Textbooks Reassess Kennedy, Putting Camelot Under Siege

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The President John F. Kennedy students learn about today is not their grandparents’ J.F.K. In a high school textbook edited by John M. Blum in 1968, Kennedy was a tragic hero, cut down too soon in a transformative presidency, who in his mere 1,000 days in office “revived the idea of America as a young, questing, progressive land, facing the future with confidence and hope.” By the mid-'80s, that heady excitement was a distant memory, and Kennedy a diminished one. A textbook written in 1987 by James A. Henretta and several colleagues complained of gauzy “mythologizing” about his tenure and said the high hopes he generated produced only “rather meager legislative accomplishments.” The first — and for many the last — in-depth lesson that American students learn about the 35th president comes from high school textbooks. And on the eve of the anniversary of his assassination 50 years ago, a review of more than two dozen written since then shows that the portrayal of him has fallen sharply over the years. In general, the picture has evolved from a charismatic young president who inspired youths around the world to a deeply flawed one whose oratory outstripped his accomplishments. Averting war in the Cuban missile crisis got less attention and respect. Legislative setbacks and a deepening commitment in Vietnam got more. The Kennedy-era glamour seemed more image than reality. For example, a 1975 high school text by Clarence Ver Steeg and Richard Hofstadter said that in his handling of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, “Kennedy’s true nature as a statesman became fully apparent.” In “A People and a Nation,” they said his 1963 limited nuclear test ban treaty “was the greatest single step toward peace since the beginning of the Cold War.” On civil rights, they said, his administration “did not receive congressional cooperation.” Even so, they wrote, inaccurately, “buses, hotels, motels and restaurants were largely desegregated” in his presidency. Most of those changes came when the Civil Rights Act was signed by his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964. Using the same title in 1982, Mary Beth Norton and several others took a very different approach in a college textbook widely used today in Advanced Placement courses. They said he “pursued civil rights with a notable lack of vigor.” They blamed him for the missile crisis, saying Cuban-Soviet fears of invasion were stoked by the 1961 Bay of Pigs landing and other United States moves against Cuba. They said Kennedy’s real legacy was “a huge military expansion that helped goad the Russians into an accelerated arms race.” In 2009, Joyce Appleby’s “American Journey” said of the missile crisis: “While it seemed like a victory at the time, it left a Communist government intact just miles from the U.S. coastline. The humiliation of giving in also prompted the Soviets to begin the largest peacetime military buildup in history.” There are a variety of reasons for the shift. First of all, the dazzle of the handsome young president and the assassination in Dallas elevated Kennedy to a heroic level impossible to maintain. Another is that new writers and editors added different perspectives. In particular, the Vietnam generation began writing and editing, and Kennedy’s role in the war began to matter more. Also, his extramarital affairs became known, providing fodder for criticism. And the release of White House tapes, beginning in 1984, showed a coldly pragmatic politician, not the idealist on issues like civil rights whom people had heard about or imagined. Finally, the ‘80s saw a shift in textbook historiography. Gilbert Sewall, the director of the American Textbook Council , a nonprofit organization that reviews educational materials, said the older approach concentrated on successes in American history. In the ‘80s, he said, that was replaced by a “revisionist” approach that not only focused on injustices like the mistreatment of Indians but also highlighted flaws of those previously treated as heroic, like slaveholding among the founding fathers. “The Norton book brought this revisionism into a bright light,” he said. Thomas Thurston, who works with high school history teachers as education director at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center , said the goal of teaching history has always been to make good citizens. But now, he said, by pointing out the nation’s failings, authors send the message that “we need to live up to our founding documents.” That change, enhanced by unflattering portrayals in journalism, books and television, may have made a big difference in perceptions of Kennedy. Gallup polls used to show the public ranking him as one of the greatest American presidents, sometimes topping Abraham Lincoln for first place as the choice of more than 20 percent. His standing has declined in recent years. A recent New York Times poll ranked him fourth, at 10 percent. That placed him behind Ronald Reagan, Lincoln and Bill Clinton. His greatest support comes from those ages 43 to 63, who were children or were not yet born when he was murdered and whose high school years for some ran into the ‘80s. On some aspects of his presidency, there has been little change. Textbooks offer positive views of the Peace Corps and the space program. And the failed invasion at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs is labeled a “fiasco” again and again. But civil rights, Vietnam and the missile crisis all provoke changing views. In Mr. Blum’s 1968 “National Experience: A History of the United States,” Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a co-author of the textbook, wrote that at first Kennedy “concentrated” on executive branch actions, but that in June 1963, he “launched a new fight for new and more sweeping civil rights legislation.” That measure, he said, was on the “way to enactment at the time of Kennedy’s death.” From the late ‘80s on, words such as “dallied,” “straddled” and “fence-sitting” were commonly used to describe Kennedy’s early posture. His 1963 legislation was usually described as “hopelessly stalled,” “bottled up” or having “little hope of passage” in Congress before he died. On the missile crisis, Henry Bragdon praised Kennedy in his 1981 “History of a Free Nation,” for exercising “restraint” and for not gloating over the Soviet retreat. Mr. Blum had written: “The American triumph was a tribute to Kennedy’s combination of toughness and restraint and to his precise understanding of the uses of power.” Similar to the Norton book’s treatment, Carol Berkin and Leonard Wood’s 1983 “Land of Promise: A History of the United States” said that while “Kennedy had successfully called Khrushchev’s bluff,” his victory was “hollow” because the Soviet leader was ousted by hard-liners who “began the largest peacetime military buildup in history.” That conclusion was mild compared with Andrew Cayton’s 1998 view in “America: Pathways to the Present.” Mr. Cayton wrote that while Kennedy seemed a “hero” initially, later critics found him “rash.” He wrote: “Kennedy had not used traditional diplomatic channels to try to defuse the crisis, but rather had proclaimed his willingness to move to the brink of nuclear war and even beyond. He avoided disaster, Dean Acheson later observed, by ‘plain dumb luck.’ ” On the Vietnam War, some early books ignored Kennedy altogether, treating it as exclusively Johnson’s war. Others said simply that he “enlarged” United States assistance to South Vietnam. In 1981, Mr. Bragdon wrote that before he died there was “some evidence that Kennedy had decided that the situation in Vietnam was hopeless and had made up his mind to pull American troops out of the country.” But later books labeled him a “Cold Warrior,” a derogatory term, and stressed that he expanded the Vietnam War. Many were skeptical about potential withdrawal. In a 1984 high school text, “America: Past and Present,” Robert A. Divine and others did quote his saying of the Vietnamese: “It is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.” But they said he raised the stakes by tacitly approving a coup that led to the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963. “The resulting power vacuum in Saigon made further American involvement in Vietnam almost certain,” they wrote. Many texts from different decades, even those critical of him like the 1982 Norton book, acknowledged Kennedy as a leader who raised hopes. The often negative 1982 Norton book said “he inspired idealism in Americans.” Moreover, there has been widespread acknowledgment that Kennedy became a better president during his 34 months in office. Gary Nash, whose 1991 “American Odyssey” said Kennedy’s “scattered accomplishments” did not amount to much, still said Kennedy “grew into the job” and concluded: “As his term progressed, his initiatives became bolder, and his handling of Congress became more aggressive and assured.” Most books also reflect on the hazards of judging a foreshortened presidency. For example, in the 2012 edition of “Out of Many: A History of the American People,” John Mack Faragher and colleagues wrote, “We will never know, of course, what he might have achieved in a second term.” Most books from all years told how television helped him win in 1960, and many implied that a smitten press made his presidency seem more than it was. “His taste and grace awed the media and reporters endlessly extolled the first family’s glamour and vitality,” Paul S. Boyer and colleagues wrote in 1990 in “The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People.” That aura, more than the policy record, endures. And as years passed, the comparisons, whether respectful or skeptical, of his days in office to the mythic Camelot of King Arthur became more frequent even though the image had not been invoked — by his widow — until he died.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Textbook
History
K-12 Education
President of the United States


Wagner’s Return Is Delayed by Soreness in His Elbow

Abstract: PITTSBURGH — The Mets hoped that closer Billy Wagner had recovered from his sore left forearm and would come off the disabled list Monday. Now, he has more pain — in his elbow. Wagner wore a tight bandage around his left elbow and said he felt discomfort after throwing 20 pitches Saturday in a simulated game. “The strain’s gone, the forearm thing’s gone; now I’ve got to battle the elbow,” Wagner said. Tony Bernazard, the Mets vice president for development, said that Wagner would not be ready to come off the D.L. on Monday, but he might be able to throw a bullpen session that day. The Mets later said Wagner would return to New York on Sunday to visit the doctors. “We’ve got to get him back as soon as possible,” Bernazard said. “We’ve got to discuss the issue with the medical people.” Wagner’s and Bernazard’s words and tones were much different from those of Manager Jerry Manuel, who had said earlier in the afternoon that he expected Wagner to return. “He was fine, he’s healthy, probably a little rusty,” Manuel said shortly after Wagner threw from the mound. “His velocity was good. I’m sure he’ll be ready to go Monday. We’re in a pennant race, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, period.” Wagner last pitched Aug. 2 in Houston. He gave up three hits and two runs in one inning in squandering a save opportunity. Wagner said his velocity was fine Saturday, but more important to him was his control and a finishing touch for late movement on his pitches. “Try to get back too early, next thing you know, you either get hurt or screw it up and then you’re back to Square 1,” he said.

Wagner Billy
New York Mets
Pittsburgh Pirates
Baseball


Buying Meat and Milk With Help, but Not Food Stamps

Abstract: To think of food stamps is to conjure up images of coupons printed with the faces of presidents and the seal of the Agriculture Department. But since 1999, New Yorkers who qualify for food stamps have used Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, which look and act like debit cards. Under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , a family of four qualifies for aid if its annual income is under $28,668 (or more if the family includes elderly or disabled people). Nationwide, about 33.7 million people received an average of $124.45 a month last year, at a total program cost of nearly $53.63 billion ; in New York City, more than 1.5 million people get an average of $289 per household per month. The cards can be used in any store that accepted food stamps. They can be used to buy groceries, including produce and protein, but not alcohol, tobacco, pet food, vitamins , household products like cleaning supplies or prepared foods like those at a salad bar. MorphoTrak Incorporated makes the cards, at facilities in Manhattan and Queens, and recipients in the city can usually get them within a month after requesting them. Cardholders are not charged fees to replace cards that are lost, stolen or damaged. If an account is dormant for a year, the benefits on the card are automatically removed. The current nutrition assistance program began in 1969, but the original orange-and-blue food stamps were issued 30 years earlier; the first recipient was Mabel McFiggin of Rochester. THE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER on the left side of the cards that replaced food stamps corresponds to the individual recipient, but a household may receive multiple cards - hence the 19-digit card number in the center, which indicates the bank in which the money is held, whether the card is temporary or belongs to a client or her representative, and includes three random digits. For further security, the 11-digit access number along the bottom is made up of digits from the ID number and more random digits. (The sequence number, for internal tracking purposes, went out of use in December.) THE AREA WITH THE MOST food stamp recipients in the city last year, 63,328 people, was Community Board 5 in Brooklyn, which includes the neighborhoods of Cypress Hills, East New York, New Lots and Starrett City. The area with the fewest recipients, 2,312, was Community Board 1 in Manhattan, which covers most of the lower part of the island south of Canal Street. Since 2001, several areas have had a startling increase in food stamp use, mirroring a national trend. Community Board 13 in Queens, which includes Bellerose, Cambria Heights, Floral Park and Queens Village, has had a 205 percent jump in the number of recipients. Nearby, Community Board 12, encompassing Hollis, St. Albans and South Jamaica, has experienced a 184 percent rise. No district in the city has had a drop in the number of people receiving benefits through the program. THE MOST POPULAR items bought nationwide with food stamps are inexpensive red meats (which account for 7.8 percent of all transactions) and milk and yogurt (7.6 percent, combined), according to a federal study conducted in 1999, the last time such information was collected. More expensive red meats (6.7 percent) and bacon, sausage and luncheon meats (5.9 percent) were also high on the list, along with poultry (5.3 percent). Nuts and peanut butter were near the bottom (0.8 percent). IN THE UPPER RIGHT , the Great Seal of New York, which was created in 1777 and shows two ships sailing into the sunrise, flanked by the female figures of Liberty and Justice and surmounted by an eagle on a globe. The state's motto, "Excelsior," means "Ever Upward."


Income for Movie Writers Falls, While TV Writers’ Rises

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The earnings of movie writers continued a three-year slide in 2012, while income from television writing continued to edge upward, according to an annual report from the Writers Guild of America, West. The report, which the guild circulated on Monday, said reported earnings from movie writing fell 6.1 percent in 2012, to about $343 million, from $365.3 million in 2011; the number of writers with reported screen employment fell about 6.7 percent, to 1,537 from 1,648. In 2009, the last year in which screen employment posted a gain, the guild reported $437.8 million in movie earnings from 1,844 writers. The 2012 numbers are likely to rise slightly as late reports are added, the guild noted. Reported television earnings rose 3.9 percent last year, to $1.o215 billion from $982.7 million in 2011, the guild said. The number of writers working in television appeared to drop, to 4,510 from 4,558, but late reports could show slight growth in employment, the guild said. Residuals, which are payments for past work when it is shown in various media after its first use, rose 5.7 percent, to $348.76 million, the guild said. The reuse of programs on digital services like Netflix and Hulu has particularly driven growth in television residuals, which has increased about 51 percent since 2007, the guild noted.

Writers Guild of America
Writer
Los Angeles
Movies
TV
Wages and salaries


Titus, an Ohio State Basketball Scrub, Stars as a Blogger

Abstract: COLUMBUS, Ohio — As a second grader, when the Ohio State basketball player Mark Titus wrote a poem for Mother’s Day, he decided to needle his mom with a precocious show of sarcasm. “My mother needs NordicTrack, she wears XXL, she needs to call 1-800-94-JENNY,” he wrote, mortifying his teacher. But when the teacher called home to Laura Titus about her son’s “inappropriate behavior,” Mom just laughed. “I just thought, that’s Mark,” she said. Titus is smart enough that he was recruited to play basketball at Harvard and missed one question on the math section of the SAT. He is bizarre enough that he spent spring break of his senior year of high school attending WrestleMania XXII dressed up, with his best friend, Andy Keller, as the 1980s tag-team duo the Rockers . They also attended a live taping of Jerry Springer’s talk show. Those smarts and verve have helped make Titus one of the popular players in college basketball, a mind-boggling anomaly given that he is a little-used walk-on with a career high of 3 points. His Club Trillion blog — clubtrillion.blogspot.com — chronicles “Life Views from the End of the Bench” and has been visited by more than 1.9 million people in a little more than a year. He is so popular that student sections in opposing arenas hold up signs and chant his name, and the Ohio State star Evan Turner admits that Titus is the most popular player on the team. “I still remember vividly the day I had 500 total blog hits,” Titus said over breakfast recently. “To me, that was a huge deal. I never could have dreamed it would be like it is now.” A trillion is basketball slang for a player entering the game and not recording any statistic other than minutes. That leaves the box score with 12 zeros, or a trillion, and Titus’s followers are known as the Trillion Man March. (People have actually booed him for getting a rebound and ruining his potential trillion.) Titus has more than 5,900 followers on Twitter, nearly 2,000 more than those of North Carolina’s Ed Davis, who projects as a top pick in the N.B.A. draft . Titus has also reached the maximum number of friends on Facebook, a little less than 5,000. Titus also sold more than 860 T-Shirts, which has raised more than $10,000 for the charity A Kid Again. Titus went to a computer lab recently during final exams and saw another student staring at him. “Love the blog, man,” the guy said, pointing at it on his screen. It is hard to typify what Titus writes about, as he estimates only 25 percent of his posts involve basketball. He recounted the meltdown of a former teammate, Walter Offutt, being stuck in an elevator . A recent post pondered Papa Smurf as a pimp. Another recalled giving his former high school teammate Gordon Hayward, now a star at Butler, atomic wedgies . “Ultimately, I think of myself as an entertainer, which is kind of a dumb word,” he said, typical of his relentless self-deprecation. “I think it’s more entertainment than it is writing. It’s certainly not journalism.” Titus also pokes relentless fun at Turner, Ohio State’s biggest star, who is nicknamed the Villain. From a recent Tweet: “Kid high fived The Villain and said ‘I’m never washing my hand again,’ which is funny cause if I high 5 him I can’t wash my hand soon enough.” Turner, like the rest of Titus’s teammates and targets, embraces the blog. “He’s really made the most out of nothing,” Turner said. What has made Titus so popular? He theorizes that his everyman qualities appeal to bench warmers in sports and in life. The tipping point for traffic came when the ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons had him as a guest on a podcast. Simmons said he was hooked after reading the “Love in an Elevator” post, in which Titus wrote about being trapped in the elevator: “I bring up the idea of cannibalism and ask for a volunteer to be the first to be eaten. No takers.” “It’s popular for three reasons,” Simmons said in an e-mail message. “One, he’s funny. Two, he’s self-deprecating, which makes him likable. And three, he brings us into a world that we don’t really have access to otherwise. It’s no different than what Paul Shirley did when he was blogging for the Suns a few years ago.” Titus credits Ohio State Coach Thad Matta for letting him write the blog, which many coaches would never allow. A few times, the Ohio State compliance office has asked him remove things like his former teammate B. J. Mullens’s grade point average. Matta admits to essentially being computer illiterate and said he had never read the blog. He does have a strong affinity for Titus and his dry sense of humor, he said. He trusts him not to cross any lines. Titus started off as a manager for the Buckeyes but quit after a few weeks of filling water bottles. Matta jokes that Titus filmed practice as poorly as anyone in team history. But with a shortage of bodies a few weeks later, Titus was asked to join the team. That started a ride that has seen the Final Four in 2007 with Titus’s summer basketball teammates Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook, a National Invitation Tournament title and, last year, a first-round exit. Matta’s favorite moment came seconds before tip-off of the championship game of the N.C.A.A. tournament in 2007. “For what it’s worth,” Matta recalled Titus telling him as the starters took the floor, “I got five fouls to give.” Titus then pointed at the end of the bench and said, “I’ll be right down here if you need me.” Matta cracks up while recalling the story. “It was good for me then; I needed it,” he said. The junior guard Jon Diebler said that after a win on a recent Saturday night, Matta gathered the team to talk about an e-mail message that had been circulating about a huge party featuring the football and basketball teams. With numerous administrators in the locker room, Titus interjected straight-faced before Matta could warn the team not to attend. “Coach,” he said. “Can you forward a copy of that e-mail to me? I never got it.” The assistant Jeff Boals said that Titus was at the scorer’s table during a blowout this year and retreated to the bench without entering the game at a timeout. He immediately screamed to the managers: “Water! Water! I need water!” “He knows the line, he’ll walk it and lean over it and then pull himself back,” said Joshua Kendrick, who coached Titus at Brownsburg (Ind.) High School. Kendrick recalled often feeling torn, saying, “Mark, you can’t, but that’s really funny.” Titus’s parents, Bill and Laura, a high school principal and a sixth-grade math teacher, say they are proud that their son’s reach has transcended one-liners. This summer, Titus approached Ohio State’s compliance office about selling Club Trillion T-Shirts to benefit A Kid Again, which helps children with life-threatening illnesses be “a kid again.” The shirts have been sold in almost all 50 states, Britain and as far away as Australia. Jeffrey Damron, the chief executive of A Kid Again, said, “It says a lot about his selflessness and his passion for others.” Titus, who is set to graduate this spring, joked that he had spent so much time on the blog that he had adopted a “D’s for degrees” mantra that had submarined his grade point average. For his plans after graduation, he has pondered everything from acting to scripts. He promises the blog could become juicier when he is not bound by the N.C.A.A.’s or Ohio State’s rules. Titus joked that before he became known as a blogger, he was “that guy with Greg Oden.” He grew up with Oden, hung out with him while Oden was a campus rock star and said that there were some great untold stories from the Final Four year. He has pondered a book. “I think that’s what everyone is scared of, is that the day we lose in the N.C.A.A. tournament or win the national championship or whatever,” he said. “I get turned loose and can do what I want.”

Computers and the Internet
College Athletics
Basketball
Ohio State University


U.C.L.A. Student’s Video Rant Against Asians Fuels Firestorm

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — When Alexandra Wallace recorded her rant about Asian students using cellphones in the library at the University of California, Los Angeles , she was alone, speaking to her computer. But since she posted the three-minute video to YouTube, Ms. Wallace, a third-year political science student at U.C.L.A., has achieved a sudden, unwelcome celebrity: her video has been viewed by millions of people, and she has become the subject of nationwide condemnation and the catalyst of a debate about racial intolerance and free speech. “Please expel this ignorant woman immediately,” Kiki Gyrle wrote on Facebook, where there are many posts about Ms. Wallace, some too profane to print. “Tolerating such discourse of hate and racism is now being construed as policy to condone such tirades.” In the video, Ms. Wallace complains about Asian students in the school library using their cellphones to call family members after the tsunami in Japan. At one point, she mimics people speaking an Asian language. “The problem is these hordes of Asian people that U.C.L.A. accepts into our school every single year, which is fine,” Ms. Wallace said in the video. “But if you’re going to come to U.C.L.A., then use American manners.” Robert Hernandez, a professor of Internet journalism at the University of Southern California, said Ms. Wallace’s story served as a reminder of the need to be aware of your “digital footprint” in the Internet age. “People feel a false sense of privacy on the Internet that isn’t there,” he said. Ms. Wallace has removed her video from YouTube, and issued an apology to the U.C.L.A. student newspaper. She could not be reached for comment. Still, others have reposted the video online, along with parodies, remixes and responses, and diatribes against Ms. Wallace have continued. She has also received threats by phone and e-mail. On Monday, U.C.L.A.’s chancellor, Gene Block, released a statement that deemed the video “thoughtless and hurtful” and called for a more civil discourse . Officials said the university was looking into possible disciplinary action against Ms. Wallace. Mr. Block’s Facebook page has become a hotbed of comments about the video, some attacking Ms. Wallace and Mr. Block. “While in front of the computer, it’s easier to make comments or threats anonymously,” Professor Hernandez said. “And people fall into the same kind of behavior they’re condemning.”

Asian-Americans
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
University of California Los Angeles
Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011)
YouTube.com
Discrimination


Street Basketball Scene at Rucker Park in Harlem

Abstract: THE scene around the basketball court at Holcombe Rucker Park in Harlem was bordering on chaos. Two professional football players strutted back and forth, trailed by fans, while a famous hip-hop artist posed for a photograph in a corner. Children galloped around with no discernible destination. A rotund man in yellow sweat pants danced with surprising grace at center court. Two men on inline skates weaved through the crowd, capturing everything on video cameras. The stereo system roared and the bleachers were beyond capacity as Corey Williams, 10 days into a monthlong basketball bender, pushed his way onto the court for the Entertainers Basketball Classic, a tournament that has become synonymous with street basketball since it began 30 years ago as a grudge match between rival rap groups. It is also where Mr. Williams, who grew up in the Bronx and now plays professionally overseas, made his name — literally. “The most dangerous player in the E.B.C. — Homicide — has entered the building!” the announcer yelled into the microphone when he saw Mr. Williams, who was grinning and looking giddy as he pounded hands and grabbed shoulders. It is not uncommon to see elite college and professional players playing for pride against local talents here; YouTube is full of videos of big names playing at Rucker Park. “The greatest thing about New York is you don’t have to be in the N.B.A. to be revered as a star on the playgrounds,” said Bobbito Garcia, who is making a documentary about street basketball. On the playground, humiliating an opposing defender is a primary goal, individual play is valued over team spirit, and winning the attention of the bombastic announcers is possibly more important than winning the game itself. The announcers are crucial, because they control a player’s nickname, a major status symbol in the streetball scene. The origins of some nicknames are clear: Adris DeLeon, a wiry guard who has probably been the city’s biggest star this summer, has earned the name “ 2 Hard 2 Guard ” because he is difficult to defend. Antoine Millien, a Queens native known as “ Miles High ,” has an impressive vertical leap. Corey Fisher, who reportedly scored a record 105 points in a game this month, is called Fisher Price because of how he toys with opponents. But an uninitiated viewer might not know that “Terminator 2,” Quinton Hosley, is the son of “The Terminator,” Ronald Mathias; and the name “I’ll Be Right Back” doesn’t make sense unless you’ve seen the diminutive Earv Opong dribble past an opponent, then turn around and return to his starting point instead of scoring, just to prove that he can do it again. Playground names can follow players to the pros: television announcers still refer to the N.B.A. point guard Rafer Alston as “ Skip to My Lou ,” a name he earned loping up and down the court at Rucker Park. Mr. Williams, 33, called “Homicide” for his relentless attacks on prominent local players, has a résumé that reads like a decade-long pickup game. He began playing in local tournaments in his early 20s, and his performance on the playground earned him his first professional gig, playing for a pittance for the New York Nationals, the team that loses each night to the Harlem Globetrotters. He went on to play in the Dominican Republic, China, Brazil, Venezuela and various minor leagues in the United States. He got married, started a family and moved to Denver. But each summer, Mr. Williams returned to New York to play in tournaments like the one here at Rucker Park, burnishing his reputation as a playground legend. One evening in 2005, a coach with the Toronto Raptors saw Mr. Williams dominate a game at Dyckman Park and brought him in for a tryout. This set off a series of auditions with five other National Basketball Association teams. None resulted in a contract, but Mr. Williams was named the Most Valuable Player in the Australian National Basketball League last season. Still, he comes back, this summer playing in a half-dozen tournaments at outdoor courts in the Bronx and Harlem, at the gymnasium of Baruch College, and in “the Cage,” the notoriously claustrophobic court near the West Fourth Street subway station in Greenwich Village. “When you leave they forget about you, because there are so many ballplayers,” Mr. Williams said. “It’s not going to make me or break me at this point. But you still want to let everyone know you still have it.” It took Mr. Williams less than five seconds to demonstrate that at Rucker Park. He grabbed the ball from the opening tipoff and sprinted toward the basket. As a defender closed in, Mr. Williams flicked the ball to a trailing teammate who laid it into the basket. On the next possession, Mr. Williams dashed up the court, came to a full stop, then accelerated, dribbling once behind his back and taking off along the baseline with his defender now a step behind. Mr. Williams laid the ball off the backboard, and it dropped into the net, the first of four consecutive trips down the court resulting in a score. He finished with the game high of 36 points, and his team won 119-107. On one scoring run, an opponent hacked at Mr. Williams’s arm, but he forced through the contact and pushed the ball into the basket, much to the crowd’s delight. The referee blew his whistle for the foul. Before heading to the free-throw line, Mr. Williams walked toward the bleachers and threw his hands into the air. “It’s like I never left,” he screamed. And the fans at Mr. Williams’s home court threw their hands in the air and screamed back.

Basketball
Parks and Other Recreation Areas


In Nutrition Initiative, Disney to Restrict Advertising

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Company , in an effort to address concerns about entertainment’s role in childhood obesity , announced on Tuesday that all products advertised on its child-focused television channels, radio stations and Web sites must comply with a strict new set of nutritional standards. The restrictions on ads extend to Saturday-morning cartoons on ABC stations owned by Disney. Under the new rules, products like Capri Sun drinks and Kraft Lunchables meals — both current Disney advertisers — along with a wide range of candy, sugared cereal and fast food, will no longer be acceptable advertising material. The initiative, which Disney revealed at a Washington news conference with the first lady, Michelle Obama , stretches into other areas. For instance, Disney will reduce the amount of sodium by 25 percent in the 12 million children’s meals served annually at its theme parks, and create what it calls fun public service announcements promoting child exercise and healthy eating. The move follows the announcement last week of a plan by New York City to ban the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks amid increasing concern about childhood obesity in America. Disney said that in adopting the new advertising standards it was largely following recommendations proposed last year by federal regulators. The suggestions were aimed at inducing the food industry to overhaul the way it marketed things like cereal, soda and snacks to children. Food companies have vociferously fought government regulation on advertising, saying they can take steps on their own. Disney acknowledged it would most likely lose some advertising revenue — it declined to say how much — but said that the benefits outweighed the downside. (Disney Channel does not currently accept traditional ads, although a range of promotions and sponsorships are allowed; other channels like Disney XD are supported by commercials.) Disney’s ad restrictions, which will not take effect until 2015 because of long-term contracts with advertisers, will apply to any programming aimed at children under 12, which includes popular live-action programs as well as cartoons. Robert A. Iger , Disney’s chairman, said he felt strongly that “companies in a position to help with solutions to childhood obesity should do just that,” but added: “This is not altruistic. This is about smart business.” Taking steps to combat childhood obesity allows Disney the opportunity to polish its brand as one families can trust — something that drives sales of everything from Pixar DVDs to baby clothes to theme park vacations. In addition, Disney has carefully studied the marketplace and executives say they believe there is increasing consumer demand for more nutritious food. Mr. Iger noted that health food for children had already become “a very, very solid business” for Disney. Since 2006 consumers have purchased about two billion servings of Disney-licensed servings of fruit and vegetables, according to the company. Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest , said Disney’s plan put it “far ahead of competitors.” At the same time, she cautioned that Disney’s guidelines still fell short of what her organization would like to see, particularly for cereal. Disney’s new standards require cereal to contain less than 10 grams of sugar a serving, for instance, while Ms. Wootan would prefer about six grams. “This limits the marketing of the worst junk foods, but it won’t mean you’re only going to see ads for apples, bananas and oranges, either,” she said. As part of its initiative, Disney also introduced what it called Mickey Check in grocery store aisles: Disney-licensed products that meet criteria for limited calories , saturated fat , sodium and sugar can display a logo — Mickey Mouse ears and a check mark — on their packaging. The logos will include the slogan, “Good For You — Fun Too!” By the end of this year, the White House said in a news release Tuesday, “the Mickey Check will appear on licensed foods products, on qualified recipes on Disney.com and Family.com, and on menus and select products at Disney’s Parks and Resorts.” Some elements of Disney’s campaign — the Mickey Check, in particular — could revive parental criticism that the company has a way of moving into areas it does not belong, such as approval over what foods children eat. Moreover, consumers have also come to distrust or ignore healthy eating symbols on packaging because so many food companies have introduced self-serving varieties, said Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University . “Here comes Disney with yet another symbol, and it’s too early to say whether this will simply add to the chaos and confusion or actually help steer parents and kids as they shop,” Mr. Brownell said. Still, Mr. Brownell, who was given an advance briefing of Disney’s plans, said the effort was “enormously important.” He cautioned that he had not yet deeply examined Disney’s nutritional guidelines, but said “they appear quite good.” Disney developed the new nutrition standards with the assistance of two child health and wellness experts: James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and Keith T. Ayoob, associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The company’s standards are based on the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed guidelines for food marketing to children. Disney also looked at the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a self-policing effort by food giants like Burger King and Campbell Soup to set their own marketing limits. Disney’s guidelines will be available starting Tuesday at www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/mohl . Disney’s new guidelines are likely to have a ripple effect through the children’s entertainment industry. Rivals like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network will face pressure to follow Disney’s lead. Advertisers spend some $950 million annually on television tailored to children under 12, according to industry estimates. “With this new initiative, Disney is doing what no major media company has ever done before in the U.S. — and what I hope every company will do going forward,” Mrs. Obama said in a statement. Food companies will also feel the effects. Giants like Pepsi and Kellogg in 2007, trying to squelch calls for government regulation, said they would stop advertising products that failed to meet various nutritional standards to children under 12. Food companies then started pushing healthier items and reformulating junk food products. Disney has sent similar dominoes falling in the past. In 2006, Disney said it would sharply curtail the use of its name and characters with foods high in sugar, salt and fat. Mickey Mouse stopped appearing on boxes of Pop -Tarts, and Buzz Lightyear and his “Toy Story” pals disappeared from McDonald’s Happy Meals. Within months, Nickelodeon and Discovery Kids announced similar restrictions; the 2007 effort by food companies to reel in advertising was also linked to Disney’s lead. As part of its Tuesday announcement, Disney will introduce a tightened version of the nutritional standards it first adopted in 2006, including a required additional 10 percent reduction in sugar in yogurt and flavored milk products. “We need to motivate consumers to make changes, and Disney, because of its sheer size and brand power, can do that better than anybody,” Mr. Ayoob said.

Nutrition
Advertising Marketing
Obesity
Children
Walt Disney


Killer of Two Undercover Detectives Is Sent Back to Death Row

Abstract: Ronell Wilson, whose first death sentence for killing two undercover police detectives was overturned, was sentenced again on Wednesday to die by a federal jury that heard gripping testimony about his time in jail, where he roamed freely after the shootings, intimidated fellow inmates and fathered a child with a guard. The anonymous 12-member jury took just five hours to reach its decision to return Mr. Wilson to federal death row, where no other New Yorker has served time in six decades. As the jury foreman responded to preliminary questions from a 22-page verdict sheet, Mr. Wilson, 31, slumped forward with his chin in his hands as the tension rose in the courtroom in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. When the foreman finally said “yes” to the death penalty, Mr. Wilson leaned back and looked over to his family. They wept as he was led away. Outside the courthouse on Wednesday, Rodney Andrews Sr., the father of one of the victims, Detective Rodney J. Andrews, said that he was pleased with the outcome. “He’s done too many things,” Mr. Andrews said of Mr. Wilson. “He’s proven that he’s not going to change.” Mr. Andrews said that he wanted to watch Mr. Wilson’s execution, and when asked why, he replied, “For satisfaction.” Detective Andrews’s wife, MaryAnn, said she was too emotional to speak. The family of Detective James V. Nemorin, the other victim, did not attend court on Wednesday. In a statement, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said: “It was an assault on the society that those officers represented, and for that reason their murders had to be answered with the full force of punishment at society’s disposal. To do otherwise is to invite chaos.” Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District, whose office prosecuted the case, said that she hoped the verdict would bring closure to the victims’ families. Mr. Wilson’s lawyers declined to comment. A judge is expected to formally sentence Mr. Wilson in the fall. The legal case against him has lasted more than a decade. On March 10, 2003, Mr. Wilson killed Detective Andrews, 34, and Detective Nemorin, 36, who were participating in a sting operation to buy an illegal gun. He shot each once in the back of the head at point-blank range on a secluded street on Staten Island. Image Ronell Wilson Credit New York Police Department, via Associated Press In choosing the death penalty, the jury unanimously found that prosecutors proved every element of their case, including that Mr. Wilson committed the murders for financial gain and that he poses a future danger. The jury rejected arguments posed by the defense — that life in prison was punishment enough and that Mr. Wilson’s rough childhood filled with bad influences should spare him from death. Only one member of the jury found that the federal prison system could restrict Mr. Wilson’s inappropriate behavior. Only two found that “Ronell Wilson’s life has value.” None felt that his background mitigated against the imposition of the death penalty. Death penalty trials are exceedingly rare in New York, where the state’s highest court struck down the death penalty in 2004 and where capital cases at the federal level are often resolved before trial. Federal prosecutors vigorously sought the death penalty against Mr. Wilson, taking the case from state prosecutors on Staten Island, when capital punishment at the state level was invalidated. They won a death verdict in 2007, the first one in New York since 1953. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his death sentence in 2010, ruling that the prosecutor had violated Mr. Wilson’s constitutional right not to testify by telling jurors that if Mr. Wilson had felt any remorse, he would have taken the stand. The panel commuted the sentence to life in prison without parole, but prosecutors decided to again seek death. With Mr. Wilson’s guilt never in doubt, the question at the heart of the monthlong sentencing trial was: How much punishment is enough? Prosecutors argued that prison alone would not do. The prosecutors showed a dramatic video of several guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn storming into a recreation pen to retrieve Mr. Wilson, who had refused to be handcuffed. When the guards emerged from the pen with Mr. Wilson, he smiled. One of their witnesses described seeing a guard, Nancy Gonzalez, walk away from Mr. Wilson’s cell one day, leaving him there with his pants down and his genitals exposed. Mr. Wilson had several sexual encounters with Ms. Gonzalez, fathering a child, Justus, who was born in March. Defense witnesses described Mr. Wilson’s difficult childhood, during which he shuttled between relatives as his mother, an alcoholic and drug addict, was often absent. He spent years in an overcrowded and squalid home, where the adults who influenced him were criminals. Life in prison was punishment enough, Mr. Wilson’s lawyers argued, for someone who never really had a chance. But Celia Cohen, one of the prosecutors, said that only the death penalty assured justice. “He’s not going to stop until he’s dead,” she said in her closing argument. “Truer words were never said.”

Capital punishment
Ronell Wilson
Criminal Sentence
Attacks on Police
Rodney J Andrews
James V Nemorin
Murders
New York


More Ships and Planes Join Search for Jetliner

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — With no trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 more than three weeks after it disappeared, the international search effort intensified Monday, with 10 planes and 10 ships expected to scour the latest search area about 1,100 miles west of Perth, Australia, officials said. Other ships were en route to the zone and were scheduled to arrive in the next several days, including an Australian naval vessel, the Ocean Shield, outfitted with special equipment to detect the pings of the plane’s data recorders, or black boxes, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the search. During each of the past three days, aircraft spotted more debris floating in the new float zone, though none of it has so far been linked to the missing plane. On Saturday, crews on two ships pulled several objects from the rough waters, raising hopes that perhaps the first physical evidence of the Boeing 777-200 had been found. But the debris turned out to be “fishing equipment and other flotsam,” the authority said in a statement late Sunday. Speaking to reporters on Monday morning in Pearce, Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the search remained extraordinarily difficult. But when asked if Australia was considering aborting the effort, he replied, “We are well short of that point.” “We can keep searching for quite some time to come,” he added. “If this mystery is solvable, we will solve it, but I don’t want to underestimate how difficult it is.” In Malaysia, more than two dozen relatives of Chinese passengers on Flight 370 arrived from China on Sunday to press Malaysian officials for more answers about the investigation. The Malaysian government has endured withering criticism from the relatives and friends of Chinese passengers, both in Malaysia and in China, who have accused officials of withholding information about the disappearance of the plane and not doing enough to find it. The group protested at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur and demanded an apology from the Malaysian government for declaring last week that the plane had crashed into the Indian Ocean, saying there was insufficient evidence to support that conclusion. Government officials said later that they planned to hold a briefing for the family members that would include “high-level representatives of the Malaysian government.” The Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Map of the new search area, which is about 700 miles to the northeast of the previous search areas. The Ocean Shield, an offshore support vessel that will be carrying the ping-detecting device, was supposed leave Perth on Sunday, but its departure was rescheduled for Monday, officials said. The ship will also be carrying an unmanned underwater vehicle. But the ping detector’s utility, in the absence of more specific information about the location of the wreckage, is questionable. The device will be towed behind the ship at no more than about five knots, or about six miles per hour, and needs to be within about a mile of the black boxes to pick up the signal reliably, making for a slow and painstaking process. The new search area, which was established on Friday, is roughly the size of Poland. Searchers, however, say there is no time to waste: The device will be ineffective once the batteries powering the black boxes die, which is expected to happen next week. The recovery of debris might also help pinpoint the location of the wreckage, though experts are doubtful. When debris is found quickly enough after a crash into the sea, investigators can trace its drift back to the impact site and conduct an underwater search for the black boxes. But in the case of Flight 370, any debris, if found, might well have drifted hundreds of miles. The search area was shifted after new analysis of radar data from the morning of March 8 determined that the plane was traveling faster than previously thought and therefore would have burned fuel more quickly.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Oceans and Seas
Malaysia Airlines
Australia
Malaysia
China
Plane Crashes and Missing Planes


French Court Finds Oil Company Partly Liable for Spill

Abstract: PARIS — In a ruling that could set a precedent for responsibility in maritime pollution, a French court ruled Wednesday that the oil company Total was partly liable for a vast tanker spill in 1999 that blackened the Brittany coast with fuel oil even though the company did not own the ship. The court fined Total almost $298 million in damages, most of which will be paid to the French government, various regional governments and several environmental groups, including Greenpeace. Total also was fined $550,000 for maritime pollution. In its ruling, the first of its kind in France , the court also recognized the principle of ecological harm “resulting from an attack on the environment.” That cleared the way for coastline communities to seek more money in damages from Total over the wreck of the decrepit tanker Erika. Under maritime law, the responsibility of the cargo owner is usually limited, while ship owners and their insurers are exposed to greater liability. But in this complex, four-month trial, government lawyers and French environmental groups argued that Total had ignored safety regulations and its own rules. The plaintiffs had sought more than $1.5 billion in damages. More than 100 groups and local governments joined in the suit. The case illustrated the convoluted nature of international shipping and maritime law. The cargo belonged to Total of France, while Italians owned the ship and the crew was Indian. The Erika sailed under a Maltese flag and was chartered by a shipping company registered in the Bahamas. Giuseppe Savarese, one the owners, was fined $112,000 for maritime pollution. He was acquitted on a count of endangering people, as was Total. Registro Italiano Navale, the Italian maritime certification company that declared the vessel seaworthy, was fined $559,000. Edward Bran, a lawyer who specializes in international environmental law, said that under international oil pollution conventions, claims usually are not permitted against parties other than the ship owners unless it can be proved that the damage stemmed from acts of omission. He said the verdict appeared to be one of the first in which a cargo owner and a classification company were held responsible. “That is very interesting because they are held liable for damages due to the fact that they did not check the ship in a proper way,” he said. “This forces someone who is hiring a ship to check whether or not it is in a good state.” Yannick Jadot of Greenpeace called the verdict historic because Total could not avoid responsibility and the court recognized the principle of harm to the environment. Patricia Marie, a spokeswoman for Total, said Wednesday night that it had not decided whether to appeal. Total’s lawyer Daniel Soulez-Lariviere, said after the verdict that he was recommending an appeal because the ruling did not reflect international oil pollution conventions. The Erika, carrying 20,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, split in two in the Bay of Biscay on Dec. 12, 1999, after setting sail from Dunkirk in rough seas. The spill was spread by a storm two weeks later, fouling 250 miles of the French coast.

Decisions and Verdicts
Environment
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Total SA
France


After 8 Touchdowns, West Virginia’s Smith Is His Only Critic

Abstract: MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — By his estimation, Geno Smith had erred. He had six incompletions. West Virginia did not score on its first drive and stalled, briefly, on others. He forced passes when he could have scrambled. Generally, he could have made better decisions. Hardly anyone seemed to notice, though, especially not those here smiling and singing John Denver’s “Country Roads” when, because of Smith, the Mountaineers had won. The West Virginia fans had gathered for what Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby had called “the big show in the state.” The stands were striped with gold and blue. It was homecoming, and the Mountaineers’ inaugural Big 12 conference game, their only chance to make a first impression. Touchdowns were expected, defense not. It seemed to be a big show, not to be seriously appraised. And Saturday afternoon proved fun and frivolous as West Virginia won, 70-63, over No. 25 Baylor (3-1, 0-1). On center stage, Smith, the quarterback of the ninth-ranked Mountaineers (4-0, 1-0), made his best bid this season for the Heisman Trophy. Its winners often need style as much as substance, a few big shows perhaps. “He was 45 of 51 for 656 yards and 8 touchdowns and zero interceptions,” West Virginia Coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Can you please explain to me how you can improve on that?” Smith would try. His performance was not enough, he said. “I could care less about the Heisman Trophy,” he said, adding, “I don’t want to just hang my head on one game.” Holgorsen said: “I worry about that with him at times. He expects perfection, which, perfection isn’t possible.” On Saturday, Smith came close, and he had to. Baylor’s starting quarterback, Nick Florence, playing in his first conference game since replacing the Heisman winner Robert Griffin III, almost kept up, throwing for 581 yards. So the game devolved into two top-10 scoring offenses taking turns. Never mind the defenses — the first quarter’s pace left those watching breathless. The four scoring drives averaged 2 minutes 30 seconds. Running backs burst through holes untouched. Wide receivers ran routes uninterrupted. Quarterbacks surveyed the field undisturbed. The offensive skill on display felt cheapened, though, by each defense’s ineptitude. The crowd barely had time to applaud the West Virginia offense before the defense allowed another score. In the space of three snaps in the second quarter, the spectacle became comical. First, Smith dropped a 47-yard pass over receiver Stedman Bailey’s shoulder, and past two chasing defenders, for a touchdown. Two plays later, Florence hit his receiver Tevin Reese in stride for a 65-yard score. But the crowd had no need to worry: five plays later, Smith threw another touchdown to Bailey to tie the score, 28-28. With 59 seconds left in the second quarter, and West Virginia driving, Baylor called timeout, indicating the Bears believed there was still enough time to gain possession and score. Smith soon found Bailey for a touchdown for a third time. But shortly afterward, on the last play of the first half, Florence found a wide-open Lanear Sampson, who scored, and somehow it was 35-35. After the game, Mickey Furfari, a reporter who has covered West Virginia sports for decades, asked Holgorsen whether this was typical of all Big 12 games. It was not, Holgorsen began to say, but before he could finish, Furfari interrupted: “You mean, we’ll see defense before the season’s over?” Sheepishly, Holgorsen bit his lower lip. In the second half, with the benefit of time, skilled receivers and Holgorsen’s Air Raid offense, Smith played as he might in his backyard. The game slid further into pitch and catch with his receivers Bailey, who attended high school with Smith; Tavon Austin; and J. D. Woods. Combined, they caught 40 passes. “It would mean everything in the world to me” if Smith won the Heisman, Austin said. “Even if I don’t get it, if Stedman don’t get it, if Geno gets it, we’re good,” he said, adding, “We got to keep winning, keep protecting him, and hopefully keep getting his stats up.” Smith deflected praise, echoing what he said last week, that winning the Heisman “weighs no burden on my conscience.” A performance like his on Saturday may complicate that. But as Holgorsen said, Smith watches more film than his coach and criticizes himself more than his coach. “I oftentimes think I’m going nuts,” Smith said last week. There was little to fault in his two touchdowns to Austin — a 45-yarder and a 52-yarder — in the third quarter or his late 39-yard touchdown strike to Bailey. Those beautiful, arcing passes stood out to Holgorsen, his teammates and the fans, while Smith would remember the duds that no one else would.

West Virginia University
Baylor University
Football
College Athletics
Smith Geno
Football (College)


A Bat Signal Is Jammed

Abstract: To gain an advantage when hunting, Mexican free-tailed bats emit a special call that interferes with the calls of other bats in search of food, researchers say. Bats navigate by making calls and sensing where the sound echoes off objects. But researchers from Wake Forest University who studied recordings of hunting bats in two outdoor sites found that bats can jam competitors’ frequencies by producing a special signal, making it difficult for them to locate their prey’s position. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers noted that the bats being targeted by a jamming signal can emit their own special signal in retaliation.


Hillary Clinton Says Confederate Flag ‘Shouldn’t Fly Anywhere’

Abstract: As lawmakers across the South spoke out against the Confederate battle flag and the nation’s largest retailers pulled items with its image from their shelves, Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday called the flag “a symbol of our nation’s racist past.” Speaking at an African-American church just outside Ferguson, Mo., an impoverished black community where protests against a mostly white police force erupted in violence last summer, Mrs. Clinton made a forceful plea to remove the Confederate flag wherever it flew. And she encouraged other retailers to follow Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Sears in discontinuing sales of items that display the flag. “It shouldn’t fly there. It shouldn’t fly anywhere,” Mrs. Clinton said of South Carolina, where a white gunman killed nine African-Americans last Wednesday during a Bible study session at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Video On Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, called last week’s church shooting in Charleston, S.C., “an act of racist terrorism.” Credit Credit Whitney Curtis/Getty Images “That night, word of the killings struck like a blow to the soul,” she said. “How do we make sense of such an evil act — an act of racist terrorism perpetrated in a house of God?” Mrs. Clinton, a Democratic candidate for president, spoke a day after Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina called for the Confederate flag to be removed from the grounds of the State House in Columbia. Ms. Haley, a Republican, called the flag a “deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past.” The Charleston attack forced the wide field of presidential candidates to wade into issues of racism, injustice, and fierce debates in the South over the meaning and misuses of Confederate symbolism. The suspect in the murders, Dylann Roof, 21, had brandished the flag on social media and posted deeply racist tirades. Until Ms. Haley called for the Confederate flag’s removal, several Republican presidential hopefuls had issued vague statements or said the matter was a state issue that should be left to South Carolina. One Republican candidate, Ben Carson, who is black, faulted his opponents on Monday for not calling “this tragedy an act of racism.” What Hillary Clinton Would Need to Do to Win Mrs. Clinton can expect little if any opposition in the Democratic primaries. But she was similarly well positioned when she declared her candidacy in 2007. Mrs. Clinton spoke out against the Confederate flag in 2007 when she told The Associated Press while campaigning in South Carolina that she “would like to see it removed” from the State House grounds. But until Tuesday, she had not commented on the current debate. In her discussion Tuesday with community leaders at Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Mo., Mrs. Clinton said the flag’s removal would be “just the beginning of what we have to do” to combat racism. She proceeded to list statistics about the economic disparities between black and white Americans, saying schools are more segregated today than they were in the 1960s, with 23 percent of black students in the South attending majority white schools in 2011, slightly lower than the percentage in 1968, according to her campaign. It was no accident that Mrs. Clinton chose a town near Ferguson to hold the campaign event, one of only a handful of public appearances on her schedule in the coming weeks. The early months of her presidential campaign have been marked by sweeping speeches about race relations and issues like criminal justice reform and voting rights that may particularly resonate with African-American voters. Who Is Running for President? Donald J. Trump officially accepted the Republican party's nomination on July 22. Hillary Clinton was officially nominated on July 26 at the Democratic Convention. Mrs. Clinton’s emphasis on race has been largely motivated by current events, with her campaign unfolding against the backdrop of riots in Baltimore this spring after the death of a black man who had been in police custody and, more immediately, the slaughter in Charleston. Mrs. Clinton’s approach also distinguishes her from her potential Republican rivals who have mostly only dipped a cautious toe into issues of racism. Candid talks like the one in Florissant could help Mrs. Clinton shore up support among the Democratic Party’s base who overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama during her failed 2008 presidential campaign. Throughout the event, Mrs. Clinton spoke frequently about her own Methodist faith and her regular Bible study classes and churchgoing. The Florissant church’s pastor, the Rev. Traci Blackmon, ended the day’s discussion with a prayer, asking the Lord to make sure Mrs. Clinton listens to the people she hopes to represent. “There are those who are still suffering from injustice,” Ms. Blackmon said. “There are those who we still walk by every day and forget.”

Hillary Clinton
American Civil War
Flags
2016 Presidential Election
Murders and Homicides
Charleston Shooting
Race and Ethnicity
Southern US
Charleston SC


Day’s Best in the N.F.L.

Abstract: The Colts received a stellar performance in each facet of the game in a rout of Jacksonville. Andrew Luck threw for 282 yards and a touchdown, becoming, with 8,196 career passing yards, the first player in N.F.L. history to top 8,000 in his first two seasons. Robert Mathis had two sacks to reclaim the N.F.L. lead with 19 ½ on the season. And Adam Vinatieri made three field goals and became the seventh player to score at least 2,000 points in his career. “He had a birthday this week,” Coach Chuck Pagano said of Vinatieri, 41, who is now fifth on the career points list with 2,006. “I won’t tell you how old he turned. He won’t tell you, but I know he’s the ageless wonder. He’s just a tremendous, tremendous player.” The Panthers’ Greg Hardy had a team-record four sacks in a victory over Matt Ryan and the Falcons, with Carolina recording nine sacks in all, another team record. “It’s about the team,” Hardy said when asked about his record. “I know we got the team record, and that’s all that matters.” The Panthers’ defense also produced the team’s first touchdown as Melvin White returned an interception 7 yards for a score in the second quarter. Peyton Manning , who had already claimed the single-season touchdown pass record, broke the mark for passing yards in a season while helping the Broncos become the highest-scoring team in league history. Manning, who had four scoring passes in the one half he played against the Raiders, threw for 266 yards, for a total of 5,477, and finished the season with 55 touchdown passes. The Broncos increased their season total to 606 points, an average of nearly 38 a game.

Football
Andrew Luck
Adam Vinatieri
Peyton Manning
Broncos
Carolina Panthers


U.S. and Allies Seek a Refuge for Qaddafi

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has begun seeking a country, most likely in Africa, that might be willing to provide shelter to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi if he were forced out of Libya , even as a new wave of intelligence reports suggest that no rebel leader has emerged as a credible successor to the Libyan dictator. The intense search for a country to accept Colonel Qaddafi has been conducted quietly by the United States and its allies, even though the Libyan leader has shown defiance in recent days, declaring that he has no intention of yielding to demands that he leave his country, and intensifying his bombardment of the rebel city of Misurata. The effort is complicated by the likelihood that he would be indicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, and atrocities inside Libya. One possibility, according to three administration officials, is to find a country that is not a signatory to the treaty that requires countries to turn over anyone under indictment for trial by the court, perhaps giving Colonel Qaddafi an incentive to abandon his stronghold in Tripoli. The move by the United States to find a haven for Colonel Qaddafi may help explain how the White House is trying to enforce President Obama ’s declaration that the Libyan leader must leave the country but without violating Mr. Obama’s refusal to put troops on the ground. The United Nations Security Council has authorized military strikes to protect the Libyan population, but not to oust the leadership. But Mr. Obama and the leaders of Britain and France, among others, have declared that to be their goals, apart from the military campaign. “We learned some lessons from Iraq, and one of the biggest is that Libyans have to be responsible for regime change, not us,” one senior administration official said on Saturday. “What we’re simply trying to do is find some peaceful way to organize an exit, if the opportunity arises.” About half of the countries in Africa have not signed or ratified the Rome Statute, which requires nations to abide by commands from the international court. (The United States has also not ratified the statute, because of concerns about the potential indictment of its soldiers or intelligence agents.) Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, suggested late last month that several African countries could offer Colonel Qaddafi a haven, but he did not identify them. Even though Colonel Qaddafi has had close business dealings with the leaders of countries like Chad, Mali and Zimbabwe, and there have been pro-Qaddafi rallies elsewhere recently across the continent, it was unclear which, if any, nations were emerging as likely candidates to take in Colonel Qaddafi. The African Union has been quietly sounding out potential hosts, but those negotiations have been closely guarded. As the drama over Colonel Qaddafi’s future has intensified, new details are emerging of the monthlong NATO bombing campaign, which, in the minds of many world leaders, has expanded into a campaign to press the Libyan military and Colonel Qaddafi’s aides to turn against him. That effort has gone more slowly than some expected; after the defection of the former intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa, no other senior officials have broken with the man who has ruled Libya for 42 years. Six countries — Britain, Norway, Denmark, France, Canada and Belgium — have provided more than 60 aircraft that are conducting airstrikes against Libyan targets that attack civilians. But NATO commanders say they are still struggling to come up with at least eight more warplanes to ensure the alliance can sustain a longer-term operation and relieve strain on pilots now flying repeated combat missions. The United States, which carried out the largest share of strike missions before handing off control of the operation to NATO on April 4, has promised additional fighter-bombers and ground-attack planes if NATO requests them. While some European officials have privately complained that the United States should resume a leading role in the missions, American officials say they have not received any formal requests for more aircraft. Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, asserted that in a month’s time the coalition has accomplished three major objectives: saving the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi from becoming the site of a civilian atrocity, setting up an international command to protect civilians and clear the skies of Libyan aircraft, and providing modest amounts of humanitarian assistance. Still, the NATO countries flying ground-attack missions operate under different degrees of caution when striking targets that could hurt civilians or damage mosques, schools or hospitals, complicating the campaign, a senior American military official said. Some pilots have refused to drop their bombs for this reason, the official said, but allied air-war planners cannot predict which pilots will be matched against particular targets. “Without a doubt, it is frustrating working through all this to get maximum effect for our efforts and dealing with all these variants,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting coalition partners. American officials concede that the rebel leaders have not settled on who might succeed Colonel Qaddafi if he is ousted, and some fear that tribal warfare could break out if there is no consensus figure who could bind the country together. White House officials say that while they would have liked to see Colonel Qaddafi depart already, they believe that pressure is building. “There are aspects of the passage of time that work against Qaddafi, if we can cut him off from weapons, material and cash,” Mr. Rhodes said. He added that “it affects the calculations of the people around him. But it will take time for the opposition group to gel.” This month, an American envoy, Chris Stevens, was sent to Benghazi to learn more about the Transitional National Council. The group has pledged to work toward new presidential and parliamentary elections after Colonel Qaddafi’s ouster, uphold human rights, draft a constitution and encourage the formation of political parties. Mr. Stevens is expected to stay as long as a month, security permitting, State Department officials said. The United Nations special envoy to Libya, Abdelilah al-Khatib, a former Jordanian foreign minister, is also meeting with opposition figures, as well as with members of Colonel Qaddafi’s government to explore possible diplomatic settlement. Perhaps the most prominent member of the government in waiting is Mahmoud Jibril, a planning expert who defected from the Qaddafi government. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has met twice with Mr. Jibril, who American diplomats say is the group’s most polished and savvy public figure. He also spoke to several NATO, Arab and African ministers who gathered in Doha, Qatar, last Wednesday to discuss the Libya crisis. Another leading council member is Ali Tarhouni, who was appointed finance minister of the rebels’ shadow government. Mr. Tarhouni, who teaches economics at the University of Washington, returned to Libya in February after more than 35 years in exile to advise the opposition on economic matters. “With respect to the opposition, we are learning more all the time,” Mrs. Clinton said in Berlin on Friday. “We are pooling our information. There are a number of countries that have significant ties to members of the oppositions, who have a presence in Benghazi that enables them to collect information. Our envoy is still in Benghazi and meeting with a broad cross-section of people.” Mrs. Clinton told NATO ministers that the coalition had acknowledged the transitional council was “a legitimate and important interlocutor for the Libyan people.” She added: “We all need to deepen our engagement with and increase our support for the opposition.”

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


At the Southern Border, a Do-It-Yourself Tack on Security

Abstract: Image Members of the Arizona Border Recon, on the move in Arizona in November. The group is a paramilitary organization performing reconnaissance operations along the border with Mexico. Credit Johnny Milano His radio crackled. “Can you hear it?” a veteran Army soldier named Tim Foley asked one weekend afternoon while traversing the remote trails off the remote community of Sasabe, a dot along a busy drug-smuggling corridor in southern Arizona . “They’re pushing something through,” he said. “And they’re not too far.” Video Arizona Border Recon has patrolled the state's southern border since 2011. Follow the controversial group on one of its operations. Credit Credit Johnny Milano. Technology by Samsung. When the housing market collapsed and Mr. Foley, 57, lost his construction job and then his home, he moved to Sasabe, on the United States-Mexico border, to start his own citizens’ border patrol. Mr. Foley prefers to call his group, Arizona Border Recon , a nongovernmental organization, but others label it a militia and scoff at the notion of private individuals, many of them armed, patrolling the border. Image The border fence in Nogales, Ariz., patrolled and monitored by United States Customs and Border Protection. Credit Johnny Milano That Sunday, Mr. Foley was out trying to decipher the traffickers’ scrambled communications his portable radio had intercepted. He held a .40-caliber pistol in hand and his dog, a Pitbull named Rocko, by its leash. Those were his two weapons. Image A Border Patrol agent patting down a migrant who wandered into the Arizona Border Recon camp in November. Credit Johnny Milano Mr. Foley argues that there is a war going on at the southern border, even though the number of apprehensions has declined precipitously — to about 409,000 in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 from 1.2 million in the 2005 fiscal year. He served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division before he went to work in construction, where he came away believing that the rules of employment and immigration were broken. Image Jeremy Wood, a veteran and Arizona Border Recon member, resting in March after spending most of the previous 24 hours on watch for scouts, migrants and cartel groups. Credit Johnny Milano “The illegals,” he said, “had fake IDs, fake Social Security cards.” One week, they would be gone after being flagged in the federal electronic system that employers use to check employees’ legal status. “The next week, the same guys would show up with another fake ID, another fake Social Security card.” Image Chris Maloof, a member of the Arizona Border Recon, hiked along mountain trails in August, intent on cutting off paths used by migrants and drug couriers. Credit Johnny Milano The Border Patrol operates according to a “shift mentality,” their responsibilities limited by time and distance, he said. Many agents are assigned to the station in Tucson, more than an hour away. “When they’re coming down,” Mr. Foley said, “they’re being reactive” to an image on a video camera or a ground sensor set off by someone where no one should be. Image Chris Maloof of the Arizona Border Recon, traversing some unforgiving terrain. Credit Johnny Milano “They’re already behind,” he said. “What we do is try to be proactive.” He lives in Sasabe; many of the members of Arizona Border Recon live there or nearby. “Because we live out here, we do this 24/7,” he said. Image Members of the Arizona Border Recon monitoring radio traffic at their base camp in November. Credit Johnny Milano Mr. Foley runs background checks on volunteers and verifies their military records, but there is no government or public oversight over who joins this group or any of the militia organizations operating on America’s southern border. Most of the group’s members are either veterans or retired law enforcement officers. They are volunteers who have been trained to read the signs that migrants leave in the wild — a snapped twig, for instance, or the characteristic print of a piece of carpet glued to the bottom of a migrant’s shoe to complicate tracking efforts. Image The Arizona Border Recon traveling from its observation post in November. Credit Johnny Milano Border Patrol agents “actually like us,” Mr. Foley said. “We have so much intel of what’s happening and where it’s happening.” The group’s mission, as explained on its website, “is not to overthrow any government, or take the law into our own hands.” It is to serve as another set of eyes and ears where eyes and ears are so few. Image Blaine Cooper, a figure in the militia standoff in Oregon early in 2016, seen here lacing up his boots at the Arizona Border Recon’s forward operating base in October 2014. Credit Johnny Milano Mr. Foley said he and the other volunteers had given water, food and blankets to thirsty, hungry and cold migrants whom they have found lost and disoriented in the desert, abandoned by the smugglers who brought them across. Then they turn the migrants over to the Border Patrol. Image Members of the Arizona Border Recon scanning the terrain for migrant activity in November. Credit Johnny Milano “We stay on the mountains seven to 10 days,” Mr. Foley said. “We sleep where we can, when we can, and we stay focused.” Mr. Foley is known to others in his group as “Nailer,” a nod to his former life as a carpenter. “Because people think we’re militia, they think we’re running around pointing weapons at people, shooting at people,” he said. “Six years and we’ve never fired a shot.”

Illegal Immigration
Immigration
Smuggling
US Border Patrol
Arizona
Mexico
Arizona Border Recon


Lebanon: Hezbollah Says It Captured C.I.A. Spies

Abstract: The leader of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah said Friday that it had captured three spies, two of whom were recruited by the C.I.A. to work for Israel. In a televised speech, the leader, Hassan Nasrallah , said that C.I.A. agents at the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon , had recruited at least two Hezbollah members and that the group was investigating whether the C.I.A. or another foreign agency had recruited a third. “We now have proof that this embassy is a spying nest and that some U.S. diplomats are intelligence officers penetrating and recruiting Lebanese society and Lebanese political factions,” he said. The American Embassy denied the allegation. “These are the same kinds of empty accusations that we have heard repeatedly from Hezbollah,” it said in a statement.

Espionage
Hezbollah
Central Intelligence Agency
Nasrallah Hassan
Lebanon


‘Django’ Expected Back in Chinese Theaters

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Details remain sparse, but Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” is expected to be back in China’s theaters soon, after some further editing. One person who was briefed on plans for the film said late Friday that it would undergo additional cuts to qualify it for the Chinese film market, following some slight earlier changes to its presentation of bloodshed. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the plans because of confidentiality strictures. It remains unclear precisely when or how widely the film will eventually be seen in China. On Thursday the movie was abruptly pulled from Chinese theaters on its first day of release, with little explanation. Moviegoers were told only that there was a technical problem with the film. The decision to pull the movie at the last minute was surprising, considering the careful review process that international films undergo before they are cleared for release by Chinese censors. The exact nature of the problem is not clear, though speculation in China and Hollywood has focused heavily on the film’s portrayal of nudity. Its longest scene with nudity is one in which a naked Django, played by Jamie Foxx, is tied up and about to be castrated. There is also a shorter scene in which a female character played by Kerry Washington is dragged naked from an underground chamber. Mr. Tarantino’s films are known for their graphic violence, and news outlets and film blogs have widely reported that he had made revisions that included altering the color of the fake blood. American studios have been eager to tap into China’s vast film market, now the second-largest in the world behind the United States. But they have become accustomed to, and occasionally frustrated by, the demands for revisions by Chinese censors as a condition for a film’s release.

Censorship
Django Unchained
China
Movies


Maine Business Is Shut Without a Renewed Visa

Abstract: WELLS, Me. — It was an unusual sign, even for a restaurant here along the Maine coast, where seasonal home-grown businesses are a way of life. “Closed. Gone to try and get a new visa,” read the hand-scrawled message taped inside the window of Laura’s Kitchen, a cozy eatery that specialized in corned beef hash and omelets and where the tiny tables were still set with brightly colored napkins. “Hope to see you in the spring. Dean & Laura.” The sign turned out to be overly optimistic. Dean and Laura Franks, a British couple who opened the restaurant in 2000, found that after nine years of running their business, they could not renew their visa, forcing them to shutter the restaurant and leave the country. The Franks are among thousands of people who enter the United States each year on E-2 visas, which allow citizens from countries with which the United States has certain trade treaties to invest in businesses and work here. The visas generally are renewed every two years, but there is no limit on how many times they can be renewed. Still, they are not intended as a path to permanent residency or citizenship. But now, immigration advocates say they are hearing more and more accounts of renewal applications being turned down. It has been an enigmatic process for the Franks, uprooting their lives even though they have paid all their taxes, own the restaurant and its adjacent rental house, and have no debts except a mortgage on their home in Arundel, about 35 miles away. “This is the forgotten story of immigration,” said Angelo Paparelli, a prominent immigration lawyer in California. “The headlines deal with Arizona and border crossings, but these are real people too. This is what happens when you play by the rules.” In denying the Franks’ renewal application last year, immigration officials said their restaurant had become a marginal business. The government sets no specific dollar amount, but it defines a marginal enterprise as one that “does not have the present or future capacity to generate more than enough income to provide a minimal living” for the visa holder and his family. The Franks were surprised and confused to learn last year that they were deemed marginal. Their tax returns show that their gross annual income in 2008 was $64,000, in addition to rental income of $16,800. Their gross profit for the year was $38,800, which was down from their gross profit in 2007 of $50,700 because of the recession , which hit most businesses. They said they barely needed more than enough to provide for minimal living because that is how they live — minimally. “We live frugally, we don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t party, and we live within our means,” Mr. Franks said by phone earlier this year from Nova Scotia, where friends had given them use of an empty house. “We pay all our bills, we don’t have car payments, we pay our credit cards off every month, and that seems to count against us.” Daniel Maranci, a lawyer in Boston who represented the Franks, said the couple met the test of earning more than enough to make a living because they had enough to hire three or four Americans as waiters and to pay for their properties. “The marginality requirement is fairly subjective,” Mr. Maranci said. “U.K. nationals are saying there has been a shift generally in the way these cases are being adjudicated, with a more draconian view of marginality.” Over the last two and a half years, 8,468 requests for E-2 extensions have been filed, and their approval rate does appear to have dropped, according to figures provided by William G. Wright, a spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. So far in the 2010 fiscal year, he said, 82 percent of the applications have been approved. In 2009, 84 percent were approved, and in 2008, 91 percent. The service does not track the reasons for denial, so the extent to which marginality was a factor is not clear. The Franks said the vagueness of the standards made them hard to meet. “Because there are no hard and fast rules, they can get you on whatever they want,” Mrs. Franks said. Mr. Wright, who said he was speaking generally about the process and not about the Franks’ case, said that the most recent internal reviews of the decision-making process showed that adjudicators abided by proper standards in 97 percent of cases. “The adjudicators are doing their job,” he said. Mr. Paparelli, the California immigration lawyer, said that in recent years, E-2 visa holders were being foiled by a confluence of trends, including an increased vigilance by government officials after the Sept. 11 attacks; a perception by officials that “evil people” may be using these visas fraudulently to get into the United States; a bureaucratic disinclination to take the time to examine applications by mom-and-pop operations; and immigration officers’ perceptions that local economies already hurt by the recession and job losses could not sustain more businesses. In England, Mr. Franks, 45, had been a financial adviser, and Mrs. Franks, 42, worked as a chef. But they were not happy and decided in 2000 that they wanted to open a restaurant in Maine, where they spent many vacations and married. While they came to pursue the American Dream, they said, and wanted to become Americans, they are now fed up with what they see as an arbitrary system that had allowed them to run a business for almost a decade until the day it did not. “I can honestly see why people come into the country illegally, because to do it legally is almost impossible,” Mr. Franks said from Nova Scotia. “They have tossed us aside like a used tissue,” he said. They sought help from local politicians and started a letter-writing campaign. At the Web site E2Reform.org , they found other British citizens facing the same fate. Learning that some had successfully had their visas renewed at the American Embassy in Barbados, the Franks flew down there. But they had no luck and returned to Nova Scotia, where they sat out the winter. In mid-April they decided to drive to the Maine-Canadian border, with a letter from their lawyer, Mr. Maranci, explaining their situation. After two hours of questioning, they were allowed back into the United States for three months to wrap up their affairs. They have put the restaurant and the adjoining house on the market for $399,000 and are also selling their home in Arundel, where they are holding yard sales to get rid of their possessions and earn money for food, since they no have no income. “We can’t do anything until something sells,” Mrs. Franks said earlier this month, sitting at an empty table in the dim restaurant, where the plates, cups and cutlery were stacked by the counter. “All our money is tied up here and in our house.” They find themselves without work, without an income and without a country. Gradually, they are emptying out their freezers and working through their larder of cans of assorted foods, leading to what Mrs. Franks described as “some very strange dinners.” They worry that they will not be able to sell their properties before their time expires, when they expect to go to Canada. “I love America,” Mr. Franks said, but he has become embittered because their hard work and frugal ways seem to count for nothing. “You can go from ‘illegal’ to ‘green card holder,’ but we’re going from ‘legal’ to ‘no way you can get a green card,’ ” he said. “We did it wrong. If we came here illegally, we’d have a chance of becoming citizens.”

E-2
Visas
Immigration and Emigration
Maine


When Heart Problems Strike, Players Find Support Group Waiting

Abstract: MINNEAPOLIS — Three years ago, Jeff Green joined one of the most exclusive clubs in the N.B.A. He did not ask to be a part of it; he did not even know it existed until a doctor told him that he had an aortic aneurysm and his career with the Boston Celtics was in jeopardy. Open-heart surgery was looming, and Green had never felt more alone, more uncertain. That was when the calls, the text messages, the overtures started coming. First from Fred Hoiberg and Etan Thomas, then from Ronny Turiaf. They offered advice. They offered encouragement. They had all been there before. And just like that, Green was not alone. But as he quickly found out, it was so much more than a club. Hoiberg calls them the Zipper Brothers — a small and tight-knit group of players who have overcome serious heart ailments and continued playing at the highest level of a game that tests an athlete’s heart as much as any does. Hoiberg cut his N.B.A. career short after having open-heart surgery — and getting a zipperlike scar on his chest — to address an enlarged aortic root in 2005. Thomas and Chris Wilcox were able to play after their operations. Turiaf, Green and Phoenix Suns forward Channing Frye each missed a season while recovering but are playing again. Chuck Hayes never needed surgery, but after a heart abnormality was found during a routine screening in 2011, he underwent extensive testing before being cleared to continue playing with Toronto. “It’s definitely a brotherhood,” Turiaf said. “It’s something that’s hard to put into words. We don’t have to talk all the time. But when those instances happen, we talked, each and every one of us, some way, somehow, was linked with the other. And whenever we see each other, it’s like, we made it.” Unlike torn knee ligaments, blown Achilles’ tendons or dislocated shoulders, heart defects carry a much more frightening outlook. Boston’s Reggie Lewis, the Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers and Atlanta Hawks center Jason Collier are among the players who have died of heart problems during their playing careers. So when the diagnosis comes, so do the Zipper Brothers. Hoiberg, who now coaches Iowa State, was there for Turiaf. Turiaf was there for Green. Green was there for Frye. And Frye will be there for the next one. “The surgery that we had is rare, and there’s only a few guys that have had it,” Green said. “We formed a bond that if we can help in any kind of way to help another fellow player or person that’s having the surgery get through it, we’re going to do it, because it’s rare that you really hear about an athlete having to go through something like this.” And as important as the encouragement is for every player faced with the grim realities of his situation, what stuck with Green even more was the blunt perspective Turiaf and Thomas offered about the road ahead. “It wasn’t all, ‘You’re going to be great, you’re going to be great, you’re going to be great,’ ” Green said. “They told me, ‘You’re going to have pain; you’re going to go through this. But the one thing you need to do is be positive to try to take your mind off it.’ ” None of the active players knew one another well before their heart issues were revealed. Now they seek one another out and swap texts. “This whole league is a fraternity, but when you know somebody has gone through the same situation you have, you reach out to them, you ask them about their condition,” Hayes said. “You ask them how they’re doing. My situation wasn’t as extreme, God bless, as Ronny’s and Channing’s and Jeff Green’s. So I didn’t get the full effect of what they went through. But when my situation first came up, they were the first ones that came through and sent their condolences.” Frye barely picked up a basketball all last summer while recovering from his operation, but he is playing as well as he ever has. He was averaging 11.7 points and 5.2 rebounds and shooting nearly 39 percent from 3-point range for the surprisingly competitive Suns heading into the weekend. “Anytime you find a bunch of guys going through your same situation, it helps make you feel not as special,” Frye said. “I can do this. I can overcome this. For me, it really just gave me that glimmer of hope that it can get taken care of. Go figure. It did.” Two years removed from his operation, Green has been one of the few bright spots in a tough season for the Celtics, averaging a career-high 17 points, and Hayes has given the Raptors some veteran defensive toughness off the bench. Turiaf has been in and out of the lineup with various nagging injuries for Minnesota, but given the one he has already overcome, the smile rarely leaves his face. “I take pride in having that as a legacy to help others going through a situation that I know is probably the worst situation that I had to go through as a professional athlete and as a man,” said Turiaf, who wears No. 32 with the Timberwolves in honor of Hoiberg. “So it’s definitely something that I wished never happened because it’s kind of difficult to deal with. But it happened to good people that just want to give back to others. The earth is becoming a better place by trying to help the other.”

Basketball
Heart
Etan Thomas
Ronny Turiaf
Fred Hoiberg
Channing Frye
Jeff Green