After Retirement, Agassi's Work Is Just Beginning

Abstract: PARIS — Andre Agassi , the retired American tennis star, is hardly retired from the work force. At age 41, he has announced his goal, in conjunction with a Los Angeles-based investment firm, to finance the construction of as many as 75 charter schools in the United States in the next several years. In 2001, Agassi opened a charter school in Las Vegas, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, but he now intends to extend his reach with the backing of Canyon Capital Realty Advisors. Agassi, in Paris last weekend for the French Open , discussed that project, as well as tennis subjects, with a group of reporters. He completed his collection of Grand Slam singles titles by winning the French Open in 1999, the same year that Steffi Graf won her sixth and final singles title in Paris. Agassi and Graf are married with two children. What follows are excerpts from the interview in Paris and from an earlier interview conducted with the International Herald Tribune. On his charter school plans I’ve been working on this for the last year and a half. I’m partner with Canyon Capital, about a $20 billion investment firm out of southern California, and the idea is to access traditional for-profit capital to bridge the gap for these operators who know how to educate our children. Every school, I will partner with the best in-class operators, so these won’t be Agassi schools. Now charter schools as a whole aren’t necessarily high performing because there are so many mom and pop shops, but the top 10 percent, the best in-class charter school operators, are incredibly high performing. So what we want to do is help them expand their footprint, and one of the single greatest impediments to the growth of charter schools are not the software, not the children or the teachers. It’s the facilities themselves. Operators cannot access public dollars in a charter school space to build their facility, but the money from that state is allocated to those children if they go to a charter school. So if you can find a way to actually build the facilities and find a way to actually create a return for investors you have now access to a pool of resources that has traditionally never been invested in the space. So it’s very innovative, it’s very visionary and it’s incredibly timely. On his school My school is 650 kids and over 1,000 on the waiting list, and I’ve learned throughout the years that I’m not an educator, and I’m not an operator, I’m a facilitator. I facilitated what we’re doing in Vegas, and I believe I can facilitate it on a national level. Agassi, who played on tour until age 36, on the 29-year-old Federer fighting time At 29, the wear and tear he has on his body is probably a third more than I had, considerably more, so for him to be injury-free and to get out there at 29 and look like he’s at his best is remarkable. And the guy does it on any surface. What he’s done in the game is unparalleled, and I do leave room for Nadal to trump his career, but as of right now, I don’t see anything close to it. On Andy Murray, the world No. 4 from Britain who is without a full-time coach but is working part-time with Agassi’s former coach Darren Cahill through the Adidas program I think Andy should have somebody full time but I think he should have the guidance of somebody that has been there and has gotten the most out of people’s games, and that’s why I chose Darren at the stage of the career that I was at because I saw what he did with Lleyton Hewitt. Lleyton Hewitt was a guy who never made a bad decision on the court. Lleyton Hewitt was a guy who maximized his offense the second he had a chance. He didn’t have a lot of firepower but he maximized it, and I see the same issue with Andy Murray. Here’s a guy who has so much he can rely on that I think he keeps himself from actually realizing what he can do to impose himself. He doesn’t know what it’s like to play against him. I think Darren is the kind of person who can help him understand that feeling so he plays with a bit more urgency, not just rely on the great defensive skills he has. Because he can snap the ball off both sides. He has one of the best returns the game has ever seen. His movement is at the top of the sport. He just, I feel, waits a little too long to impose himself and you don’t win these Slams without doing that. On what Murray’s reaching the French Open semifinals will do for his chances at Wimbledon I think you’re going to see a different player at Wimbledon. It’s going to have its own emotional and mental dramas because of the pressure he’ll put on himself, that England’s going to put on his shoulders. But I think if you gave me his game I would be sick if I didn’t win a slam. I just really would. On whether quitting tennis had left a hole in his life I can truly say I’ve gone from hating this game for most of my life and most of my career to it giving me my school, to it giving me my wife, to then it giving me a chance to raise my children, to it giving me a chance to actually sit down and watch it without stressing it, without worry about it, without having to answer for it. So I actually enjoy it more now and every day it’s grown since I’ve been 27 years old. On the highlights of his post-tennis career I don’t know if tennis turned me into this or I was good at tennis because this is hard-wired, but I don’t revel in things very long. It’s always about tomorrow. It’s always about the next step. I’ve had so many moments. I mean my book was a proud moment for me, even the two weeks before people got to read it and they heard about it. I kept telling everybody around me, including Longines, including my sponsors, I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, please relax, once people get it, once people read it they will understand there’s a lot more to life than their perspective now before reading it. There’s a lot more to my life, there’s a lot more to the truth of this life. This will broaden tennis.’ On whether that 2009 autobiography “Open” lost him any friends As far as the personal relationships go, no, I included everybody in the process that I care greatly about as it relates to navigating our relationship. The rest, you are sort of obligated to tell the truth of how you see something or not do it. I wanted to be the harshest on myself, and I think I was and I think anybody who chooses to read it will conclude that. On the importance of staying in the public eye through senior tennis and other projects to promote his educational goals I think they all feed off each other. I really don’t think they are sort of done in a vacuum for me. I don’t need to be visible for the sake of being visible but if I do have the visibility I do feel like I have more ability to impact my mission and that’s always a good thing. My vision for my school is growing by the day. I think in tennis, you’ve seen tennis create a lot of amazing people throughout history that changed the way we look at ourselves and look at each other. And my hope would be that I can help and influence the way we as a society choose to look and address ourselves. On the possibility of, like many a retired tennis star, doing television commentary I think to be a good commentator you have to stay really involved in the game. Otherwise you grow disconnected to it as it morphs and changes and gets better. When I was leaving the game, the spins and the Nadals, Federers and the way they can make the ball do whatever they want was something I experienced. So I can talk about it quite extensively. But all of the sudden you start seeing guys who come out. They are different kinds of players. They are bigger. They are stronger, and I haven’t competed against them, so to really talk about it in an educated way you have to be out there. So it’s a lot more to me than just showing up and talking about tennis. I don’t really do anything halfway anymore in my life. I kind of commit to something or don’t and leaving the family and traveling to go stay connected to the game in a way that allows me to talk about it the way I would like is just much more of a commitment than I can afford to take on at this time. On whether he and Graf discuss Paris and 1999, when they both won the French Open We don’t really talk about it, but the memory is so alive. But you also live with the fact her experience was way different than mine. This was a hard tournament for me, so to get over the line at that moment was something special. She had certainly a great moment in 1999 not being favored to win but my memory of Roland Garros is like Mount Everest, one step at a time with no oxygen. And I finally got there and the weather broke, and I had my window and made it to the summit. Quite a moment.


This Time, a Hispanic’s Campaign Faces One Less Obstruction

Abstract: When he ran for a third term in the state legislature in 1998, Jesus Garcia found himself up against a legion of Chicago-election “door knockers” from far outside his district on the Southwest Side. Hundreds of patronage workers loyal to Mayor Richard M. Daley ’s political organization came from across the city to Hispanic neighborhoods like Little Village, or La Villita, to campaign for Mr. Garcia’s challenger, Antonio Muñoz, a political neophyte. Mr. Garcia’s defeat was the first big victory for the Hispanic Democratic Organization. The group took election-season orders from top aides to Mayor Daley and rewarded effective campaign workers with city jobs. For a decade, the practice helped the mayor dominate the politics of the city’s fast-growing Hispanic community. But the H.D.O. shut down in 2008 amid a federal corruption investigation of hiring fraud at City Hall. Now, without it as a roadblock, Mr. Garcia is seeking to make a comeback in the Feb. 2 primary for a spot on the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Mr. Garcia is campaigning in tandem with another outsider, Rudy Lozano Jr., son of the slain activist Rudy Lozano, who is vying to unseat State Representative Daniel J. Burke, Democrat of Chicago. Both Mr. Burke and his brother, the powerful Alderman Edward M. Burke (14th Ward), are Irish-Americans representing working-class constituencies in an area that has turned overwhelmingly Hispanic. The two Democratic primary contests will test the notion that self-styled independent Hispanic politicians can capitalize on the void left by the Hispanic organization’s demise and begin rebuilding the influence they enjoyed before Mayor Daley came to power two decades ago. The races also reflect the tension within the Hispanic community between those who want to fight the local political establishment and those who have already joined forces with it. Rudy Lozano Jr. was 7 when his father was shot in the family’s home in the Little Village neighborhood in June 1983. Earlier that year, the elder Mr. Lozano had narrowly lost an election for a City Council seat and helped Harold Washington be elected as the city’s first black mayor. A gang member was convicted of Mr. Lozano’s murder, but his family said the authorities did not pursue leads that might have tied it to somebody who was displeased with his political and labor rights activism. After Mayor Washington’s death in 1987 and the disintegration of his “black-brown coalition,” Mayor Daley took power and sought to strengthen his position in the Hispanic community. His Hispanic allies formed the Hispanic Democratic Organization, using its patronage workers to elect politicians friendly to the mayor and unseat elected officials who crossed him. But a federal corruption investigation toppled the organization, and in March one of its top leaders, Al Sanchez, the former streets and sanitation commissioner, was convicted in federal court of rigging city hiring for pro-Daley campaign loyalists. Mr. Lozano Jr., 33, said such corruption was “the antithesis of the independent movement” that his father’s generation began. He accused most Hispanic leaders in Chicago of doing little for anybody in the community beyond their own political cronies. “My campaign is the next generation of the independent political movement in the city,” he said. “This is the pendulum swinging back.” But Mr. Burke has the support of many Hispanic leaders, including Juan Rangel, a veteran activist closely allied with the mayor. Mr. Rangel expressed distaste for the anti-authority rhetoric of politicians like Mr. Lozano. “We’re still in a battle over how this community is going to be shaped,” said Mr. Rangel, who leads a network of charter schools serving mostly Mexican-American children. “This has been a battle we’ve been waging for two decades. “Is this a community looking to correct quote-unquote past wrongs or is this a community looking for opportunities? Are we taking the minority road to empowerment or the immigrant, ethnic, up-by-the-bootstraps road? I don’t hear our community saying, ‘Poor us.’ ” Mr. Burke’s district has become increasingly Hispanic as the Mexican community spread from enclaves like Pilsen and Little Village into the Far Southwest Side bungalow-belt neighborhoods. Hispanics make up an estimated 85 percent of the district’s population and represent about two-thirds of voters. When he took office in 1991, Mr. Burke said, his district was “Polish, German and a smattering of Irish.” He said he had tried to follow the shifting demographics by taking a Spanish class offered by the Berlitz language school, and he began using computer language software. He admits he still struggles with the language, but he does read speeches in heavily accented Spanish, and the words on his campaign signs are green, a color common to the Irish and Mexican flags. Mr. Burke said the important thing was to take care of constituents. “People’s needs are people’s needs,” he said, pointing to grants for community groups, anti-graffiti legislation and a recent winter coat giveaway in Little Village as signs of his commitment. He added that it would take Mr. Lozano a long time just to learn his way around the statehouse. “It takes a good two years to know where the baño is,” said Mr. Burke, 58. Among Mr. Burke’s supporters are several local Hispanic officials who were elected with the help of the Hispanic organization and have forged close relationships with Mayor Daley, the Burkes and other white leaders. Mr. Lozano derides those Hispanic leaders as doing “the bidding of the machine.” Mr. Garcia, the former state legislator and county board hopeful, first fought to gain political power more than 25 years ago as the campaign manager for the senior Mr. Lozano’s failed bid for alderman. He served in the City Council as an ally of Mayor Washington before becoming a state senator and running afoul of Mayor Daley’s Hispanic allies. He acknowledged that he would probably not have run for office again just a few years ago, when the Hispanic Democratic Organization could mobilize the sort of patronage force that helped Mr. Muñoz knock him out of the legislature. “It was a huge army,” Mr. Garcia, 53, said this week. “They had city workers, county workers, state workers.” Now he is trying to unseat Joseph Mario Moreno, an ally of Todd Stroger, the county board president, who is black. Mr. Moreno, 57, also ticked off a long list of influential white politicians who support him. He said he was proud to be associated with the establishment. “I have a more diplomatic, pragmatic and realistic approach,” Mr. Moreno said. “You need to be able to change things through the processes available. Not by marches, not by protests, not through any form of negativity.” Mr. Rangel, the charter school administrator, agreed that it was better to work with the establishment than to try to topple it. His school network recently won a $98 million state grant with backing from Hispanic and non-Hispanic politicians. Mr. Rangel noted that Hispanics had gained a number of seats in the City Council and state legislature in recent years. He said he no longer worried whether they were taken into account as a political force and supported Mr. Burke’s re-election. “Just fighting the good fight doesn’t cut it,” Mr. Rangel said. “Who delivers for us?”

Hispanic-Americans
Elections
Politics and Government
Race
Democratic Party
Daley Richard M
Chicago (Ill)


Possibility of Senate Run, Nurtured and Abandoned

Abstract: A few weeks ago, Harold E. Ford Jr. had a telephone conversation with his friend Doug Band, the powerful counselor to former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Ford, the former Tennessee congressman who now works on Wall Street, wanted to discuss a potential challenge to Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in New York’s Democratic primary, a possibility he had flirted with for weeks. But Mr. Band was not encouraging. He told Mr. Ford that with Democrats reeling from political setbacks across the country, it would be bad for the party and his career if he entered the race. “It’s not the right thing to do,” he said, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. A Ford spokesman confirmed the call but denied that Mr. Ford had been discouraged from running or that he had been told that doing so would hurt the party. The spokesman said Mr. Band told him the White House had pressured Mr. Clinton into supporting Ms. Gillibrand. Mr. Ford’s decision not to run for the Senate, which he disclosed on Tuesday, came after he reached out to dozens of donors, advocates and political leaders. In private conversations, the same worries emerged: that a race against Ms. Gillibrand would be a brutal fight, dominated by endless debates about when he began paying taxes as a New York resident and the sincerity of his support for gay marriage and abortion rights. A campaign that he had hoped would focus on tax cuts and job growth would instead, he feared, become mired in discussions of “who got there first, and who meant it the most,” on social issues, he told an associate. That might allow a Republican opponent to swoop in and take the seat from the bloodied Democratic nominee. What seemed to weigh on him, interviews with dozens of people who have met and spoken to his advisers revealed, was not his status as a carpetbagger who had moved to New York from Tennessee, but rather the reality that there were few easy constituencies for him to grab on to, outside of Wall Street, where he has worked since moving here in 2006. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be seen as disclosing private conversations. As he hopscotched from city to city, charming crowds with bits of his Southern biography, signs of trouble for Mr. Ford emerged. His voting record in Congress put him on the right fringes of state Democrats, and his $2 million-a-year job at Merrill Lynch made it hard to run as a Scott Brown-style populist. What seemed like an improbable, even impossible campaign had its roots in conversations, many dating back a year, among Mr. Ford, 39, and a coterie of powerful friends from New York City, Washington and Los Angeles. Over dinner last July at the Post House, a clubby steakhouse on the Upper East Side, Richard Plepler, a co-president of HBO, urged Mr. Ford to restart his political career in New York. “I think you should give this serious thought,” he said, of the Senate race. Mr. Ford replied that he would. After the dinner, Mr. Plepler sent an e-mail message to Douglas E. Schoen, a top Democratic pollster, to bounce the idea off him. Mr. Schoen was intrigued, and as he studied public polls, became convinced that Mr. Ford’s best shot at reaching the Senate was to wage a campaign against Ms. Gillibrand. Over the next few months, Mr. Ford sounded out many of New York’s wealthiest and most politically connected executives, frequently over breakfast at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue: Robert Wolf, the head of the United States investment banking division at UBS; Ronald Perelman, the billionaire chairman of Revlon; and Steven Rattner, the founder of Quadrangle, the private equity firm, all of whom are big Democratic donors. Mr. Rattner told Mr. Ford, who is also a political analyst on NBC, that money would not be a problem. “You can raise the money,” he told him in December. Yet several big-name donors warned him that Ms. Gillibrand, a relentless campaigner, had beaten him to the punch. “She has already locked a lot of Wall Street up” was the message that Marc Lasry, a billionaire hedge fund manager, conveyed to Mr. Ford in a telephone conversation. As Mr. Ford traveled outside New York City, especially upstate, he found political support for Ms. Gillibrand to be shallow, and the hunger for change palpable. The mayor of Syracuse, Stephanie Miner, told him that residents there were “scared and desperate” about the economy, and she told Mr. Ford that Ms. Gillibrand was a rare presence in her city. But Ms. Gillibrand’s strategy of portraying Mr. Ford as a showboating out-of-towner was starting to stick. In late January, the head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, held a luncheon for Mr. Ford, and invited local lawmakers. During a two-hour question-and-answer session, Marty Markowitz, the borough president, pointed to several up-and-coming state senators around the room and observed that all of them had greater experience in New York politics than Mr. Ford. “With all due respect,” he asked Mr. Ford, “why do you think you have what it takes to be New York’s senator?” Even lawmakers who seemed open to a Ford candidacy warned him that peeling away support from Ms. Gillibrand would be harder than it seemed. Rubén Díaz Jr., the Bronx borough president, told Mr. Ford between bites of an omelet at a diner near his office, “It’s difficult to make a strong case against her here.” Ms. Gillibrand, he explained, had just secured $4 million worth of federal stimulus money to train his constituents for green jobs. Mr. Ford knew that some liberals would attack his relatively conservative voting record but, those he spoke with said, he was taken aback by the depth of the anger he encountered from advocates for abortion rights and gay marriage. After reporters found examples of Mr. Ford calling himself pro-life during his time in Congress, Mr. Ford vehemently pushed back, saying he had always supported a woman’s right to choose. He assumed that would put the matter to rest. It did not. “He was dumbfounded that it kept tripping him up,” a friend said. One of Mr. Ford’s top advisers, Bradley Tusk, the campaign manager for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election, arranged a meeting for Mr. Ford with a close Bloomberg ally, Kelli Conlin, the head of Naral-Pro Choice of New York. Mr. Ford expected a polite conversation that would help neutralize a foe. Ms. Conlin, however, started the meeting by quizzing Mr. Ford on his voting record and public statements. Did he realize, she asked, that he had backed legislation that would outlaw late-term abortions even when a woman’s health is in danger? Far from conciliatory, Mr. Ford wanted to know why Naral allowed Ms. Gillibrand to vote for a health care bill that cut off financing for abortions. “You gave her a pass,” he said. Before leaving, Mr. Ford told Ms. Conlin that if he chose to run he hoped to return to ask for the group’s support. Ms. Conlin responded: “We can never support you if you take these positions.” Mr. Ford “looked shocked,” a person in the room said. His meeting with gay rights advocates on Feb. 24 was rockier still. When he walked into the headquarters of the Stonewall Democrats in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, he was greeted by signs that read “Liar!” and “Go home snake oil Harry,” a reference to his recent support for gay marriage after having twice voted to outlaw it in Congress. A few days later, the results of a poll that Mr. Ford had paid for out of his own pocket began to trickle in, giving his advisers pause. His negative ratings had increased slightly. A liberal primary electorate seemed wary about portions of his record. Ms. Gillibrand remained vulnerable, the data showed, but Mr. Ford’s chance seemed to be 50-50. “It was not a slam dunk, at all,” said a person who spoke with him and was briefed on the data. Mr. Tusk had told associates that to win, Mr. Ford needed 80 percent of the state’s black vote, a tall order, but not inconceivable for an African-American in a Democratic primary. But by the end of the week, Gov. David A. Paterson and Representative Charles B. Rangel had become embroiled in ethics scandals. New York’s black political elite was in seeming disarray, just when he needed them to be organized and unified. By Sunday, he had made up his mind not to run. He told his wife, Emily, and his father, former Representative Harold Ford Sr. He began to call friends the next evening, leaving many of them brief messages. “I’m not going to run this time,” he said in one message. “Thank you for your support.”

Ford Harold E Jr
Gillibrand Kirsten E
Politics and Government
Elections


Bombing Kills Top Security Aide to Pakistan President

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Asif Ali Zardari’s chief security officer was killed in a bombing in the port city of Karachi on Wednesday, raising concerns about the vulnerability of even senior officials to attack by militants. The attack occurred in the densely populated Gurumandir neighborhood, killing Mr. Zardari’s security chief, Bilal Sheikh, and two of Mr. Sheikh’s own security guards. Twelve other people, including seven police officers, were wounded, officials said. Mr. Zardari, who is due to step down as president in September, was not present during the attack, but was in Karachi at that time for meetings, said his spokesman, Farhatullah Babar. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on Mr. Sheikh, who was traveling home when his convoy was attacked. He had stepped out of his armored sport utility vehicle to buy fruit when an explosion ripped through a roadside market. Raja Umar Khitab, a senior Karachi police official, told local news media that the attack appeared to have been carried out by a suicide bomber. Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party portrayed the attack as a warning to the president. “The message is very sinister,” Sharmila Faruqi, a member of the provincial assembly, said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening. “If they can get Bilal Sheikh, they can get anyone.” Mr. Sheikh had survived two previous assassination attempts, the most recent in 2011. At the time, he blamed them on political rivals. Security threats have forced Mr. Zardari to keep a low public profile over his five years as president, limiting his public appearances and leaving him open to charges of being distant from ordinary Pakistanis. Ms. Faruqi expressed concern over the weakness of Pakistan’s security forces, saying that it showed how “ill-informed” the police and intelligence agencies were. Mr. Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, was killed by militants in 2007. Some supporters were also killed by the Pakistani Taliban in the run-up to the recent elections. But the party’s supporters are also engaged in political violence as part of a bitter turf war for control of Karachi, a commercially important city of 20 million people that is divided between rival political factions.

Asif Ali Zardari
Assassination
Pakistan People's Party
Karachi
Pakistan
Bilal Sheikh


U.S. Envoy Rebukes Karzai; Gates Confirms Taliban Talks

Abstract: HERAT, Afghanistan — The departing American ambassador to Afghanistan , Karl W. Eikenberry , lashed out at President Hamid Karzai on Sunday in a carefully calculated and candid rebuke of the Afghan leader’s increasingly inflammatory criticism of the coalition forces. “When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost — in terms of life and treasure — hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people,” the ambassador said , “my people, in turn, are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here.” The admonition came the day after Mr. Karzai declared that NATO -led coalition forces were “here for their own purposes, for their own goals, and they’re using our soil for that.” Last month, he threatened to denounce the coalition as occupiers if they did not stop attacks on Afghan homes. Mr. Karzai also said Saturday that the United States had been negotiating with the Taliban . The American defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, acknowledged those talks publicly for the first time on Sunday, saying that the discussions were preliminary. Mr. Eikenberry’s comments, in a postscript to a speech in front of about 200 students and faculty members at Herat University , departed sharply from the normally tolerant public stance that Western diplomats had taken with Mr. Karzai. The ambassador never mentioned the Afghan president by name, but his comments were clearly intended as a warning that Mr. Karzai was testing American patience at a critical time, with President Obama weighing troop reductions and support for the war fast eroding in Congress and among the American public. The ambassador has made similar comments in the past, but he went substantially further on Sunday, reflecting growing worries among Western diplomats over Mr. Karzai’s repeated denunciations of the allied coalition. Mr. Karzai has been particularly critical of civilian casualties and the night raids and airstrikes that often lead to them, but he also frequently blames foreigners, and the way they deliver aid to Afghanistan, for feeding the widespread corruption that has stymied economic development. “When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse,” Mr. Eikenberry said, “and our generous aid programs dismissed as totally ineffective and the source of all corruption, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on.” President Karzai did not publicly respond to Mr. Eikenberry’s comments on Sunday. His spokesman did not return phone calls or reply to an e-mail. Western diplomats have rarely countered Mr. Karzai’s criticisms, in the belief that he was mainly playing to a domestic audience. In private conversations with Western officials, diplomats say, he has expressed his concerns in softer, more tactful terms. Last month, he threatened to take unspecified “unilateral action” against NATO if it did not stop bombing Afghan homes. He made the comments after a coalition airstrike aimed at insurgents in Helmand Province killed several civilians , most of them children. “If they continue their attacks on our houses, then their presence will change from a force that is fighting against terrorism to a force that is fighting against the people of Afghanistan,” he said. “And, in that case, history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers.” In his speech on Saturday, broadcast live on state-run television, Mr. Karzai’s criticisms were broader: he said that the coalition forces’ motives were suspect and that their weapons were polluting Afghanistan. Mr. Eikenberry acknowledged that American and NATO forces had made mistakes. “Over the course of time here, our learning curve has been steep,” he said. “That is because Afghanistan’s political, social and economic situation is complex. We do not speak your language and are far from home. But in spite of our mistakes, we are good people whose aim is to help improve our mutual security.” Mr. Eikenberry’s impassioned remarks may have been a parting shot as he prepares to step down. Ryan C. Crocker, a former ambassador to Iraq , has been nominated to succeed him. “Mothers and fathers of fallen soldiers, spouses of soldiers who have lost arms and legs, children of those who lost their lives in your country, they ask themselves about the meaning of their loved one’s sacrifice,” he said. “When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look these mourning parents, mourning spouses and mourning children in the eye and give them a comforting reply.” He closed to warm applause, saying: “I’ve spoken frankly. I’ve spoken from my heart. I’ve spoken as your friend.” As Mr. Eikenberry looked back on America’s experience in Afghanistan, Mr. Gates addressed the United States’ future there. Pressing his case against withdrawing a significant number of American troops from the region this year, the defense secretary cautioned that he did not believe that negotiations with the Taliban would produce results unless the insurgents continued to feel military pressure. Speaking on the CNN program “State of the Union,” he said the talks had only begun a few weeks ago and that officials were still uncertain that the Taliban participants were genuine representatives of the group’s leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar. Several other countries were participating in the effort, he said, though he did not specify which ones. “We have said all along that a political outcome is the way most of the wars end,” he said. “The question is when and if they are ready to talk seriously.” Referring to his concerns about withdrawing too many American troops this summer, he added, “I think the Taliban have to feel themselves under military pressure and begin to believe they can’t win before they are willing to have a serious conversation.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Sixers End 13-Game Losing Streak and Extend Nets’ Slide

Abstract: Carly Landry scored 16 points, Nerlens Noel had 13 points and 11 rebounds, and the Philadelphia 76ers ended a 13-game losing streak with a 95-89 victory at home over the Nets on Friday night. Ish Smith added 10 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds for the Sixers (9-56), who earned their first victory since Feb. 6 — also against the Nets — despite dealing with several injuries. Philadelphia’s Robert Covington finished with 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting from 3-point range before exiting in the third quarter after being kicked in the face by his teammate Jerami Grant in a collision under the basket. He remained on the court for several minutes before he was taken off on a stretcher and transported to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was being evaluated for a possible neck injury. Grant also did not return after the collision, and Richaun Holmes left later in the second half with a strained right Achilles’ tendon. Jahlil Okafor, Philadelphia’s leading scorer, missed his sixth straight game. The Sixers had revealed before the game that Okafor would have season-ending surgery on his right knee. Brook Lopez scored 24 points for the Nets (18-47), who have lost three straight and finished the longest road trip of any N.B.A. team this season with a 3-6 mark. The Nets’ 18-day trek began on Feb. 23 at Portland. TIMBERWOLVES 99, THUNDER 96 Ricky Rubio’s 3-pointer with 0.2 of a second remaining gave Minnesota the win at Oklahoma City. Rubio finished with 13 points and 12 assists for his eighth double-double of the season. ROCKETS 102, CELTICS 98 James Harden scored 32 points, including Houston’s final 8, helping his team end Boston’s 14-game home winning streak. Michael Beasley added 18 points and 8 rebounds and Dwight Howard had 12 points and 12 rebounds for Houston, which has won three straight. HORNETS 118, PISTONS 103 Marvin Williams tied a career high with five 3-pointers and scored 22 points, and host Charlotte beat Detroit for its sixth straight win. Nicolas Batum added 17 points and 11 assists for the Hornets, who have won 12 of their last 14 games. Kemba Walker finished with 16 points and 8 assists. HEAT 118, BULLS 96 Goran Dragic scored a season-high 26 points and Josh Richardson added a career-high 22, lifting visiting Miami over Chicago. Chicago missed a chance to move into the final Eastern Conference playoff spot after Detroit’s lost at Charlotte.


They’ve Got Moves

Abstract: Flex is the dance. Its practitioners tell stories — cinematic slices of street life — gliding, pausing, dropping, shivering, contorting. One moment their movements are smooth and airy, then suddenly they’re violent, sharp like broken glass. Dancers slow time and speed it up. They use props, costumes and illusion. And their faces twist, transmitting fear, fury, love, mockery. Deidre Schoo , 34, who photographs frequently for The New York Times, discovered flex in 2008. Fascinated by the dancers’ displays of “brotherhood and creativity,” she began following several performers. Video A group of artists contort their bodies while performing flex, a Brooklyn dance featured in the film “Flex Is Kings.” Flex began as a street dance, one fashioned by young people in parks and outside bodegas across East New York and Flatbush, Brooklyn. In 2006, a dancer named Kareem Baptiste decided to bring the streets inside, organizing the first flex competition. Battlefest, as he called it, was a modest affair in a Brooklyn warehouse. Attendance totaled “maybe 50,” he said. “It was really, really small.” Now flex has fans across the world, thanks to YouTube , Mr. Baptiste’s entrepreneurial touch and the dynamism of the dancers themselves. Battlefest 25 , which will take place on March 23 at the Boys’ Club of New York on East 111th Street in Harlem, is expected to attract more than 1,000 spectators, Mr. Baptiste said. Several flex dancers — Bones, Dollaz, Havoc — have toured with big names like Madonna. “There’s a demand for it,” Mr. Baptiste said. “It’s growing bigger than us.” Ms. Schoo’s documentary film about the scene, “Flex Is Kings,” explores the power and limitations of art and dance in a neighborhood pressed by poverty and crime. It is co-directed by Michael Beach Nichols and is to be shown April 4 through 10 at the Village East Cinema in Manhattan. Flex “is about style and spirit,” Ms. Schoo wrote recently in the introduction to a book of her photographs. “To see and feel the energy of a flex performance or battle is to experience lyricism, violence, sensitivity, joy, intelligence, perspective and sincere artistry.”

Dance
East New York Brooklyn
Flatbush Brooklyn
Documentaries
Deidre Schoo
Movies
Photography


New Leader of Boston Bid for 2024 Olympics

Abstract: The group leading the bid to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston is shaking up its management. Steve Pagliuca, a Celtics co-owner, is taking over the bid committee, replacing the construction magnate John Fish.


As Giants’ Confidence Grows, the Defense Flourishes

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Early Monday afternoon, as the rookie cornerback Prince Amukamara was addressing a group of reporters in the Giants’ locker room, the veteran Jimmy Kennedy sneaked up behind the pack. Kennedy watched for a few moments as Amukamara, who had on his backpack and was standing by the exit, spoke about his play in Sunday’s playoff victory against the Atlanta Falcons . Then Kennedy listened as Amukamara — echoing a theme espoused by other defensive players — talked about how the Giants were in a different place now as opposed to December, when they lost a close game to their next opponent, the Green Bay Packers . Finally, Kennedy interrupted. “Excuse me, Prince, I have a question,” he said. “Do you really think you’re going to leave today without doing cardio?” Indeed, some things never change. But while veterans will forever give grief to their rookie teammates, the Giants — specifically their defense — are embracing a recent transformation. As they began preparations for Sunday’s N.F.C. divisional playoff game at Lambeau Field, many of the players trained their focus on the positive developments that have taken place since the last time they saw Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. That game, a 38-35 defeat on Dec. 4, is a two-pronged memory for the Giants’ defense. Yes, they played the undefeated Packers close, but they also surrendered 31 points (the other 7 came on an interception returned for a touchdown) and could not stop Rodgers on the final drive as he drove Green Bay toward the winning field goal. “That was not championship-caliber defense,” defensive end Dave Tollefson said. What followed, however, was something closer. Over the Giants’ last four games (the final three of the regular season and the playoff win over the Falcons), the defense has allowed 294 yards per game, or 155 fewer than it gave up to the Packers in that December loss. The Giants allowed Rodgers to record 369 passing yards that day, but in their past four games, they have given up an average of 233. Asked for an explanation, safety Antrel Rolle shrugged. “We’re a better team,” he said. “We’re a more confident team.” Coach Tom Coughlin added that the Giants “are playing tighter coverage.” “I think the guys are much more mindful and prideful,” he said, “and they are playing more physically.” Coughlin dismissed the suggestion that part of the secondary’s resurgence was due to the coordinator Perry Fewell’s simplifying his coverage schemes, but several players identified that as significant. The Packers game featured an obvious blown coverage that allowed Donald Driver to catch a touchdown pass, as well as several instances in which Amukamara, who has battled injuries and inconsistency, was beaten. When Aaron Ross sustained a concussion against the Falcons, however, Amukamara’s playing time increased and he produced what the defensive captain Justin Tuck called “one of his better games this year.” That was emblematic of the secondary’s sea change as a unit. Earlier this season, when Amukamara was asked to fill in, he struggled along with the rest of the group. Now, as the pressure increases with each passing week, he is more confident, and so are the rest of the defensive backs. Rolle said after the December defeat that he expected the Giants to see the Packers again. Come Sunday, the Giants will again try to contain Green Bay’s stellar receiving group of Greg Jennings, Jordy Nelson and Driver. “I like going up against the best,” Rolle said. “I like challenging myself. And I think they gave us our best challenge all year long.”

New York Giants
Green Bay Packers
Playoff Games
Amukamara Prince
Kennedy Jimmy
Coughlin Tom
Football


Judge Gives Wal-Mart Reprieve on Benefits

Abstract: In a setback to state efforts to force employers to provide more generous health benefits, a federal judge yesterday struck down a Maryland law that was aimed at the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores. The judge ruled that the federal law governing employer-provided health benefits takes precedence over the state law, which would have required companies with 10,000 or more workers to spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on health insurance, or pay the difference into a state Medicaid fund. Only Wal-Mart, which has been thrust into the center of the national debate over who should pay for health care, would have been affected by the law. The decision yesterday is likely to derail efforts to pass similar laws in states where organized labor leaders and lawmakers have criticized companies for shirking their responsibility to provide adequate health insurance for their employees. “The bad news is that this will discourage a lot of states who are moving forward with these bills from doing so,” said Naomi Walker, the director of state legislative programs at the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which lobbied for the Maryland law. Sandy Kennedy, the president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a trade group in Arlington, Va., that had challenged the law, said the ruling “was a victory for all business,” adding that she hoped other states would “heed the decision.” States are increasingly grappling with rising health care costs and the growing numbers of uninsured and have been looking for ways to require employers to shoulder more of the costs. While yesterday’s decision may weaken the ability of states to force employers to provide coverage, policy experts say states are likely to try different legislative approaches, like the one in Massachusetts, where the burden falls on both individuals and companies. In yesterday’s decision, Judge J. Frederick Motz of Federal District Court, ruled that the Maryland law, which was overwhelming passed by the Democrat-controlled state legislature in January, was pre-empted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or Erisa. The act sets out a national standard for company benefit plans, replacing what would otherwise be a patchwork of state regulations. The law “violates Erisa’s fundamental purpose of permitting multistate employers to maintain nationwide health and welfare plans, providing uniform nationwide benefits and permitting uniform national administration,” he wrote in the decision. In an interview on a New York radio program, Wal-Mart’s chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., called the court’s ruling “encouraging.” He said it signaled that the federal government, rather than individual states, would be “the control point for these kinds of issues so that commercial interests, businesses will be able to have one standard to work against.” While Maryland’s state attorney general said he expected to appeal the decision, the ruling was viewed by both opponents and supporters as a defeat for states trying to govern corporate behavior. Similar laws are vulnerable to the same challenge, said J. D. Piro, an attorney and principal at Hewitt Associates, a consulting firm. Yesterday’s decision “is an impediment to this kind of legislation,” he said. In his decision, Judge Motz emphasized that his ruling only applied to the Maryland law, and it was unclear exactly how the decision might affect the laws that have already passed in Massachusetts and Vermont. The Massachusetts law “addresses health care issues comprehensively and in a manner that arguably has only incidental effects upon Erisa plans,” the judge wrote. He noted that “it is strongly in the public interest to permit states to perform their traditional role of serving as laboratories for experiment in controlling the costs and increasing the quality of health care for all citizens.” Unlike the Maryland bill, which was passed over the veto of the Republican governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the Massachusetts law was also viewed as a ground-breaking political compromise, requiring individuals to buy coverage if they have the means and companies to pay a fee if they did not offer insurance. But any state law, including the one in Massachusetts, could be challenged on similar grounds since the ruling finds that the federal law pre-empts any state efforts. While the courts may well draw distinctions between different laws, the question, Mr. Piro said, is “how much room to do you have to experiment?” Some policy experts say states are already looking more to the Massachusetts model than the one in Maryland in thinking about how to expand health insurance for their residents. “What happened in Massachusetts is going to be far more instructive to other states than what happened in Maryland,” said Ronald Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a health advocacy group that supported the Maryland bill. In Maryland, Governor Ehrlich issued a statement after the ruling praising it but legislators said they would try to draft a new law if the state loses its appeal. “We will not abandon this,” said Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., the Democratic president of the Maryland Senate. “To continue to allow this huge corporation to take profits out of the state without providing adequate health care coverage would be wrong,” he said. And proponents said the law had already influenced Wal-Mart’s health insurance policies. Since it was passed, the retailer has announced that it will permit part-time employees to enroll their children in the health plan and that it will reduce by a year the waiting period before a new part-time employee is eligible for benefits.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Maryland
Law and Legislation
Decisions and Verdicts
Motz J Frederick


Senate Committee Approves Ernest J. Moniz, Energy Secretary Nominee

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Senate energy committee formally approved the nomination of Ernest J. Moniz to be energy secretary, the committee announced on Thursday. The 21-to-1 vote is an indication that Mr. Moniz, who served as an undersecretary in the Energy Department in the Clinton administration, will have no trouble being confirmed by the full Senate. Some opponents had complained that an energy initiative he leads at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is financed heavily by the oil industry and other conventional energy industries. Mr. Moniz is a physicist and strong advocate of natural gas and nuclear power as cleaner alternatives to coal. The dissenter was Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, who had tried during Mr. Moniz’s confirmation hearing to pin him down on a major project at a nuclear facility near Aiken, S.C., to convert plutonium from retired nuclear weapons into fuel for power reactors. The project has turned out to be far more difficult than first envisioned, and may be canceled. Mr. Scott has been urging its completion. Mr. Moniz would not say whether the project would be finished. About $6 billion has been spent on the plant. Mr. Moniz was involved in negotiating the treaty with Russia on destruction of plutonium, and the project in South Carolina is supposed to uphold the American end of that deal.

Ernest J Moniz
Energy Department
Appointments and Executive Changes
Senate
Congress


Ban on Hundreds of Iraqi Candidates Overturned

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Iraq ’s political crisis deepened on Wednesday after an appeals court overturned a ban on hundreds of candidates in next month’s election for having ties to Saddam Hussein ’s Baath Party , and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki then disputed that ruling. The ban had prompted threats of election boycotts and warnings that the credibility of the election itself was at stake if political groups, particularly Sunnis, felt disenfranchised. And it stoked fears of renewed violence as American troops were beginning to withdraw. The court also said it would reconsider the ban after the March 7 election, raising the possibility of further political turmoil by ousting elected members of Parliament should their ties with the Baath Party be established. The initial effort to knock more than 500 candidates off the ballot — both Sunnis and Shiites, but mostly those viewed as rivals to Mr. Maliki’s bloc — created a political furor and deeply alarmed American and United Nations officials. The ruling by a panel of seven judges appeared at first to be an exercise of judicial independence in a still young democracy. It followed weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations and diplomacy, especially from the Obama administration, which sent Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Iraq in the midst of the turmoil. As the crisis turned to impasse, Iraqi, American and United Nations officials all looked to Iraq’s judiciary to resolve a crisis that its politicians could not. “This decision will strengthen the integrity of our judiciary,” said Aliyah Nasyif, a member of Parliament who was among those initially barred. Mr. Maliki did not immediately comment, but the state television network reported late on Wednesday that he did not believe the country’s election commission was bound by the ruling and that he had called for an emergency session of Parliament to review the ban on candidates. Mr. Maliki’s opposition raised the specter of yet another constitutional crisis, this time over the untested balance of power between Iraq’s branches of government. It was not clear, though, whether he could force the Parliament to counter the court’s ruling, or even muster an emergency session, given the outpouring of support for the decision. “There are many questions which have been raised about this decision,” said one of Mr. Maliki’s allies, Sadiq al-Riqabi. “This legal ruling has to be reconciled with the Constitution. No one has the authority to postpone any article in the Constitution. Personally, I’m afraid there is a politicization of this constitutional issue.” The court’s legal rationale for overturning the ban was not made public, but many lawmakers had questioned the murky process by which a committee with disputed authority, known as the Accountability and Justice Commission, was able to bar nearly one in six candidates based on evidence that has never been made public. The court’s ruling appeared to have averted a threatened boycott by at least one prominent coalition most affected by the initial ban: Iraqiya, led by a former Shiite prime minister, Ayad Allawi . The coalition includes an array of Sunni and secular parties and is widely seen as the most formidable challenger to Mr. Maliki’s bloc and a second, largely Shiite, alliance. A Sunni boycott of Iraq’s first parliamentary election in 2005 fueled a widespread sense of Sunni disenfranchisement and strengthened the insurgency. “This is a great victory for democracy, for us, for Iraq,” Osama Nujaifi, a Sunni member of Parliament from Nineveh Province, said of the ruling in a telephone interview from Amman , Jordan , where he was traveling. Even as the court tried to resolve the immediate crisis, the implication that the election commission could disqualify candidates after the election planted the seeds of a new one. Aside from Mr. Maliki’s opposition, Iraqi law does not have a provision for unseating elected officials. An election official, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, warned that disqualifying anyone duly elected would violate popular will. “The voters will be the only losers,” the official said. For now, at least, the court’s ruling set the stage for a fierce campaign, returning to the ballot a number of prominent politicians seeking to tap into the seething discontent with Mr. Maliki’s government, and not only among Sunnis. “We don’t want to blame the government, but the fact is it is negligence,” the speaker of Parliament, Ayad al-Sammarai, told tribal leaders on Wednesday in a pre-election critique that blamed Mr. Maliki for having failed to provide security and jobs. Some of those disqualified appeared to have only tenuous ties, if any, to the Baath Party, the only official political entity allowed under Mr. Hussein’s government and one that dominated social and economic life. The process for establishing those ties dates from the early months after the American invasion in 2003 when the party was banned after Mr. Hussein’s fall. A revival of the Baath Party itself seems almost inconceivable now, but many of those challenging Mr. Maliki have appealed to Sunnis with sympathies to elements of the old government, particularly in the military and former government elite. Mr. Maliki himself has attacked the Baath Party’s remnants in exile, accusing them of colluding with terrorist groups to carry out a series of devastating attacks since last August. Many lawmakers accused the commission of settling scores on behalf of the Shiite-dominated parties, at the behest of Iran . “The decision of the commission is a sword on my neck because of my opinions against Iran,” said Dhafir al-Ani, another Sunni who was disqualified. Iraq remains so deeply divided that even establishing the rules for an election — which was supposed to happen in December and then in January — has been fraught for much of the last year, largely paralyzing the work of Parliament. An election law stalled for months last year, only to be passed, then vetoed, passed again and finally amended after another intense round of international intervention.

Iraq
Decisions and Verdicts
Politics
Baath Party


After Long Wait, Rangers Beat Canadiens

Abstract: Chris Kreider and Derick Brassard were all over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night. Kreider and Brassard each had three points, and the visiting Rangers downed the Canadiens, 5-2, eliminating Montreal from playoff contention. Kreider had two goals and an assist for the Rangers, who beat Montreal for the first time since Nov. 23, 2014, and Brassard had one goal and two assists, all in the second period. “We’re trying to find chemistry between lines right now,” said Brassard, who extended his point streak to four games. “Chris is a big part of our team. To see him score two goals like that and be involved in the game, that’s something our team is pretty excited about. “Hopefully it’s going to give him some confidence. I really like our line.” With the score tied at 1-1 going into the second period, Brassard capitalized on a big bounce off the end boards after a missed shot by Kreider at 1 minute 32 seconds. Kreider then took a clever no-look feed by Brassard and made the score 3-1 on a power play at 8:19. Kreider added his second goal of the game two minutes later on a great individual effort for his first three-point game of the season. The Rangers scored four goals on their first 15 shots on Canadiens goalie Mike Condon, who was pulled after two periods. “We controlled the puck in their end,” Brassard said of the second period. “We just capitalized on our chances. We had the puck pretty much the whole time.” J. T. Miller and Derek Stepan also scored for the Rangers, who are in second place in the Eastern Conference. Rangers goaltender Antti Raanta, playing in his first game at the Bell Centre, made 24 saves for his 10th win of the season. Lars Eller and Phillip Danault had goals for Montreal. Ben Scrivens made four saves in the third period in relief of Condon. “We’re in games — it’s just these N.H.L. teams are too good to not take advantage of turnovers,” Max Pacioretty, the Canadiens’ captain, said. “A guy like Kreider, he’s going to win every footrace that you give him. “Part of that is also knowing the league and who you’re out against. We just have to be a bit smarter.” The Rangers took advantage of a young Canadiens team ravaged by injuries. Miller made Andrei Markov look silly on the game’s first goal, at 3:04 of the opening period. Miller dangled past Markov with a nifty toe drag and then beat Condon with a backhand for his 21st goal of the season. Montreal answered back midway through the period, with Eller firing a loose puck past Raanta at 12:26 to make the score 1-1 and give him his first point in eight games. After Brassard’s and Kreider’s goals, Danault got one back for the Canadiens at 15:38 of the second, but Stepan scored for the Rangers in the final minute of the period to leave the score 5-2. The Rangers took three consecutive tripping penalties to start the third period, but Montreal failed to capitalize on any of them. The Canadiens finished 0 for 6 with the man advantage. “For pretty much all those power plays, we had a lot of good looks,” Pacioretty said. “You have to want to be the guy who wants to put it in. We moved the puck nicely for most of them; we just have to put the puck in the net.” PITTSBURGH 7, DETROIT 2 Pittsburgh pounced on Detroit with four goals in the second period and added three more in the third, dealing the host Red Wings a loss that put them a step closer to potentially missing the playoffs for the first time since 1990. Phil Kessel had a goal and four assists, and Nick Bonino had a career-high five points for the Penguins. Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury faced just four shots in the third period. Pittsburgh has won seven of eight, staying ahead of the Islanders for the third guaranteed playoff spot from the Metropolitan Division. BRUINS 3, MAPLE LEAFS 1 Zdeno Chara snapped a 20-game goal drought, and Boston ended a season-long five-game losing streak with a victory at Toronto. The win created some much-needed space in the Eastern Conference playoff race for Boston, which is third in the Atlantic Division with 88 points and now 3 points ahead of Detroit. WILD 4, AVALANCHE 0 Zach Parise scored twice, Devan Dubnyk made 29 saves for his 19th N.H.L. shutout, and surging Minnesota beat Colorado in a pivotal game between two teams contending for the final Western Conference playoff spot. The visiting Wild won their fifth straight and moved to 5 points ahead of Colorado for eighth place in the playoff race. BLUES 4, CAPITALS 0 St. Louis picked up its fourth consecutive shutout, beating N.H.L.-leading Washington even though its starting goaltender was resting at home. Jake Allen, starting in place of Brian Elliott, made 32 saves as the visiting Blues won for the 10th time in 12 games to keep pace with the Dallas Stars atop the Central Division. The loss prevented Washington from clinching the Presidents’ Trophy, given to the team with the league’s best regular-season record. STARS 4, SHARKS 2 Mattias Janmark returned to the lineup from injury and posted his first career two-goal game, and Antti Niemi made 34 saves against his former team as Dallas beat host San Jose and remained in first place in the Central Division. Niemi, traded to Dallas in the off-season after five seasons with San Jose, got the win in his first start in two weeks. DUCKS 4, SENATORS 3 Rickard Rakell scored a power-play goal in overtime, and Anaheim, which trailed by 3-0 after two periods, rallied past host Ottawa. The Senators’ Mike Hoffman was awarded a penalty shot early in the third period but lost the puck and never challenged goaltender Craig Andersen. From that point on, it was all Anaheim. IN OTHER GAMES Jaromir Jagr had a goal and an assist, and the Florida Panthers took over first place in the Atlantic Division by beating the host Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-2. ... Shea Weber and James Neal each had a goal and an assist as the Nashville Predators beat the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-1.

Ice hockey
Red Wings
Pittsburgh Penguins


Cameroon: North Bans Burqas

Abstract: Cameroon’s northern region has barred women from wearing burqas and face-covering veils after bombs carried by women in burqas killed at least 14 people in a northern town on Sunday, a government official said Wednesday. The region has also barred Muslims from meeting in large groups without permission, said the official, Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of Cameroon’s Far North Region. The Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has been carrying out attacks across Nigeria’s borders. Troops from Cameroon and Chad are fighting the group on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria. Imam Hamaounde Abba of Mora in the Far North Region criticized the ban, saying that for those who wear the veil it was not a choice.

Cameroon
Muslim Veiling
Islam
Terrorism
Boko Haram


Neglect at 2 Nursing Homes Is on Videotape, Spitzer Says

Abstract: ALBANY, Jan. 5 - A 70-year-old diabetic man with dementia, bedridden in a Rochester nursing home, depended on nurses to turn him over to prevent bedsores. But as a hidden camera showed, those nurses rarely came; instead, they watched videos and socialized, allowing his wounds to fester, according to a lawsuit filed against the nursing home by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Thursday. Mr. Spitzer announced the suit and the arrests of 19 employees from the Rochester nursing home and a second, in Cortland, on criminal charges of neglect and falsifying records. The arrests followed a monthlong investigation using hidden cameras in the bedrooms of two patients. The investigation showed that staff members at the homes routinely moved call bells out of patients' reach so that the employees could watch movies, sleep or socialize rather than check on patients or give them medicine, Mr. Spitzer said. "There are instances when people are sitting in their own urine and feces for hours and just being ignored," he said in a telephone interview. "These are the kind of inadequacies family members fear." Fourteen of the arrested employees worked at the Rochester home, the Jennifer Matthew Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Eight of those have pleaded guilty to neglect and falsifying records related to the case, and are cooperating with prosecutors; the others are awaiting trial. The other five arrested employees are from the Northwoods Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility in Cortland, about 30 miles south of Syracuse. They are charged with falsifying business records. The Jennifer Matthew nursing home has received about $20 million in Medicaid payments since 2000, according to the civil lawsuit, which seeks repayment for care that it says was not provided. It was filed in State Supreme Court in Albany. Allegations of abuse in nursing homes are often hard to prove, Mr. Spitzer said, and the Rochester and Cortland cases are among the first to rely on evidence from hidden cameras. The families of both patients who were monitored consented to the use of video cameras. "Ordinarily you are dealing with witnesses who are frail and are at the whim of the individual who may be responsible for hurting him or her," Mr. Spitzer said. "This is the same kind of technique we would see in a drug case, but it had not been brought to bear on a nursing investigation." David Lenefsky, a lawyer representing the Jennifer Matthew home, said it had fired all 14 of its arrested employees as soon as it became aware of the complaints. "We have a staff of 130 people who are giving excellent medical care, in full compliance with Medicare and Medicaid standards," he said. Dorothy Zegarelli, the administrator at Northwoods, said in a statement that the home had "designed and implemented a comprehensive program for the retraining of its nursing staff." She would not comment on whether the five arrested Northwoods employees had been fired. Mr. Spitzer also released a report analyzing the staff sizes at more than 600 nursing homes across the state. The report found that 98 percent of the homes did not meet federal recommendations for nurse staffing levels. The finding may reignite a debate on health care spending while the state is under pressure to curb the costs of Medicaid. In a 2001 study, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that a patient can suffer with less than 4.1 hours of attention from nurses and nurses' aides each day. Other states, including Florida, California and Vermont, have set their own nurse staffing level requirements, but no such standard has been set in New York.


U.S. Formula One Team Is Shut Down Before Season

Abstract: The first Formula One team based in the United States since the 1970s is not going to make it to the starting grid. USF1, the team from Charlotte, N.C., that was granted a franchise last summer in the expectation it would begin competition in 2010, has been shut down less than two weeks before the start of the season. A request by the USF1 co-founder Ken Anderson to retain its franchise but delay entry until 2011 was rejected Wednesday by the International Automobile Federation, the sport’s governing body. It was the worst-case situation for Anderson, who was asked before the decision was announced if a denial would mean the end of the team. “If they say no, it’s going to be difficult to recover from that, for sure,” he said. An announcement was posted on the federation’s Web site listing the 12 teams that would be on the grid in Bahrain on March 14 for the start of the season, including three new teams that were approved last summer. USF1 was supposed to be the fourth newcomer. Another hopeful, Stefan GP, had lobbied to take USF1’s place in Formula One but was denied. Instead, the federation, known as FIA, issued a brief news release that offered no guarantees for USF1 or Stefan GP. Both will have to apply to join Formula One next season. “The USF1 team have indicated they will not be in a position to participate in the 2010 FIA Formula One world championship,” FIA said in its statement. “Having considered the various options, the FIA confirms it is not possible for a replacement team to be entered for the championship at this late stage. “In the coming days the FIA will announce details of a new selection process to identify candidates to fill any vacancies existing at the start of the 2011 season.” Reports of USF1’s financial struggles had circulated for months, although team officials had maintained their goal was to race in Bahrain. But Anderson said last month that a loss of sponsorships had forced a delay in building a racecar. He initially asked FIA that USF1 be allowed to miss the first four races and begin competition at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on May 9. When it became clear that the team might not be competitive by May, Anderson said he requested the one-year delay. The team recently released the driver José María López of Argentina, who had signed in January. Anderson confirmed that USF1 employees were on unpaid leave and that no work was being done at the team’s headquarters while it awaited FIA’s decision. Anderson also confirmed that USF1 did attempt to merge with two other teams. But talks with the new Hispania Racing Team, formerly named Campos Meta, and Stefan GP did not pan out. “We looked at all the options,” Anderson said. “We looked at every possible scenario to fulfill our commitment to FIA. But it had to make business sense to do that and none of the options did.” Peter Windsor, the team sporting director and a co-founder with Anderson, did not immediately respond to an interview request. Chad Hurley, a YouTube co-founder and a major investor in USF1, has declined numerous interview requests in the last month. The USF1 Web site home page is still topped by the announcement of López as its first driver. The site has not been updated since January. With its public relations representatives having already left the team, no one is left to post an obituary.


Jimmie Johnson Wins at Phoenix and Has Sprint Cup Within Grasp

Abstract: AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Jimmie Johnson moved inches from his record-tying third consecutive Nascar Cup series championship with a dominating victory Sunday in the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. With a crowd of friends watching from his pit box, Johnson led 217 of the 313 laps on the one-mile oval to pull away from Carl Edwards in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Johnson won for the seventh time this season and stretched his lead over Edwards to 141 points, from 106, with one race remaining. Johnson will head to next week’s season finale in Homestead, Fla., needing to finish only 35th or better to join Cale Yarborough (1976-78) as the only drivers to win three consecutive Cup titles. “This is what I’ve worked my whole life for,” Johnson said in victory lane. Edwards, who had won the previous two races, finished fourth. He is the only driver with a chance to catch Johnson. “It’s still possible,” Edwards said, sighing. “It’s not probable.” Johnson has made a mockery of the Chase format, winning 14 of 49 races since the format took effect in 2004. He finished just short of the title in 2004 and 2005. He is on the verge of joining Yarborough, David Pearson, Lee Petty and Darrel Waltrip as a three-time champion. Jeff Gordon has four titles, and Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty each won seven.

Johnson Jimmie
Automobile Racing
National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing


Southern Baptists Back Path to Legal Status for Immigrants

Abstract: NASHVILLE (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution at its meeting in Phoenix this week advocating a path to legal status for illegal immigrants. Richard Land, president of the Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in Washington, described the move as “a really classic illustration of Gospel love and Gospel witness.” The resolution, which was approved Wednesday, also calls on Southern Baptists to minister to all people and to reject bigotry and harassment, regardless of a person’s country of origin or immigration status. A motion to strike the reference to immigrants’ path to legal status was narrowly defeated by a vote of 766 to 723. An amendment saying that the resolution was “not to be construed as support for amnesty for any undocumented immigrant” passed by a wide margin. The resolution calls for “appropriate restitutionary measures” from any immigrants seeking legal status. It also calls on the government to make border security a priority and to hold businesses accountable for the hiring of illegal immigrants. Southern Baptist churches are independent, so the resolution is not binding on them, but it does represent the Convention’s will.

Southern Baptist Convention
Immigration and Emigration
Gospel Music


Sides Meet Discreetly Before N.F.L. Court Date

Abstract: ST. LOUIS — Commissioner Roger Goodell and a handful of the most influential N.F.L. owners concluded meetings with DeMaurice Smith, the head of the now-decertified players association, and a group of players Thursday afternoon in Chicago amid indications that for the first time since March, progress could be made on a deal that would end the labor strife that has brought the league to a halt. After the meetings, which began in secret Tuesday night and stretched into Thursday afternoon, concluded, Chief Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan, who had been overseeing mediated negotiations, announced that two days of mediation scheduled for next week had been canceled. The two sides, though, are prepared to continue talking, probably at an undisclosed location next week. Boylan will almost certainly be present, although he may not be actively running the negotiations toward a settlement. Boylan was present for the meetings in Chicago, which the N.F.L. initiated by placing the first phone call to Mr. Smith. None of the lawyers who have been involved in early negotiations were present, one of the conditions of the meetings. And none are expected to attend when the sides resume talking next week. That should please both sides: the players, who were frustrated by the lack of direct negotiations with owners during earlier sessions, and the owners, who thought that the lawyers for the players were more interested in going to court than in negotiating an agreement. “It went well,” said one person who was present at the meetings but who spoke on condition of anonymity because the court wanted the particulars of the meetings to remain confidential. Still, others briefed on the meetings urged caution and said a completed deal was, at best, several weeks away even if negotiations went smoothly. The N.F.L.’s goal is to have a deal done by late June or early July, because that would allow several weeks of free agency before training camps open at the end of July and the preseason begins. The N.F.L. and the decertified players association issued a joint statement confirming the talks, but provided no further details. The driving force behind the meetings, which were held so close to the vest that some owners were not even aware they were taking place, was the calendar. With the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing arguments Friday in the league’s appeal of the injunction that ordered an end to the owners’ lockout of players, the leverage has not yet fully swung to one side. The owners may have the upper hand because a delay has kept the lockout in place, and the court indicated it is likely to reverse the injunction.

Lockouts
National Football League
Football
Organized Labor
Goodell Roger
Smith DeMaurice


Police Officers Killed in Ambush in Ciudad Juárez

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — When a police officer is killed in Mexico , as seven of them were Friday on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, the sad question that immediately arises is, “Whose side were they on?” The drug gangs wreaking so much havoc throughout Mexico have long bribed officers to help keep their shipments of narcotics flowing. Traffickers consider police officers working for rival gangs to be the enemy. But adding confusion to the matter is that the many honest officers, those who risk their lives to keep the streets safe and who are not on any criminal organization’s payroll, are also considered to be enemies by Mexico’s heavily armed traffickers. Initial reports from Ciudad Juárez were that the slain officers had simply been performing their jobs. They were ambushed by many gunmen in an attack that investigators said might have been a response to an operation the previous day, in which the federal police detained eight people in a stolen vehicle with automatic weapons, cocaine and marijuana . Six of the slain officers were on the federal police force. One worked for the city police. A 17-year-old civilian was also killed. Photographs of the scene showed shell casings strewn across the road and a police-issue pickup truck full of bullet holes. The federal police asked residents to call in with any information that might help in identifying the gunmen and issued a statement that said the police would “continue firmly in the fight against criminals to recover the Mexico that belongs to all of us.” The army, which had been policing the streets of Ciudad Juárez since last year to give local authorities time to train new police officers who are not corrupt, ceded law enforcement duties to the police this month. Since then, numerous officers have been detained for various irregularities. An operation in Monterrey, another violence-racked Mexican city, focused Friday on entire police departments believed to be linked to drug traffickers . The army took over several local police installations, replacing the officers with state agents. Many local officers in the area are believed to be working for the Zetas, a drug gang known for its particularly ruthless ways. There is even a nickname for such officers: polizetas. President Felipe Calderón said in a speech last week that more than 90 percent of the nearly 23,000 people killed in the drug war over the last three years were criminals. Mr. Calderón said police officers and soldiers made up less than 5 percent of the deaths and bystanders an even smaller percentage.

Police
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Mexico City (Mexico)
Mexico


In Germany, a Broad Recovery Is Under Way

Abstract: FRANKFURT — Norbert Reithofer, the chief executive of BMW, often boasted that he was among the first to start trimming jobs in 2007 when he saw a downturn coming in the automobile industry. On Tuesday, BMW hung out the help-wanted sign after reporting that its net profit rose more than sixfold in the second quarter. German exports are booming again and so is employment. The country’s unemployment rate is 7.6 percent, almost at the pre-crisis level, and down from 9.1 percent in January. Companies, including the electronics and engineering giant Siemens, the truck maker MAN or the carmaker Daimler, are ramping up worker hours. BMW said it was seeking 1,000 people in Germany to work in research and development as well as purchasing and sales. As a country adding workers, Germany’s image stands in stark contrast to five years ago when unemployment was above 13 percent, more than five million people were jobless and the country was a symbol of labor-market inflexibility. Germany’s unexpectedly strong economy is generally considered good news for the rest of Europe, which depends on German demand for its goods. So is the drop in joblessness, which should help increase consumer confidence and encourage Germans to take vacations in Spain and Greece, channeling euros to two places that need them. But Germany’s success is also a significant point of contention with leaders in France and other countries who believe that some of it comes at their expense. Germany exports far more than it imports, in part benefiting from easier access to credit than in the heavily indebted countries. Some economic experts argue that Germany’s economic policies are exacerbating tensions in the euro zone. “By cutting its budget deficit and resisting a rise in wages to compensate for the decline in the purchasing power of the euro,” George Soros, the prominent investor, wrote in a recent essay in The New York Review of Books, “Germany is actually making it more difficult for the other countries to regain competitiveness.” Within Germany, there is a different set of questions about how long the export boom can last and when German workers, who have been remarkably restrained in wage demands, will start to clamor for a bigger share of corporate profits. “Fear of unemployment made workers more willing to accept concessions,” said Ralph Solveen, a senior economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. “That will certainly change in the next few years.” Amid the celebrating in German boardrooms, there is also nervousness about how long demand in Asia can continue to compensate for slower growth in Europe. “Naturally, we are pleased about the additional tailwind the economic upswing in some countries is providing us,” Mr. Reithofer, BMW’s chief executive, said on Tuesday. He added a note of caution, though, saying that the business environment remained uncertain. BMW, based in Munich, said Tuesday that its sales in China had doubled so far this year, helping profit in the second quarter rise to 834 million euros ($1.1 billion), compared with 121 million euros in the same quarter a year ago. BMW’s sales also rose 6 percent in the United States, and a weaker euro raised the value of the company’s dollar-denominated revenue. Surging earnings, also reported in recent weeks by companies like the chemical maker BASF and Deutsche Bank, partly explain why German hiring is bouncing back. But the jobs recovery also has roots in the changes that Germany has made to its labor market, and to the lessons that German companies learned from past crises. For example, Trumpf, a machine-tool maker in the south German city of Ditzingen, managed to get through the recession without laying off any of its 4,000 German workers. In the United States, Trumpf laid off 90 of the 650 workers. Why the difference? Part of the answer is that, in Germany, Trumpf could take advantage of government incentives to reduce worker hours rather than lay off people, a system known as short work. In the program, the government gives workers partial compensation for the lost wages. “We wanted to keep our well-trained people on board,” the Trumpf chief executive, Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, wrote in an e-mail. “Short work helped a lot.” Many larger German companies also resorted to short work. Siemens, which at one point had 19,000 German employees on reduced hours, said last week that all were back working full time again. Siemens has 128,000 employees. It may even turn out that short work improved German competitiveness by encouraging workers to use the free time to improve their skills. Gabrieli Kiesel, quality expert at a Siemens plant in Erlangen, Germany, that makes factory automation equipment, used the extra day off each week to qualify as a meister, or master, in his specialty. He said he could live with the reduced pay, which amounted to 85 percent of his previous wages for a four-day week. “All in all, short work was a very good solution for me,” Mr. Kiesel, 33, said. “Without it I would have been more fearful about losing my job.” Klaus F. Zimmermann, president of the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, called short work “the most important stimulus program.” “You couldn’t generate exports; you couldn’t make the U.S. buy German products,” Mr. Zimmermann said. “You could support the work force.” German wage growth, though, has been nearly stagnant for the last decade, in part because companies increasingly used temporary workers during periods of high demands. Major cuts in unemployment benefits also increased the incentive for people with fewer skills to take low-paying jobs. The changes, in 2005, were the beginning of the turnaround in the job market but are still a sore point with labor representatives. “There are more and more people who earn very little or too little,” said a spokeswoman for IG Metall, which negotiates wages for 3.4 million workers in the metal and electronics industries, including Siemens. Workers are dismayed that their tax dollars were used to finance a bank bailout, but they are seeing little benefit for themselves while corporate profits soar. Still, the union emphasized job preservation, agreeing to keep wages unchanged this year except for a one-time payment of 320 euros. Walter Huber, head of personnel at Siemens in Germany, said he believed employer groups and unions would continue to cooperate. “We have developed a good basis for dialogue,” he said. “That makes me optimistic.”

Germany
Economic Conditions and Trends
Unemployment
Labor and Jobs
Wages and Salaries
International Trade and World Market


Bobbing as the Taxman Weaves

Abstract: To the long list of new financial regulations that were once considered improbable but now seem possible, add this one: a tax rule that would treat the investment gains of partners in hedge funds and private equity firms as ordinary income rather than as capital gains. Just a tax technicality? Far from it. General partners at private equity funds, who take a cut of the investment gains they earn for their investors in the form of “carried interest,” have been paying federal taxes worth only 15 percent of that cut. By contrast, most people in the top tax bracket pay 35 percent on their income — soon to be 39.6 percent. The change in the tax law could hand the government nearly $25 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade while making a lot of rich people a little less rich. “I think you’re going to see a change in the taxation of carried interest pass the Senate within the next few weeks,” Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, said last week at a private breakfast sponsored by Reuters. Of course, even if the measure passes, Wall Street executives are ready: They’ve already begun devising clever new “structures” to skirt the tax change. The moment the bill is signed, “the games will begin,” said Francois Hechinger, a tax partner at BDO Seidman who advises venture capital firms. “That’s when people will try to figure out how to get around this.” If we’ve learned anything from the financial crisis, it seems that new regulations on Wall Street always have a way of breeding another generation of “financial innovation” meant to circumvent them. The debate over taxing the lords of private equity, of course, has been swirling since the height of the buyout boom in 2007. But the financial crisis and the economic carnage it created appeared to have derailed those efforts. Until now. The House of Representatives, aware that some titans of finance were already charting a course around any proposed change to their tax status, included a special provision in its version of the new legislation levying a 40 percent penalty for executives who invoked a loophole to cut their tax bill but were later ruled to have been wrong in doing so. Still, that hasn’t stopped them from trying. One of the latest machinations being whispered about in the industry goes like this: Private equity executives would sell their “carried interest” to a third party and then use the cash they received to invest directly in the deal so that any increase in value would be a capital gain. “We don’t know if it works or not,” Mr. Hechinger said. Capital gains have long been taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income because investors risk their own money when they make their bets. Under their current partnership structure, however, general partners — like executives at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts or TPG — receive 20 percent of any profits and they have been treating that as a capital gain even though their own money is not at risk. A lot of people, including me, have been arguing for years that their cut of the winnings is really income, not capital gains. (Of course, profits that executives make by investing their own money in the deals should be considered capital gains.) Another idea that has been bandied about would have investors in a fund make a loan to the general partner worth 20 percent of the deal, instead of sharing 20 percent of the profits. Again, the general partners would use the lent money to buy a 20 percent stake in the deal for themselves, thus making any upside a capital gain. That specific idea appears to have already been outlawed by language in the latest bill. “Any time there is a new section of the tax code there are going to be lawyers who will try to manipulate the rules,” said Victor Fleischer, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Mr. Fleisher wrote a paper on this topic in 2007 that was used by Congress as the basis for the new proposed change. Mr. Fleischer said he was aware that some private equity firms, which manage money for wealthy individuals as well as pensions and endowments, had talked to their lawyers about moving certain funds offshore to take advantage of more favorable tax codes. He said some firms were also discussing a drastic change: dismantling their partnership structure and making investments in companies on behalf of their investors on a deal-by-deal basis. That way, the general partners could get access to “founders’ shares” in the form of common stock, which would be subject only to capital gains tax. “Institutional investors are not going to like any of these schemes,” Mr. Fleischer said, somewhat exasperated by the lengths the firms have gone to game the system. “I don’t think that Calpers would like to restructure the industry so that limited partners can pay lower taxes.” Of course, not everyone is trying to get around the rules. Some who would get caught in the net aimed at private equity are trying instead to block them from being added to the bill in the first place. While the measure is intended to collect higher taxes from private equity players, it would affect all firms that use partnership accounting, including industries like venture capital and real estate funds. Both of those industries in particular have been desperately seeking to be excluded, or “carved out” in Washington parlance. Venture capitalists have argued that they are the backbone of innovation in the United States, providing start-up capital to companies like Google and Apple. Removing the tax break, they suggest, is tantamount to “discouraging investment in new companies at a time when Congress should be doing all it can to support the start-up ecosystem,” according to the National Venture Capital Association. Their pitch has attracted some sympathy: four Democratic senators and one Republican, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, sent a letter to the Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the finance committee, and Senator Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican, seeking an exemption. Real estate funds, similarly, are pressing for an exemption, arguing that property values are in such decline that the tax change would further stifle the industry and the prices they are willing to pay. Their position has the support of the Conference of Mayors. Whether certain industries get excluded or not, Congress beware: Wall Street will find a loophole.

Private Equity
Taxation
Capital Gains Tax
Hedge Funds
Law and Legislation
Reform and Reorganization
United States Politics and Government
Income Tax


Neurofinance Shows How Investors Can Shun Reason

Abstract: BRADLEY ALFORD, a money manager in Atlanta, just hit the panic button. No, really. Mr. Alford just hit the key on his computer that initiates the Wall Street equivalent of the nuclear option: Sell everything. He was acting on orders from two wealthy clients who became so alarmed by the troubled outlook that they simply wanted out. Over the last 10 days or so, they asked him to sell all of their stocks and invest in a mutual fund he oversees that is somewhat insulated against a potential market collapse. “I have never, ever done it before,” says Mr. Alford, who is the chairman of Alpha Capital Management and has been managing money for 22 years. “This was unprecedented.” The pros on Wall Street are forever telling us to keep socking our money away in that 401(k) plan and to keep believing, whatever the market’s daily ups or downs. But after a week like the one we just had, the worst since the dark days of 2008, even the smart-money crowd seems to have second thoughts about the old steady-as-she-goes approach. As the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 513 points last Thursday, then gyrated wildly on Friday, all of Wall Street seemed to be asking the same question: What the heck is going on? Evidence that the American economy is bad and growing worse has been piling up for a while now. And it’s not as if we didn’t know Europe had a debt problem. Why, then, all these crazy swings? One possible answer comes from, all of places, the fields of psychology and neuroscience. In recent years, an area of study called neurofinance has tried to use brain science to explain how our primal circuits can, and often do, override our reason when it comes to investing. It’s a heretical thought on Wall Street, where most people insist that logic prevails. The economic theory of rational expectations has enshrined the principle that people make judicious economic choices and learn from their mistakes. As a result, our collective expectations about the financial future — from the price of T-bills next week to the earnings of Google next quarter — are, on average, accurate. Or so the theory goes. In practice, we do stupid things all the time. Some of us gamble away money, doubling down when logic tells us to quit. Others let their winnings ride when any rational person would cash out. But many experts say the 2008 financial collapse recalibrated investor psychology. After living through the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the panic that followed, some investors are apt to sell first and ask questions later. Wall Street’s notion of worst-case scenarios has darkened considerably. The result: the markets go wild. After a little good news on jobs on Friday — new figures showed the jobless rate slipped a notch in July — the Dow bolted higher. But by noon it had plunged more than 400 points from its morning high. It closed at 11,444.61, down 5.75 percent for the week and 1.15 percent for the year. Like most major markets, the American stock market has now officially entered a “correction,” one of those mini-bear markets that sometimes prove fleeting and, sometimes, are a harbinger of worse to come. FINANCIAL markets rarely move in straight lines, and whatever the pundits say, it’s not always easy to pinpoint what made them move this way or that on a given day. But in New York, London, Tokyo and beyond, a broad shift appears to be occurring. All those graphs and charts are, basically, a representation of our collective financial neurocircuitry getting a bit panicky. Some large investors, including wealthy individuals who lost big during the 2008 collapse, have more or less been stashing money under the mattress. They have been selling investments aggressively and seeking safety in cash. Over the last three weeks or so, hedge fund managers have been betting that stocks will fall further. Dick Del Bello, senior partner of Conifer Securities, a company that provides administrative support to hedge funds, says funds have started to place more wagers against the markets, if only to protect themselves. But as a whole, he says, they are still betting that stocks will go up, rather than down. “Hedge funds decided to add to their short positions and play more defensively,” he says. And yet it seems clear that Wall Street is finally realizing what many ordinary Americans have been feeling for a while: these hard times are turning harder. Sure, major American corporations are making fistfuls of money. But smaller businesses aren’t. The American consumer confronts a toxic mix of weak home prices and high unemployment. Confidence is fragile. Granted, people have been trying to explain the financial markets for more than a century. In 1900, the French mathematician Louis Bachelier argued that markets were essentially random. In other words, no one can forecast the markets accurately. John Maynard Keynes, in his famous 1936 work, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” likened the stock market to a beauty contest that ran in the newspapers of his day. Readers were asked to pick which would be voted the prettiest face. The key to selecting the winner, Keynes argued, wasn’t choosing the face you think is the most beautiful, but rather anticipating the face that others will pick. Such theories aside, the uncertainties in the financial world now seem to have overloaded our collective financial brains, at least judging by the markets. Denise Shull, the founder of Trader Psyches , which consults funds and investors on neuroscience strategies, says many investors are using the 2008 panic as their new reference point. After so many people lost so much money, many investors no longer hesitate to sell at the first sign of trouble, he says. “How your brain deals with uncertainty — when it recognizes it is in an uncertain situation — is that it tries to pull it from a bigger context,” Ms. Shull says. “The context of 2008 and not wanting to see it happen again would absolutely influence these people to hit the sell button. Then it becomes self-fulfilling for the market.” IT has actually been relatively easy to make money on Wall Street over the last year or so. Buoyed by hopes that the Federal Reserve would be able to reignite growth through quantitative easing , its controversial bond-buying program, the American stock market shot up last August and kept on rising fairly steadily through this May. That run gave investors, the pros and individuals alike, a false sense of security, says Roy Niederhoffer, who runs a money management firm called R.G. Niederhoffer Capital Management. Mr. Niederhoffer has a degree in computational neuroscience from Harvard and is a big believer in the idea that neuroscience can help people invest. He says he was surprised at how complacent investors have been, given Europe’s problems, the slack American economy and, until a deal last week, the debt-ceiling showdown in Washington. One measure of that complacency is the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s VIX index, which uses the price of stock options to measure investors’ expectations about future volatility. After spiking following the earthquake in Japan this year, the VIX drifted lower through June and remained relatively subdued until early July. It has since shot up, although it remains far below the record levels hit during the financial crisis. Richard Sylla, a finance professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University who has written about market sell-offs, said the plunge last week had all the hallmarks of a classic panic attack. The debt-ceiling debate, concern over the American economy, Europe — the bad news just kept coming, and investors finally snapped. “When you pile all of those things together, investors become queasy,” he says. Mr. Niederhoffer agrees. “I think, without question, there’s been a tremendous shift in psychology, but it took a while,” he says. Even when the market began to wobble last month, many investors refused to throw in the towel. Mr. Niederhoffer has actually had a tough time because investors have been so complacent. He tends to zig when other investors zag, known as a contrarian strategy. Last week, two of his hedge funds were up 8.6 percent and 13.5 percent. Now he smells opportunity. “We see what’s happening as a return of the psychology of the markets in 2007 and 2008,” he said. “This feels like it’s got legs.” If he’s right, investors had better fasten their seat belts.

United States Economy
Stocks and Bonds
Psychology and Psychologists
Anxiety and Stress
Asset Allocation (Personal Finances)