Libya: Ex-Officials and Son of Qaddafi to Stand Trial

Abstract: The son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi and his spy chief were among those charged on Tuesday with murder in relation to the country’s 2011 civil war, the general prosecutor said. The trial, scheduled to start on Sept. 19, will center on allegations of crimes committed during Colonel Qaddafi’s 42-year rule and the eight-month civil war that deposed him. A total of 28 former members of his government will face trial, including the former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi and Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the only son of the former dictator who is in custody. The charges include murder, forming armed groups in violation of the law, inciting rape and kidnappings. The prosecutor’s aide said Mr. Senoussi had confessed to collaborating on producing car bombs in the city of Benghazi, the birthplace of the 2011 uprising. Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, has been charged by the International Criminal Court with murder and persecution of civilians during the early days of the uprising. The court has ruled that Libya cannot give Mr. Qaddafi a fair trial and asked that he be handed over to The Hague. It is unclear how he could be tried in either place: he remains held by a militia that captured him in the western mountain town of Zintan after rebel forces took Libya’s capital.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


House Votes for Greater Tariff Powers

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives sent an unusually confrontational signal to the Chinese leadership on Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to give the Obama administration expanded authority to impose tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports to the United States. The move, which could affect more than $300 billion in goods this year, was made in retaliation for the country’s refusal to revalue its currency. The bill passed 348 to 79 and included the support of 99 Republicans, a highly unusual bipartisan vote at a time when large numbers of House Republicans have rarely joined Democrats on an economic issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has long pressed China trade issues, personally gaveled the vote closed. Nonetheless, prospects for Senate approval are unclear. The action was intended to hand President Obama new leverage in what has become a major flashpoint between the world’s two largest economies. While tariffs have been placed on specific products, like steel and tires, because of evidence of unfair export subsidies, the threat of putting sizable tariffs on a country’s entire line of exports to the United States is highly unusual — and, some argue, of dubious legality under international trade law. It reflects both election-year politics over a loss of American jobs and great frustration over unfulfilled promises by China to allow its currency to rise in value, which would make Chinese goods less competitive in the United States. The Obama administration never took an emphatic position on the legislation and some officials say that, if passed, signed into law and challenged at the World Trade Organization, it might well be struck down. But this is a case where the symbolism may be more important than the legal niceties, and for that reason, the White House has been of two minds about the bill. Mr. Obama has tried to use the rising public anger over China’s trade advantage to argue to Chinese leaders that the United States would no longer tolerate deliberate currency manipulation, a point Mr. Obama made repeatedly in a meeting last week with Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister. He did so again on Wednesday in Des Moines, where one businessman asked the president about the issue. “The reason that I’m pushing China about their currency is because their currency is undervalued,” he said, adding: “People generally think that they are managing their currency in ways that make our goods more expensive to sell and their goods cheaper to sell here. And that contributes — that’s not the main reason for our trade imbalance — but it’s a contributing factor to our trade imbalance.” But in conversations with Congress, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and other officials have warned of the danger of touching off a trade war, in which China blocks American goods in retaliation, that could hurt both economies. The risks go beyond trade. Mr. Obama is pressing China for help on cutting exports to Iran, managing a dangerous leadership transition in North Korea and some kind of accord on curbing carbon outputs that contribute to global warming . He is also coming up with what one senior administration official called on Tuesday “new rules of the road” over disputed maritime territory. But in Beijing, and on Capitol Hill, all that pales in comparison to the currency dispute, which is often portrayed in the Chinese news media as an effort to curb China’s growth, and thus its power. Eswar S. Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell, called the legislation “a shot across the bow that indicates a clear escalation from overheated rhetoric about Chinese currency policy to more substantive action.” While it is unlikely there will be a trade war, he said, “there is now a real risk that a cycle of tit-for-tat trade sanctions could spin out of control and cause some real, if not lasting, damage.” Under the bill, Mr. Obama would not have personal control to turn sanctions on or off. The legislation would make it easier for the Commerce Department to place duties on imports from countries that have “fundamentally undervalued” currencies — defined as “protracted, large-scale intervention” in foreign exchange markets; an undervaluation of at least 5 percent; persistent global current account surpluses; and “excessive” foreign asset reserves. Traditionally, only direct subsidies to an industry, rather than the indirect help that comes from an undervalued currency, have been considered a reason for retaliatory tariffs. Because so many countries have managed their currency rates for so long, it is unclear that the W.T.O. would uphold any American efforts to make the manipulation of a currency a justification for action. While the bill did not mention China by name, the criteria were clearly written with China, the largest creditor of the United States, in mind. In response, the official Xinhua news agency quoted China’s commerce ministry spokesman, Yao Jian, as saying: “Starting a countervailing investigation in the name of exchange rates does not conform with relevant W.T.O. rules.” But later in the day the Chinese Foreign Ministry was more emphatic about its displeasure, saying the House effort could harm economic ties between the two countries. "We firmly oppose the U.S. Congress approving such bills," Jiang Yu, a ministry spokeswoman told reporters in Beijing. "We urge the U.S. congressmen to be clearly aware of the importance of China-U.S. trade and economic relations, resist protectionism so as to refrain from any damage to the interests of both peoples and people around the world." So far the administration has been reluctant to pursue retaliation against China. The Treasury Department has repeatedly declined to formally declare China a currency manipulator. And last month, the Commerce Department decided not to investigate allegations that China’s currency practices amounted to an improper export subsidy. “The United States does not gain leverage in these negotiations by doing things China doesn’t find credible,” said Marc L. Busch, a political scientist at Georgetown. “The Chinese are aware that this is just not going to fly.” But the Obama administration may have few other options and few allies. Europeans are largely uninterested in the problem: the euro has weakened because of the sovereign debt crisis, limiting European incentives to get involved. Japan is intensely interested, and this month intervened in the currency markets for the first time since 2004, moving to devalue the yen unilaterally. But in the House, the politics of the moment seemed more important than the long-run economic strategy of managing economic relations with China. Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said that “China’s persistent manipulation of its currency” had resulted in a “tilted field of competition” and the loss of as many as 1.5 million American jobs. “This manipulation is one of the causes of outsourcing of our jobs — manufacturing and other good jobs,” he said. “Talk hasn’t worked.” The top Republican on the committee, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, said that the Obama administration had been insufficiently engaged in securing international pressure on the Chinese; that the bill would not promote Mr. Obama’s goal of doubling American exports over five years; and that other issues — like China’s tolerance for violations of intellectual property rights — were as significant as the currency undervaluation. Even so, Mr. Camp said, “I will vote for this bill because it signals to China that Congress’s patience is running out.”

Yuan (Currency)
House of Representatives
China
International Trade and World Market
Customs (Tariff)
Obama Barack


Hit by Pitch, the Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton Is Taken to Hospital

Abstract: The Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton was hit under the left eye by a fastball and was bleeding from the face as he was taken off the field in an ambulance during Thursday night’s game against the host Milwaukee Brewers. The Marlins said Stanton, the major league leader in runs batted in, was being treated at a hospital for a facial cut. He was also undergoing X-rays and a CT scan. Stanton was struck by an 88-mile-per-hour pitch from Mike Fiers. The Brewers won the game, 4-2, with home runs from Matt Clark and Ryan Braun. It was ruled that Stanton swung at the pitch. Reed Johnson pinch-hit for Stanton and was hit in the hand by Fiers’s next pitch. Casey McGehee was in the on-deck circle and started yelling at Fiers, and both benches and bullpens emptied. The umpires ejected McGehee and Marlins Manager Mike Redmond. WHITE SOX 1, ATHLETICS 0 Chris Sale got the better of Scott Kazmir in a pitchers’ duel, Marcus Semien homered for the game’s only run, and Chicago topped visiting Oakland. The A’s lost for the 11th time in 14 games. They still lead the American League wild-card race, a game ahead of the Detroit Tigers and a game and a half in front of the Seattle Mariners. PIRATES 4, PHILLIES 1 Francisco Liriano struck out a season-high 12 batters in eight innings as Pittsburgh defeated host Philadelphia. The Pirates have won seven of eight to strengthen their hold on the second wild-card spot in the National League. GIANTS 6, DIAMONDBACKS 2 Jake Peavy struck out eight with no walks to win his third start in a row, and San Francisco defeated Arizona for its ninth straight home victory. San Francisco, which leads the N.L. wild-card standings, closed its gap in the N.L. West to two games. REDS 1, CARDINALS 0 Johnny Cueto pitched eight scoreless innings as host Cincinnati handed St. Louis, the N.L. Central leader, its third consecutive defeat. INDIANS SWEEP TWINS The rookie T. J. House pitched seven sharp innings, Carlos Santana homered and drove in two runs, and Cleveland completed a doubleheader sweep with a 2-0 victory over visiting Minnesota. Santana also homered in the first game, and Corey Kluber came within two outs of his second straight complete game as the Indians won, 8-2. The Indians trail the Tigers by three and a half games for the second A.L. wild-card spot. SELIG SAYS LEAGUE WEIGHED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE POLICY Commissioner Bud Selig said that Major League Baseball and the players union had discussed during collective bargaining the idea of a blanket policy regarding domestic violence. Selig declined to address the N.F.L.’s handling of the Ray Rice case and said he could not remember the last domestic violence case involving a baseball player.

Baseball
Giancarlo Stanton
Pittsburgh Pirates
Phillies
Diamondbacks
San Francisco Giants
Bud Selig
Miami Marlins
Brewers


Saturday’s College Football Games to Watch

Abstract: 24 U.S.C. at 11 U.C.L.A. 8 p.m., ABC There is a lot at stake in one of college football’s best rivalries. Oregon has clinched the Pacific-12 North, but the South is still up for grabs and both teams are in the hunt. U.C.L.A. has the easiest path to a championship. If the Bruins beat the Trojans and then Stanford next week, they will play the Ducks for the conference title and maybe even a spot in the College Football Playoff. For U.S.C., it is a little more complicated. The Trojans need to win and hope that Arizona State loses once to capture the division. Arizona State will host Washington State this week and then travels to Arizona next week. U.C.L.A. quarterback Brett Hundley’s 70 career touchdowns are a university record. In Hundley’s two victories over U.S.C., he has thrown for 442 yards and a score and added 90 yards rushing and four touchdowns. A win would put him in elite company. Cade McNown won four against the Trojans. On the U.S.C. side, Carson Palmer, Matt Barkley and Matt Leinart each beat the Bruins three times. All those players were drafted into the N.F.L. In the preseason, U.C.L.A. was a trendy pick to win the Pac-12 and Hundley was a popular Heisman candidate. But the Bruins struggled early to put away mediocre teams, slid in the rankings and lost back-to-back games against Utah and Oregon. They fell out of the top 25 and Hundley fell out of the Heisman race. But the Bruins rallied, winning their next four. The stakes are just as big for the Trojans and their first-year coach, Steve Sarkisian. It has been an inconsistent season for U.S.C. The Trojans gave up 452 yards on the ground in a surprising loss at Boston College and then blew big leads and lost in heartbreaking fashion at home to Arizona State and on the road at Utah. A win at the Rose Bowl would go a long way toward saving this season. Quarterback Cody Kessler has thrown 29 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions, but is flying under the radar because of those three losses. A win here would get him some recognition and might make him a Heisman candidate for next year. The game features the top two running backs in the Pac-12. U.S.C.’s Javorius Allen leads the conference, averaging 118.4 yards per game. U.C.L.A.’s Paul Perkins is right behind, averaging 117.2 yards per game. One of the keys to beating U.C.L.A. is pressuring Hundley. Keep an eye on defensive lineman Leonard Williams (6 sacks) and safety Su’a Cravens (5 sacks and 14 tackles for a loss). The Trojans could get a boost from the return of cornerback Josh Shaw, who missed the first 10 games after lying about how he sprained both ankles. (He said he was rescuing a drowning nephew, but instead he jumped from a balcony after an argument with his girlfriend.) Middle linebacker Eric Kendricks is the key to the Bruins’ defense with 110 tackles. During their four-game winning streak, the Bruins have done a better job of getting after quarterbacks, thanks to linemen Owamagbe Odighizuwa and Takkarist McKinley and linebacker Deon Hollins. The offensive line was one of the Trojans’ weaknesses entering the season but has held together. The Bruins will be a big test. YALE at HARVARD 12:30 p.m., NBC Sports Harvard is 9-0. Yale is 8-1. The Elis can share the Ivy League title for the first time since 2006 with a win. ESPN’s College GameDay is broadcasting from Cambridge, Mass. “The Game” does not get much bigger. Image Zach Hodges of Harvard has 25 career sacks. Credit Gregory Payan/Associated Press The Elis are trying to turn the tables on a rivalry that has been very one-sided lately. Harvard has won the last seven and 12 of their last 13. The last time one of these colleges won eight in a row against its rival? In the 19th century. Yale can take solace in the fact that it leads the series, 65-57-8. The Crimson are riding a 13-game winning streak, dating back to last season, a streak that is second only to Florida State in all of college football. A victory would give Harvard its 17th perfect season. (And don’t forget Dartmouth, which beat Yale, and would gain a share of the league title with a victory over Princeton and a Yale win.) Harvard linebacker Zach Hodges has 25 sacks in his career, the most in university history, and is the leader of a defense that allows 11 points per game, least in the Football Championship Subdivision. Hodges might be playing on Sundays in the N.F.L. someday. On the other side, Yale’s offense is at the top of the F.C.S., averaging 587.2 yards per game and 43 points. Keep an eye on quarterback Morgan Roberts (2,925 yards and 21 touchdowns) and running back Tyler Varga (1,296 yards and 20 touchdowns). This is one of the greatest rivalries in college football, and this year’s edition is easily the most intriguing in recent memory. 14 WISCONSIN at IOWA 3:30 p.m., ABC/ESPN2 (Regional) Badger running back Melvin Gordon made a huge statement last week, setting a Football Bowl Subdivision record with 408 yards rushing (in only three quarters) and finding the end zone four times in a victory over then-No. 11 Nebraska. Wisconsin moved up eight spots in the rankings and can wrap up the Big Ten West with a win and a Nebraska victory over Minnesota. The Hawkeyes, however, would still be alive in the West if they can find a way to knock off the Badgers. Iowa also needs Nebraska to beat Minnesota and would need to beat Nebraska next week. Lost in all the attention Gordon has received is how good Wisconsin’s defense has looked lately. The play of linebackers Joe Schobert, Vince Biegel, Derek Landisch and Marcus Trotter is a huge part of why the Badgers lead the nation in total defense, allowing only 244 yards per game. 8 MISSISSIPPI at ARKANSAS 3:30 p.m., CBS The Rebels are still alive in the SEC West and still in the hunt for a spot in the College Football Playoff. Despite being off last week, losses by Mississippi State, Auburn and Arizona State helped the Rebels move up in the rankings. To keep those slim hopes alive, Mississippi will have to find a way to win in Fayetteville against an Arkansas team that is riding high after shutting out then-No. 20 L.S.U., 17-0, last week. Arkansas will look to grind it out on the ground, with rushing backs Jonathan Williams and Alex Collins running behind a big offensive line. Mississippi’s defense leads the nation, allowing only 11.9 points per game, but gave up 248 yards rushing to Auburn and 264 yards rushing to L.S.U. in their two losses. This is not a great matchup for the Rebels. 15 ARIZONA at 20 UTAH 3:30 p.m., ESPN Both teams have fairly convoluted ways to win the Pac-12 South, but obviously any potential path involves a win this week. Arizona quarterback Anu Solomon is having an excellent freshman season and is one of the more underrated players in college football. He has thrown for 3,058 yards (eighth in the nation) and 25 touchdowns. Utah’s defense is a tough, physical unit that loves to make life miserable for quarterbacks. The Utes lead the nation with 47 sacks on the season, and lineman Nate Orchard’s 16.5 sacks are tied for the most in college football. 19 MISSOURI at TENNESSEE 7:30 p.m., ESPN Thanks to a victory over Texas A&M last week, the Tigers need to win their remaining two games to clinch their second straight SEC East title. Missouri’s lone conference loss came against Georgia on Oct. 11. The Tigers also lost a shocker at home to Indiana earlier in the season. The Hoosiers have one victory since then and are without a victory in Big Ten play. Tennessee has been a different team since Joshua Dobbs took over at quarterback on Oct. 25. The team is 2-1 over that span, and Dobbs has accounted for more than 1,000 total yards. BOSTON COLLEGE at 1 FLORIDA STATE 3:30 p.m., ABC/ESPN2 (Regional) The Seminoles keep tempting fate, but they keep winning. If they can win here and win next week against Florida, they are all but assured a spot in the College Football Playoff and a chance to defend their national title. FRED BIERMAN

College football
USC
University of California
Los Angeles
Yale
Harvard
Steve Sarkisian
Cody Kessler


North Korean Leadership Solidified as Launching Nears

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea neared completion of the hurried transition to its young new leader, Kim Jong-un , on Thursday, as a confrontation with the United States loomed over the North’s intent to launch a long-range rocket. The governing Workers’ Party, during the country’s first major political gathering in a year and a half, declared Mr. Kim “supreme leader” on Wednesday and awarded him the title of first secretary. On Thursday, North Korea also said that Mr. Kim had been elevated to chairman of the party’s central military commission and granted membership in the Politburo and its presidium. The inevitable elevation of Mr. Kim later this week to the top defense commission post will cap his rise to the pinnacle of party, military and state leadership. The speed of his elevation, analysts in the region said, reflected the insecurity of the young leader’s status as much as it did the secretive leadership’s need to have a solid power center in place immediately. The country’s Unha, or Galaxy, rocket is expected to blast off within days. The North says the rocket’s purpose is peaceful — to put a satellite in orbit — but the United States and other countries see the event as a test of long-range missile technology. North Korea is trying to use the political celebrations to project the image of what its propaganda commonly refers to as a “strong and prosperous nation” and inspire national pride in its hunger-stricken people. The national flag and the red hammer-and-sickle flag of the Workers’ Party fluttered across Pyongyang, The Associated Press said, as party delegates toured historic sites. Among them was the place where the new supreme leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the revered national founder, was born. His centenary will be celebrated on Sunday, and workers scrambled to spruce up the city and plant roadside flowers. The Workers’ Party conference gives the young leader — or the senior power elite surrounding him — an opportunity to shuffle party and military leadership, gradually retiring stalwarts from the days when his father, Kim Jong-il , was leader and elevating younger loyalists. Such a generational change has been unfolding since Mr. Kim, who is believed to be in his late 20s, was officially designated as his father’s successor in the last party meeting, in September 2010. More signs of the shift came at the party conference on Wednesday, when a group of officials were promoted. Mr. Kim’s aunt Kim Kyong-hee became a party secretary, and her husband, Jang Song-taek, became a Politburo member. The couple were considered to be among Mr. Kim’s mentors. Vice Marshal Kim Jong-gak, a key military political officer widely believed to be Mr. Kim’s promoter among the military elite, was named a Politburo member, a day after the North Korean news media revealed that he had been made defense minister. The most eye-catching rise, however, was that of Choe Ryong-hae, a party secretary who became a member of the presidium of the Politburo, said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. Mr. Choe, who, at 62, is relatively young among the top North Korean leaders, was also made vice chairman of the party’s central military commission. His rise also showed that the dynastic transfer of power was not just for the Kim family but was often for the rest of the elite as well — a factor that analysts often cite to help explain the cohesion of the Kim rule. Mr. Choe’s father fought alongside Mr. Kim’s grandfather when he led Korean guerrillas during Japanese colonial rule, from 1910 to 1945. The families of many of those guerrillas remained key members of the ruling class. However, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011, never achieved the revered status of his father. On Wednesday, the party decided to leave the previous top post — general secretary — vacant, designating Kim Jong-il “eternal general secretary.” Similarly, when Kim Il-sung died in 1994, he was upheld as “eternal president.” “Kim Jong-un wanted to show respect to his father, and so created a new top job for him,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University in Seoul. Mr. Cheong, the Sejong Institute analyst, said that one of the most important qualifications for Mr. Kim as successor was to demonstrate loyalty to his father and grandfather. The move illustrated the long shadows of his forefathers under which the young leader must operate. Choi Myeong-hae, a North Korea analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said: “Kim Jong-un is an avatar of his father. This may indicate that it’s still his father’s people who make key policy decisions in Pyongyang and that his control of power is incomplete and his position less than secure.” Mr. Choi said those engineering Mr. Kim’s rise to power were those handpicked by his father, rather than his own selections, indicating that it would take longer for him to establish his own authority.

North Korea
Politics
Workers' Party of Korea


Stephen Gionta of Devils Playing in A.H.L. During Lockout

Abstract: TROY, N.Y. — The Times Union Center was occupied by Carrie Underwood and the Siena men’s basketball team last week, so the Albany Devils practiced at their backup rink, the Knickerbacker Ice Arena, up Interstate 787 and across the Hudson. Stephen Gionta, a 29-year-old center generously listed at 5 feet 7 inches, joined the Devils last week, but he knows all about The Knick, having played most of the last two seasons for the New Jersey Devils’ top farm team. That was before his hockey career, quite unexpectedly, took off in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Gionta thought he would be playing hockey this season in New Jersey. But because of the lockout, Gionta, who lives with his wife and children in West Orange, N.J., was working out with about 10 Devils veterans at the Devils’ practice rink in Newark. “It was just the normal summer routine of skating and training and spending time with the little ones,” Gionta said. “It’s unfortunate that time has come because of the lockout, but it’s nice to get that time that I haven’t had in previous years. It was good to be around them.” This time, at least, Gionta seemed happy to be sent down to the minors. The American Hockey League has become a refuge, its rosters fattened during the lockout with young N.H.L. stars, players like Gionta, and veterans like the former Rangers, Devils and Islanders defenseman Mike Mottau, who have signed 25-game professional tryout contracts. The Albany Devils’ roster has 30 players, perhaps four or five more than usual. The ice is crowded for practices. Twenty players dress for games, so there are plenty of healthy scratches. “It’s not to the point where it’s uncomfortable,” said Chris Lamoriello , the general manager in Albany (and son of Lou Lamoriello, the New Jersey Devils’ general manager). “It’s something you acclimate yourself to because of the situation, knowing what you’re dealing with.” Gionta was able to hop to the A.H.L. because in March, he was one of 22 Albany Devils included on the league’s “clear day” rosters. Those players were eligible to play in Albany for the rest of the regular season and the Calder Cup playoffs. But when center Jacob Josefson broke his wrist in April, the Devils called up Gionta. He was placed on the fourth line with Steve Bernier and Ryan Carter, and the results were astounding. Carter had five playoff goals, Gionta three and Bernier two as the Devils reached the Stanley Cup finals. “He knows what it takes,” Josefson said of Gionta. “If he just plays like we’re used to, it will be great to have him.” The Albany Devils also had Adam Henrique, the 22-year-old center who was spectacular as a rookie for the N.H.L. Devils, and Adam Larsson, the 20-year-old defenseman who was the team’s No. 1 draft choice last year. But despite having Josefson, Henrique and Larsson, the Albany Devils won only 5 of their first 18 games. Then Henrique injured a ligament in his left thumb late last month. Gionta’s phone rang. “He’s a prime example to always be prepared,” Rick Kowalsky , Albany’s third-year coach, said. “He’s been in the organization six or seven years. I’ve only been here for two of them, but it’s been the same thing every year. He’s played in the top six for me at times, but he’s a role player. And he has no problem with that. “He’s a perfect example to guys at this level that if you stick with it, that opportunity could come. It’s about preparation meeting opportunity. The way he practices every day, it’s no nonsense, regardless of where he’s been in the lineup or how he’s feeling. I really believe that’s why he went in there and did what he did.” Play in the A.H.L. is more ragged than in the N.H.L. Larsson, for example, is playing much more in Albany than he would in New Jersey, but he has struggled at times, Kowalsky said, because plays do not develop exactly as they are drawn up. “In the N.H.L., you can draw up a forecheck and say, ‘This is how they’re going to come.’ And it’s to the letter,” Kowalsky said. “Here, you’ve got the odd guy deviating, and he’s struggled with that. The inconsistency we see from other teams has affected him. “He has to focus on the little things: playing hard, being good defensively, not worry about making the perfect pass all the time. Here and at the N.H.L. level, you sometimes just have to get it in and get it out. Put pucks to areas.” Larsson said: “It’s so different down here than it is up there. You have to adjust to the speed and everything. But it’s been a lot of fun, and it feels like I’m better every day. I feel like I’m stronger and faster. That’s helped my game.” Larsson and Gionta say that playing in Albany will help them make a smoother transition to the N.H.L. when or if the lockout ends. For now, they are happy to have teammates and a sheet of ice on which to practice. Gionta had an assist in his first game with Albany, a 3-1 victory over Bridgeport on Saturday, and the Devils beat Connecticut on Sunday. “The first practice, I felt better than I thought I would,” Gionta said. “It was the first time I had contact since the season ended, and that’s always the biggest unknown.”

Albany Devils (A.H.L. Hockey Team)
American Hockey League
Gionta Stephen
Lockouts
Hockey Ice
National Hockey League
New Jersey Devils


Debate Persists Over Diagnosing Mental Health Disorders, Long After ‘Sybil’

Abstract: The notion that a person might embody several personalities, each of them distinct, is hardly new. The ancient Romans had a sense of this and came up with Janus, a two-faced god. In the 1880s, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a novella that provided us with an enduring metaphor for good and evil corporeally bound. Modern comic books are awash in divided personalities like the Hulk and Two-Face in the Batman series. Even heroic Superman has his alternating personas. But few instances of the phenomenon captured Americans’ collective imagination quite like “Sybil,” the study of a woman said to have had not two, not three (like the troubled figure in the 1950s’ “Three Faces of Eve”), but 16 different personalities. Alters, psychiatrists call them, short for alternates. As a mass-market book published in 1973, “Sybil” sold in the millions. Tens of millions watched a 1976 television movie version. The story had enough juice left in it for still another television film in 2007. Sybil Dorsett, a pseudonym, became the paradigm of a psychiatric diagnosis once known as multiple personality disorder. These days, it goes by a more anodyne label: dissociative identity disorder. Either way, the strange case of the woman whose real name was Shirley Ardell Mason made itself felt in psychiatrists’ offices across the country. Pre-"Sybil,” the diagnosis was rare, with only about 100 cases ever having been reported in medical journals. Less than a decade after “Sybil” made its appearance, in 1980, the American Psychiatric Association formally recognized the disorder, and the numbers soared into the thousands. People went on television to tell the likes of Jerry Springer and Leeza Gibbons about their many alters. One woman insisted that she had more than 300 identities within her (enough, if you will, to fill the rosters of a dozen major-league baseball teams). Even “Eve,” whose real name is Chris Costner Sizemore, said in the mid-1970s that those famous three faces were surely an undercount. It was more like 22, she said. As retold in this latest video documentary from Retro Report , part of a series exploring past news stories and their consequences, the phenomenon burned most intensely for roughly a decade, from the mid-1980s to the mid-'90s. Then it faded from public view, partly the result of lawsuits brought successfully against some psychiatrists, who were found by the courts to have used dubious methods to lead their patients down the path of false memories. When an unusual disorder draws so much attention, as this one did for a time, the public may become understandably confused about how prevalent it truly is. Even with medical conditions that are less controversial and far more familiar to most Americans, questions arise. Consider a developmental disorder like autism or Asperger syndrome. A federally supported study in 2013 found that the likelihood of a school-age child’s receiving such a diagnosis had risen 72 percent in just five years. Cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have increased so starkly that it is now said to affect, at some point, 11 percent of Americans from ages 4 to 17. In 2007, researchers reported a 40-fold increase in the number of children and adolescents being treated for bipolar disorder. Do these striking statistics signal that the disorders are indeed increasing explosively, or have doctors simply gotten better at recognizing existing problems? Or, less reassuringly, are some of these conditions perhaps being overdiagnosed? Medical professionals themselves continue to debate such questions. The “Sybil” story began in the mid-1950s. At its center were the Minnesota-born Ms. Mason and her intense relationship, first in the Midwest and later in New York, with a psychoanalyst, Cornelia B. Wilbur. Dr. Wilbur’s determination that Ms. Mason had 16 personalities — people of varying manner and ages, including two who were male — did not come about in a vacuum. She was well aware of “The Three Faces of Eve,” a 1954 report by two psychiatrists who worked with a woman said to have had three distinct personalities. (As Eve in a 1957 film based on that study, Joanne Woodward won an Academy Award for best actress. Years later, she did a neat Hollywood pivot by playing the psychiatrist in the first movie version of “Sybil,” with Sally Field as the patient.) Dr. Wilbur did not write up her findings in some dry professional journal. Instead, she went looking for a large audience, and enlisted a writer, Flora Rheta Schreiber, to produce what became a blockbuster. But as the years passed, challengers began to speak up. One was Herbert Spiegel, a New York psychiatrist who said that he had treated Ms. Mason when Dr. Wilbur was on vacation. Dr. Spiegel described his patient not as a sufferer of multiple personality disorder but, rather, as a readily suggestible “hysteric.” A harsher judgment was rendered in the 1990s by Robert Rieber, a psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a New York City school where Ms. Schreiber taught English. After listening to tape recordings that he said Ms. Schreiber had given him, he concluded that “it is clear from Wilbur’s own words that she was not exploring the truth but rather planting the truth as she wanted it to be.” Debbie Nathan, a writer interviewed for this Retro Report documentary, piled on still more skepticism in her 2011 book, “Sybil Exposed.” Perhaps inevitably in a dispute of this sort, counter-revisionists then emerged to denounce the doubters and to defend “Sybil” as rooted in reality. Overwhelmingly, those receiving a diagnosis of the disorder have been women. They typically had rough childhoods. A pattern to their stories — Ms. Mason fell squarely within it — was that they endured horrific physical and sexual abuse when they were little. More than a few claimed to have been the victims of torture at the hands of satanic cults. In many cases, their memories were brought to the surface through hypnotism or with injections of so-called truth serums like sodium pentothal. But were those recollections real? The “Sybil” phenomenon went arm in arm with a reassessment of certain psychiatric techniques. Some studies concluded that people may have become less inhibited with pharmacological intervention, but not necessarily more truthful. Other research found that hypnosis sometimes creates false memories. Those who dismiss Dr. Wilbur’s work as hokum say that induced false memories lay at the heart of her work with Ms. Mason. All the principals in “Sybil” — Ms. Mason, Dr. Wilbur, Ms. Schreiber — are dead. So is Herbert Spiegel. His son, David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, played an important role in his profession’s adoption of dissociative identity disorder as the preferred term for this condition. “Multiple personality carries with it the implication that they really have more than one personality,” Dr. Spiegel said. Not so. “The problem is fragmentation of identity, not that you really are 12 people,” he said, “that you have not more than one but less than one personality.”

Mental Health
Psychiatry
Dissociative identity disorder
Shirley Mason
Flora Rheta Schreiber
Cornelia Wilbur
David Spiegel
Sybil


Cruz Suspension Leaves Rangers With Huge Hole

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Texas Rangers — like seven other teams that on Monday had players suspended by Major League Baseball for their ties to the defunct Biogenesis clinic — had to make contingency plans. But the Rangers are perhaps the team whose playoff fate was most dependent on the player they lost, right fielder Nelson Cruz, who received a 50-game suspension. They began play Monday against the Los Angeles Angels a half-game behind the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Indians for the final American League wild-card berth. Cruz, with a team-leading 27 home runs and 76 runs batted in, has been a middle-of-the-lineup force and carried a strong arm to the outfield. The Detroit Tigers, who also lost an All-Star in Jhonny Peralta, are also in the heart of the playoff race, entering Monday with a three-game lead in the A.L. Central. But they recently acquired a solid defensive replacement in Jose Iglesias and with Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and others, they do not lack big bats. The task of replacing Cruz appears taller, and will fall to less inexperienced players: Engel Beltre, who had played only 13 games before he started in left and hit ninth on Monday, and fellow rookie Joey Butler who was called up from Class AAA. Beltre will play against right-handers and Butler against left-handers, but between them they have not hit a home run in the majors. “It’s a shame that it has to happen at all,” catcher A. J. Pierzynski said. “But we’re all grown men here and we all make decisions, and at the end you have to pay for your decisions, good or bad. It’s sad because we’ll miss Nellie.” Image Nelson Cruz, with a team-leading 27 home runs and 76 runs batted in, has been a middle-of-the-lineup force for the Rangers. Credit Jim McIsaac/Getty Images Cruz addressed the team for about 15 minutes before the clubhouse was open to the news media, saying he was sorry he had put the team in a bad position. In a statement, he added that after the 2011 season he had a virus that resulted in him losing 40 pounds, and he was not sure if he would be able to report to spring training. “Faced with this situation, I made an error in judgment that I deeply regret, and I accept full responsibility for that error,” the statement said. “I should have handled the situation differently, and my illness was no excuse.” Earlier Monday, multiple outlets reported that Cruz had fired his agents, Sam and Seth Levinson. Cruz had the public support of many of his teammates, who were mostly nonjudgmental about Cruz’s decision not to appeal the suspension. If Cruz had appealed, he might have been able to help the Rangers in their playoff push — as the Yankees hope Alex Rodriguez can do for them. But Cruz is also a free agent at the end of the season, and if he hits the market with a suspension looming, it would seem certain to cost him on his next contract. “That’s not anyone else’s decision here beside Nellie,” second baseman Ian Kinsler said. “It’s up to him.” After Cruz spoke to his teammates, outfielder David Murphy stood up to express his support. Soon others followed. It was reminiscent of a team meeting in 2010 when Manager Ron Washington acknowledged that he had tested positive for cocaine. Michael Young, then a team leader, told Washington that he would be behind him, and soon the rest of the team followed. “People can tell when you’re sincere in what you’re saying and I think that’s what comes over, the honesty,” Washington said Monday. “We’re all human beings, and we all make mistakes. There’s a consequence for when you make mistakes. You’re not looking for sympathy. You’re looking for them to understand that you’re human, and the understanding has to come from their heart.”


Police Officer Is Shot in Legs in Brooklyn

Abstract: A first-year New York City police officer was shot in the legs on Wednesday evening in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, by a man he and his partner had just pulled off a bus for failing to pay the fare, the police said. The officer, James Li, 26, was taken to Kings County Hospital Center, where he was listed as stable. Officers arrested a suspect, Rashaun Robinson, 28, in a building near the shooting, which occurred in the area of Utica Avenue and Empire Boulevard, Chief Philip Banks III said at a news conference at the hospital. Mr. Robinson had a loaded .45-caliber handgun on him, the police said. “This was just a great piece of police work,” Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said at the news conference with Chief Banks and Mayor Bill de Blasio. He added that the suspect “showed no compunction whatsoever” in “firing three times at the officers.” About 5 p.m., Officer Li and his partner, Randy Chow, had just removed Mr. Robinson and another man from a B46 bus traveling south on Utica Avenue after they saw the men board a bus through a back door without paying the fare, the police said. Mr. Robinson ran, and when Officers Li and Chow gave chase, he fired on the officers, Chief Banks said. Officer Li was injured in the left thigh, right thigh and groin, he said. In return, Officer Li fired five shots and Officer Chow fired twice, he said. Mr. Robinson was not hit. Bystanders — including two off-duty emergency medical technicians — provided Officer Li with first aid while Officer Chow radioed for help and continued to chase the suspect, according to fire and police officials. With help from local residents, officers found Mr. Robinson in a fifth-floor hallway of an apartment building at 445 Schenectady Avenue and took the handgun from him, Mr. Banks said. Mr. Robinson had previously been arrested six times, and there was an active warrant for his arrest in Lebanon, Pa., on charges of narcotics manufacturing and distribution, Chief Banks said. The other suspect who was pulled off the bus had not been found, he said. Officer Chow, 30, and a female officer whose name was not released were treated for minor injuries, the police said. Officer Li was the first officer shot on the force this year, according to the police. Officers Li and Chow, who both graduated from the police academy in December, were assigned to the area as part of Operation Impact, a program that puts new officers in high-crime areas. “They did everything a good cop does, and they’ve only been on the job for a few months,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Yet, they responded like seasoned veterans.” Operation Impact was a signature tool of Mr. Bratton’s predecessor, Raymond W. Kelly. But Mr. Bratton is seeking fundamental changes to the program that would see those young officers placed first in traditional patrol assignments and then replaced in the high-crime areas with veteran officers. The shooting happened at a busy intersection at the start of the evening rush. The bus line is one of several that the police had begun monitoring at the request of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority because of an increase in assaults on bus drivers and other crimes. After the shooting, dozens of officers arrived at the scene, near a White Castle restaurant on Empire Boulevard near Utica Avenue. In front of the restaurant’s parking lot, beverage cups marked the places where the bullet shells had fallen. Patrice Washington, who works at a nearby clothing store, said police officers often waited in front of the store to watch for people hopping on the back of a bus. Cecil Henningham, a worker at a dry cleaner nearby, said he saw many officers descend on the area and then place a young man into a police car. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “I just saw police cars coming from north, west, east and south. And then they ran into this building and took this guy out.”

NYPD
Crown Heights Brooklyn
James Li
Rashaun Robinson
Randy Chow
Attacks on Police


A Bronx Church Where Landmark Status Would Be More Burden Than Honor

Abstract: The bronze doors of Immaculate Conception Church are always open during the day, a welcoming gesture to the surrounding Melrose neighborhood in the South Bronx. Decorated with figures of the Virgin Mary, the doors are graceful — and heavy. “My main issue is trying to open them in the morning,” the Rev. Francis Skelly, the church’s pastor, said. “They keep me in shape.” The bigger challenge is keeping them open: The parish is poor, and money for repairs and maintenance is tight. Twenty years ago, the church’s copper steeple had to be dismantled after pieces began to crash onto East 150th Street. It has yet to be restored because parish leaders have other priorities for the congregation’s 1,200 members — most of them Latinos and immigrants — who turn to it not just as a place to worship, but also for help with things such as citizenship classes and preparing tax returns. Immaculate, as the faithful call it, has always been a church for newcomers, starting with the German immigrants who filled its pews when the current structure opened in 1888, replacing a wooden building that had stood there before. After decades of doing hard and unheralded work, the church is being recognized by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which has proposed that the exterior be designated as a landmark. As much as Father Skelly appreciates the nod, it is the last thing he needs: Landmark status, he said, would create financial and bureaucratic burdens if parts of the 128-year-old structure required repairs or renovation, making any alterations complicated and expensive. “This was the worst possible news I could have heard,” he said recently, before having to dash off to deal with a flood in a church bathroom. “The landmarks commission doesn’t care about people, they care about buildings. We are an immigrant parish. Financially, we break even. But we’re always a boiler explosion away from being in financial trouble.” The designation — on which the commission is scheduled to vote this month — is itself steeped in history, since it was originally proposed in 1980 before being set aside amid local opposition. It languished for decades, until the commission decided last year to start eliminating its lengthy backlog. Thirty properties, including Immaculate, are under consideration, said Damaris Olivo, a spokeswoman for the commission. Designating the church as a landmark, Ms. Olivo said, is part of an effort to ensure that areas of the city outside Manhattan are recognized for noteworthy structures. She added that while landmark status would require the approval of repairs and renovations to safeguard the building’s integrity, the commission had staff members who could expedite requests, and that some state funds and private grants were available to help defray costs. “The commission is aware that the changing nature of the city’s neighborhoods has had an impact on religious institutions,” Ms. Olivo said. “This is a national phenomenon in cities across the country grappling with these same challenges. Our approach to saving these buildings is to collaborate with religious organizations to find solutions that benefit them and the public interest.” Nevertheless, the Archdiocese of New York, which includes the Bronx, and the Diocese of Brooklyn oppose the designation of Immaculate and three other Roman Catholic Church properties as landmarks, saying the classification would strain limited resources that could be better used to help the needy. When Father Skelly learned of the proposal, he recalled the experience of St. Cecilia’s Church in East Harlem, where he was assigned in 1976, when it was designated a landmark. The Rev. Peter Mushi, who is now the chuch’s pastor, has mixed feelings about the designation. Three years ago, Father Mushi embarked on a project to fix the church’s roof and masonry. The original budget for the work was $1.2 million; the cost of using the appropriate material and specialized contractors, he said, pushed it to $3.3 million. Father Mushi said he was forced to borrow $2 million from the Archdiocese of New York when a preservation grant from the state provided only $200,000. He was irked that the church still had not been able to install a handicap-accessible ramp that would satisfy landmark requirements. “This parish is 60 percent senior citizens,” Father Mushi said. “We have a lot of senior citizens who cannot climb the stairs. We’re still looking for the money to put a ramp in.” Father Skelly knew all about that struggle: After serving at other parishes, he returned to St. Cecilia’s as pastor from 1999 to 2005, and he had tried, without success, to install an acceptable ramp. “They made it so restrictive in that they wanted it not to be seen by the public and take away from the original design,” Father Skelly recalled. “What I said was the church was for the people, it was not a museum. We’re trying to get people into it.” With an April 12 vote on the landmark designation for Immaculate approaching, Father Skelly and parish leaders plan to give a commission representative a tour of the church this week and to express their concerns. They worry that it may be for naught since the designation has the support of several preservationists and historians. Maria Caban, a lay leader, understands that landmark status would help preserve local history and culture. But she fears it might serve as another step toward gentrification if developers used it as a selling point. “Immaculate is a church of the people and for the people,” she said. “It really is the one institution that unifies all the different ethnic groups in the community. I don’t want to see that go away. If anything, that is what needs to be preserved.”

Immaculate Conception Church
Bronx
Historic preservation
church,churches
Restoration and Renovation
Landmarks Preservation Commission
South Bronx


Spain: Judge Speaks at His Trial

Abstract: Baltasar Garzón , a high-profile Spanish judge, told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that his decision to investigate killings committed during the Spanish Civil War had been motivated by “the helplessness of the victims.” With arguments finished, the Supreme Court would normally be expected to rule within about 20 days, although no deadline has been set. If found guilty, Mr. Garzón, 56, could be suspended as a judge for as long as 20 years, a sanction that would effectively end his career. His 2008 attempt to investigate killings from the Spanish Civil War was brought to a swift end because of the political controversy that it set off. But right-wing groups started legal action against him, charging that he had overreached his authority and knowingly contravened a 1977 general amnesty that covers crimes perpetrated during the war.

Garzon Baltasar
Courts and the Judiciary
Spain
Decisions and Verdicts
Spanish Civil War (1936-39)


Hispanic Parishioners Grapple With Church Scandal

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — At Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, there was no shrinking from the news reverberating through the pews. The Rev. Scott Santarosa spent time usually reserved for the homily talking instead about what he called “really painful stuff.” After Mass, over menudo and pan dulce, parishioners tried to make sense of the events that cascaded at the end of last week. First, the release of thousands of documents detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups, then the current archbishop reprimanding his predecessor , Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who responded with an angry missive of his own. Known for his outspoken views on immigrants’ rights, Cardinal Mahony was seen as a tireless ally here among Latinos, who make up about 70 percent of the four million Catholics in the country’s largest archdiocese. He could celebrate Mass in flawless Spanish, and was at times affectionately referred to as “Rogelio.” But with the release of documents that make it increasingly clear that Cardinal Mahony shielded priests accused of child abuse from investigations by law enforcement officials, his legacy as a champion of immigrants may soon be overshadowed. Conversations with dozens of parishioners at three largely Spanish-speaking churches here illustrate how divided the faithful still are over the abuse and the way church officials have handled the scandal. There is internal conflict even among the parishioners themselves: Is Cardinal Mahony the hero they once thought, or is he someone who deserves to be punished? Is abuse a thing of the past, or does the church need to make even more radical changes? And, many added with a visible wince, what will happen to the victims? Rafael Flores, 64, recalled seeing pictures of Cardinal Mahony marching for immigrants’ rights and appearing on Spanish television news countless times. For years, he said, it appeared that Cardinal Mahony was markedly different from others in power, a man who was willing to be with ordinary people. “He did so many things right, but this is the thing that is most difficult and the most important, and he didn’t do the right thing,” Mr. Flores said. Like many others, Mr. Flores said he believed that Archbishop José H. Gomez did the right thing in removing Cardinal Mahony from public duties. If nothing else, Mr. Flores said, it shows the outside world that the church is taking action, even if belatedly. For Concepcion Guizarnotegui, 43, of Boyle Heights, the details in some way do not matter. That Cardinal Mahony did not do more is difficult to understand. But, she tells herself, perhaps that was the best he knew to do at the time. “People try to do what they believe is right — how can I not think he did the same thing?” she said. Still, even as she spoke, she stopped to consider the issue. “He was supposed to be the one taking care of everybody, of the city’s children, and he did not do that. So how can he be trusted?” For some, the legacies Cardinal Mahony leaves behind can coexist. “As a leader, he failed, but that doesn’t mean he was all bad,” said Angelica Morales, 50, who was attending an early morning Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle. “A person isn’t entirely bad or entirely good.” Many Catholics praised Archbishop Gomez, who wrote a letter criticizing Cardinal Mahony and relieving him of any administrative or public duties. Archdiocese officials instructed that the letter be read at every Mass this past weekend. In some circles, there was a pervasive sense that Cardinal Mahony and church officials were victims themselves. After the Rev. Marc Rougeau read the letter from Archbishop Gomez at the end of Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Boyle Heights, he added that “the media these days is having a feast of all the details and embellishments and adding on to things.” After the service, several parishioners interviewed declined to give their names. They defended the church and criticized the accusers and their parents. In many ways, the soul-searching almost felt familiar, as reports of sexual abuse have steadily trickled out here and in other cities over the year. But even as Father Santarosa spoke of the “same pain we have lived with as we have come to know about the abuses,” he warned that there would be “much more detail” about specific cases in the coming days. “This is really painful stuff — it’s hard to read, hard to understand how it could happen and wasn’t reported,” Father Santarosa said before reading the letter from Archbishop Gomez during one Mass, offering the same sentiments he would repeat at each of the four other Sunday Masses. “Almost every sector did not respond appropriately, including families,” he said. “The church is guilty for that as well — there is no other way to say it.” Giovanni Fascio, 49, and his wife, Sofia, 46, have attended Mass weekly for most of their lives and consider their faith almost unshakable. There was almost a sense of relief, they said, with the records released. “Finally, we can all know what went on,” Mr. Fascio said. But Ms. Fascio said she could not help but think that the latest revelations were another sign of hypocrisy or double standards by church officials. “People get divorced, and they are not allowed to receive communion, but they covered up crimes and are still allowed to celebrate Mass,” she said. “It’s really hard not to feel very let down by that.”

Child Abuse
Catholic Church
Roger M Mahony
Jose Horacio Gomez
Rape
Cardinal Catholic
Priest
Hispanic Americans
Los Angeles


A Life Filled With Trouble Comes to a Sad End

Abstract: SLIGHTLY more than 16 years apart, Steve Howe and Billy Martin, two troubled baseball souls whose most notorious times occurred with the Yankees, died in similar accidents while riding in their pickup trucks. Martin, who died on Christmas in 1989, had a stormy tenure as the manager of the Yankees and was most notoriously known for his departures. He resigned under pressure once, and George Steinbrenner fired him four other times. Baseball commissioners suspended Howe seven times, the last time when he was pitching for the Yankees. Both are baseball records. Howe was killed yesterday, the authorities said, when his pickup truck rolled over in Coachella, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, at 5:55 a.m. Pacific time. In 1997, when Howe was trying to make a comeback in an independent league, he was badly injured in a motorcycle accident in Montana. In that instance, he was charged with drunken driving. There was no immediate word on the cause of Howe's fatal accident. Howe, who turned 48 last month, was addicted to cocaine and alcohol. Even his biggest supporters, including his baseball agent, Richard Moss, acknowledged that he had problems. Howe preceded the steroids era, but he underwent more tests for drugs than any player ever will for steroids. Fay Vincent, the baseball commissioner who issued Howe's seventh suspension, which an arbitrator overturned, recalled yesterday that when Howe was out of baseball after suspension No. 6, he appealed to Vincent to be reinstated. "He wanted one more chance," Vincent said in a telephone interview. "He begged me to give him one more chance. He got religion and had cleaned up his life. I sent him to the minors and had him tested. He passed all the tests. The Yankees brought him up. He almost immediately bought drugs from an undercover agent." Vincent suspended Howe for life in June 1992. The players association challenged the suspension, and in a departure from usual practice, Moss, the union's former general counsel, argued the case before an arbitrator, George Nicolau. "He was misdiagnosed," Moss said in a telephone interview. "He was sent to programs that had nothing to do with his disease." Howe, Moss argued, had attention deficit disorder, and that caused his addictions. Yankees officials strongly supported Howe, an effective relief pitcher. "George Steinbrenner was not sympathetic to Howe," Vincent recalled of the Yankees' principal owner, whom Vincent had suspended for other reasons. "When I called him and told him what I was doing, he said: 'You won't have any problem from me.' But I had problems with Michael and Showalter." Gene Michael, the Yankees' general manager, argued that baseball's drug policy was bad. Vincent strongly reminded Michael that as a club executive he was obliged to support the policy, not fight it. It's difficult to believe that any club executive today would criticize baseball's steroids testing policy. He wouldn't be around long if he did. The Mets, for example, issued a statement yesterday after one of their minor leaguers was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for use of an illegal performance-enhancing substance. "The Mets," the statement said, "are obviously disappointed that a member of our organization has tested positive. The Mets are fully supportive of Major League Baseball's joint drug policy." Nicolau agreed with Moss's argument on attention deficit disorder, finding that "an underlying psychiatric disorder" had contributed to Howe's cocaine addiction, and overturned the suspension, reducing it to time served. Howe pitched for the Yankees into the 1996 season, and they released him in June. Howe's troubles didn't end there. Two days after he was released, he was arrested at Kennedy Airport when security officers found a loaded .357 Magnum in his suitcase. He subsequently pleaded guilty to gun possession and was sentenced to three years' probation and 150 hours of community service. Moss said he hadn't seen Howe in a long time, but had last talked to him just before Christmas. "He told me his daughter was going to get married," Moss said. Moss, who generally felt very highly of all of his clients, said Howe was a good person despite his problems. "He got vilified in the press and got this reputation for being a bad guy," Moss said, "but talk to any player on the team he played for, and they'll tell you he was a wonderful guy. He was a sick guy and misdiagnosed." Moss added, "One of the proudest moments in my professional life was being able to get him back into baseball, seeing what his disease was and having him treated." The grievance victory had to be a highlight of Moss's career. Any time a lawyer can use something like attention deficit disorder to extricate a player from his seventh baseball suspension, he has to feel good. Howe, however, needed more than a good lawyer.

NEW YORK YANKEES
VINCENT FAY
STEINBRENNER GEORGE M. 3D
MARTIN BILLY
HOWE STEVE
ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY
BASEBALL


Olympic Organizers to Weigh Unblocking More Web Sites

Abstract: BEIJING — Organizers of the Beijing Olympics have agreed to discuss making available certain Internet sites that have been blocked for journalists working at the Olympic Village, an official from the International Olympic Committee said Saturday. A handful of sites, including Amnesty International and the BBC’s Chinese language edition, were opened to reporters on Friday. A working group of Olympic organizers and I.O.C. officials is now examining other sites, one by one, to determine if other sites should be available. “We believe we are moving to a point where you will be moving toward a point where you can report in an unfettered way,” Kevan Gosper, the press commission chief of the I.O.C., told reporters at a news conference Saturday. Sites regarding delicate issues like Tibet, Taiwanese independence, the 1989 demonstrations at Tiananmen Square and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong were among those initially blocked. Mr. Gosper said the process of obtaining access to sites like those was “a work in progress,” but that Internet access it is still not unfettered, as Olympic organizers promised the I.O.C. when the Games were awarded to China in 2001. The fact is that China’s authoritarian government restricts access to some politically delicate sites, and it may remain that way, he said. “You’ll always find sites concerning pornography closed, subversive sites or sites that might jeopardize national interest,” he said. “That goes with the turf and varies from country to country.” “There will be some debate,” he said. “The line between what could be considered a national interest issue might be a bit blurred.” He added that journalists who feel a site should be unblocked can raise the issue with I.O.C. officials. Mr. Gosper acknowledged that he was taken by surprise on Tuesday, when he learned that some sites had been blocked. He was not sure if the initial agreement between the Olympic organizers and the I.O.C. had changed, perhaps because of political issues like unrest in Tibet, which had intensified as the Games approached. On Friday, he finally met with the I.O.C. president, Jacques Rogge, and was assured that no shift of policy had been made. Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee, had said in an interview in Beijing in March: “The commitment we have obtained from the authorities is that there will be no restrictions for the media. You will have the same Internet access as you’d have at home.”

Olympic Games (2008)
Censorship
News and News Media
Computers and the Internet


A Review of the Patio at the Roundhouse at Beacon Falls

Abstract: AS summer heats up, diners like to take it outside, scouting shaded tables at restaurants where the food is easygoing, the drinks are chilled, and the fireflies stay out late. On a lark, we drove north on a fair June evening to the year-old Patio at the Roundhouse at Beacon Falls in search of above-average alfresco dining, our fingers crossed. Seated in racy black Italian wicker chairs under a wheat-colored market umbrella, we sipped tinto de verano — tempranillo wine refreshed with orange-and-vanilla soda — and ate smart appetizers of tuna ceviche with pistachios and crispy shrimp with spicy pink mayonnaise. A hundred yards away, beyond tumbling rapids, a single-story drop in Fishkill Creek created a glistening scrim, like a mini-Niagara. We uncrossed our fingers and asked to see the menu again. The Patio is the casual opening act at this complex of rescued brick factory buildings where lawn mowers and hats were once made; the project comprises a formal restaurant called Swift, scheduled to open this month, as well as hotel rooms, a luxury spa, artist lofts and a catering space. Also open now is a spiffy lounge called 2EM, where framed photographs taken before the restoration began show the abandoned roundhouse, minus a roof, with a tree growing through the floor. What a difference a few LEED standards and principles of high design can make! The drum-shaped roundhouse now stands as a counterpoint to Dia: Beacon , the dazzling contemporary art museum that occupies an old Nabisco factory at the opposite end of town. Brandon Collins, the executive chef, worked as sous chef at Valley at the Garrison, in Garrison, when I gave it a rating of excellent in 2004; he later served as co-executive chef there. His gently priced, seasonal menu at the Patio features light fare suited to summer: snacks, salads, sandwiches and ceviches. Almost everything is prepared in an open outdoor kitchen that can be viewed from the sidewalk above. Dishes are attuned to the moment, most accented with local produce and executed with a certain pizazz. There’s a lovely salad of warm, olive-oil-poached shrimp with precision-cut, soy-laced watermelon and dabs of black garlic and sorrel purée; and a very good burger cloaked with smoked Gouda and flanked by excellent twiggy fries. We also fell for the pho noodles with dark wood-ear mushrooms and slips of red radish, and a tumbled salad of frisée, creamy fava beans, English peas, cauliflower buds, tiny potatoes and a Champagne and vanilla vinaigrette. There was room for improvement. A lobster roll was a beautiful thing to behold, its snowy meat mounded on golden brioche bun and sprinkled with snipped chives, but the amount of salt in the mix bordered on malpractice. The banh mi sandwich, featuring a very tasty pork terrine and pickled vegetables, came on an anemic roll. And a striking tableau of pan-seared scallops, asparagus spears and painterly swipes of magenta beet-and-carrot nage and yellow corn and brown butter purée would have been brilliant if the scallops had been properly caramelized. Imaginative desserts, too, suffered from indifferent execution. Chocolate pizzelles were scorched at the edges, and rice pudding with rhubarb compote lacked sweetness and verve. Pell Farms strawberries, usually jammy and crimson red, were underripe. (We were happy to eat the whipped cloud of yogurt and granola dust that topped them.) One dessert was better than the rest: pretty oval beignets, dusted with powdered sugar and sweetened with yuzu curd. The Patio at the Roundhouse at Beacon Falls 2 East Main Street Beacon (845) 765-8369 roundhousebeacon.com WORTH IT THE SPACE A stylish patio outfitted with black wicker chairs, latticed wooden table tops and market umbrellas, with splendid views of Beacon Falls. Outdoor zinc bar. Arching trees, oak-leaf hydrangeas and ornamental grasses add to the idyll. The patio can be breezy, so dress with that in mind. THE CROWD All ages, peppered with local artists and patrons of the arts. On one visit, our waitress was friendly but idle and inattentive; on a second visit, service was ideal. THE BAR Full bar, with specialty cocktails and East Coast craft brews on tap (try the delicious Captain Lawrence Kolsch, $6). Short, well-priced wine list (we liked the zesty 2010 Terminus rosé from Jacques Lagrange, $8 a glass). Patrons can sit at the handsome bar or stand at tall tables overlooking Fishkill Creek. THE BILL Snacks, $4 to $9; sandwiches, $9 to $13; ceviches, $10 to $14; desserts, $6. Children’s menu available. WHAT WE LIKED Crispy shrimp with spicy mayonnaise; tuna ceviche with orange, pistachios and avocado; frisée salad with peas, cauliflower and potatoes; rice noodles with local vegetables; olive-oil-poached shrimp salad; beef burger with smoked Gouda; beignets with yuzu curd. (Menu changes frequently.) IF YOU GO Wednesday and Thursday, noon to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, noon to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Parking on the street or in a lot on the east side of the creek. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother.

Patio at the Roundhouse at Beacon Falls (Beacon NY Restaurant)

Patio at the Roundhouse at Beacon Falls (Beacon NY)


Greek Leaders to Meet in Effort to Save Government

Abstract: ATHENS — The leaders of Greece’s increasingly fragile coalition are to meet Monday in an effort to mend a deepening rift over the closing of the country’s state broadcaster that could force early elections if no compromise is found. The surprise decision last week by the conservative prime minister, Antonis Samaras, to close the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, was vehemently opposed by his two coalition partners and by labor unions, and was unpopular with many Greeks. Speculation has been rife that the dispute could fracture the coalition. The dispute intensified over the weekend when Mr. Samaras gave a speech defending his decision to close ERT — which he called "sinful" because of its spending — and to crack down on "the privileged" as part of a cost-cutting drive demanded by Greece’s international creditors. It was a year ago that Greeks went to the polls amid political upheaval and the specter of a messy debt default that shook the countries that use the euro. The elections were inconclusive, leading to the cobbling together of the governing coalition. Mr. Samaras is supposed to serve a four-year term, but few expect it to last that long. “Some believe that they will trap us in an election dilemma,” Mr. Samaras said Sunday, speaking to members of his New Democracy party in the southern town of Nafplio. “The dilemma is not over who will provoke elections, because nobody wants them. The dilemma is who will be responsible for blocking reforms.” The socialist party known as Pasok, the second member of the coalition, condemned the prime minister for his “precocious pre-election tone.” “This is not the appropriate way to address his government partners,” Pasok said in a statement, adding that a three-way coalition “can only operate on the basis of mutual respect.” The smallest partner, the Democratic Left, sounded a similar note. “If in actions and in words — as in today’s incendiary speech by Mr. Samaras — the government partners are sidestepped, then the government’s cohesion is at risk,” the party said in a statement. Early elections would derail economic reforms and would almost certainly lead foreign rescue loans to be frozen. With so much at stake, most political analysts say, the coalition’s leaders are under great pressure to thrash out a compromise. Although the junior coalition partners have insisted that they do not want early elections — and it would be a huge gamble for Mr. Samaras to call them himself — there are doubts about whether the socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos and Fotis Kouvelis of the Democratic Left will be able to muster the political will to keep the government running and settle their differences with Mr. Samaras over the closing of ERT. The prime minister also faces the opposition of unions representing about 650,000 civil servants who have been relatively untouched by the deepening recession, which has crippled the private sector as a succession of Greek governments have avoided politically contentious layoffs among public employees. The possibility of early elections dominated the front pages of Greek newspapers on Sunday that went to press after several news media organizations decided to break a rolling strike that was called by the Greek journalists’ union in solidarity with the dismissed ERT employees. An open-ended strike by television station workers continued Sunday. Some Greek blogs and Web sites interpreted the debate as political theater, aimed at getting Greeks to accept the closing of ERT as a far better alternative than early elections. Two opinion polls published over the weekend suggested that up to 65 percent of Greeks disagreed with the sudden closing of ERT — although it is widely condemned as wasteful and overstaffed — with the remainder of those polled supporting the shutdown. Mr. Samaras has pledged to replace ERT with a leaner operation this summer. Polls also indicated that 6 out of 10 Greeks do not want early elections. And there remained a chance that the deadlock would be solved, at least temporarily, by the Greek judiciary. A top court weighing an appeal by more than 2,600 ERT employees against the shutdown is expected to rule on Tuesday, Greek news media reported. A decision in favor of the workers, who have been producing underground news broadcasts via satellite streams since ERT was pulled off the air on Tuesday night, could lead to the broadcaster’s signal being restored temporarily until the decision is reviewed in a hearing scheduled for September. More significantly, such a ruling would relieve the government of the challenge of seeking a difficult compromise on ERT, allowing the coalition government to remain intact, at least for now. The main leftist opposition party, Syriza, said Sunday that ERT’s closing had put the government in jeopardy. “The prime minister is trying, with threats and lies, to justify the culmination of his despotic policies, the closure of the state broadcaster,” the party’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, said. “He knows, though, that he is isolated.”

Greece
Euro Crisis
ERT Hellenic Broadcasting
Antonis Samaras
Election
Closings


Europe Pressured on British Airways-American Airlines Deal

Abstract: PARIS — The approval by United States regulators of a deal to expand the alliance between British Airways and American Airlines puts added pressure on Europe’s new antitrust boss to follow suit before a new round of trans-Atlantic aviation talks on the so-called Open Skies agreement , analysts said Sunday. The United States Transportation Department said late Saturday that the two carriers could jointly price, market and schedule international flights in their Oneworld alliance without fear of antitrust prosecution, provided that they agreed to cede to rival airlines four pairs of takeoff and landing slots at Heathrow Airport near London. Regulators also gave tentative approval to a separate joint venture of British Airways and American Airlines with the Spanish flag airline Iberia, which is merging with British Airways. “From the European point of view, there is very little grounds for this deal to be terminated now,” said Saj Ahmad, an independent airline industry analyst in London. “They will need to make some kind of a decision before the end of this month, when talks on Phase 2 of Open Skies are set to begin.” A spokeswoman for the European Union’s new competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, declined to comment on Sunday. American Airlines and British Airways are already members of the Oneworld airline alliance, the smallest of several big groupings of international airlines. But they are seeking permission to deepen this existing partnership by sharing revenue and coordinating flight marketing and scheduling on routes in the United States, Mexico, Canada and the European Union, as well as Switzerland and Norway. Virgin Atlantic, which is owned by the Virgin Group, controlled by Richard Branson, and by Singapore Airlines, has been among the most vocal critics of a deeper alliance between British Airways and American Airlines. On Saturday, Mr. Branson said of the pact that consumers would be “paying the price for it for years to come” in the form of higher fares.

Airlines and Airplanes
British Airways PLC
American Airlines
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Antitrust Actions and Laws
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry


Greek Governing Party Wins a 2nd Term

Abstract: ATHENS, Monday, Sept. 17 — The center-right party of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis won a second term in power in Greek parliamentary elections on Sunday. The vote seemed to be an endorsement of the social and economic changes he has carried out, despite widespread anger over his handling of recent disastrous wildfires that left more than 60 people dead and burned half a million acres of farmland. With more than 94 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Karamanlis’s party, New Democracy, had 42.2 percent. The rival Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or Pasok, which was defeated in 2004 after almost 20 years of uninterrupted rule, had 38.2 percent. Under a complex new voting system that awards most seats on the basis of the proportion of the vote the party receives, New Democracy was expected to win at least 153 seats in the 300-seat Parliament. The Socialist leader, George A. Papandreou, conceded defeat early Monday, six hours after the first results signaled that his party would lose. “The people have decided,” he said. “The verdict will be respected.” Three minutes later, a beaming Mr. Karamanlis, 51, arrived at the election headquarters, claiming a victory that he described as “a strong mandate for a new and more dynamic beginning.” Voting is compulsory in Greece and turnout among the estimated 10 million voters was high despite forecasts of voter apathy. For decades, Greece has gone back and forth between the two main parties, each dominated by a political dynasty to which its leader belongs, and each on a system that favored patronage and party interests. In recent years, and as Greece anchored its interests more firmly to the European Union and Western alliances, the parties have found it difficult to differentiate themselves ideologically. A far-right party, the Popular Orthodox Rally, had 3.7 percent of the vote. If the final results give it enough votes to pass the 3 percent minimum for entry into Parliament, it would be the first time a far-right party has entered Parliament since the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. The party’s leader, Giorgos Karatzaferis, a former conservative stalwart whom Mr. Karamanlis expelled from his party in 2000 for making extremist statements, benefited from voters who were unhappy with both parties, based on what voters on the streets said. A canny, cigar-chomping lawyer, Mr. Karamanlis retained a consistent lead against the Socialists despite a bond-trading scandal and relatively austere economic changes made by his government since he took office nearly four years ago. The catastrophic fires, however, and accusations that the government’s response to them was slow and inept, put him on the defensive. In response, he put into effect a compensation plan for the victims, and promised to rebuild homes. He also proposed new measures for bigger pensions and tax breaks and threatened to call another election if his party did not win an outright majority.

Greece
Elections
Politics and Government
Karamanlis Kostas


F.A.A. Orders Airlines to Devise Plans to Identify Risks

Abstract: Federal regulators said on Wednesday that airlines would be required to develop new safety management programs by 2018 to help identify potential hazards and prevent accidents. The Federal Aviation Administration said airlines would have six months to submit these risk-based plans, known as safety management systems. Most airlines already have programs to identify safety problems, but the agency wants to establish a process that applies to the entire industry. Michael P. Huerta, the F.A.A.’s administrator, said that the system would allow regulators and the airlines to be more proactive in addressing hazardous patterns. For instance, Mr. Huerta said, it might help identify airports with higher incidences of rejected takeoffs across various carriers. That could reveal operations procedures that needed to be changed, he said. The approach is common around the world and is recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization , an arm of the United Nations. Under a safety management system, common in other industries, airlines would set up a formal process to analyze data collected from various parts of their operations. In developing the rule, the F.A.A. examined more than 100 accidents between 2001 and 2010, and said that many could have been avoided, or their causes identified beforehand, if the airlines had adopted safety management systems. Airlines already share a huge amount of information with regulators. They have voluntary systems to encourage employees to highlight hazards or problems without fear of retribution. Still, industry representatives said they welcomed the new system. “We’ve long endorsed a risk-based approach to both safety and security,” said Nicholas E. Calio, president of Airlines for America , the industry’s trade group. “Data helps drive better decision-making,” he added, and described the new system as “a very good program.” The safety record of the airline industry has improved in the past years, and accident rates in both the United States and around the world have fallen. In part, these improvements have been the result of more reliable airplane engines and technology. Despite a number of crashes and accidents last year, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine and the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea, 2014 had the lowest number of commercial jet crashes in modern history, according to figures compiled by the nonprofit Aviation Safety Network. Fatal accidents in the United States are also rare. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport, killing three people. In 2009, a regional passenger plane crashed near Buffalo, killing 50 people. After that accident, Congress ordered the F.A.A. to require airlines to act swiftly to adopt safety management systems. The systems are intended to foster “a safety culture to improve the overall performance of the organization,” the F.A.A. said. “Aviation is incredibly safe, but continued growth means that we must be proactive and smart about how we use safety data to detect and mitigate risk,” said Anthony Foxx, the United States transportation secretary.

Plane Crash
Regulation and Deregulation
FAA


Throgs Neck Bridge Fire Reveals New York’s Traffic Vulnerabilities

Abstract: When a worker’s blowtorch started a fire on scaffolding beneath the Queens approach to the Throgs Neck Bridge early on July 10, there were immediate consequences. Nearly 140 firefighters were called in to battle the blaze, and the authorities had to close the bridge to traffic in both directions, cutting off a major artery between the Bronx and Queens that carries 112,000 vehicles on an average day. But nearly two weeks later, the fire’s aftermath is still being felt: one major entry point, via the Cross Island Parkway, remains closed, and trucks are still not allowed to use the bridge from Queens. Susan Kupferman, president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bridges and tunnels division, said at a news conference on Tuesday that interim repairs would reopen the Throgs Neck Bridge to most truck traffic by Saturday and that the Cross Island entrance would reopen by Aug. 10. The continuing problems underscore the fragility of New York’s interconnected transportation infrastructure — and the vulnerability of the city’s aging bridges. “In terms of how sensitive the network is, it is incredibly sensitive,” said Samuel I. Schwartz , a former chief engineer for the city’s Department of Transportation who is president of his own engineering firm. “Most bridges are operating at capacity.” There are 2,027 bridges, large and small, in New York. The city’s Department of Transportation is responsible for 789 of them; the others are overseen by agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A 2007 report by the Department of Transportation found that 3 bridges maintained by the city were rated “poor,” down from 24 in 1998; the number rated “very good” was 111, up from 75 in 1998. And New York’s bridges are getting old. The Brooklyn Bridge celebrated its 125th birthday last year, and the most recently built crossing, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, opened in 1964. Anil K. Agrawal, a professor of civil engineering at City College, said that many of the bridges were approaching the end of their design lives. “Typically we design bridges for a 75-year life,” he said. “As you approach the 75 years, the trend becomes clear that maintenance costs start going up.” Professor Agrawal added that older bridges not only require more work, but become harder to maintain at a given standard. The law requires inspections at least every two years, and bridges are graded on a numerical scale. A new bridge would receive a score of seven — very good condition. But, Professor Agrawal said, “If you have a 60-year-old bridge, you’ll need a huge amount of effort to maintain the bridge at five.” The size of the expenditure involved in bridge maintenance was apparent on a recent Wednesday, at a groundbreaking for the rehabilitation of the 46-year-old Alexander Hamilton Bridge, which crosses the Harlem River between Manhattan and the Bronx. The cost of the project was listed at $407 million. The various types of bridges in the city also present different maintenance challenges. Mr. Schwartz said structures like the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges bear the hallmarks of the design philosophy of their time. Monumental structures, they were deliberately over-engineered. “Our East River bridges were built to last,” he said. By contrast, Mr. Schwartz said, post-World War II highway bridges were not built with the same standards, and so — although they are much younger — they are now a more pressing concern. “They are all going to be failing in the next 20 years,” Mr. Schwartz said. Outside the city, the Tappan Zee Bridge, which crosses the Hudson between Westchester and Rockland Counties, is a reminder of the decisions planners must make when faced with postwar highway bridges. The Tappan Zee was built in the 1950s. Yet last year, state officials announced a plan to replace the structure and make repairs in the meantime. The new bridge is to be wider and able to accommodate more cars; currently, traffic in peak hours can result in logjams six miles long. An accident or spill can create havoc. When there is a problem on a bridge, the cause is nearly irrelevant in terms of the traffic impact, said Neville A. Parker, director of the Institute for Transportation Systems at the City University of New York. But the amount of disruption is influenced by other factors, notably the time it takes for the authorities to detect a problem, and then the time it takes to clear the obstruction. Since last year, a new joint traffic management center in Long Island City has brought together police officers and technicians from the city and the state. And when the fire broke out on the Throgs Neck Bridge, officials were able to post alerts on highway signs around the region and recommend the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge as an alternative.

New York City
Bridges and Tunnels
Infrastructure (Public Works)


Taxpayer Advocate Says Outsourcing at I.R.S. Is Inept

Abstract: The use of private debt collectors by the Internal Revenue Service is ineffective, the national taxpayer advocate told Congress yesterday, and the program should be canceled. The advocate, Nina E. Olson, the government-appointed watchdog of the I.R.S., said that private debt collection cost the government at least $81 million a year in revenue. She repeated her call for the I.R.S. to end the practice. Congress authorized private debt collection in 2004 as a way to bring in easy-to-collect tax debts. But it has come under scrutiny by Ms. Olson and others because of its costs and concerns about abuses. The issue may figure in the confirmation of Douglas H. Shulman, the vice chairman of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, whose nomination as I.R.S. commissioner is pending in the Senate. When questioned about private debt collection in a confirmation hearing in January, Mr. Shulman said that he was aware of concerns. In a letter in January to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, 17 senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic presidential contender, said that they would withhold support for Mr. Shulman’s confirmation unless he dropped the program. Private debt collection, according to the letter, has cost the I.R.S. $71 million in start-up costs through last year and has lost $50 million. Ms. Olson’s testimony, before the House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight, is likely to renew discussion of whether the outsourcing to three companies makes sense. The program costs $7.65 million to run each year, she said, and the I.R.S. also pays private collectors $4.6 million in commissions, or around 25 cents on each dollar they bring in. That puts the cost of the program to more than $12 million a year. Private debt collectors brought in $32 million in 2007, Ms. Olson said, but are expected to bring in as little as $23 million this year. When the costs are subtracted, the I.R.S. program may have less than $11 million in net revenues for 2008. But there is a far greater cost, Ms. Olson argued. If the more than $7 million in operating costs were put into the I.R.S.’s automated debt collection system — an existing program — the agency could bring in at least $91.8 million in net revenues, and possibly as much as $145 million — a much bigger return. Those figures do not include the commissions. Ms. Olson argued that when calculated against that backdrop, private debt collection cost the government at least $81 million a year in revenue. “Since the purpose of the P.D.C. program was to raise revenue, the fact that it is costing the government $81 million or more each year destroys whatever thin rationale might remain for its existence,” she said in her written testimony. “I believe it is time to end the P.D.C. program.” The I.R.S., in 2004 estimates, originally thought the program would bring in $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion over 10 years, or $150 million to $220 million a year. The agency, however, has drastically scaled back those estimates. The I.R.S., which complains that it is underfinanced by Congress, says that it turned to outsourcing because it does not have enough money to hire more revenue officers to collect tax debts. The agency prefers to go after bigger delinquencies itself. In what one I.R.S. source called a “Coke versus Pepsi” test, the agency is now testing the effectiveness of private debt collectors by taking back in-house certain cases sent out to private collectors and comparing the results. Representative Jim Ramstad, Republican of Minnesota, said during the hearing that private debt collection was worth it because it brought in money that the I.R.S. otherwise would not have. He also said that internal officers would not be used for these types of collections, and that the program’s costs would be recovered by late 2010. Separately during the hearing, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, Linda Stiff, said that the agency was looking at whether foreign executives met their tax obligations. She also said that the I.R.S. was looking at potential payroll tax abuses. Last week, reports surfaced that Kellogg Brown & Root, a former subsidiary of Halliburton, was using subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands to skirt American payroll taxes on its Iraq-based employees. “We’re certainly familiar with the issue surrounding that case,” Ms. Stiff said. A company spokeswoman said Thursday that the Cayman entities had been set up in compliance with I.R.S. regulations.

United States Politics and Government
Federal Taxes (US)
Taxation
Tax Evasion
Internal Revenue Service