After Quitting A.F.L.-C.I.O., Group Suggests Reunion of Sorts

Abstract: The coalition of unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has asked that federation to join it in creating a third union federation that would concentrate on political and legislative efforts. But the federation's president, John J. Sweeney, dismissed the idea, mocking the "obvious irony of a proposal to essentially recreate the A.F.L.-C.I.O. as it existed prior to" the decision by the service employees and three other unions to break away last year. Anna Burger, the president of Change to Win, the federation of breakaway unions, wrote to Mr. Sweeney two weeks ago to propose forming a new federation, which she said should be called the Alliance for Worker Justice. "Several important pending issues, including immigration , health care, retirement security, labor law reform and the looming 2006 election cycle," Ms. Burger wrote, "make it imperative that we coordinate our strategies and resources in the interests of all working people in this country." The new group, she said, would be tax exempt and involved in political action, grass-roots mobilization, member education, legislative initiatives, and health and safety. She said the current arrangement, in which more than 1,000 of the locals from the breakaway unions remain active in state and local labor federations, would not allow the two national federations to maximize their ability to work together on issues of common concern. In an April 19 letter that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. released yesterday, Mr. Sweeney dismissed the idea of a new federation, saying his group could do much of what the proposed alliance would do. "While we will always work to 'coordinate our strategies and resources in the interests of all working people in this country,' " Mr. Sweeney wrote, "the last thing we can imagine doing" a year after the other unions broke away "is investing time and resources into 'co-founding' yet a third labor federation, with all the bureaucracy, expense and additional staffing that would entail." Last year the service employees, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here, which represents apparel, hotel and restaurant workers, quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., saying it was focusing too much on politics and not enough on organizing nonunion workers. Subsequently, the carpenters, the laborers and the United Farm Workers joined them. The federation's 54 unions claim nine million members, while Change to Win's seven unions claim more than five million. Change to Win has proposed forming the federation as its many union locals participating in the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s state and local labor federations have threatened to withhold all dues payments from those federations. The Change to Win unions are angry that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has barred locals from the United Farm Workers from remaining a part of state and local labor federations. The federation took that move to discourage other unions from quitting.

American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations


N.C.A.A. to Increase Scrutiny of Prep Schools and Athletes' Transcripts

Abstract: The National Collegiate Athletic Association announced yesterday that it passed legislation to expand its efforts to examine, identify and publicize the academic legitimacy of some prep schools and nontraditional high schools that are alternatives for athletes to qualify to play in college. The N.C.A.A. president, Myles Brand, called the legislation unprecedented. The N.C.A.A. will add four staff members to police these schools -- often called diploma mills -- and will sometimes visit schools to see how they operate. "The level of fraud is increasing," Brand said. The legislation, which was the result of a task force formed three months ago to study shortcuts to eligibility, will take effect immediately. The N.C.A.A. also plans a wider dragnet to identify high school students who make significant academic improvements in a short amount of time or graduate from high schools with questionable academic profiles. The N.C.A.A. plans to consider other measures, like limiting the number of required core courses a student can take in his or her senior year of high school to qualify for eligibility. The N.C.A.A. Clearinghouse, which reviews a student-athlete's academic records to determine eligibility, will be given more power to determine the validity of some secondary schools. Kevin C. Lennon, the N.C.A.A. vice president in charge of the task force, said that the N.C.A.A. would focus on schools that lacked accreditation, state oversight and membership in a state high school athletic association. The N.C.A.A. also plans to release its findings to the public -- and more specifically, to athletes interested in playing at those schools. Lennon said such findings could be released as early as June. "When we say make public, we really mean make public," Lennon said in a conference call. Transcripts from schools determined to be unfit academically will no longer be accepted. Athletes enrolled in those schools or who have taken classes at those schools may no longer use those classes toward the 14 core courses required to qualify for an athletic scholarship. The N.C.A.A. has identified three schools, which Lennon did not name, that have not complied with its request to provide information on curriculum and staff. Lennon said the N.C.A.A. had received information from more than 40 prep schools and nontraditional high schools. The New York Times reported in November that University High School in Miami sold degrees for $399 to high school athletes having grade problems. The school had no classes or instructors and operated virtually without supervision. University High closed in December after investigations by the N.C.A.A. and Miami-Dade County began. In February, The Times reported on several schools for basketball players, like Lutheran Christian Academy, a private high school in Philadelphia that did not require students to attend classes. Four students said their basketball coach was their only teacher. Since the article was published, the testing services that run the SAT and the ACT have removed Lutheran as a testing site. The Pennsylvania attorney general's office has made inquiries. Brand said yesterday that the N.C.A.A. had yet to determine how its expanded staff would be used. He said the organization would look for help from college admissions offices, state governments and law enforcement. It also plans to crack down on the number of students who drop out of high school just before graduation to boost their grade point averages elsewhere to gain eligibility. Students taking unusual course patterns will be further investigated. The N.C.A.A. Clearinghouse has been authorized to check into when a student-athlete took the SAT or the ACT.

NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN
COLLEGE ATHLETICS
ETHICS
ATHLETICS AND SPORTS
FOOTBALL
BASKETBALL


Turning 65? Maybe It’s Not Time to Quit

Abstract: Apparently, a life of leisure is not all it’s cracked up to be. Or working until age 65 is simply not enough to keep the retirement account going until the end. Whether through desire or necessity, more older workers are staying in their jobs longer or returning after retiring, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics . According to the bureau, the number of employed people who were 65 and older doubled from 1977 to 2007, compared with a 59 percent increase for those 16 and older. This increase is not explained by any skewing effect of the baby-boom population — those born between 1946 and 1964 — because no baby boomers have even turned 65 yet. There has also been a shift in the number of older workers who work full time versus part time. “As a result, full-timers now account for a majority among older workers: 56 percent in 2007, up from 44 percent in 1995,” the bureau notes. Retirement? What retirement? PHYLLIS KORKKI

Retirement
United States Economy
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Personal Finances


Living in Two Time Zones With Google Calendar

Abstract: Q. Is it possible to show more than one time zone in Google Calendar to help find workable meeting times with two distant offices? A. The desktop version of Google Calendar offers at least two ways to see different time zones at once when you are trying to schedule events. To add a time zone to your calendar alongside the one you normally use, click the gear-shaped Settings icon in the top-right corner of the Google Calendar window. On the Settings screen, next to “Your current time zone,” click “Show an additional time zone.” When the Additional Time Zone menu appears, select the time zone you want to use. You can also add a label like “NYC” or “Seoul” to clarify the display on your calendar. Click the Save button when finished. You should now see two columns of times along the left side of your calendar. If you need to juggle more than two time zones, you can add the optional World Clock widget to your calendar, which is available from Google Labs . Go back to the Settings icon in the upper-right corner of the Google Calendar window and choose Labs. On the Labs page, scroll down to World Clock and click the Enable button. Click the Save button. When the World Clock widget appears on the side of your Google Calendar window, click the Settings link underneath it and choose the time zones you want. Later, after you add events to the calendar, click an event to see what time it will happen across all your selected time zones in the World Clock widget. On a smartphone, you can use the world-clock function in your phone’s standard clock app to see multiple time zones. You can also add a third-party clock app or even look up compatible times on sites like World Clock Meeting Planner , World Time Buddy or World Time Server .


3 Groups Lend Names to Suit Asking Release of Database

Abstract: Three groups, including The New York Times, have filed papers in support of a lawsuit seeking to have the police make public a database of officers’ recordings on more than 850,000 stops of civilians between January 2006 and September of last year. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed the suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in November arguing that the Police Department’s computerized data on stop-and-frisk activities should be turned over for analysis so the role of race in street encounters can be better understood. In addition to The Times, the New York City Bar Association and an unofficial collection of 21 scholars from around the country have joined in the effort to wrest the database from the Bloomberg administration to shine more light on what is being called one of the most elemental issues in law enforcement. Requests for the raw data have been denied, and Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly of the Police Department has said that his officers are not practicing racial profiling in street stops. Requests from the City Council for the database have not been granted. Jesse I. Levine, a senior counsel in the general litigation division of the city’s Law Department, said the papers from the three groups were being examined. As for the overarching suit, he said, “We will have a response to that defending the commissioner’s position.” The city must answer the suit by Tuesday, said Christopher T. Dunn, associate legal director of the civil liberties group, who said the judge must still decide whether the groups can join the case. The civil liberties group filed its suit a week before the Rand Corporation released a report in November on its independent assessment of the stops. The three groups sought to join the suit after the report’s release. The department — through the Police Foundation — commissioned the nonprofit Rand Corporation for the study early last year after its release of statistics showing a large increase in the number of street stops led some critics to suggest that minorities were unfairly singled out, a claim the police deny. The department’s database — with details on the time and location of stops, the reasons for them and the race of those stopped — was given to the Rand analysts. At one point, the Rand study states, “Over all, after adjusting for stop circumstances, we generally found small racial differences in the rates of frisk, search, use of force, and arrest.” The department’s refusal to make the database public, however, “is out of step with the practices of major police departments elsewhere in the country,” according to the brief written by Andrew G. Celli Jr., a lawyer for the group of 21, which includes criminologists, economists, sociologists and other academics.

Police
stop-and-frisk
New York Civil Liberties Union
Discrimination


Suicide Attack at Lawmaker’s Office in Pakistan Kills at Least 7

Abstract: LAHORE, Pakistan — At least seven people were killed on Wednesday in a suicide attack at the office of a governing-party lawmaker in central Pakistan, and at least four people were wounded, police officials said. The motive for the attack in Taunsa, a remote town in the Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab Province, remained unclear. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Image Rescue workers at the site of a suicide bombing in Taunsa, Pakistan, on Wednesday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The lawmaker, Sardar Amjad Farooq Khan Khosa, was in Islamabad, the capital, at the time of the attack. “I don’t know what can be the motive behind the bombing,” Mr. Khosa said by phone, adding that he had not received threats from any militant groups and had no disputes with anyone. Dozens of people were at the office building when the suicide bomber detonated explosives, the police said, for a meeting of junior officials of the party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. “The body parts of the suicide bomber have been recovered,” said Ghulam Mubashir Maken, the district police chief. Mr. Maken said that the attack could have been made in retaliation for the killing in July of Malik Ishaq, a former leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an anti-Shiite militant group.

Pakistan
Punjab Pakistan
Bombs
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Islamabad
Terrorism
Fatalities,casualties
Civilian casualties


From Contribution Limits to the Sage Grouse: What Is in the Spending Bill?

Abstract: Congress is finishing work on a $1.1 trillion bill that finances operations of most federal agencies and includes dozens of policy riders and directives. Here are some highlights: DODD-FRANK Relaxes restrictions on big banks’ trading of certain risky financial instruments known as swaps. Restrictions were imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law. CAMPAIGN FINANCE Greatly increases federal limits on individual contributions to national political parties and their congressional campaign committees. PENSIONS Allows trustees of certain multiemployer pension plans to cut retirees’ benefits, keeping the plans solvent without a government bailout. E.P.A. Cuts funds for the Environmental Protection Agency; prohibits the agency from regulating the lead content of ammunition or fishing tackle. HEALTH Provides $5.4 billion to fight Ebola in the United States and abroad. Leaves the Affordable Care Act largely intact; limits certain subsidy payments to health insurance companies. MILITARY Provides $64 billion for “overseas contingency operations,” including military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. MISCELLANEOUS  Prohibits the Fish and Wildlife Service from listing the sage grouse as an endangered species.  Prevents the Army Corps of Engineers from regulating farm ponds and irrigation ditches under the Clean Water Act.  Prohibits an increase on the $230,700 annual salary of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.  Requires the Obama administration to include white potatoes in a nutrition program for women, infants and children.  Forbids legalization of marijuana sales in the District of Columbia. ROBERT PEAR

Federal Budget
Senate
Congress
House of Representatives
Congress


Drone Strikes to be Investigated

Abstract: The United Nations is setting up a unit to investigate American drone strikes and other targeted killings of terrorist suspects, Ben Emmerson, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said Thursday. The unit would study civilian casualties in such strikes and “seek explanations” from the countries carrying them out and from the nations where they occur, he said. The United States and Israel have carried out far more strikes than any other country.

Drones (Pilotless Planes)
Targeted Killings
Civilian Casualties
United Nations


Support at Fed for Slow Stimulus Cuts

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve’s decision in December to taper its bond-buying campaign reflected increased confidence in the economy and continued uneasiness about the stimulus effort, according to an official account of the December meeting. The retreat, however, is likely to proceed slowly. The account, published on Wednesday , said most Fed officials still regarded the monthly purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities as effective in stimulating job growth. With unemployment still widespread, it said they saw little justification for completing the retreat from bond buying “now or relatively soon.” The Fed plans to expand its bond holdings by $75 billion this month, down from $85 billion each month last year, and officials have suggested a similar cut is the most likely result when the Fed’s policy-making committee next meets in late January. The Fed’s path forward is a final compromise forged by its outgoing chairman, Ben S. Bernanke. Some Fed officials worry that the economy needs still more help; others argue that the Fed already is doing more harm than good. Mr. Bernanke, who will step down at the end of the month, predicted in June that the Fed would decide to taper by the end of the year, and it did. “Participants generally anticipated that the improvement in labor market conditions would continue, and most had become more confident in that outlook,” the account said. “Against this backdrop, most participants saw a reduction in the pace of purchases as appropriate at this meeting and consistent with the committee’s previous policy communications.” The next wave of decisions will be made under new leadership. The Senate confirmed the Fed’s vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, as Mr. Bernanke’s successor earlier this week . She will lead her first meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee in March. While Ms. Yellen has expressed concerns about the labor market, she supported the decision to start tempering the stimulus efforts. Fed officials are increasingly confident that the economy will grow more quickly in 2014. In part, the outlook is improving because there is no sign that the federal government is planning another round of spending cuts, which have slowed economic growth in recent years. The account noted that the economy has added a monthly average of 190,000 jobs over the last 15 months, and officials expect those numbers to increase. The Commerce Department plans on Friday to release employment data for December. Analysts expect the economy added 195,000 jobs last month. Image Ben S. Bernanke, Federal Reserve chief, and Janet L. Yellen. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images Eric S. Rosengren, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, was the sole dissenter at the December meeting. “I do not yet have sufficient confidence in this outlook to risk the removal of any monetary accommodation at this time,” he said then . But even Mr. Rosengren’s view of the economy has since brightened. He told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that he was reconciled to reducing bond purchases in $10 billion increments, though he cautioned against an increase in the pace of the retreat. “I’m comfortable with the current approach that it looks like we’re going to be following through on,” he said. Still, the minutes of the December meeting reflected lingering concern among Fed officials about two exceptions to the theme of recovery. The pace of price increases has remained sluggish, and the share of adults in the labor force has fallen. Prices increased by 0.9 percent over the 12 months ending in November, according to the most recent data from the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the Commerce Department’s index of personal consumption expenditures . That pace is well below the Fed’s 2 percent target, and Fed officials predict that inflation in 2014 will once again fall well short of that target. In a statement published after its December meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee said that it was watching inflation closely even as it reduced its support for the economy. Fed officials continue to predict that inflation will return to normal levels over the next several years, and they note that asset prices tied to inflation still reflect a similar expectation. The account said that some officials noted that prices for health care and financial services had climbed particularly slowly in recent years, holding down the overall rate of price increases, and they predicted that would prove transitory. Other officials, however, “raised the possibility that recent declines in inflation might suggest that the economic recovery was not as strong as some thought,” according to the minutes of the meeting. Fed officials also disagreed about the decline in labor force participation. The unemployment rate has decreased steadily over the last several years, reaching a new postrecession low of 7 percent in November, but that is largely because fewer people are looking for work. Job growth has kept pace with population growth; the share of adults with jobs has not increased. Some Fed officials say they see reduced participation as a direct result of the recession, and they argue that the Fed therefore must look beyond the unemployment rate in judging the need for additional stimulus. Others point to demographic explanations, like more workers reaching retirement age. Or they argue that monetary policy lacks the power to draw people back to work. The issue is likely to gain in importance as the Fed winds down its asset purchases. The central bank is expected to focus on the measure it regards as the core of its stimulus campaign, its declared intention to hold short-term interest rates near zero at least as long as the jobless rate remains above 6.5 percent. The Fed has said that it plans to keep rates near zero after that threshold is crossed. How much longer will rest in part on its conclusions about its power to increase labor force participation.

US Economy
Quantitative easing
Federal Reserve
Ben S Bernanke
Jobs


Bristol-Myers Ends Work on Hepatitis C Drug

Abstract: Bristol-Myers Squibb said Thursday that it was discontinuing development of a hepatitis C drug that it had acquired in a $2.5 billion deal, after nine patients in a clinical trial had to be hospitalized and one of them died. The company suspended testing of the drug on Aug. 1, after one patient in a midstage clinical trial experienced heart failure . At that time, however, there was still some question of whether the drug, known as BMS-986094, had caused the problem. But Thursday evening, the company said that initial patient had died and that eight other patients also had to be hospitalized. Two of them remained hospitalized. “While the cause of these unexpected events, which involve heart and kidney toxicity, has not been definitively established, the company has determined that it is in the best interest of patients to halt development of BMS-986094,” the company said in a statement. The scrapping of the drug is a big setback for Bristol-Myers in the heated race to develop a combination of pills to treat hepatitis C, a viral infection that can cause liver scarring and liver cancer . Current treatment now involves up to a year of weekly injections with alpha interferon, which causes severe side effects. The hope is that combinations of pills that work by different mechanisms could eradicate hepatitis C without the need for interferon. So companies are scrambling to assemble the components of such an all-oral regimen. Bristol-Myers paid $2.5 billion in January to acquire Inhibitex, which was developing the drug that became known as BMS-986094. Bristol-Myers hoped to combine that drug with daclatasvir, another hepatitis C drug that it is continuing to test in clinical trials. One question is whether the troubles with BMS-986094 will extend to other drugs in its class, known as nucleotide polymerase inhibitors. Last week, Idenix Pharmaceuticals said the Food and Drug Administration placed a hold on a trial of its nucleotide polymerase inhibitor, IDX184, because of the heart failure case in the Bristol-Myers trial. Idenix said it had not seen any cardiac toxicity with its drug. Gilead Sciences also has a drug in that class that it obtained by acquiring Pharmasset for $11 billion, though that drug, GS-7977, is somewhat different chemically.

Clinical Trials
Hepatitis
Bristol Myers Squibb Company
Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)


Pirates and Reds Renew a Rivalry

Abstract: PITTSBURGH — It is only natural for the Cincinnati Reds to be here for the first playoff game at PNC Park. They were here for the opener, in 2001, and for decades they have risen and fallen in tandem with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The teams traded National League pennants at the start of the 1960s and again at the dawn of the ’70s, when they both won two titles. Neither team reached the playoffs in the 1980s, but both started the ’90s as division champions. They fell on hard times in the early 2000s, despite moving from multipurpose bowls to charming little ballparks along riverbanks. Joe Morgan played his last Reds playoff game in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente played the last game of his life in the playoffs in Cincinnati. The teams matched up four times in the N.L.C.S. in the 1970s, and again in 1990. “The rivalry’s been very, very good over the years, simply because of the similarities of the cities,” said Jay Bell, the Pirates’ hitting coach and their former shortstop. “There’s a Midwest type of atmosphere in both cities, and the personalities of the fans are very similar. They’re passionate about their teams.” Bell still remembers the final inning of the 1990 series, with the Reds leading by a run in Game 6 in Cincinnati. With one out and a man on, the Pirates’ Carmelo Martinez drove a ball to deep right field. Over the fence, and the Pirates would be three outs away from forcing a seventh game. “Carmelo knocked the snot out of it,” Bell said. “It’s a home run. But they were playing no-doubles, and Glenn Braggs reached up over the fence and caught it.” The series ended one batter later, and the Reds went on to sweep Oakland in the World Series. The Pirates went on to lose seven-game heartbreakers to Atlanta in 1991 and 1992, precipitating two decades of losing seasons. The Reds have not won a postseason series in 18 years, but no team has suffered quite like the Pirates. The Reds, who have lost two division series in three years, cannot match the Pirates for sustained suffering. A Market Square rally Monday was just part of a citywide baseball catharsis. “For many of us out there, this organization was a crown jewel in your adolescence, when you were growing up — and then there was a famine,” Pirates Manager Clint Hurdle said. “As I shared with the people today, the heart is the most wonderful muscle that God has put in our body, and we’ve twisted yours for 21 years. But to show the strength of it, what are you feeling today?” The pride in this city should be evident Tuesday, with players encouraging fans to wear black, to match the team’s jersey. The Pirates will start the left-hander Francisco Liriano, who went 16-8 with a 3.02 earned run average after signing for a guarantee of only $1 million. His success put into effect a guaranteed contract with the Pirates for next season. Image Barry Bonds after striking out in Pittsburgh during the 1990 National League Championship Series against Cincinnati. The Reds took the series, 4-2. Credit Mark Duncan/Associated Press “In the past, when people came here, it was more of a rehabilitation center,” said Andrew McCutchen, the homegrown center fielder who will probably be named the N.L.’s most valuable player. “It’s true — guys came here at the end of their careers, thinking they were going to boost their game, have a good year and go somewhere else. Now, people come here because they want to be here. They want to be a part of a team that can change things, part of a team that can win.” The Pirates, whose home park favors pitchers, scored the fewest runs of any playoff team this season (3.91 a game). But they fortified their lineup in late August by trading for right fielder Marlon Byrd, who hit .318 after a trade from the Mets, and first baseman Justin Morneau, who hit .260 after coming over from Minnesota. Byrd is 7 for 12 with a home run in his career against the Reds’ Johnny Cueto, who will start on Tuesday. Then again, Cueto has dazzled in his career at PNC Park, with a 1.90 earned run average in 13 starts, mostly against inferior Pirates lineups. More important than the statistics will be Cueto’s health. He has started only twice since late June and made three trips to the disabled list this season with back problems. Cueto, who pitches with an exaggerated back twist, was forced from his playoff start in San Francisco last October after one batter because of back spasms. The Reds lost the series in five games. “Last year, we were positioned pretty good,” Manager Dusty Baker said. “The only problem we had last year is we didn’t have Johnny Cueto.” The Reds would have hosted this game if they had taken a series from the Pirates last weekend in Cincinnati. Instead, they lost three in a row, after falling twice to the Mets. They finished the regular season on a five-game losing streak, scoring only eight runs. “There’s only 10 of us left standing, and we’re proud to be one of the 10, no matter how you got there,” Baker said, referring to the playoff field. “They say you back in, you limp in. It don’t matter how you got there, just get there.” The surroundings are familiar for the Reds, but the charged atmosphere is unlikely to be their biggest impediment to a division-series date with the St. Louis Cardinals. Liriano is much more imposing. In his career, he has handcuffed some of the Reds’ best hitters, including Shin-Soo Choo (6 for 31), Jay Bruce (0 for 11) and Joey Votto (2 for 10). For all of the teams’ shared history, the game will not come down to black T-shirts or Jolly Roger flags or the longing of a proud and loyal fan base. Even Hurdle, who leads the cheers, concedes that. “The beauty of it is, once the game starts, you’ve got a game again,” he said. “Our guys are looking forward to the opportunity.”

Pittsburgh Pirates
Reds
Baseball
Clint Hurdle
Dusty Baker


With Concern Over Protests, Blatter Warns Brazil

Abstract: FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, said Brazil will be seen as the wrong choice as host of the 2014 World Cup if the tournament is affected by social protests similar to those at the Confederations Cup. “Though protests, if peaceful, are part of democracy and therefore have to be accepted,” Blatter said, “we are convinced the government, and especially the president, will find the words and the actions to prevent a repeat. They have a year to do so.” Blatter also said he planned to ask the executive committee to consider moving the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to the winter to avoid the searing summer heat. “You can cool down the stadiums, but you can’t cool down the whole country,” he said.

Soccer
2014 World Cup
Sepp Blatter
Brazil


A Flight to Treasury Bonds That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen

Abstract: WHEN Treasury bonds are hotter than stocks , it’s a sign that something is very wrong with the stock market. That has been the pattern lately, though. In a reprise of the flight to safety that occurred during the financial crisis of 2008 and early 2009, people have been parking cash in Treasuries and fleeing stocks, which, of course, have had better long-term returns historically. “It’s classic risk-aversion,” said Gregg S. Fisher, chief investment officer at Gerstein Fisher, a financial advisory firm in New York. “We’ve seen this happen before.” This time around, the great cash migration started with the debt crisis in Greece and elsewhere in Europe, not in the United States, but the effects on the American stock and bond markets have nonetheless been severe. Last month, for example, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index dropped 8.2 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 7.9 percent, making it the worst May for stocks, in percentage terms, since 1940. For people holding Treasury bonds, it’s been one of the best of times. In May, long-term Treasury mutual funds outperformed every traditional category of stock fund, according to Morningstar data, returning 5 percent. Ominously, only bear market funds — those dedicated to bets on a stock market decline — fared better. They returned 8 percent. These trends continued last week, with the Dow and the S.& P. 500 each falling more than 3 percent further. And as demand for Treasuries has risen, yields have plummeted, while prices, which move in the opposite direction, have soared. This price surge has turbocharged long-term Treasury mutual funds, despite the paltry yields of the underlying bonds. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield dropped as low as 3.16 percent on May 25, down from 3.99 percent as recently as April 5, according to Bloomberg data. It stood at 3.20 percent on Friday. People with cash in money market funds are getting a much, much lower yield than that — only 0.07 percent annually for the largest funds, on average, according to Peter G. Crane, the president of Crane Data of Westborough, Mass. That’s better than the 0.05 percent average of earlier this year — but not enough to make a difference. “It’s still awfully close to zero,” he said. “The amazing thing is that even at these rates, when you’re getting virtually no return on your money at all, people are still moving cash into money market funds. It’s sobering.” It is also sobering that a vast majority of economists and market strategists were forecasting a different chain of events. Treasury yields were universally expected to be rising, not falling, as the United States recovered from a deep recession . The domestic economy is, in fact, growing, and corporate profits have been rising, but the European crisis has overturned many expectations. Barry Knapp, United States equity strategist at Barclays Capital, got some of the outlines right, if not the details. “Sometimes, you’re correct for other reasons,” he said. He had predicted that after a long run upward, the stock market would fall in the first half of the year, and it has, putting stocks in “correction” territory. So far, so good. But Mr. Knapp had thought that the stock market decline would be set off by a tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, which has operated on an emergency basis since the onset of the financial crisis in the United States. The Fed hasn’t tightened. Instead, to keep the economy stable in the face of Europe’s problems, it has held short-term interest rates near zero. In addition, it reopened emergency swap lines with European central banks last month, to help maintain liquidity there. Similarly, Joseph H. Davis, Vanguard’s chief economist, had said it was likely that long-term interest rates would be rising and that the Fed would be moving short-term rates up more dramatically. That will still happen eventually, he said, but the timing is far from certain. “We got it wrong,” he said cheerfully. “Of course, we did warn that there was a good chance that might happen.” In a detailed 16-page analysis of the bond market in March, Mr. Davis and several Vanguard associates deconstructed Treasury yields and projected rates using the “forward yield curve,” a standard calculation of the market’s assessment of future interest rate levels. This kind of analysis makes use of the information embedded in prices, but it won’t tell you what will happen to the bond and stock markets if something unexpected arises — like Greece suddenly running into a credit wall. What comfort can be drawn from these uncertain markets? First, the Vanguard study found that even a climb in Treasury yields needn’t be devastating for well-run long-term bond portfolios, because higher yields can more than compensate for lower bond prices. Such management may not be easy to do on your own, but the study found that many mutual funds have handled the transition well in past market cycles. Second, at the moment, investment-grade bonds are very richly priced in comparison with stocks, several analysts said. Mr. Knapp says he expects that the S.& P. 500 will rise to 1,210 by the end of the year, or 13.6 percent from its current 1,064.88, and that the chances for strong longer-term stock returns are favorable. (The outlook for Treasuries is not positive, he said.) MR. DAVIS said that there is a very “strong correlation” between low Treasury yields and subsequent strong economic growth. And there is a weaker but still significant connection between low yields and high stock returns. In short, at current prices, it would appear that there is some reason for long-term optimism for stock investors. For the short run, alas, more volatility is probably in order. “The problems in Europe, for one, aren’t going away any time soon,” Mr. Knapp said. People seeking safety are likely to face very low yields for a while. Unless you’re focused on a distant horizon, it may be a difficult summer.

Greece
Economic Conditions and Trends
Stocks and Bonds


On North Korea, China Prefers Fence

Abstract: BEIJING — In the best of times, Chinese foreign affairs scholars here say, Beijing grits its teeth while playing best friend to Kim Jong-il , North Korea ’s ailing and erratic 68-year-old leader. South Korea ’s charge last week that North Korea sank one of its warships , killing 46 crewmen, makes that role exponentially harder. With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 200 other American officials here for high-level security and economic talks, Chinese leaders face two unpalatable options. One is to mollify North Korea, and risk undermining its efforts to convince the United States, South Korea and Japan that China is a stabilizing force in East Asia. The other is to join those nations and the United Nations Security Council in condemning North Korea for the attack, which North Korea denies, and risk a wholly unpredictable response from a volatile neighbor. So far, China has sought to straddle the two, saying only that both Koreas should show restraint in the midst of a brewing crisis. But Mrs. Clinton, who has publicly cited “overwhelming” evidence that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean corvette, the Cheonan , is pressing Chinese officials to take an unequivocal stance. South Korea, which China has assiduously courted as a major trading partner and diplomatic friend, is making the same case. The sinking and its aftermath have reignited much the same debate that took place last year, after North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in April and conducted an underground nuclear test less than two months later. After balking at first, China eventually agreed to a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning the nuclear test and tightening existing sanctions. The United States, Japan and South Korea are uniting behind a similarly strong response this time. South Korea is expected to ask the Security Council on Monday to condemn the sinking of the 1,200-ton warship, which it says caused one of the largest losses of military personnel since the end of the Korean War. Mrs. Clinton is pushing Beijing to back the effort. “The North Koreans will be more easily dissuaded from further attacks like this if they don’t get cover from China, “ said Michael J. Green, an Asia specialist with the Center for International Studies in Washington. “So it’s absolutely critical to Korea and the United States that China send that signal.” But in discussions that began Sunday, China was resisting, and it has been skeptical of the claim that the North was responsible for sinking the ship. Scholars say such misgivings are typical when China is asked to side against North Korea. “There’s not much more that can be done to sanction North Korea,” said Shen Jiru, a strategic studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “China basically feels that sanctions or other tough measures only serve to escalate conflict with North Korea, and others tend to agree.” Still, a small but influential group of Chinese scholars insist that accommodating North Korea has not worked, and China needs to take a new and tougher tack. “The Chinese government so far has done too much to protect North Korea,” said Chu Shulong, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “Why should we protect them? Why should we treat them so specially? I think China needs to change its approach.” Wei Zhijiang, a visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Tokyo who specializes in North Korea, said that if China decides not to support a Security Council resolution, it should push for some other punishment. “Certainly North Korea must pay the price somehow,” he said. “Maybe apologize, pay compensation and promise this will not happen again.” China’s reluctance to censure the North is not rooted in affection for its policies. In private discussions, one American analyst said Sunday, Chinese officials express frustration with North Korea’s growing belligerence. But like their Washington counterparts, they say, they have no good option to deal with it. Officials here worry that more pressure on North Korea will prove counterproductive, and some recent history backs them: after China joined other nations last year in protesting the missile launch, Mr. Kim reacted by pulling out of the six-nation talks, chaired by China, aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. This time, the North Korean government has threatened “all-out war” if it is punished for the Cheonan sinking. “China remembers this lesson,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “I think this time our leaders are a little bit afraid of Kim Jong-il.” China’s other worry is strategic: if relations with the North sour because its leaders fear China is aligning with the West against it, China could face an unstable and now nuclear-armed adversary on its border. And if international pressure leads to the collapse of the North’s government and eventually a unified, democratic Korea allied with the United States, China’s power in the region would be weakened. A collapse could also unleash a flood of refugees across the Chinese border, a phenomenon China experienced in the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of North Koreans, if not more, fled widespread famine in their homeland. So Beijing has tried to support North Korea while gently edging it toward economic reform and nuclear disarmament. To keep the North’s government afloat, China provides food, fuel and, by some estimates, 90 percent of North Korea’s industrial goods. It also continues to invest there, positioning itself, some analysts say, for a post-Kim Jong-il period. In recent years, China has bought rights to several North Korean coal and mineral mines. In February, China and North Korea announced a deal to build a four-lane bridge across the Yalu River that marks the border. North Korea also recently agreed to lease its Rajin Port, giving inland northeast China long-sought access to the Sea of Japan. Yet despite North Korea’s growing dependence on China, officials in Beijing complain that they have very little leverage over Mr. Kim’s behavior. Mr. Wei, the China scholar at Tokyo University, said China considered it a victory when Mr. Kim agreed this month in Beijing to more communication and cooperation with China on regional and international issues. The past few weeks have shown just how awkward it can be for China to walk the line between courting the South and propping up the North. On April 27, as his nation’s forensic investigation drew to a close, President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea flew to Shanghai to try to persuade President Hu Jintao of China that North Korea had sunk the Cheonan and should be rebuked. The following week, President Hu hosted the reclusive Mr. Kim in Beijing. Some Chinese scholars said the visit, Mr. Kim’s first to China in four years, showed their government’s desire to keep trying to push the North in the right direction. But South Koreans saw it as a slap in the face to their president — who one analyst said had asked President Hu to postpone or cancel the visit — and a reassuring nod to North Korea at precisely the wrong time. This weekend, perhaps as a conciliatory gesture, China announced that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao would travel to Seoul, the South Korean capital, at the end of the month.

South Korea
North Korea
Cheonan (Ship)
China
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Kim Jong Il
Security Council (UN)
International Relations


A More Secular Europe, Divided by the Cross

Abstract: BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Stanislav Zvolensky, the Roman Catholic archbishop of the Slovak capital here, was thrilled when he was invited to Brussels three years ago to discuss the fight against poverty with the insistently secular bureaucracy of the European Union. “They let me in wearing my cross,” the archbishop recalled. It therefore came as a rude surprise when, late last year, the National Bank of Slovakia announced that the European Commission, the union’s executive arm, had ordered it to remove halos and crosses from special commemorative euro coins due to be minted this summer. The coins, designed by a local artist, were intended to celebrate the 1,150th anniversary of Christianity’s arrival in Slovak lands but have instead become tokens of the faith’s retreat from contemporary Europe. They featured two evangelizing Byzantine monks, Cyril and Methodius, their heads crowned by halos and one’s robe decorated with crosses, which fell foul of European diversity rules that ban any tilt toward a single faith. “There is a movement in the European Union that wants total religious neutrality and can’t accept our Christian traditions,” said Archbishop Zvolensky, bemoaning what he sees as rising a tide of militant secularism at a time when Europe is struggling to forge a common identity. In a continent divided by many languages, vast differences of culture and economic gaps, the archbishop said that centuries of Christianity provide a rare element shared by all of the soon-to-be 28 members of the fractious union. Croatia, a mostly Catholic nation like Slovakia, joins next month. Yet at a time when Europe needs solidarity and a unified sense of purpose to grapple with its seemingly endless economic crisis, religion has instead become yet another a source of discord. It divides mostly secular Western Europe from profoundly religious nations in the east like Poland and those in between both in geography and in faith like Slovakia. In nearly all of Europe, assertive secularists and beleaguered believers battle to make their voices heard. All of which leaves the European Commission, in charge of shaping Europe’s common aspirations, under attack from all sides, denounced by atheists for even its timid engagement with religion and by nationalist Christian fundamentalists as an agent of Satan. Asked about such criticism, Katharina von Schnurbein, the commission official responsible for outreach to both religious and secular groups, smiled and said, “I can assure you that the European Commission is not the Antichrist.” Europe is suffused with Christianity, or at least memories of its past influence. The landscape is dotted with churches, now mostly empty, and monasteries, its ancient universities are rooted in medieval religious scholarship, and many of its national crests and anthems pay homage to God. Even the European Union’s flag — a circle of 12 yellow stars on a blue background — has a coded Christian message. Arsène Heitz, a French Catholic who designed the flag in 1955, drew inspiration from Christian iconography of the Virgin Mary wearing a crown with 12 stars. The same 12 stars appear on all euro coins. The very idea that Europe should unite began with efforts to rally Christendom in the ninth century by Charlemagne, the first ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Throughout its modern history, however, the “European project,” as the Continent’s current faltering push for unity is known, has sought to keep religion and the unruly passions it can stir at arm’s length. The 1957 Treaty of Rome and other founding texts of what is today the European Union make no mention of God or Christianity. The Brussels bureaucracy, in its official account of Mr. Heitz’s religion-tinged flag, ignores the Virgin Mary, stating instead that the 12 stars “symbolize the ideal of unity, solidarity and harmony among the people of Europe.” “There is a general suspicion of anything religious, a view that faith should be kept out of the public sphere,” said Gudrun Kugler, director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, a Vienna-based research and lobbying group. “There is a very strong current of radical secularism,” she said, adding that this affects all religions but is particularly strong against Christianity because of a view that “Christianity dominated unfairly for centuries” and needs to be put in its place. Ms. von Schnurbein dismissed accusations of an anti-Christian agenda. The European Union, she said, “is often seen as trying to eliminate religion, but that is really not the case.” She added, “We deal with people of faith and also people of no faith.” Image The European Commission at first ordered Slovakia to revise its monks-in-halos design for a commemorative euro coin. Credit European Commission Obliged by treaty to consult with religious and secular groups, the European Commission, said Ms. von Schnurbein, attaches “great importance” to this dialogue, which she described as “unique” for an international body. The commission’s monetary and economic affairs department that ordered Slovakia to redesign its commemorative euro coins says it had no real problem itself with halos and crosses and demanded that they be deleted in the interest of “religious diversity” because of complaints from countries that also use the euro. Leading the charge was France, which enforces a rigid division of church and state at home, and objected to Christian symbols appearing on Slovak money that would also be legal tender in France. Greece, where church and state are closely intertwined, also protested, apparently because it considers the Greek-born monks Cyril and Methodius as part of its own heritage. For the European Union’s most strident critics, the dispute has been a godsend, buttressing their argument that Brussels is an alien, meddling and sinister force. “I need to voice a serious and disturbing suspicion: that the E.U. is under the control of Satan or Satanism,” said Rafael Rafaj of the Slovak National Party, a far-right nationalist party. The view that the European Union serves Satan has become a popular theme for some extreme Christian fundamentalists, who cite the Bible’s Book of Revelation as proof that dissolving national boundaries signals an approaching apocalypse. Yet, several of the union’s most senior figures are themselves Catholics, as were most of its founding fathers, including Germany’s first postwar chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Germany’s current leader, Angela Merkel, the daughter of a pastor, has been outspoken in defending Christianity, telling supporters worried about the increasing number of Muslims that “we don’t have too much Islam, we have too little Christianity.” The Brussels bureaucratic apparatus, however, is “uncomfortable with religion,” said Lucian Leustean, a scholar at Aston University in Britain and the editor of a 2012 book, “Representing Religion in the European Union: Does God Matter?” This is partly due to the rise of well-organized secular groups that pounce on any hint that Christians are being favored over other religions or nonbelievers. But a bigger reason, said Mr. Leustean, is a shift in demography and public attitudes. Church attendance is falling across Europe as belief in God wanes and even cultural attachments wither. The Continent’s fastest-growing faith is now Islam. In Britain, according to a poll last year, more people believe in extraterrestrials than in God. In the European Union as a whole, according to a 2010 survey, around half the population believes in God, compared with over 90 percent in the United States. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe slowed the secular tide somewhat as the European Union began to admit new and sometimes deeply religious countries like Poland and Romania. Jacques Delors, the president of the European Commission in the 1990s, kicked off a debate on the “soul of Europe” and held informal meetings with church and other religious leaders. But when Europe set about drafting a constitution in the early years of the last decade, demands that Europe’s Christian heritage be mentioned ran into bitter resistance and were eventually dropped. The religious question resurfaced again with the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon, which skipped any reference to Christianity and instead paid tribute to the “cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe.” It mandated dialogue with religious groups. But it also ordered equal treatment for “philosophical and non-confessional organizations,” which include groups whose principal philosophy is hostility to organized religion. Archbishop Zvolensky of Bratislava predicted that efforts at European unity are doomed unless the union gives a bigger place to God. “Religion should be the inner strength of the union,” he said. He does see one encouraging sign: Slovakia’s national bank has decided to stick with its original coin design and abandon plans for a halo-free minting in honor of Cyril and Methodius. The European Commission has gone along with this, and the commemorative coins will finally be minted next month — two months later than originally planned — but with halos and crosses.

EU
Separation of church and state
Christianity
Euro
Catholic Church
Stanislav Zvolensky


Upgrading the Stress Levels

Abstract: As if the shoes-off routine, charges for checked bags and missed flight connections were not enough, business travelers now have to cope with a global financial crisis that is diverting their attention as well as rattling their contacts here and abroad. It all adds up to a spike in the unusual stresses that plague business travel, from unfamiliar hotels to sudden switches in travel plans. Experts at the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School along with independent psychologists agree that road life now is more stressful than in the past. “Back in the 1980s, you could drive to the airport and walk to the gate without thinking of terrorist threats or banks collapsing,” said Rex P. Gatto, a business psychologist based in Pittsburgh. “Now there’s only anxiety.” In its latest annual “Stress in America” survey, based on 2,507 online interviews in September, the American Psychological Association found that economic factors were the No. 1 cause of anxiety. Researchers have uncovered links between stress and dozens of physical ailments, including some cancers and heart disease. A landmark study of some 10,800 employees at the World Bank in 1997 found that those who traveled accounted for 80 percent more medical claims than nontravelers. In the current economic turmoil, Nancy Molitor, a psychologist in Wilmette, Ill., an affluent Chicago suburb, said that many more of her clients had problems related to stress. “In my 20 years of practice I’ve never seen such anxiety among my patients,” she said. The globalization of business had already added to the stresses of business travel. “When you travel in another country with another culture and try to get multitask projects done to meet deadlines, you can feel overwhelmed,” said Dr. Abinash Virk, director of the Mayo Clinic’s travel program. Several of the experts said technological advances might be adding to the troubles. “Technology is not the best friend of business travelers,” Mr. Gatto said. “Getting e-mails all day. Doing a deal on your cellphone while trying to beat the long lines at an airport. Frequent fliers just take on too much.” Dr. Mary FitzPatrick, associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said she believed “the Internet keeps people in touch more than they should,” adding: “And there’s the CNN phenomenon — a constant, 24-hour barrage of disturbing news.” Of course, stress is not all bad. It can make workers more productive and resourceful. The physiologist Hans Selye, called the father of stress research, identified “good” stress — the adrenaline rush that helps people overcome obstacles — and “chronic” stress, which may easily turn into distress. Some travelers are better able to deal with the travails of business trips than others. Take a flight delay of several hours, for example. “When the word comes over the loudspeaker, some passengers take it in stride — watching TV, browsing the shops — while others can’t stop running up to the counter for the latest update,” said Howard Glazer, associate attending psychologist at New York Presbyterian Hospital. “There you have it — two personality types dealing with the same event. One takes it as a small bump in the road while the other considers it exasperating.” Stress, he added, “clearly is in the eye of the beholder.” Backstopped by many medical studies, cognitive behavior therapists are generally confident that there are effective ways for business travelers to handle stress. One of the most popular treatments is the stress management system developed in the 1970s by Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine in Boston. His techniques for easing stress range from “meditation on the go” to deep breathing and massages, all described in the book “ The Relaxation Response .” Dr. Virk, of the Mayo Clinic, said she favored taking time out each day to relax. “Go for a walk,” she said. “Think about something unrelated to what you’re doing on your business trip. Wherever you are — here or in Cambodia — exercise.” “There are executives who travel a lot and can sleep four hours and still be calm,” she said. “Discipline is the key to coping with stress. Veteran travelers know how to break the daily mental process and look at things with a different perspective.” Are some business travelers getting better at handling stress? “You have to be,” Dr. Virk replied. “The world now is not how it was. Everything happens at a faster pace.”


Caring for a Son With Asthma

Abstract: At age 2, Elijah Rodriguez has already logged a lot of hours at three places most New Yorkers hope they never have to visit: the emergency room, a homeless shelter and Rikers Island. Elijah has severe asthma. During the first year of his life, his mother, Nadine Serrano, 29, made dozens of panicked trips to the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, carrying her son in her arms as he gasped for breath. The frequency of the trips cost Ms. Serrano her job at Nebraskaland, a meat distributor in the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, where she worked as a customer service specialist. At the time, she and her son, neither of whom received support from Elijah’s father, lived with Ms. Serrano’s mother, a nurse at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx. But when her mother could no longer afford to let them stay with her, Ms. Serrano and Elijah had to enter a shelter. Within a few months, Ms. Serrano had secured a new job, at a day care center. On Feb. 4, she headed to the Palisades Mall to buy an outfit for her first day of work. Driving down the Edward L. Grant Highway, she turned left onto 170th Street, where an oncoming car went through a red light and smashed into her car, a 1993 Toyota Camry. “I really loved that car,” Ms. Serrano said the other day, sitting in the Rincon Ecuatoriano, a cafe in the Bronx. She now has four herniated disks in her back and one in her neck. The injuries, which still cause her pain, prevented her from working at the day care center and thwarted her hopes of leaving the shelter system. “I want to work, but I don’t know what my body is going to tell me,” Ms. Serrano said. “And I’m starting to get weary.” As Elijah slept in the stroller beside her, she tilted the sugar dispenser over her coffee and let it pour. This summer presented a new set of hurdles. Specialists at the Montefiore Asthma Center recommended that to help Elijah breathe during the hot summer months, Ms. Serrano buy an air-conditioning unit with an antimicrobial filter. But Ms. Serrano could not afford it. Besides, she said, the shelter did not allow residents to use air-conditioners, partly because of the steel guards on the windows. During the heat wave in July, the hottest month ever recorded in the United States, Ms. Serrano improvised. “I bought an air purifier for 50 bucks, plus a high-velocity fan and four box fans,” she said. “At night I’d wet a towel for us to lay on, so when the fans hit us it felt sort of like a cool breeze.” Near the end of the month, Ms. Serrano was referred to caseworkers at the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies , one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Once Ms. Serrano received authorization to use a portable air-conditioner in her room, the agency drew $590 from the fund to buy the machine. Ms. Serrano now receives $250 a month in public assistance and $283 a month in food stamps. She has also received several $800 checks since September, the result of an insurance settlement over wages lost because of her accident. “Those checks were a godsend,” Ms. Serrano said, adding that she used the money to buy hypoallergenic sheets and unscented cleaning products to help quell Elijah’s asthma. A small percentage, she said, went toward some “nonmaternity clothes.” “After the baby, I shrunk from a size 18 to a size 11,” she said proudly. Elijah was prescribed Budesonide inhalers by Montefiore and has not visited the emergency room since February. Medicaid covered the costs of the inhalers and the family’s other medical expenses. He has also stopped visiting Rikers Island. Elijah’s father was incarcerated shortly after Elijah’s birth, Ms. Serrano said, and remained in jail until July of this year. “It’s not a positive environment for a child,” she said of Rikers Island. “But I thought it was important he know who his father is.” Elijah now spends a few hours with his father each Saturday, she said. On Oct. 10, Ms. Serrano and her son moved to a new shelter, the Willow Avenue Family Residence in the Bronx. The room’s thin mattress and rickety bed frame have exacerbated her back injuries, she said, providing both an incentive and an obstacle to finding a new job and an apartment. “There’s times I wake up and can’t move,” Ms. Serrano said, adding that she was undergoing physical therapy. Ms. Serrano said she wanted to complete her degree at Manhattan Community College, where she studied office operations for two years before leaving for personal reasons. The long hours she has spent at hospitals of late have also kindled an interest in nursing. “There are less fortunate people I’d like to help,” she said, “but I’m the one who needs help right now.” As she spoke, Elijah stirred to life beside her. “Hi, sweetheart,” Ms. Serrano said, smiling down at him. Elijah blinked his eyes open, and smiled back. “Hi, Mommy,” he said.


Retired F.B.I. Agents Join Cause of 4 Sailors Convicted in ’97 Rape-Murder

Abstract: RICHMOND, Va. — F.B.I. agents rarely comment on criminal convictions. It is even more uncommon for them to argue that someone has been wrongly convicted. But on Monday, 30 former agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took up the cause of four sailors, known as the Norfolk Four, who were convicted in a 1997 rape and murder. Arguing that DNA and forensic evidence points to a prison inmate who has confessed as the sole perpetrator of the crimes, they called on Gov. Tim Kaine to pardon the sailors. “After careful review of the evidence we have arrived at one unequivocal conclusion: The Norfolk Four are innocent,” said Jay Cochran, a former assistant director of the F.B.I. and former special agent who served at the bureau for 27 years. “We believe a tragic mistake has occurred in the case of these four Navy men, and we are calling on Governor Kaine to grant them immediate pardons.” The former agents join a long list of unusual supporters, including four former Virginia attorneys general; 12 former state and federal judges and prosecutors; and a past president of the Virginia Bar Association, who have called for the men to be pardoned. In January 2006, 13 jurors from two of the sailors’ trials signed letters and affidavits saying they now believed the men were innocent. The sailors initially confessed to the crime after being threatened with the death penalty if they did not cooperate. But they quickly recanted. Three of the four — Derek Tice, Danial Williams and Joseph Dick Jr. — are serving life sentences in Virginia prisons for the rape and murder. A fourth man, Eric Wilson, was released in 2005 after serving eight and a half years for the rape conviction. After the sailors were arrested, another man, Omar Ballard, confessed that he committed the crimes. His DNA matched evidence from the scene, while none of the arrested sailors, who numbered seven at one point, had DNA that matched the evidence. Mr. Ballard had a history of violence against women in the Norfolk neighborhood where the victim, Michelle Moore-Bosko lived. Mr. Ballard was convicted in her rape and murder, along with two other sexual assaults in her neighborhood. The former agents, 26 of whom sent the governor a letter in July calling for a pardon for the sailors, said the forensic and crime scene evidence showed that only one person sexually assaulted and killed the victim. Mr. Ballard knew the victim and her husband because they had opened the door to their apartment and rescued him when he was being chased by a crowd of men in reaction to an assault on a woman about two weeks before Ms. Moore-Bosko was killed. “We are not bleeding hearts, and we don’t take this type of public action lightly,” said Mr. Cochran, who, like the other dozen agents gathered at a Richmond hotel for a news conference, was wearing a blue button that said “Free the Norfolk Four.” “However, we also believe that law enforcement has an obligation to protect the most innocent from wrongful conviction.” Ms. Moore-Bosko’s mother, Carol Moore of Pittsburgh, could not be reached for comment. But in a statement in January, she said: “Derek Tice and the Norfolk Four confessed to the rape and murder of our daughter. These men are guilty and we pray that our family will not have to suffer through any more appeals.” The governor’s office declined to comment on the case except to say that it was still reviewing the clemency petition. George H. Kendall, a lawyer helping with the pardon effort, said that in all likelihood police investigators elicited one false confession and used it and the threat of the death penalty to set off a “domino effect,” resulting in the others. Serious inconsistencies suggested the confessions were not legitimate, the agents said. The accounts did not mesh with the evidence. The tidy appearance of Ms. Moore-Bosko’s apartment and pattern of her wounds suggested a single assailant, not seven, as the police originally contended. The stories of the four men contradicted one another. Above all, the police found no physical evidence tying the four sailors, a least one of whom lived in Ms. Moore-Bosko’s neighborhood, to the murder scene. In early 1999, when seven men were in jail awaiting trial in the killing of Ms. Moore-Bosko, Mr. Ballard wrote a letter from prison bragging to a friend that he had committed the crime. He provided a detailed account of the killing and insisted that he had acted alone. By then, Mr. Williams had pleaded guilty, with an agreement that he would not receive the death penalty. He was not allowed to withdraw his plea. Mr. Dick had made a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against Mr. Tice. Mr. Tice had given a tape-recorded confession, although some details he provided about the crime were inaccurate. Mr. Wilson was charged only with rape. The other three sailors did not confess, and charges against them were eventually dismissed. “The governor is really the only person in a position to see the entirety of the evidence regarding these men,” Mr. Kendall said, noting that each defendant had been tried separately. Moreover, he said the jurors and judges during the trials never heard that the detective who had elicited the confessions had been reprimanded before for having elicited false ones. They also did not hear about Mr. Ballard’s history of sexual assaults in Ms. Moore-Bosko’s neighborhood. Shaking her head, Rhea Williams, the mother of Danial Williams, said she found it encouraging but emotionally exhausting to hear the F.B.I. agents present their views on the case. As she went to get coffee for her 14-hour drive back to Owosso, Mich., her eyes filled with tears. “The only problem with these things,” Ms. Williams said, “is that we still have to go home without our boys.”

Norfolk (Va)
Sex Crimes
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Amnesties Commutations and Pardons
Murders and Attempted Murders
Kaine Timothy M


For Giants’ Justin Tuck, Push for Reading Starts at Home

Abstract: FORT LEE, N.J. — Jayce Tuck is a typical 2-year-old. He is precious to his parents, loves chasing a soccer ball in the backyard and has an abiding passion for “cooking,” which recently meant standing in the kitchen, mixing a concoction of salt, pepper and whipped cream in a bowl, then stirring continually. Jayce also loves books. And so at least once or twice a day, he will toddle over to his mother or father with a few of his favorites. Dr. Seuss is a popular choice. So, too, is anything from the “I Spy” series. Sometimes, though, Jayce will pick up a book with a boy carrying a football on its cover and this is where his experience diverges from the norm. When Jayce goes through the book, called “Home-Field Advantage,” he often flips immediately to the last page and points to the same illustration over and over. “He’ll say, ‘Dada, Dada, Dada,’ and it’s pretty much the best thing ever,” his father, Giants defensive end Justin Tuck , said. “I don’t know if he knows that Dada wrote the book, but he knows that’s Dada right there on the last page.” Tuck, who has been the leader of the Giants’ defense for the past five seasons, is hardly the only athlete to write a children’s book. In New York alone, Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson are children’s authors, and Tuck’s former teammate Tiki Barber published several titles with his twin, Ronde. What separates Tuck, however, is the motivation behind the project; his commitment to getting children to read has become more than just the focus of his charity, RUSH for Literacy . It has also been the bedrock for Tuck and his wife, Lauran, as they get used to being parents. “I like to think we’re pretty amazing parents,” Tuck said, laughing, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard sometimes. There are lots of decisions to talk about and issues to figure out. But we know that reading is where it all starts. We know that for sure.” On a recent morning at the local library, Jayce bounced around the children’s room while his parents took turns watching him. First, Jayce stared at the aquarium, pointing out different colored fish. Then he spent several minutes examining a group of balloons. Later, he embraced a new friend he had just met, balanced himself with half his body on a chair (the other half was stretched across a table) and also accidentally — or perhaps not? — stepped in front of the sensor that opens the library’s automatic door nearly a dozen times. The Tucks just giggled. They had not intended to settle in this tiny borough of Bergen County, but while taking a tour with a real estate agent about four years ago, Tuck asked about the neighborhoods he saw while driving over the George Washington Bridge. “We found a house that was being built where we could basically customize it,” he said. “Now it’s home.” With their roots now in the metropolitan area, the Tucks’ charity — the acronym stands for Read, Understand, Succeed and Hope — provides books and other reading materials for children in New York and suburban New Jersey, as well as central Alabama, where Tuck grew up. The foundation, which will hold its annual celebrity billiards tournament Thursday in Manhattan, has raised more than $1 million and donated more than 45,000 books. When he does events at schools, Tuck often reads from “Home-Field Advantage,” which was published last summer and has become a point of pride for him. Writing the book was relatively easy, Tuck said, because it is born from a true story: as one of seven children growing up at the family home in Coosa County, Tuck was often terrorized by his five older sisters, and the book recounts the time when two of his sisters cut his hair. Tuck is quick to point out that a few elements of the story may have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect — “I did not hide under the covers all day,” he said — and he added that the hair-cutting story was hardly the only one under consideration for publication. “I’ve got so many stories: some about my sisters locking me out of the door and I punched a window to get in,” Tuck said. “I could talk about bullying because they used to bully me. They tied me up and taped my arms and put me in a trash can and rolled me down the hill.” He shook his head. “With five girls and two boys, my mom wouldn’t allow us to stay in the house all day,” he said. “So if you’re out in the yard, you’re going to get in trouble. You’re going to do things that would probably make good children’s books.” So far, Jayce has not provided any similar tales of woe (though he has turned the once-brown coffee table in the family’s living room a nice shade of “black/green/yellow/red” with his coloring, Tuck said). Tuck described himself and Lauran as “hopefully a good mix” between being strict and easygoing as parents. Television watching is limited — though Jayce (and his father) do enjoy an occasional episode of “Dino Dan” or “Thomas and Friends” — and outdoor time is a daily staple. Jayce and Tuck chase each other around all the time, and Tuck chuckled when he recalled the photograph he captured just after Jayce took his first steps. “He walked over to the door and was reaching up for the doorknob,” Tuck said. “It was like, This is his first attempt to run away!” Jayce is also learning about football, and while Tuck said he shared the concerns expressed by a few N.F.L. players recently regarding long-term health issues and playing football, he expects that ultimately, “I’ll just tell Jayce what I know and let him make his own choice.” For now, Jayce is happy to throw his arms over his head — making the touchdown signal — then take off running. Tuck said he had not yet taught Jayce his familiar bowing sack celebration. Then, of course, there is the book. The Tucks began reading to Jayce when he was still in the womb, covering everything from autobiographies Lauran was reading to interesting articles that Tuck came across. “Even before the baby showers, we were gifted children’s books, so we began to read those as well — one of the first presents we received was a cute book titled ‘Notre Dame 1, 2, 3,’ ” said Lauran, who met Tuck when both were students at the university. “I loved ‘Cat in the Hat.’ I loved ‘Green Eggs and Ham.’ I loved Arthur,” Tuck said, referring to the protagonist in the famous children’s series about a gregarious family of aardvarks. “So just seeing Jayce be interested in any books makes me happy.” He laughed then, and looked across the library where Jayce was flipping through a copy of “Home-Field Advantage.” “It is pretty cool, though,” he said, “that the drawing on the front of my book kind of looks like him.”

Tuck Justin
Children and Childhood
Reading and Writing Skills
New York Giants
Football
Books and Literature
Philanthropy


Love of a Raspberry Tart

Abstract: Dear Diary: A French pastry shop in Greenwich Village was where I met Sonya. She boasted of the raspberry tart. A sweet, scrumptious round treat. Berries on top of custard and a golden crust. She spoke highly of the round delicacy. This, she boasted, was her eighth raspberry tart. At first bite, I chased after a raspberry, lifting it like a pirate’s treasure with my fork. I smiled, accepted the reward, nibbled the sweet raspberry. Sonya, I noticed, was watching me, waiting for my verdict, this being the most delicious treat in the city. She spoke of how, after eating the raspberry tart, she experienced increase mental acuity. She could remember things from years ago. A birthday party given to her when she was 7. Her mother prepared a raspberry pie. The link to the pie was her anchor to her childhood. “I owe raspberry tarts more than I know,” she said, and spoke of her expectations of eating the dessert. “I expect I’ll see the future — all bristling with raspberries who I know in my building on West Fourth. There are raspberries on the telephone and wishing me good luck. You know I play the flute and the piano. I once gave a recital for 28 raspberries. All of whom I know and love. I went to high school with three raspberries.” The raspberries, according to Sonya, were more than a dessert. She seemed to regard them as people, her neighbors. Though she did point out if they found out she called them raspberries, they might object. This required Sonya to nibble another bite of her raspberry tart — a gesture that caused Greenwich Village to jiggle and bristle up bright. A man opened an umbrella. A woman pushing a baby carriage turned into a dress shop. No one suspected the raspberry.


Tips and Myths About Extending Smartphone Battery Life

Abstract: Ashlei Temeña’s family trip to Disneyland last Thanksgiving break turned into a nightmare when her smartphone battery hit empty. Ms. Temeña, a San Francisco support technician, had gotten separated from her family and realized she had no way to find anyone. Instead of riding roller coasters, she wandered around searching for the group — eventually locating them four hours later watching fireworks. “I wanted to throw my phone on the ground by the end of the day,” Ms. Temeña said. Many consumers can relate. Despite the leaps forward in mobile phone technology with crisp, clear screens and faster chips, batteries have made only sluggish progress. That has propelled a desire for longer battery life to the top of the list of factors considered by consumers when they purchase smartphones, according to a 2014 survey by the research firm IDC. So why is battery technology still underwhelming? Plenty of companies have been developing smarter battery technology for years, including methods to increase battery capacity tenfold or charge devices by pulling energy from the air. But lithium ion, the technology that most mainstream batteries are based on, is low cost and easily reproducible while being safe — so we’ll be stuck with it for the foreseeable future, said Charlie Quong, an executive at Mophie, a battery accessory maker, in an interview. “There’s a lot of investments on all fronts for improving the technology above and beyond that, but I don’t think we’re going to see that hitting any kind of mass market for several years out,” Mr. Quong said. In general, lithium ion improves about 10 percent a year in terms of the amount of energy that can be stored in a given space, which is partly why consumers perceive batteries as being far behind other technologies. With that backdrop in mind, we teamed up with the Wirecutter , a product recommendations website, to run an array of tests to determine best and worst practices for preserving battery life on smartphones. For those who still need extra juice, the Wirecutter also picked some external battery products. The results showed that some conventional beliefs about extending battery life — like turning off Wi-Fi or shutting down all your phone’s apps — produced negligible or even harmful results. The Wirecutter also found plenty of helpful practices to get more use out of your battery, like playing music stored directly on the device (instead of streaming it) or tweaking email configurations. The Wirecutter tested a range of recent Apple and Android smartphones with the latest operating systems in tightly controlled environments. Your phone’s results will vary depending on the phone model, cellular carrier, location and other factors, but the general results should hold. Here are eight tips and seven myths busted by our findings: 1. Use auto-brightness for the screen. A smartphone’s screen consumes more energy than any other component, so the easiest way to cut down battery drain is to reduce your screen brightness. In an hourlong test, an iPhone 6s used 54 percent less battery power with the screen brightness at minimum as compared with maximum brightness. An Android test phone used 30 percent less. But it’s tough to use a dim screen in bright environments, so most phones offer an auto-brightness mode that automatically adjusts the screen’s brightness based on ambient light. The Wirecutter found that enabling auto-brightness saved a good amount of battery life. 2. Block power-sucking ads. When browsing the web, your smartphone also burns through power when it downloads mobile ads on websites. Installing an ad blocker will greatly extend battery life. The Wirecutter ran a test that cycled through a list of websites for two hours over a Wi-Fi connection. Safari on an iPhone 6s used 18 percent of a full battery; Chrome on a Moto X Pure Android phone used 22 percent. Installing the 1Blocker ad blocker on the iPhone reduced battery usage for the same test to only 9 percent of a full battery; on an Android phone, using the Ghostery Privacy Browser , which blocks ads, used only 8 percent of the battery. 3. Tweak your email settings. Email can have a major impact on battery life if you have multiple email accounts and receive lots of email. Your smartphone can update your email automatically using a technology called push, which brings new messages to your phone the instant they are transmitted. Push can be a power hog because it requires your phone to constantly listen for new messages, so if you get a lot of email, there’s a good chance your phone is using lots of energy. The Wirecutter tested an iPhone 6s Plus configured with three email accounts, receiving a total of 20 to 30 messages an hour. In these tests, having push active over the course of a day caused Mail to account for 5 to 10 percent of the phone’s overall battery use. To save energy, most phones can be configured to instead check for (or “fetch”) emails on a schedule — say, every 30 minutes — or only when you manually tell your email app to refresh. 4. Play downloaded music instead of streaming. The next tip may come as unwelcome news. Nowadays, online streaming is the most popular way to listen to music, with services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music — but this method guzzles lots of battery power. In the Wirecutter’s tests, streaming music over a Wi-Fi connection for two hours used 10 percent of an iPhone’s battery reserves; streaming the same music stored directly on a device over two hours consumed only 5 percent. Fortunately, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music still let you listen to songs the old-school way: by storing the music right on your device. 5. Turn off wireless when reception is poor. You may have noticed that when you’re in a place without good Wi-Fi or cellular coverage, your phone’s battery seems to drain much more quickly. That’s because the phone uses energy searching for a good signal and, if the signal is very weak, trying to get a better connection. To conserve battery life, disable the phone’s wireless circuitry. Airplane Mode, an option that will turn off all wireless features, is a quick and easy solution in areas with poor reception. Alternatively, you can disable (in your phone’s settings) a single wireless feature. For example, if you have terrible wireless carrier coverage in your office, but Wi-Fi is great, disabling cellular connectivity while there will keep the phone from wasting energy trying to get a cellular connection while still letting you connect to the Internet over Wi-Fi. 6. Check the battery usage lists. Consumers can get even better results with a bit of sleuthing. Both the iPhone and Android systems provide a simple way to see which apps are using a lot of battery power. For iPhones and Android phones, open the Settings app and in the Battery menu, there are sorted lists of apps that are using the most energy. On the iPhone’s battery usage screen, tap the clock button to reveal information about how much of your battery life each app is consuming when you’re actively using the app (“screen”) compared with when you’re not (“backgd”). On Android, the most useful information are the timers for “CPU total” and “CPU foreground.” Foreground is how much time you had the app open; subtract “foreground” from “total,” and you’ll know how much time the app has been busy in the background. Be on the lookout for apps that are active for extended periods in the background and are using a lot of battery power. Examples include an email app that spends lots of time checking for new messages even when your phone is asleep, a news reader that updates articles in the background or a fitness app that constantly monitors your location. If you find apps using up lots of energy in the background, disable their background activities. On an iPhone, go to the Settings app, tap General and then Background App Refresh and disable the background activities for any apps. On Android, go inside the Settings app, tap Data Usage, choose an app, then select “Restrict Background Data” for background data usage. 7. Disable unnecessary location tracking. Watch out for apps that track your location. Your phone’s GPS circuitry, which determines your geographic location for mapping and fitness features, consumes a lot of battery power . A run-tracking program that monitors your precise location for the duration of an hourlong run will lower your battery level. If a location-based app is using a lot of power, especially in the background, there’s a good chance the app is using GPS, Wi-Fi and the phone’s sensors frequently. You can decide whether to disable location features for it (either via your phone’s Location Services settings, or by changing settings in the app itself). On an iPhone, you can disable the app’s ability to track your location by going to Privacy menu and Location Services. To disable location tracking on Android, go inside the Settings app, tap Apps, choose an app and select “Permissions,” then tap to disable Location permission. 8. Shut off unnecessary push notifications. Both Apple and Google recommend disabling push notifications, which are essentially app alerts, to conserve battery life. Notifications require regular communication with notification servers, and each notification causes your phone to wake up for a few seconds, including turning on the screen, to show you a message and give you a chance to act on it. In the Wirecutter’s testing, receiving a few dozen notifications over the course of an hour didn’t noticeably affect battery usage. But if you get a lot of notifications each day, that energy use can add up. If a particular app or service (say, Twitter or your email client) is constantly producing notifications, consider disabling notifications for that app. On an iPhone, open the Settings app, tap Notifications, tap the app name and disable Allow Notifications. On Android, disable notification in an app’s settings menu, or long-press the notification itself and select the “i” icon. This will send you to that app’s App Notifications settings, where you can block all notifications. Beware battery-saving myths. 1. Closing unused apps. There is plenty of inaccurate conventional wisdom about methods to prolong battery life. Let’s start with one of the worst “tips”: Closing (or force-quitting, as it’s commonly called) apps you are not currently using. The theory is that apps running in the background are using your phone’s components, so quitting them will save energy. While that may be true on a computer, smartphones are designed differently: Once an app is no longer in the foreground — meaning you are not actively using it — most or all of its processes are frozen. In other words, while an app may still be loaded in a phone’s memory, it probably is not doing much in the background to drain your battery. Finally, quitting apps actually has drawbacks: When you force-quit an app, all of its code can be purged from your phone’s RAM, which means that the next time you open the app, the phone has to reload all of that code. That, of course, requires energy. 2. Don’t assume turning off Wi-Fi will always help. Image A common suggestion for extending battery life is to disable Wi-Fi. However, if you’re in range of a strong Wi-Fi signal, your phone uses less energy to connect to the Internet with a Wi-Fi connection than a cellular one. If you regularly use apps that rely on your location, having Wi-Fi enabled helps your phone determine its location without having to rely solely on power-hungry GPS features, so it actually helps a battery last longer. An exception is when you’re at the edges of a Wi-Fi network, where your phone is struggling to get a good connection, and you have a good cellular data connection. But in most cases, you’re usually better off keeping Wi-Fi enabled. 3. Avoid disabling all location services. Image Many apps that use your location do so only intermittently. Even using the Maps app for short navigation sessions doesn’t use more than a few percent of your battery’s capacity — and having the phone’s screen continually on is a big part of why navigation uses a lot of power. In other words, don’t disable all of your phone’s location-based features just to extend your battery life. You won’t see a big jump in use time, but you may end up disabling — and subsequently missing — useful features. Instead, check (using the tips above) to see if any of apps consuming the most battery life also track your location. If so, and if you don’t need that location tracking, consider disabling it for those apps. 4. Don’t always choose Wi-Fi over cellular. Image Many people, and even smartphone vendors such as Apple, claim that using Wi-Fi for wireless data consumes less power than using a cellular signal, so you should use Wi-Fi whenever you can. However, the Wirecutter’s testing found this isn’t always the case. In testing in a location where both Wi-Fi and cellular LTE signals were strong, an hour of browsing over Wi-Fi used roughly the same amount of battery power as an hour using LTE on an iPhone. On a Motorola Android phone, LTE used only 2 to 3 percent more power than Wi-Fi. In other words, as long as you have a good signal, you probably won’t see a huge difference between Wi-Fi and cellular data, and it’s probably not worth the hassle of switching between the two. 5. Let Siri and Google listen for your commands. Both iPhones and Android phones include a hands-free feature for summoning their virtual assistants by speaking voice commands. You can just say “Hey Siri” to the iPhone or “O.K. Google” and then speak your request or command. While convenient, this feature requires your phone to constantly listen for that special phrase, which uses some power. Yet if you have one of the phones that supports this feature, disabling it won’t conserve much battery life. In the Wirecutter’s testing with an iPhone 6s Plus and a Nexus 6P, there was a negligible difference in battery usage between having the always-on virtual assistant enabled or disabled over a two-hour period. Using Siri or O.K. Google uses some energy, so if your phone’s battery is getting low, you should probably stop asking the phone question after question during your commute. But just having the feature enabled isn’t worth worrying about — and it can be quite convenient. 6. Don’t forgo third-party chargers made by reputable vendors. A common warning around the Internet is that you should use only the charger that came with your phone, otherwise you could damage your phone’s battery. In reality, the phone itself contains all the circuitry responsible for charging its battery. The AC adapter (as it’s more accurately known) simply converts the AC current from a wall outlet into low-voltage, low-amperage DC current that it provides via a USB port. This is why you can also charge your phone using the USB port on a computer, a USB battery pack or a charger in your car — the phone is designed to allow it to charge from a variety of power sources that can produce a wide range of current. Finally, you may see warnings that a cheap third-party charger could damage your phone. There’s some truth here: Many chargers — especially budget models sold online, or even at your local shopping mall kiosk — are poorly made, or use low-quality components. A poorly made charger can not only damage your phone, but could also hurt you by exposing you to dangerous currents. So if you’re replacing your phone’s AC adapter, or buying an extra, stick with a reputable vendor. 7. Calibrate only occasionally. For many years, devices that used rechargeable batteries required “conditioning” or “calibrating,” a procedure that prevented the battery from forgetting how much capacity it actually had. Today’s smartphone batteries no longer suffer from this issue. What can happen, however, is that the phone itself loses track of how much capacity its battery has: Every battery gradually loses capacity over time as you use and recharge it, and the phone’s software isn’t always good at accounting for this capacity change. By periodically (once every couple of months) fully charging the phone and then using it until it dies , your phone’s software will determine the battery’s current capacity and thus let the phone better estimate how long it will last on a charge. In other words, the battery won’t last any longer, but the phone’s battery meter will be more accurate. If you find that your phone claims you have 80 percent of a charge left, but it dies a few hours later, you should try this procedure. If all else fails … If you have tried all the above and still struggle to get through the day with your battery, consider buying an external battery. These accessories — which can take the form of a bulky case with a built-in battery that you wear on the phone, or a separate battery pack that connects to your phone with a cable — can provide power to last an additional few hours at the end of the day, or even to fully charge your phone’s battery. The Wirecutter tested more than 100 external batteries for dozens of hours to pick a few favorites. Its favorite battery case for the iPhone 6 and 6s is Anker’s Ultra Slim Extended Battery Case , which has enough power to fully charge a dead iPhone and then some, more than doubling the phone’s battery life. For larger iPhones — the 6 Plus and 6s Plus — the Wirecutter prefers Tylt’s Energi Sliding Power Case because the case’s two-piece design makes it appealing. For Android phones, an external battery pack is a good option. The AmazonBasics Portable Power Bank with Micro USB Cable 2,000 mAh is the best pack the Wirecutter tested that will fit in your pocket with your phone, and it’s less than $10. A great battery pack for the iPhone is the $29 TravelCard , which is almost thin enough to fit in a wallet — with a built-in Lightning-connector cable to charge your phone. For days of smartphone power, the Anker PowerCore 15600 is the Wirecutter’s pick if you need to charge a phone repeatedly or keep a full-size tablet and phone topped up through a busy week. It has enough available power to charge a typical smartphone five times or to fill a large tablet such as an iPad Air almost twice — for under $40. After her stressful day at Disneyland, Ms. Temeña bought an external Amazon battery pack. She said the pack could fully charge her phone six times, but it wasn’t ideal because of its bulk. Ultimately, she wishes her iPhone had a better battery. “I don’t understand why a battery wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the other advances they’re putting into phones now,” she said.