No Longer the City of ‘Bonfire’ in Flames

Abstract: Twenty years ago, the acid-penned journalist Tom Wolfe unleashed his first novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” Skewering everyone from self-absorbed Wall Street millionaires to hucksterish street politicians, the sprawling satire painted a picture of a New York declining inexorably into racial conflict, crime and greed. The novel tapped, to electrifying effect, a vein of anxiety that defined 1980s New York. From the moment it was published in November 1987, new episodes in the drama of the metropolis seemed to unfold like chapters in Mr. Wolfe’s story. Four white youths from Howard Beach, Queens , were already on trial for beating a black man who fled to his death in traffic on the Belt Parkway. That same month, a black teenager named Tawana Brawley, who was found smeared with feces in a garbage bag, said she had been assaulted by white men with badges, sparking a grand jury investigation that concluded that there was no evidence that Ms. Brawley had been sexually assaulted. Wall Street convulsed as its stars were investigated for white-collar crime, culminating in the 1990 securities fraud conviction of Michael R. Milken , the “junk bond king.” For much of this year, the lens of New Yorkers’ nostalgia has been trained on 1977, looking back 30 years to the blackout and looting, to the Son of Sam killings, to disco. But 1987, too, was a seminal moment for New York, then torn between new heights of wealth and decadence on Wall Street and the draining of jobs and taxpayers from the rest of the city. Now, as Mr. Wolfe turns his attention to a new novel about immigration — set, no doubt to the disappointment of some New Yorkers and the relief of others, in Miami — the milestone of “Bonfire” provides a moment to consider how the city’s own narrative has (so far) turned out. How and why New York pulled back from the brink is a matter of as much dispute as the reaction to “Bonfire,” which became a best seller. The novel’s antihero, a cosseted WASP bond trader named Sherman McCoy, takes a wrong turn off a highway in the Bronx and blunders into a confrontation with two young black men who seem to be about to rob him — until his mistress grabs the wheel of his Mercedes and runs one of them down. Sherman, the self-styled “Master of the Universe,” at first exults in his escape from what he calls “the jungle.” But inescapably, through his own moral failings and the machinations of corrupt prosecutors, activists and journalists, he meets his downfall. To some New Yorkers, Mr. Wolfe’s satire was bitingly accurate, nailing both a racist criminal justice system and the politicians who played on white fear and minority anger for personal gain. To others, it was a cynical endorsement of racial stereotypes that did not so much critique white paranoia as cater to it. Either way, though, the New York of “Bonfire,” to a degree that might well have shocked people in 1987, no longer exists. Not in reality, and not in the collective imagination. New York is on track to have fewer than 500 homicides this year, down from 2,245 in 1990. The white population is no longer shrinking, and diverse immigration has made the city less black-and-white. The crime drops that marked the Giuliani era — along with some divisive police confrontations with minorities — have continued under a Bloomberg administration that civil rights leaders credit with bringing more interracial respect. More locally, the Bronx neighborhoods near the site of Sherman’s accident are now dotted with owner-occupied row houses and apartments. Artists have moved into Mott Haven lofts. The mostly black and Latino residents of Melrose, survivors of the “Bronx is burning” decades, now worry, not unlike suburbanites, about an influx of outsiders. They complain that the new Yankee Stadium, new malls and proposed congestion pricing could bring in out-of-towners from, say, Westchester to hog precious parking spaces. “Twenty years later, the cynicism of ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ is as out of style as Tom Wolfe’s wardrobe,” proclaimed the Rev. Al Sharpton , whose counterpart in the book — Reverend Bacon — warns that he controls the burgeoning “steam” of black anger. (Mr. Sharpton, who has replaced his 1980s velour jogging ensembles with tailored suits, was taking a swipe at the white suits and spats that Mr. Wolfe religiously wears.) “It becomes increasingly implausible for the Wall Street multimillionaire white folk living in $8 million Manhattan apartments to feel themselves oppressed by poor black people,” said Ronald L. Kuby , who was the partner of William Kunstler, the radical lawyer who died in 1995. Mr. Kunstler’s fictional counterpart helps Reverend Bacon portray Henry Lamb, the young man hit by Sherman’s Mercedes, as a sacrificial “honor student.” “They have totally taken over Manhattan and are breaching the defenses of even remote parts of Harlem , are gentrifying the Bronx,” Mr. Kuby said of his fellow whites. “Far from fleeing, they are flooding in.” Another lawyer whose doppelgänger appears in the book is Edward W. Hayes. “Today, there’s not enough crime to become a criminal lawyer,” lamented Mr. Hayes, a longtime friend of Mr. Wolfe’s who was the model for the dapper, street-smart defense lawyer who takes up Sherman’s case. “Nobody goes around and sticks up supermarkets anymore, or armored cars.” In March, Picador will issue a new trade paperback of “Bonfire,” part of a planned set of editions of Mr. Wolfe’s entire oeuvre. But Mr. Wolfe said that if he were to try again now to tap the zeitgeist of New York, he would write an entirely different book. Today’s version, he said, would be about how the city’s sanitized streets have become a stage set on which New York plays itself, for an audience of tourists. “This is a city now built on excitement,” Mr. Wolfe said — “a Disneyland ,” he termed it, with “no industry other than the excitement of just being here.” But at 77, Mr. Wolfe hasn’t joined the moneyed flocks migrating downtown to once-gritty artists’ lofts. He inhabits an Upper East Side apartment not as enormous, but as perfectly put together, as Sherman McCoy’s Park Avenue duplex. Mr. Wolfe’s real-life characters remain deeply divided, like their fellow New Yorkers, over what changed their city. Mr. Hayes — using some of the eyebrow-raising ethnic language of his “Bonfire” character, Tommy Killian — gave credit to “the war on crime in New York City , which was basically won by white Catholic men from the boroughs.” Minorities in the courts “got treated like dogs, and if you were a legitimate guy in a poor neighborhood you had no shot at all,” Mr. Hayes said. But in his view, New York crippled itself by blaming “society” for crime until Rudolph W. Giuliani came into office in 1994. To Mr. Kuby, it was quite the opposite: The waning of the crack epidemic and progress toward “equal justice” allowed for better policing. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg , he said, “removed as he is from the lives of black people, at least views them as citizens, unlike Giuliani, who viewed them as unruly, ambitious children.” Mr. Sharpton said that activists like himself — through cases like that of Abner Louima , a black immigrant from Haiti who was sodomized with a broomstick in a Brooklyn police station in 1997 — convinced whites and members of minority groups that police misconduct was a real problem. That, he said, opened the door for new coalitions across racial lines. “People were more tribal” in the 1980s, he said, adding, “As you are no longer excluded, your attitude becomes more expansive.” The Bronx County Building, the setting of Sherman’s trial, is no longer (if it ever was) the “fortress” Mr. Wolfe describes, where prosecutors refuse to leave the building for a sandwich for fear of being mugged. Outside, up and down the Grand Concourse, Art Deco buildings are being renovated. And rents are going up. Further north, on Tremont Avenue, Moe Stein, the owner of Frank’s Sports Shop, said he now has to disappoint the few adventurous tourists who come looking for rubble-strewn lots. But the Bronx still suffers, he said, from the terrifying image left by the 1981 Paul Newman film “Fort Apache, the Bronx” and the widely panned 1990 movie made from “Bonfire,” with Tom Hanks as Sherman. The bond traders and investment bankers who populate “Bonfire” are passé now, Mr. Wolfe said, replaced by brash new hedge fund managers who meet clients barefoot, or in jeans with $6,000 belt buckles, as if to say, “You don’t have to like me at all, I’m merely a genius who makes you money.” But one thing hasn’t changed, Mr. Wolfe said: the allure of New York. It’s what distracted Sherman as he gazed at the glittering skyline from the Triborough Bridge — thinking, “There it was, the Rome, the Paris , the London of the twentieth century” — and missed his turn to Manhattan.


Coalition Government Collapses in Romania

Abstract: PRAGUE — Romania ’s coalition government collapsed Thursday, fomenting a political crisis in a country with one of the most troubled economies in a region buffeted by the global financial upheaval. Unlike Iceland, Latvia and Hungary, whose governments have fallen directly because of economic tribulations, analysts said that the crisis in Romania was caused by political infighting when nine ministers from the Social Democratic Party resigned in solidarity with Dan Nica, the interior minister, who was fired by Prime Minister Emil Boc on Monday. Mr. Nica had made comments suggesting that Mr. Boc’s Liberal Democrats were prepared to engage in fraud in presidential elections set for Nov. 22 — allegations Mr. Boc strenuously denied. President Traian Basescu called the two parties to mediate Tuesday, but as of late Thursday there was no resolution. Even though the government led by Mr. Boc no longer had a majority in Parliament, analysts said that he could stay on as prime minister while the parties tried to resolve the crisis. However, the opposition National Liberal Party indicated that it would call a vote of no confidence in the coming days and analysts said it was not clear whether Mr. Boc could remain in power. Economists said that the newest upheaval would undermine the country’s already struggling economy. Romania, which was once a magnet for investment among former Communist countries, has fallen into recession and has a budget deficit of about €5.3 billion. Earlier this year, Romania agreed to an international loan package led by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union of €20 billion to help finance its current-account and budget deficits and to help pay state-sector salaries. Radu Soviani, a leading economic commentator in Bucharest, said the crisis would diminish investor confidence, which was likely to increase the cost for Romania to secure outside financing and potentially destabilize the country’s currency. “This may be an inter-party squabble, but this political noise comes at a time when the economy is in bad shape and the timing could not be worse,” he said. Romania, a poor Balkan country that is a member of the European Union, has also faced social unrest. After promising generous welfare spending, the government temporarily froze public sector salary increases, a move that caused a loud outcry from the country’s powerful unions. In recent weeks, there have been protests and strikes by railway and other public sector workers and more strikes are scheduled for next week. Petru Dandea, deputy head of Alfa, one of the biggest Romanian unions, which represents 600,000 workers, said the Romanian economy also faced a challenge because of the decline in foreign direct investment, which had helped fuel the record growth of recent years and which economists predict will halve this year to about €5 billion. Mr. Dandea said that the decline in foreign investment would be exacerbated by the reversal of fortune of the nearly three million Romanians who worked abroad in places like Spain and Italy but lost their jobs in the global recession.

Romania
Politics and Government
Economic Conditions and Trends
European Union
Europe


The N.R.A. Reimagines Classic Fairy Tales, With Guns

Abstract: The world of make-believe can be a scary place, but never fear: Thanks to a series of reimagined fairy tales published online by the National Rifle Association, classic characters like Hansel and Gretel are now packing heat. The group has published two of the updated tales on its N.R.A. Family website in recent months, entitled “ Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun) ” and “ Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns). ” The stories have outraged advocates of gun control, but their author, Amelia Hamilton, a conservative blogger, has called them lessons in gun safety. “The stories are really also for adults, and it’s all about safety,” Ms. Hamilton said in an interview on “CBS This Morning” on Friday. “It’s for parents to start those conversations.” N.R.A. Family asked its readers in an editor’s note if the dark overtones of the original fairy tales — an old woman eaten by a wolf and children cooked by a witch — ever made them “uneasy.” It said the new versions are meant to make the Grimm brothers’ tales less grim. In Ms. Hamilton’s stories, each of the young protagonists (and one grandmother) is transformed from a victim into a hero with the help of a gun. Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said that depiction was a source of concern. “There are no consequences for the children here holding guns, walking out into the woods with guns, thinking about killing the bad guys,” he said. “Children who might read these stories do not have the emotional maturity to understand that gun ownership does come with risks.” In the N.R.A. version, Little Red Riding Hood set off through the forest to visit her grandmother, just like in the original. But the Big Bad Wolf did not scare her this time, because she “felt the reassuring weight of the rifle on her shoulder.” When the wolf approached her, “she shifted her rifle so that it was in her hands and at the ready.” He fled in fear. Grandma, too, was saved by a gun. While distracting the wolf with compliments about the size of his eyes and ears, she slowly reached for her weapon. “The wolf leaned in, jaws open wide, then stopped suddenly,” Ms. Hamilton wrote. “Those big ears heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun’s safety being clicked off. Those big eyes looked down and saw that grandma had a scattergun aimed right at him.” Hansel and Gretel got a similar treatment. The story began with them hunting in the woods, eventually bagging “a magnificent 10-point buck,” when they stumble upon a gingerbread cottage where two little boys were imprisoned by a witch. The siblings climbed through the cottage’s windows and rescued the boys while the witch slept in the next room. As Hansel unlocked their cage, his sister “stood at the ready with her firearm just in case, for she was a better shot than her brother.” When they returned home the next morning, the children told the parents about the witch and soon, “Villagers, prepared with rifles and pistols, headed into the forest, Hansel and Gretel leading the way.” The witch was locked up by local law enforcement, and then everyone ate her house. Efforts to reach Ms. Hamilton on Friday were unsuccessful. In an interview with N.R.A. News, she said her versions were “kinder” than the originals by the Grimm brothers because no grandmothers or children were eaten and, despite the guns, the villains were not shot. “The kids do just what they are supposed to do and get an adult,” she said. Mr. Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence compared the modified fairy tales to other N.R.A.-produced fare aimed at young people, such as “ Noir ,” a program on N.R.A. News starring Colion Noir , a young African-American gun enthusiast who shoots guns and delivers monologues on the importance of the Second Amendment against a hip-hop soundtrack. “The intent here is to create future customers” for the gun industry, said Mr. Everitt. “I think it is wholly a marketing thing.” Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, agreed, calling the stories “a disgusting, morally depraved marketing campaign.” He said in a statement that the stories were in poor taste in part because nearly 50 children and teenagers are shot each day in the United States, and suicide by gun is a leading cause of death among children over the age of 9. Ms. Hamilton has pushed back against critics who say her stories advocate arming children. She thought of Hansel, Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood as “older teenagers” who “are old enough to be in the woods by themselves and old enough to be hunting by themselves,” she told N.R.A. News. She has also announced plans for her next fairy tale: The Three Little Pigs, with guns, will be published on the N.R.A. Family website in May.

NRA
Amelia Hamilton
Fairy tale
Youth
Gun Control
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence


Volkswagen’s Chairman, Ferdinand Piëch, Is Ousted in Power Struggle

Abstract: FRANKFURT — Ferdinand Piëch, the Porsche family scion who has dominated Volkswagen for more than two decades, will resign as chairman of the automaker’s supervisory board, the company said on Saturday, in what appeared to be a stunning defeat for a manager used to getting his way. Mr. Piëch, a 78-year-old Austrian, recently sought to force out Martin Winterkorn, a onetime protégé, as Volkswagen’s chief executive. But the move backfired after Mr. Winterkorn refused to go and other members of the supervisory board rallied behind him . Volkswagen said in statement on Saturday that “the mutual trust necessary for successful cooperation no longer exists” on the supervisory board. As a result, Mr. Piëch will give up his post as chairman, effective immediately. Ursula Piëch, his wife, will also give up her seat on the board, Volkswagen said. Berthold Huber, a labor leader who is deputy chairman of the supervisory board, will serve as acting chairman until a new chairman is chosen, Volkswagen said. In Germany, the supervisory board oversees the work of the management board, which is in charge of day-to-day operations. “Ferdinand Piëch has made an enormous contribution to Volkswagen and the entire automobile industry,” Mr. Huber said in a statement. “The developments of the last two weeks have, however, led to a loss of trust between the supervisory board chairman and the other members, which in recent days has proven to be impossible to resolve.” Mr. Piëch’s resignation came as a surprise. He had a long history of winning power struggles, and many people assumed he would win this one as well. For example, when Porsche, the sports car maker, tried to take over Volkswagen in 2008, Mr. Piëch was eventually able to turn the tables and take over Porsche instead. Mr. Piëch initiated the most recent power struggle when he told the German magazine Der Spiegel this month that he was distancing himself from Mr. Winterkorn. The public undermining of a top manager was classic Piëch. In the past, when he criticized a Volkswagen executive publicly, it was a sure sign that the manager’s days were numbered. This time, Mr. Piëch appears to have miscalculated. His unilateral attempt to undercut Mr. Winterkorn annoyed the labor representatives on the supervisory board, who hold half the seats, as well as representatives of the state of Lower Saxony, which owns a 20 percent stake. They lined up behind Mr. Winterkorn. Volkswagen is based in Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony. Stephan Weil, the prime minister of Lower Saxony, said Saturday of Mr. Piëch, “It is no exaggeration to say that he is one of the most important people in the history of German business.” “Nevertheless, it was urgently necessary to end the speculation about persons and to ensure clarity in top management,” Mr. Weil said in a statement. “Volkswagen and its many thousand employees must be able to concentrate on business.” Though demanding, mercurial and often feared, Mr. Piëch is credited with rescuing Volkswagen from near bankruptcy after he took over as chief executive in 1993. The grandson of Porsche’s founder, Ferdinand Porsche, Mr. Piëch was an engineer both by training and by nature who viewed technical excellence as the key to success in the car industry. As a top executive at Volkswagen’s Audi division in the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Piëch oversaw the development of all-wheel drive in cars, a feature still associated with Audi. After he was appointed chief executive of the parent company, Mr. Piëch ensured that even mass-market cars like the Volkswagen Golf had driving characteristics normally found in more expensive cars. Under Mr. Piëch, who became chairman of the supervisory board in 2002, Volkswagen became much more than a producer of automobiles for the middle class. In Mr. Piech’s zeal to cover all segments of the market, the company acquired the Czech automaker Skoda to reach price-conscious buyers, while buying the Bentley, Lamborghini and Porsche brands to appeal to wealthy drivers. The company also produces trucks under the Scania and MAN names and owns the motorcycle manufacturer Ducati. But the core Volkswagen brand has suffered from poor profitability. It has struggled to expand market share in the United States despite investing $1 billion to build a plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., where it manufactures Passat sedans and other cars. Mr. Piëch has faced criticism for his obsession with making Volkswagen the largest carmaker in the world rather than the most profitable. Now that he has left, there are sure to be questions about whether it makes sense for one company to be in so many market segments. Volkswagen posted sales of 202.5 billion euros, or about $220 billion, and net profit of €10.8 billion in 2014. Its unit sales of 10.14 million vehicles put it second globally, behind Toyota Motors’ 10.23 million and ahead of General Motors’ 9.92 million.

Volkswagen
Ferdinand K Piech
Martin Winterkorn
Appointments and Executive Changes


Concentration and Politics Hinder Israel Newspapers

Abstract: JERUSALEM — The mainstream newspaper Maariv is on the verge of closing, apparently having lost a fierce 64-year contest against the populist Hebrew tabloid Yediot Aharonot. On Thursday, Haaretz, the flagship broadsheet of Israel ’s left-wing intelligentsia, was not published for the first time in three decades; the newsroom held a one-day strike to protest the planned layoff of scores of employees. Israel’s print media are in crisis, squeezed by both the global pressures of the digital age and a small, crowded Hebrew-language market that is undergoing convulsions of its own. Channel 10, one of Israel’s two commercial television stations, also hangs precariously , waiting to be salvaged either by the government or by investment from abroad. Media experts here speak of an ominous trend: a once-diverse news bazaar that is becoming more concentrated and prone to political influence. In particular, they say, the economics of the print media have been skewed by the arrival five years ago of Israel Hayom , a free national newspaper owned by Sheldon Adelson, a conservative American billionaire who is a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel Hayom, viewed as pro-Netanyahu, now claims the widest distribution of any Hebrew newspaper on weekdays. Public television and radio have also come under tighter state control. While newspapers worldwide are struggling, in the small market of Israel, with its population of nearly eight million Hebrew, Arabic and Russian speakers, the threat seems magnified. Given its size, Israel has a relatively large number of media outlets, said Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, who leads the Media Reform Project at the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent research center. That intensifies the competition among newspapers for readers and advertising, and Israel Hayom, with Mr. Adelson’s backing, has been able to take over a larger share of the market. The advent of Israel Hayom, Ms. Shwartz Altshuler added, has accelerated a situation “that would have happened anyway.” The narrowing of the media marketplace may please some conservatives in Mr. Netanyahu’s government. Yuval Steinitz, the finance minister, was recently recorded at a closed meeting of his Likud Party activists saying that while “media is important in a democracy,” the Israeli media for the most part favor the left over Likud. “Beyond that,” he continued, “the media has lost its respect for one small, simple word: ‘truth.’ There is no more respect for the word truth.” Tzipi Livni, the former leader of the opposition, came to the media’s defense in a recent column for Maariv. “I am sure that some politicians feel more secure with a shrinking number of media outlets and the fact that there are journalists now in need of the government’s help.” She continued, “I prefer a number of watchdogs, some of which make mistakes sometimes, or neglect their duty or bark too loudly, over one loyal dog who speaks in one voice — his master’s voice.” The management of Maariv is now in the hands of court-appointed trustees after its owner could no longer afford to cover its losses. A sale is pending to Shlomo Ben-Zvi, an Israeli who publishes a right-leaning newspaper called Makor Rishon. But even if the sale to Mr. Ben-Zvi goes through, he has said he will retain only about 300 of Maariv’s 2,000 employees, to keep Maariv’s Web site going and perhaps publish the newspaper in a limited format. That means that 1,700 journalists, administrative staff members and print workers will probably be out of a job. “It is like a sausage merchant who buys a horse and tells him about all the wonderful trips that await him,” said Zvi Reich, a former editor at Yediot Aharonot and now in the communications department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “It will be brutal.” Aware that the company does not have the money to pay all their compensation and pensions, Maariv employees have staged protests in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This week, Amos Schocken, the publisher of Haaretz, raised the specter of closing the newspaper if his employees could not adapt to the new, starker business reality. Analysts said Maariv had been suffering from financial decline and bad management for up to 15 years and had lost its identity the more it tried to mimic Yediot Aharonot, which caters to the middlebrow reader. Haaretz, however, fills a distinctive niche. Though its circulation is small, its impact is broad. “Israel without Haaretz would be like Israel without the Supreme Court,” said Uzi Benziman, a former Haaretz columnist and now editor of The Seventh Eye, an online journal dealing with Israeli media issues. “It is not surprising that Maariv is the first to go,” he said. “I’m not sure it will be the last.” Still, for many here, the demise of Maariv would leave a hole in the country’s history. The newspaper was founded in 1948, the year Israel became a state, by disgruntled journalists at Yediot Aharonot (Latest News), the leading Hebrew newspaper at the time, who walked out in a dispute over work conditions and journalistic principles. The new paper, originally called Yediot Maariv (Evening News), soon became known simply as Maariv. In its first two decades, Maariv was regarded as the most widely read newspaper in Israel and the most connected with the political, economic and social elite. The decline began in the 1970s, according to Rafi Mann, who worked at the newspaper for nearly 30 years and now teaches journalism at the Ariel University Center in the West Bank and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Then, Mr. Mann said, the editors of Yediot Aharonot “understood the social revolution taking place in Israel,” along with the rise of Menachem Begin’s Likud Party, which spoke for a public that saw itself as the underdog. But Maariv, he added, “did not read the social map of Israel well.” Though Maariv has continued to break some important stories, its prominent editors and columnists, like the satirist Ephraim Kishon, belong mainly in the past. “In the last few years,” Mr. Mann said, “both advertisers and the public have been asking, ‘What is the branding of Maariv?’ ”

Israel
Newspapers
Haaretz
Maariv
Israel Hayom
Yediot Aharonot
News and News Media


Being Last N.H.L. Star Picked Is a Dubious Honor

Abstract: Being named an All-Star is an honor for professional athletes, but it could turn out to be an embarrassment for one N.H.L. player. When the league’s best players convene Thursday in Ottawa, the captains Zdeno Chara of the Bruins and Daniel Alfredsson of the Senators will choose sides — schoolyard style — until it gets down to a squirm-inducing moment when two players are left sitting alone, waiting to be chosen for the weekend’s festivities. One will be picked and join his peers, relieved. The other will explain to a live television audience that he really did not mind being the last player picked. At the end of last year’s All-Star draft in Raleigh, N.C., Colorado’s Paul Stastny and Toronto’s Phil Kessel sat shifting uncomfortably amid a sea of empty chairs, trying to seem nonchalant as they awaited the penultimate pick. Stastny looked grave. Kessel smiled, yawned, then offered a fleeting look of resignation. The team captain Eric Staal called Stastny’s name, and he bounded up to the stage, happy to dodge humiliation. Kessel was left behind, chosen by default by Nicklas Lidstrom’s team. Alex Ovechkin gleefully aimed his smart phone at Kessel to capture the indignity. “There is no shame with all the talent in the room — you’re an All-Star, and that’s what matters most,” the television host, James Duthie, told Kessel, trying to put the best face on the ignominious moment but only making it all seem more uncomfortable. “Yeah, I’m just happy to be here,” Kessel said, smiling somehow. “It’s a great honor, and I’m here to have a good time.” The Maple Leafs’ general manager, Brian Burke, said he did not see why someone had to be singled out as the last man chosen and suggested that the names of the last six players be put into a hat and randomly drawn. “I would have felt the same way had Paul Stastny been chosen last,” Burke said Wednesday in an e-mail. “They are all All-Stars. There is no need to embarrass any All-Star.” Last year Kessel insisted during the remainder of All-Star weekend that he did not mind being chosen last. Indeed his psyche has emerged intact. He is playing well, entering the break tied for eighth in the league in points with 51 in 49 games, and tied for fourth in goals with 26. Still, he will always be remembered as the last man picked in the first All-Star draft. The draft was conceived by Brendan Shanahan and Rob Blake and approved by the players union as a way to jazz up the otherwise moribund All-Star Game. It includes something to soften the blow for the last man: a $20,000 donation to charity from the league and the union in the player’s name, and a car. “You waited a long time — this is a fun show, and it’s not about leaving a guy down there and embarrassing him,” Duthie said awkwardly to Kessel. “Just because you sat down there all by yourself, we’re going to give you a brand new car as well.” This year, Joffrey Lupul of Toronto will assist Chara, and Lupul has said he would see to it that Kessel is not picked last again. Players have made lemonade out of the sour possibility of becoming Mr. Irrelevant. Pavel Datsyuk of Detroit and Marian Hossa of Chicago said they hoped to be picked last to get a new car. But those chances are slim. One question remains. Could it be a serious blow to the ego to be selected last in the All-Star draft? “There are some players who will take this and laugh it off, but there are others who would take it to heart,” said Dr. Frederick Neff , a Massachusetts-based psychologist who has worked with the Rangers and other professional teams. “The need to belong is a very strong human need, and there are strong mechanisms in the brain that can process this in a way that can be very painful,” Neff said. “But if this happens as a one-shot deal, we manage it well across the board as a species. I can’t imagine any player will walk away going, ‘Oh, God, I’m the last to be picked, this is going to influence my game.’ “I don’t see it as anything that will have any lasting effect,” he said. Dr. Saul Miller , a British Columbia-based psychologist and author who has worked with several teams in the N.H.L. and other major leagues, said: “What I always tell the players I work with is, either you ‘use it’ or ‘it uses you.’ If a bunch of my All-Star colleagues chose me last in a meaningless choosing up of sides, I’d smile and say, ‘Thanks for the car and $20,000 to the charity of my choice.’ That’s adequate compensation for a tad of humiliation.”

Hockey Ice
National Hockey League
All Star Games
Kessel Phil
Stastny Paul
Psychology and Psychologists


Energy-Saving Company Set for Public Offering

Abstract: For decades, regulators, environmental advocates and utilities have struggled to persuade consumers to use less electricity. Now, a fast-growing company that has shown promising results by rewarding energy misers with smiley faces on their monthly statements is taking its concept to Wall Street with an initial public offering of its stock, set for Friday. The company, Opower, which helps utilities use competition among neighbors to encourage residential customers to cut their electric use, hopes to raise more than $100 million through a stock sale that could leave it with a value close to $1 billion. Started in 2007, the company provides software and data management services to 93 utilities in eight countries, according to a regulatory filing. But it faces an increasingly crowded field in energy and home management, including Nest, acquired this year by Google, as well as software giants like Oracle. A successful sale could buoy the clean energy sector, where investor appetite has generally declined in recent years, and help legitimize the idea of making money from energy efficiency. Stefan Heck, a consulting professor at Stanford University and co-author of “Resource Revolution,” about innovative businesses related to natural resources, said that Opower’s achievement was to make it easy for utilities to take advantage of the fact that saving energy is cheaper than building power plants. “The concept has been around for a long, long time, but people found it really difficult to actually go make it happen,” he said. Working through utilities, the company collects and analyzes data about energy use from some 52 million customers. Then, borrowing tactics from behavioral science and gamification — the kind of tactics that keep people playing video games — it creates reports for residents that compare their home energy consumption with that of similar homes. The company also offers suggestions on how to reduce consumers’ energy use, along with rewards when they do. The company has begun offering other products, including a smart thermostat service and a program that alerts customers to reduce consumption at times of peak demand. Opower charges subscription fees to utilities, many of which are under state mandates to reduce how much electricity they sell. As the company has rapidly expanded, so has its revenue, growing by 71 percent to $88.7 million in 2013, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But that income is concentrated among a relatively small group of its customers; 62 percent of its revenue comes from its top 10 customers. Its net losses grew as well, to $14.2 million, from $12.3 million the year before. At the moment, said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, the company is positioned to be a leader in intelligent energy services, but it will have to continue to expand its offerings. “Whether it’s hardware or software, tech companies are in competitive industries and it is going to be important for Opower to roll out new products and new solutions,” he said. “It’s a fast-moving business and companies have to be nimble.” Although Opower’s model and approach are close to unique, analysts said, several companies compete with aspects of its current and potential business ventures, including C3 Energy and Tendril. In the long term, all of them are competing for access to consumers, using an initial product or service as an entry point to eventually offer much more, analysts and executives said. “The energy industry is going through a software revolution and Opower’s the first of the successful players in the space to go public,” said Adrian Tuck, chief executive of Tendril, a much smaller company that also sells energy management software services to utilities. “Energy efficiency was their Trojan Horse and what they’ve got is a software platform in with utilities that over time will be able to do a lot more.”


Trial for Sheriff Mirkarimi of San Francisco Set to Name a Judge

Abstract: Since early January, Ross Mirkarimi has been called a pit bull and a loving family man, a compassionate public servant and a person who goes “ballistic” when he has a bad day at work. Those judgments are now in the hands of the court. On Friday, a judge is expected to be assigned to preside over the trial of Mr. Mirkarimi, the San Francisco sheriff. Prosecutors say that during an argument on New Year’s Eve , Mr. Mirkarimi grabbed his wife, Eliana Lopez, in front of the couple’s 2-year-old son, bruising her arm. Mr. Mirkarimi has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of domestic violence, child endangerment and dissuading a witness. He could face a year in prison and three years’ probation if convicted of all charges. At the heart of the case is the couple’s son, Theo, who, according to court records, has been a subject of continuing arguments between his parents. Court documents show that Ivory Madison, the couple’s neighbor who reported a physical confrontation to the police, said Ms. Lopez had talked to her about leaving Mr. Mirkarimi and gaining custody of Theo. Ms. Lopez, a former television star in her native Venezuela, has denied the allegations against her husband. Despite a video recorded by Ms. Madison on Jan. 1, in which, prosecutors say, Mr. Mirkarimi’s wife shows her bruised arm and gives a detailed description of a physical confrontation with her husband, Ms. Lopez said she and her family were victims of “dirty politics” waged by her husband’s opponents. “This country is destroying my family,” she said outside a courtroom last month. On Wednesday, Mr. Mirkarimi’s lawyer filed a motion asking the yet-unnamed judge to find Ms. Lopez’s statements on the video inadmissible in court on the grounds that they were made many hours afterward — when she had had time to compose herself — and that Ms. Madison’s video was meant to be used in a custody battle, not a criminal trial. The prosecution plans to challenge Ms. Lopez’s denials by calling domestic violence experts to testify that she suffers from battered women’s syndrome, according to court documents. Also on the prosecution’s witness list is Christina Flores, a former girlfriend of Mr. Mirkarimi, who came forward last month accusing Mr. Mirkarimi of injuring her during an argument three years ago. Since his arrest, Mr. Mirkarimi has attended nearly every court proceeding, often escorted by his own deputies. As the sheriff sat waiting on a bench behind the defense table at his arraignment in late January, cuffed inmates wearing county-issue sweat suits filed into the courtroom for their own hearings, passing just feet away from the man who runs the jail. Advocacy groups have used the sheriff’s case to raise the profile of their cause, seizing upon one of Mr. Mirkarimi’s early comments that the New Year’s Eve episode was a “private matter.” Last week, they posted a billboard south of Market Street that read: “Domestic violence is never a private matter.” Jury selection may begin as early as next week.

Mirkarimi Ross
Police
Domestic Violence
Courts and the Judiciary


Executive Puts Rival’s Patent to the Test

Abstract: David Goldin, a small-business owner, counts himself as one of the first winners to emerge from all the changes now roiling a long-staid corner of the law: patents. Mr. Goldin said he spent thousands of hours flying all over the country to search for obscure business contracts and to pick the brains of people in his niche of the financial services industry before finding 48 typewritten pages in the archives of a company called Paymentech in July 2006. That and other evidence he gathered were instrumental, he said, in persuading the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas this month to invalidate a patent held by a Georgia company called AdvanceMe. The patent covered the way the company makes cash advances to merchants in return for a cut of their future credit card receipts. AdvanceMe had accused Mr. Goldin’s own cash advance business, AmeriMerchant, of infringing on its patent. “It’s a victory against patent trolls,” Mr. Goldin said. “This has changed the landscape. The days of coming up with an obvious idea and patenting it and using legal extortion are over.” The Texas ruling was one of the first to apply a new test established by the Supreme Court on April 30 that makes it more difficult to obtain patents on new products that combine elements of already existing patents. Experts say the Texas opinion was certainly the first to apply the new standard to financial services and probably the first to apply it to a business method. The Supreme Court’s ruling is just one of the changes that are throwing patent law — one of the underpinnings of American innovation and economic growth — into turmoil, said Gerry Elman, founder of Elman Technology Law PC in Swarthmore, Pa., who practices intellectual-property and Internet-related business law. Though Mr. Elman sides with Mr. Goldin in the AdvanceMe case, he believes small businesses will, in general, be the losers. “In the past, they have relied on the patent system to become big businesses,” he said. “But now, the patent system is being gutted on the strength of lobbying by the information technology industry. Big businesses will be able to copy innovation with impunity and thumb their noses at the inventions of the little guy.” In any event, it is clear that all types of businesses are entering a new legal environment. Among the other patent law changes Mr. Elman cited are new and complex regulations issued by the Patent Office last week; an opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington last week that requires plaintiffs asserting willful infringement of a patent to show that the defendant was “objectively reckless”; and various legislation before Congress. The Supreme Court ruling, in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, set more flexible standards for courts to decide whether a patent meets the legal requirement for not being “obvious.” “KSR was a gizmo thing, having to do with an electronic sensor in an accelerator pedal that changed the pedal’s position depending on the height of the driver,” Mr. Elman said. “KSR said Teleflex’s invention was obvious, and the Supreme Court agreed.” It was the first time in four decades that the court had revisited the meaning of “obvious” in patent law, Mr. Elman said, and the implications of raising the bar for inventors are, in his view, huge. James Fornari, head of the intellectual property department at Gersten Savage, a Manhattan law firm, says the Supreme Court ruling “will make it easier for examiners to reject applications, using a more rigorous standard on obviousness,” while the Federal Circuit appellate opinion will make it more difficult for marginal patent owners to file infringement suits. In an e-mail statement, Glenn Goldman, AdvanceMe’s chief executive, said, “Although we feel vindicated that the court found clear infringement of our patent by each of the defendants, we respectfully disagree with the court’s findings on validity.” He said his company had filed a notice of appeal on Aug. 16. He declined to comment on Mr. Goldin’s version of events. For all Mr. Elman’s fears of the threat to small business, Mr. Goldin views tighter rules for patent awards as a godsend for entrepreneurs. His fight with AdvanceMe was not the first challenge he has faced in his entrepreneurial career. His first business, which he started in college, was organizing parties, including a New Year’s Eve celebration in Madison Square Garden and the reopening of Studio 54. The Studio 54 party was a “disaster,” he says, because 5,000 people showed up, almost double the capacity. “People were furious,” he said. “I had to walk out with bodyguards.” He started a Web company in August 1995 with three partners, sold it three years later and became an instant Internet millionaire, but held onto the acquiring company’s stock too long and watched it swoon from $66 to 50 cents. He started AmeriMerchant in 2002 as a simple credit-card-processing company, but after spotting a more lucrative opportunity, cash advances to merchants, he became a referral agent for AdvanceMe, and in 2005 began doing the transactions himself. On Feb. 28, 2006, at AdvanceMe’s request, he says, he met with its chief executive, Mr. Goldman, and the president, Tom Burnside, who offered to license their company’s collection methods to him. “I said, ‘I don’t understand how you can have a patent on something that has been around since the 1980s,’ ” he recalled. “They kept saying they had a ‘patent on the technology.’ ” The next day, Mr. Goldin says, Mr. Goldman called him to say his company had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against AmeriMerchant — on the day before their meeting. His first reaction was fear. His second was anger. “Losing was not an option,” he said. Mr. Goldin, 35, said he found out that the only way he could win was to get AdvanceMe’s patent invalidated, and to do that he had to find written evidence that its payment system had been around at least one year before the patent was filed in July 1997. He started a blog ( http://merchantcashadvanceblog.blogspot.com /) to argue his case and appeal for supporting evidence. He said that Tim Litle, the founder of Litle & Company, a processing company, told him the AdvanceMe patent was identical to what he did in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But how to prove it? Mr. Litle had sold the company in 1995, and all his documents went with the sale. Mr. Goldin said he hit pay dirt when Paymentech, which had acquired Litle & Company, faxed him those 48 pages of documents dated from February 1992 to February 1994. The papers referred to a merchant who had paid Litle & Company out of its credit card receipts. “We got it!” he recalled thinking. Today, he said, he feels both vindicated and exhausted. For a year and a half, he said, “I had two jobs: corporate C.E.O. and detective.”


BNP Paribas to Buy Parts of Lender

Abstract: Taking advantage of the turmoil that has laid other European banks low, BNP Paribas of France agreed to buy much of the troubled lender Fortis Bank, just days after the firm was the target of a government-led rescue. The deal will make BNP Paribas, which has emerged largely unscathed from the global credit crisis , the largest bank by deposits in the European Union. In a deal hammered out with the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg, BNP Paribas will pay 14.5 billion euros ($20 billion) for Fortis’s operations in those countries, as well as its international franchises. The operations of Fortis in the Netherlands were taken over by that government in a separate agreement Friday night for 16.8 billion euros. Despite a worsening credit market that sent exchanges across the Continent sharply lower Monday, the chief executive of BNP Paribas, Baudouin Prot, told analysts on a conference call that “we do believe that real banking will still be a highly needed and highly successful business going forward.” He added that the operations of Fortis in Belgium and Luxembourg were “resilient, powerful retail franchises and asset management franchises, which reinforce the position of BNP Paribas.” When the deal is completed in late 2008 or early 2009, BNP’s deposit base will total 586 billion euros, with 239 billion euros coming from Fortis. For BNP Paribas, it is a well-timed acquisition, because profits in areas like investment banking and trading are expected to slow along with the global economy. More than 10 billion euros worth of Fortis’s most troubled assets would be “ring fenced” in a separate structure as part of the deal, with the goal of eventually selling them off. The agreement with BNP Paribas follows more than a week of negotiations as governments in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands tried to prevent Fortis from getting hit by a wave of withdrawals. Fortis was part of a three-way consortium with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander of Spain that purchased ABN Amro in deal worth more than 70 billion euros. While it gave Fortis valuable retail assets in the Benelux region, it left the bank vulnerable when credit tightened and investors became more wary of leverage. Underscoring just how drastically the crisis has reshaped both the banking landscape and government activity in the financial sector, these governments will have a continuing presence in the financial sector. Under the terms of the agreement, the Belgian and Luxembourg governments will become shareholders of BNP Paribas, with stakes of 11.6 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively. Belgium will also gain two seats on the BNP Paribas board. Finally, Belgium and Luxembourg will also retain minority stakes in the Fortis units in their countries. Mr. Prot noted that Belgium and Luxembourg were among Europe’s wealthiest markets, and the hundreds of billions in assets came at a time when the once-boring business of retail banking was looking increasingly attractive. “We’re back to basics in banking, as you all know,” Mr. Prot added. “This makes BNP Paribas not only bigger, but stronger.”

BNP Paribas
Fortis AG
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Packing a Punch

Abstract: Gewürztraminer is called Tramini in Hungary. The 2007 Tramini from Pannonhalmi Apatsagi Pinceszet is a knockout. This bold, dry white, redolent of honey and litchi, rivals superior versions from Alsace, the standard-bearer. Serve it with quiche Lorraine, liver pâté and choucroute garni. Frankly Wines, 66 West Broadway (Warren Street), a tiny boutique, charges $12.99. Half its inventory is under $20. HOWARD G. GOLDBERG


Manchester: Inmate’s Appeal Denied

Abstract: A former Manchester man convicted of raping and murdering his wife’s grandmother in 1987 will not get a new trial, a State Superior Court judge has ruled. The man, Richard Lapointe, 61, left, sought a new trial based on the claim that his previous lawyers were ineffective. He is serving a life sentence for the murder of Bernice Martin, 88. Last week, Judge Stanley Fuger Jr. of Superior Court rejected Mr. Lapointe’s request for a new trial, saying it was a “waste of the court’s time and resources,” The Journal Inquirer reported. The State Supreme Court previously upheld Mr. Lapointe’s conviction, ruling that the trial judge properly admitted his three signed confessions into evidence. His lawyers argued that a medical condition raised concerns about the confessions.

Murders and Attempted Murders
Sex Crimes
Connecticut
Decisions and Verdicts
Lapointe Richard


Iran Says It Offers New Plan for Nuclear Program

Abstract: ALMATY, Kazakhstan — North Korea is more than 2,500 miles from the resumed nuclear negotiations that got under way here Friday between Iran and the six big powers, but North Korea’s nuclear-arms bombast and the cautious foreign response are hanging over the negotiations in unsettling ways. For the first time since Iran and the six powers restarted their dialogue a year ago after a long lapse, North Korea, which had held similar talks in the 1990s that collapsed in betrayal and mistrust, is simultaneously demonstrating an outcome that Iran may find enviable, nonproliferation experts said. North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, however small, has nonetheless emboldened it to challenge the United States and other nuclear-armed powers, which have responded with caution and — from North Korea’s vantage point — some degree of respect. “I do feel as if Iran has inevitably been drawing lessons from how the world is dealing with North Korea,” said Valerie Lincy, executive director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Contro l, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. “I would imagine the lessons they’re drawing are not the ones the Western powers would like: That you can weather sanctions, and renege on previous agreements, and ultimately if you stand fast, you’ll get what you’re looking for.” Cliff Kupchan, an Iran specialist at the Eurasia Group, a Washington-based consulting firm, said that while Iran does not want to be viewed as an “irrational cult state” like North Korea, it also sees the conspicuous absence of talk about regime change by North Korea’s adversaries in the current episode of heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula. “These guys are smart, and they’re shrewd,” Mr. Kupchan said of Iran’s leaders. “They’re well aware of what North Korea has gotten away with. They see that North Korea elicits fear and significant geopolitical ballast because it has nuclear weapons.” Expectations for this latest round of negotiations have been modest at best, with little sign that the Iranian government was ready to accept an offer made by the six powers at the last round of talks in February: restrictions on its supply of dangerous enriched uranium in exchange for an initial modest easing of international sanctions, to be followed by further trust-building measures. The Iranian delegation said as talks resumed that it had put forward a “comprehensive proposal” that it hoped would “establish a new bedrock for cooperation.” But negotiators representing the group of six powers said they had not seen anything new, suggesting they may have already hit a roadblock. The talks were to continue on Saturday between Saeed Jalili, the lead Iranian negotiator, and Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief. She represents the so-called P5-plus-1, which are the five permanent members of the Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany. Michael Mann, a spokeswoman for Ms. Ashton, told reporters as the talks opened that “the confidence-building measure has to come from Iran.” But in what could be a sign that Iran’s position has basically remained unchanged, Mr. Jalili began his visit to Almaty on Thursday with a speech to university students in which he insisted on his country’s unfettered right to develop a civilian nuclear program, and accused the larger powers of hypocrisy because they have nuclear arms. In the speech, Mr. Jalili suggested that his counterparts must simply “accept the inalienable rights” of Iran, specifically the right to enrich uranium, as part of any solution. Throughout the dispute, the Iranians have asserted that their uranium enrichment activities are for civilian purposes and that AyatollahAli Khamenei, the supreme leader, issued a religious decree banning nuclear weapons in the country. Iran has also repeatedly argued that because it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its activities are by definition peaceful and legal. At the same time the Iranians have refused to comply with Security Council demands that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment until unresolved questions about its nuclear intentions are answered, including indications that it has done work on triggers for atomic bombs. Ms. Lincy, of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said she believed Iran may be primarily interested in the negotiations in order to achieve some relief from the sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union, which have been causing increased economic pain — but to do so without sacrificing its ability to make nuclear fuel. Again, she drew a parallel to North Korea’s negotiations more than two decades ago, when it negotiated a step-by-step deal for food and fuel assistance from the United States in exchange for promises to not to make nuclear weapons. That deal collapsed in 2002, when the Americans accused North Korea of secretly building a facility to enrich uranium. In some ways, she said, the P5-plus-1 group’s offer to Iran is similar in structure to that failed North Korea agreement — initial moves by Iran, followed by eased sanctions, followed by further steps. Gary Milhollin, executive editor of Iranwatch.org, a Web site published by the Wisconsin Project, said in an article before the latest talks had even begun that such an approach could be a mistake. “The lesson from North Korea is that an interim agreement of this kind won’t work,” he wrote. “Before making any halfway deal, U.S. and European diplomats should insist that Iran remove itself from the path that North Korea so easily followed.” Others said the Iranians — like the North Koreans — had shown a great tenacity for enduring economic sanctions regardless of their severity, calling into question their value in any negotiation strategy. In a study released before the latest round of talks, the National Iranian American Council , a Washington advocacy group that opposes the sanctions, said they had actually strengthened the Iranian government’s resolve. “Capitulation is seen as a greater threat to the regime’s survival than even a military confrontation with the United States,” the study said. Some experts said they believed Iranian leaders were viewing North Korea’s nuclear belligerence with some measure of alarm, however. In their view, the United States and others could use it as justification for even more ostracism of Iran, which has a brotherly military relationship with North Korea and has adopted some of its missile and weapons technology. The two countries, along with Syria, were the only ones that opposed passage of the Arms Trade Treaty on conventional weapons at the United Nations this week, for example. “If the North Koreans really started a war, Iran will be subject to intense international pressures,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor of political science at Syracuse University. He said many people would fear “the Iranians are as crazy as those guys and therefore we should contain them.”

Iran
Nuclear weapon
Sanctions
International relations
North Korea


Deluge Rakes Coasts of Texas and Mexico

Abstract: BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — Hurricane Dolly rolled into South Texas and northern Mexico on Wednesday, deluging the Rio Grande Valley with rain, knocking out power to tens of thousands of people and ripping roofs off resorts on South Padre Island. But the worst fears of local officials did not materialize. The levees along the Rio Grande held and no major flooding was reported, state and local officials said. The brunt of the storm surge did not flow up the river. “The levees are holding up just fine, and the river level hasn’t risen too much,” said Johnny Cavazos, the emergency management coordinator for Cameron County, at the state’s southern tip. “We got lucky.” Some officials still worried about the enormous amount of rain the storm would dump — up to 20 inches in some places — which could swell the river and breach levees in the coming days. The storm, the first to affect the United States mainland this year, first raked across South Padre Island, a tourist resort, in the early afternoon. A few hours later, it hit the coast about 30 miles north of Port Isabel, churning inland and losing power slowly, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. As the hurricane touched land, winds were clocked at 100 miles per hour, making it a Category 2 storm, though by late Wednesday night it was downgraded to a tropical storm. On the resort island, many roofs were torn off, trees toppled, signs blown down and windows smashed, The Associated Press reported. Roads were strewn with branches, tree trunks, power poles and streetlights. A 17-year-old boy was seriously injured on South Padre Island after he was blown from a seventh-floor balcony of the Lighthouse Condominiums, said Dan Quandt, a government spokesman. The boy suffered a broken leg, a smashed hip and a head injury, but survived. “He should buy a lottery ticket,” Mr. Quandt said. In Brownsville, high winds knocked out power and toppled oaks around the county courthouse. For most of the day, winds howled and trees bent and danced crazily under leaden skies. Thick rain whipped sideways through the warm tropical air, pelting the pavement and pooling at intersections. The storm destroyed several important power lines, including a major line running into Brownsville, city officials said. More than 80,000 people in four counties were left without power, crippling refrigeration systems and, in Brownsville, the sewerage system. An official for American Electric Power said crews would start working to restore power as soon as the storm cleared, but it could take two or three days. Gov. Rick Perry asked the White House to declare the affected counties a federal disaster area. Late in the afternoon, state search and rescue teams in helicopters searched poor neighborhoods known as colonias in low-lying areas along the Rio Grande, many of which lack basic services. The teams reported no heavy flooding, nor did they rescue anyone, Mr. Perry said at a news conference. As dusk fell, reports of minor flooding poured in from towns along the border, especially Rio Hondo, Combes and Harlingen. At least 60 people were trapped in houses in Cameron County by rising waters and asked county officials to ferry them to shelters, officials said. Officials sent out trucks and boats. Local officials said it might be impossible to assess the full extent of the wreckage the storm caused until Thursday afternoon, but the worst damage appeared focused on South Padre Island, Port Isabel and in Rio Hondo. More than 4,000 people, mostly from low-lying regions along the river and the coast, crowded into schools for shelter. Eight hundred milled through the halls or lay sleeping on blankets at the Homer Hanna High School here. Babies crawled across the floor, and boys played tag in the hallways while rain hammered the outside of the building. “The apartments where we live are not very good, and they are close to the river,” said Viviano Alanez, 82, who arrived at the high school at 9 p.m. Tuesday. “Here we are safe.” School buses carried hundreds of evacuees away from South Padre Island, where the storm surge was expected to be six to eight feet above the high tide line, and Port Isabel on the coast. They were taken to a high school farther inland in San Benito. But some hardy souls stayed on. Some took shelter in a convention center that was damaged by the storm, officials said. “In the state of Texas , even if there is a mandatory evacuation, you cannot make people leave,” said a county commissioner, John Wood. The hurricane is the first to hit the mainland since Humberto came ashore in South Texas last September. Many had worried it might follow the path of Beulah, the 1967 storm that flooded the Rio Grande Valley with 36 inches of rain, killing 58 people. On the Mexican side of the river, thousands of people in shoddy housing fled to government shelters, Mexican newspapers reported. Fields filled with water, palm trees bent in the wind and beaches were closed. Mexican soldiers made a daring rescue of people trapped in a flood near the mouth of the Rio Grande, using an inflatable raft to rescue a family from its home. Farther up river, some levees have deteriorated, especially in Hidalgo County, officials said. “The farther upstream you go, they are not all the same height,” said County Judge Carlos H. Cascos, Cameron County’s top elected official. “There are some that are suspect. The next three days will be critical. If we don’t get massive flooding by Saturday, I think we will be all right.”

Hurricanes and Tropical Storms
Texas
Mexico


Long-Term Care Agency to Repay Millions to Medicaid for Enrolling Ineligible Patients

Abstract: The largest managed long-term care agency in New York has agreed in principle to repay $33.6 million to the state’s Medicaid program for improper billings linked to the use of social adult day care centers, the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, announced on Friday. As part of the settlement with the attorney general’s Medicaid fraud control unit, the state will allow the agency, VNSNY Choice , to resume enrolling patients in its long-term care plan. VNSNY Choice, part of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York , admitted that it had enrolled ineligible members, including those who were referred by social adult day care centers. Public focus on the issue began when one such center in the Bronx figured in a political corruption case , its owners accused of bribing a state assemblyman to help them quell competition. An article and photographs in The New York Times in April documented elderly people bicycling away with free takeout food from a center in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and playing vigorous table tennis at another center in Lower Manhattan, even though the centers were supposed to serve frail elderly people. VNSNY Choice, like other plans in the city, gets roughly $3,800 a month from Medicaid for each person it enrolls, out of which it pays for long-term services from a network of providers, from social day care and home health aides to nursing-home care. Fifty-four social adult day care centers and seven managed long-term care plans are currently under review. The relationship between the plans and centers was a two-way street. The plans paid the centers for serving their members. But the centers also referred unenrolled clients to be signed up by plans. That raised concerns after The Times reported that some centers offered incentives like cash gifts and casino trips, drawing elderly people who did not seem to need long-term care. VNSNY did not admit improper marketing practices, but audits found hundreds of members ineligible because they were not impaired enough, and they were removed from the rolls. The settlement will recoup their Medicaid fees. Michael McKeon, a spokesman for VNS, said the state’s concerns “resulted from differing good-faith interpretations of the state’s evolving eligibility criteria.”

Medicaid
Elderly care,Geriatrics
Visiting Nurse Service
Eric T Schneiderman
New York


Nets Will Replace P. J. Carlesimo as Coach

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Nets’ off-season began late Saturday, after a Game 7 loss that will sting long into summer. Less than 24 hours later, the team took its first step toward the future, announcing that the interim coach P. J. Carlesimo would not return. General Manager Billy King made the announcement Sunday at the Nets’ practice complex, and players said they were surprised by the swift turnaround. After Avery Johnson was fired Dec. 28, Carlesimo went 35-19, leading the Nets to the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs and the second-best record in franchise history. But the Nets could not advance past the first round, despite home-court advantage and a depleted Chicago Bulls roster, and King said he wanted to explore other directions. “It was a difficult decision,” King said. “Looking at the long-term future with this organization, I felt it was best to look elsewhere and try to find the right fit.” King said he did not want to rush the search process, which was expected to include top N.B.A. assistants and established head coaches. He disputed the popular perception that the Nets’ owner, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, would be looking to lure a higher-profile coach to make a splash. “I don’t know where that came from,” King said. “It doesn’t have to be a high-profile name. It has to be the right guy.” But King also said he planned to contact the former Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson. It is unclear whether Jackson would come out of retirement, but he has said he does not plan to coach again. “I’ll reach out to him like other candidates,” King said. “He’s one of the best coaches sitting on the sidelines, so you’ve got to reach out.” Despite widespread speculation, the Nets are not believed to be interested in Jeff Van Gundy, a former Knicks coach, or Stan Van Gundy. King cited the Bulls and the Knicks as models for where he would like the next coach to take the team. “We’ve got to get to the next level,” King said. Nets point guard Deron Williams said he would like to see a new coach who is “creative on offense and has a good system on defense.” He mentioned Bulls Coach Tom Thibodeau as an example of the type of principled and commanding person he would prefer guiding the club. Williams added that toughness was the main quality missing from the team. “I think we got out-toughed in that last series, especially yesterday, so I think that’s the main thing,” Williams said. Throughout the season, the Nets showed flashes of brilliance offset by stretches of ineptitude. In the biggest game of the season, maybe the biggest game for the franchise in nearly a decade, the Nets were done in by their inconsistency. “Sometimes we got too relaxed, too comfortable, instead of just keeping that edge,” forward Reggie Evans said. “You’ve got to overcome stuff like that.” The Nets were criticized for appearing to play without passion at times during the series. In the first half Saturday, the home crowd began booing when they fell behind by 17 points. King conceded that he saw a lack of intensity. “As a group, the sense of urgency wasn’t there at the start the game,” King said. “It came in the second half, but when you are behind by that many points, you’ve got to dig yourself out of a hole, and that team is very well coached,” he added, referring to Chicago. King’s contract with the Nets was extended before Game 4, and the team’s entire starting lineup is under contract for next season. The Nets are well over the salary cap, with several key pieces, including forward Andray Blatche and guard C. J. Watson, entering free agency. In surveying the team’s needs, King said an objective in the off-season would be improving the athleticism of the defense, specifically to guard small forwards like Miami’s LeBron James and Indiana’s Paul George. “We’ve got the ability to score,” King said. “Defense, at times, has been a challenge, but I think we can play that well as well.” REBOUNDS Andray Blatche, soon to be a free agent, said he hoped to return to the Nets next season. “I can’t tell you 100 percent yet,” he said. “But that’s the plan.” Blatche averaged 10.3 points and 5.1 rebounds during the regular season. He was signed for $855,000, the veteran minimum, after the Washington Wizards used the league’s amnesty clause to waive him last season. ... General Manager Billy King said that if the Nets had reached the second round, Joe Johnson would have probably sat for Games 1 and 2 because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot. Johnson disputed that, but he said he planned to rest and make sure the foot healed this summer. He said he would not need surgery. ... Deron Williams said he would not require surgery to fix bone spurs in his ankle.

Brooklyn Nets
Billy King
P J Carlesimo
Basketball


Mets’ Neil Walker Prepares to Depart and Meet His New Arrival

Abstract: The date has been marked for months. Neil Walker’s wife, Niki, was expected to give birth to the couple’s first child, a girl, on Tuesday. But on that day, the Mets will be in Arizona to play the Diamondbacks, early on a 10-game, three-city trip. Niki, meanwhile, will be across the country in Pennsylvania. “I’m going to do everything in my power to get back,” said Walker, the Mets’ second baseman. But how will he do so when the Mets could be 2,000 miles away, in Phoenix? And if the baby arrives later than Tuesday, which Niki’s doctor now expects, will Walker arrive in time if the Mets are even farther away — in San Francisco, the second city on the trip? “When we first looked at the date, we were like: ‘Oh, it figures. We couldn’t be in Philadelphia or Cincinnati or Cleveland?’” Walker said, laughing, before Friday’s game. The logistics have Walker banking on some divine good will. “Hopefully I’ve built up some decent karma with the big man, and he’ll let me get back,” he said. The couple has had contingency plans in the works for months, with the help of the Mets and Walker’s agents at Excel Sports Management. If Walker gets word of the coming birth early enough in the day, he can buy a ticket on a commercial flight back to Pittsburgh. But if the timing is bad or no flights are available, Walker might have to hop on a private plane, he said. He said his agents had connections to fly him out of Phoenix, San Francisco or St. Louis, the final city on the trip. “My wife has planned this out,” he said. Walker’s wife is back in Gibsonia, Pa., a Pittsburgh suburb where the couple lives in the off-season. She was in New York with him during the first half of the year, but he drove her back home during the All-Star break so she could have help from their families. Walker, a Pittsburgh native, played for the Pirates from 2009 to 2015 and was traded to the Mets in December. His parents — Tom, a former major league pitcher, and Carolyn — live in Gibsonia. Her parents live three miles away. Walker’s three siblings can lend a hand, too. “She’s got plenty of help, but she wants me there more than anybody else,” Walker said. In order to make sure he can be, Walker and his wife have arranged every detail. He will take a small bag of belongings with him on the road in order to be able to leave the team at a moment’s notice. Since 2011, Major League Baseball rules allow players to take up to three days of paternity leave. A team can add a player from the minor leagues during the absence. Walker, 30, spends the majority of his day at a stadium, and for most of that time, he is out of reach of his cellphone, which stays in his locker during the pregame workout, batting practice and the game. So he gave his wife the number of Ray Ramirez, the Mets’ head athletic trainer, who always carries his cellphone. Ramirez will be able to tell Walker any news immediately, even during a game. With the Pirates, Walker said, he saw teammates be pulled from games or race home from the stadium to see the birth of a child. “Everybody is helping me be on full alert,” Walker said. Each morning while the Mets are in Arizona, Walker will check the availability of flights back to Pittsburgh, just in case, he said. He said he felt bad that he could not be home with Niki, but baseball has kept his mind busy in the meantime. “We’re excited about it,” he said. “But I’m just trying to compartmentalize everything and deal with whatever comes our way. Obviously, there’s a lot going on right now from a team standpoint toward the end of the year.” Walker has hoped that his daughter’s birth will coincide with the Mets’ day off on Aug. 22, in between the series in San Francisco and St. Louis. “But there’s no telling at this point,” he said. Walker has been the Mets’ best — and healthiest — hitter for the last month, and if he must depart suddenly and miss a game, their struggling lineup will certainly feel his absence. “You’ve got your job, and you can’t take a ton of time off, but you have to make sure you’re physically and mentally there for your significant other,” he said.


Can G.O.P. Tell Donald Trump, ‘You’re Fired’? Probably Not

Abstract: We are in the midst of yet another of Donald J. Trump’s self-inflicted spirals of terrible news. And with prominent Republicans saying they will back Hillary Clinton and others announcing this week that they won’t endorse Mr. Trump, there has been yet another round of speculation about how the party could get rid of him. But it almost certainly can’t. And even if it could, it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort. Here’s why. Republicans Are Stuck With Him Under Republican Party rules, Mr. Trump is the only one who can take himself out of the race at this point. The only provision that exists for replacing a candidate nominated at the party convention, Rule 9, was written to apply only in the event of a candidate’s death or refusal to run. Then the 168-member Republican National Committee — a body made up of the men and women from each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and five territories — would be able to name a new nominee by a majority vote. Each state and jurisdiction is given the same number of votes as delegates it has to the national convention, so the system favors larger Republican-dominated states. There is, however, some air in the rule — which actually spells out how to fill a vacancy “by reason of death, declination or otherwise” — that an enterprising lawyer could try to exploit. But arguing that Mr. Trump’s nomination can be rescinded by second-guessing party bosses over the word “otherwise” seems highly improbable. Replacing Him Would Be a Mess Even if Mr. Trump withdrew as the nominee, replacing him after the convention is uncharted and potentially messy territory. “The rules are vague, and there is no precedent,” said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a lawyer with Jones Day who has worked on multiple Republican presidential campaigns. Naming someone would be hard enough. Finding a suitable alternative was always the problem with the “Never Trump” movement. No matter how distasteful party leaders found him, they could never agree on anyone else. Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Mr. Trump’s running mate, would seem to have a strong claim to make because he is the only other Republican formally nominated by his party. But what if others, rivals of Mr. Trump from the primaries like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, decided they deserved a shot? A new candidate would almost certainly not be chosen by acclamation. And determining who and how many are eligible would be a huge fight — one the Republican National Committee would have to resolve before it could ultimately vote. Time Is Running Out Given that the process of replacing the Republican nominee would probably not go smoothly or quickly — what has for Republicans this year? — there would be very little time left for other essential aspects of a presidential campaign. One of the issues is ballot access. Each state has its own set of rules and deadlines for getting on the ballot, which Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence have already done. Getting their names off and the names of the new presidential and vice-presidential candidates on would be a logistical and legal headache. Some states, including important battleground ones like Iowa, start voting later next month. Legal and logistical complications aside, how would a candidate run a campaign under such a compressed timeline? One thing is for sure: He or she would almost certainly not have the name recognition that Mr. Trump has. Convincing the country’s voters that they should elect you president is an undertaking that requires months, not weeks. Latest Election Polls 2016 Get the latest national and state polls on the presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump.

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
RNC
Republicans
US Politics


Weight of a Hat Trick Buckles the Rangers

Abstract: The puck struck the post, then Henrik Lundqvist’s back. He looked behind himself for it, but it had already fluttered into the crease. He tried steering it away with his glove, but the puck skittered free, there for the taking, before winding up on the stick blade of the highest-scoring player in these N.H.L. playoffs. Since coming within 101 seconds of elimination, the Rangers have trafficked in the most precious commodity of playoff hockey: luck. They scavenged for loose pucks, preyed on bounces and refined their predatory instincts. Enough goals have come that way, until they did not, until the puck caromed off Lundqvist midway through the second period Monday to lay there for Tyler Johnson, who banged it in to complete the first playoff hat trick in Tampa Bay franchise history. There was no one-goal tension, no late stress at Madison Square Garden. Just a rout, and when it was over, after absorbing a 6-2 demolition that leveled the Eastern Conference finals at one game apiece, the Rangers confronted an uncomfortable truth. All that pleased them about their Game 1 performance — neutralizing Tampa Bay’s snipers, generating odd-man rushes, dictating the pace — had disappeared in one fretful night, replaced by a discombobulated mess. Expecting verve and desperation from the Lightning, the Rangers dealt with it by committing seven penalties, which led to six Tampa Bay power plays, which led to three goals, which led to a furious locker room. Image Tyler Johnson after a second-period goal. He recorded the first playoff hat trick in team history. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times “It’s embarrassing,” said defenseman Ryan McDonagh, the team captain. “There are a lot of things you want to say right now, but talking doesn’t do much. Our guys better figure it out quickly here and realize that stupid, selfish penalties are going to cost us against this team. They have too much skill.” He added: “I don’t even know what to call this game. I want to get rid of it, get the thought out of my head. I’ve never really seen this group do that before, play that way.” Had McDonagh plumbed his memory bank, he might have recalled the first quarter of the season, before the Rangers embarked on the 42-13-3 surge that secured them the Presidents’ Trophy. During their early struggles, the Rangers absorbed what had been their worst loss before Monday — a 5-1 defeat at the Garden to Tampa Bay. No team has vexed Lundqvist this season like the Lightning, who scored at least five goals against him for the third time in five meetings. “You can play really well,” said Lundqvist, who allowed as many goals on 26 shots as he had on his previous 134, across the Rangers’ four-game winning streak that expired Monday. “You can play really hard. But if you don’t play smart, you’re not going to win games. Making that many penalties against a team that has a really good power play, it’s just not going to work.” The game showcased the Rangers at their flailing, undisciplined worst, and the Lightning at their opportunistic best. Four of their six goals came on special teams, including a short-handed stunner by Johnson — on a breakaway triggered by Martin St. Louis’s tripping over a Dan Boyle pass, one second after a Rangers five-on-three advantage ended — that opened the scoring. Johnson also scored on the power play and at even strength, running his playoff total to 11. “Just playing with good players,” Johnson said. Those good players, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat, on a line called the Triplets (they always seem in sync, get it?), combined for seven points Monday. Across the postseason, they have scored 21 goals with 19 assists, and though Tampa Bay Coach Jon Cooper embraced their production, he also hoped he would see more of it from other players. Image Johnson, second from left, after scoring in the second period on Monday. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Speaking after the morning skate, Cooper ruminated on his team’s fortitude. The Lightning beat Detroit in its opening series, then pierced the aura of Montreal goalie Carey Price during last round, and Cooper wondered whether his players relaxed a bit in Game 1. Watching the film, he said, made him want to vomit. “I think in Game 1, we participated in the hockey game,” Cooper said, “and in Game 2, we came to win a hockey game. That was the difference.” What Tampa Bay recognized, perhaps, is that it needed to play a bit more like the Rangers — or at least like the teams that pestered the Rangers. By dumping the puck in deep and letting their skill take over, and by thumping the Rangers more, the Lightning adjusted and adapted. The physical component returned with a fury, with seven penalties and three goals in a first period absent of cohesion. The Rangers drew to 3-2 on a bank shot by Derek Stepan from behind the net at 14:17 of the second, and so after all the sloppiness, they entered the third period trailing by just a goal. They had a chance — two, really — to tie the score: Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop denied Rick Nash short-handed, then thrust his pad to stone Jesper Fast. Seven seconds after Stepan raced out of the penalty box, Alex Killorn took a beautiful seam pass from Victor Hedman and, with Lundqvist out of position, scored into the gaping net. Then came a Steven Stamkos redirection and a flick by Killorn, and lots of empty seats and vacant looks on the faces of the Rangers, who still have not led, 2-0, in a series with home ice since 1994, and who now head to Amalie Arena, where the Lightning forged the best home-ice record of the regular season. “I’m confident that we’re going to respond the right way,” Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault said. “We always have.”

Ice hockey
Playoffs
Rangers
Tampa Bay Lightning
Tyler Johnson


A Nation Wonders When Bloodshed Becomes Terrorism

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The attackers assembled a bristling arsenal of guns and bombs. They left behind a trail of bloodied bodies. By any measure, a swath of California and, for that matter, much of the nation was terrorized. But was the devastating rampage in San Bernardino an act of terrorism? The authorities were still trying to piece together enough information on Thursday to answer that question, looking at the main gunman’s travels to the Middle East, searching for any contacts with extremist groups, examining his life for evidence of radicalization. The notion that the massacre of 14 people might stem from a more prosaic pathology seemed hard to fathom. And yet the answer was not clear, one more moment of carnage that defied easy or immediate categorization. In an era of jarring violence at home and abroad, Americans find themselves struggling to understand not only the forces driving the attacks but also the very nature of what they are seeing. Assailants mow down innocent men, women and children in Paris but also in Newtown, Charleston, Chattanooga, Colorado Springs and now San Bernardino. Sometimes it is called terrorism. Sometimes it is not. Image Law enforcement officials searched for one of the suspects in the San Bernadino, Calif., shooting on Wednesday. Credit Monica Almeida/The New York Times Is it terrorism when a gunman sprays bullets in an elementary school or an African-American church or a Planned Parenthood clinic? What about at an office holiday party? Does an attack on a military recruitment center automatically qualify? What if a suspect is an American Muslim? Does he or she have ties to designated terrorist groups or are assumptions being made based on religion, even without firm evidence? Liberals and Muslim groups complain that any attack committed by Muslims seems to be automatically labeled a terrorist incident, while those committed by others are not. “Muslim Killers,” read the cover headline of Thursday’s New York Post. Conservatives complain that the Obama administration is too reluctant for political reasons to confront the reality of radical Islam or even to use the word terrorism to describe episodes like the shootings by a Muslim Army officer at Fort Hood in 2009. Terrorism has traditionally been distinguished from other mass killings by its political overtones. Federal law defines terrorism as dangerous acts intended to intimidate a civilian population, influence government policy or affect government conduct “by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.” What Investigators Know About the San Bernardino Shooting Officials have discovered a potential link between the attackers and Islamic extremism. Within hours of the horror in California on Wednesday, Twitter lit up with the debate. “What happened in #SanBernardino is terrorism,” Linda Sarsour, a Muslim-American civil rights activist from New York who has fought stereotypes of her faith, wrote before any suspects were identified. “I don’t care what the race or religion of the perpetrators are.” But Tommy Vietor, a former national security spokesman for President Obama, expressed exasperation with the fixation on the terminology instead of what it represents. “So frustrating how much we debate words to define the action, and how little we debate policy choices to prevent it,” he wrote. His former boss, Mr. Obama, said on Thursday that the motivation behind the latest attack was still a mystery. “It is possible that this was terrorist-related, but we don’t know,” he said at the White House. “It’s also possible that this was workplace-related.” ‘I Think About It Daily’: Life in a Time of Mass Shootings Times readers responded by the thousands to a simple question: How often, if ever, do you think about the possibility of a shooting in your daily life? But he wasted little time linking the attack to terrorism in order to make an argument for gun control on Wednesday afternoon while the incident was unfolding. “For those who are concerned about terrorism,” the president said in an interview with CBS News , “some may be aware of the fact that we have a no-fly list where people can’t get on planes. But those same people who we don’t allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm — and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them. That’s a law that needs to be changed.” Terrorism has a long, dark history in the United States, from the rise of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War to the emergence of the left-wing militant Weather Underground in the 1960s and 1970s to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by supporters of right-wing militias in 1995. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the term has been inextricably associated with foreign groups like Al Qaeda and, more recently, the Islamic State . The American government, worried particularly about homegrown militants radicalized by overseas groups, has been more focused on domestic terrorism in recent years. Last year, the Justice Department announced the re-establishment of its Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, created after the Oklahoma City bombing but defunct in recent years. A Congressional Research Service report last summer said domestic terrorists were driven by any number of causes. “They can be motivated to commit crimes in the name of ideas such as animal rights, white supremacy, antigovernment beliefs and opposition to abortion, for example,” the report said. But the definition of terrorism has been such a point of contention that Mr. Obama was roundly criticized by Republicans in 2012 for not immediately using the word to describe the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, even though he did use the phrase “act of terror.” From the other side of the spectrum, a collection of groups supporting abortion rights has been pressing the Justice Department to define attacks on abortion clinics as acts of domestic terrorism, a campaign that picked up steam after last week’s shootings at the Planned Parenthood center in Colorado. Gov. John W. Hickenlooper called the killings there “a form of terrorism.” But while federal authorities have specific laws to charge those tied to radical groups overseas, such as providing material support to terrorist organizations, there is no specific domestic terrorism statute. Instead, prosecutors turn to other statutes that carry the death penalty. These have the same practical effect in terms of punishment, but to some critics do not convey the seriousness a designation of terrorism would. Timothy J. McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, for instance, was convicted of multiple counts of murder and conspiracy. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Chechen brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013, was convicted of using weapons of mass destruction , among other charges. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was convicted of 45 counts of murder or attempted murder for the Fort Hood shootings and sentenced to death in a trial in which the word “terrorism” was never used in front of the jury. After nine African-American parishioners were gunned down by a white supremacist in their church in Charleston, S.C., in June, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch explained that she could not charge the suspect, Dylann Roof, with domestic terrorism because there was no such crime on the books. Instead, the department brought a variety of other federal charges against Mr. Roof, including hate crimes charges, on top of state murder counts. Ms. Lynch, the first African-American woman to run the Justice Department, indicated that in the end, they were basically the same thing. “Make no mistake,” she said. “Hate crimes are the original domestic terrorism.” As her investigators on Thursday combed through the wreckage of more lives after another attack, Ms. Lynch avoided using the word terrorism. Instead, she called it an “unspeakable crime.” For now, at least, everyone could agree with that. But the debate will rage on.

Murders and Homicides
Terrorism
San Bernardino CA


From Goat to Hero, Nunez Helps Yankees Beat Rockies

Abstract: The Yankees spent several hours early Sunday honoring the franchise’s storied past, with ceremonies and tributes and all the warm memories that come with Old-Timers’ Day. Then, once the game with the Colorado Rockies began, Eduardo Nunez — the youngest current Yankee — provided a glimpse into the sometimes-grim, sometimes-glorious existence that is a franchise’s future. Nunez turned 24 on June 15, or one day after he replaced an injured Derek Jeter as the Yankees’ regular shortstop. In 12 starts, he has shown a knack for both making errors of youth (base-running mistakes, mental gaffes in the field) as well as offsetting those miscues with important hits. On Sunday he did it again, committing his ninth fielding error of the season in the first inning but then driving in the go-ahead run in the seventh as the Yankees beat the Rockies, 6-4 . For all his troubles (the nine errors is only five fewer than Nunez made all season in the minor leagues a year ago), the Yankees continue to profess faith in him. He was considered one of their top minor league prospects before making the major league team as a reserve infielder, and the Yankees’ front office thinks so highly of Nunez that its reluctance to include him in a trade for the star pitcher Cliff Lee last season was one of the reasons their negotiations with the Seattle Mariners broke down. “It’s not easy — this guy is taking over for Derek Jeter,” first baseman Mark Teixeira said. “Any major leaguer knows it’s not about the error; it’s about how you come back from it.” On Sunday, Nunez responded like a veteran after misplaying an easy ground ball from Jonathan Herrera in the first inning. The fans groaned as the ball bounced away, and when Nunez cleanly fielded a ground ball in the third inning, he received sarcastic cheers. In the seventh inning, however, the crowd’s adulation for Nunez was more genuine. After Jorge Posada walked and Russell Martin reached on an error by Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, Nunez smacked a run-scoring single through the hole between third base and shortstop, giving the Yankees the decisive run. Big hits are not a novelty for Nunez; 5 of his 12 runs batted in this season have given the Yankees a lead. “I don’t think back on the play, it is in the past,” he said of the error. “I think about, What can I do to help the team now?” Nunez was not the only young player contributing. Starting pitcher Ivan Nova, who turned 24 in January, worked in and out of trouble for most of the afternoon, allowing four runs and six hits over six innings. Nova gave up a career-high three home runs but escaped greater damage by inducing timely double-play ground balls in the second and fourth innings. Like Nunez, he showed the poise of a more mature player; when his fastball failed him early in the game, Nova relied on his curveball, changeup and slider to keep the Rockies from pulling away. “I know that I can pitch, I know how good I can pitch,” Nova said. “You have to fight one way or the other. If I’m going to get hit, I’m going to get hit with my best pitch that day.” The more senior Yankees did their part in the victory as well. Alex Rodriguez had a run-scoring single, Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada hit consecutive home runs in the fifth inning and Teixeira added an insurance run with his 23rd home run in the eighth. The Yankees scored in each of their last four innings after not putting their first runner on base until the fifth. Once the offense was finished, Mariano Rivera, 41, closed the game with a scoreless ninth for his 20th save. “Those guys are old-timers already,” a smiling Teixeira said of Posada and Rivera. “Those guys have been so good for so long, you knew they would step up on Old-Timers’ Day.” That they did. And the youngest player on the team did, too. INSIDE PITCH Derek Jeter celebrated his 37th birthday Sunday in Tampa, Fla., where he is recovering from a right calf injury. Jeter did some light jogging and hitting drills, but there is still no timetable for when he will begin rehabilitation games, Manager Joe Girardi said. ... With a day off Monday, the Yankees will skip Brian Gordon’s turn in the rotation and start Freddy Garcia, A. J. Burnett and C. C. Sabathia in a three-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers that begins Tuesday.

Baseball
New York Yankees
Colorado Rockies
Nunez Eduardo
Posada Jorge
Swisher Nick