that seemed all the greater given the huge amounts spent. While the campaign against Mr. Hagel, a Republican, is not expected to cost more than a few million dollars, it suggests that the operatives running the independent groups and the donors that finance them — many of whom are millionaires and billionaires with ideological drive and business agendas that did not go away after the election — are ready to fight again. “We were anxious to get back into the battle,” said Nick Ryan, a Republican strategist and the founder of the American Future Fund, which started as a small, Iowa-based political committee in 2007 and has grown larger since taking a leading role now against Mr. Hagel. “Postelection we have new battle lines being drawn with the president; he kicks it off with these nominations and it made sense for us.” Image The blitz against Mr. Hagel is of a sort that has generally been reserved for elections and some Supreme Court nominations. Groups like his would have been able to operate freely against Mr. Hagel even before Citizens United. But the ruling has served to erase what had been traditional fears among donors that their involvement in the fight of the day would lead to legal trouble or, for those who prefer to stay anonymous, unwanted public exposure. That confidence, in turn, has helped spur the increase in the number of political organizations that pop up to engage in the big political entanglement of the moment. American Future Fund was formed under a section of the tax code that allows it to keep its donors secret. It spent more than $20 million seeking to defeat Mr. Obama and the Democrats last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. Other major conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity — partly financed by the industrialist Koch family — and Crossroads GPS are not involved in the Hagel nomination, but have made it clear that they will continue to combat the president’s agenda on several fronts. The outside activity is not confined to Republicans. Mr. Obama’s campaign apparatus has transformed itself into a nonprofit political group, though it said it would disclose the names of its donors (and it is not getting involved in the Hagel fight). After Mr. Obama won re-election in November and Democrats kept their majority in the Senate and made inroads in the House, Republican Party officials and senior strategists with conservative outside groups predicted that some of the big financiers of the larger outside efforts would pull back and reassess their involvement and whether their millions were wasted. But while the donors have said they will insist that the groups they finance find lessons in last year’s losses, their interest and stakes in what happens in Washington have certainly not waned. For instance, the biggest individual financier of the so-called super PACs that sought to defeat Mr. Obama, Sheldon Adelson, is so invested in the fight over Mr. Hagel that he has reached out directly to Republican Senators to urge them to hold the line against his confirmation, which would be almost impossible to stop against six Republican “yes” votes and a unified Democratic caucus. Given the more than $100 million he donated to the anti-Obama effort last year, no lawmakers need to be reminded of his importance to their future endeavors. People briefed on his involvement said Mr. Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and a longtime supporter of Israel, was calling in conjunction with the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group he has financed for several years. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in December, Mr. Adelson said he was prepared to “double” his investment in politics in the coming year. But it is unclear whether he is directly financing any of the anti-Hagel advertising. An associate of his, speaking about Mr. Adelson’s thinking on condition of anonymity, said he did not believe that expensive television campaigns are the answer to every political push given that Mr. Obama’s re-election team accomplished so much of its success through online and volunteer efforts. Image The last major cabinet skirmish, over President George W. Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, had no comparable outside media campaign. Citing similar reasons, another major Republican donor, Foster Friess, said in an interview that he had developed his own skepticism over “the whole idea of these multimedia ads from 45,000 feet.” After last year’s losses he said he was devoting most of his resources to an effort he called “Left-Right, Left-Right Forward March,” which finds projects liberals and conservatives can support together, like water purification in developing countries. Still, he said, “no one in this effort is going to give up the values that they think are important.” For him, that extends to Mr. Hagel, whose “past statements about Israel should be really taken into consideration” Mr. Friess said, adding, “and I would hope they could find a better person to serve in that position.” Whatever its chances of success, the blitz against Mr. Hagel is of a sort that has generally been reserved for elections and some Supreme Court nominations. The last major cabinet skirmish, over President George W. Bush’s nomination of John R. Bolton as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, had no comparable outside media blitz. Though goaded along by a phone campaign organized by the political action arm of the liberal group MoveOn, Democrats succeeded in blocking him in the Senate, forcing Mr. Bush to appoint him during a congressional recess. That was before the Citizens United decision. “This is the first big cabinet fight since Bolton,” said Michael Goldfarb, a strategist for a conservative group opposed to Mr. Hagel called the Emergency Committee for Israel and a founder of a conservative Web site called The Washington Free Beacon, which is running a steady stream of anti-Hagel news articles. “And things have evolved in the last seven years.” The most mysterious of the new groups is Use Your Mandate. Portraying itself as a gay rights group, it has sent mailers to voters in seven states — including New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Montana — and run television ads against Mr. Hagel in New York and Washington. It has sent out posts on Twitter questioning his gay rights record and asking, “Is this what we worked so hard for?” Established gay rights activists have expressed skepticism about the group’s authenticity. It has no Web site and it only lists as its address a post office box in New York. But paperwork filed with the Federal Communications Commission link it back to Tusk Strategies, a bipartisan political group founded by Bradley Tusk, a former strategist for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. In an interview, Mr. Tusk would only identify its financiers as Democratic “gay and L.G.B.T. people who have been active in campaigns around the country.” Yet federal records show that Use Your Mandate uses Del Cielo Media, an arm of one of the most prominent Republican ad-buying firms in the country, Smart Media, with clients that have included the presidential campaigns of former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah and Senator John McCain of Arizona; the 2010 Senate campaign of Christine O’Donnell, who was known for positions against homosexuality, in Delaware; and, as it happens, the Emergency Committee for Israel.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission


A Bit Older, No Reason to Fret

Abstract: TORRINGTON, Conn. “We’re in the mayor’s office,” Greg Bingham said into his cellphone as his son sat on the other side of a conference table. “He’s here in his office. He’s being the mayor.” And, yes, sure enough, there was Ryan J. Bingham, not just the mayor, but the re-elected mayor, with 77 percent of the vote two years after being elected mayor of Litchfield County’s largest city, with about 36,000 people, at the ripe old age of 22. By any standards of political overachieving, you have to give a gold star to Mr. Bingham, who was living in the basement of his mother’s house after graduating from college when he decided to take on a two-term Democratic incumbent, Owen Quinn, 52. He knocked on 6,000 doors and complained that the incumbent was insufficiently accessible and energetic. To the surprise of almost everyone, he won, by 224 votes out of about 8,700 cast, and found himself making $80,000 a year as mayor. This time he won by 4,654, an event so earth-shattering that he allowed himself to sleep in rather than show up for his usual 7 a.m. Wednesday breakfast with friends and constituents at Lamonica’s Catering. “I think voters were saying I’m absolutely doing a fine job,” he said. “And I won’t take that seriously, because I’m always working to make myself a better mayor, a better leader, a better public speaker, a better person. I know it’s important to keep in mind this is just a slice of time, and public opinion can change very quickly.” It hasn’t been all sweetness and light in his first term. He first got nationwide publicity when he was described as the youngest person ever elected a mayor in Connecticut , and then for the MySpace page he put up before the election that listed his occupation as “malebigalow,” an allusion to the 1999 movie “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.” He said that he didn’t write that, and someone must have tampered with the page. But he’s obviously doing something right, having gone from a 224-vote victory to one of 4,654 votes in two years. He thinks voters like his accessibility and his commitment to the city, which has long struggled to replace lost manufacturing jobs. “People were so negative about the town,” he said, describing his reason for running. “Downtown revival, drugs, crime — people had bad things to say about one thing after another. It’s like no one could see any light at the end of the tunnel.” He said he has tried to change the tone by responding more quickly to residents’ concerns. He and his administrative assistant, who was a buddy of his at Marist College, spent about $3,000 of their own salaries buying hanging baskets of flowers for downtown streets. He takes credit for the first decrease in taxes in 12 years not due to a tax revaluation, but concedes there is still a long way to go in making substantive progress. “In a short time, and not all due to my contributions, the city is turning around. People are more positive and see some light at the end of the tunnel. But you don’t change it all in two years.” Mr. Bingham is probably wise to know that he needs to keep his head from becoming too inflated. If you talk to people around town, there’s usually a quick mention of his family’s political heft — his mother, Anne Ruwet, is a Republican state representative, and his grandfather, Joe Ruwet, was a longtime state representative. People may not like politicians, but they seem either comfortable with or resigned to dynastic politics at whatever level. His local newspaper, The Register Citizen, seemed underwhelmed with his re-election: “Last night’s victory was a reprieve for Bingham. He has a second chance to show residents that their votes were not wasted. It’s time for action.” And while Mr. Bingham’s meteoric rise, reminiscent of an earlier wunderkind, former Gov. John G. Rowland, turned the heads of state politicians, on the streets here the reaction was more muted. At Grumpy’s soup and sandwich shop, the owner, Roger Arsego, a 64-year-old Vietnam vet, has a handwritten list on the Coke machine of dozens of businesses that have closed in Torrington over the years. He sees the kid mayor as more a sign of defeat than of renewal. “People look at politicians, from the banana-head president on down, and they don’t think any of them will make a difference,” he said. “This town, like all these towns in New England, used to be a place where you could work at a factory and make a good living. Now you get a job wearing a paper hat saying, “Do you want fries with that?” Now they say ballet and the arts are going to save downtown. Maybe that’s going to save the artists, but what does it do for the rest of us? I hate to sound so despondent, but this guy’s just a kid. If someone says they can change things, I have to say, ‘Show me. Show me.’ ”

Bingham Ryan J
Elections
Politics and Government
Connecticut


Mouth Guards May Sense Possible Concussions

Abstract: Students at a New York State high school are helping test new technology that could someday alert football coaches that an athlete might have sustained a concussion. The Times Herald-Record of Middletown reported that students at Middletown High School wore impact-sensing mouth guards during practices over the past week.


A Review of ‘Big Maybelle,’ at the Bay Street Theater

Abstract: The blues singer known as Big Maybelle, who recorded hit singles and toured the country during the 1950s and 1960s, is largely forgotten today, except perhaps by blues aficionados. However, the powerful performance by Lillias White at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor makes a strong case that the blues belter’s obscurity is grievously undeserved. “Big Maybelle: Soul of the Blues,” a semibiographical play by Paul Levine having its world premiere at Bay Street, is also a great showcase for Ms. White, a Broadway veteran who won a Tony Award in 1997 for her role in “The Life” and a Tony nomination for “Fela!” and who herself warrants wider recognition. Ms. White makes her singing entrance with a raise-the-rafters rendition of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” In character as Big Maybelle, she points out that she recorded the song in 1955, two years before Jerry Lee Lewis did. She goes on to deliver more than two dozen emotion-laden songs, interspersed with narration about what it means to be “a big black girl singing the blues.” Ms. White sings in a deep, gritty voice that closely matches Big Maybelle’s, which can be heard on YouTube . If “Big Maybelle” were a concert alone, it would be a notable one, especially when it loosens up in the second act. A six-member band led by Michael Mitchell, a pianist and the musical director (with music supervision by Kenny Seymour), provides terrific accompaniment. The show’s producers — Bay Street Theater in association with Martin Richards and the Gilead Company — are aiming for a transfer to Broadway, a Bay Street spokesman said. John Arnone has designed a gracefully flexible set that evokes a recording studio, nightclubs and other locations. It is enhanced by Paul Miller’s lighting, projections by Michael Clark and archival film footage collected by Joe Lauro. The costume designer ESosa has given Ms. White two handsome outfits, one similar to the ensemble Big Maybelle wore at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, which was captured on film. It’s the play part, which is directed by the author, that falls flat. The exposition Maybelle addresses to the audience between songs is neither compelling nor fresh-sounding, though Ms. White remains engaging. The tale is sad and familiar. Born Mabel Louise Smith in 1924 in Jackson, Tenn., she sang gospel at church and discovered that singing made her feel “safe from the meanness” of those who criticized her size. During the course of the play, she mentions — many times — that she has low self-esteem, weight problems and diabetes. Later we hear about faithless men, a heroin habit, a career that never successfully crosses over to a white audience and record companies that cheat her. A program note partly explains why the story sounds generic. Mr. Levine writes that because of “the scarcity of accurate biographical information,” he has based his play on her discography — which, being the blues, is heavy on heartache — and uses what he calls “several iconographic characters” to help portray her life. Some are unseen, like Fred Mendelsohn, the producer who discovered her, and a fellow named Tyrone, the first man to make love to her. After Tyrone abruptly leaves, she sings a wrenching “Blues Early, Early,” about waking up alone and discovering that “my lover, he is gone.” Ms. White writhes on a bed as she sings, making the pain palpable. Band members portray two other characters: Eric Brown, a drummer, plays Sully, another man in her life, who introduces her to heroin and dallies with other women. Kiku Collins, a trumpeter, plays Loretta, one of Sully’s girlfriends. Unfortunately, both characters are stick figures, used to illustrate the narration, and their scenes have no impact. Only the songs do. And do they ever. They range from longing (“Until the Real Thing Comes Along”) to hopeful (“What a Difference a Day Makes”) to angry (“It’s a Man’s Man’s World”) to doleful (nearly every other song). The songs also include “Candy,” Maybelle’s biggest hit (inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999). As Maybelle explains, white singers who recorded it before her, like Dinah Shore, didn’t seem to understand that candy was a euphemism for heroin. Big Maybelle, and Ms. White, make sure you know it isn’t just about having a sweet boyfriend. There is no such thing in Maybelle’s world.

Theater
Sag Harbor (NY)
Bay Street Theater
Blues Music
White Lillias
Levine Paul
Big Maybelle: Soul of the Blues (Play)


3 Chief Executives of Indian Company Jailed in Fraud Case

Abstract: HYDERABAD, India — The brothers who founded the outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services have been interrogated and jailed, and Srinivas Vadlamani, who resigned as chief financial officer after a huge fraud was disclosed there, was arrested as well on Saturday night. Inspector General V. S. K. Kaumudi of the police crime investigation unit said that Mr. Vadlamani was being held on charges of criminal conspiracy, forging accounts and cheating as part of the same case that has been registered against the Satyam founders, B. Ramalinga Raju and B. Rama Raju. On Sunday, Mr. Vadlamani was remanded to judicial custody by a magistrate on Sunday until at least Jan. 23. He was then sent to join the Raju brothers in Hyderabad’s Chanchalguda prison. Also on Sunday, police officials said that they had raided the residences of all three men, and removed several boxes of documents from the home of B. Ramalinga Raju’s in the upscale neighborhood of Jubilee Hills. B. Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman in a letter to the company Wednesday in which he confessed to faking profit and revenue. Charges being considered against Mr. Raju and his brother include cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust and falsifying documents, the authorities said. Like Mr. Vadlamani, the two are to remain in judicial custody until Jan. 23, and will be held in the Hyderabad prison. Located in Hyderabad’s old city, the prison is a sprawling colonial-era jail with concrete watchtowers, a massive steel studded front gate and electrified wire ringing high stone walls. On Sunday the government of India announced a new board for Satyam. P.C. Gupta, India’s minister of corporate affairs, speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, said the government had selected three “eminent persons” to serve on Satyam’s board, the minimum number of directors required under Indian law. The three are Deepak Parekh, the chairman of the Housing Development Finance Corp., Kiran Karnik, a former head of the National Association of Software and Services Companies, the country’s leading information technology trade association, and C. Achuthan, a lawyer and former member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the country’s market regulator. Mr. Gupta said that the board would meet within the next 24 hours and decide who would serve as Satyam’s new chairman. The government dismissed Satyam’s old board on Friday. He said the new board could select other directors as required. In India, a board may have up to 10 members and Satyam’s former board had nine directors. Mr. Gupta also said that the government would consider requests from Satyam’s large shareholders for seats on the board, but that it was up to the new board to decide who would be invited to join. Lazard, the French investment bank that has increased its stake in Satyam to 7.4 percent, has said it is seeking input into the company’s decision-making, but has not yet requested a seat on the board. “All options are open,” Mr. Gupta said. “Whatever is in the interest of the company, then the necessary steps will be taken.” In a statement released Sunday, a company spokesperson described the announcement of the new board members as “the best news we’ve received in the past four weeks.” “This is a vital stabilizing development for Satyam, and it marks the beginning of a new chapter in the company’s history,” the statement said. Mr. Gupta said that government investigators looking into the accounting fraud that has brought Satyam to the brink of bankruptcy have made “commendable progress in the case” over the past three days, but he declined to reveal any specifics about what investigators have uncovered. “It is important to ensure the continuity of the company in the interest of its shareholders, employees, customers and other stakeholders both in India and abroad,” Mr. Gupta said. Satyam, one of India’s largest outsourcing companies, is struggling to survive after the revelations of fraud, and the government has taken control of the company’s board. B. Ramalinga Raju said in his letter that no board members were aware of the fraud at the company. S. Bharat Kumar, lawyer for the Raju brothers, said in an interview that he believed the two had a “good case” for being released on bail, but the police said they intend to push to keep the brothers locked up while awaiting trial. Satyam, which counts one-third of the Fortune 500 companies among its clients, employs 53,000 people, about two-thirds of them in India. Government agencies have moved quickly since Wednesday to shore up the company and to reassure investors that Indian publicly traded companies are safe. They passed new rules Friday that will require the largest public companies on India’s stock exchange to submit their numbers to additional review by outside auditors. Lazard Asset Management, Satyam’s largest shareholder, is agitating for a voice at Satyam. The money management arm of the investment bank Lazard has asked the Indian government to be consulted on any changes at the company, and sent letters to India’s corporate affairs minister and the market regulator, SEBI, with that request, a Lazard representative said Saturday.

Satyam Computer Services Ltd
Frauds and Swindling
Computers and the Internet
India


Pennsylvania: Mistaken Identity at Funeral

Abstract: A Philadelphia woman has turned up alive nearly two weeks after her family held a funeral and burial for her. Services for Sharolyn Jackson, 50, were held on Aug. 3. Carrie Minney, Ms. Jackson’s mother, said the woman in the coffin looked identical to her daughter, except for the nose; she says the family assumed something happened to it during the embalming process. But Ms. Jackson showed up at a mental health facility in Philadelphia last week. A spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Health said Ms. Jackson’s son and a social worker who knows her had viewed photographs of a woman’s body and identified it as hers. The body that was buried will be exhumed in hopes of identifying it.


In Praise of All That Grunt Work

Abstract: This interview of Dany Levy , founder of DailyCandy.com, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant . Q. What was your approach when you first started managing people? A. I joke sometimes that everything I needed to know about management I learned from working with emotionally disturbed kids, which I did for two summers. I don’t mean this in a negative way or derogatory way. But there are some basic principle human skills that I learned about this, like the criticism sandwich -- praise, constructive criticism, praise. Q. How are you trying to improve as a manager? A. Sometimes I don’t slow down enough to walk someone through why I’m making a decision about something.Also, I tend to be a fairly–and this is just me calling it like it is–a fairly anxious person. And I’ve realized that as a boss you can’t be -- whatever energy you have is infectious.I’d say in the beginning I was definitely a lot more impulsive and sometimes irrational. And I’ve learned to sort of slow down, take a deep breath. Q. What prepared you to run your own company? A. Most of what I learned was from my first job out of college, when I was an intern and then the managing editor’s assistant at New York Magazine . And it was being her assistant that really taught me how the whole machine operates.My career has been this just wonderful series of events that somehow makes perfect sense now. It was not a glamorous job. The Xerox machine broke, it was my problem. I was customer service. I would get people calling and complaining about the magazine, and I would try and talk them down, just knowing that every subscriber had a dollar figure attached to them. So it’s that kind of thinking, understanding the business side of it and understanding the relationship between advertising and editorial, and running up and down and getting people paid.I learned about office politics and how an office works. When I graduated from college, I really understood that I didn’t know anything.In the real world, college doesn’t really prepare you for that. That’s what worries me a little bit about the present. There’s definitely, in this generation, from what I’ve seen, more a sense of entitlement, a bit of, ‘Why should I go work for ‘the man’ and put in the time when I could have my own blog and do it myself?’ And I totally understand that impulse. But there are some key things to learn from the grunt work. Q. Can you talk more about that? A. I think learning to work for people is really important. I think to be a good leader it’s key to know what it’s like to be an employee, and to have had a lot of the different level jobs where you’ve been the scrappy little nobody. I’ve had crazy bosses and I’ve had wonderful bosses, and it’s important to figure out that if you’re working for someone who you don’t gel with, there can be a way to manage that. Q. What are you looking for when you hire? A. What I call the figure-it-the-hell-out gene.You know, it’s like Occam’s Razor – the simplest answer is usually the best, and don’t overcomplicate things. It’s that kind of mentality that I look for. Also, I have a sensitive radar for cattiness. I have zero tolerance for that.We’ve got our work to do. This isn’t rocket science. As far as I’m concerned, we should all have each other’s backs, which is what we’ve done.I also like people who have a little bit of an off-sense; they are often more creative and can come up with the unexpected. Q. Anything else? A. The ability to prioritize, which I think is more and more important these days, because there’s just so much stimuli out there with everything coming at you on your Blackberry and Twitter and what-have you.The last quality is someone who’s just a good egg. That says a lot -- ultimately someone who is going to make the right call, because there are a million decisions to be made every day and it’s just important that they have a strong sense of right and wrong and good and bad. Q. How do you run meetings? A. I’m not a big believer in a lot of meetings. When I do run a meeting, I love the term, “hard stop,” and in the beginning of a meeting I always like to say, “I have a hard stop at 11:30,” because it just sets boundaries, it sets the tone of , let’s get this done. This is not a chit-chat. I try to listen as much as I can to the people in the room, but also keep it reined in, so that the meeting doesn’t go off in a million different directions. MITIN is a term that I like to use. MITIN is More Information Than I Needed. It’s like TMI, but it’s just our own little version of it. Q. You have two minutes for a commencement speech. A. We live in a day and age when there are so few opportunities and so many opportunities. And the ability to do something on your own, like starting your own blog, is so alluring. But working for people is actually a better education than four years of college, I think.I just worry, too, that we are getting into a more isolated phase of society, with the design of offices, with everyone doing everything over email versus picking up the phone.Sometimes you need to just pick up the phone, but the culture in which we operate today, we spend so much time just in this very quiet space, staring at a screen and interacting with people that way. And there’s so much room for misinterpretation over email. Q. So you’re trying to use email less? A. There is a dearth of white space, of down time. I have gotten better about not checking my email as incessantly, simply because I felt like I was so reactionary. Everything I was doing was just a reaction to something. In terms of creativity, it allowed me no time to actually come up with anything new, because I was constantly just reacting. Q. So how do you build white space into your time now? A. I’m a big runner. I’m not able to meditate, but when I run it’s as close to meditation as it gets for me, I think. But I Blackberry on the treadmill, which is totally neurotic, and I very often make to-do lists on the treadmill. But that’s good white space for me. I also try and keep my home office very white and simple. And my bedroom -- I declared it a media-free zone, because you just have to turn it all off at some point. There’s something to be said for boredom. Q. You talked about prioritizing, so I’m going to ask you to prioritize. Of all the leadership lessons you’ve learned, which one do you consider the most important? A. There’s something about a manager who can deliver a clear sense of the task at hand , and make everyone understand the importance of X, Y, or Z without it feeling tyrannical. I’m not really interested in the power aspect of being a boss or a leader. I think that people who get any kind of adrenaline rush from that ultimately make pretty uninspiring leaders, just because it’s the all-about-them show. Q. What has surprised you the most about the top job? A. It’s a cliché, but how lonely it is.I know that when I’m feeling that way, that I’m not doing something right, because it shouldn’t always be that feeling. It’s funny -- as a youngish woman, I find that I’m not very good at putting on my poker face. I tend to show my cards. I sometimes have to curb that instinct. It’s very un-me, but something that’s necessary. It just doesn’t come naturally. Q. And do you have goals for yourself as a leader and manager over the next five, ten years? A. I feel like I’m on my way to being where I want to be, which is doing a lot more listening. And, you know, I’d never say never, but I don’t know that I’m a serial entrepreneur. I don’t know that I want to go start another company. I love ideas though. I love helping people make ideas happen. It’s really fun for me. I’ll spend a lot of time with young entrepreneurs who come to me out of the blue, or email me, who say, “Can I talk to you about my idea?” And sometimes I’ll just say, “Sure”, because you know what, you had the guts to email meI admire that in a young entrepreneur. Q. Tell me about those conversations. A. I’ll either do a phone call or drinks or I’ll have them come by the office. It’s hard, because some of the ideas can be really bad. And you want to be supportive, but you want at the same time to be practical. Q. Somebody comes to you and says, Dana, what’s the secret? A. I think the secret is to find and work with really great people, and to stay super focused, to try and understand what you’re doing in one sentence or less. And I still can’t do this with DailyCandy , but I ask myself everyday. I’ve always been trying to come up with a tag line. That’s what I say -- I ask people, “What’s the tag line for your company,” just so you can distill it down to that. It’s something that I think about everyday with DailyCandy . . It’s the asking of the question that keeps DailyCandy fresh. Q. If you were to teach a business school course, what would it be? A. I’d love to teach a course called The Idea, which is basically, so you want to start a company, how’s it going to work? Let’s figure it out -- just a very practical plan, but not a business plan, because I feel like business plans now feel weighty and outdated. Q. Why do they feel outdated? A. It seems, back in the day, the longer your business plan was, the more promising it was going to be. And now it’s, the shorter your business plan is, the more succinct and to the point it is, the better. You want people to get why your business is going to work pretty quickly.

DailyCandy.com
Executives and Management
Levy Dany


A Growth Spurt for Middle Eastern Carriers, Led by Emirates

Abstract: There is little doubting the ambitions of the giant Middle Eastern airlines, but recent large plane orders demonstrated just how aggressively these carriers plan to compete in coming years. The three airlines — Emirates, Etihad Airlines and Qatar Airways — all based in the same corner of the Persian Gulf, already operate more wide-body airplanes than all the American carriers put together. But last week, at the Dubai Air Show, they announced plans to buy 350 more long-range planes from Boeing and Airbus, with orders valued at a record $162 billion and deliveries extending well into the next decade. Emirates alone ordered 150 of the new Boeing 777X, with an option for 50 more, as well as an additional 50 Airbus A380s, the biggest passenger jet. It was billed as “the largest ever aircraft order in civil aviation,” a commitment worth $99 billion at list prices. The size of these orders stunned aviation watchers. It provided a sense of the scale the carriers are after and dwarfs anything American airlines have planned. American Airlines, for instance, ordered 600 planes for the next decade to replace its aging fleet, but the bulk of those are single-aisle planes for the domestic market, not twin-aisle ocean-crossing giants. Emirates, established in 1985 with one jet plane, has been the main driver of this growth, putting Dubai on the map as one the world’s biggest air travel hubs. The airline, which carried 39 million passengers last year, aims for 70 million annual passengers by 2020, according to its chief executive, Tim Clark. This would make Emirates the biggest airline by international passengers, he said in a speech last month. Their strategy is simple, according to Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., “They want to take over the world,” he said Emirates has thrived by building routes to developing countries long neglected by traditional carriers and by providing an alternative to local airlines — connecting Europe and India, Africa and Russia, China and the Middle East. Instead of flying through traditional hubs like London or Frankfurt, these new routes run through Dubai, which the airline has turned into a global connecting hub thanks to the backing of the city’s ruling family. Image Emirates recently signed deals for 200 wide-body jet aircraft. Credit European Pressphoto Agency The success of the Dubai model has ignited the envy of its neighbors, who have sought to copy it with their own global airlines. At the air show, Qatar’s flag carrier, Qatar Airways, said it would buy 50 Boeing 777X jets — a new aircraft that should be available by 2020. Etihad, based in neighboring Abu Dhabi and the smallest of the three, ordered 143 airplanes at the air show, including 30 Boeing 787s and 50 Airbus A350s. Their ambitions have sent ripples of concerns among their competitors, more recently in the United States, where the biggest pilots’ union, the Air Line Pilots Association, called these airlines an “economic threat” to American carriers and their employees. The industry’s trade group, Airlines for America, said airlines in the United States cannot compete fairly against rivals that benefit from government subsidies. “I can understand the frustration felt by the legacy carriers whose lunch is being eaten,” Mr. Aboulafia said, referring to Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and what will be a combined American Airlines and US Airways. “The best-case scenario for them is that all the growth goes through the Gulf and everyone else makes do with a stagnant market.” But while some analysts say these worries might be overblown, carriers from the United States were unwilling to take any chances after seeing how disruptive Emirates has been for well-established airlines like Air France, Lufthansa or Air India. “They’ve watched Asian and European airlines whistling past the graveyard, and now Emirates and the other Gulf carriers are getting uncomfortably close to home,” Mr. Aboulafia said. Emirates operates about 3,200 flights a week to 135 cities and 76 countries. It started flying to 20 new destinations since the beginning of last year and plans to add service to Conakry, Guinea; Sialkot, Pakistan; and Kabul, Afghanistan, before the end of the year. “Being the biggest airline in the world is not really the end goal,” Mr. Clark said in the speech last month. “Our aim has always been to connect travelers from around the world to Dubai, and other destinations with just a single stop via our hub.” The airline is expanding its presence in North America where it has made significant inroads last year, opening new routes from Dubai to Dallas, Seattle and Washington. It has also increased the frequency of its flights to New York. It also serves Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Image Emirates executives gather near an Airbus A380 at the Dubai Air Show. The carrier has ordered an additional 50 A380s. Credit Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press It recently inaugurated a new flight between Kennedy International Airport in New York and Malpensa Airport in Milan, which allows passengers from the United States to fly to Europe on Emirates without having to fly through Dubai. The move is viewed with concern by American carriers, which consider it as a direct attack on their market, and it is being challenged in an Italian court by several airlines including Alitalia and Delta Air Lines. Qatar Airways, which joined the Oneworld Alliance with American Airlines, started service to Chicago recently from Doha. “The three have caused consternation,” according to a recent report by CAPA, an aviation consulting firm, referring to the big Gulf carriers. “No doubt that after this spate of orders, competitors are worried now that projected growth targets in abstract percentage terms have been translated into metal.” All this is reviving recurring complaints by traditional airlines about what they view as unfair competition by state-owned rivals. United States airlines are drumming up political support to oppose plans to open up a customs and immigration pre-clearance facility in Abu Dhabi — similar to those that exist in Nassau, Bahamas, or at most airports in Canada — arguing that it would give an unfair advantage to Etihad, which is based there. Rivals also object to what they view as an unfair trade advantage that benefits foreign airlines seeking financing guarantees or preferential loans to purchase Boeing planes. These favorable terms, meant to promote American exports, are not available to domestic airlines. Still, few doubt that Emirates is a force to stay. It now has a total of 385 aircraft on order, including 101 A380s, at a total value of $166 billion. It currently flies 39 A380s and now accounts for well over half of all A380 orders — and has been instrumental in rescuing that aircraft program. By contrast, Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways fly a combined 22 A380s and do not plan to significantly increase their orders anytime soon. But while the numbers are impressive, some analysts expressed skepticism about the capacity of the gulf carriers — and particularly Emirates — to sustain such growth rates. “My jaw dropped,” Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant, said after he heard about Emirates’ order for the extra A380s. “The A380 is a wonderful piece of machinery, but there are not a lot of airports where it can land, and not many routes that can take that many seats. They will be searching for routes to make it work.”

Middle East
Emirates Airlines
Qatar Airways
Etihad Airways
International trade
Airlines,airplanes


Canada Advances to Second Round at Worlds

Abstract: Jeff Skinner, an N.H.L. rookie of the year finalist, scored twice as Canada routed France, 9-1, in Kosice, Slovakia, to advance to the second round of the world championships. Russia rebounded from its opening loss to Germany by beating Slovenia, 6-4. Marcel Muller and Felix Schutz each had a goal and an assist to lead Germany over host Slovakia, 4-3, and into the next round. Switzerland also advanced after topping Belarus, 4-1.


Once Proud Royals Prepare to Host All-Star Game in Kansas City

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The car was unloaded by midafternoon, heat rising off the concrete in the vast stadium parking lot on a stifling day in mid-June when burgers might have grilled on the ground. Richard Mize had come early to tailgate and ponder a rare Royals game that had the feel of a special occasion. “Greinke pitching against us tonight,” he said, referring to Milwaukee’s Zack Greinke, a former Cy Young Award winner with the Royals who lobbied hard after the 2010 season to be traded from one of baseball’s worst teams. “Should be pretty good.” Mize, 37, had driven with a friend from Boonville, Mo., about 100 miles east of Kansas City, and they were far from alone in a section of the lot that was filling up fast. “We’re good fans, even though it’s been painful to watch for a long time,” he said. “I’ve been following the Royals since the early ’80s, back when they were bigger than anybody, when Mr. K was around.” The spirit of Mr. K, a k a Ewing M. Kauffman, hovers over the modest but charming ballpark that bears his name, though more paternally than hauntingly. Even his shortened handle, which is still spoken here with reverence, suggests organizational ubiquity and baseball immortality. Twenty-seven years after his greatest triumph, and 19 after his death, Kauffman, the Royals’ founding owner, remains the patron saint of Kansas City baseball, the city’s guiding luminary as it prepares to host Tuesday night’s All-Star Game, its first since 1973. In the last six years — or since Kauffman’s successor, David Glass, hired Dayton Moore as his general manager — the long-downtrodden Royals have built one of baseball’s best farm systems. With players like third baseman Mike Moustakas, first baseman Eric Hosmer and catcher Salvador Perez, the Royals are believed to be nurturing several future All-Stars. For now, they will be represented Tuesday by designated hitter Billy Butler, a six-year veteran and a rare organizational asset when Moore took over. While the former Royals outfielder Willie Wilson laments the fact that “kids born in the ’90s have never even seen the Royals win,” many older fans like Mize, while hopeful that the young Royals are coming, remain tethered to the days when Kansas City was the small-market model, courtesy of Mr. K. “It all felt so special, so local,” said Buddy Biancalana, who played shortstop for the Royals’ 1985 championship team and fondly recalled Kauffman and his wife, Muriel, poking their heads out of their suite and engaging the crowd during seventh-inning stretches. The last time baseball’s best converged here, in 1973, the Royals were a fifth-year expansion team and moving toward the postseason, which they reached in 1976. During a decade-plus run of excellence, when fans packed what was then Royals Stadium to watch their pitching-rich team play speed ball on artificial turf, Kansas City produced or acquired George Brett, Hal McRae, Amos Otis, Frank White, Dennis Leonard and Bret Saberhagen. With its crown-topped scoreboard and aesthetically pleasing outfield fountains, Royals Stadium had the feel of a big-league field of dreams. “Once school was out, from 1977 to 1989 or 1990, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night was sold out, didn’t matter who we were playing,” said Brett, whose entire 21-year Hall of Fame career was spent in Kansas City and who remains with the Royals as the vice president for baseball operations. “It became a destination for people from Nebraska, Kansas, from miles and miles away. They would go to amusement parks, take a little family vacation. We had turf for that reason. You’d get torrential downpours, but it could stop at 7, and we’d be playing by 8.” Back then, the Royals’ front office was expertly anchored by Joe Burke and John Schuerholz. The team was assertively managed by Whitey Herzog, Jim Frey and Dick Howser, who died in 1987. Kauffman, a billionaire pharmaceutical magnate and renowned philanthropist, generated fierce loyalty from those who worked and played for him. “All I can tell you is that my father died when I was 4, and he was the father I never had,” said Art Stewart, who scouted for the Yankees 50 years ago, signing pitchers Jim Bouton and Doc Medich, before spending the last four decades with Kansas City. Stewart said that he had seen it all but that he had never known anyone in baseball quite like Kauffman. “Talk to him for five minutes, and you’re ready to run through the center-field wall,” he said. Before a spectacular crash, the Royals won six division titles from 1976 to 1985. They took the 1980 pennant, having lost three American League Championship Series to the Yankees, and won it all five years later after rallying from a 3-1 deficit to edge the cross-state St. Louis Cardinals in what was known as the I-70 World Series. But Kauffman died in 1993, never to know of the two decades of woeful baseball that were to come in his baseball-loving hometown. “Losing is contagious, and once they started, they couldn’t stop,” said Wilson, the former fleet center fielder who recently returned to live in Kansas City after spending time in Toronto. “It’s been sad to watch.” The Royals became one of the majors’ most consistent ne’er-do-wells, losing 90 or more games 11 times and 100 or more four times. They have not made the postseason since winning the World Series in 1985, and only the Washington Nationals have gone longer without a postseason appearance (1981), dating to their time in Montreal. After Kauffman died, Glass, a former Wal-Mart executive based in Arkansas, led a board that oversaw operations while an owner was sought to keep the team in Kansas City, as Kauffman had formally stipulated when he put the team into a trust. “We didn’t have an owner for seven years,” said Stewart, the scout. “That’s what killed us.” But Schuerholz, who left the Royals in 1990 to build the Atlanta Braves into a National League powerhouse, said that anyone would have paled after Kauffman, who developed baseball’s first training academy (in Florida, producing White, a second baseman) and pushed for a baseball-only facility, next door to where the Kansas City Chiefs play football, at the dawn of the era of drab, multipurpose stadiums. “His mandate for everyone he hired was to be dynamic,” Schuerholz said. “He was unique, a visionary, and he had to be to do what he did with an expansion team in that market. People like Mr. K pass our way very infrequently, and when you lose someone like that, the sky is going to dim.” The $96 million — what Glass paid for the Royals in 2000 — question is whether their fate would have been different had Kauffman lived several years longer. His adopted daughter, Julia Irene Kauffman, suggested it might have been, noting that he considered Marion Laboratories to be the family business and the Royals his personal passion. “This is how baseball happened,” she said. “He had some kind of a stroke over in Europe. The doctors ran tests; he had something — plaque — flake off and go through his brain. They told him to give up coffee, do some exercise and stop working so damn hard.” The Royals became so much her father’s pride, she said, that he threw parties after the 1985 World Series in which the championship trophy was displayed like a pagan centerpiece. Until his death, Ewing Kauffman watched tapes of the Series while musing aloud, “I wonder if we’re going to score here.” Julia Irene Kauffman sat at the head of a long table decorated with a bowl of baseballs, and with a miniature replica of the 1985 World Series trophy encased in a corner of the conference room at the headquarters of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit group that supports education and entrepreneurship. There is another family foundation in the name of her mother and Ewing’s second wife, Muriel McBrien Kauffman, focusing on the arts. There is also the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Kansas City and the sprawling Kauffman Gardens across the street from the foundations’ building. The K in Kansas City does not stand for Kauffman, but still, as Julia Irene Kauffman said, “he touched a lot of lives here.” In addition to overseeing her father’s foundation, she has a seat on the Royals’ board of directors. But her exposure to baseball is limited to attending board meetings, raising a few questions about expenditures and collecting stories around town about the glory years when even she addressed the boss — in the workplace, at least — as Mr. K. She had not heard the one about how her father brought the free-agent pitcher and Kansas City native David Cone into his office before the 1992 season and offered him a $9 million signing bonus to return to the organization in which he had started his career. Ewing Kauffman told Cone that he regretted trading him to the Mets, because Cone was a local boy. “He wanted to make up for it,” Cone said. “He opened his checkbook and said: ‘This is coming out of my account. I’ll write you the check right now.’ ” Julia Irene Kauffman laughed, smacking the table with her palm. “What a salesman,” she said. But it was true, she added, that in the Royals’ heyday, Kauffman willingly tapped his personal fortune in his continuing pursuit of George Steinbrenner’s Yankees. On principle, Kauffman was generally loath to playing the free-agent market as it developed from the mid-1970s. In his office at the Royals’ stadium, Brett said he believed the Cone signing, as well as some others in the early 1990s, more reflected Kauffman’s desire to keep the Royals in contention when he became ill with bone cancer. “I mean, if you’re going to give as much as he did to charity and you’re as competitive as he was — and if you ever played golf or gin with him, you’d know — it’s a good question what he would have done had he lived longer,” Brett said. “Would our payroll be $150 million if he were alive today?” Avron Fogelman, a Memphis-based real estate magnate who purchased almost half of the team in the 1980s and was being groomed as Kauffman’s replacement, said the mere suggestion that Kauffman would have gone anywhere near the financial level of where the Steinbrenner family took the Yankees was absurd. “Ewing and I had discussions about it all the time, and he could see where it was going and that the economics of baseball were only going to get worse,” Fogelman said in a telephone interview. “He didn’t want to leave the team to his estate; he believed it was time to get out.” Fogelman’s plan to buy out Kauffman disintegrated with heavy real estate losses, and he sold his share in 1990. With the payroll growing and the Royals operating in the red and fading in the standings, Kauffman was one of the earliest owners to rail against the revenue disparities between big and small markets, which would carry the sport to its calamitous players’ strike in 1994 and force the cancellation of the World Series. “Nobody wanted to buy the team,” Julia Irene Kauffman said. With his time growing short, her father created the trust, handpicking Glass as its overseer, a choice probably related to Glass’s experience at Wal-Mart, long considered to be an enemy of organized labor. Much as he loved his players, Kauffman, like Glass, was no great fan of their union. “Never had one at Marion — he was proud of that,” Julia Irene Kauffman said. “He said if you take care of your people, you don’t need it.” But what happens when the company can no longer compete in the prevailing market? It was with that question that the beloved Mr. K made his exit and the newly appointed board — with Glass as its chairman and each of its well-leveraged members investing money for operational expenses — took a figurative cleaver to the payroll. With what he called his succession plan, Kauffman in a sense set up Glass to destroy the Royals, with the long-term goal of saving major league baseball in Kansas City. When Glass formally purchased the team in 2000 — with net revenue going to charity, as mandated by Kauffman — he made as much an attempt to compete with the ghost of Mr. K as with the rest of the American League. “He wasn’t around much; it was mainly his son,” Wilson, the outfielder, said, referring to Dan Glass, who is the Royals’ president. “It was kind of run like a corporation.” In the early years of David Glass’s ownership, the Royals not only lost most of their quality talent, including Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran, but also let their farm system badly deteriorate. They invested little in the fertile territory of Latin America. In a 2011 article, former employees told The Kansas City Star that scouts and others were denied basic equipment, even company cellphones, as the Royals cut costs. Brett, who fronted a group that failed in a bid to buy the team, said he had heard that the Royals, in the early 2000s, would pay no more than a $1,000 signing bonus to any drafted player taken after the fifth round. “Not going to find many good players to sign for that,” he said. “You just don’t need bodies; you need players.” Teams like the Oakland Athletics, the Minnesota Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays cultivated young talent, or acquired it for veterans, and were able to win for sustained periods in markets or stadiums less attractive than Kansas City’s. Criticism mounted that Glass was mainly interested in profiting from baseball’s growing revenue-sharing program, designed to encourage small-market teams to invest in talent. In 2011, Forbes magazine pegged the Royals’ worth at $351 million — 26th out of the 30 major league teams but far more than Glass had paid 11 years earlier. Forbes added that the Royals were “among the biggest recipients of welfare from the league’s richer teams” and were likely to turn a healthy profit after payroll reductions. That came after $225 million in taxpayer-financed renovations to Kauffman Stadium in 2009. Also galling for Kansas City fans was the Cardinals’ success — they have appeared in three World Series since 2004 and won two — in St. Louis, which has a smaller city but a larger metropolitan-area population. “I own a lot of apartment developments in both cities, so I know the demographics and economics, and they’re quite similar,” Fogelman said. “I’m not going to get into it other than to say that it’s an astute analogy.” In the trust, Kauffman had stipulated that a new owner could not quickly profit by reselling the team — a provision intended to prevent the franchise from being flipped. Lou Smith, who was on the board with Glass during the trust years, said that the profit resale ban had expired but that it might have factored into Glass’s reluctance to invest in baseball operations sooner. “He is a very smart businessman, and I think he was operating in a difficult situation,” Smith said. “But I do think he always had the intention of fulfilling Mr. K’s wishes and to keep the team in Kansas City.” For his part, Glass has publicly acknowledged some regrets and mistakes from the early years of his ownership. Early this season, he denied renewed speculation that he was exploring a sale, telling The Star : “Everybody in baseball knows that I’m committed, and my family is committed, that we’re going to own the Royals, and that the Royals are going to be in Kansas City and that we’re going to make the team a contender again.” Glass rarely does interviews and declined one for this article while attending a home series against Milwaukee in mid-June. Before the Royals faced Greinke in the opener, he watched batting practice behind the cage, chatting with Moore, the general manager, who, it has turned out, has become the Royals’ best pitchman since Mr. K. Industry colleagues told Moore that he might be committing career suicide if he accepted Glass’s offer in 2006 to run the Royals. It made little sense to them that one of baseball’s bright young executives, who had already turned down a similar deal with the Boston Red Sox and was comfortably entrenched as Schuerholz’s protégé in Atlanta, would work for someone with Glass’s track record. But Moore, who grew up a Royals fan in Wichita, Kan., took the same long view he had as an 18-year-old on Oct. 27, 1985, when Saberhagen and the Royals demolished the Cardinals, 11-0, to win the World Series. “I was right up there watching the game,” he said while sitting in the dugout, pointing beyond the left-field fence. “I was up on the I-70 ramp — seemed like 400 to 500 people. You could see everything but Lonnie Smith in left field.” Moore had rationalized turning down the Red Sox by telling himself that they had already done the once-in-a-generation thing in 2004, winning the Series after an 86-year wait. Staying in Atlanta to succeed Schuerholz seemed like the safe, comfortable track. But what more could he build? Where was the challenge? Hence, the old Royals fan was drawn to Kansas City. Moore had heard all about the passionate Royals fan base from Schuerholz and thought: Why not try to do something special? Why not build from the ground up? Moore recalled Schuerholz telling him: “I have no doubt that you’ll build a system because you know how to do it. But at some point, you’re going to have to win at the major league level.” Moore needed to know that Glass understood how long a process it is to develop potential into major league talent. Five amateur drafts later, Baseball America ranked the Royals’ farm system No. 1 in the majors. Moore said Glass kept his promise to spend on development, open a new academy and bulk up international scouting. Position players have surged through the system, some more rapidly than others. Raving about Perez, 22, a Venezuela-born catcher who last month came off the disabled list to hit at a torrid pace, Stewart, the scout, said, “If he doesn’t go to the Hall of Fame, I’ll go into the furniture business.” Keeping an eye on his hometown team while broadcasting Yankees games, Cone said, “Their pitching prospects haven’t really come through yet, but their young position players are some of the best in the game, in my opinion.” Yet the Royals lost 91 games last season, and this season began with a record of 0-10 in their first homestand, making their marketing slogan of “Our Time” sound embarrassingly premature. Arm injuries to two of their more heralded young pitchers, Danny Duffy and John Lamb, have not helped. Nor has Jonathan Sanchez, who has gone 1-5 with a 6.75 earned run average since being acquired from San Francisco for outfielder Melky Cabrera. (Cabrera will return to Kansas City as an All-Star for the N.L.) Moore said that Schuerholz’s warnings of impatience have not materialized. “Our owner has been very supportive with what we’ve had to do,” he said, adding that he had told Glass that the Royals could be a .500 team this season “if everything goes right,” which it has not. But on the night the Royals faced Greinke, handing out promotional “Hometown Heroes” T-shirts to fans, Glass watched them play a crisp game, winning, 2-1. The next night, with the Royals trailing by two runs in the ninth inning against the Milwaukee closer John Axford, the homegrown infield corners Moustakas and Hosmer were on base with two outs. Shortstop Alcides Escobar was at the plate. Escobar, 25, came in the Greinke deal, along with outfielder Lorenzo Cain, pitcher Jeremy Jeffress and a top pitching prospect, Jake Odorizzi. With Escobar entrenched at short and hitting .307, Moore hopes the trade will eventually be viewed as the kind of chicken salad made by the shrewdest small-market general managers — his Billy Beane baptism. Against Axford, Escobar tripled in two runs, and the Royals won the game in 11 innings, celebrating at home plate as if they had clinched a divisional title. By the end of June, they had surged to four games below .500 before dropping back to 10 under going into the All-Star break. “There’s no doubt we’re making progress, and everybody knows it,” Butler, an All-Star and a veteran of more losing baseball than he cares to remember, said in the postgame clubhouse. “We have so much talent up here and more coming up that we didn’t have before.” If and when that talent matures, the question will be to what extremes Glass will go to retain it. Moore acknowledged that the market size would preclude keeping everyone and that it would be up to the scouts to keep the assembly line moving. For now, he gauges the Royals’ progress as much in perception as in reality. “One thing that’s occurred — and it’s the best feeling I’ve had since I’ve been here — is we now have young kids in Kansas City between the ages of, say, 5 and 13, who, if you ask, want to have lunch with Brett and White or Salvador Perez and Mike Moustakas, they’re going to choose one of those young guys,” Moore said. “And that’s the key thing that’s happened here and what it’s all about for us, to move beyond what was here in the ’70s and ’80s, beyond Mr. K.” Last year came reports that Glass was considering peddling corporate naming rights to the ballpark that was renamed for Kauffman one month before his death in 1993. How that revenue-generating strategy, common elsewhere, would play in Kauffman-loving Kansas City remains to be seen. In the meantime, while the young Royals and their long-suffering fans wait for their time, memories of the good old days and Mr. K still shimmer like twinkling stars across the nighttime Midwestern sky.

Baseball
Kansas City Royals
Kauffman Ewing
Schuerholz John
Brett George
Kansas City (Mo)
All Star Games
Glass David D


Some Syrian Kurds Resist Assad, Defying Conventional Views

Abstract: ALGHOOZ, Syria — The arc of Omar Abdulkader’s transformation from farmer to fighter resembles that of uncountable others in Syria, where since 2011 tens of thousands of men have been drawn into a civil war. A rebel commander seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, he described the choice of a cornered man. His resistance began with peaceful demonstrations, he said. When the government answered with force, his tactics changed. “It was only after they showed that they would kill us that we became armed,” he said. But there is a difference between this story and many others. Mr. Abdulkader is a Kurd, not an Arab, which means his experiences and decisions upend conventional wisdom that holds that the Kurds do not see this as their fight. To hear the governments of Turkey and Syria describe it, Syria’s Kurds often side with or remain neutral toward Mr. Assad, whose government supported the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., in its bloody insurgency against Turkey until 1998, when Syria grudgingly extradited the Kurdish group’s leader at the brink of war with Turkey. But the scenes in Alghooz and in a string of Kurdish villages north of Aleppo present a more complex picture of Syria’s Kurds and their ambitions and relations with the government. Kurds here fiercely note that they have suffered under Mr. Assad’s rule, too, and taken up arms against him. They sharply contradict the notion that they rely on Mr. Assad’s government for protection. And so while there have been signs that many Kurds remained pro-government, with some pro-P.K.K. fighters clashing with rebels, hundreds of others have joined the Free Syrian Army, as the loosely assembled antigovernment fighters call themselves, Kurdish and rebel leaders say. The flatlands north of Aleppo are spotted with towns. Local men said that about 40,000 Kurds live here, and that their families have produced more than 600 fighters against Mr. Assad. The fighters are organized into at least eight separate groups, Kurdish leaders and fighters said. Their names include the Islamic Kurdish Front, the Pesh Merga Falcons and the Martyrs of Mecca. Defying official and popular accounts of Kurdish loyalties, these men fight beside Arabs against Mr. Assad. They and their leaders bluntly denounce the P.K.K., which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organization, and also criticize many Kurdish nationalists, saying that calls for an independent Kurdistan are not a vision they share. “We are not interested in a separate homeland,” said Yousef Haidar, 72, Alghooz’s mukhtar, or village elder. “We want to be part of Syria.” He added, “For hundreds of years we have lived together with Arabs, and after the revolution we want to live together more.” The Kurdish revolutionary fighters also reject neutrality, like the public position of the Democratic Union Party, Syria’s largest Kurdish political party, which has largely kept out of the uprising, furthering the impression that Kurds were not supporting the rebels. “I am Kurdish, and as a Kurdish citizen I am fighting side to side with the Free Syrian Army, because you cannot find anybody who was not stepped on by the regime, or was not wronged,” Mr. Haidar said. “We were wronged as well.” Alghooz is a small farming village on an agricultural plain. It lies a few miles east of Marea, one of the area’s thoroughly anti-Assad towns. Fewer than 3,000 people live here. Its elders said that perhaps 30 men from local families were now fighting, and that these men had attracted Arabs, Christians and Turkmens to fight with them under the rebels’ flag. Mr. Abdulkader commands one of three sections of a group that calls itself the Grandsons of Saladin and claims to field nearly 90 fighters in all. It fights under the command of Al Tawhid Brigade, the largest Free Syrian Army unit in the Aleppo region. From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Abdulkader said, he served a tour of duty as an infantry conscript at a base south of Damascus. Then he returned home to work in the local fields, growing potatoes, lentils, onions and other crops. His Kurdish village lived peacefully beside the Arab villages nearby. When protests against Mr. Assad began in early 2011 and Syrians in other villages in the countryside north of Aleppo demonstrated and organized into an underground movement, the Kurds in Alghooz did not commit. But as the Assad government turned violent, the village picked a side, its elders said. “We joined the revolution,” Mr. Haidar said. The imperative for the uprising, he said, was even greater than when the villages rose against colonial powers. “We were colonized by the French, but even France did not do what Bashar does,” he said. “The government kills innocent people. We felt no other option but to fight against this criminal.” In doing so, the Kurds here noted that they face the same difficulties as the other Free Syrian Army units. The Grandsons of Saladin split time now between their home villages, organizing roaming patrols at night on the roads, and holding a small portion of the front in Aleppo’s shattered neighborhoods. They have relied in part on the training many of their members received during their brief service as conscripts in Mr. Assad’s army. One man was previously a rifleman, another a machine-gunner. One — an Arab fighting inside the Kurdish group — was in a Syrian military communications unit. Two were trained in air defense. All of them denounced the lack of Western support, and said their dearth of military equipment had slowed their progress and caused them many casualties. “In general, we have a shortage of ammunition and weapons,” said Hussein Abu Mahmoud, a construction worker who is one of Mr. Abdulkader’s fighters. “Most of our fighters who were killed died because we don’t have enough weapons.” Facing continued shortages, the Grandsons of Saladin make their own hand grenades, from pipes and locally made explosives, and use a large slingshot to heave some of their bombs, each slightly smaller than a grapefruit, toward army positions. In recent months, the fighters said they had suffered five killed and seven wounded — proof enough, they said, of their role in the anti-Assad cause, and that Kurdish loyalties in Syria should not be defined by the statements from Damascus or Ankara, the Turkish capital, alone. “There has been much propaganda that the Kurds are with the regime,” Mr. Abdulkader said. “We are not with Assad. We are fighting him.”

Syria
Kurdish
Bashar al-Assad
Arab Spring
Turkey
Kurdistan Workers' Party,PKK
Free Syrian Army


San Francisco Murder Case Exposes Lapses in Immigration Enforcement

Abstract: The case of a Mexican laborer with a lengthy criminal record who was charged on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of an American woman on a pier in San Francisco has exposed a gulf of mistrust and failed communication between the federal authorities and the police in California over immigration enforcement. The man, most recently known as Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 56, pleaded not guilty in Superior Court in San Francisco in the murder of Kathryn Steinle, 32, who was strolling last Wednesday with her father and a friend on Pier 14 near the Ferry Building when she was struck in what the police described as a random shooting. Mr. Lopez-Sanchez, whose criminal record includes seven felony convictions, had been deported from the United States five times, raising questions about why he was in the United States. Questions were also raised late Tuesday about the gun used in the killing. A law enforcement official confirmed local media reports that the serial number showed the gun belonged to a federal agent. The official declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The case immediately became fodder in the polarized debate over immigration. Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, who has been under fire for comments about Mexican immigrants , pointed to the killing as “yet another example of why we must secure our border immediately.” On Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democratic presidential contender, said San Francisco had “made a mistake.” And Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, also a Democrat, called on the city to restore its cooperation with the Obama administration in enforcing immigration laws. The lapse in the case of Mr. Lopez-Sanchez — also known as José Inez García Zarate and several other names — did not occur at the border, legal records show. After being deported in June 2009, he tried to return three months later but was stopped by agents at the crossing in Eagle Pass, Tex. He was then prosecuted for a felony of illegal entry and served almost four years in a federal prison in California. When he finished his sentence, the prison sent him to San Francisco on March 27, based on a warrant for a 20-year-old felony marijuana charge. Within a day, a local court dismissed the charges. Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi of San Francisco said Mr. Lopez-Sanchez stayed in jail for three weeks so the authorities could verify that he was eligible for release. He was freed April 15. At that point, communications between San Francisco and federal authorities broke down. Federal officials say that as soon as they learned of Mr. Lopez-Sanchez’s transfer from federal prison to San Francisco, they issued a request to Sheriff Mirkarimi to notify them when he would be released. An order for his deportation was ready. “We are just asking for a heads-up, a phone call,” said Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. “We did not hear anything until the day this young woman was killed.” A San Francisco ordinance, passed in 2013, broadly restricts the police from cooperating with immigration agents. City officials say the so-called sanctuary law has helped law enforcement by enhancing trust between the police and residents who are immigrants without documents. Sheriff Mirkarimi said the city’s ordinance allowed him to respond to the federal authorities only when he had a court order or warrant. “They had his rap sheet and they were well aware of our policies,” the sheriff said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “The natural question is, why wouldn’t they follow through with a warrant for this suspect?” He said Ms. Steinle’s killing was “a horrible and senseless act that requires ICE to really work with local governments in a way that comports with local law.” The Obama administration has long struggled to shape an enforcement strategy to deport convicted criminals like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez but avoid the deportation of undocumented immigrants arrested by the police for low-level offenses. In November, President Obama said he would abandon a nationwide program known as Secure Communities, which connected federal agents with local police. Officials announced a new, less aggressive program, but they have been slow to explain it to the police. All but a few California counties have adopted laws restricting cooperation with federal agents, and the state enacted a law in 2014 — although it would not have applied to Mr. Lopez-Sanchez because of his criminal record. In a halting, often incoherent interview from the jailhouse on Monday with KGO-TV in San Francisco, Mr. Lopez-Sanchez said that he had found a gun wrapped in a T-shirt under a bench on the pier, and that when he picked it up, it had fired three shots. Speaking in Spanish, he said he did not remember the events well because he had taken sleeping pills. But he said, “When I go to the court, I am going to plead guilty,” and added, “I want to have the punishment I deserve as quickly as possible.” Ms. Steinle was “the most amazing, loving, outgoing person,” her brother Brad Steinle told Anderson Cooper on CNN. He cautioned against rancor over the killing. It would be “easy for us to hate and be angry, but Kate wouldn’t want that,” he said.

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate,Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez:Francisco Sanchez


Hurricane Victims Rush to Apply for Grants as Deadline Looms

Abstract: NEW ORLEANS, July 31 — Hundreds of Louisianians whose homes were ruined by Hurricane Katrina rushed to meet a Tuesday deadline set by the state’s troubled housing aid program, even as a deficit of billions of dollars threatened to leave thousands without a grant. The program, known as the Road Home and financed with federal dollars, has so far provided grants to fewer than a quarter of all applicants. Nonetheless, in recent days applications have been pouring in at the rate of more than 1,000 per day, mostly by phone and Internet, program officials say. The cutoff for applications is July 31, the last chance many here will get for government help to cover losses from the hurricane. Even with the deadline, however, as many as 50,000 homeowners could end up without aid, say Louisiana officials. The shortfall is blamed variously on misjudgments by the state and Washington when the program was designed over a year ago. On Tuesday, a handful of stragglers trickled in to sign up in person for grants of up to $150,000, at a downtown skyscraper and a suburban office park. Road Home officials said phone lines to their offices in Baton Rouge, the capital, were jammed. Each aid applicant told of personal struggle and loss, testimony to the storm’s immense ripple effect, two years after it hit. The housing grant, several said, was a last hope. “It’s been frustrating. I tried to do it over the Internet — it was kind of confusing,” said Ebony Carey, who said she was now jammed into a two-bedroom suburban apartment with two siblings and six children, after losing her house in the Lower Ninth Ward to the storm. With the program’s slow disbursement of $7.5 billion allocated by Washington, thousands of homeowners have been left to their own resources, like personal savings, loans and insurance payouts, to cope with rebuilding. And now, with a potential deficit of up to $5 billion — though state officials say they may have found up to $2.2 billion of that — thousands more, out of the more than 170,000 who have applied, could be disappointed entirely. “Many have expectations and desires that exceed the available money,” said Walter Leger of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. “The pressure as we approach, with the shortfall looming, is going to be distressing to a lot of people. We’re just going to have to work harder.”

Hurricane Katrina
Federal Aid (US)
Housing
New Orleans (La)
Hurricanes and Tropical Storms