Confrontation With Black Partygoers Leads to Gang Charges for White Group

Abstract: DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — In an unusual legal maneuver, the district attorney in this suburb of Atlanta said Monday that he had won indictments against 15 supporters of the Confederate battle flag, accusing them of violating the state’s anti-street-gang statute during a confrontation with black partygoers in July. Prosecutors say that members of the group, which calls itself Respect the Flag, threatened a group of blacks attending an outdoor birthday party on July 25. A cellphone video of part of the episode shows several white men driving away from the party in a convoy of pickup trucks with the Confederate battle flag and other banners, including American flags, fluttering from the truck beds. The partygoers contend that members of the flag group yelled racial slurs and displayed a crowbar, a knife and either a rifle or a shotgun, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala., that is representing some of the accusers. The Douglas County district attorney, Brian Fortner, a white Republican elected to the office in 2014, announced the indictments in a news conference Monday morning. Each of the 15 was indicted on one count of making terroristic threats and a second count of unlawfully participating in “criminal gang activity.” Mr. Fortner, whose county has transformed from predominantly white to decidedly mixed over the past two decades, said that the Georgia statute upon which the second charge is based, the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, was “worded very broadly to deal with any type of activity that occurs with a group that’s organized that commits a crime.” None of the accused had been arraigned as of Monday, and it was not clear if they had lawyers representing them. By Monday afternoon, none of them had applied for representation with the county public defenders’ office. But a member of the group told a local newspaper that the black partygoers started the confrontation. Several criminal lawyers and legal scholars said Monday that they could not recall other instances in which a state anti-gang statute had been used to prosecute a Confederate heritage group in the Deep South. The first version of Georgia’s anti-gang law was passed in 1992 at the behest of Atlanta’s police chief at the time, Eldrin Bell. The state’s General Assembly, in the law’s statement of intent, noted that citizens retained their rights to freedom of expression and association. But it also declared that Georgia was in a “state of crisis which has been caused by violent criminal street gangs whose members threaten, terrorize and commit a multitude of crimes against the peaceful citizens of their neighborhoods.” Pickup trucks flying Confederate-themed flags have become a regular sight in many parts of the South since June, when a white gunman, apparently influenced by racist doctrine, massacred nine black worshipers at a Charleston, S.C., church . A subsequent effort by some elected officials in the region to remove Confederate symbols from public spaces has provoked a strong negative reaction from some white Southerners, who argue that the symbols are a part of their history and heritage. The indictments were handed up Friday by a grand jury in Douglas County, a fast-growing county a few miles west of Atlanta that is about 52 percent white and 44 percent black. Suburban sprawl and the steady migration of blacks out of the city’s core have caused striking social and demographic change here: In 1990, blacks made up only about 8 percent of the population, according to census figures. Image Images from a cellphone video show members of the group Respect the Flag who had a confrontation with black partygoers in Douglasville, Ga., in July. Credit via Southern Poverty Law Center The anti-gang law defines a “criminal street gang” as “any organization, association or group of three or more persons associated in fact, whether formal or informal,” that engages in or conspires to commit a defined set of serious criminal acts. The law gives prosecutors numerous ways to define the existence of a gang, including sharing signs, symbols, tattoos, graffiti or “common activities.” Critics challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, but it was upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2009. Ronald L. Carlson, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said that Georgia’s law was generally “in line” with other state anti-gang statutes around the country. But Mr. Carlson also said that he expected lawyers for the defendants to file pretrial motions to dismiss the counts and argue that the identification of their clients as gang members was a stretch. LeeAnne Lynch, a public defender in DeKalb County, Ga., who was among the lawyers who unsuccessfully challenged the law’s constitutionality, said Monday that she continued to believe that the law was overly broad. She said small groups of people could be defined as a gang just because they were “wearing certain types of clothes or have a group motto that they share.” Ms. Lynch said that the law had been used to prosecute members of rap groups who have some affiliation with criminal gangs, but are not gang members themselves. Prosecutors, she said, often use the statute to “load up” charges on defendants to pressure them to agree to a plea deal. Morris Dees, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center and its chief trial lawyer, could not recall seeing an anti-gang statute used against this kind of group in the past. But he said it was “a very good use” of the statute. “I don’t know why it hasn’t been used before,” he said. Mr. Fortner said that some of the men involved in the episode had been arrested, and others would be arrested soon. In a July 27 article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a member of the group who was named in the indictments, Levi Bush, said that the partygoers yelled at some members of his group as they drove by. Partygoers then threw rocks at his truck, he said. Mr. Bush, in a brief phone interview on Monday, denied that he had broken the law. “I speak for me and everybody else — we are not guilty in these charges,” he said. He declined to elaborate. Two members of the group, Joe Eric Hood and Thomas Summers, were each also indicted on an unrelated count of battery stemming from an episode at a gas station called the Corn Crib. Mr. Fortner said the accuser was white, but declined to comment further. The party occurred on a Saturday at the home of Melissa Alford, 44. On Monday, Ms. Alford showed the side street where, she said, the trucks had pulled over and begun to harass her guests. She said she saw one of them with a rifle or shotgun, and heard one racial epithet used. She said that none of her guests threw rocks. Ms. Alford said that she worked with at-risk youth as part of a nonprofit she founded. Some of them, she said, have been identified by the authorities as gang members. She said the men in the trucks deserved the same treatment. “Just like the Crips,” she said, “if they’re out there doing some foolishness like this, they’re going to get charged.”

Georgia
Flags
Gang
Black People,African-Americans
Terrorism
Fringe Groups
Threat
Southern Poverty Law Center
Race and Ethnicity


Along Gaza, a Quiet (but Still Tense) Life

Abstract: MOSHAV YATED, Israel — At the last stop of the artists’ tour through this hazardous semi-desert, Yaron Bob fashions roses out of pieces of Qassam rockets fired out of Gaza at residents in the area. Mr. Bob repeatedly heats a metal band sawed from a rocket until it glows orange and pounds it with a hammer, working it into a slim stem and petals. He chose to make roses, he said, because he was “looking for a new symbol of peace, and an answer to death.” Last winter’s war in Gaza has brought some quiet to Israeli communities along the border like this one, which lived under the constant threat of rocket fire from Gaza for much of the last eight years. Israel said its three-week offensive was intended to change the reality in the south. Since January, when the military campaign ended, the rocket fire has significantly fallen off and residents here are trying to accustom themselves to a kind of normalcy amid the lingering uncertainty and fear. Guesthouses in local villages and kibbutzim enjoyed 80 percent occupancy during the recent New Year holiday, according to the tourism manager for the regional councils. In August, the villages and farms put on a week-long South American festival with concerts, salsa dancing and workshops, attracting thousands of visitors. Now the regional councils are promoting the tour of artists and galleries in the area. But in some respects for the people here, the war is not over. Occasional rockets and mortar shells still puncture the calm, causing the population to relive the moments of panic. The international outcry over Israel’s military conduct, meanwhile, has left many here feeling that the world is out of touch with their plight. Up to 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, including hundreds of civilians, while the war left 13 dead on the Israeli side. A United Nations investigation led by Richard Goldstone, an internationally respected judge, found evidence of possible war crimes by both Israel and the Palestinian militant groups. Israel denounced the report as one-sided and said it ignored Israel’s right of self-defense. Not surprisingly, Israelis in southern Israel have little patience for the international condemnation, and there is not much soul-searching under way. “People scoffed” at the Goldstone report, said Sasson Sara, the owner of a newspaper store in Sderot, the border town hit by thousands of rockets. “What does he understand? He sits in an air-conditioned room and he writes.” Yafa Malka, a glamorously made-up Sderot hairdresser, said she felt “pain and humiliation” when she heard about the report. “I am very sorry for all those who were killed in Gaza,” Ms. Malka said, “but I expect my country to defend me no matter how.” According to the Israeli military, some 3,300 rockets and mortar shells were launched from Gaza at southern Israel in 2008, compared with fewer than 300 since the end of the war. But the calm remains precarious; in recent weeks there has been more frequent, if sporadic, fire. Over the Jewish New Year in September, the familiar but heart-stopping incoming rocket alert sounded over the public address system in the middle of the night. Two rockets landed on the edge of Sderot. “The problem is not whether it is quiet or not quiet,” said Mr. Sara, the newspaper vendor. “The question is, will it last? In business you cannot plan anything. People here live from one day to the next.” The relative calm has brought some problems of its own. For one thing, the steep decline in rocket fire has led to a corresponding reduction in government funds and other donations. “We bless every day of quiet,” said Amnon Kuznits, director of the Sderot Economic Company, a municipal body that develops initiatives to help the town. “People are back at work, and the children are going to school.” But as soon things improved, he said, foreign donors and government ministries cut their financing. So while many of the residents continue to suffer the psychological effects of the rocket fire, Sderot’s emergency trauma center is in danger of closing down. From a rise along the border, observers can watch the sun set in a red orb behind the buildings of Hamas-run Gaza before it drops into the Mediterranean Sea. The sounds of wartime bombing and the black plumes of smoke are gone. Here in Moshav Yated, a cooperative village in a remote corner of the western Negev where the borders of Israel, Gaza and Egypt meet, residents grow flowers, cherry tomatoes and other produce in hothouses. Some tease lush gardens out of the sand. And in a converted agricultural shed behind his house, Mr. Bob, 38, a teacher of computing and a part-time metal sculptor and blacksmith, makes his roses out of pieces of spent Qassams, collected from the police station in the nearby desert town of Ofakim. He made his first one last winter, at the height of the Gaza war, seeking an outlet for his often conflicted emotions. Mr. Bob says he is “not for violence,” and is “for solving things peacefully.” But the military offensive “brought quiet,” he said. The mayor of Sderot, David Buskila, has presented several of Mr. Bob’s roses to visiting dignitaries, including Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations. The roses are created with a combination of brute force and finesse, then they are welded onto metal bases shaped like a map of Israel, growing out of the spot that marks Sderot. There are no lines on the map demarcating the borders of Gaza or the boundary of the West Bank. That, Mr. Bob says, is “because I am not trying to say this is mine, and this is yours.”


Europe’s Farmers Feel the Weight of Russian Ban

Abstract: ANNECY, France — On Aug. 7, trucks carrying French cheese were turned away at the Russian border and forced to make a 1,240-mile return trip with fast-ripening cargoes of Brie, Camembert, Roquefort and other delicacies. “The peculiarity of this decision was that it was put in place right away, from one day to the next,” lamented Johann Hugon, export manager for Fromi Rungis, a French cheese exporter that had to scramble to unload 10 tons of cheese. “We feel powerless.” The French cheese business is just one sliver of the European agricultural market feeling the pain of a Russian ban on selected food products from the European Union, as well as the United States, Australia, Norway and Canada. The penalties were imposed as part of the struggle over the future of Ukraine. In 2013, France exported 109 million euros, or $144 million, worth of dairy products — mostly cheese — to Russia, about 5 percent of all dairy exports. For Fromi Rungis, Russia accounted for 10 percent of its foreign sales. Jean-Charles Arnaud, proprietor of Fromagerie Arnaud in Poligny, northeast of Lyon, is counting his losses. They include not only a truckload of 18 tons of cheese turned back at the Russian border but also years of work educating Russian consumers to appreciate Comté, Morbier, Mont d’Or and other specialties from the Jura Mountains. “We must have spent thousands of days doing presentations in Russian stores explaining how we make our cheese,” Mr. Arnaud said. “Our cheese is not just protein and fat. It is a culture, a tradition, produced under strict conditions.” “For instance, we require 10 square meters of pasture per cow,” he continued. “That way, we can be sure that our cows are happy, that they have enough feed, enough diversity. The particular taste of each cheese comes from the flowers on our mountains.” Over the past 20 years, this kind of sales talk has persuaded Russian consumers to reach for more sophisticated, more expensive varieties. That effort has now come to halt. Getting into the Russian market in the first place is not easy, several exporters said. “You need energy, patience and persistence,” Mr. Hugon said. Russian sanitary inspectors — who test for radioactivity, for instance — are meticulous, capricious and at times, outright political (four Moscow branches of McDonald’s, widely seen as a symbol of the West, have been temporarily shut down for violations of the “sanitary code”). “Nowhere is simple,” Mr. Arnaud said, “but Russia has particular demands.” Tell that to European pig farmers, whose exports to Russia were halted last February, after wild boars infected with an African swine disease were spotted in Poland and the Baltic states. All 28 countries of the European Union — many of them far away from the infected boars — were affected. The French hog industry anticipates losses of €400 million this year because of the Russian embargoes, plus €200 million in losses for slaughterhouses and related businesses. Now, hopes for lifting the pork embargo have collapsed under the new yearlong sanctions, threatening further losses for farmers and slaughterhouses. “We’re not happy, not happy at all,” said Paul Auffray, president of the national pig farmers’ association and a Brittany pig farmer. “We are hostages of a situation that is out of our control.” Not all French farmers are suffering. Cheese makers near the southeastern French town of Annecy are less affected because their main product, Reblochon, is too fragile for export to Russia. Wines and spirits were exempted from the sanctions, good news for French vintners, who in 2013 claimed 21.7 percent of the Russian market. The European Union has pledged €125 million to buy fruit and vegetable surpluses created by the Russian sanctions. But the fear is that a once-promising market will soon fill up with competing produce from countries — like Switzerland — not on the banned list. “A year is a long time,” Mr. Arnaud said. French farmers are famous for grumbling, but this time, they are bitter. “Notice that this is not hurting oil or gas, weapons, finance, wine or luxury goods,” Mr. Auffray said. “It’s just us, country people, who are caught up in the middle of this imbroglio.”

Europe
Agriculture
EU
Russia
Embargoes Sanctions
Cheese
Switzerland
Pork


France Grants Its Recognition to Syria Rebels

Abstract: PARIS — France announced Tuesday that it was recognizing the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, seeking to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition that would hasten the end of a stalemated civil war that has destabilized the Middle East . The announcement by President François Hollande made France the first Western country to fully embrace the new coalition, which came together this past weekend under Western pressure after days of difficult negotiations in Doha, Qatar . The goal was to make an opposition leadership — both inside and outside the country — representative of the array of Syrian groups pressing for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad . Although Mr. Assad is increasingly isolated as his country descends further into mayhem and despair after 20 months of conflict, he has survived partly because of the disagreements and lack of unity among his opponents. Throughout the conflict, the West has taken half measures and been reluctant to back an aggressive effort to oust Mr. Assad. This appears to be the first time that Western nations, with Arab allies, are determined to build a viable opposition leadership that can ultimately function as a government. Whether it can succeed remains unclear. Mr. Hollande went beyond other Western pledges of support for the new Syrian umbrella rebel group, which calls itself the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. But Mr. Hollande’s announcement clearly signaled expectations that if the group can establish political legitimacy and an operational structure inside Syria , creating an alternative to the Assad family’s four decades in power, it will be rewarded with further recognition, money and possibly weapons. “I announce that France recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria and to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Mr. Hollande, who has been one of the Syrian president’s harshest critics. As for weapons, Mr. Hollande said, France had not supported arming the rebels up to now, but “with the coalition, as soon as it is a legitimate government of Syria, this question will be looked at by France, but also by all countries that recognize this government.” Political analysts called Mr. Hollande’s announcement an important moment in the Syrian conflict, which began as a peaceful Arab Spring uprising in March 2011. It was harshly suppressed by Mr. Assad, turned into a civil war and has left nearly 40,000 Syrians dead, displaced about 2.5 million and forced more than 400,000 to flee to neighboring countries, according to international relief agencies. “It’s certainly another page of the story,” Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of international relations at Boston University and an expert on Middle East political history, said of the French announcement. “I think it’s important. But it will be much more important if other countries follow suit. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.” Some drew an analogy to France’s leading role in the early days of the Libyan uprising when it helped funnel aid, and later military support, to the rebels who had firmly established themselves in eastern Libya and would later topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi . But in Syria, rebels have not been as organized and have no hold on significant amounts of territory — at least not enough to create a provisional government that could resist Mr. Assad’s military assaults. The West has also refused, so far, to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, which was critical to the success of the Libyan uprising. Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the new coalition would have to create a secure zone in Syria to be successful, and that that step would require support from the United States , which was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the group’s creation but has not yet committed to giving it full recognition. What the French have done, Mr. Tabler said, is significant because they have started the process of broader recognition, putting pressure on the group to succeed. “They’ve decided to back this umbrella organization and hope that it has some kind of political legitimacy and keep it from going to extremists,” he said. “It’s a gamble. The gamble is that it will stiffen the backs of the opposition.” France’s statement also was a clear reflection of frustration with the growing death toll and military stalemate in Syria. It came a week after the re-election of President Obama , who had clearly been unwilling to consider any military policy that could hurt his prospects. Mr. Hollande’s announcement came as the rebel coalition’s newly chosen leader, Sheik Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, a former imam of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and a respected figure in Syria, made a broad appeal to Western and Arab countries for recognition and military aid. Foreign ministers of the Arab League , while approving the new group as the “legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition,” have not agreed on recognizing it as a provisional government to replace Mr. Assad. France, the former colonial power in Syria, has been pressing for a more committed international effort to help the anti-Assad movement. It has pushed the United Nations Security Council and the United States to act more decisively and has promoted economic and oil sanctions against Syria, both in the United Nations and more successfully in the European Union , which had been a top consumer of Syrian oil. Under the previous center-right presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy , France played the leading role in organizing an armed intervention in Libya to save the opposition from Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. Working with the British, Mr. Sarkozy brought Washington along and helped secure a Security Council mandate that was interpreted as covering military intervention in Libya. Russia and China have said they felt deceived, however, and both have opposed a similar Council resolution on Syria. In addition, the Obama administration has been firmly against any military intervention in Syria on behalf of a more chaotic opposition with a larger, more visible presence of radical Islamic fighters from other countries. Still, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been important in pressing for a newly constituted, broader Syrian transitional council of the kind established in Qatar on Sunday. The French have also been helping with civilian projects in areas of Syria held by opposition forces, working with locals to repair food and milk factories and to provide medical supplies and assistance. The idea, French officials have said, is to help the opposition govern and build credibility in so-called liberated areas. The recognition by France came as new fighting raged in Syria and international relief agencies warned that the humanitarian crisis there had worsened in the past few weeks. “People are really on the run, hiding,” said Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency in Geneva . “They are difficult to count and difficult to access.” A rebel-held Syrian village at the Turkish border, Ras al-Ain, was bombed by Syrian aircraft for the second consecutive day. And tensions remained high on the armistice line between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights area controlled by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israeli tank gunners blasted a Syrian mobile artillery vehicle there on Monday in response to repeated instances of errant mortar shells landing on the Israeli side. There were also new indications that the Syrian rebels were obtaining more sophisticated weapons without Western help. The Brown Moses blog, considered an authoritative source on arms used in the conflict, reported new images showing insurgents armed with SA-16 and SA-24 shoulder-fired heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, apparently captured from the Syrian military. Both systems are newer generations of weapons than rebels have been seen carrying before, and pose a new threat to Syrian military aircraft.


Officials in New Jersey Report a Slight Increase in Violence in the Public Schools

Abstract: New Jersey ’s 2,400 public schools reported a slight increase in violence, vandalism and substance use problems in 2005-6 from the previous school year, in part because of more instances of harassment, bullying and threats, state education officials announced yesterday. But for the first time since 2003, not a single school reported enough problems to be considered “persistently dangerous,” a category outlined in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which eases the path for students to transfer to other schools. For the 2004-5 school year, three schools — one each in Trenton, Paterson and Burlington — were identified as persistently dangerous, though the Burlington school was later removed after successfully appealing the designation. Across New Jersey, which has 1.4 million public school students, schools reported a total of 18,796 incidents of violence, vandalism and substance use for 2005-6, a 2 percent increase from the year before. Of those, the most frequently cited offenses were fights (4,464), assaults (3,390), substance use (1,999), property damage (1,787) and theft (1,584). One of the more significant increases was in harassment, intimidation and bullying, which rose to 1,409 from 1,134 the year before, or 24 percent. Reports of threats also rose 11 percent to 1,430, while threats specifically invoking terrorism rose 9 percent to 195, and those mentioning bombs rose 7 percent to 136. Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy, who announced the results in a telephone conference with reporters, attributed much of the apparent increase to heightened public awareness of such misconduct and to more accurate reporting by school officials as the result of increased training and state oversight. “School safety has been a major focus for the governor, the department and the districts,” she said. “Those efforts, combined with more accurate and consistent self-reporting practices by the districts, are reflected in the report.” Under No Child Left Behind, states must identify schools as persistently dangerous if they report an excessive number of violent incidents like aggravated assault, kidnapping, sexual assault, gang fights and robbery. Each state has its own criteria for determining persistently dangerous schools, and even for how to report individual incidents, so officials cautioned against comparing them. New York State identified 27 persistently dangerous schools last week; all but two were in New York City, including a dozen schools designed for students with severe disabilities. Over all, New York State, with 2.8 million public school students, reported 239,800 violent and disruptive incidents (New Jersey’s total does not include a “disruptive” category). Connecticut has never reported any persistently dangerous schools. Critics have long questioned the accuracy of school violence data, which relies largely on self-reported information provided by school districts. Some schools have been criticized for underreporting problems because they are reluctant to call attention to them, while other schools have complained that they are penalized for accurately reporting every incident. New Jersey education officials have stepped up their monitoring of school violence reporting in the past year. For instance, they conducted site visits and reviewed data submitted by 19 districts that had reported a significant decline of violence. Some districts later identified errors in the data or they found that they staff members required more training in reporting incidents, but others were able to show that the declines resulted from measures taken to address the problems, the officials said. The department has not identified any schools that they intend to review this year to check the accuracy of their violence data. Laura Constable, a spokeswoman for the Paterson Schools, which has 28,000 students, said that East Side High School was removed from the list of persistently dangerous schools after a yearlong campaign to promote tolerance and safety in the district. For instance, high school students attended special assemblies that explored the dangers of associating with street gangs, and they also attended workshops where they were taught conflict resolution and how to appreciate other cultures.

Education and Schools
New Jersey
Violence


Hunter Mahan’s 62 Sets Course and Barclays Event Records

Abstract: PARAMUS, N.J. — When Hunter Mahan started his job at 8:05 a.m. Thursday at the Barclays, the dew-covered grass at Ridgewood Country Club was glistening in the early morning light. By the time his final birdie putt fell at No. 18 some four hours later, his scorching first-round score was flashing like a big neon sign on leader boards around the classic old course: Sixty-two. The nine-under-par round on the 7,319-yard, par-71 layout was the lowest first-round score in the 41 years this tournament has been played, and the lowest score shot at Ridgewood, regardless of the 18-hole configuration composed from the 27 available holes designed by A. W. Tillinghast in 1927 and opened in 1929. According to the Ridgewood director of golf, David Reasoner, the previous course record was 63, shot by Byron Nelson in 1946. “It’s just shocking,” Reasoner said of the round that put Mahan four strokes clear of Paul Casey of England, who shot 66, and five strokes ahead of Bo Van Pelt, Kevin Streelman, Mathew Goggin, Charley Hoffman and Dudley Hart. “The set makeup of the holes is, I believe, the most challenging we have,” Reasoner said. “Obviously, distance has a lot to do with that. The back nine itself, you’re looking at 3,851 yards. To do what he did is just remarkable.” Of course, it is nothing new for the 26-year-old Mahan. He shot a record round of 62 in last year’s third round when the Barclays was played at Westchester Country Club, and this is the fifth round of 62 he has posted in five years on the PGA Tour. “It’s definitely not that easy,” said Mahan, ranked 31st in the FedEx Cup. “It’s perfect conditions. You’ve got great weather. The course is in perfect shape right now. Playing in the morning helped a lot, and the greens were a little bit more receptive. In the afternoon, it’s going to be tough, and it’s going to firm out a little bit.” Mahan got his round started with an eagle 2 on the 380-yard, par-4 No. 1. He nailed a 291-yard drive with his 3-wood and holed a wedge from 99 yards. “It felt good, looked good and went right in the middle,” Mahan said. He added a birdie from 21 feet at the 444-yard No. 4; a 12-footer at the short par-4, 291-yard No. 5 known as The Five and Dime, and a 3-footer at No. 7. His only bogey of the day came at the downhill, 217-yard, par-3 No. 8, when he missed the green and failed to get up and down. After turning in four-under par, Mahan went one better on the back, blitzing the more difficult side in a five-under-par 31. On the 615-yard, par-5 No. 13 , his 332-yard drive set up a 3-wood approach from 265 yards that came up just short of the green. He chipped to 4 feet and made the birdie putt, then birdied No. 14 with a 40-footer over a slope and into the hole. He closed out the day with a 3-foot birdie at No. 18. The spectacular round was something of a statement for Mahan. In the spring, he got himself into hot water with his tour colleagues, the P.G.A. of America and the Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger for some intemperate comments in an interview with Golf Magazine. Mahan, who has since apologized, said in the interview that a Ryder Cup player was “basically just a slave that week” to the whims of the P.G.A. and that all the fun “has been sucked out” of the biennial team competition between the United States and European 12-man teams. Mahan finished 12th in the Ryder Cup standings and is hoping to become one of Azinger’s four captain’s picks for the team, which meets the European side at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Sept. 19-21. Azinger will name the four on Sept. 2. “I would love to be a pick,” Mahan said, “but got to earn it, too. I’m looking forward to that challenge and to the opportunity the next couple weeks.” The opportunities for Mahan and others in the playoffs in the coming weeks are immense. There is $7 million in purse money for each of the four playoff events, divided by a smaller number of golfers each successive week until the field is culled to the top 30 for the Tour Championship. To the winner goes a $10 million bonus, $9 million in cash and $1 million deferred, and the remaining $25 million of the bonus pool is divided up among the top 144 players. That is a whole lot to play for, and with golfers from outside the top 100 comprising six of the top 10 after the first round — Van Pelt (116), Streelman (102), Hoffman (105), George McNeill (101), Rich Beem (114) and Jesper Parnevik (139) — it is clear that the scent of money is reaching well down into the standings.

Mahan Hunter
Barclays PLC
Golf
PGA Tour Inc


Poor Field Conditions Confounding Teams in Moscow

Abstract: MOSCOW — When Bayern Munich’s players enter the modest Khimki Arena here for a UEFA Champions League match on Wednesday, their biggest concern might not be the Russian cold or hostile fans or even their opponent, CSKA Moscow. It might be the stadium’s worn and weary playing surface. In a season when top Russian teams have come under fire for racist and violent behavior by their fans, another more consistent problem has dogged the schedule of Moscow’s top clubs: a severe lack of playable fields and overuse of the remaining pitches. Heavy rains in September compounded the difficulties caused by the closure of Luzhniki Stadium, a colossal facility in southwest Moscow that evicted both Spartak and CSKA this year to begin renovations for the 2018 World Cup. What has resulted is a string of site switches and makeshift accommodations. But the most troubling aspect for visitors, especially the expensive lineups that go to Russia for Champions League games, is the inherent risk involved in having top-level, highly-paid talent slogging it out in the mud. Khimki Arena, an 18,500-seat stadium on the outskirts of Moscow, a short walk from the capital’s often-clogged beltway, has been dealt the toughest schedule. It has tried to preserve its battered playing surface while hosting Russian premier league matches for both CSKA and Dynamo, Champions League matches and a youth league. When Manchester City visited Khimki for a Champions League game on Oct. 23, much of the focus afterward was on racist chants directed at Manchester City’s Ivorian midfielder, Yaya Touré. But before the game, City’s manager, Manuel Pellegrini, focused on the threadbare field. He complained that it was “unbelievable that the world’s most important cup competition is allowed to be played on this pitch.” During the game sand popped up under the ball, and players slipped as they struggled to keep their footing. Russian news stations broadcast video of what they said were groundskeepers spray-painting the field green before the match, and Viktor Gusev, a soccer commentator for Russia’s Channel One, said, “It was pitiful to watch football of that level on such a bad field.” It has been an inauspicious start to Russia’s preparations for the World Cup, which will be played in 11 cities across the country in 2018. As Moscow’s clubs scramble for usable pitches amid ongoing stadium construction, visitors from the Champions League have also had to make do. “If Luzhniki were there, we wouldn’t have this problem,” Gusev said. “And I simply can’t understand why they closed it for the season.” That closing has required scheduling acrobatics to prevent cancellations. In September, only four days before its Champions League match against Viktoria Plzen, CSKA announced that poor field conditions had forced a last-minute switch from Khimki Arena to the stadium of rival Zenit St. Petersburg, roughly 400 miles away. Spartak’s fans were forced to travel to Yekaterinburg, more than 850 miles east of Moscow, for a home match earlier this season, and other Moscow-based clubs like Lokomotiv and Dynamo have faced cascading inconveniences. Plans for CSKA and Spartak to play a derby match at Khimki last Saturday, only four days before Bayern was to take the field against CSKA, prompted worries of a repeat of the botched City game. But the match went ahead, and representatives from UEFA have approved the field for Champions League play on Wednesday. “The complaints were that the field did not meet the high standards of the Champions League, and I agree with that fact, but that is about the visual aspect, how the field looked,” Alexander Zaitsev, the stadium’s general director, said of the Manchester City match. “I didn’t hear any complaints that the field wasn’t firm anywhere.” As Zaitsev spoke in his office, heat lamps shined light on the grass, and grounds crews in winter jackets inspected the field for thin patches. “We didn’t paint the grass; it would be stupid to do that,” he added, laughing. “We were painting the base, the sand, on advice from UEFA.” Konstantin Chamilovich, the stadium director at Lokomotiv, which has hosted games for both Lokomotiv and Spartak since the Luzhniki’s closure, agreed that the season had been “one of the most difficult.” But he bristled at the suggestion that the muddy surfaces were the result of poor groundskeeping. “We are often presented with the examples of the English league or the Bundesliga,” he said of the high-profile leagues more familiar to television viewers abroad. “I suggest that they visit Germany or England in January, and then compare that with Russia. And then they’ll understand the difference.” On Saturday, CSKA Moscow and Spartak took the field at the Khimki for a raucous match illuminated by flares tossed by their shirtless, and often masked, supporters. Among fans, there seemed to be a consensus that the field was in good shape, at least for Russia. Saturday’s game was the first at Khimki since City’s visit in late October, and the time off had done the turf good. “You can see it’s not European level, but for Russia it looks good,” said Vitaly Politayev, a 21-year-old business student. “It was good — better than last time anyway!” said Steven Zuber, a Swiss midfielder playing for CSKA Moscow. Nikita Savilyu, a CSKA supporter, agreed that the field had improved. “I’d need to touch it, but it looks O.K.,” he said. “Winter is already here and the pitch is all right.” Another CSKA midfielder, Elvir Rahimic, said curtly, “It will do.”

Stadiums Arenas
Soccer
UEFA Champions League
Russia


Apps to Manage Passwords So They Are Harder to Crack Than ‘Password’

Abstract: IT became official again this week: We are awful at passwords. Year after year, studies show that many people still rely on passwords that are so weak that even a 5-year-old could crack them. According to a study released this week by SplashData, a developer of password management software, consumers continue making the riskiest choices with passwords by consistently using overly simple ones. The highly unimaginative “123456” and “starwars,” for instance, were among the most commonly used passwords of 2015, SplashData said. Now for a confession: I am no better than the rest of you. The password management app Dashlane recently ran a security audit of all my passwords — and what it found was ugly. It revealed that out of my 70 passwords, I had reused the same one 46 times. Twenty-five of the passwords were flagged as being particularly weak, or easy for a hacker to crack. In my shame and embarrassment, I put together a guide of best practices for passwords and tested some tools that would help manage them. Here’s what it boils down to: To have the safest passwords protecting your digital life, each password should be unique and complex. But since memorizing 70 unique and complex passwords is nearly impossible, we also need password manager programs to keep track of them all. Jeremiah Grossman, the founder of WhiteHat Security, a web security firm, says he memorizes only a few passwords, including one to unlock his computer, and another to unlock an encrypted USB drive containing a file with a list of all his passwords for dozens of services. None of his passwords are memorable because they are random. “I select them quite literally by banging on the keyboard a few times like a monkey,” Mr. Grossman said in an interview, adding, “My setup is a bit more paranoid than the average person.” The rest of us need password managers, a type of app that locks passwords in a vault and allows access to them with one master password. I tested three popular password management services — LastPass , Dashlane and 1Password — for several days. All were similar, with 1Password standing out as the most cleanly designed (and least annoying) password management tool. To put the password managers to the test, I began by cleaning up my password hygiene. I spent two and a half hours logging in to all 70 of my Internet accounts and changing each password, one at a time. Following the advice of security experts, I created long, complex passwords consisting of nonsensical phrases, lines from movies or one-sentence summaries of strange life events, and added numbers and special characters. (Samples: My favorite number is Green4782# or The cat ate the CoTTon candy 224%.) Then I turned to the password managers, which store your passwords and make them accessible with a master password. Naturally, your master password should be rock solid. So for each of the three apps, I created a complex master password and jotted those down on a piece of paper. After a few days I memorized those passwords and threw away the paper. I recommend 1Password for several reasons. The app consistently and automatically detected whenever I logged in to websites or created new passwords to ask if I wanted to add a password to the vault. When logging in to a site, I clicked on the 1Password icon in a computer browser or opened the app on a phone, entered my master password and selected the service I wanted to log in to in order to plug in the password. (1Password can be set up to require the master password after a certain amount of time, say five minutes, if you don’t want to keep entering it; on iPhones it can be configured to unlock the vault with your fingerprint instead of the master password.) Of the password managers I tested, Dashlane was the most frustrating because it nagged me with too many questions. After I used Dashlane to log in to TicketWeb to order movie tickets, the app asked if I wanted to save a copy of the receipt inside its vault. In the process of doing that, it froze the browser and I lost access to the web tickets for a moment. Also, whenever I created a new password, Dashlane sent notifications asking if I wanted the app to automatically generate passwords for me — which was not my preference. Dashlane said the app was proactive about notifications partly because it was designed for users who may not be technically savvy. “With password management becoming something that mainstream consumers care about, the simplicity of the product needs to be completely different,” Emmanuel Schalit, Dashlane’s chief executive, said in an interview. “We tried to build a solution that a not sophisticated user could use.” The third app, LastPass, was less annoying than Dashlane, but in multiple instances it did not detect when I was logging in to a website to add the password into its vault. That required me to manually create a new password entry to add to the vault. Each of the apps offers the ability to share password vaults across multiple devices, like smartphones, tablets and computers. Wireless synchronization for passwords is a necessity: You don’t want to be locked out of a service on your smartphone because you left your laptop containing all your passwords at work, for instance. What distinguishes the password management apps is how they share your passwords among different devices, and how much they charge. Dashlane is initially free and hosts its own cloud server to share passwords across your devices, but it costs $40 a year to use the cloud service. LastPass is also free up front; it offers the ability to share passwords across devices for $12 a year. The app 1Password came out on top because it offered the most value for the money. For a one-time payment of $50, you get a license to use 1Password on a computer. You can use the core features of 1Password on iPhones or Android devices free — if you want to unlock extra features, like the ability to store serial numbers for software licenses, it costs $10. The downside is that AgileBits, the developer of 1Password, requires users to set up their own cloud syncing with third-party services like Dropbox or Apple’s iCloud, which are free to use. Fortunately it’s not difficult to set up password synchronization over the cloud. There is also an option to synchronize your password database over a Wi-Fi network, but that’s not as seamless. Mr. Grossman of WhiteHat Security, who does not use a password management app, said he preferred LastPass for its security features. LastPass supports multi-factor authentication , meaning that when you log in with your master password, you will receive a newly generated code on another device, like a smartphone, that you have to enter to unlock the vault. It’s an extra layer of protection. “We’ve been very popular among security professionals and I.T. folks,” said Amber Gott, a marketing manager for LastPass. There is always a risk that password management companies themselves will get hacked. LastPass reported last year that its network was breached and that hackers gained access to user email addresses and password reminders. To avoid that, you may want to skip password managers. If that’s your preference, Mr. Grossman said there’s always a low-tech way to keep track of passwords: Jot them down on a piece of paper and keep the list in a safe place. The best part about that approach? It’s free.

Computer security
Mobile Apps
LastPass.com
Dashlane
AgileBits
Hacker (computer security)


Banging on a Drum as a Way of Life

Abstract: ROCKAWAY THERE are those who say you can’t re-create the past. Then there are those who attend Richard Reiter’s drum circles. Mr. Reiter, 61, of Cedar Grove, has been hoisting his collection of 60 djembe and other African drums to locations across New Jersey since 2000. The participants vary, too: when he is not drumming in one of his regular spots, including the Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck or Rest Stop Rejuvenate in Rockaway, he is leading “team-building” circles for businesses and other groups. But mostly, the ambience is the same: to attend one of Mr. Reiter’s drum circles is to step into 1967. “When I’m doing this I feel like I’m back in the late ’60s, like it’s the summer of love,” Mr. Reiter said last month before a weekend circle at Rest Stop Rejuvenate. “There’s that spirit again, that community, but without the drugs.” The look is the same too, give or take a few bald spots. Among the 18 mostly 50-something first-time and experienced drummers — 10 men and 8 women — who paid $10 to attend the Rockaway circle, tattoos, long hair, bandanas and bare feet were the predominant fashion statements. And, in a scene worthy of a film crew, once the rhythm in the incense-scented space reached a level of contagion, a woman in a flowing ankle-length skirt twirled, trancelike, through the room. Mr. Reiter, a professional musician who played saxophone with luminaries including Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra in the 1970s and won an Emmy in 1979 for his score to the documentary “Generation on the Wind,” learned to drum during a trip to Senegal in 1999. Nostalgia for the ’60s, he said, is not a prerequisite for joining his circles. For him, the goal is to help percussionists of all ages and talent levels find their rhythm — an inclination honed during eight years teaching band to middle-school students at Montclair Kimberley Academy in the 1990s. If they find the flower child within them along the way, Mr. Reiter said, it’s just a pleasant bonus. “I’m coming at it as a person who likes music, who likes to drum,” Mr. Reiter said. “I’ve done some spiritual things and some meditation, but my plan was only, ‘Let’s make music, it’ll be fun.’ ” In eight years, the fun has gripped enough would-be drummers to let Mr. Reiter, a father of two grown children who is married to Susan Reiter, the director of student services at Montclair Kimberley, make a full-time profession of circle-leading. He has organized staff members of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Manhattan-based Ad Council and the Somerset County Library System into circles, among dozens of other organizations. Mr. Reiter also performs with the Richard Reiter Swing Band, a five-piece group formed 20 years ago in which he plays saxophone and clarinet, and the Richard Reiter Afro-Jazz Project, a seven-piece band in which he plays flute and saxophone, in addition to writing all the music. In Rockaway, Mr. Reiter’s guidance was calm-voiced and jargon free. “You find a rhythm, and it drives you forward at its own pace,” he explained. “There’s no rushing, no pressure.” Which is not to say a lot of energy isn’t expended. One of the more experienced drummers at the Rockaway circle, 46-year-old Eric Fielo of Linden, sweated enough that he went out to his air-conditioned car to take a break. First-timer Sandee D’Olivo, 35, of Stanhope, meanwhile, found the musical exertion therapeutic: “There’s a lot of stress in my life,” she said. “I thought I’d be a better drummer — I’m not very good — but I’m really getting into just pounding on something. It’s freeing, like riding a horse. You lose yourself in it.”

Music
Musical Instruments
New Jersey
Reiter Richard


Mercedes Gets Back Into Formula One

Abstract: PARIS — Bucking a trend in the car manufacturer exodus from Formula One, Daimler announced Monday that it would buy a controlling interest in the reigning world champion Brawn team and race under the name Mercedes Grand Prix next season. The German car manufacturer, which is buying the team in a joint deal with an Abu Dhabi investment company, also announced that it would sell back its 40 percent ownership of the McLaren team to that team, ending a 10-year partnership. But it will continue to provide engines to McLaren, which it is has powered since 1995 and with which it has won four world titles with since 1998. Daimler said the company was buying 75.1 percent of the team with Aabar Investments, which is based in Abu Dhabi and is the largest shareholder in Daimler. Daimler will take 45.1 percent of the team, Aabar will take 30 percent, and the remaining 24.9 percent will remain with the team’s current owners. Khadem al-Qubaisi, the chairman of Aabar, told Bloomberg News that Daimler and Aabar were paying about £110 million, or about $185 million, between them. Nick Fry, the Brawn chief executive officer, told Bloomberg in an e-mail that the fee was “far more modest” and partly linked to future performance. The announcement was made on the 75th anniversary year of the introduction of the Silver Arrow Mercedes cars in Grand Prix racing. The Silver Arrows dominated racing between 1934 and 1939. Honda Motor pulled out of Formula One in December, citing the financial crisis. In July, BMW announced it would quit the sport at the end of the year and sell its BMW Sauber team, then Toyota announced this month that it would withdraw effective immediately. The car manufacturers that withdrew did so because they did not want to be perceived as wasting money on racing during a financial crisis. But the series has been striving, sometimes acrimoniously, over the past year to reduce the cost of running a team and to distribute more of the commercial rights to the teams. These include reduced costs on design, construction and running of the cars. Daimler cited these developments as its reason for increasing its involvement in the series. “Due to the new Formula One environment, we will face the competition in future on the most important motor sports stage with our own Silver Arrow works team,” said Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of Daimler and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. “Our new Silver Arrow Formula One team is a great sporting and technical challenge and we will tackle this with sporting spirit and full of enthusiasm.” At the financial peak in the last decade, one team’s annual budget was said to have reached nearly $500 million to run two cars for a single season of 18 races. Daimler also cited the “significantly higher income” available to a Formula One team generated by the commercial rights as laid out in the new agreement among teams, the series promoter and the International Automobile Federation, the sport’s governing body. The new Mercedes team will be built on the Brawn team, which won the 2009 constructors’ and drivers’ title with Jenson Button driving. Brawn was formed in a management buyout of the Honda team last March. The team used Mercedes engines this year, so the deal will not involve a difficult transition to a new engine, and it could mean a continued domination next year. Ross Brawn will continue to be the overall director. The Englishman, who was technical director of Ferrari during the Italian team’s domination in the early 2000s, remains a shareholder. This season, Formula One held its first race in Abu Dhabi, at the season-ender on Nov. 1, as part of a strategy of geographical diversification. Aabar cited its home race as one of the reasons for buying into the team. “Bearing in mind the recent outstanding success of the Abu Dhabi G.P., which brought Formula One to the United Arab Emirates for the first time, it is especially exciting to realize that next year, our own cars will be in the field,” said Qubaisi, the chairman of Aabar. “It is a fantastic prospect, which makes me both pleased and proud for my country.” In July, Aabar invested about $280 million to buy about a third of the Virgin Galactic space travel start-up company, which is controlled by Richard Branson and his Virgin Group, to help Abu Dhabi develop a space program to broaden its economy beyond the oil sector. Virgin Group was the principal sponsor of the Brawn team this year. Mercedes did not return to Grand Prix racing after World War II until 1954, when it joined the Formula One championship with its Silver Arrows. By the following year, it again dominated, winning the title with Juan Manuel Fangio driving. But in June of that year a Mercedes sports car was involved in an accident at the Le Mans 24 Hour race in which more than 80 spectators were killed. Mercedes withdrew from all racing, finally returning to Formula One as an engine supplier to the Sauber team in the early 1990s, before joining up with McLaren in 1995. In 1999, it purchased 40 percent of McLaren Group, which comprises not only the racing team but companies as disparate as a catering company, an electronics company and a sports car building company. The McLaren Group also announced on Monday that it would spin off the McLaren Automotive sports car company, which had built road cars with Mercedes. It said it would start building its own high-performance sports cars in 2011. The team has agreed to continue to use Mercedes engines to power its Formula One cars until up to 2015 or beyond. “This is a win-win situation, for both McLaren and Daimler,” said Ron Dennis, the executive chairman of McLaren Automotive and a founding shareholder of McLaren Group. “I’ve often stated that it’s my belief that, in order to survive and thrive in 21st century Formula One, a team must become much more than merely a team. “That being the case, in order to develop and sustain the revenue streams required to compete and win Grands Prix and world championships, companies that run Formula One teams must broaden the scope of their commercial activities.” Mercedes Grand Prix has not yet announced who its drivers will be next season. Button visited the McLaren factory last week, however, fueling speculation that he might join that team next year to partner the 2008 drivers’ champion, Lewis Hamilton. It is also expected that Nico Rosberg, who was born in Germany and speaks fluent German — although he grew up in Monaco and is the son of the Finnish world champion Keke Rosberg — and has said that he will leave the Williams team, may join the newly formed Mercedes Grand Prix team.

Daimler AG
Formula One
Automobile Racing
Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)


Arkansas: Prison Population Grows

Abstract: Arkansas’ prison population increased in 2009 despite a decline for the first time in decades in the national average, according to recently released federal data. And the state’s inmate number has continued its steady rise in 2010. The state prison system has grown by an average of 114 people a month through November, said Dina Tyler, a state prisons spokeswoman. State prison populations in the United States declined 0.2 percent in 2009, the first drop in the number of state prisoners since 1977, according to Justice Department figures released this month. Arkansas’ state and federal prison population grew from 14,716 on Dec. 31, 2008, to 15,208 the same day a year later — a 3.3 percent increase, the data show. The state prison system’s population on Dec. 21 was 16,268 inmates, which was 1,715 people over capacity, said Ray Hobbs, director of the Department of Correction. Ninety-three percent of the inmates are men. The federal figures showed that 24 states reported declines in prison populations during 2009, including California, Michigan and Texas. States with the highest increases were Pennsylvania, Florida, Louisiana and Alabama. Arkansas had the seventh-highest prison population growth in the nation.

Prisons and Prisoners
Population
Justice Department
Arkansas


Knicks Sleepwalk Through Loss as Nightmare Continues

Abstract: TORONTO — It took the Knicks only 37 seconds to concede three offensive rebounds to the Toronto Raptors on Sunday. At the 39-second mark, James Johnson scored the Raptors’ first basket on a two-handed, put-back dunk. What followed was another 47 minutes 21 seconds of predictably feckless basketball from the Knicks, who never got particularly close and never made things remotely interesting. Thirty games into the season, the losses are blurring together. The only differences from game to game are the scores. This time, the Knicks lost, 118-108. Their record dropped to 5-25, exacerbating what has been the franchise’s worst start to a season. Carmelo Anthony said afterward he could not help thinking back to two seasons ago when the Knicks finished with 54 victories and seemed to be laying the foundation for something good. The transformation has been mind-boggling. “To be sitting here at 5-25,” he said, “it don’t even seem real right now.” The Knicks’ mistakes are getting repetitive: slow reactions and poor communication on defense, an inefficiency of movement on offense and generally a desultory demeanor. Anthony, who scored 28 points, said a collective feeling of deflation had become palpable during games. “You can see it, you can sense it, you can feel it,” he said. The Raptors (22-6), on the other hand, continued rolling, adding to their conference-high win total. Things were sufficiently effortless that Dwane Casey, Toronto’s coach, had the luxury of using Bruno Caboclo and Lucas Nogueria, rookies from Brazil, in the final minutes. Fans in the sellout crowd at Air Canada Centre — many who chanted, “We want Bruno!” — rose to their feet in delight. It was a feel-good moment, courtesy of the lowly Knicks. In a noncompetitive game, then, the most noteworthy moments were most likely the two aesthetically beautiful dunks by Terrence Ross, who was one of six Raptors to finish in double figures. With 7:11 remaining in the first quarter, Ross slipped through the Knicks’ defense on a backdoor cut, corralled a pass, cocked the ball behind his head and slammed it through the rim. More exciting still was his dunk with 7:09 left in the third, when he dashed down the court on a breakaway and levitated toward the rim, his feet dangling absurdly high off the floor, all while absorbing a foul from Anthony. Knicks Coach Derek Fisher lamented his team’s poor defensive effort. “There were too many closeouts with hands down,” he said, “not really closing out in a way to run a guy off a shot and make him miss, as opposed to hoping that he’ll miss.” Some of this, Fisher said, was probably the result of fatigue, with the Knicks playing their second game in two days, an afternoon game after a night game, one at home and one on the road. It was notable, therefore, to see Anthony, who has missed two games this season because of a stubbornly sore left knee, playing a game-high 38 minutes, many of them when the result seemed secure. Anthony played just over 40 minutes Saturday night in a loss to the Suns at Madison Square Garden. “I’m feeling it now,” Anthony said Sunday after easing his body out of the trainer’s room. “That’s why I took a little bit longer to come out and speak to you guys.” Throughout the season, the Knicks’ long list of injured players has been an obvious, underlying cause of their gloom. It has been hard to gauge when that situation might improve, though, because the Knicks have not provided many details. Before the game, Fisher revealed that neither guard J. R. Smith nor forward Amar’e Stoudemire had made the trip to Canada, but he did not provide much clarity beyond that. Smith was found to have a partially torn plantar fascia in his left foot on Dec. 13, and the Knicks had expressed hope that he could make a quick return. He was even penciled into the lineup on Dec. 14 before being scratched before tipoff. But he has not played since Dec. 9, and Fisher acknowledged that the recovery timeline had probably been a long one from the start. “It’s day to day,” Fisher said of Smith’s injury. “From the beginning, it may not have been day to day; it was probably going to be a few weeks or so.” Stoudemire’s health situation seemed strange, too. He is, officially, not injured. And last week, he said he planned to play one of the weekend games and use the other as a recovery day. But he ended up sitting out both. And then there was Andrea Bargnani, who has not played this season because of various leg injuries. When asked whether Bargnani would return to practice soon, Fisher would only say, “We’ll see.” The Knicks do not play again until Thursday. “Three days to try to kind of get away from it for a little bit, maybe a day of just decompressing, trying to get into the holiday spirit a little bit,” Anthony said.

Basketball
Derek Fisher
J R Smith
Raptors
Knicks


Wage Protection for Home Care Workers

Abstract: The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage. Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law. “They work hard and play by the rules,” President Obama said about a group of workers who often feed patients, tend wounds or help with physical therapy . “Today’s action will ensure that these men and women get paid fairly for a service that a growing number of older Americans couldn’t live without.” These workers, according to industry figures, generally earn $8.50 to $12 an hour, compared with the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women, nearly 30 percent were African-American and 12 percent Hispanic. Nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. While industry experts say an overwhelming majority are paid at least the minimum wage, many do not receive a time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week. Twenty-two states do not include home health care workers under their wage and hour laws. “The job they do is a real job and they deserve the same basic rights as any other workers,” said Steven Edelstein, national policy director of PHI PolicyWorks , a nonprofit group that seeks to improve conditions for home care workers. “This industry has one of the nation’s fastest-growing work forces, and the challenge is to make these better jobs if we’re trying to attract good people to come and provide the services.” According to the federal government, six million of the 40 million Americans older than 65 now need some form of daily assistance to live outside a nursing home. That number, government officials say, is expected to double to 12 million by 2030. Republican lawmakers and business groups criticized the proposed rules, which might be modified after a 60-day public comment period. Industry officials said the proposals would push up costs and might cause home care agencies to reduce the hours of aides who work more than 40 hours a week and instead hire more aides. “The president’s goal is commendable, but the likely result of this new rule is reduced hours for home care workers and higher costs for taxpayers,” said John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is chairman of the House Education and the Work Force Committee, and Tim Walberg, a Minnesota Republican who heads the panel’s subcommittee on work force protections. “Moreover, our nation’s elderly may pay the greatest price in the form of more costly services and fewer opportunities to obtain the care they need in the comfort of their own homes.” William A. Dombi, vice president for law at the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, said workers might not receive much overtime pay as a result of these changes. “These new rules might come out with everybody behind,” he said. “Workers might not get the hours they want and agencies might have higher administrative and recruiting costs.” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said any increased costs would be modest. She said it was hard to project exactly what employers would do, whether they would have many employees continue to work overtime or would hire additional workers to minimize overtime. She estimated that Medicare or Medicaid, which cover 75 percent of the nation’s home care costs, would pay $31.1 million to $169.5 million more each year toward home care aides, which she said would represent 0.06 percent to 0.29 percent of federal and state outlays for home care. Secretary Solis said the proposal would ”level the playing field for staffing agencies, who will no longer be pressured to underpay their competitors on wages to gain an edge.” Noting that nearly 90 percent of the nation’s home care aides work for agencies, Labor Department officials said such aides would receive the new wage and hour protections. The department said some companions employed by individuals for activities like helping them take walks or engage in hobbies would still be exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage. In 1974, the Labor Department exempted “companionship” workers from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a move that focused on baby sitters at a time when the home care industry was in its infancy. In 2007, the Supreme Court issued a decision involving a New York home care aide, Evelyn Coke, who often worked 70 hours a week, ruling that she was not entitled to overtime pay under existing regulations. The court said it was up to Congress or the Labor Department to change the rules.

Home Health Care
Jobs
Regulation and Deregulation
Minimum wage
Wages and salaries
US Politics
Barack Obama
Labor Unions


Giannoulias and Kirk Keep Up Attacks in Illinois Debate

Abstract: CHICAGO — The two candidates running for President Obama’s former Senate seat continued to attack each other on issues of character in their second debate here on Tuesday. Alexi Giannoulias , the Democratic state treasurer, and Representative Mark Steven Kirk , a five-term Republican congressman, met in an hourlong debate moderated by George Stephanopoulos, the anchor of “Good Morning America.” The candidates sparred over their pasts before discussing immigration , jobs and corruption at the debate at the ABC studio in downtown Chicago. The candidates are locked in a close race, according to polls, with two weeks left until Election Day. The campaign has been increasingly negative, with each candidate attacking the other’s background in television ads. Mr. Giannoulias returned to an issue that arose in the first debate, repeatedly asking Mr. Kirk whether he had ever been shot at during his time in the Naval Reserve. Mr. Kirk has acknowledged that he has made misleading statements about his service. “Congressman, it’s a simple question, were you shot at or not?” Mr. Giannoulias said. Mr. Kirk replied that Mr. Giannoulias had no right to criticize him because he had not served in the military. “The ultimate irony is that a man who spends most of his campaign for the Senate criticizing my military record and yet he never served a day in uniform himself,” Mr. Kirk said. Both candidates have faced questions about their pasts. Mr. Giannoulias has received criticism for his time as a senior loan officer at his family’s bank, which was seized by federal regulators this year. Reports have found that the bank made loans to people with connections to organized crime. Mr. Kirk said that he had admitted to making mistakes while his opponent had not fully come clean about his problems. “I’m not perfect,” Mr. Kirk said. “I made mistakes, but I’ve owned them and corrected them. Meanwhile my opponent says nothing is really his fault.” Mr. Giannoulias repeatedly sought to tie Mr. Kirk to the Bush administration and to his political adviser Karl Rove. Mr. Giannoulias criticized Mr. Rove for providing money for Mr. Kirk’s campaign without disclosing donors. “We can’t afford to let Karl Rove come into town and steal these elections,” Mr. Giannoulias said. Mr. Kirk said he believed that all outside groups should reveal their donors and noted that his opponent had taken many contributions from unions. In a state where Democrats more often win statewide offices, Mr. Kirk also emphasized that he was an independent Republican who had broken with his party in the past on issues like stem cell research. Mr. Kirk continued to portray himself as a fiscal conservative. “I am the only candidate in this race who will vote to spend less, borrow less, tax less,” he said. The candidates are seeking to succeed Senator Roland W. Burris, a Democrat who was appointed to the seat and is not seeking election.

United States Politics and Government
Elections
Illinois
Senate
Giannoulias Alexi
Kirk Mark Steven


30-Year Prison Sentence in Plot to Bomb U.S. Bank

Abstract: A Bangladeshi man who tried to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York with what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb, only to discover that the bomb was a fake and that he had been under constant federal surveillance, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Friday. The man, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis , 22, came to the United States in January 2012 on a student visa with plans to carry out a terrorist attack, carrying instructions on how to make a bomb out of household items, as well as audio recordings of Anwar al-Awlaki , an American-born radical cleric killed by an American drone strike in 2011. Mr. Nafis tried to find assistance and camaraderie on the Internet, but his efforts led him instead to an F.B.I. informer, who in turn introduced him to an undercover agent. The agent met repeatedly with Mr. Nafis beginning last summer. In a sting operation, months long, Mr. Nafis developed his plot from a vague idea to a detailed plan to bomb the financial district, an attack that he hoped would “shake the whole country,” according to recorded statements he made during the investigation. Similar cases, in which law enforcement officials have provided suspects with support and some materials needed to carry out an attack, have drawn criticism from those who believe that many of the subjects would have been unable to pull off their schemes without help from the government. But at the sentencing hearing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Friday, Judge Carol B. Amon said she was convinced that Mr. Nafis “would have executed this plan or a similar, perhaps less grand one, had he not been discovered.” Mr. Nafis, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, said in a statement to the court, “I am really grateful that the agents saved me.” Image Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis Credit Associated Press A slight man with a boyish face, Mr. Nafis sat sunken in his chair during the hearing, while his lawyer, Heidi C. Cesare, portrayed him as a sympathetic figure in her bid for a sentence below the minimum 30 years recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines. Ms. Cesare said Mr. Nafis had endured a tough childhood in Dhaka, Bangladesh, suffering beatings from relatives and ridicule from his peers because he had a stammer. Ms. Cesare described Mr. Nafis as a vulnerable and isolated young man “barely out of adolescence” who fell prey to radical Muslims in his college years. That picture echoed a long letter from Mr. Nafis to Judge Amon, in which he described himself as a loner. “At my university in Bangladesh I did not have any real friends,” he wrote. “So, when the radical students, who were influential and famous, were being nice to me I fell for them very easily.” He said that when he learned that his girlfriend was cheating on him, he “went crazy.” He continued, “That way I justified killing myself with a jihadist act.” Mr. Nafis had proposed several targets for his attack, including President Barack Obama and the New York Stock Exchange, before ultimately deciding on the bank. Last October, Mr. Nafis and the agent assembled a device that Mr. Nafis believed to be a bomb capable of crumbling the fortresslike Federal Reserve Bank building. They placed it in a van and parked it near the building. Mr. Nafis tried several times to detonate the device from a remote-controlled trigger before agents arrested him. Mr. Nafis’s seeming turn away from radicalism was as swift as his turn toward it. In the letter to the judge, Mr. Nafis described a love for America that he had developed since his arrest, even saying that the agents who had handled his case were like family. Judge Amon said she did not believe that Mr. Nafis was a hardened terrorist and accepted his remorse as genuine. But, she said, “that does not change the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing.” He had faced up to life in prison. Mr. Nafis hardly responded when Judge Amon announced his sentence. He whispered briefly with Ms. Cesare before federal marshals led him out of the courtroom.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis
Criminal Sentence
Terrorism
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
FBI
Bangladesh
Manhattan
NYC
Bombs


Nik Wallenda Prepares for His Niagara Falls Stunt

Abstract: NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Nik Wallenda climbed up a scaffold, stepped onto the steel cable and slipped the harness of his balancing pole over his head. Then he began to walk — each step a few inches in front of the last, his leather moccasins kissing the wire that lay before him. The backdrop: a T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant, a Starbucks and a Sheraton hotel to the left, and the Seneca Niagara Casino and Hotel to the right. The scenery next month will be different: the rapids of Niagara Falls swirling below, a cold mist enveloping Mr. Wallenda, a national television audience watching in prime time. Mr. Wallenda, who has marveled at the falls since he first visited at age 6, said he felt compelled to walk on wires, and, on June 15, he plans to walk across Niagara Falls on a two-inch-diameter cable. “Just like an artist paints art, or a musician plays music, this is my instrument,” he said. He explained his attitude by quoting a great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, who said, “Life is on the wire, and everything else is just waiting.” Karl Wallenda died in 1978, after falling from a tightrope in San Juan, P.R. But Nik Wallenda completed that same walk, and now professes confidence in his ability to cross the falls. To demonstrate his sureness, he asked to be interviewed while walking on the 1,200-foot-long high wire on which he has been practicing this week, suspended above a casino parking lot. He answered questions without losing his poise. “This is about mind games,” he said. “Right now, I’m putting myself at the top of the falls.” A seventh-generation stuntman and scion of the Flying Wallendas family of circus performers, Mr. Wallenda, 33, won permission to walk across the falls after waging a binational lobbying campaign. Government officials in this economically depressed corner of upstate New York embraced his proposal, hoping it would spur a tourism boom, and Albany lawmakers passed legislation last year that gave Mr. Wallenda legal authority to cross. But some Canadian officials were less easily persuaded. At first, they rejected his proposal, noting that so-called stunting had long been banned at the falls, and saying that Mr. Wallenda’s walk would mar the natural beauty of the waterworks. But in February, they agreed to make an exception . Now, Mr. Wallenda has turned his attention from politics to practice. Like a one-man football training camp, he emerges twice a day to walk the wire, just a few blocks from the falls and across the street from a minimart that doubles as daredevilry museum. His presence has been documented with daily front-page coverage in the local newspaper, The Niagara Gazette . He has been joined by his wife, Erendira, a fellow acrobat to whom he proposed on a high wire, and their three children, ages 14, 11 and 9, who act as a cheering squad and support crew. (Their 9-year-old, Evita, unsuccessfully lobbied her father to wear her white Hello Kitty sunglasses as he walked on Thursday. “I want Hello Kitty to sponsor you,” she reasoned.) Several practice sessions this week drew 100 to 200 onlookers, some of whom abandoned their slot machines to sprawl on three sets of aluminum bleachers the casino had set up for observers. Nearby, a concession stand sold hot dogs for $4 and ice cream for $2; glossy photographs of Mr. Wallenda were $10. One man went to a hardware store to buy a piece of wire for Mr. Wallenda to sign; Jean Geyer, a retired nurse from Niagara Falls, Ontario, asked him to autograph her cane. After watching him practice, she expressed confidence that he could handle crossing the gorge. “Everybody has skills in life, and that’s his — it’s like a surgeon doing brain surgery,” Ms. Geyer said. “I don’t think he’s crazy.” The wire walking is not Mr. Wallenda’s only preparation — he also works out in a gym — and his routine varies. On Wednesday afternoon, for instance, he started at one end of the practice wire and walked to the end, and back, and to the end again. Then he descended in a scissor-lift, at which point his 11-year-old son, Amadaos, handed him a pair of black clogs to wear over his moccasins, which his mother makes for him. A self-described born-again Christian, he says he prays before he gets on the wire, every time. “Wire-walking, it’s about doing it,” Mr. Wallenda said. “The more I do this, the more comfortable I get.” Niagara Falls presents several unique challenges, Mr. Wallenda said. One issue is the mist; Mr. Wallenda wants to get a fire engine to spray him to simulate the wet conditions, though practicing on a rainy morning this week offered some experience. Another is wind; Mr. Wallenda’s team is trying to obtain a portable wind machine for practice. Mr. Wallenda said the crossing over the falls, about 170 feet above the water, should take 30 to 40 minutes. He said he had not decided which direction he would walk in, or what he would wear. ABC television plans to broadcast the walk in a three-hour special, but also plans a 5- to 10-second delay, just in case. “We want it to be exciting and thrilling, but we also want every parent in America to hear loud and clear that we’re going to make it comfortable for them to watch with their kids,” said Jeffrey W. Schneider, an ABC spokesman. Mr. Wallenda had a scare last week, when he slipped while walking on a tightrope over Baltimore’s Inner Harbor; he steadied himself, but later called the misstep a “wake-up call.” His plan is to cross the falls without any tether or netting; if he slips, he hopes to grab the cable to catch himself before he plunges to the swirling waters, and local emergency personnel have been practicing possible rescue techniques. But Mr. Wallenda said he was being pressured by his sponsors to accept some further safety measure. “I’ll be adamant until the end that I do not want to wear a tether,” Mr. Wallenda said. But he said “if it comes down to the point where either you wear a tether or you don’t do it,” he would acquiesce. Mrs. Wallenda, whose family history of circus performing goes back eight generations, admitted she was nervous about the Niagara Falls walk and said she was preparing for the day with “a lot of prayer.” But she said she did not want her husband to wear a tether, either, given his family’s long history of performing without any backup safety measures. “It’s like if Madonna would lip-sync,” she said. “This is what we were raised doing. This is our life.” But there are limits. Asked whether he wanted his children to follow him into high-wire walking, Mr. Wallenda said, “I encourage them to go to school and maybe take on a different occupation.”

Wallenda Nik
Niagara Falls (NY)
Acrobats and Acrobatics
Stunts and Stuntmen


Pettitte Up Next as Dynasty Nears End

Abstract: If Hall of Fame starters are supposed to be durable, dominant winners, then Andy Pettitte just misses the cut. But he pitched a long time and won a lot, and that made him an indelible Yankee great. “I’ve had the success that I’ve had because of so many great players that have been around me,” Pettitte said Friday in announcing that this would be his final season. “Do I feel like I’ve dominated this sport as a pitcher? No, I don’t. Every outing for me, I feel like, has been an absolute grind, to tell you the truth. When I look at lineups and teams that I’m facing, it seems like every hitter’s hitting .300 off of me, you know?” It was vintage Pettitte, the moment in his news conference when you smiled and laughed a little, because you knew the sincerity behind the self-deprecation. It was mostly true, too. Not only did Pettitte never pitch a no-hitter, but he also never pitched a one- or a two-hitter. Opponents batted .270 off him. The league average over his career: .264. Pettitte had easy days, like all good pitchers, but not many. His self-evaluation was accurate. What separated Pettitte was the way he kept pushing himself to find a way out of trouble, pulling that cap down and fighting. He knew that the worst punishment he could give himself would be to disappoint his teammates, an unpardonable sin. Image Andy Pettitte, during Game 5 of the 2000 World Series against the Mets, has accumulated a major-league-best 19 postseason wins. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times “We laugh at him, because he’s always yelling at himself and talking to himself on the mound,” Derek Jeter said Friday. “It’s fun watching him beat himself up, because he expects to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect, but he has those expectations, and that’s the reason why he’s had so much success.” It is fitting that Pettitte’s most impressive statistic is his winning percentage — .627, at 103 games over .500. Wins and losses are often out of a pitcher’s control, as more and more young pitchers recognize. If they work seven innings, allow two runs and lose, they understand they have still done a good job. Pettitte never believed that. It was comical, indeed, to listen to him berate himself after such games, knowing that, had the offense scored a few more runs, his outlook would have been so different. Pettitte accepted all the responsibility, as he did in 2008 for his use of human growth hormone, the blot on an otherwise sterling reputation. “I know my heart, and I’ll tell you, I’ve never tried to cheat this game,” Pettitte said Friday. Pettitte retired once before, for the 2011 season. He said Friday that he would have stayed retired had General Manager Brian Cashman not called him the next spring. He intended to pitch only in 2012, but when he lost most of that season to a broken leg, he came back. All along, he said, he has known this would be it. He let another retiring Yankee, Mariano Rivera, have the spotlight all season, in every city, and said he planned to retire with a simple announcement the day after the season. Over lunch with Rivera in Toronto this week, Pettitte decided to make the announcement now. “It’s great,” Rivera said. “It’s giving him a chance to say thanks to the fans.” Barring a miracle playoff berth, Pettitte will pitch his final home game as a Yankee on Sunday, when the team honors Rivera. Jorge Posada last played in 2011, choking up by his locker after the playoff finale. Only Jeter will remain from the title teams of more than a decade ago, assuming he picks up his player option, as he has said he intends to do. Image From left, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte in September 2008 at the final game in the old Yankee Stadium. The four came up with the Yankees in 1995. Credit Al Bello/Getty Images “It’s been a long, hard year,” said Pettitte, 41, who is 10-10 with a 3.93 earned run average. “I can’t be happier with my decision. I’ve been retired and I know what it’s going to be like. It’s awesome, and I love it.” Jeter, who turns 40 in June, has never seemed tempted by retirement. He came up in 1995, like Pettitte, Rivera and Posada, but unlike them, he has no wife or children. Baseball may not be his entire life, but it is all he lets the public see, and he has made no concession to age. If Jeter’s ankle bothers him this winter, as he prepares for the season, you have to wonder if he would put himself through another year like this, which he has described as a nightmare. It is not in Jeter’s nature to want a gauzy farewell tour, and it’s no fun for him to be a figure of sympathy. Jeter rightly said that it was unrealistic to ever expect another foursome of long-term, mostly one-team stars to reach the majors together. “You always need to have an influx of young players come in and help organizations,” he said. “That’s how we were able to be successful, and I think that’s how any organization can continue or maintain success throughout the years.” The Yankees, however, do not appear to have any stars on the immediate horizon. If they did, those players would have been among the 56 to suit up for the team this season. Compounding the problem is the team’s goal to reduce its bloated payroll. Rivera and Pettitte clear salary by leaving, and in some ways that helps. But mostly they leave an organization at a point of deep uncertainty, content with their decisions and secure in their legacy. “It just feels right,” Pettitte said. “I just feel like my time here is done. My run’s over.”


Fusion Project Faces a Frugal Congress

Abstract: For more than 50 years, physicists have been eager to achieve controlled fusion, an elusive goal that could potentially offer a boundless and inexpensive source of energy. To do so, American scientists have built a giant laser, now the size of a football stadium, that takes target practice on specks of fuel smaller than peppercorns. The device has so far cost taxpayers more than $5 billion, making it one of the most expensive federally financed science projects ever. But so far, it has not worked. Unfortunately, the due date is Sunday, the last day of the fiscal year. And Congress, which would need to allocate more money to keep the project alive, is going to want some explanations. “We didn’t achieve the goal,” said Donald L. Cook, an official at the National Nuclear Security Administration who oversees the laser project. Rather than predicting when it might succeed, he added in an interview, “we’re going to settle into a serious investigation” of what caused the unforeseen snags. The failure could have broad repercussions not only for the big laser, which is based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, but also for federally financed science projects in general. On one hand, the laser’s defenders point out, hard science is by definition risky, and no serious progress is possible without occasional failures. On the other, federal science initiatives seldom disappoint on such a gargantuan scale, and the setback comes in an era of tough fiscal choices and skepticism about science among some lawmakers. The laser team will have to produce a report for Congress about what might have gone wrong and how to fix it if given more time. “The question is whether you continue to pour money into it or start over,” said Stephen Bodner, a former director of a rival laser effort at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. “I think they’re in real trouble and that continuing the funding at the current level makes no sense.” China is studying the program’s mistakes, Dr. Bodner added, perhaps with a goal of building an improved machine. “It’s kind of an amazing device,” said William Happer, a physicist at Princeton University who directed federal energy research for the first President George Bush. “Still, it’s not science if you don’t fail now and then. But you do have to have some wins.” Many science analysts predict that the big laser will survive, because its powerful beams can still squeeze materials to extraordinarily high pressures, temperatures and densities that are useful in safeguarding the nation’s nuclear arms — a goal that attracts bipartisan support. For instance, the laser might help engineers see if a particular metal part that had to be substituted in a class of aging nuclear arms would still work as needed. Even so, skeptics outside the government have long assailed the laser project, known as the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, as a colossal waste of money. Just operating it, officials concede, costs roughly $290 million a year. Some doubters have ridiculed it as the National Almost Ignition Facility, or NAIF. Big science projects more costly than the laser include NASA’s newest space telescope, whose price tag now runs to more than $8 billion, and the 17-mile circular accelerator in Europe that recently helped pin down the elusive subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson . It cost about $10 billion. In interviews, the laser’s architects and supporters at the Livermore lab defended the device as working beautifully and pointed to the challenge of planned breakthroughs as the fundamental problem. “It’s like having a cure for cancer by a certain date,” said Penrose C. Albright, the laboratory’s director. “I understand why people want to have milestones. But when you’re dealing with science and Mother Nature, all you really can do is agree on whether you’re on the right path.” The sprawling laser complex, the officials insisted, would one day achieve its advertised goal: fusing the hydrogen atoms in a speck of fuel into helium, and thus creating what physicists liken to a tiny star. “Contrary to what some people say, this has been a spectacular success,” said Edward Moses, the laser’s director. Even so, he added, “science on schedule is a hard thing to do.” What has eluded Dr. Moses and thousands of other scientists over the decades is a controlled version of nuclear fusion — the process of atomic merger that powers the sun, the stars and hydrogen bombs. The laser uses blasts of concentrated light to compress, heat and ignite tiny capsules of hydrogen fuel smaller than match heads — hopefully, one day, setting them ablaze in thermonuclear fire. The result, scientists hope, would include not just new science but radically new kinds of reactors to generate electric power at low cost. Hydrogen, they note, is the most abundant element in the universe. “Bringing Star Power to Earth,” read a giant banner that workers in 2009 unfurled on the newly inaugurated National Ignition Facility. Over budget and behind schedule, the construction had taken a decade. Today, the complex has millions of parts and 192 lasers made up of 15 miles of mirrors and lenses, crystals and light amplifiers. Its innards look something like a spaceship engine room from a science fiction movie. From the start, critics saw NIF’s delays and spiraling price tag as symptoms of overreaching. In 2000, soon after the start of construction, what was then the General Accounting Office questioned the “independence” of ad hoc assessment panels and detailed a number of management and oversight failures. By 2005, a panel of scientific experts judged the goal of ignition in 2010 during the initial laser firings as unlikely and faulted the project for what it called a lack of “standing external oversight.” In July, a report to Dr. Cook, the official in charge, called ignition by the end of this year “highly unlikely” and recommended that the project be “redirected towards a broader and more balanced research program.” Dr. Moses, the laser’s director at Livermore, called many of the critics misinformed and defended the project as fundamentally sound. He said that China, France and Russia all have similar laser projects under way that use NIF as a model. “They’re betting with their pocketbooks to recreate what we’re doing,” he said. Dr. Albright, the laboratory’s director, insisted that the big laser would still end up being the first on the planet to make a tiny star. The question is when. “Everybody believes we can get there,” he said. “But we’re exploring parts of physical space that no one has ever done before, and that’s a hard problem.”

Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)