National Push by Obama on Ads and Turnout

Abstract: Senator Barack Obama is drawing up plans for extensive advertising and voter-turnout drives across the nation, hoping to capitalize on his expected fund-raising advantage over Senator John McCain to force Republicans to compete in states they have not had to defend in decades. With his decision to give up public financing and the spending limits that go with it, Mr. Obama has added several seasoned hands to his advertising team, a harbinger of a multifaceted television campaign that people inside and outside Obama headquarters said would grow well beyond its already large presence in 18 states. Future commercials could run on big national showcases like the Olympics in August and smaller cable networks like MTV and Black Entertainment Television that appeal to specific demographic and interest groups. He is also dispatching paid staff members to all states, an unusual move by the standards of modern presidential campaigns where the fight is often contained to contested territories. Aides and advisers to Mr. Obama said they did not believe he necessarily had a serious chance of winning in many of the traditionally Republican states. They said he could at least draw Mr. McCain into spending time and money in those places while swelling Democratic enrollment and supporting other Democrats on the ballot. Mr. Obama’s strategists are studying data from focus groups, magazine subscription lists and census studies, the first steps toward an intensive door-to-door drive, using volunteers overseen by a growing staff of organizers. Their aim is to reach voters with messages tailored to their interests through mail, e-mail and word of mouth. Free from the constraints of public financing, Mr. Obama’s budget for the rest of the year could exceed $300 million, campaign and party officials have said. But his fund-raising slowed in May, when the campaign raised about $22 million — almost $10 million less than in April and a large decline from the record amounts he was taking in earlier this year. The decline was evidence that he might have to invest substantial time at fund-raising to match the levels he set in the first quarter this year. Still, Mr. Obama’s allies said his success at assembling a huge network of donors should give his campaign the resources to build a far-reaching command-and-control center, something that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts lacked when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004. Mr. Kerry’s depleted coffers and reliance on public funds forced him to count on outside groups to sign up voters and run advertisements on his behalf. With Mr. McCain’s acceptance of public financing restricting him to a budget of $84.1 million this fall, party officials say Mr. Obama’s decision to opt out of the system is well worth the criticism he has received for doing so, which even came from some allies. “To have these enormous resources just gives you so many strategic options,” said Tad Devine, a senior strategist for Mr. Kerry’s 2004 campaign. “If John Kerry had these resources and had stayed outside the system of public funding, I believe he’d be president today.” Aides to Mr. Obama, of Illinois, have warned their donors against being overly giddy. His campaign manager, David Plouffe, urged top fund-raisers to intensify their work as they seek to tap into those who previously supported only Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Mr. Obama will help out by personally attending money-raising events from coast to coast over the next few weeks. Republicans said they expected Mr. Obama to show a sizable financial advantage, but it might not help him if the race came down to the handful of states that decided the last few presidential elections. In that case, they said, the $84.1 million in public financing that Mr. McCain would receive would be enough for everything he needed to stay competitive. Mr. McCain also will have considerable help from the Republican National Committee, which has far outpaced the Democratic Party in fund-raising and still holds the vaunted voter identification and turnout machinery that President Bush’s campaign built with his chief strategist, Karl Rove, and a former Republican chairman, Ken Mehlman. And Republican officials said in interviews that Mr. McCain, of Arizona, had a strong political identity that kept him at or near parity with Mr. Obama in several polls and that would help carry him through the general election. “While we will be outspent in this election, we will have the necessary resources to drive Senator McCain’s message of reforming government, achieving prosperity and delivering peace,” said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. Even with the fund-raising dip in May, aides to Mr. Obama expect to have something Mr. McCain likely will not: enough resources to eliminate the hard choices that campaigns have traditionally faced when balancing the competing needs of their various state efforts. “These resources allow you to not make decisions based on financial limitations,” Mr. Plouffe said in an interview. Referring to a state that has long leaned Republican, he added, “If we want to go play in a state like Georgia” in the fullest way, “we’ll be able to do that.” By the end of the month, the Obama campaign will have a director and staff members in all 50 states. While some states will have only a few workers assigned to them, the biggest battlegrounds will have scores, many of whom will arrive by the Fourth of July. The campaign is in many ways building on a strategy championed by Howard Dean, the party chairman who has been pressing Democrats to establish a presence in all states rather than focus primarily on battlegrounds. But Mr. Obama is putting his own stamp on the plan by moving much of the party’s operations from Washington to his headquarters in Chicago and installing Paul Tewes, one of his top organizers, to oversee it. Party leaders in Republican-leaning states like Georgia and Montana are already reporting an influx of paid Obama staffers and volunteers who were sent there to begin registering potential Obama voters. Mr. Obama’s team is also sending resources to Virginia, which no Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1964. Abbi Easter, treasurer of the state’s Democratic Party, said Mr. Obama had dispatched five paid staff members to the state to begin organizing a voter registration drive. “I’ve been doing Democratic politics in the state for 25 years,” Ms. Easter said, “and this is such a novelty I feel like a kid at their first Christmas.” She said she was also expecting help from as many as 100 of the 3,600 “Obama Organizing Fellows,” a group of full-time volunteers fanning out across the country to oversee local registration efforts. The mobilization is being helped along by Mr. Obama’s robust Internet operation specializing in reaching out to the younger voters who use social networking sites like Facebook. But Mr. Plouffe said the volunteer program was modeled after the one that Mr. Bush’s aides devised in 2004, which sent supporters door to door to spread the word about the president in their own neighborhoods — a personal touch informed by detailed lists of neighbors’ occupations, voting histories, pet causes and hobbies. Four years ago, Democrats and their liberal allies scrambled to match the vast lists of personal voter information gathered by the Republicans through public records and consumer data banks. The Democratic National Committee has since greatly improved its voter information file, which is now at Mr. Obama’s disposal. But his aides were also considering buying another huge list with information on tens of millions of Americans. The list is owned by Catalist, a private concern co-founded by a longtime Democratic operative, Harold M. Ickes. In an interview, Mr. Ickes said Mr. Obama’s campaign aides were particularly interested in new information his company had gathered about cable television viewing habits. Obama campaign officials said that was because they were considering a tailored commercial campaign on niche cable channels that could give Mr. Obama special access to groups that his campaign deemed crucial for victory, like the young audience for MTV and the African-American viewership for BET. “It’s a great opportunity to get people information that may be particularly germane to them,” David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist, said of the specialty cable commercials, perfected by Mr. Bush in 2004. Yet Mr. Obama’s team has looked into advertising in as many as 25 states and has made clear its openness to running commercials on the broadcast television networks. All of this, of course, is going to take more than the $43.1 million that Mr. Obama had in the bank as of last month. Officials said they expected that Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raisers could bring in a total of $75 million in the coming weeks. But, members of both parties said, Mr. Obama had his real advantage in his own group of 1.5 million donors, many of whom have given small amounts and could be readily tapped again. “They’ll continue to give,” said Eli Pariser, the executive director of the liberal group MoveOn, an Internet fund-raising pioneer, “as long as he doesn’t treat them as an A.T.M. but as partners in the movement.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Obama Barack
Elections
Finances


Liverpool’s Luis Suárez Draws as Much Scorn as Love

Abstract: The Premier League , like any form of sporting conflict prone to tribalism, has long been home to divisive figures — players who have been loved and loathed in roughly equal measure. But few have stirred such powerful and contrasting feelings in fans as has Luis Suárez, Liverpool’s Uruguayan forward, whose unique mix of skills and tumbles have guaranteed him a hero’s status among Liverpool supporters and made him a villain to just about everyone else who takes an interest in English soccer. Suárez, who leads his team’s attack and is one of the elite players in the league, simply does not have the good fortune of being known and admired purely for his speed, balance, power and technique. Instead, he is scorned as much as he is lauded, as his team’s recent game with its crosscity rival, Everton, made clear. The match, which ended in a 2-2 tie, provided a microcosm of everything — the good, the bad and the ugly — that makes Suárez such a talking point in English soccer and such a constant in headlines in the British news media. In that game, Suárez created his team’s first goal, which he celebrated by running toward the Everton manager, David Moyes, and performing a theatrical dive right in front of him. It was a pointed response, and a somewhat clever one, to Moyes’s eve-of-game suggestion that Suárez routinely dives to the ground in an attempt to deceive referees into awarding free kicks and penalties. (Somewhat embarrassingly for Moyes, the only player to be given a yellow card for diving during the game against Liverpool was Everton’s captain, Phil Neville.) Suárez then scored Liverpool’s second goal, before committing a cynical foul on Everton defender Sylvain Distin — he stepped on his foot — that had Moyes contending afterward that Suárez should have been given a red card and banished from the game. As it turned out, Suarez got a yellow card and played on. Suárez was later seen picking up a coin that had been hurled from the stands and tucking it inside his boot. And, as is typically the case with Suárez, he was then involved in the most controversial moment of the match, showing superb awareness to score what should have been a dramatic last-minute goal to win the game only to see the linesman belatedly, and quite incorrectly accordingly to television replays, signal that Suárez had been offside, which nullified the goal. Welcome to the world of Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz, where you can be the sinned-against and the sinner all in the space of 90-plus minutes of work. It is a narrative that is becoming impossible to escape: every week, opposing managers and fans seem to criticize him, either before, during or after a match in which he invariably produces either the sublime or the ridiculous — or both. But while Moyes contends the diving antics of players like Suárez could drive fans away from soccer, the man who brought him to Europe six years ago has a very different view. Ron Jans signed the 19-year-old Suárez for the Groningen club he coached in Holland. Suárez had been playing for Nacional in his homeland but was eager to move to Europe to be nearer to his childhood sweetheart, Sofia Balbi, who is now his wife and whose family had relocated from Montevideo to Barcelona. “I think he is one of the players who make people want to go and watch a football match,” Jans said in a recent telephone interview. “He is a real winner, and while he sometimes does things I wouldn’t do to win a game, and I hope Luis himself realizes that sometimes it is too much, everything he does is geared toward winning. “Perhaps I cannot judge Luis objectively, because I know him as not only a great player — the best I have worked with — but also as a great person,” Jans added. “I saw the dive he did in front of the manager from Everton and I thought, ‘This is great,’ because when you are criticized in the press, the best way to react is with a goal and with humor.” The celebration bore similarities to a previous incident at Groningen. During an argument during practice, Jans threw an umbrella at Suárez, who, two weeks later, after scoring the goal that gave Groningen an unlikely 4-3 victory against Vitesse Arnhem, ran to the side of the field, picked up an umbrella and handed it to his amused coach. But Jans is certainly not alone in finding it difficult to assess Suárez objectively — even if he speaks with an authority few others can — because soccer’s partisan nature, particularly in the intense environment of the Premier League, makes it hard to have calm discussions about Suárez. His critics point to a lengthy rap sheet, which includes, but is by no means limited to, a calculated goal-line handball that allowed Uruguay to edge Ghana for a place in the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup; a seven-match ban for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax in the Dutch league; an eight-match suspension and fine for being found to have racially abused Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, plus his subsequent refusal to shake Evra’s hand the next time the players met on the field. In England, the invective that flows in Suárez’s direction from the stands can, in part, be traced back to the Evra incident and the way it was handled by the players, their clubs and the Premier League. But there are also the histrionics: his arguments with officials over whether he was fouled and the widespread perception that he often dives to make it seem he was tripped. Recently, the Stoke City manager, Tony Pulis, labeled Suárez “an embarrassment” after he took what appeared to a contrived tumble against Pulis’s team in an effort to draw a penalty kick. Like the boy who cried wolf, the perception of Suárez as a diver has increasingly worked against him, even when he has been on the receiving end of clearly brutal tactics. In a 5-2 victory at Norwich City on Sept. 29, Suárez was virtually assaulted in the penalty area by defender Leon Barnett, yet no penalty was forthcoming. There has been, at times, a resignation among some Liverpool fans that Suárez could be taken out with a rifle by an opposing defender yet play would be allowed to continue because any number of referees have become wary of his tactics and of ruling in his favor. Liverpool supporters also point to what they believe is a double standard, noting that on the day that Suárez was criticized for his none-too-subtle dive against Stoke, another elite player, Gareth Bale of Tottenham Hotspur, was guilty of an equally suspicious fall in a game against Aston Villa. Yet Bale escaped the ridicule and condemnation that Suárez received. Jans made no attempt to defend aspects of Suárez’s behavior, but he offered a reminder that the only arena in which one hears criticism of Suárez is on the soccer field. There are no lurid tabloid tales of drunken debauchery involving Suárez, a family man who is regarded as quiet and even shy off the field. “You never hear from Luis some of the things you do” about other players, Jans said. “With Luis, it is always on the pitch; it is always when he is trying to win a match.” Nevertheless, it is on the field where Suárez is ultimately judged, and for all his mesmerizing talent (despite regularly missing scoring chances, he remains behind only Robin van Persie of Manchester United on the Premier League’s list of top scorers this season), his actions have guaranteed that he now wears a bull’s-eye on his back. The former Liverpool striker John Aldridge recently claimed that Suárez could be driven to leave English soccer because of “the media spotlight on him, the abuse he gets from away fans and the treatment he receives from officials.” Liverpool’s manager, Brendan Rodgers, has said he believes Suárez, whom he has compared favorably to Lionel Messi, is in love with the city and the club and will stick it out. And in the past week or so, there have been subtle hints that the perception of Suárez is slowly — very slowly — beginning to turn in his favor. His celebration at Everton showed a humor he had not previously exhibited in England; the control, audacity and execution of his breathtaking equalizing goal against Newcastle United on Sunday again highlighted the quality of his play; and the red card handed to Fabricio Coloccini, the Newcastle captain, for a reckless, late foul on Suárez in that game suggested that the referees are willing to acknowledge that sometimes Suárez is indeed the victim, and not the villain.

Soccer
Liverpool (Soccer Team)
English Premier League
Suarez Luis


VW Financial Services Lowers Profit Outlook in Wake of Scandal

Abstract: FRANKFURT — Volkswagen’s in-house bank said on Tuesday that profit was likely to fall this year because the automaker’s diesel emissions scandal would increase the interest the company must pay to raise money from financial markets. The unit, Volkswagen Financial Services, reported its financial results on Tuesday, saying it had subtracted about 450 million euros, or about $500 million, from 2015 earnings after vehicles leased to customers lost more value than expected, in part because of the scandal. The unit still reported a net profit of €1.2 billion for last year, a 35 percent increase from the previous year. The financial hits were a result of the turmoil that has enveloped Volkswagen since it admitted widespread cheating on emissions tests going back years . Volkswagen Financial Services has been temporarily unable to issue bonds in the United States or Europe because of its parent company’s problems, executives of the unit said on Tuesday at a news conference in Frankfurt. The emissions scandal has “intensively challenged the entire Volkswagen Group and therefore Volkswagen Financial Services as well,” said Lars Henner Santelmann, chief executive of the banking unit. Volkswagen Financial Services is one of Europe’s largest banks, considered significant enough to be supervised directly by the European Central Bank. It has also been a major source of profit for Volkswagen, as well as a way to promote sales by providing customers with money to buy or lease Volkswagen vehicles. Volkswagen’s financial reporting has effectively been delayed while the company negotiates with the United States government about the fines it must pay after admitting last year that 11 million cars, including about 600,000 in the United States, were equipped with software that generated low emissions only when the cars were being tested. How Volkswagen’s ‘Defeat Devices’ Worked Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This is how the technology works and what it now means for vehicle owners. At other times Volkswagen diesels emitted many times the allowed amounts of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant linked to serious lung ailments and premature death. Volkswagen has pushed back publication of its 2015 financial results to the end of April, from March 10, which makes it impossible for the financial services unit to prepare the documents required to sell bonds in the United States and Europe, company executives said. The financial state of the parent company is crucial information for investors, who need to know whether Volkswagen can provide financial backing to the banking unit if needed. Bonds are one of the main ways that Volkswagen Financial Services and many other banks raise money; Volkswagen uses the money to write loans to customers. While the Volkswagen banking unit will probably have to pay higher rates to issue debt this year, the cost is likely to be offset by exceptionally low interest rates in Europe. Volkswagen could benefit from new stimulus measures announced last week by the European Central Bank. As part of an effort to lower borrowing costs for European businesses, the central bank said on Thursday that, for the first time, it would use newly created money to buy debt issued by corporations. Bonds issued by Volkswagen would almost certainly be eligible for the purchase program. The central bank has already bought so-called asset-backed securities issued by Volkswagen under a previous stimulus program, company executives said. Asset-backed securities are car loans or other credit bundled for resale to investors, who acquire the right to payments on the loans. All of the major ratings agencies have downgraded debt issued by Volkswagen Financial Services, in part because of concerns that vehicles leased to customers would be worth less than expected when customers returned them. The company is required to subtract the decline in value from profit. The ratings agencies’ concerns were confirmed on Tuesday when Volkswagen Financial Services said that it subtracted about €450 million from 2015 profit to cover such declines. That figure includes €96 million in depreciation of vehicles leased through VW Credit, Volkswagen’s finance unit in the United States, which is a legal entity separate from Volkswagen Financial Services. Mr. Santelmann, the chief executive, said that Volkswagen Financial Services would earn an operating profit of at least €1.7 billion in 2016, compared with €1.9 billion in 2015.

Volkswagen
Volkswagen Financial Services
Vehicle Emissions
Cars
Debt
Diesel engine
Automobile safety
Air pollution


Iraq Hints at Delay in U.S. Security Deal

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Declaring that there will not be “another colonization of Iraq ,” Iraq’s foreign minister raised the possibility on Wednesday that a full security agreement with the United States might not be reached this year, and that if one was, it would be a short-term pact. American officials, speaking anonymously because of the delicate state of negotiations, said they were no longer optimistic that a complete security agreement could be reached by the year’s end. At a news conference in Baghdad, the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari , told reporters that some headway had been made, but that negotiators were deadlocked over issues like the extent of Iraqi control over American military operations and the right of American soldiers to detain suspects without the approval of Iraqi authorities. Negotiations are complicated by political currents in both countries. Iraqi officials facing elections in the fall do not want to be seen as capitulating to the United States. At the same time, they are eager for some form of agreement to prevent any rapid departure of American forces. In the United States, President Bush has pushed hard for a deal to be completed by July 31. But Democrats in Congress are reluctant to sign off on an agreement before the presidential elections, and Republicans are split. As a result, Iraqi politicians say, the likelihood is for the two sides to devise an interim pact extending the presence of American troops in Iraq in some mutually acceptable form for a limited amount of time. The security agreement, sometimes referred to as a status of forces agreement, is needed to replace a United Nations mandate that serves as the legal basis of the American troop presence and expires on Dec. 31. “There is controversy here in Iraq,” Mr. Zebari said. “We have an election here; they have an election there. It’s a political matter.” Noting that the United States cannot stay in Iraq without legal authorization, Mr. Zebari cited three options: “Either we conclude a status of forces agreement; or we have an interim agreement until a SOFA can be completed; or we go back to the Security Council at the end of the year and ask for another extension.” An interim pact, he said, could take the form of a memorandum of understanding and related documents, which would be less extensive than a formal security agreement. They probably would be appended to the document that President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, signed last year that laid out the principles for a continuing relationship between the countries. In the past, Iraqi policy makers have been emphatic about avoiding a further extension of the United Nations mandate, but some are reconsidering that position. Under that resolution, Iraq is immune from liability lawsuits stemming from the era of Saddam Hussein, which could run into the billions of dollars. A spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Iraq said that she could not elaborate on the negotiations. “It’s too many moving parts, positions are changing too rapidly,” the spokeswoman, Mirembe Nantongo, said. “It’s an ongoing negotiation. We know where we are in terms of Iraqi sovereignty. We don’t want anything that will weaken or compromise Iraqi sovereignty.” Mr. Zebari said that on his recent trip to the United States, in addition to President Bush, he had met with the presumptive presidential nominees, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat. He said that Mr. Obama had asked him: “ ‘Why is the Iraqi government in a rush, in a hurry? This administration has only a few more months in office.’ ” Mr. Zebari said he told Mr. Obama that even a Democratic administration would be better off having something “concrete in front of them to take a hard look at.” Mr. Zebari also indicated that even a full agreement would be short. “We are not talking about 50 years, 25 years or 10 years; we are negotiating about one or two years, so this is not going to be another colonization of Iraq,” he said. Most Iraqi policy makers predict that the two sides will reach an interim agreement, though possibly one that will extend longer than Mr. Zebari described. “We are thinking there is no benefit from signing a long-term security agreement,” said Eman al-Asadi, a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a leading Shiite party. But she added that a memorandum of understanding could last as long as 10 years and include provisions for a gradual drawdown of American troops. Still, no one is giving up yet on negotiating a larger agreement, said Hassan Sinead, a member of Dawa, Mr. Maliki’s party. “If we can’t reach a final agreement with the Americans about the security agreement by the end of this year,” he said, “then we have another choice: to attach a protocol to the strategic framework agreement that will arrange the relationship between the American forces and the Iraqi government.” At a practical level, changing the form of the agreement will not affect the American presence in Iraq in the short term. There appears to be no discussion of forcing American troops to leave Iraq at the end of the year. It is more a matter of finding a form for an agreement that is acceptable to all sides, giving the American military the practical authority it needs to function in combat while letting the Iraqis say they are not locked into a lengthy agreement. Mr. Zebari’s remarks were his most detailed public statements about the negotiations with the United States over the future status of American forces in Iraq, now in its sixth year of a war that began with the American-led overthrow of Mr. Hussein in the spring of 2003. On Tuesday, Mr. Zebari told Iraqi lawmakers in Parliament that the Americans had conceded on one area of contention in the negotiations — the legal status of private security contractors in the country. He said that the United States had agreed to lift immunity for them, so they would be subject to prosecution under Iraqi law. The security companies, like Blackwater Worldwide, have a reputation for using excessive force in protecting diplomatic and other foreign clients, and operate with immunity from Iraqi law. That status became a political issue last fall, after a Blackwater shooting in Baghdad left 17 Iraqis dead.

Iraq
Defense Contracts
Zebari Hoshyar
United Nations
Security Council
Bush George W


Toni Sailer, Record-Setting Gold Medal Skier, Dies at 73

Abstract: Toni Sailer, a charismatic and celebrated Austrian skier who became the first to win three gold medals in Alpine skiing in the same Olympic Games, in 1956, died Monday in Innsbruck, Austria. He was 73. The Kitzbühel Ski Club announced his death, saying it came after a long illness. No other details were provided. Sailer had been a member of the club, based in his hometown in the Tyrolean Alps, since 1947. In Austria, where skiing is a national pastime, the handsome, dashing Sailer (pronounced SIGH-ler) was a national hero and matinee idol rolled into one — “a legend during his lifetime,” as the Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, said in a statement. Sailer was a champion skier for more than a decade, with about 170 major victories, and his success on the slopes led to acting roles in movies. He also sang professionally for a time, recording pop songs, and his picture appeared on the covers of magazines throughout Europe. A competitive skier since he was a child, Sailer achieved his greatest moment of athletic glory at age 20 at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, in northern Italy. Competing in three Alpine skiing events on different days, he won them all by large margins. First, he won the giant slalom by 6.2 seconds, then the slalom by 4 seconds and finally the downhill, by 3.5 seconds. Less than 15 minutes before the start of the downhill, as he was tightening the straps that bound his boots to his skis, one strap broke. An Italian coach took off one of his own and gave it to him. After winning the gold medal in the downhill, The New York Times wrote, “He looks like a movie star and skis like a dream.” His feat of winning three Alpine gold medals in one Olympics has been matched only by Jean-Claude Killy of France in 1968 and Janica Kostelic of Croatia in 2002, competing in women’s events. (Today, Alpine ski racing consists of five men’s events and five women’s events.) In world championships, Sailer won four gold medals in 1956, and three golds and a silver in 1958. Sailer’s Olympic fame was credited with bringing publicity and tourism to Kitzbühel. In gratitude, town officials gave him land. He built a hotel there. But his status as an amateur came under question by the International Ski Federation in 1958 after he had skied in a German movie and promoted his own line of ski clothing. To avoid embarrassment, he retired in 1959. “At 23, no longer the boy who won at Cortina, he probably does not care,” Robert Daley wrote in The Times. “He has been skiing since he was 2 years old, and now there is nothing more the sport can give to him.” Anton Engelbert Sailer was born Nov. 17, 1935, in Kitzbühel (hence his nickname, the black blitz from Kitz, a reference to the black suits he often wore). The son of a glass shop owner, he became a licensed glazier and plumber and worked in the shop except in winter, when he trained four hours a day. His first skiing victory came when he was 11. The prize was two sausages. After retiring from competition, Sailer made 25 movies and, as a singer, 18 pop music recordings. He ran a well-known ski school for children and served as an international skiing official. From 1972 to 1976, he was the chief coach and technical director for the Austrian Ski Federation, which produced champion skiers like Franz Klammer and Annemarie Moser-Pröll. From 1986 to 2005, he was the director of the prestigious Hahnenkamm ski races in Austria. Among his business interests, he produced fiberglass skis under his name in Canada. In 1985, the International Olympic Committee gave him its highest award, the Olympic Order. Skiing ran through Sailer’s family. His younger brother, Rudi, ran Sailer’s ski school. Their uncle Sepp was a ski instructor for 55 years. In 1976, at 40, Sailer married Gaby Rummeny. They had a son, Florian. Years after her death, Sailer married Hedwig Fischer. Information on immediate survivors was not available. Sailer was named the sportsman of the century in Austria in 1999, and his death has been widely mourned there. Klammer, the 1976 Olympic downhill gold medalist, said he had idolized Sailer, telling the Austria Press Agency, “As a small boy, I wanted to be just like him.” Newsweek wrote in 1996 that Sailer “seemed to embody the pure mystique of skiing.” “His courage and skill drove even his competitors to lyric flights,” the magazine added, then contributed one of its own: “He is gentle with the snow. The language that the skis talk through the feet, to the legs and body, is a language unknown to most men and women, but is the whisper Sailer understands best.”

Alpine Skiing
Olympic Games
Deaths (Obituaries)
Sailer Toni


BHP Billiton Reports Record Profit

Abstract: PARIS — BHP Billiton , the world’s largest mining company, posted record net income Monday, helping to dispel recent doubts about how natural resource groups would maintain the impressive growth they have built on surging demand from developing countries. BHP, which is seeking to buy Rio Tinto, a major rival, reported net income of $15.4 billion for the year ending June 30, helped by the jump in commodity prices, higher production and an ability to pass on higher costs. Investors had recently marked down the shares of mining companies amid fears that they would be unable to keep increasing production and raising prices as growth in China slows and capacity constraints hit expansion. The price of commodities have dipped from record highs, also weighing on shares. BHP reported that annual net income rose 14.7 percent, compared with $13.4 billion a year earlier, citing “excellent operating performance, cost control and the delivery of high-margin growth projects into strong market conditions.” The profit matched the estimates of analysts, who had said BHP was still reaping the rewards from the rapid urbanization of China. “The important thing for me was the way in which the company conveyed confidence that commodities demand and pricing will remain solid going forward,” said Damien Hackett, head of mining research at Canaccord Adams, a financial services firm in London. Revenue rose 25.3 percent, to $59.5 billion. BHP also increased its annual dividend — to 41 cents a share from 27 cents — saying it was a “strong signal of our confidence” in the outlook. In July, BHP reached an agreement with the Chinese steel maker Baosteel to nearly double the price of its iron ore for the year through March 2009, matching a deal Rio Tinto had struck weeks earlier. Price increases added $6.7 billion to BHP’s underlying earnings before interest and tax. BHP cited strong margins in base metals, iron ore, manganese, coal for power plants, and petroleum. It was the seventh consecutive year that it had posted a record net income figure. “We’re well set for the future,” the BHP chief executive, Marius Kloppers, said in a conference call with analysts. “We have a low-risk, growth portfolio, we can contend with all sorts of headwinds and tailwinds and still turn in great results.” One factor that could limit growth, analysts said, was slowing economy in the West. Mr. Kloppers said that weaker demand from developed economies, which are suffering from high food and energy prices, was bringing “some flow-through to the developing economies.”

BHP Billiton PLC
Company Reports
Mines and Mining


Man, 21, Convicted in Oregon Bomb Plot

Abstract: PORTLAND, Ore. — A 21-year-old Somali-American arrested here in late 2010 after pushing a cellphone button to trigger what he believed was a huge car bomb — in fact an elaborate and inert F.B.I. decoy device — was convicted on Thursday in Federal District Court of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He faces up to life in prison. The jury, deliberating for one day, rejected the assertion by the defendant, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, that he had been entrapped and induced into a terrorist act by F.B.I. agents posing as radical Islamic militants. His lawyers argued that the undercover operatives, having invested major resources and time into the case, manipulated Mr. Mohamud into a plot he would never have undertaken on his own. “We’re disappointed,” said Stephen R. Sady, Mr. Mohamud’s lead lawyer, who said the verdict would be appealed. “We obviously thought he was entrapped.” Mr. Sady said he hoped that Senior Judge Garr M. King, who set sentencing for May 14, would consider mitigating evidence that came out in the trial. Mr. Mohamud showed little obvious emotion as the verdict was read by Judge King or as he was led from the courtroom, where the sound of shackles applied to his wrists could be heard. Image Mohamed Osman Mohamud could face up to life in prison. Credit Multnomah County Sheriff, via Associated Press Amanda Marshall, the United States attorney for Oregon, said in a news conference after the verdict, “We are hopeful that this will bring closure and healing to all of us here in Portland.” She said the case had raised strong feelings on both sides, and among local Somalis. “It’s complicated; it hasn’t been easy,” she said. The case gripped Oregon and seized national attention in November 2010, partly through a glimpse of undercover policing of terrorism in the sting operation that ensnared Mr. Mohamud. Perhaps even more, it was because of the setting: a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland’s premier open-space oasis, packed on the night of the attack with about 25,000 people. What had loomed large and global at the time — with its hints of international terrorist intrigue — ultimately became, through the two weeks of testimony, a smaller, more intimate story of psychology. The jury, in assessing hours of secretly recorded conversations and evidence of what seemed a typical college student’s life at Oregon State University, was asked to decide whether the thin young man sitting with lawyers was a romantic, hate-filled fantasist who just wanted to strike a pose, or a genuine jihadist nipped in the bud before violence could be done. Whether Portland was ever actually threatened became part of the debate at the trial. Undercover F.B.I. agents testifying for the prosecution said that they feared Mr. Mohamud could have connected with real terrorists and bombmakers had they not intervened with a sting operation. Mr. Mohamud’s lawyers, by contrast, argued that the case was all about the character of a callow, immature young man. They called witnesses, including friends and family members of the defendant who called him goofy and fun-loving, and a threat-assessment expert who said that the bellicose bluster about radical Islam — in articles, journal entries and comments recorded by the F.B.I. — was nothing more than adolescent chest-thumping. “This case is a tragedy,” Mr. Sady said in his summation to the jury on Wednesday. Portland residents interviewed on Thursday in the square where the attack was to have occurred mostly said they had paid little attention to a trial about what might have been. “Guns are more of a concern to me,” said Dana Odling, a retired food service worker for the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. She said that especially since the shootings in Newtown, Conn., and at a shopping mall just outside Portland — both in December — she had been much more conscious of the potential mayhem that one person with a store-bought weapon could create. “Something like that can happen anytime, anywhere,” she said.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud
Terrorism
Decisions and Verdicts
Portland Oregon


Venezuela: Court Held Lawmakers in Contempt

Abstract: The Supreme Court on Monday held the leaders of the National Assembly in contempt and said the Assembly’s actions could be void, setting up a conflict between the two branches of government. The dispute stems from the swearing in last week of three lawmakers by the Assembly in defiance of a ruling by the court. The opposition to President Nicolás Maduro and his United Socialist Party won a large majority in the Assembly in elections last month. But some Socialist candidates filed lawsuits challenging the results and in one of those the court responded by halting the swearing in three lawmakers. The new Assembly leaders condemned that ruling as an attempt to undermine the new majority and swore the three opposition candidates in anyway. The summary of the Monday decision posted on the court’s website said all decisions made while the three members were “incorporated” into the Assembly would be void. The Assembly has said it will push legislation this week to free a number of prisoners who lawmakers who they say are being held for political reasons and will pursue laws to reduce the influence of Mr. Maduro’s administration.


Quinn, in Times Square, Offers Plan for Veterans

Abstract: Holding a news conference in Times Square is akin to – well, maybe not walking into the line of fire, but certainly tempting the urban gods. As a politician, you risk being photobombed by the Naked Cowboy or groped by Elmo, or simply encountering a critic who, inspired by the crowds, will deliver a monologue on your misdeeds at a volume intended to reach the back rows. In defiance of these dangers, Christine C. Quinn stood before a group of reporters on Friday on a small island on 43rd Street between Seventh Avenue and Broadway, shouting to be heard above the traffic and a woman hawking bus tours. Ms. Quinn was standing beside a woman who had faced much more harrowing situations – Lindsay Melki, an Army veteran who flew a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 – to announce what she would do as mayor in her first 100 days in office to help veterans. “We have not done enough — the Bloomberg administration has not done enough,” Ms. Quinn, a Democrat, said. Among her proposals was creating a “welcome home” center in Times Square that would offer counseling, medical, job and housing services for veterans, as well as satellite support centers in each borough. Ms. Melki praised the idea of having a “one-stop shop” to help veterans navigate the services available to them. Ms. Quinn, currently the City Council speaker, also said she would give veterans priority in getting small-business grants, expand the system of veteran courts and make the Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs more attuned to the needs of young veterans. As she spoke, tourists stopped to take pictures with iPhones and iPads, and her security guard, looking slightly jumpy, snapped his head back and forth and tapped his foot. Just when it seemed as if Ms. Quinn might get through the news conference with no mishaps, a bearlike man in a baggy jacket stepped onto the northwest corner of the island, walking directly toward her. A reporter tensed. Then, just as Ms. Quinn raised her eyes apprehensively, the man veered from his path, turning toward the northeast, yelled out, “Quinn all the way!” and walked off.

Veteran
Christine C Quinn
Times Square and 42nd Street Manhattan
NYC
Mayoral races


Rice, in Israel, Criticizes Surge in Settlement Construction

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Peace Now, the Israeli advocacy group, said in a report released Tuesday that in the last year Israel had nearly doubled its settlement construction in the occupied West Bank , in violation of its obligations under an American-backed peace plan. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice , in Jerusalem on a short visit to help Israeli and Palestinian leaders in their negotiations, said when asked about the report that she had told Israeli officials that such building did not advance the cause of peace. “What we need now are steps that enhance confidence between the parties, and anything that undermines confidence between the parties ought to be avoided,” she said with the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, at her side. Ms. Livni said that settlement building should not influence the negotiations because the goal should be “not to let any kind of noises that relate to the situation on the ground these days enter the negotiation room.” Earlier, Ms. Rice had made clear that neither Israelis nor Palestinians had fully lived up to their obligations. Israel is supposed to end all settlement building and remove illegal settlement outposts, while the Palestinians are supposed to dismantle terrorist infrastructures. Negotiators had hoped for a full two-state peace framework between the Palestinian Authority and Israel to be completed by the end of President Bush’s term. Lately, though, they have cautioned that such an aim may be out of reach although the talks, they say, are making progress. Most say they prefer to continue the process rather than try to put together a partial document. But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has pledged to resign after his Kadima Party chooses a new leader in September, seems eager for an agreement before his term ends to burnish his legacy. Standing with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah after their meeting, Ms. Rice said that “God willing,” and with the hard work of the negotiators, the two-state goal could still be attained before year’s end. Mr. Abbas seemed already to be looking beyond the Bush administration, however, and expressed hope that its successor “will continue what we have begun.” He also complained about the increased settlement building. The Peace Now report on settlements, based on aerial photos, visits and government data, says that more than 1,000 buildings are going up in the West Bank, including 2,600 housing units. It says that for the first five months of 2008, construction in the settlements was 1.8 times greater than in the same period of 2007. Peace Now opposes Israeli construction on land captured in the 1967 war, like the West Bank, and favors furthering the creation of a Palestinian state there. Yet it is considered a reliable source of settlement information. Its report says more than half of the building is beyond the separation barrier that Israel has built in recent years on the border of and inside the West Bank. This is significant, if true, because Israeli leaders have argued that ultimately a deal with the Palestinians will allow it to keep several settlement blocs and neighborhoods in East Jerusalem in exchange for land swaps. Therefore, they say, their building in East Jerusalem and close-in settlements on their side of the barrier should cause no concern. The Peace Now report shows that the building in East Jerusalem is intensive, with the number of tenders for houses there up to 1,761 this year from 46 in 2007. A spokesman for Israel’s Housing Ministry, Eran Sidis, said he could not check on all the data in the Peace Now report, but he defended building in areas Israel hopes to keep, saying, “There’s nothing to prevent strengthening settlement blocs that in the end of the day, in a peace agreement, will clearly be in Israel’s hands.” American and Palestinian officials reject the idea that such building is harmless to negotiations. In addition, the Peace Now report challenges the government’s assertions that it is limiting construction to the western side of the barrier by showing that beyond the barrier, building continues apace. It also says that in the illegal outposts that were supposed to be removed, 125 new structures have been added, including 30 permanent houses.

Israel
Palestinians
West Bank
Peace Now
International Relations
United States International Relations
Rice Condoleezza


Alabama Governor’s Use of Oil Spill Funds for Mansion Draws Criticism

Abstract: MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In a capital where almost anything can turn contentious, there has mostly been a consensus on a matter of housekeeping for close to two decades: A rehabilitation of a ramshackle governor’s mansion on the gulf coast would be political folly. So when Gov. Robert Bentley’s office acknowledged last month that Mr. Bentley, a second-term Republican, was renovating the home with up to $1.8 million that BP gave the state after the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it was something of a jolt, particularly because the property in Baldwin County is intended only as a retreat for governors. Mr. Bentley, who cannot seek a third consecutive term, is making no apologies for the decision, which provoked debate about BP’s payouts after the spill; questions about what a state short of cash is doing supporting an executive escape; and testy posts on social media by the governor and the state auditor, a fellow Republican. “If this were a house in the woods in North Alabama, nobody would think anything about it,” Mr. Bentley said in an interview last week. “It just sounds more elaborate when it’s on the beach. But it’s a state-owned property, and it is our responsibility to repair state-owned properties.” The 7,446-square-foot home on the Fort Morgan peninsula, a few hours southwest of here, is an embarrassment by virtually every account. It was most likely the only governor’s residence in the country with a rusted gate and boarded-up windows. “The so-called governor’s mansion at the beach is a textbook example of poor stewardship of public resources,” said the state auditor, Jim Zeigler. “The Alabama government is bad about taking money for one purpose and diverting it to somebody’s pet project.” The dust-up comes as Alabama faces scrutiny for other decisions about how to use money from BP . In Mobile, for instance, a pending lawsuit challenges a plan to use tens of millions of dollars from BP for a hotel and conference center. Image The gate to the residence last year. The home needed extensive repairs after it was damaged by Hurricane Danny in 1997. Credit Jay Reeves/Associated Press The governor’s mansion on the coast has an uneven history that began in the 1960s, when George C. Wallace was governor and developers donated land to the state as part of a strategy to lure potential investors to the coast. The deed stipulated that the land could be “used solely for the construction and maintenance of a residence for the governors of the state of Alabama.” E. Lamar Little, a developer, said, “We wanted to attract some interest throughout the state of Alabama at the time, and we thought the best thing to do was to get some of the political people to start coming down.” But governors scarcely traveled to the home. Wallace, for instance, skipped the dedication and, according to newspaper accounts in the state archives, was at most an infrequent visitor. In 1997, Hurricane Danny so devastated the site that it could not be used without expensive repairs that would have been electorally risky. (Mr. Bentley is Alabama’s fourth governor since the hurricane.) And so the home became rotted and worn, even as neighbors repeatedly complained. It stayed that way until Mr. Bentley eventually settled on his solution: what he described as “leftovers” from a $25 million grant that BP provided in June 2010. “The needs have been met along the coast,” said Mr. Bentley. He said he wanted to use the refurbished property for economic development, events for foster children and official entertaining. That assessment has drawn some scorn in coastal communities. “Obviously, there are other things out there that are arguably more important, more pressing that could use that amount of money,” said Mayor Jeff Collier of Dauphin Island. “We still have unmet needs, and, unfortunately, after it’s all said and done, we’ll probably still have those.” BP, which last year announced a separate $2 billion settlement with Alabama, declined to comment on a decision that many observers said only a second-term governor could make. Image Jim Zeigler, the state auditor, has said that the renovation of the mansion is wasteful. Credit Bob Miller for The New York Times “It would have been a campaign issue, and that’s an issue people can understand, too,” said Steve Flowers, a political columnist and former legislator. “That dog would hunt in a campaign, more than a tax increase, in my opinion. Sometimes, tax increases don’t affect people, but if they think you’re trying to feather your own nest, they don’t know about that.” Mr. Flowers supports the plan. “You’ve got the windfall of money,” he said. “You’ve got the property. Why not fix it up?” State officials, citing security concerns, have been reluctant to disclose details of the renovation. Many of the plans were contained in a handsome portfolio that architects presented to Mr. Bentley, who said he wanted the project completed in time for a Memorial Day event for veterans. But the governor forcefully denied Mr. Zeigler’s assertion on Facebook that he sought upgrades to the property only after a divorce in which he lost two beach houses. “We’ve been working on this for a long time. All right?” Mr. Bentley said with a trace of anger as he gestured toward the plans, which were dated Aug. 27. Mr. Bentley’s wife, Dianne, filed for divorce on Aug. 28; the couple had been separated since January, according to a court document. (The governor’s office disputed the separation date, which was included in Dianne Bentley’s divorce complaint, and said Monday that the couple lived together until late August.) Mr. Bentley made a similar case on Twitter in December, when he said Mr. Zeigler was “ lying ” and complained about news outlets publishing the auditor’s allegations. Mr. Zeigler, for his part, stood by — and often repeated — his charge. But even as Mr. Zeigler insisted that the renovation was wasteful, he said his hostility toward a benefit of the governorship had not been universally welcomed: His wife backed Mr. Bentley’s plan. “In case, by the grace of God, I were to run for governor and be elected, we would not have to fix it up ourselves and take the heat for that,” he said. “We would use it.”

Robert J Bentley
Alabama
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
BP
Political Debates
Governors


The Secret Sharer

Abstract: LAST November, when our previous roommate left our Upper West Side apartment, we acquired a cheerful graduate student named Ben. My roommates, Tim and Justin, agreed with me that he seemed like a nice enough fellow when we interviewed him, and we didn’t think much of it when a few weeks passed with no sign of him. Probably he had a month left on his previous lease and was taking his time. Then one day he arrived, and I left him shuffling around his room, fully expecting to find him settled when I returned. Hours later I came back and found five garbage bags by the front door, some labeled “Trash,” some “Goodwill.” I peered into the room. It was much cleaner than before, and nothing had been moved in. Ben was gone. Weeks went by with no sign of him. Rent checks appeared on time, slipped under the door. Far better, we agreed, than a couch-dwelling slob, or someone who couldn’t pay, or an oboe player. As weeks and months passed, there was nothing much to say about the situation, until one evening Justin announced, “Ben came by the other night.” “Ah, a sighting?” I asked, leaning against my bedroom door. “What did he want?” “Oh, nothing,” Justin said. “He just dropped off the check.” I marveled at this, then slunk back to my room. Mostly the three of us keep to ourselves and have at best vague understandings of what the others do with their lives. Justin, a jovial 27-year-old (five years my senior) who sometimes begins sentences addressed to me with “When I was your age,” works in tree maintenance. Once he mentioned a gardening job on a rooftop, and ever since I have imagined that he spends his days trimming bonsai trees and shaping hedges to look like historical figures on the swanky rooftops of New York’s elite. To save time, he swings among the buildings on a vine. Tim, who is near 30, does something with computers, and if you ask how he is doing, he will sigh and say “Hanging in there” to let you know how busy he is. An entire rack of his bookshelf is devoted to Superman books, comics and movies, and the stern superhero gazes out on our living room and hallway from framed posters that barely contain the rippling muscle and cape-filling wind. When I have people over, I am quick — perhaps too quick — to point out that these items do not belong to me. “My roommate is really into Superman,” I say. “I’ll bet he is,” they reply. But in spite of our varied interests and pursuits, we share a fascination with our mysterious visitor. Our chief and most-discussed theory is that Ben is crazy. One night, perhaps, we will be hacked to bits. Or else his room will be used, at some undisclosed point down the line, as a secret meeting place for a gang of slippery characters who speak in clipped and cryptic sentences, and call him “Boss.” There can be little doubt that his friendliness, boyish looks and unerring punctuality with the delivery of rent checks (obviously acquired in some cunning and bloody way) are designed to put us at ease and conceal his sinister purposes. THERE is also the matter of the vacant room. So far, questions of convenience have trumped those of roommate ethics (murky to begin with): we use the room for bike storage, and one night, instead of relegating a visiting friend to the couch, I offered him the empty bed (“Leave it looking like you found it,” I instructed). For a time I toyed with the idea of posting a sign on the door that said “Library,” but we settled on converting it to a bar, and figure Ben will be pleased with the speakeasy ambience it will lend to the secret meeting. A few weeks after the first sighting, it was Tim who caught a glimpse. “He brought his girlfriend,” Tim said. “He showed her the place, and then they walked through Riverside Park.” I imagined and enacted their conversation: “This is where I don’t go running. This is where I don’t watch the sunset and where I don’t admire the slow barges on the Hudson.” Tim interjected: “Actually, he used the conditional tense. ‘This is where I could go running.’ ” One recent Friday afternoon, the front-door buzzer rang, and a minute later Ben appeared at the door. He said he was headed out West for spring break to go skiing with his girlfriend and wanted to pick up some things. This was puzzling. We stood in the hallway talking for a while. He said he would be graduating in May, and I wanted to ask what would happen then. Could it really be true? Would he leave us? Our conversation felt very natural, and it occurred to me that it would be a perfect time for him to kill me. He didn’t. For a criminal mastermind, I thought, he was awfully likable. I’d fallen into his trap, but I didn’t care. I stifled a “Will I see you again?” and he disappeared into his room to gather up whatever it was that he needed. It’s a very nice room, and the only one in the apartment that lets in any natural light. The bed, which Ben could sleep on, is made up, and there are two pillows on which he could rest his head after a long day. His closet contains a rack of 10 collared shirts he could wear, and, inexplicably, a hamper of dirty laundry, which he could one day load into the washing machine in the basement. On the closet shelf sits a board game called New York in a Box, a Monopoly knockoff that allows two to six players to enjoy New York experiences like traffic jams, muggings and getting elected mayor. Someday, if he ever comes back, we could play it.


New Cold War Would Differ From Old

Abstract: RUSSIA had some real economic problems even before the Ukrainian crisis led the United States and European countries to threaten sanctions on the country after the Russian flag was raised in Crimea, a part of Ukraine, and troops who spoke Russian appeared to take over a significant part of the region. Russia’s growth had slowed to almost nothing: Its real gross national product in the third quarter of 2013 was just 0.6 percent larger than it had been a year earlier. The ruble was weak. Its manufacturers appeared to be doing much worse than competitors in other countries. Its stock market has trailed markets in most other countries over the last year. If this is a new incarnation of the Cold War, it will be very different from the old one. Back then, the Soviet Union and the members of its empire were in some ways in their own economic world. They largely traded with each other, and they controlled the value of their currencies. Now, the world is a far more globalized place. Just which side would have the ability to frustrate the other is the subject of debate now that John Kerry, the United States secretary of state, has threatened to throw Russia out of the Group of 8 , to which it had been added in 1997. The other members are seven traditional economic powers: the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada. On the one hand, Russia is a major supplier of energy to Western Europe. If it cut off its natural gas exports, several countries — notably the Netherlands — would have a hard time coping. On the other hand, energy accounts for most of Russia’s exports. Its supply of foreign currency reserves could be depleted rapidly if cash from Western Europe stopped arriving. Germany is a substantial customer for Russian gas, but it also is a major exporter to Russia. It would be damaged more than most countries if a trade freeze developed. Last year, Germany supplied 12 percent of Russia’s imports, more than double the share provided by the United States. Western Europe has more to fear than the United States does from a prolonged Cold War. Video To understand the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, look to the interconnected history of the two countries. Credit Credit Ben Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images On Monday, the same day that stock prices plunged around the world because of the Ukrainian crisis, Markit reported on the results of monthly surveys of manufacturers around the world, and Russia stood out on the negative side. In those surveys, companies are asked if business is better that month than it was the previous month, both over all and in several areas. The accompanying charts show the results in two of those areas: output and new export orders. Figures over 50 indicate that more companies reported improvement than reported declines, while those under 50 indicate the reverse. The charts compare the Russian results with the averages of two groups of neighbors. One includes the four Eastern European countries where the surveys are conducted — Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Turkey. The other includes the four troubled members of the euro zone that are surveyed. Ireland and Greece had to be bailed out, while Italy and Spain have seen bond markets grow fearful of their ability to meet their obligations. In 2012, manufacturers in Russia were reporting much better results than either of those two groups. But now, both of the groups say that export orders and output are rising. In Russia, they are shrinking. If the new Cold War lasts for a long time, a substantial reduction in trade could damage both sides; each is far more dependent on the other than it ever was in the old Cold War. That provides a reason for both sides to compromise, but it also may provide a reason for each to be stubborn, expecting that the other will have to give in.

International trade
Cold War
Russian language
Ukraine
Russia
Europe


West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins Wrote the Book on the Press. Two, Actually.

Abstract: All season, West Virginia won by challenging opponents everywhere on the court, trying to force turnovers. Last week, West Virginia upset Maryland with that strategy, forcing 23 turnovers, and set up a round of 16 game against Kentucky on Thursday. So distinctive is the Mountaineers’ swarming defense that the strategy has become known, even in West Virginia’s official media materials, as Press Virginia. West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins wrote the book on the press. Two, actually: As part of a series of books called “Art & Science of Coaching,” he wrote “ Coaching the Matchup Press: Aggressive Defensive Principles for Winning Basketball ,” in 2000, and “ Press Breakers ,” in 2002. At Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on Wednesday, Huggins was asked how the latter book would recommend breaking his press. “I don’t remember,” Huggins said. “That was a long time ago; honestly, I don’t remember what I wrote. I was bored, needed something to do.”

College basketball
West Virginia University
Bob Huggins


Tigers Have 20 Hits in Rout of Twins

Abstract: Miguel Cabrera homered twice and drove in five runs, and Anibal Sanchez pitched eight sharp innings in the Detroit Tigers’ 13-1 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins on Thursday. Nick Castellanos and Bryan Holaday also homered for the Tigers, and Anthony Gose added a career-high four hits. It was Cabrera’s third multihomer game of the season and the 33rd of his career. He has eight home runs in 2015, a team high. Sanchez allowed a run and five hits after entering the day with a 5.44 E.R.A. He struck out nine and walked one. Mike Pelfrey allowed four earned runs and 10 hits in four and two-thirds innings. The Tigers led by 5-1 when Cabrera hit a two-run homer to left in the sixth. He added a two-run shot an inning later. Detroit’s 13 runs and 20 hits were season highs. ROYALS 6, RANGERS 3 Alcides Escobar had three hits and accounted for five runs, Eric Hosmer homered, and visiting Kansas City beat Texas to split a four-game series. Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie gave up two runs over five innings to win his second consecutive start. He struck out one and did not walk a batter, but he twice hit Prince Fielder with pitches. Greg Holland worked the ninth for his seventh save in eight chances. Ross Detwiler (0-5) is winless in his first seven starts for Texas. ASTROS 6, BLUES JAYS 4 Jonathan Villar’s two-run double put host Houston on top for good in a four-run seventh inning against Toronto. The rookie Preston Tucker’s run-scoring double off Aaron Loup with no outs in the seventh cut the Astros’ deficit to 4-3. Loup’s blown save ruined a solid start by Drew Hutchison, who allowed five hits and two runs with a season-high nine strikeouts in six innings. Josh Fields got the last two outs of the seventh for the win, and Chad Qualls struck out one in a perfect ninth for his fourth save. REDS 4, GIANTS 3 Marlon Byrd hit a bases-loaded single and a tiebreaking solo homer in the eighth inning to lead host Cincinnati to a victory over San Francisco. The Reds have won 12 of their last 15 regular-season games against the Giants at Great American Ball Park. Byrd’s two-run single off the Giants’ Tim Lincecum put Reds starter Johnny Cueto in position for a win. Aroldis Chapman struck out two of three batters in the ninth for his seventh save in seven chances. CARDINALS 2, INDIANS 1 Matt Carpenter hit a two-run homer off reliever Marc Rzepczynski in the eighth inning after host Cleveland had replaced starter Trevor Bauer, rallying St. Louis to a victory. Bauer blanked St. Louis and allowed four hits in seven and a third innings before giving up a one-out walk. Carpenter drove a 2-1 pitch over the wall in right-center to help the Cardinals win the series after being overpowered by Corey Kluber on Wednesday. It was the first homer the left-handed Rzepczynski had given up to a left-handed hitter since June 12, 2012, when he was with the Cardinals. Kevin Siegrist pitched two scoreless innings, and Trevor Rosenthal recorded his 12th save. PHILLIES 4, PIRATES 2 Aaron Harang allowed five hits over eight scoreless innings, and Ryan Howard hit his team-high seventh home run, leading host Philadelphia past Pittsburgh. The Pirates avoided a shutout when Starling Marte doubled to deep center field off Ken Giles with one out in the ninth, allowing Josh Harrison to score. Jonathan Papelbon recorded the final two outs for his eighth save in eight chances this season. Harang settled into a groove after escaping trouble in the first inning, when he threw 27 pitches and left two runners in scoring position. Vance Worley took the loss.

Baseball
Miguel Cabrera
Mike Pelfrey
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins


Libya: Apology After Airstrike

Abstract: Fighter jets sent by Libya’s internationally recognized government bombed a Greek-owned tanker ship off an eastern city controlled by Islamist extremists on Monday, killing two crew members and wounding two, Libyan and Greek officials said, in what appeared to have been a mistake. Libyan officials apologized for the bombing. A military spokesman, Ahmed al-Mesmari, said jets struck the vessel twice off Derna before the government learned that the vessel had been commissioned by the local power station. But the state-run National Oil Corporation said that it had informed all parties that it had contracted the ship.

Libya
Greece
Bombs
Boat Accidents
Derna
Military


Chris Christie’s Punch Lines vs. Marco Rubio’s Polish on Iowa Campaign Trail

Abstract: MUSCATINE, Iowa — It was the same question, on the same topic, asked on the same day to two different candidates: How, as president, would you hold down the crushing cost of a college education? Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey gave an operatic, eight-minute answer in which he derided rock-climbing walls as an extravagant campus fad, disclosed in minute detail his children’s tuition bill for the year ($120,500), poked fun at his weight and imagined a hypothetical showdown in which he told his 19-year-old daughter she could not return to the University of Notre Dame because of the price tag. “After the crying, the stamping of the feet, the running upstairs, and slamming of door, the ‘you are ruining my life’ — you know what we are going to do,” he said to knowing laughs. “We are going to figure out a way, any way we can, to make it work.” Image Marco Rubio takes a more formal approach, and aides try to make the young candidate appear more presidential. In Clinton, Iowa, on Tuesday, he spoke the entire time atop a platform. Credit Andrew Harnik/Associated Press At a campaign stop 70 miles away, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida gave an answer half as long. Mr. Rubio efficiently, almost mechanically, ticked through his three-point plan to allow students to use work experience for class credit (in his words, “competency-based learning”), let private investors pay for tuition and make colleges divulge which majors yield the best-paying jobs. He concluded with a dark assessment of liberal arts colleges as “indoctrination camps” protected by the political left “because all their friends work there.” As the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination enters a crucial stretch, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Christie, two political thoroughbreds who are among their generation’s most naturally gifted politicians, are circling each other in Iowa and New Hampshire, determined to use the intimate, grip-and-grin style of town hall meetings to persuade voters to support them. But a close-in study of their approach over 48 hours here reveals the strikingly different styles of the rivals, who are under increasing pressure to perform, especially given Senator Ted Cruz’s growing dominance in Iowa. Image Mr. Rubio, in Pella, Iowa, on Wednesday, does reveal his personal side, but not as frequently and unreservedly as Mr. Christie does. Credit Mark Kauzlarich for The New York Times In a sign of their intensifying competition, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Christie traded unexpectedly stinging insults over the past few days, as Mr. Christie’s standing rose and Mr. Rubio sought to cement his standing as a top-tier candidate. Mr. Christie caustically mocked Mr. Rubio’s spotty voting record in the Senate, saying, “Dude, show up,” and prompting the Florida senator to belittle the New Jersey governor’s own work ethic. “You know, Chris has been missing in New Jersey for half the time,” Mr. Rubio said. Mr. Christie’s town-hall-style meetings here are stripped-down, unfussy affairs, so determinedly casual that his staff picks coffeehouses, bowling alleys and even bars as sites. (Bars are inexpensive, staff members say, and the setting all but guarantees a crowd.) He uses no stage or barriers, just a microphone and a bottle of water with the label ripped off. He plops himself down in the middle of the room and wanders into the crowd and plays for laughs at almost every turn: The audience at a cafe here broke into laughter 21 times. Mr. Rubio’s events are much more meticulously planned, so formal that cloth-covered fencing is set up around the perimeter of the room. (Aides said it made the young lawmaker seem more presidential.) He speaks the entire time atop a raised platform, flanked by enormous red-white-and-blue campaign posters lit by spotlights. Polished applause lines tumble from his mouth: In Clinton, Iowa, the crowd interrupted him at least 15 times with bursts of clapping. Image In Waukee, Daniella Freese, left, and Betsy Freese, second from left, listened as Mr. Christie responded to a question at a town-hall-style event. Mr. Christie’s meetings are stripped-down, unfussy affairs. Credit Mark Kauzlarich for The New York Times Mr. Christie, a 53-year-old two-term governor, projects the unhumble air of a seasoned elected official, expressing bewilderment and umbrage that lesser men (by his lights) from the legislative branch of government believe they are capable of occupying the White House. The presidency, he said across Iowa over the past few days, in a fail-safe, crowd-pleasing jab, cannot fall into the hands of another United States senator. “By definition, they do nothing,” Mr. Christie said. “They go to Washington and they vote. They are one of 100. We need people who have actually run something, done something and been held accountable for something.” Mr. Rubio, a 44-year-old first-term senator, bypasses talk of résumé and rivals to evoke the threat of a liberal agenda that he warns could send the United States, a beacon of democratic hope and economic innovation, into an irretrievable downward spiral of big-government decay. He offers himself up as a grateful child of immigrants who can rescue it. A Map of Republican Insults: When Candidates Attack, and Why How the Republican candidates for president are criticizing one another, and what they intend to accomplish with their lines of attack. “I am running for president,” he told Iowans at stop after stop, “because America owes me nothing. I have a debt to this country I will never repay. Because America is the exceptional country that literally changed the history of my family.” Mr. Rubio favors lofty, patriotic, high-minded narration to make his points; Mr. Christie relies on emotional, sometimes borscht-belt-style storytelling that can drag his events to two hours, twice as long as Mr. Rubio’s. Asked about the funding shortfall for Social Security , Mr. Christie zeroed in on a few older women in a cafe, walking up to them and delivering his proposal to raise the retirement age with a side of marital humor. Male life expectancy, he said, has risen to 79, closing in on 83 for women. “That four-year vacation you were hoping for at the end of your life from us, you may not get it,” Mr. Christie told them as laughs erupted across the room. “We may be hanging with you the entire trip.” Mr. Rubio’s style can be stirring — or oddly disconnected. When a young woman at his event in Clinton wondered what he would do to lure millennial voters to the Republican Party , pointing out that she was one of just a handful from that generation who came out to see him, Mr. Rubio delivered a rehearsed-sounding answer heavy on campaign talking points instead of an actual strategy. “Here is how we are going to fix it,” he said. “By allowing free enterprise and limited government to be applied to the challenges of the 21st century.” The young woman looked unpersuaded. Voters seem highly attuned to the stagecraft (or lack of it) in the candidates’ dueling town halls. In Clinton, in the northeast corner of the state, about a dozen people were left standing at a Rubio event despite ample space in the room: Using an old campaign trick, his staff had subdivided a large banquet hall to create the illusion of a packed room, but that also meant there was insufficient seating. “I’m surprised they didn’t use this whole room,” said Laurie Kuehl, a 72-year-old woman who arrived after all the seats were filled. In Waukee, Iowa, on Wednesday night, Mr. Christie’s decision to hold an event at an Irish pub left a dozen or so regulars at the bar confused about how an evening drink with friends had turned into a presidential campaign event. “I had no idea he was coming,” said Gaylen Wermouth, 44, a construction worker sipping a Bud Light as Mr. Christie held court on matters of national security and debt. Mr. Rubio does reveal his personal side, albeit less frequently and unreservedly than Mr. Christie. He talks about his student debt, paid off just four years ago, and just how old he was when he met his wife, Jeanette (he was 19; she was 17). On Wednesday, his wife and four children attended his talk in the town of Pella. The crowd seemed delighted when Mr. Rubio interrupted his speech to point out something to his wife across the room: His youngest son, Dominick, 8, had gotten his pants wet. “It looks like he spilled something on it,” Mr. Rubio said, paternally. There are some variables neither Mr. Rubio nor Mr. Christie can control, like the weather, but even their struggles with snow revealed their differences. An icy storm that hit Sunday night left both candidates unable to fly into Iowa for events on Monday. Mr. Christie, however, flew to Chicago on Monday night and drove for four hours to Davenport, Iowa, with his staff to make it on time to his event there early Tuesday morning. Mr. Rubio’s event was almost four hours later, but he still could not make it on time. As the pilot struggled to find a deiced runway on which to land, one Iowa voter was impatiently counting the minutes. “Forty-five minutes late,” the voter, Jim Richardson, 61, of Bettendorf, said afterward. Like most Iowa voters this time of year, he was keeping score: Mr. Rubio, he said, arrived five minutes later than Donald J. Trump had for his last event in Iowa.

2016 Presidential Election
Chris Christie
Marco Rubio
Republicans
Iowa


Long Fight to Keep a Grand Address on the Upper West Side

Abstract: On a clear, freezing day in January 2013, Marieliz Unwin and Fran Jacobs sat in an office above Times Square discussing the décor in Ms. Unwin’s apartment at the Ansonia . “There were my personal items on a mantelpiece,” Ms. Unwin said. “I have two Buddhas. I had a round vase. I have a photograph, black and white, of a tree.” She spoke fondly of four Philippe Starck-designed Pratfall dining chairs, with leather cushioned seats and curved wooden backs. They were about the only furniture she had in the apartment besides two massage tables, a daybed, some yoga mats and a desk near the door that doubled as her kitchen table. “In my bedroom, I have pictures of my grandchildren,” Ms. Unwin said, “and in both rooms, I have personal paintings.” Ms. Jacobs was not a decorator who was trying to find ways to spruce up Ms. Unwin’s turreted one-bedroom, which she has called home since 1978. Rather, Ms. Jacobs was a lawyer for the Ansonia, the grand old Upper West Side building. She was questioning Ms. Unwin during a deposition and trying to prove the Ansonia was not her true home — that, the building’s owners argue, was a farmhouse a two-hour drive upstate — and that the apartment served solely as a place for her business. The eviction suit has dragged on for three and a half years. In a classic case of a landlord using every tactic available to take back a rent-regulated apartment, the owners have employed high-powered lawyers, undercover detectives and reams of personal documents, including tax returns and credit card statements, to try to force Ms. Unwin out. But it is also a special case involving one of the city’s most recognizable addresses, once home to Babe Ruth, Arturo Toscanini, Angelina Jolie and, beginning in the 1980s, more than 800 lawsuits, largely due to the owners’ conversion of the building to condominiums and the tenants’ long rent strike in protest of a lack of repairs. Ms. Unwin won a small victory last month in this war of legal attrition, even as the appellate court had some unkind words for her. The suit comes at a turbulent time for rent-regulated apartments in the city. Just last week, the Rent Guidelines Board signaled it was open to freezing rents for rent-stabilized apartments, like Ms. Unwin’s, an action it has never taken its 44-year history. The same day, Mayor Bill de Blasio released his $41 billion dollar affordable housing plan , an effort to combat rents that surged throughout the recession. “It’s not just a roof over your head, it’s a foundation for everything you do in your life,” the mayor said. That just may be Ms. Unwin’s problem. For three decades, she has been practicing holistic healing, including massage therapy, acupuncture and “noninvasive microcurrent face-lifts.” At least since 2009, Ms. Unwin was running her small practice, MU Natural Beauty , out of her apartment on the 14th floor. “An elegant, private suite of rooms (including two round ones) in the storied Ansonia,” she wrote in a now-deleted entry on her website, which was later used against her in court. This by itself is not grounds for eviction; the Ansonia has a long history of live-work spaces. But it is easy to see why the Ansonia would want her out: Her rent was roughly $1,100 a month, rising from $725 over the past three decades , and like all rent-stabilized tenants, she could keep the apartment as long as she followed the rules. An average-size one-bedroom on a high floor like Ms. Unwin’s can rent for as much as $5,000 a month, and last July, a one-bedroom next door sold for just under $1.1 million. The bigger problem for Ms. Unwin is that she began renting a home in Claverack, N.Y., just east of the town of Hudson. Again, not grounds for eviction, unless the Ansonia’s management could prove Ms. Unwin was spending more time upstate than in Manhattan. To do so, the owners hired private detectives, one of whom posed as a client of MU Natural Beauty. “Although the bathroom had some fragrant soaps and hand sanitizer for client use, I could not find a toothbrush or any other personal items that might have belonged to Unwin,” Gayle Kern, one of the investigators, testified in an affidavit. Another investigator interviewed neighbors and acquaintances in Claverack. They even dug up a passage from 2004 in a local magazine, Ourtown, which celebrated her arrival in town with her new boyfriend, noting “they were dividing their time there with N.Y.C.” The Ansonia combed through credit card statements to determine how long she was out of town, in search of the elusive 183 days a year that would be grounds for eviction. This included time in 2010 Ms. Unwin spent in Chile, where she was tending to her dying mother. But she used the card statements in her defense to show she was out of town only 97 days in the course of three years. While at the Ansonia, she said in her deposition, she slept on the daybed, which also served as a meditation couch. Ms. Unwin’s lawyer also submitted her 2009 and 2010 tax returns showing the Ansonia as her home address. But the returns also revealed that Ms. Unwin had claimed 100 percent of her Ansonia rent as a business deduction on her taxes, which the Ansonia said was evidence she did not use any of the apartment as a residence. Ms. Jacobs and her Ansonia legal team seized on this like Perry Mason and employed a legal doctrine, quasi estoppel, to essentially argue Ms. Unwin was legally barred from telling the I.R.S. one thing and the courts another. Therefore — though it defied geographic logic — here was the apparent proof she was living upstate and only working at the apartment. Neither Ms. Jacobs nor David Ostwald, Ms. Unwin’s lawyer, would comment on the case. Ms. Unwin, in court papers, said her bookkeeper and accountant were primarily responsible for what was on the tax return. An appellate court rejected the Ansonia’s quasi estoppel argument, sending it back to housing court to determine whether Ms. Unwin should keep the apartment. But the Ansonia has appealed the decision. While deciding in her favor, the appellate court also rebuked Ms. Unwin. “We need emphasize that today’s decision in no way signals our approval of the type of exploitive and manipulative tenant conduct suggested by this record, conduct appropriately described as ‘dismaying,' ” the judges wrote. They did not say what, specifically, had dismayed them, though their ruling cited as precedent a Court of Appeals decision in which a married, unseparated couple had claimed two primary residences — one spouse in Florida, for tax purposes, the other in a rent-regulated New York City apartment. In that case, the court said it disapproved of their tactic but couldn’t evict them. Ms. Unwin, who has since moved her business to a $2,900-a-month Madison Avenue studio, just wants it all to be over, which is why after initially agreeing to an interview, she demurred. “You never know how things are going to turn out and if the judge is going to use this against me,” she said. “I’ve learned to be very careful because of this case. I’ve learned a lot about how the world works because of all this.”

Real Estate
Housing
Rent Control
Upper West Side Manhattan
Marieliz Unwin
Fran Jacobs
Eviction


In Test for Premier, Italians Rally Against Plan to Relax Labor Rules

Abstract: ROME — In Naples, demonstrators blocked traffic. In Padua, Pisa and Milan, they clashed with the police. Here, they lobbed eggs at government buildings and climbed to the top of the Colosseum to unfurl a protest banner. While their grievances are many, much of what has propelled Italians into the streets by the tens of thousands in recent weeks is the mere hint of a change to labor laws that, among other things, would make it easier for businesses to get rid of workers. No matter that the law, known as the Jobs Act, has yet to be fully written, or that many economists consider it inadequate to solving the problems of Italy ’s economy, which continues to stumble through recession. On Tuesday, after weeks of protests that have become an ever-clearer gauge of the obstacles confronting Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, lawmakers were already considering proposals to water down the plan. “The Jobs Act institutionalizes the continual precariousness we have been living in Italy,” said Cristian Sica, 37, who works on a project-by-project basis for a ministry and joined a sit-in against the plan in front of Parliament last month. Workers’ rights and protections should be broadened, not curtailed, he said, echoing a common refrain. “We are the precarious generation, in work, but above all in life,” he added. Mr. Renzi, 39, assumed office in February , pledging to shake up Italy’s sclerotic system and overcome entrenched interests, including in his own center-left Democratic Party and the powerful labor unions that have long been a base of support. He now faces pressure from various quarters to show he can deliver on his promises of change, not least from his eurozone partners, who are eager to see progress as Mr. Renzi seeks flexibility for Italy on budget limits set by Brussels. But in a country where the first article of the Constitution declares it a republic “founded on work,” rolling back labor protections is not to be taken lightly. It is particularly telling that many of those opposing Mr. Renzi’s plans are young people. They are deeply skeptical that the proposed change would in fact open jobs to them — so many other overhaul efforts before it have failed to do so. Instead, they are demanding the same guarantees that their parents have had, something it is not at all clear Italy can still afford. “All he’s doing is destroying the rights of full-time workers without giving rights to people in precarious job situations,” said Francesco Raparelli, 36, one of the coordinators of a nationwide strike last Friday by thousands of workers who hold temporary contracts. The prime minister argues that a change toward a looser labor market would benefit young people in particular, by creating jobs and getting Italy’s economy moving again. Nearly 43 percent of those 15 to 24 are unemployed. He also says it would help solve the problem of what has become a two-tier work force in Italy. Solidly protected full-time workers — mostly older — are all but immovable and are still guaranteed ample pensions and retirement benefits. Behind them is a wave of mostly younger workers who subsist on temporary, usually low-paid contracts, with few or no benefits. Mr. Renzi is pushing for more flexible labor rules to make it easier to hire and fire workers, as a way to make entrepreneurs feel safer in taking on more full-time employees. The current workers’ statute was written in 1970. Even though it was modified in 2012 to make it easier to get rid of employees with full-time contracts in firms with more than 15 people — for example, in the case of economic difficulty — Mr. Renzi argues that it is still too outdated. “It’s like taking an iPhone and wondering, ‘Where do I put in the phone token?’ ” he told a recent gathering in Florence, in the typically homespun manner that has made him popular with millions of Italians eager for change. But the debate over labor flexibility has swamped other parts of Mr. Renzi’s plan, which also includes gradual access to severance compensation, job training, simplified contracts and the extension of unemployment benefits to many who currently do not have any. “At the core of the Jobs Act is the idea of shifting protection from the job to the individual, and protecting the transitions,” said Stefano Sacchi, a political scientist at the University of Milan, who helped draft the Jobs Act and is a consultant for the Labor Ministry. Critics of the new measures say they would further erode protections without doing much to create new jobs. “It’s a design, in the face of this crisis, drafted by the real powers — banking and finance — which have decided to cancel the rights of workers and the freedom that were sanctioned by the conquests” of 1970, said Giorgio Cremaschi, a former trade union leader. Others, including some economists and business leaders, say that making firing easier is “not the right recipe” to spur Italy’s economic recovery. Even business leaders who support Mr. Renzi’s effort say stimulating the economy will require a much more multipronged approach. That would include reducing labor costs, overhauling a justice system in which lawsuits are mired for years and drastically simplifying bureaucracy for things like permits. “You have to start from the concept that it has to be feasible to do business here; that’s where the change has to happen,” said Marco Gay, the president of Confindustria, a national business lobby for young entrepreneurs. “A business can go badly or can succeed, but you have to have the possibility to allow a company to be born,” he said. Elisabetta Addis, an economics professor at the University of Sassari, said the fight over the labor law had become “more political than economic.” Despite the turmoil on the streets and in Parliament, the effect would probably be negligible. “The debate over job reintegration will have no effect on the labor market at all,” she said, “So there’s no reason for Renzi to present it as leading to new jobs, nor for the unions to make it a point of honor.” “People aren’t not hiring because of labor laws, but because there’s no internal or external demand,” she added. “Companies aren’t selling, and if that doesn’t change, it’s going to be difficult for the economy to restart.” It also remains to be seen how the government would ultimately shape the changes. Until the rules are specified, there is no telling what the law’s effect would be. “Let’s see how it is turned into law before we assess how it can impact the labor market,” said Stefano Scarpetta, the director for employment, labor and social affairs at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In the meantime, the protests are likely to continue. The Italian General Confederation of Labor, an especially combative union that brought an estimated one million people to a rally in Rome in late October, is now planning a general strike for Dec. 5.


Suh Wins Appeal and Will Be Able to Face Cowboys

Abstract: Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh had his one-game suspension reduced on appeal to a $70,000 fine Tuesday, which will allow him to play Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys in a wild-card playoff game. Suh was suspended by the N.F.L. on Monday without pay for stepping on Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers during Sunday’s 30-20 loss to the Packers. In the fourth quarter, Suh backed up and stepped on Rodgers’s left leg while he was on the ground. The N.F.L. determined that Suh’s action was deliberate, calling it “a violation of safety-related playing rules.” Ted Cottrell, a hearing officer jointly appointed by the N.F.L. and the N.F.L. Players Association, heard Suh’s appeal. By winning the appeal, Suh, who was suspended for two games in 2011 for stomping on a player’s arm and has been fined many times, should be able to help to the Lions try to contain the Cowboys’ running game. STEELERS SIGN RUNNING BACK The Pittsburgh Steelers are preparing for life without the injured running back Le’Veon Bell. The Steelers signed the well-traveled Ben Tate as a backup plan in case Bell’s hyperextended right knee does not heal in time for Saturday night’s wild-card game against Baltimore. Bell injured the knee in last week’s win over Cincinnati. While Coach Mike Tomlin said there was no structural damage, Bell remained in significant pain. Tate ran for 371 yards and 4 touchdowns this season for the Cleveland Browns and the Minnesota Vikings. (AP)

Football
Packers
Dallas Cowboys
Detroit Lions
Ted Cottrell
Aaron Rodgers
Ndamukong Suh