Australia Announces Rise in Spending for Military

Abstract: SYDNEY, Australia — Responding to the military challenge from China , the Australian government on Thursday announced a robust increase in military spending, including the biggest expansion to its navy since World War II. A defense white paper issued by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government said 12 new submarines , 12 combat patrol vessels and nine antisubmarine frigates would be added to the current fleet. Over all, 5,000 more personnel would be recruited for the Australian military and military spending would be increased to 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product by 2021, in keeping with a pledge that Australia made to the United States as part of its commitment to share defense responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region. As America’s closest ally in the region, Australia works with Washington on military operations and intelligence matters, and it has promised the Obama administration that it will invest in a stronger military. Mr. Turnbull called the assessment in the document a “cleareyed and unsentimental appraisal of our strategic environment.” The increases would stop the decline in Australia’s military capacities and make its forces “potent and agile,” with the ability to be more commanding in the skies, on the seas and beneath the seas, he said. Image Crew members aboard the Australian Navy’s newest vessel, the H.M.A.S. Canberra, in June. The Australian Navy would remain relatively small even after the new acquisitions, but the expansion would cement its role as the most capable navy south of Japan, analysts say. Credit Dean Lewins/European Pressphoto Agency The Australian Navy would remain relatively small even after the new acquisitions, but it is considered technically advanced and analysts say the expansion would cement its role as the most capable navy south of Japan , where the United States Seventh Fleet is based. Looking forward, the white paper, a document compiled by the Australian military authorities every few years to give the government guidance, said that the United States would remain the dominant power in Asia-Pacific region at least until 2035. But China, the paper warned, will “have a major impact on the Indo-Pacific region to the year 2035.” Australia maintains a strong economic relationship with China, which is by far its biggest trading partner, particularly in mining. Concerns about annoying Beijing led to some tempering of the language in the document about the military challenge from China, analysts said, but there were pointed references to China’s recent behavior in the South China Sea. The government was “particularly concerned” about the “unprecedented pace and scale” of land reclamation by the Chinese in the South China Sea, the document said. That reference was to the nearly 3,000 acres of land that China has added to atolls to make large artificial islands capable of accommodating military aircraft and equipment in the South China Sea. The Pentagon has said that China has placed radar facilities on disputed islands in the strategic sea lanes, as well as surface-to-air-missile batteries . “Though small, the Australian Navy packs a punch because of its high-tech capabilities,” said Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, Australia’s capital. Mr. Jennings called the expansion “ambitious” but said the funding plan was “believable.” A previous government had called for 12 new submarines, doubling the current fleet, but failed to guarantee the funding, Mr. Jennings said. The Obama administration is likely to be pleased that Mr. Turnbull, who recently replaced a more conservative prime minister, Tony Abbott, retained the strong defense posture planned by Mr. Abbott, said Michael J. Green, senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington. Mr. Turnbull is known for his strong interest in maintaining Australia’s economic relations with China, and it was reassuring, Mr. Green said, that the new prime minister was committed to a strong defense. Particularly important, Mr. Green said, is the decision to buy 12 new submarines, which, with a fleet of F-35 fighter jets that the Australians have ordered from the United States, would protect the sea lanes to the north of Australia. “Australia’s decision to go for the fifth-generation F-35 fighters and the submarines suggests the government wants a capability to go against the most capable adversary in the region, China,” Mr. Green said by telephone. The diesel-powered submarines would be fast and quiet and would help keep adversaries far away, he added. “I think Beijing will read between the lines and won’t be happy,” he said of the white paper. Mr. Green said the United States would like to see Australia buy the submarines from Japan, one of three countries vying for the contract to be completed later this year. A purchase from Japan, a strategic competitor with China — rather than France or Germany — would send an appropriate signal to the region, he said, and the Japanese submarines would allow for better interoperability with United States forces.

Australia
China
Asia
US Foreign Policy
South China Sea
Malcolm Turnbull
Submarines and Submersibles
Military
F-35


Hurricane Sandy and Sandy Hook Killings, Distinct but for a Name

Abstract: ORTLEY BEACH, N.J. — Stefanie Pyper’s last prehurricane memory of her house on Fourth Avenue is one of bliss: the bike ride up to the Lavallette Boardwalk, seeing a school of dolphins in the ocean, the oasis of calm amid the turmoil of raising five children ranging in age from 8 to 18. So after Hurricane Sandy devastated its ground floor, ruining everything inside, and turned the yard into a landfill — littering it with a Porta-Potty, a refrigerator, a television, pieces of the Ortley Beach Boardwalk and the rest — all she could think when she came back to begin cleaning up was that this is like being in mourning, this feels like a death. And then Hurricane Sandy gave way to Sandy Hook Elementary, where the death was all too real and the mourning was for 6- and 7-year-olds and beloved educators, not for a treasured beach house and good times with good friends. It’s not that disaster is a game of perverse one-upmanship where the greater catastrophe cancels out one not quite as awful. But, still, after that, it was hard for Ms. Pyper not to see Ortley’s disaster through the lens of the disaster in Newtown, Conn. “It put a whole different spin on life in general and on what we’re going through,” said Ms. Pyper, a former fourth-grade teacher in the Newark schools. “Of course, this is terrible, but we can take a deep breath and say this will get done. Those people are not going to see their kids again. To see what they’re going through, it humbles you.” Ortley was perhaps the hardest-hit beach town in New Jersey, with virtually all 2,400 homes damaged , about 10 percent of them destroyed. And while residents and businesses are slowly returning home in Seaside Heights to the south and Lavallette to the north, there is still no electricity, gas or water in any homes or businesses in Ortley Beach. There were deaths in Hurricane Sandy, of course — none in Ortley Beach, but more than 100 elsewhere in New Jersey, in New York and in Connecticut, including little children snatched from their mother’s arms — caused by the winds and a great storm surge. School Shootings Put a New Perspective on Losses From the Hurricane 9 Photos View Slide Show › Image Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times But nature’s wrath over a broad area seems at least comprehensible. Maria Muscarella spent New Year’s last year at the beach house her parents, Anthony and Raffaela Muscarella, bought in 1963. Mr. Muscarella, a Newark firefighter who lovingly built up the small bungalow year by year, expanding the first floor and adding a second in 1979, died in 1996. Maria’s brother, also named Anthony, and mother lived there year-round before the storm flooded it with five feet of water. So on Dec. 31, 2011, there was dinner at Hemingway’s Cafe in Seaside Heights with her brother and the Watsons from across the street. They all rang in the new year together and had a traditional Italian dinner the next day at the Muscarella home, a celebration of family, friendship and things that seemed eternal, like the gathering every Memorial Day to kick off the summer. They plan to rebuild, but it won’t be by Memorial Day. For now, Raffaela Muscarella, 86, is living with Maria in Maplewood, and Anthony is with a friend in Toms River. But the carnage in Newtown put their own loss in a different light. “There really isn’t any comparison,” Maria Muscarella said. “We lost things and we can replace those things. They lost children and lives. Those are irreplaceable.” On Fourth Avenue on a recent Thursday, there was not a soul around, just the wreckage, the sea breeze and the forlorn Christmas tableau at the Politis’ house — its front ripped off, showing a tattered American flag, a Christmas wreath under lifeless ceiling fans and a sad-eyed concrete angel alone on a table. But up on the main drag of Route 35, there are now traffic lights blinking orange and red. You can get sandwiches, cappuccino and cigars at the Quik Stop in Lavallette. In Seaside Heights, two of the familiar businesses, Ryan’s Deli and Steaks Unlimited, reopened the week before Christmas. At Steaks Unlimited, the area’s most famous habitués were strutting and preening their way through an episode of “Jersey Shore” on two flat-screen televisions, a dopey reminder amid devastation of the sublime appeal of everyday life in all its glory and banality. At the Jersey Shore, if not in Newtown, it still seemed within reach.

Sandy Hook Elementary School Newtown Conn


U.S. Says Russians Were Behind Cyberattacks on Antidoping Agency

Abstract: United States intelligence officials have determined that last year’s cyberattacks on the World Anti-Doping Agency originated with the Russian government, perpetrated in apparent retaliation for what President Vladimir V. Putin deemed to be an American-led effort to defame Russia for widespread doping. That conclusion was published Friday in a declassified intelligence report ordered by President Obama. The report centered on Russia’s efforts to affect the 2016 American presidential election at Mr. Putin’s direction, while also referring to Russia’s related “influence efforts against targets such as Olympic athletes and other foreign governments.” “A prominent target since the 2016 Summer Olympics has been the World Anti-Doping Agency,” the report said. WADA, the global regulator of drugs in sports, commissioned numerous investigations into systematic Russian doping last year. In July, the agency recommended that Russia be barred from the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro for its state-sponsored doping program, which persisted for years and spanned disciplines. Weeks later, the regulator discovered that its database containing the private medical information of international athletes had been breached. A group identifying itself as Fancy Bear — a Russian cyberespionage group that forensics experts had tied to the Russian government — published the records of athletes who had received special clearance to take typically banned substances for medical reasons. In Friday’s report, American intelligence officials concluded that the Fancy Bear hacking had originated with Russia’s main military intelligence unit, the G.R.U., which had also begun working to influence the American election in March. Intelligence Report on Russian Hacking The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released on Friday a report that detailed what it called a Russian campaign to influence the election. The report is the unclassified summary of a highly sensitive assessment from American intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Many of the records stolen from the doping regulator related to American athletes , including Simone Biles, the gymnast who won numerous medals in Rio, and the tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. The release of the records was an apparent attempt to discredit the athletes and paint the United States as hypocritical, Friday’s report stated. On Friday, Catherine MacLean, a spokeswoman for the antidoping agency, pointed to the organization’s statement in September condemning the criminal activity and noted that the agency had “asked the Russian government to do everything in their power to make it stop.” Russian news media and sports officials have repeatedly invoked the stolen records in recent months, arguing that they are evidence of legalized doping and what they perceive to be the preferential treatment of Western athletes. Regulators and Olympic officials have repeatedly defended the affected athletes, noting that they followed proper procedure and received formal clearance. “Russia never had the opportunities that were given to other countries,” Vitaly Smirnov, a former top Russian sports official appointed by Mr. Putin to reform the nation’s antidoping system, said last month, referring to the hacked records as evidence. “The general feeling in Russia is that we didn’t have a chance.”

Cyberwarfare
World Anti-Doping Agency
Russia
Doping
Spying and Intelligence Agencies


Smart-Growth Policy Splits Environmentalists

Abstract: Most people would assume that environmentalists would rather protect tall trees than tall buildings. But, increasingly, even the staunchest environmentalists are advocating plans to build up cities near transit hubs in order to curb sprawl and limit emissions of greenhouse gases. That has created a split in the environmental movement. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in Berkeley, where voters on Tuesday approved a blueprint for reshaping downtown that includes five new high-rises. The blueprint, Measure R, was bankrolled by developers and backed by the Sierra Club , helping the initiative win 64 percent of the vote. “The Sierra Club has come around to the idea that infill development is the way to go if you’re going to protect open space in other places,” said Mayor Tom Bates of Berkeley, who supported Measure R. The Sierra Club’s affection for so-called smart-growth policies has not pleased all of its members, said Kent Lewandowski, chairman of the organization’s Northern Alameda County group, which has roughly 10,000 members. The policies encourage development of housing near public transit to reduce commutes and curb the growth of suburbs. “It’s controversial in the club,” Mr. Lewandowski said. “We’ve got longtime club members who see efforts to promote density as colluding with developers. That’s not true; we haven’t gotten paid a dime. Others are against living in an urban environment.” Mr. Lewandowski said that one member, who is upset about the organization’s support of smart-growth development, threatened to remove the club from her will. “You have colliding views within the movement,” he said, “and I think it’s healthy that we’re having this dialogue.” The tension was hard to miss in the election. The plan outlined in Measure R allows for two 180-foot-high residential buildings, about 15 stories; one hotel of the same height; and two 120-foot-high office buildings, about 10 stories. The height limit in the area around the downtown Berkeley BART station was previously 65 feet, although there were exceptions. Jesse Arreguin, the leading opponent of Measure R, also received the Sierra Club’s endorsement in his bid for a City Council seat. Mr. Arreguin, whose district includes downtown, said the scale of the plan was too big for Berkeley. He distributed campaign literature distancing himself from the Sierra Club’s endorsement of Measure R. “I’ve been labeled a big Nimby,” said Mr. Arreguin, who won his election as well. “But we need to sort of break this mode of thinking that just building taller is going to solve climate change . We need to look at the bigger picture of how we can be more sustainable.” The plan also calls for developers to follow environmentally friendly designs and build or pay for open areas, like parks. It would also streamline the approval process for developers willing to pay for or build affordable housing and hire local workers. Peter Calthorpe, an urban planner, Berkeley resident and proponent of transit-oriented development, welcomed the approval of Measure R, but said he was concerned that its opponents could delay construction. “I think it’s good news,” he said, “but the tragedy is that an erratically ideological group can delay anything. The thing that’s most maddening is that their position is the antithesis of what they supposedly stand for.”

Sierra Club
Environment
Measure R
Endorsements
Transit Systems
Bay Citizen The


Trial Opens in Slander Suit by Kadyrov, Chechen Leader

Abstract: MOSCOW — In the emotional hours after the murder in July of a Chechnya rights campaigner, another prominent rights worker lashed out at the Chechen president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov , accusing him of complicity in her death. Now the rights worker, Oleg P. Orlov, is on trial in Moscow, accused of defamation by Mr. Kadyrov in a lawsuit. On Friday, the first day of the trial, Mr. Orlov stood by his words and added more, accusing Mr. Kadyrov of creating an atmosphere in which Chechen officials, under orders from the president or not, can torture, kidnap and murder with impunity. “The current situation in the Chechen Republic, where horrendous crimes violating human rights go systematically unpunished, has given me every basis for believing in the unconditional political guilt of Ramzan Kadyrov in the death of Natalya Estemirova ,” Mr. Orlov, the director of the Russian rights organization Memorial , told the court. Ms. Estemirova, the latest high-profile critic of Mr. Kadyrov to die violently, was kidnapped close to her home in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, on July 15, driven to a neighboring region and shot. No suspects have been named in her killing, and her supporters have called the suit against Mr. Orlov a distraction from the hunt for those responsible. Mr. Kadyrov is seeking more than $300,000 in compensation for harm done to his reputation, his lawyer, Andrei Krasnenkov, said during a break in the proceedings. He insisted, as has his client, that violent separatists, backed by Western secret agents, were probably responsible for Ms. Estemirova’s death. “Forces in the West are striking out against Russia through Chechnya,” he said. “These destructive forces, the United States, England, are all around.” In an interview published Wednesday in the Russian newspaper Zavtra, Mr. Kadyrov accused Ms. Estemirova of fabricating charges of rights violations, saying, “She played no role in Chechnya.” He called Memorial, where Ms. Estemirova also worked, “an organization created for the destruction of Russia.” At Friday’s hearing, though, it often seemed as if Mr. Kadyrov, not Mr. Orlov, were the defendant. Witnesses, mostly colleagues of Ms. Estemirova, accused the Chechen leader of violently quashing dissent. They said he had personally insulted and threatened Ms. Estemirova, forcing her to leave Russia for a time. Even her name, the witnesses said, became taboo among Kadyrov loyalists. Mr. Krasnenkov, who called no witnesses and said little, dismissed the implications of the testimony, saying his client had no reason to kill Ms. Estemirova. “If Ramzan Kadyrov killed everyone who criticized him,” he said, “you could fill a cemetery.”

Kadyrov Ramzan
Orlov Oleg P
Estemirova Natalya
Chechnya (Russia)
Freedom and Human Rights
Murders and Attempted Murders


Enercon’s India Venture Turns Sour

Abstract: FRANKFURT — With Japan’s crisis raising new questions about nuclear power, this might seem an ideal time for a company that is a global leader in alternative energy and has a big presence in an energy-starved country, India . But for Enercon of Germany , one of the world’s biggest makers of wind turbines , India is shaping up as a disaster. The company says it has just lost its entire Indian subsidiary, a major operation with annual sales of more than $566 million, after a dispute with a local partner and a run-in with Mumbai law enforcement authorities. Enercon also says it has lost control of its patents in India and fears its technology could be appropriated by competitors in a country where wind energy is a big and growing market. The case has caused diplomatic tensions and — at least in Germany — clouded the image of India, which many multinational companies see as a place that could eventually rival China for growth and business opportunities. But for foreign companies dreaming of making money in India, with its expanding economy and 1.2 billion consumers, Enercon offers yet another reason to think twice. Lately, foreign companies and investors have started to grow weary of the country’s endemic corruption, weak infrastructure and government limits on foreign investment in industries like insurance and retailing. Foreign direct investment in India fell by more than 31 percent in 2010, compared with the previous year. Enercon, based in Aurich, near Germany’s windswept North Sea coast, portrays its Indian debacle as a government-abetted theft of its joint venture with a local partner. That account is strenuously disputed by a lawyer for the partner, a businessman named Yogesh Mehra, who is also an executive member of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association. Enercon, which founded the Indian unit with Mr. Mehra in 1994, seems to have done well until the problems arose. In the financial year that ended in 2010, the company’s sales in India represented about 11 percent of Enercon’s total revenue. Around 2005, according to Enercon, the partners started to argue about company strategy. The Germans wanted to move cautiously and invest profits in the business. But Enercon says Mr. Mehra wanted fast growth with an eye toward a stock market listing. “One of our fundamental business development principles has always been to grow in a sustained, measured way and to reinvest profits,” said Stefan Knottnerus-Meyer, legal counsel for the German company. “Mehra was going for high-risk expansion.” There may be good reasons to pursue fast growth in India’s wind market, if only to keep pace with the competition. India is the world’s fifth largest user of wind power, and is adding capacity fast. The country’s biggest wind supplier by far is India’s Suzlon, but others, including General Electric, are also here. As the partners debated strategy in September 2008, two Enercon executives were summoned to police headquarters in Mumbai and questioned for at least five hours, according to the executives. They say police officials told them that they were suspected of conspiring against their Indian partners. The men said that they had not been mistreated, but they interpreted the incident as an effort to intimidate them. “They were very friendly, but the police officers attempted to distort our answers and put words in our mouths,” said Wolfgang Juilfs, Enercon’s chief risk officer. Enercon executives say that Mr. Mehra, though a minority shareholder, progressively cut the German executives off from information and shut them out of management decisions. They say they believe they have been effectively banished from India. “We have completely written off our investment in Enercon India,” said Mr. Knottnerus-Meyer. Mr. Mehra did not respond to several phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. But a lawyer who represents him and Enercon India in the patent cases said the dispute began when the two sides started negotiating a new licensing agreement to replace a contract that expired in 2004. The lawyer, Parthasarathy R., who like some south Indians uses only an initial for his last name, said the negotiations fell apart over a dispute about ownership of the company. In late 2006, Aloys Wobben, the chairman and managing director of Enercon, offered 40 million euros ($56.9 million) to buy a 6 percent stake in the Indian company from Mr. Mehra. But a few weeks later he amended his proposal to 40 million euros for a 12 percent stake, according to Mr. Parthasarathy. “That seemed to have completely triggered the lack of faith in both the parties,” Mr. Parthasarathy said. Then, according to Mr. Parthasarathy’s account, Enercon Germany sought to cancel the licensing agreement with the Indian firm. That prompted Mr. Mehra to file cases to revoke Mr. Wobben’s patents in India, the lawyer said. Enercon sued in Indian courts, but said that delaying tactics by Mr. Mehra and the slow pace of the Indian judiciary had so far not produced any meaningful results. Settlement talks also fell apart. The Indian justice system did move fairly quickly to rule against Enercon in a patent dispute. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board, based in Chennai, India, decided in a little more than a year to nullify 12 Enercon patents. Mr. Parthasarathy, the lawyer for Mr. Mehra, dismissed suggestions by Enercon Germany executives that Mr. Mehra had improperly influenced judges or other officials. Mr. Parthasarathy said the appellate board had acted quickly because a higher court, the Madras High Court, had told it to deliver a judgment in three months. “It’s very fashionable, especially for foreigners, to comment on corruption without having any basic facts,” Mr. Parthasarathy said. To be sure, Enercon has a bit of a history of misadventure abroad. The company has never exported to the United States, after losing a court dispute there in the mid-1990s, in which a wind turbine maker, now defunct, accused Enercon of infringing on its patents. The decision resulted in Enercon’s being banned from the United States for several years. The ban was later lifted, but the experience soured Mr. Wobben on the American market, Mr. Knottnerus-Meyer said. In India, Enercon’s aim now is simply to protect its patents and minimize its losses, he said. “Due to the experience we suffered, there is currently no intention to re-enter the Indian market,” he said.

Germany
India
Foreign Investments
Wind Power
Inventions and Patents
Economic Conditions and Trends


Accounts Follow Prosecutors’ Call on Rape Suspect

Abstract: The request from prosecutors in Manhattan seemed routine: Anyone with information about Hugues-Denver Akassy, who was arrested two weeks ago on charges that he raped a Russian tourist in Riverside Park, was asked to come forward. But the pattern of behavior described by about 10 women — including a prosecutor and a newspaper dating columnist — who responded was anything but routine. In the women’s accounts to prosecutors, a consistent narrative emerged: Mr. Akassy, 42, often would approach women in places like art museums and high-end shopping areas, according to the authorities. He would praise them for their beauty, and describe his credentials as the host of an international affairs television program that landed interviews with world leaders like Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela. Much of what appears on the Web site for the program has been discredited by representatives for the people he said he had interviewed. What has been documented was Mr. Akassy’s history of contact with the courts, both civil and criminal. He was arrested at least three times in Washington since the mid-1990s — the charges were dropped all three times, according to a spokeswoman for Superior Court there — and was taken to court three more times on tenant-landlord disputes. In Manhattan, in addition to the rape charge, he has three cases pending. People have described him as sophisticated and charming, yet also homeless and terrifying. A grand jury is expected to decide on Tuesday whether to indict Mr. Akassy on rape charges in connection with the accusations of the Russian tourist. Mr. Akassy testified for about an hour and a half before the grand jury on Monday morning and was expected to finish Tuesday. In the case of the tourist, Mr. Akassy said the two had consensual sex, according to his lawyer, Howard D. Simmons. In meeting with Mr. Akassy, who is from Ivory Coast, Mr. Simmons said he found him to be an intelligent, “very well-spoken, very well-groomed, good-looking person.” “What I derived from his personality, I can’t see him being this violent or raping any person,” he said. But since the Manhattan district attorney’s office put out the notice requesting information about Mr. Akassy, about 10 women have come forward, according to a person familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity because the inquiry was continuing. Long before Mr. Akassy’s arrest on rape charges, a 25-year-old associate at a Manhattan law firm said, Mr. Akassy tried to woo her by flattery and talking about his journalistic credentials. The first time he approached her, she said in an interview, was as she was entering the Lincoln Square movie theater in February 2009 to see a movie with her boyfriend. He asked her if she was European, she said. The woman, who asked that her name be withheld, said she told Mr. Akassy she was in a hurry and went on her way. About a month later, however, Mr. Akassy showed up at her Upper West Side apartment building as she was walking in, she said. “Do you remember me?” she recalled him asking, before he talked about his show, his Web site and how he had been watching her. She said she gave him her e-mail address to get him to leave. In an e-mail message, Mr. Akassy told her she was “interesting and attractive,” according to a copy of the e-mail provided by the woman. He wrote that he came to New York “from Paris via Washington” to introduce his weekly television show. He asked her to meet for coffee. “Just two companions who enjoy each other company to explore the beauties of life,” he wrote. The woman said she forwarded the e-mail to her boyfriend, who wrote to Mr. Akassy and asked him not to contact her anymore. The next day, Mr. Akassy followed her down the street and yelled expletives at her, she said. “So how typical of you as an American girl: I’m being nice to you and you’re acting rude in return, right!?” he wrote in an e-mail message. She went to the police, she said, and a detective took a report. The detective told her not to worry because Mr. Akassy’s Web site, orbitetv.org , indicated that he was a public figure and therefore he was unlikely to “do anything stupid.” Mr. Akassy was arrested and charged with harassment in connection with his interactions with the 25-year-old associate. That case is still pending. Two days before Mr. Akassy was arrested on the rape charge, police arrested him on suspicion of trespassing after he was found peeking into a woman’s Upper West Side apartment from the fire escape. Mr. Akassy told the police that he was homeless and slept on the roof, court records show. Mr. Akassy has another open trespassing case. He was arrested in January on charges of twice entering a New York Sports Club even though he had been banned from the premises, according to a criminal complaint. The dating columnist, Mandy Stadtmiller, wrote in a recent piece for The New York Post that Mr. Akassy tried to force his hands down her dress and tried to get her to touch his genitals while they were on a date in 2007. “It makes me shudder to think of this, at first glance, friendly, boisterous man I met at the Apple store by chance,” she wrote.

Sex Crimes
Akassy Hugues-Denver
Riverside Park (NYC)


Payments, Free Food and N.F.L. Dreams Fuel an Indoor League Team

Abstract: OMAHA — Chuck Wright was hooked the first time he tried professional indoor football. His pay for that game: a $10 bill and a six-pack of beer. “If I never did anything else,” he said, “I could always say I got paid to play. It’s true.” That was 10 years ago, and Wright, 34, is still going strong, now with a team called the Omaha Beef. It is an eclectic mix of dreamers hoping to get noticed by a team in the Arena Football League, the Canadian Football League or even the N.F.L., and realists like Wright, who know they are going nowhere. Each Beef player signs a contract promising $75 a game, and each will tell you it is not really about the money. Jesse Robertson and Davon Bridges are among the dreamers. They drove here together from the East Coast, took up residence at a motel and spend their days painting and cleaning apartments, working out and hanging out. They live for the two nights a week the Beef practice and the Friday or Saturday nights they play games. For them, the games are a chance to put their skills on film and send it to talent evaluators in more prestigious leagues. Established in 1999, the Omaha-based team is among the oldest indoor football teams in the nation. The Beef found the spotlight a couple of years ago when the owner Rich Tokheim offered Tim Tebow a roster spot the day after he was cut by the Jets. The Beef’s quarterback at the time, James McNear, cracked, “I think Tim can learn a lot from me.” Laugh if you will, but Omaha Coach Cory Ross said the talent in the Beef’s league, Champions Indoor Football, was better than you think. “You can see why some guys aren’t at the next level, but with other guys, you wonder why they haven’t gotten an opportunity,” said Ross, 32, who was a running back for Nebraska and the Baltimore Ravens. “There are 2,500 college kids who come out as seniors, and only 255 get drafted. That’s a lot of football players trying to find a place to play. Some go to Canada, some go to the Arena League. And then there are leagues like ours.” Champions Indoor Football is one of five leagues in the United States with a total of 44 teams. The Indoor Football League, where players make more than $200 a game, is considered the best of the five and is one step from the Arena Football League. The eight-on-eight indoor game is played on a 50-yard field laid inside a hockey rink. Dasher boards, sans glass, are the sidelines, and the fans eat it up when receivers go up and over them to catch passes. The Beef’s quirky nickname is a nod to Omaha’s reputation for great steaks. Their home is the Ralston Arena, a.k.a. the Slaughterhouse, where they were drawing about 2,800 a game heading into Saturday’s season finale. The female Prime Dancers and male Rump Roasters, along with a mascot named Sir Loin, provide in-game entertainment. Image Omaha Beef quarterback Chuck Wright (7), known as Gunslinger, says his goal is to entertain. Credit Nati Harnik/Associated Press The booster club has been known to fill a 53-passenger bus, the Meat Wagon, for games hundreds of miles away. As the team has struggled to a 1-10 record this season, the road following has dwindled to only the most ardent fans, like the five fans tailgating two hours before kickoff a couple of Saturdays ago in an otherwise empty parking lot at the arena for the Sioux City (Iowa) Bandits. Wright, known as Gunslinger, was a three-year starter at now-closed Dana College in Blair, Neb., and works at Bellevue University, near Omaha. He has played in several indoor leagues, and in his highest-earning season, he made $5,000, not to mention other forms of payment including that six-pack of beer and vouchers for tattoos. “I go out there to entertain people,” Wright said. “They’re not paying 10 or 20 bucks to see Chuck Wright the person. They’re paying 10 or 20 bucks to see the Gunslinger. It’s like a wrestling match. That’s what they want to see, someone getting lit up and thrown over the wall.” Receiver Brandon Kinnie is also in it for the love of the game. He played at Nebraska and went to training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2012. Now he works full time as an assistant manager at a shoe store and part time at a Nike outlet. “I used to envy some of my good friends because they were playing in the N.F.L. and I wasn’t, and I didn’t understand why I wasn’t there,” Kinnie said. “It just doesn’t happen for everybody. It’s O.K. I’m enjoying the company I’m with now.” Robertson and Bridges do not mind living on the cheap if that is what it takes to move to a higher level someday. Robertson led Division II in solo tackles for West Virginia Wesleyan in 2013, and Bridges was a three-year starter for Villanova in the Football Championship Subdivision. The Beef provide lodging at a Best Western hotel for the handful of players who had no local ties. The team also gave them vouchers for meals at sponsor restaurants. The entire team meets on Fridays for a pregame meal of chicken wings at Hooters. “Hey, if they’re offering to feed us, we’re going to eat it,” Bridges said. Indoor football’s greatest success story is running back Fred Jackson, who played the 2004 and 2005 seasons for the Bandits and in 2007 was starting for the Buffalo Bills. The Canadian Football League is a more realistic goal for the best indoor players, but even that is a long shot. John Murphy, the Calgary Stampeders’ assistant general manager, said one or two players a year from indoor teams might make his team’s active roster or practice squad. He said he admired their willingness to sacrifice to pursue their passion. So does Ross, who told his players as much during his pregame talk before their recent game at Sioux City. “It’s another day to continue to do something you love,” he said. “Age waits for nobody.”

Football
Arena Football League
Arena football


Texas Carries Out Nation’s First Execution of 2017

Abstract: Texas carried out the nation’s first execution of 2017 on Wednesday night, putting to death Christopher Wilkins, who was convicted of killing two men who tricked him into paying $20 for a piece of gravel that he thought was crack cocaine. Mr. Wilkins, 48, was declared dead at 6:29 p.m. at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, The Associated Press reported. A last-minute appeal to the Supreme Court was denied . Before he was administered a fatal dose of pentobarbital, Mr. Wilkins mouthed, “I’m sorry” to his victims’ relatives, who were watching through a window, The A.P. reported. Mr. Wilkins was convicted in 2008 of killing Willie Freeman and Mike Silva in a phony drug deal in 2005. Mr. Freeman and another unidentified man had fooled Mr. Wilkins into paying for the gravel that he thought was crack, The Dallas Morning News reported . And when Mr. Freeman laughed about it later, Mr. Wilkins fatally shot him and Mr. Silva. At his trial, Mr. Wilkins testified that the day before those killings, he had fatally shot another man, Gilbert Vallejo, outside a bar in Fort Worth, Tex. He also said he did not care if he was sentenced to death. “Look, it is no big deal,” he said on the witness stand, according to The Dallas Morning News . Executions in the United States hit a 25-year low last year, a combination of changing attitudes toward capital punishment and a shortage of the drugs used to carry it out. A survey released in September found that Americans’ support for the death penalty was declining. For the first time in 45 years, support dipped below 50 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Last year, only five states carried out executions: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Texas. Over all, states executed 20 people in 2016, down from 28 in 2015. Both numbers are modern lows, and are drastically reduced from the 98 executions in 1999, the peak year since the 1950s, according to a report from the Death Penalty Information Center. Like other death-penalty states, Texas has faced a shortage of the drugs used to carry out death sentences partly because their manufacturers, many based in Europe, will not allow their sale for such use. States have often turned to compounding pharmacies , which are largely unregulated by the federal government, to create the supplies of drugs necessary to execute prisoners. Last week, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued the Food and Drug Administration over the federal government’s decision to block the state from importing the anesthetic thiopental sodium from a foreign distributor. Mr. Wilkins’s execution was one of six scheduled for January across the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center . Texas has two more scheduled this month, the center said.

Murders and Homicides
Capital punishment
Texas
Christopher Wilkins


Queen Elizabeth II Makes First Public Appearance Since Dec. 9

Abstract: Queen Elizabeth II made her first public appearance in almost a month on Sunday, allaying concerns about her health after she missed Christmas and New Year’s Day church services because of what Buckingham Palace described as a persistent cold . The queen, who will turn 91 in April, attended services at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, England, with Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, and his wife, as well as several members of the Duchess of Cambridge’s family, including her sister, Pippa, and brother, James. Before Sunday, the queen, whose appearances are usually a staple of the holiday season, had not been seen in public since Dec. 9. Image Credit Stephen Pond/Getty Images Her absence on Christmas Day was the first time in 30 years that she had not attended the holiday service. Royal-watchers on social media celebrated the queen’s reappearance. “The Queen has been seen in public,” one Twitter user said. “Huge relief. I can sleep easy in my bed now.” The queen’s re-emergence came several weeks after a widespread Twitter hoax started by a fake BBC account that convinced many of her fans that she had died. Despite feeling under the weather, the queen managed to record her traditional Christmas broadcast . “The message of Christmas reminds us that inspiration is a gift to be given as well as received, and that love begins small but always grows,” she said then. “I wish you all a very happy Christmas.”

Elizabeth II,Queen Elizabeth
Duke of Cambridge William


Texas Governor Optimistic on Budget

Abstract: AUSTIN, Tex. — Gov. Rick Perry of Texas cannot be faulted for lack of optimism. Facing a two-year budget gap of at least $15 billion, Mr. Perry struck a defiant stance in his annual address to the Legislature, calling the state economy “the envy of the nation” and promising the budget would be balanced through spending cuts alone. “Now the mainstream media and big-government interest groups are doing their best to convince us that we’re facing a budget Armageddon,” he said. “Texans don’t believe it, and they shouldn’t, because it’s not true. Are we facing tough choices? Of course, but we can overcome them by setting priorities.” To be sure, Texas fared better than many other states during the recent recession , but sales tax revenues were badly hurt as people curbed spending. The depth of the state’s revenue shortfall was also hidden because it employs a two-year budget cycle and had used billions in federal stimulus money to avoid cutbacks in 2010. Now the state finds itself in a budget crunch not unlike those in New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois. Even if one does not account for the natural growth in school enrollment and Medicaid rolls, the state would need at least $15 billion of new revenues over the next two years just to keep spending flat. To continue services at current levels and accommodate growth in the population, however, lawmakers in Austin would have to come up with $27 billion in new revenues. Republicans, who control every statewide office as well as both houses of the Legislature, are beginning to confront what it means to close the budget gap solely with cutbacks. About 10,000 state employees are in danger of getting pink slips. House and Senate leaders have said they plan to cut aid to schools by $10 billion, a move that would force the layoffs of thousands of teachers and increase class sizes. Lawmakers are also contemplating slicing Medicaid payments to doctors and other providers by 10 percent. At Statehouse hearings in recent days, advocates for schools, the poor, the disabled and the elderly laid out in detail how Texans would be hurt by cutbacks. They forecast a near future in which nursing homes and rural health clinics would have to close, schools would be consolidated and nursery schools shuttered. But Mr. Perry, who has worked to raise his national profile as a fiscal conservative, vowed again in his speech not to raise taxes. He also said he would not tap into the state’s reserve fund of about $9.4 billion, fed with oil excise taxes, saying it would be irresponsible to use emergency funds on salaries and other recurring expenses. Instead, the governor proposed consolidating several state agencies, like the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Rural Affairs. He also proposed temporarily doing away with others, among them the Historical Commission and the Commission on the Arts. It was time, he said, to reinvent the government. “If ever there was a time to truly reform our approach to governance and streamline our organization, it is now,” he said. Democrats said Mr. Perry and Republican legislative leaders, who have big majorities in both houses, are ignoring reality to curry favor with Tea Party conservatives. They point out that the governor regularly boasts about people moving to Texas but has not budgeted for the costs of rising school enrollment. “It’s totally unrealistic,” said Representative Garnet F. Coleman, Democrat of Houston. “He runs around during the election saying we don’t have any problems, and he’s still saying we have no problems here. It’s clear he can’t add or subtract.” Even members of the governor’s own party are saying privately that they would support dipping into the rainy-day funds to cushion the blow to schools and nursing homes. Many lawmakers think Mr. Perry is more concerned about laying the groundwork for a run for national office than averting painful budget cuts. Though Mr. Perry has said repeatedly he is not interested in running for president, others see his themes of low taxes, limited services and tight regulation as a platform for a possible run in Republican primaries.

Perry Rick
Budgets and Budgeting
Speeches and Statements
Texas


Durant Helps Thunder Pull Away From Clippers

Abstract: Kevin Durant scored 36 points, Russell Westbrook added 23 points and 13 assists, and the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder outplayed the Los Angeles Clippers in the fourth quarter for a 118-112 victory Friday night and a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series. Serge Ibaka added 20 points for the Thunder in a game in which neither team led by double digits. Blake Griffin scored 34 points for the Clippers, who saw their 4-point lead disappear early in the fourth quarter. Chris Paul added 21 points and 16 assists, and Jamal Crawford, the N.B.A.’s sixth man of the year, had 20 points. After Griffin muscled in for a layup to cut Los Angeles’s deficit to 108-107, Oklahoma City answered with a 3-pointer by Westbrook and a turnaround jumper by Durant to take a 113-107 lead with 1 minute 23 seconds left. Game 4 is set for Sunday at Staples Center. The Thunder shot 56 percent from the field and controlled the paint against a Clippers team that never got into its favored high-tempo mode. J. J. Redick, who had gotten off to a hot start in Game 2, was held to 5 points on 1-of-6 shooting from the field. DeAndre Jordan was never a major factor either, finishing with 10 points and 11 rebounds. The Thunder gradually pulled away in the fourth, scoring 8 straight points to take the lead for good. The former Clipper Caron Butler made three 3-pointers to give his team the lead and then extend it. PACERS 85, WIZARDS 63 Paul George had his best game of the series with 23 points and 8 rebounds, and Indiana held host Washington to a franchise-low playoff total to take a 2-1 lead in an Eastern Conference semifinal. Washington made only 24 field goals, another team worst for the postseason, on 73 attempts (32.9 percent). That included 4 of 16 on 3-pointers, and it did not get much better at the free-throw line, where the Wizards were 11 of 21. The crowd at Verizon Center booed on occasion, and many fans began heading toward the exits after George’s 3-pointer with three and a half minutes left made the score 75-58. Game 4 is set for Sunday night in Washington. George came in averaging 14.5 points and 6 rebounds after two games against the Wizards, but he overcame a slow start on a night filled with plenty of ugly offense from both teams. Roy Hibbert had 14 points, 5 rebounds and 3 blocks for the Pacers. The score was 17-17 after the first quarter, and Indiana led, 34-33, at halftime. It was only the 13th N.B.A. playoff game in the shot-clock era, which dates to the 1954-55 season, in which two teams combined for 67 or fewer first-half points, according to Stats L.L.C. The record of 60 came in a 2004 game between Indiana and Detroit. The Wizards’ final total of 63 points was lower than the team’s previous postseason worst of 75, established last month in Washington’s Game 5 victory that eliminated the Chicago Bulls in the first round. It was tied the fourth-lowest total by any club since 1954-55. BLAZERS RESERVE DOUBTFUL The Portland reserve point guard Mo Williams is unlikely to play in Game 3 against San Antonio on Saturday night because of a groin injury. Trail Blazers Coach Terry Stotts said Friday that he did not expect Williams to play. Earl Watson and Will Barton were expected to come off the bench in his place. Williams, who provided a spark for the Blazers all season in backing up point guard Damian Lillard, played only nine minutes in Portland’s 114-97 loss in San Antonio on Thursday night. Williams is averaging 7.4 points and 23.4 minutes in the postseason.


Just a Little Bit of Yonkers Goes a Long Way at Iowa State

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The first snip of scissors sliced cleanly through the net at the Sprint Center. But the second? Dustin Hogue of Iowa State, standing on a ladder, needed several tries to finish the job after the Cyclones won the Big 12 tournament championship here, at one point making a face as if somebody had slipped him rubber scissors as a gag. Hogue turned and finally brandished several inches of clipped twine, thrilling the 9,000 or so fans who stayed to celebrate the team’s 74-65 victory over Baylor . More than 1,000 miles from Yonkers, his hometown, Hogue could not have been happier. “The route I went wasn’t the easiest, but I landed somewhere special in Iowa State,” said Hogue , a 6-foot-6 junior forward. “This is probably one of the best decisions of my life, to come here. A lot of people missed out, tell me I wasn’t going to make it. Me proving them wrong is definitely something special.” On a team loaded with transfers and reclamation projects, Hogue is not the tallest, the most skilled or the strongest player, or even the one with the most compelling back story. What he is, however, is relentless. Especially on the glass. In his first season in Division I, Hogue, a transfer from Indian Hills Community College in Iowa, tied his teammate Melvin Ejim, the Big 12 player of the year, for second in the conference in rebounding in the regular season at 8.6 a game. Hogue was one of six Big 12 players who averaged at least 10 points and 8 rebounds a game. In the Big 12 tournament he was even better, shooting 62.5 percent from the field and averaging 14.3 points and 8.7 rebounds a game. Against Baylor, Hogue grabbed six of his seven rebounds in the second half, fired a long pass to DeAndre Kane for a layup — a toss, Coach Fred Hoiberg said, that made him think of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Kevin Love — and sank a nifty reverse in traffic with 2 minutes 23 seconds remaining and the Cyclones up by 2 points. “Do you see him out there?” Ejim said. “He’s a beast.” Kane, a transfer from Marshall who revived his career with the Cyclones, said Hogue, not he or Ejim, should be the team’s most valuable player. Iowa State (26-7), seeded third in the East Region of the N.C.A.A. tournament, will face 14th-seeded North Carolina Central (28-5) in its opening game Friday in San Antonio. N.C.A.A. Tournament: Who Do You Hate (and Love)? Which team do you think will win? Eh, never mind that. Tell us which teams’ losses would give you the greatest joy, and which team’s success would make you most happy. “He’s always the guy who gets us going,” Kane said. “He’s our energy guy. He’s the fuel to the engine. Without Dustin, I don’t know where we would be. Like I always say, he’s the heart and soul of this team.” The younger brother of a former N.F.L. linebacker, Doug Hogue, who is now with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League, Dustin said he did not receive any Division I offers out of Lincoln High School in Yonkers. (He played his senior season at NIA Prep in Newark but returned to Lincoln to graduate.) Hogue landed at Indian Hills after its coach, Barret Peery, scouted him at an Amateur Athletic Union tournament in Las Vegas. Hogue had been playing for Sports University, an outfit in northern New Jersey known as Sports U. Indian Hills, in Ottumwa, Iowa, is a popular stopping point for Division I prospects who need basketball polish or do not qualify academically for scholarships. Ottumwa may be best known as the hometown of Radar O’Reilly, the fictitious company clerk in “M*A*S*H,” the film and television series. Iowa State, Texas Tech, Washington State and Detroit pursued Hogue after his freshman season, in which he averaged 10.6 points and 5.7 rebounds for a 33-4 team that made the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament in Hutchinson, Kan. “He wasn’t a typical A.A.U. circuit kid,” Peery, a former assistant coach at Utah, said in a telephone interview. “He wasn’t one of those kids who had been around the block and was used to being recruited. I’m not sure he knew the difference between the league Syracuse plays in and the league Niagara plays in. He was, like a painter says, a blank canvas about what the deal was and how it works. “But that made him really good. He didn’t know any better. He just got after it and worked. To Dustin’s credit, he keeps things very simple. He knows his role, and he just goes out and gets stuff done. He just goes.” Hogue’s sophomore season at Indian Hills ended early when the team was disqualified from the national tournament after a postgame brawl with rival Southeastern Community College in February 2013. Indian Hills guard Ronald Ross was arrested on assault charges, and Hogue was one of nine players between the teams to draw suspensions. Peery, the coach, was also suspended. Image In the Big 12 tournament Hogue shot 62.5 percent from the field and averaged 14.3 points and 8.7 rebounds. Credit Shelby Tauber/The Daily Texan, via Associated Press Matt Abdelmassih, an assistant who recruited Hogue to Iowa State, said the program never considered rescinding the scholarship offer. “These are kids; they make mistakes,” said Abdelmassih, a Brooklyn native who was a student basketball manager at St. John’s when Norm Roberts was the coach. “We all make mistakes between that special age of 18 to 22, 23. If someone checked my college career, they would probably think I was an idiot as well. “Those guys got in a scuffle. It was probably uncalled-for. I wasn’t there. I remember getting a phone call from him, and he was extremely upset because his college career was over.” Once in Ames, Hogue’s vigor and fearlessness earned him respect and playing time. Ejim missed the season’s first two games with a knee injury, giving Hogue his chance. A 12-point, 10-rebound effort against Michigan in Ejim’s first game back and 16-rebound performances against Auburn and Iowa in December secured his place in the lineup. “He’s always been the guy that’s done all the dirty work for this team all throughout the year,” Hoiberg said. His hometown, however, remains a source of playful teasing because it sounds like Younkers, a chain of department stores in the Midwest. “That’s just the worst,” Hogue said at the Big 12 tournament. “Yonkers isn’t even spelled like that, and I get made fun of a little bit from my teammates — ahem, Percy Gibson — about the little store name.” Gibson, sitting at the next locker, laughed and nodded. “It’s a little heartbreaking they think my city is a little store,” Hogue said. “But I’ll always represent well for them. I’m Yonkers until the day I die.”

NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness
Iowa State
Fred Hoiberg
Melvin Ejim
College basketball
Dustin Hogue


Call to Centralize Security in Germany Broaches a Postwar Taboo

Abstract: BERLIN — As Germany struggles to respond to worsening attacks inspired by Islamic terrorists, the country’s top security official on Tuesday strongly advocated consolidating greater intelligence and security powers with the federal government, a taboo since World War II. Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s interior minister and a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, argued that such a step was needed to steel the country against modern threats posed by terrorism, cyberattacks and an increased number of migrants seeking to enter the country. The federal governments of Germany’s European partners and other established democracies already hold such powers, he noted, stressing that “it is time” to re-examine Germany’s security setup. “We don’t have federal jurisdiction to deal with national catastrophes. The jurisdiction for the fight against international terrorism is fragmented,” he wrote in a guest column for the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the country’s leading newspapers. “The security of the state must be able to be controlled by the state,” Mr. de Maizière argued. Despite the country’s growing preoccupation with Islamic terrorism, the suggestions from Mr. de Maizière met immediate resistance in a country left deeply wary of centralized power by its traumatizing history with totalitarian government, both fascist and communist. Yet Mr. de Maizière’s call presented the latest challenge to the consensus and structures, including NATO and the European Union, developed to ensure security and stable and prosperous democracies across Europe after World War II. Those systems are now groaning under the weight of globalization and international terrorism, as well as the right-wing populist and nationalist movements that have arisen in Europe and the United States in reaction to them. But whether Germans are ready to take such a step is far from clear, even as they grow more anxious about security threats, especially after the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin last month that killed 12. The episode continues to reverberate: On Tuesday, federal prosecutors said they had searched the homes of two people suspected of possibly having been in contact with the attacker in the days before the rampage. The notion of revamping the organization of the government, which was deliberately decentralized by the allied powers that defeated Germany during World War II specifically to prevent another Hitler from rising, has come up repeatedly since Germany’s reunification in 1990. Just as many times, it has been rejected. This time, the skepticism came most strongly from members of the opposition and the center-left Social Democrats, part of a right-left coalition government, but also from within the chancellor’s own conservative bloc. “I think Mr. de Maizière is making a big mistake,” said Sigmar Gabriel, Ms. Merkel’s vice chancellor and head of the center-left Social Democrats. Some experts questioned whether the column was also inspired by the mounting political pressures on Ms. Merkel’s government to respond forcefully to the Christmas market attack, as well as to criticism from the far right. “It needs to show that it is willing to show that in the face of a new threat, it needs to react differently and be willing to rethink old taboos,” said Martin Kahl, a terrorism expert at the University of Hamburg. Some rejected the idea of a fresh debate on the reorganization of power structures, saying it would take up time and resources badly needed to focus efforts on fighting terrorism, making the country more vulnerable. Similar arguments have been made in opposition to more sweeping changes to the intelligence and security bureaucracy in France as the threat of terrorism has grown there. “Such a debate at this time will only detract from the actual problem and challenges of quickly fighting terrorism,” said Joachim Herrmann, the state interior minister for Bavaria and a member of the Bavaria-only sister party to the chancellor’s Christian Democrats, the Christian Social Union. “The reality is that the people who have carried out attacks in recent years have all lived in Germany for years,” Mr. Gabriel said. “They did not arrive as Islamic radicals, but radicalized in Germany, in Belgium, in France. “Unfortunately, we need to focus on this and that means more prevention,” he added. “We need to ban Salafist mosques. We need to work together with the normal Muslim communities.” One of the problems laid bare by the Dec. 19 attack on the Berlin market was the country’s inability to swiftly return migrants who did not qualify for asylum to their home countries. Anis Amri, believed to have carried out the attack, was allowed to remain in the country because he did not have a valid travel document and his home country, Tunisia, initially refused to produce one. To handle such cases, Mr. de Maizière suggested setting up federally controlled “departure centers,” which could be placed “close to German airports” to aid the process. He argued that such measures were already possible within existing German law and suggested extending the period for which a person can be detained pending deportation beyond the current maximum of four days. Opposition lawmakers sharply rejected that suggestion, insisting that the government had a responsibility to respect the human rights of each individual, even those who are to be deported. “In a country governed by the rule of law, the end does not justify every means,” said Ulla Jelpke, an interior affairs expert with the left-wing Left Party. She further criticized the plans as a “frontal assault” on the decentralization of powers that were set up to prevent another takeover like that of the Nazis. Each of the country’s 16 states has its own intelligence service. Under the current balance of power, the states have full control over education, culture and their police, including the intelligence services. Mr. de Maizière suggested handing oversight of all the domestic intelligence services fragmented among the country’s states to a federal authority, in a German version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. de Maizière also called for expanding the capabilities of the federal police, including allowing them to act beyond the currently mandated 30 kilometers, or about 19 miles, from the border. Christian Mölling, an expert with the security policy department of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, warned against forgetting the role played by the past in shaping many Germans’ attitudes about a centralized police force. “Many Americans tend to look at modern Germany through a lens shaped by the former West Germany,” Mr. Mölling said. “You need to keep in mind that this country has considerable experience with dictatorships, and consequently there is a significant tract of the population that does not wish to see the return of the secret police that was previously part of their daily life.”

Politics
Germany
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
Thomas de Maiziere
Terrorism
Angela Merkel
Berlin


Court Upholds Berlusconi Tax Fraud Verdict

Abstract: ROME — An appeals court in Milan upheld a conviction on Wednesday of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for tax fraud, sentencing him to four years in prison and imposing a five-year ban on holding public office. The ruling was a blow for Mr. Berlusconi, the leader of Italy ’s main center-right party, which recently formed a grand coalition government with its main political opponent, the Democratic Party. If upheld by the Court of Cassation, the final arbiter, the ruling would mean that Mr. Berlusconi would lose his seat in Parliament, one of his lawyers said Wednesday. Italy’s highest court, which rules on questions of legal procedures, could hear the case as early as this year, the lawyer said. Even if Mr. Berlusconi, 76, were definitively convicted, he would be unlikely to go to prison because of his age. “This ruling was more than expected, it was predictable,” said Piersilvio Cipollotti, one of Mr. Berlusconi’s lawyers. Mr. Berlusconi’s legal entanglements weigh heavily on Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s new government, which many here perceive as a fragile coalition of parties with different agendas and interests. In this case, Milan prosecutors argued that Mr. Berlusconi and several other defendants used a series of offshore companies to buy the rights to broadcast about 3,000 American movies on Mr. Berlusconi’s television networks and falsely declared the amount of the payments to avoid taxes. The defendants are alleged to have re-licensed the films internally to Mr. Berlusconi’s networks, pocketing the difference of about $330 million. Over the years, Mr. Berlusconi has been involved in dozens of legal cases, mostly connected to his business holdings in real estate, insurance, advertising and publishing. However, he has never served jail time. Some of his convictions were overturned on appeal. Others were thrown out for lack of evidence, or the statute of limitations expired before a final judgment was reached.

Italy
Silvio Berlusconi
Tax Evasion
Criminal Sentence
Politics
Enrico Letta


NASA Cancels Seed Money

Abstract: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration canceled one of its two agreements to provide seed money to companies hoping to provide space transport services. The agency had paid $32 million of the more than $200 million set aside through the commercial orbital transportation services project for Rocketplane Kistler, an aerospace company in Oklahoma City, and said it would start a competition to find a new recipient of the remaining $174 million. Rocketplane Kistler had missed fund-raising milestones, said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s commercial crew and cargo program office. George French Sr., chief executive of Rocketplane Kistler, expressed disappointment, but said, “I am very proud of the technical progress our superb team has made over the last year.” The other company receiving program money, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation of El Segundo, Calif., is “proceeding very well,” despite delays, Mr. Lindenmoyer said.


Covering St. John’s Basketball by Twitter

Abstract: After several lackluster seasons, the St. John’s men’s basketball team needs all the buzz it can get. The Red Storm addressed that issue Tuesday by becoming what appears to be the first university to award a media credential to someone who will cover the team entirely on Twitter . Peter Robert Casey is not a reporter, he is a basketball fan with 50,000 people who follow his tweets at twitter.com/peter_r_casey . KEN BELSON Q. A lot of people read your tweets, but you are not a household name. How did you get so many people to pay attention? A. It’s a function of being active. Rather than tweeting two to five times a day, I tweet 30 to 40 times a day. The real key is to share other people’s work. People who are adding value to the conversation, I like to show their work. If you just tell people what you are doing and you’re not Shaq, people won’t care. Q. Who are your followers? A. It’s basketball fans, fellow bloggers, basketball coaches at the youth and high school levels. There are college coaches trying to tap into the New York market. There are basketball event organizers and basketball product companies. Q. How did St. John’s find you? A. It was a huge surprise. Mark [Fratto of the St. John’s athletic department] found me on Twitter. He pitched me on the idea and said he had to go back to his superiors. I was on board the minute he asked me. I get a free seat courtside, free food and a press pass. I said, ‘Where do I sign?’ Q. What are the ground rules? A. The ground rules are, tweet as you normally do. They gave me almost carte blanche, but if I come into the postgame conference and act like a jerk, Coach Norm Roberts will ask what’s going on. My career and integrity is linked to this. Q. How do you hope to cover the team? A. I’m going to describe the vibe, the energy, the sound bites, not cover the game from tip-off to the final buzzer. I’d like to do what fans would want to see from press row because that’s not something they’ll see from the other reporters. Q. Why did you start blogging and tweeting? A. I finished my master’s in social organizational psychology last May and I got married 10 days later. I had this idea that when I get back from my honeymoon, I’m going to refocus on my lifelong passion for basketball. Q. Did you tell your wife this before you married? A. I make sure I carve out time for her. Q. You have a full-time job. How do you find the time to blog and tweet? A. I’m a 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. social media junky. I sacrifice a lot of sleep.

Basketball
St John's University
Computers and the Internet
Twitter
Casey Peter


Afghan and Taliban Representatives Meet in Qatar

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan government officials and Taliban militants began two days of meetings on Sunday in the gulf state of Qatar, and for once neither side denied that the sessions were taking place. Both were also quick to insist that they were not holding peace talks. A statement by the Taliban called the meetings a “research conference,” while Afghan government officials described them as “scientific discussions.” Still, after years of efforts to get an active peace process going, hopes and expectations were relatively high for the talks, which are being hosted by the Pugwash Conferences , a Nobel Prize-winning science group dedicated to promoting peace. Many of the representatives sent by the Afghan government and the Taliban were the sort likely to participate in any formal peace talks. “These are not peace talks. But it would be fair to say that this is the most encouraging development we’ve seen in a while,” said Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, the foreign policy committee chief at the Afghan government’s High Peace Council. “After all, peace talks between China and America started with a Ping-Pong game.” This is not the first such Pugwash Conference to include the two sides, and there have been other similar Track Two talks, as indirect, non-negotiation meetings between the two sides have been called. But in the past, such talks were held under a cloak of secrecy, and actual peace discussions between representatives of the government and the Taliban were routinely denied when news of them became public. So it came as a surprise when the Taliban issued a news release about the current talks, being held at a beach resort near Doha, the capital of Qatar, confirming not only that they were taking place but also who was attending. The parties convened there Saturday and began talks Sunday, with a joint final statement expected to be issued after another day of talks on Monday. The Taliban said that the eight members of their delegation were all attending in their personal capacities, and that the meetings “should not be misconstrued as peace or negotiation talks.” However, the Taliban delegation includes some significant figures, like Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, a former top Taliban official and a fluent English speaker who often met with foreign visitors during the Taliban rule, and Sohail Shaheen, the spokesman for the Taliban’s Qatar office, one of the Taliban leaders whose name was removed in 2010 from a United Nations sanctions list as an early step toward confidence-building in the peace process. Mr. Stanikzai was head of the Taliban delegation, the militants said, while stressing that all eight men were there privately and individually. Most of the other Taliban representatives are still on the United Nations sanctions list, including Mr. Stanikzai. The location of the talks was also significant, as the Qataris have expressed an interest in acting as intermediaries in Afghan peace talks and in 2013 hosted an aborted effort by the Taliban to open an office in Qatar as a place to hold talks. The Afghan government side included a diverse array of representatives, among them former members of the Taliban who have reconciled with the government; Tajik, Pashtun and Uzbek leaders; and President Ashraf Ghani’s uncle, Abdul Qayoum Kochai, according to Nazar Mohammad Mutmaeen . Mr. Mutmaeen is an Afghan writer and journalist who previously served as an official in the Taliban government but now lives in Kabul openly. He is known to have good contacts among Taliban officials in Qatar and elsewhere. Mr. Mutmaeen said that the Taliban had agreed on the list of those attending the Pugwash Conference, but overruled some, such as the High Peace Council’s secretary general, Masoom Stanikzai, if they seemed too obviously representative of the government. It also insisted that members of the government delegation come as individuals in personal capacities. Mr. Mutmaeen said that at least two and possibly three women were among the government delegation. Afghan women’s groups have long complained that they had been bypassed in previous attempts to open talks with the Taliban, and noted that they would have the most to lose if repressive Taliban-era restrictions on women’s public roles were to return. The Taliban’s news release added that “a statement for participation in the conference has also been prepared that will be shared with our respected readers at an appropriate time.” Mr. Mutmaeen said that the Taliban statement was issued to allay concerns among Taliban fighters and commanders in the field about whether formal peace talks had actually begun, which might make it harder to keep them engaged in warfare. Pakistan has long been seen as an important potential broker of any peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban, given that many insurgent leaders have found continued shelter there. But the Qatari conference represented an effort by the Taliban to strike out independently of the Pakistanis, Mr. Mutmaeen said. “The important point is that there are no Chinese, no Saudis or no one from Pakistan, only from Europe and the United Nations” other than the Afghans, he said. “This is a good development.” “This is an opportunity,” Mr. Qasimyar said. “They get together, they may have a chance to have tea or dinner or lunch at the same table, and that’s all right.”

Afghanistan
Taliban
Doha
International relations
Sohail Shaheen


The Search for Our Inner Lie Detectors

Abstract: Is a job applicant lying to you? What about your boss, or an entrepreneur who is promising to double your investment? Most of us are bad at spotting a lie. At least consciously. New research, published last month in Psychological Science, suggests that we have good instincts for judging liars, but that they are so deeply buried that we can’t get at them. This finding is the work of Leanne ten Brinke, a forensic psychologist — she previously studied parents who killed their children and lied about it — who has turned her attention to the business world. “Perhaps our own bodies know better than our conscious minds who is lying,” explained Dr. ten Brinke , now at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s well accepted that most of us are no better than a flip of the coin at seeing a lie. A classic experiment involves showing study subjects videotape of people, some of whom are lying, who say they did not steal $100; the subjects correctly guess the liars about half the time. Dr. ten Brinke and her collaborators at Haas built on that experiment, with a twist: After the subjects watched the video and made their conscious assessments of who was lying, the researchers tried to measure the subjects’ unconscious reactions. To do so, the researchers flashed images of someone already seen in the videotape — but this time in milliseconds, indiscernible consciously. The subjects then completed a word task that involved placing “truth” words (like truthful, honest, valid) and “lie” words (dishonest, invalid, deceitful) into their proper categories. When study subjects were flashed a picture of a liar, they were significantly slower to lump words like truthful or honest into the “truth” category, but faster to lump words like deceitful into the “lie” category. The opposite was true when the subjects saw a truthful person. So, in general, the same people seemed better at detecting lies unconsciously than consciously. By scientific measures, the size of the effect was decidedly non-trivial, but not overwhelming. There are many theories about why the ability to pick out liars gets lost in translation to consciousness. Dr. ten Brinke speculated that we tell one another little lies all the time — for survival, reproductive strategy, and so on — and that part of getting along socially is being able to let those harmless lies escape notice. Is it possible to tap into the unconscious ability? “It’s the million-dollar question,” she said. The study fits into a rich history of lie-detection research, with some researchers saying they can read lies in facial expressions, and others arguing that liars just don’t give off enough clear signals to allow detection. “The cues are so faint,” said Dr. Bella DePaulo , a visiting professor of psychology at University of California, Santa Barbara and an expert in the science of lie detection. She said that there was some evidence, including her own research, that supported the idea of unconscious or indirect lie detecting, but she doubted that it would ever become a truly effective system. Dr. ten Brinke has started a new experiment, one that she hopes will offer concrete tactics to help us identify liars. It entails measuring physiological symptoms like blood flow and perspiration in study subjects who are listening to a liar. That, too, is a twist. The traditional lie-detector test makes similar measures of a person suspected of lying. Maybe the better detector will be the person listening, at least if the conscious mind can be left out of it.

Lie
Research
Psychology
Leanne ten Brinke
Psychological Science Journal


Study Shows Learning of Smells and Sounds in Sleep

Abstract: People can learn new associations between scents and sounds in their sleep, according to a new study in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Researchers had sleepers wear masks into which pleasant and unpleasant odors were pumped: shampoo and perfume, or carrion and rotting fish. The smells were accompanied with different tones. When the sleeping subjects were exposed to a bad smell, they breathed shallowly. When they were exposed to a good smell, they inhaled deeply. They eventually responded this way to smell-associated tones regardless of whether the smell was present. The subjects continued to alter their breathing in response to the tones once they woke up, even though they said they had no memory of smelling or hearing anything while they had been asleep. It has been shown that during sleep people can consolidate information they learned in the daytime. But efforts to teach new things to sleeping people have been unsuccessful. “The common knowledge is that you cannot learn new information while you’re asleep, even though your brain is able to do so many other things while you are asleep,” said the study’s lead author, Anat Arzi, a graduate student at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The researchers are now searching for practical uses for their findings, like conditioning people to change bad habits. “We need to understand where the border lies between what we can and what we cannot learn in sleep,” Ms. Arzi said.

Sleep
Nature Neuroscience (Journal)
Smell (Olfaction)
Brain


France: Clinic to Pay in Baby Swap

Abstract: A French court on Tuesday ordered a private clinic in Cannes to pay about $450,000 each to two 20-year-old women accidentally switched at birth, part of a $2.1 million settlement with both their families. The mistake occurred in 1994, when Sophie Serrano’s newborn daughter was put into an incubator at the Clinica Jourdan. A nurse’s assistant accidentally handed that baby to the wrong mother, and the baby girl in the adjacent incubator was given to Ms. Serrano. Three years later, Ms. Serrano’s companion left her after rumors spread that he might not have been the father of the unexpectedly olive-skinned girl. In 2004, DNA tests showed that the child, Manon, was the daughter of neither adult. An investigation ultimately found their biological child only 19 miles away. Ms. Serrano, who raised Manon, expressed relief Tuesday that the error had been acknowledged officially. The other family involved has chosen to remain anonymous.

Babies
Sophie Serrano
Clinica Jourdan
France
DNA


'Zoom,' by Bob Berman, Explains How Things Move

Abstract: Bob Berman’s entertainingly kinetic book “Zoom” arrives within an electric red cover that ricochets with lightning. A columnist for Astronomy magazine who favors the handle Skyman Bob, he transmits science geekery in vivid prose stuffed with unexpected insights and arresting observations. Although I like to think I’m well-informed about the history of science and current cosmological theory, I learned a number of new things here, and they were conveyed with the fluent immediacy of a writer skilled at boiling complicated concepts down into easily understandable sentences served straight. “Zoom” examines speeds of all kinds, from the spooky stasis of absolute zero (or 459.67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, where even atoms stall. “You can’t go any slower than stopped,” Mr. Berman writes), through conventionally fast (a bounding cheetah) and on to superfast, light speed and even beyond — possible because the universe’s ever-accelerating expansion pulls the most distant galaxies away at such a clip that their light stands no chance of ever getting here. The book’s tour of tempos covers locations and subjects as diverse as the observatories perched on high peaks in Chile’s bone-dry Atacama Desert; the hurricane-force winds of Mount Washington and Mount McKinley; the inner workings of lightning and auroras; and even sap’s variable speed as it rises from root to branch. While this peripatetic book doesn’t address a core thesis or make a central argument, I don’t see that as a problem. Anyone who has ever contemplated the miracle of nanoseconds strobing endlessly within our 13.7-billion-year-old universe, or wondered at the presence of a star-spangled something as opposed to the empty alternative, will find plenty to contemplate. As our civilizational pulse grows ever faster, powered by technologies permitting (for example) the ultrafast stock trading recently exposed by Michael Lewis in “ Flash Boys ,” this book’s subject couldn’t be more, well, timely. Mr. Berman has done due diligence in the archives as well. According to “Zoom,” most of the deaths in Pompeii in the year 79 were caused not by relatively slow-moving lava or ash from Mount Vesuvius. Rather, they resulted from high-speed exhalations of superheated gases mixed with scorching dust — a 60 m.p.h. ground-hugging admixture so deadly a single breath was enough to do the job. “There was no possible defense,” he writes. “Many of the victims were found with the tops of their heads missing because their brains boiled and exploded in their skulls.” Get your head around that . Of course, that’s pyroclastic flow-to-person; what about a person’s speed? Per “Zoom,” while an individual moves at a supersonic 1,038 m.p.h. at the Equator even when lounging on the beach, simply because of earth’s spin — a rotational speed declining incrementally to zero as one ascends or descends to the poles — even the most quiescent among us reaches the speed of sound (761 m.p.h.) somewhere in between. But where? Turns out it’s the exact latitude of Woodstock, N.Y., that “laid-back hippie place,” as Mr. Berman puts it. “Who says irony isn’t everywhere?” “Zoom” doesn’t sit still for a second. Consider the tranquil glide of snowflakes to earth. According to Mr. Berman, several molecules of water need to meet before freezing can begin, because “ A single molecule cannot freeze .” (The italics are his.) Also, water molecules need specks of airborne detritus to coalesce around to form flakes. While that’s interesting enough, as far as it goes, it sets the stage for another of the author’s fascinating fast ones. It turns out that droplets of airborne moisture freeze most readily not around dust or smoke, but rather microbes. “Germs are the most common snowflake starters and lie at the heart of 85 percent of all flakes,” Mr. Berman writes. I’ll never look at a snowstorm the same way again. In another example of the author’s talent for toying productively with received reality, he deploys Galileo’s ruminations on sound waves to attack the venerable tree-falling-in-the-woods conundrum, even making a convincing case that if nobody’s there to hear it, the tree in fact makes no sound. How so? Galileo observed that sound consists of vibrations that spread through the air, “bringing to the tympanum of the ear a stimulus which the mind interprets as sound.” Remove the receiving eardrum from the equation, in other words, and no sound can have been produced. Here, Mr. Berman points out, Galileo was anticipating some of the more confounding findings of quantum mechanics, namely the correlative relationship between nature and observer. Occasionally the author’s delivery is too glib, as when he refers to Aristotle and Plato’s “goofs” — a bit too easy from a 21st-century vantage point — and his similes can strain. Ultimately, it doesn’t detract from this absorbing book. “Zoom” concludes with a chapter showcasing an up-to-the-nanosecond cosmological finding so potentially momentous (it concerns the topology of the universe, which recent measurements have revealed to be utterly flat) that I’m still shaking my head — a tribute to the author’s storytelling skills.

Books
Bob Berman
Writer
Plato
Archaeology
Zoom


Victim of Excess, a Western Resort for the Rich Is Sold

Abstract: BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Yellowstone Club, a private resort for the rich, is in new hands after a $115 million deal that the new owner hopes will close the door on its much publicized descent into bankruptcy. Eight months ago, the club was on the verge of liquidation, a victim of its prior owners’ excesses and the broader economic downturn that choked off the flow of money fueling the club’s rise. CrossHarbor Capital Partners of Boston bought the 13,600-acre ski resort about 50 miles south of Bozeman on Friday at what was considered a bargain-basement price. CrossHarbor’s managing partner, Samuel T. Byrne, a Yellowstone member, had offered to buy the club last year for $470 million and had invested more than $200 million in club real estate over the last several years. The resort was nearly pulled apart last year during the bitter divorce of its founders, Edra and Tim Blixseth. Later came revelations that the pair had drained tens of millions of dollars from the resort, adding to its debt of more than $400 million. The collapse was extraordinary for an enterprise that counts Bill Gates and the hotel magnate Barry Sternlicht as members. Those who are allowed to join must buy real estate with prices that can top $10 million and pay a $300,000 deposit. The privacy that members thought their money was buying was shattered when the club’s rolls were made public as part of its bankruptcy case. With the Blixseths now out of the picture, and fighting each other over the remains of a personal fortune once estimated at $1.3 billion, members are looking to Mr. Byrne to take the club out of the headlines. “There’s going to be a massive sigh of relief, a collective sigh of relief,” said William J. Curtis, a club member and the chief executive of CurtCo Media, which publishes The Robb Report, a magazine that caters to the wealthy. Only about 300 of the club’s more than 800 available memberships have been filled since it opened in 2000. Just three properties changed hands during its months in bankruptcy. Mr. Curtis said the deal Friday would shake up the market for the club’s property, but he cautioned that the resort’s problems had not yet ended. . Mr. Byrne said that in addition to the purchase price, more than $150 million had been pledged for improvements at the resort. That is likely to include the club’s 120,000-square-foot centerpiece, Warren Miller Lodge, which was left unfinished. Mr. Byrne also said he persuaded a large group of members to put money behind his plans to recapitalize the resort. He declined to offer specifics. The club will continue to be managed by the Discovery Land Company, brought in last year when Ms. Blixseth took over the operation. Mr. Blixseth tried to scuttle the deal between his ex-wife and Mr. Byrne until the day the sale became final. He has said they colluded to drive the resort into a financial hole so Mr. Byrne could buy it at a low price. Those assertions were repeatedly rejected by Judge Ralph B. Kirscher of Federal Bankruptcy Court in Butte, and on Thursday he denied Mr. Blixseth’s latest bid to block the deal. In his opinion, Judge Kirscher said the parties in the sale had acted in good faith. Judge Kirscher said the case, which involved more than 100 lawyers and resulted in several other lawsuits still being resolved, “was of a magnitude never seen before in this court.”

Bankruptcies
Travel and Vacations
Housing and Real Estate
Montana


Arab Israeli Man Accused of Joining Syrian Rebels

Abstract: JERUSALEM — A district court on Wednesday charged an Arab citizen of Israel with crimes including contact with a foreign agent after he traveled to Syria to fight alongside the rebels, Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, said in a statement. The agency said that the suspect, Hikmat Massarwa, 29, a resident of Taibeh in central Israel, was arrested on March 19 after he returned to Israel, and that he had gone to Syria to join what it called elements of “the global jihad,” referring to Islamic extremist groups inspired by Al Qaeda that are fighting Syrian government forces. Another purpose of his trip, it said, was to try to locate his brother, who had gone to Syria a few months earlier with a similar goal. It was the first such case to be publicized in Israel, and follows on the heels of charges being brought against an American, Eric G. Harroun , who fought with a group of Syrian rebels, the Nusra Front, allied with Al Qaeda in Iraq. The Shin Bet said that Mr. Massarwa had undergone military training in a camp run by rebel forces and had even helped set up the camp. Mr. Massarwa is said to have crossed into Syria from Turkey by foot, and to have joined up with rebels he met along the way. He left Syria after about a week and did not find his brother. Mr. Massarwa’s lawyer, Helal Jabar, said that at no point did his client try to harm Israel’s security. “He did not join the rebels, but the reality in the area forced him to be part of this population,” Mr. Jabar told Israel Radio on Wednesday. “He helped them build tents and so on.” “It seems more than a few Israeli Arabs have done this,” he added. The Shin Bet said that it viewed Israeli Arabs traveling to Syria as “a most dangerous phenomenon,” fearing that they could be indoctrinated by groups with radical anti-Israeli ideology and “exploited by terrorist elements” there. The Shin Bet added that according to its investigation, Mr. Massarwa was asked many questions by the rebels about Israel, about the types of weapons used by its military and about its nuclear reactor in Dimona. It said that Mr. Massarwa asserted that he had been asked to carry out an attack inside Israel, but had refused. Arabs make up about 20 percent of the Israeli population. Though Arab citizens have at times sympathized with Israel’s enemies, they have generally not taken up arms against the state. Israel has tried to keep out of the Syrian conflict, seeing almost any outcome as risky for it. While Israeli leaders have called for the ouster of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, they are also leery of the insurgency, not least because some of its most effective fighting has been done by anti-Israeli forces like the Nusra Front. Though Israel and Syria are technically in a state of war, the cease-fire line separating their forces in the Golan Heights has been mostly quiet for nearly 40 years. But with insurgent groups now operating close to that line, there are growing fears in Israel of spillover from the Syrian civil war and of the area becoming an actively hostile frontier. Israel has already fired at targets across the cease-fire line on several occasions in response to shots or mortar shells from the Syrian side that landed in the portion of the Golan Heights that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war.

Syria
Arab Spring
Israel
Hikmat Massarwa
Shin Bet
Eric G Harroun


Insects Don’t Need Noses to Sense a Stench

Abstract: Q. How do insects sense and process odors? A. Insects have an odor-sensing system that is roughly analogous to that of vertebrates, according to “ The Neurobiology of Olfaction ,” a survey published in 2010. Different species have varying numbers of odor receptors, special molecules that are attuned to specific odor molecules. Genes govern the production of each kind of receptor; the more genes, the more kinds of receptor. A big difference with insects is that their olfactory receptors are basically external, often within hairlike groups of cells, called sensilla, on the antennas, not inside a collection organ like a nose. The odorant molecules encounter odorant-binding proteins, assumed to guide them to the long receptor nerve cells, called axons. Electrical signals are sent along the axons. The axons are usually connected to specific processing centers in the brain called glomeruli, held in a region called the antennal lobe. There the signals are analyzed. Depending on the nature, quantity and timing of the odor signals received, still other cells appear to excite or inhibit reactions. Exactly how the reaction system works is not yet fully understood. The Florida carpenter ant and the Indian jumping ant both have wide-ranging abilities to sense odors, with more than 400 genes to make different odor receptors, a 2012 study found. The fruit fly has only 61. The research also found marked differences in the smelling ability of the sexes, with the female ants well ahead. The primitive dragonfly and damselfly are special cases, lacking smell-processing centers altogether. But a May 2014 study found that they, too, were able to react to odors. question@nytimes.com


Flores Helps Mets Crush Marlins and End Skid

Abstract: The Mets told Wilmer Flores that the starting shortstop job is open next year, and he might just win it with his bat. Flores homered twice and drove in six runs for the second time this year, Ruben Tejada capped a four-run fourth inning with a two-run double, and the Mets routed the Miami Marlins, 9-1 , at Citi Field on Tuesday night to end a three-game skid. “I think what he’s done offensively has helped him defensively,” Mets Manager Terry Collins said of Flores, who has been criticized for his play in the field. Flores, 23, hit a three-run shot in the fifth and a two-run drive in the seventh, just hours after Commissioner Bud Selig said he was impressed with the manner in which the Mets were rebuilding. Flores also had a run-scoring double in the fourth. The Mets had their highest run total at home since they tallied 11 against the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30. Having slowly developed the power stroke the organization thinks he is capable of, Flores is 8 for 15 with three homers and 10 runs batted in over his last four games. He has six home runs over all. “Maybe it takes a little more time for some people,” Flores said of finding his swing against big leaguers. “I’m seeing the ball well right now.” Bartolo Colon bounced back from his shortest outing of the year to pitch seven and two-thirds innings for the Mets, allowing one run and a season-high 12 hits. The only extra-base hit, though, was a double by Reed Johnson, who had three hits. “I was able to execute at the right moment to get out of the big inning,” Colon, who struck out seven without a walk, said through an interpreter. Curtis Granderson had a run-scoring single among his three hits, and the Mets handed Nathan Eovaldi (6-12) his sixth straight losing decision over seven starts, dating to Aug. 13. Eovaldi yielded six runs and six hits over four and a third innings.

Baseball
Mets
Miami Marlins
Wilmer Flores
Bartolo Colon