A Lion Expert Who Isn’t Inclined to Turn Tail

Abstract: MINNEAPOLIS — He saw the lioness as he walked back from the rocky outcropping in the Serengeti where, tired of sitting for hours in the car, he had gone exploring on foot. She was between him and the Land Rover, and she appeared to be stalking him, her body crouched, her head lowered. “I’ve been stupid,” Craig Packer told himself. But he hesitated only a moment. Then he charged straight at the big cat, clapping his hands and shouting. Startled, the lioness backed off and he dived for the car, throwing open the door and slipping inside to safety. Dr. Packer, one of the world’s foremost experts on African lions, is telling this story on a November afternoon in the living room of his home here, an Arts and Crafts bungalow he shares with his second wife on a quiet street near a lake. It is only one of several close encounters with lions that Dr. Packer recounts, but this one seems to capture something, his tendency to ignore danger signs perhaps, or his habit of running toward trouble rather than away from it. Like many scientists, Dr. Packer, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota, has fought his share of battles in the pages of professional journals. But he has also tangled with far more formidable adversaries than dissenting colleagues. He has sparred with angry trophy hunters, taken on corrupt politicians, fended off death threats and, in one case, thwarted a mugging. Like the lioness, his opponents discovered that he is unlikely to give ground. “My reflex is to confront the danger and go right at it,” he said. Dr. Packer’s boldness — he concedes some might call it naïveté — eventually led to the upheaval of his life in Tanzania, where for 35 years he ran the Serengeti Lion Project, dividing his time between Minnesota and Africa. Assisted by a bevy of graduate students, he conducted studies of lion behavior that have shaped much of what scientists understand about the big cats. But in 2014, Tanzanian wildlife officials withdrew his research permit, accusing him of “tarnishing the image of the Government of Tanzania” by making derogatory statements about the trophy hunting industry in emails, according to a letter they sent him. And in April, while visiting the Serengeti to film a BBC documentary, a chief park warden informed him that he had been barred from the country. (Apparently, he had made it through customs by mistake.) Dr. Packer described the events leading to his banishment in his recently published book, “Lions in the Balance: Man-Eaters, Manes, and Men with Guns” (University of Chicago Press). It mixes episodes of spy novel intrigue with detailed descriptions of scientific studies and PowerPoint presentations. Image Dr. Packer measuring a lion in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania in 2001. A Battler for Change Although he was shocked by his exile, the government’s ire toward him was not surprising. For decades, Dr. Packer had been trying to spur changes in Tanzania’s hunting industry that would help conserve the country’s declining lion population. But he became disillusioned over time, uncovering cronyism, bribetaking and other corruption among government wildlife officials and hunting companies. In a letter this year to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, he urged that “far greater oversight should be given to lion trophy hunting in countries where corruption is rampant and where sport hunting involves little oversight or transparency.” Last week, the wildlife service announced that two subspecies of lion would be protected under the Endangered Species Act . In designating lions in East and Southern Africa as threatened, the agency also added a requirement that only lion trophies from countries that had “a scientifically sound management program that benefits the subspecies in the wild” could be brought into the United States. Tanzania still has more lions than any other African nation. It also has more land set aside for sport hunting. Hunting blocks account for just over 95,000 square miles, an area five times larger than that for national parks and other protected reserves. But as the human population in East Africa has grown, the threats to lions have likewise increased. Suitable habitat and prey have dwindled. Retaliatory killings of lions by farmers and herders have risen as livestock has moved into terrain that was once the exclusive territory of wild beasts. (This month, three lions from the Marsh pride in Kenya, which had for years been followed by the BBC, died after being poisoned, presumably by herdsmen in retaliation for attacks on cattle.) And in a 2010 study, Dr. Packer and his colleagues found that despite hunting industry claims that money from the sport helps conserve lions, trophy hunting in Tanzania was contributing to the lion’s decline. “We have to consider that trophy hunting might be making things even worse,” Dr. Packer said he told one of a series of Tanzanian wildlife directors in “Lions in the Balance.” Two years later, the director was fired by the president, “presumably for being more interested in wildlife conservation than in maximizing short-term revenues for the government,” Dr. Packer wrote. Tall and gangly and filled with a restless energy, Dr. Packer seems ill-suited to the relatively tame environs of Minneapolis. He is built for wilder landscapes like Africa’s vast savannas or the plains of West Texas, where he spent much of his childhood. His house and office are filled with reminders of the decades he spent in Africa: hippo teeth, a warthog tusk, a poacher’s poisoned arrow, a wood carving of a warrior spearing a lion. For a shy, self-conscious boy who grew up in a troubled household, Africa’s natural riches provided distraction and escape. “I just felt I could relax,” he said of his first trip to Gombe during college. There, he worked for the famed primatologist Jane Goodall’s research team. Life at home in Fort Worth was not so relaxing. His father, a doctor, was an emotionally distant man who worked long hours. His mother, a journalist and artist, was hospitalized for six months for depression shortly after his younger sister was born, time he spent at his grandmother’s farm in the small West Texas town of Noodle. Image Craig Packer used a stuffed lion to prove that lionesses preferred males with darker manes. Credit Craig Packer There, he grew close to an uncle, and through him came to love the outdoors, catching bugs for his uncle’s college entomology course and hunting ducks and rabbits. He returned home when his mother recovered. But his sister, who later developed schizophrenia, was a continual source of worry. “It was hard on my mother,” he said. Mostly, he stayed out of the way. But sometimes, he would feel guilty and ask his sister if she wanted to play. When he was 14, she struck him in the face with a toy metal sword, taking out his right eye. When he arrived for his first day of high school, he said, “I was scrawny and I had a glass eye. That was an interesting beginning.” He had always liked science, and for a while thought of becoming an engineer. But after transferring to Stanford as a sophomore, he switched to pre-med, majoring in human biology. That changed after his first weeks in Gombe. It was hard at first, he said, as he learned to recognize individual baboons and spent hours watching their behavior. But he became used to the snakes and birds, and then he noticed something: A young male baboon from another troop kept hanging around “making eyes at a female,” and returning, even after her male troopmates repeatedly drove him off. “It was kind of like Romeo and Juliet,” Dr. Packer said. “He was gobsmacked. He had seen another world, a pink bottom that meant all.” The observation led to one of his first published papers, proposing a theory of why male baboons leave their birth troops. By the time he turned 25, three of his studies had appeared in the prestigious journal Nature, and his sights were set on a career in wildlife biology and a life in Africa. Dr. Packer has won a reputation for impeccable science. His research on lions — he took over the directorship of the Serengeti Lion Project in 1978 — has explored topics as diverse as the effects of canine distemper on lion populations and the correlation of lion attacks with the full moon. In one study, he and a graduate student hypothesized that the darkness of a male lion’s mane was an indicator of his fitness. To test their theory, they persuaded a Dutch toy company to make life-size stuffed lions with detachable manes. Image A lion and captured hyena in a camera-trap photo taken in the Serengeti. Placing the dummy lions near prides in the Serengeti, they played recorded lion calls to lure the cats closer. As they had predicted, female lions preferred the stuffed intruder with a dark mane to its blonder-maned counterpart; males were also more likely to avoid the darker-maned stuffed lion. Dr. Packer is surprisingly unsentimental about the species he studies. As a scientist, he said, he is fascinated by lions’ social interactions and their devotion to one another. He admires their strength and unpredictability. But he has no patience with those who think of the big cats as plush toys or cartoon characters, and he refuses to use clichés like “beautiful” or “magnificent” to describe them. Lions, he will tell you, sleep a lot. They are, as he writes in his book, “thick as a brick.” And they are dangerous: “They will kill you and your little dog, too,” he is fond of saying. Dr. Packer’s son, Jonathan, remembers watching “The Lion King” with his father as a child and having him point out the scientific inaccuracies in the film. “Dad, you’re ruining Disney for me,” he finally complained. Dr. Packer’s strong views and devotion to logic have sometimes placed him at odds with conservationists, animal welfare groups and, on occasion, other scientists. “He’s an outspoken guy and he’s not diplomatic,” said Luke Hunter, the president of the conservation organization Panthera, adding that he has known Dr. Packer for years and respects him greatly. After interviewing Africans who had lost family to lion attacks — a baby ripped from its mother’s arms, a woman’s body found torn in half in an outhouse — Dr. Packer became a proponent of fencing wildlife preserves in Africa. It is a strategy he thinks will protect people and reduce retaliatory killings, helping to stem the lion’s decline. But his arguments did not sit well with some environmentalists for whom fencing is at odds with the notion of preserving pristine wilderness corridors. He was amazed, he said, when one conservation organization told him to stop talking about man-eating lions because “our donors won’t like it.” “It stuns me that they can stand up with a straight face and say there shouldn’t be fences,” Dr. Packer said of the critics. “You can have a corridor for birds, but if you’re planning on having a corridor for an animal that’s likely to kill people on the way from A to B, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s moral.” Science News That Stuck With Us in 2015 As the year ends, the Science desk of The New York Times asked its reporters to choose the stories that were the most memorable. These are their selections, with a focus on space, climate change, biology and artificial intelligence. Scientists often resist becoming advocates, but Dr. Packer said he was impelled to cross the line by the problems he saw in the trophy-hunting industry. Barbara Maas, the director of endangered species conservation for the German conservation group NABU, called his efforts to bring about change “deeply courageous.” “Craig is somebody who says, ‘Here are the facts,” Dr. Maas said. “If they keep ignoring the facts, he shouts them louder.” An Advocate Unleashed Matthew Eckert, the director of conservation for the foundation arm of Safari Club International, which defines its mission as “protecting hunters’ rights and promoting wildlife conservation,” sees it differently. “I’m not sure that Craig is capable any longer of separating objectivity and his opinions,” Dr. Eckert said, adding that the lion expert’s intent seemed to be “to shut down lion hunting.” The foundation is now financing its own surveys of lions in Tanzania, with its researcher now occupying the house in the Serengeti where Dr. Packer once lived. Still, Dr. Packer has hardly given up. He is embarking on new projects in South Africa, writing another book and poring through three decades of data from Tanzania. “I’m having an epiphany every 10 days to two weeks,” he said, adding that his mother had often responded to his achievements by saying, “So, what are you going to do next?” Leaving Tanzania has freed him to speak and write without worrying about the consequences. When a lion named Cecil was lured out of a national park in Zimbabwe and shot by a dentist from Minnesota early last July, Dr. Packer took the opportunity to share his views with the journalists who sought him out. Despite the furor the killing provoked, the dentist was not entirely to blame, he said — he probably did not know he was near a park. The real problem was the trophy-hunting industry, which Dr. Packer said claimed to help conserve lion populations while actually hurting them. “The big lie of the hunting industry is, ‘Don’t worry kids, we’re doing it,’” he said. “And they’re not.”

Lion
Craig Packer
Tanzania
Endangered Species
Poaching
Hunting
Africa
University of Minnesota
Lions in the Balance


Muslim Cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri, Pleads Not Guilty to Terrorism Charges

Abstract: The fiery Islamic preacher who was flown to the United States from Britain over the weekend after a lengthy extradition battle pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges on Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom. The preacher, known as Abu Hamza al-Masri , told a judge that he wanted to be addressed by the name Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, which is his birth name. The judge, Katherine B. Forrest of Federal District Court, set a trial date of Aug. 26; the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks. The judge said she wanted to get the case to trial “as quickly as we can.” Mr. Mostafa, 54, is charged with conspiring in a 1998 kidnapping of American and other tourists in Yemen and in trying to help set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. Mr. Mostafa, who once roused militants with sermons at the Finsbury Park mosque in North London, sat quietly in court, answering softly when the judge asked whether it was his intention to plead not guilty. “Yes, it is,” he said. One apparent need of Mr. Mostafa’s that was not discussed in court on Tuesday is being addressed, an official said later. The defendant is widely known for the hook he uses as a prosthetic device on his hand; he lost an eye and the lower portions of both arms in explosions years ago. Mr. Mostafa has appeared in court in Manhattan without his hook, which presumably was removed for security purposes; the bare stumps of his arms hung out from the short-sleeve jail shirt that he wore. The official said after the proceeding that Mr. Mostafa had been allowed to wear the hook for eating and for hygienic purposes at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he is being held, and that arrangements were being made to fit him with new prosthetic devices. “They won’t be hooks,” the official added. The judge appointed an experienced defense lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, to represent Mr. Mustafa. After the proceeding, Mr. Schneider said a prosthesis was critical so that his client could assist in preparations for his defense. It was hard enough because of the high security conditions under which Mr. Mostafa was being held, Mr. Schneider said, but “for someone who has his disability, it’s even more difficult.” Two other men extradited with Mr. Mostafa appeared on Tuesday before another judge in the same courthouse. The men, Adel Abdul Bary and Khaled al-Fawwaz, each pleaded not guilty on Saturday; they were charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan set a trial date of Oct. 7, 2013, for the two, but made it clear that he wanted to hold the trial sooner, if possible. At the hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Bary, a fireplug of a man with thick curly hair gathered into a ponytail, nodded rhythmically on a few occasions but otherwise appeared focused and still. Mr. Fawwaz seemed rapt, whispering occasionally to his lawyer and once smiling as he spoke to her.

Mostafa Mostafa Kamel
Terrorism
Extradition
Manhattan (NYC)


Spitzer Fall Began With Bank Reports

Abstract: Last July, the North Fork Bank raised a red flag about suspicious financial transactions involving Gov. Eliot Spitzer . But for several months, the electronic report languished unnoticed in a vast Treasury Department database in Detroit. In early fall, however, a separate report was filed by the HSBC bank about suspicious transactions connected to two shell companies, which drew the attention of investigators. That touched off an inquiry that led investigators to discover the July report on Mr. Spitzer, which showed he had made several wire transfers to those companies, according to three people briefed on the inquiry. When HSBC employees investigated the two companies, QAT International and QAT Consulting Group, they discovered that the bank’s files for the companies included virtually no information, one of the people briefed said. “The bank found that the due diligence was not done — there was no Dun & Bradstreet, no documentation, almost nothing in the file,” the person said. “They probably got scared and said, ‘Uh oh, one of our bankers didn’t follow our protocol.’ ” Following the bank’s alert, agents for the Internal Revenue Service in Hauppauge, on Long Island, began examining the shell companies, which are allegedly connected to a Web-based prostitution service named Emperor’s Club V.I.P. At that time, the agents had no idea how the QAT front companies had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. “They still didn’t know what the business was, and they started digging into the account — is it drugs, money laundering?” said one of the people briefed on the inquiry. “They then start to see money from Spitzer.” These accounts of the origins of the investigation offer a more detailed chronology of the events that led to the wiretapped conversations of “Client 9” arranging to meet a prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, and ultimately to Mr. Spitzer’s resignation on Wednesday. One of Mr. Spitzer’s lawyers, Michele Hirshman, who served as his deputy when he was New York’s attorney general, spent several hours at the United States attorney’s office in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday learning about the evidence gathered about Mr. Spitzer. A person briefed on the meeting said Wednesday that prosecutors had told Ms. Hirshman “there was a lot of evidence against him.” The person said people involved in the investigation “seemed very confident he was going to resign” in a conversation Monday night. “He really didn’t have a choice.” Ms. Hirshman did not respond to phone and e-mail messages Wednesday. Michael J. Garcia, the chief federal prosecutor in New York, said in a statement Wednesday: "There is no agreement between this office and Gov. Eliot Spitzer relating to his resignation or any other matter." Mr. Spitzer’s suspicious financial transactions at North Fork might never have been discovered were it not for a Suspicious Activity Report filed by HSBC about the shell companies linked to Emperor’s Club V.I.P. in October, according to several people with knowledge of the inquiry, who spoke about the investigation on condition of anonymity. As it turned out, both the North Fork Bank and HSBC had faced inquiries into their lending practices led by Mr. Spitzer when he was New York attorney general. In the case of North Fork, Mr. Spitzer announced a settlement in 2003 requiring it to refund more than $20,000 to dozens of homeowners and cease what he said was its practice of charging homeowners illegal fees. Experts who advise banks and individuals on anti-money laundering regulations, said that the two banks were just following the law when they reported the suspicious financial transactions to federal authorities. These officials said that banks are likely to more closely monitor the transactions of politicians like Mr. Spitzer than those of average customers. In part, that is because of legislation passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks. As part of the “know your customer” requirements, banks must assess their clients’ financial patterns and set guidelines to ensure that an alarm is sounded if there are unusual transactions, said Bob Serino, a former deputy chief counsel at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency who now advises banks and individuals on anti-money laundering regulations. “The idea is that if somehow a customer who usually deposits $3,000 a week starts depositing $300,000 into his account daily, that would be kicked out and looked at,” Mr. Serino said. “Banks could certainly decide that a politician’s risk rate is higher and thus have a higher level of due diligence set for someone like Spitzer.” In addition, banks must exercise an extra level of due diligence for a “politically exposed person.” While the law defines such people as “current or former foreign political figures, their immediate family and their close associates,” several banking officials at major institutions said that as a matter of practice, they extend extra scrutiny to American political figures. The July Suspicious Activity Report by North Fork that flagged Mr. Spitzer’s transactions picked up three wire transfers totaling roughly $10,000 to QAT International, in what appeared to the bank as a possible attempt to avoid a separate legal requirement that banks notify the Treasury Department of transactions of $10,000 or more, officials involved with the case have said. The requirement to report such large transactions applies only to currency transactions — “the coin and paper money of the United States” — not to wire transactions of the sort that Mr. Spitzer allegedly made, Mr. Serino said. Once a bank determines that a transaction is suspicious, it is obligated to file a Suspicious Activity Report with FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a division of the Treasury Department. The standard for filing such reports has diminished since 9/11, with banks erring on the side of caution out of fear that the government will later second-guess its decisions, experts said. The Suspicious Activity Report filed by Mr. Spitzer’s bank was one of hundreds of thousands filed annually, and three people with knowledge of the investigation said it did not immediately attract the attention of federal investigators. But when HSBC filed its report on the shell companies, the I.R.S. began an inquiry. A former director of FinCEN, who now works in the industry at a company whose policies prohibit speaking on the record, said that since 9/11, suspicious activity reports had increasingly been used as a source of tips for law enforcement. “What 9/11 taught us is the value of financial information,” the former director said. “Money doesn’t lie. Money leaves a footprint. And that’s exactly what happened with Spitzer.”

Spitzer Eliot L
Prostitution
Politics and Government


Ravens Edge Steelers, Spoiling Their Perfect Start

Abstract: Joe Flacco withstood Pittsburgh’s late go-ahead touchdown and a goal-line stand by its defense to throw an 18-yard scoring pass to T. J. Houshmandzadeh with 32 seconds remaining, giving the Ravens a 17-14 victory over the Steelers at Heinz Field. The loss prevented the Steelers from going unbeaten without their suspended quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger . The Steelers (3-1) took a 14-10 lead on Rashard Mendenhall’s 7-yard run midway through the fourth quarter, and they appeared to seal a victory when Flacco twice threw incomplete from their 2 with less than three minutes remaining. But a holding call on a punt gave Baltimore (3-1) the ball at Pittsburgh’s 40 with 55 seconds remaining, and Flacco found Anquan Boldin on two passes for 12 yards and Houshmandzadeh on another that gained 10. Flacco, winning for the first time in four games in Pittsburgh, then froze the Steelers’ defense with a pump fake that freed Houshmandzadeh for the winning score. “Joe just chills,” an admiring Houshmandzadeh said. “Look at his face — he’s always calm.” Now, instead of being two games behind Pittsburgh in the A.F.C. North with Roethlisberger returning after the bye week, the Ravens are tied for first after winning at Heinz Field for only the second time in 11 games. Kickers Save the Day The Jaguars rebounded from back-to-back 25-point losses — the worst consecutive defeats in team history — to beat the visiting Colts on Josh Scobee’s 59-yard field goal as time expired. Peyton Manning was solid at usual, throwing for 352 yards and driving Indianapolis (2-2) to the tying touchdown with 48 seconds left. The Jaguars (2-2) appeared content to run out the clock and go to overtime, but when the Colts called timeout, Coach Jack Del Rio changed his mind. David Garrard, booed last week and benched the week before, found Tiquan Underwood on a 22-yard pattern that put Jacksonville in range for Scobee’s winning kick. ¶Matt Bryant kicked a 42-yard field goal with two seconds remaining — his second winning kick in a week — to lift the Falcons over the winless 49ers, 16-14. Last week, Bryant kicked a 46-yard field goal in overtime to beat the Saints. Visiting San Francisco (0-4) blew a 14-0 first-quarter lead due in part to two interceptions by Alex Smith, then watched Nate Clements fumble away a game-clinching interception as he ran toward the end zone with 1:22 left. Roddy White chased Clements down the sideline and knocked the ball out as he tackled him from behind at the Atlanta 7. Falcons guard Harvey Dahl recovered the ball to restart the winning drive. ¶Five days after joining New Orleans for his 23rd pro season, 46-year-old kicker John Carney made three crucial field goals to help the Saints edge the Panthers, 16-14, at the Superdome. The Saints signed Carney last Tuesday, two days after Garrett Hartley missed a 29-yard field goal in overtime in a 27-24 loss to Atlanta. While the Saints were able to manage only one touchdown, Carney hit twice from 32 yards and again from 25 with 3:55 to go to put New Orleans (3-1) ahead to stay. “This was a 30-point day we turned into 16 points with turnovers and a lack of execution,” quarterback Drew Brees said. “We’re going to save all the scoring and everything else until the end of the season I guess, which isn’t so bad.” Orton Saves Broncos Kyle Orton threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to Correll Buckhalter with 1 minute 33 seconds left, and the one-dimensional Broncos rallied to beat the Titans, 26-20. Host Tennessee held Denver to 19 yards rushing, forcing Orton to put the ball up 50 times even as he was sacked six times. Orton responded by throwing for 341 yards and 2 touchdowns for the Broncos (2-2). ¶Benched for the first quarter, Arian Foster scored on a 74-yard run and a 10-yard catch in the second half to lead the visiting Texans to a 31-24 win over the Raiders. Foster entered the game as the league’s leading rusher but was held out until midway through the second quarter in what the Texans (3-1) said was a “coach’s decision.” He finished with 113 yards on 16 carries. Browns Win; Lions Don’t Peyton Hillis rumbled for 102 yards and a touchdown and the Browns finally held on to a fourth-quarter lead and posted their first win, 23-20 over the visiting Bengals. The Browns (1-3) had lost their first three games by a total of 12 points, failing to finish down the stretch and frustrating Coach Eric Mangini with self-inflicted mistakes. On Sunday, they overcame a costly penalty on the rookie safety T. J. Ward, made a crucial sack of Carson Palmer in the closing minutes and overcame a 10-catch, 222-yard performance by Terrell Owens. ¶Charles Woodson returned an interception 48 yards for a touchdown early in the third quarter, but the Packers barely held on for a 28-26 victory over the Lions at Lambeau Field. And while it was a less than satisfying win for the Packers (3-1), it did not feel like anything approaching a moral victory for the Lions (0-4), who have lost their last 20 games against the Packers in Wisconsin. “It’s our job to get over the hump,” Coach Jim Schwartz said. “We’re right on it, we just can’t get over the hump.” In Other Games A week after underachieving in Seattle, the Chargers dominated the visiting Cardinals, 41-7. Antonio Gates became the seventh tight end in league history with 500 catches, including touchdown receptions of 33 and 26 yards from Philip Rivers. ¶The Rams sacked Matt Hasselbeck four times, had one interception and forced a fumble in their 20-3 victory over the visiting Seahawks, allowing them to post consecutive wins for the first time in two seasons. St. Louis (2-2) ended a 10-game losing streak against Seattle (2-2) and matched their win total from last season.

Pittsburgh Steelers
Baltimore Ravens
Football
Flacco Joe
Boldin Anquan
Roethlisberger Ben


U.S. Denies It Knew of Heartbleed Bug on the Web

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration denied Friday that the National Security Agency or other parts of the federal government had known about the Heartbleed security vulnerability that has created widespread fears that passwords and other sensitive information belonging to millions of Internet users may have been revealed over the past two years. The White House was responding to a report by Bloomberg News citing two unidentified sources who said that the N.S.A. had known about the flaw and “regularly used it to gather critical intelligence.” Outside experts expressed strong doubts about the report, noting that the information that could be gleaned from the Heartbleed bug was somewhat random, meaning it probably would be a clumsy intelligence tool. The suspicions about the N.S.A. were fueled by the fact that the agency regularly seeks out similar security flaws, and turns some of them into cyberweapons. But Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement: “Reports that N.S.A. or any other part of the government were aware of the so-called Heartbleed vulnerability before April 2014 are wrong. The federal government was not aware of the recently identified vulnerability in OpenSSL” — the freely available encryption methodology — “until it was made public in a private sector cybersecurity report.” The vulnerability was discovered by Finnish researchers and a researcher at Google. But, so far, there is no evidence that anyone used it to hack into personal or secret data. For days, government officials have said nothing about what they knew, or did not know, about Heartbleed. But as the Bloomberg report began to race around the Internet, the White House, the National Security Agency and the office of the director of national intelligence determined that they could not remain silent. Since the Heartbleed bug was first publicized on Monday , some security researchers and cryptographers have questioned whether the bug served as the basis for the National Security Agency’s Bullrun program, its decade-long effort to crack or circumvent encryption on the web. But the Heartbleed bug was introduced in some code by a German programmer in March 2012, two years after the agency made a major encryption breakthrough under the Bullrun program, according to classified documents released by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden. Security researchers also note that the Heartbleed bug allows hackers to pull out data only in 64 kilobyte increments, making it less feasible that it would be used for wide-scale espionage. Initially, some security experts questioned whether it could be used to extract the private encryption keys to unscramble messages stored on a server in the past, or potentially in the future. But on Friday, a group of security experts at CloudFlare, the Silicon Valley Internet firm, said that in tests this week, they were not able to extract any private key data from a vulnerable server using the Heartbleed bug. “Note that is not the same as saying it is impossible to use Heartbleed to get private keys,” Nick Sullivan, a security engineer at CloudFlare, wrote in a company report. “However, if it is possible, it is at minimum very hard.” James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the claim that the N.S.A. knew about the Heartbleed bug and stockpiled it for its own purposes was not in keeping with the agency’s policy. “In this case, it would be weird for the N.S.A. to let this one go if they thought there was such a widespread risk,” he said.

NSA
Computer security
Hacker (computer security)
Google
Barack Obama
Cyberwarfare
Government Surveillance
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


La Miroiterie, Parisian Artist Settlement, May Close

Abstract: PARIS — Illegal squats in Paris usually have a short life. After one year, perhaps two, they are either shut down or transformed into legal art centers with the support of the city’s Socialist government. But not La Miroiterie, which has been a renowned artists’ squat for the past 14 years. Its days appear to be numbered, however, as a development company is threatening to close it down. Somewhat nihilistically, its residents say that the one thing that could have saved it — having it be taken over by the city, like the other squats — would have killed it anyway. In 1999, an artist who signs his work Michel Ktu was among the first to set up a studio at La Miroiterie, an abandoned mirror factory up the hill of Ménilmontant, a slowly gentrifying immigrant neighborhood in the 20th Arrondissement, in northeastern Paris. “I was in vital need of a space to work,” he said in his former studio there. Now 46, a set painter for the theater, he identifies with the Parisian Communards of the 19th century and is comfortable with taking what he feels is the property of the people. In this case, empty premises. Empty but owned. The real estate company SARL Thorel spent four years buying up the various parts of the complex from numerous owners and is now suing to take control of the building, though its plans for the place are not clear. Over the years, many artists lived and worked in the “squart” (a contraction of the English words “squat” and “art”), and contributed to creating its identity. La Miroiterie provided free services to the neighborhood: a free clothing store was opened, classes were given to children in capoeira (a Brazilian discipline combining martial arts and dance), free meals were distributed, exhibitions were regularly organized and the rusty, graffiti-covered gate of the dilapidated complex was always open. Over time, residents organized concerts and started to attract a different audience: Parisians looking for an underground scene. La Miroiterie is now well known for its entertainment — jazz, punk and rap shows, which are scheduled several days a week, for no more than 10 euros, about $13, or sometimes free, depending on the lineup. The Stooges have played there, along with many American jazz musicians, including David Murray and Oliver Lake. “There is no other venue like this in Paris, for this kind of music,” said Mr. Ktu, who says thousands of bands have played at La Miroiterie over the years. In its cultural importance, La Miroiterie has become emblematic of a Parisian squart and its fate has become an issue for the news media. When they discovered in 2009 that Thorel was planning to evict them, the Miroitiers, as they call themselves, filed suit. But after four years and many court hearings, it looks as if the fate of La Miroiterie is sealed. The whole complex seems likely to be emptied of its last residents by the end of the month, since wintertime evictions are forbidden in France. Parisians tried to support the Miroitiers: online petitions were issued and demonstrations were held in front of City Hall, demanding that the Miroitiers be able to “continue conducting their cultural, social and ‘humane’ activities without being threatened.” Television and radio stations have recently started documenting the Miroitiers’ activities, and a researcher for the National Center for Scientific Research is working to create La Miroiterie’s archives. Image The settlement, in an old factory, offered space for artists and for performances. Credit Catalina Martin-Chico for The New York Times “Places like these should be protected,” said Erwan Le Scouarnec, an amateur hip-hop artist who often performs at La Miroiterie. The City of Paris and the Miroitiers did discuss ways to preserve La Miroiterie, but nothing came of it. Since the city does not own the building, it cannot prevent the eviction of the artists. But officials offered to relocate them to several different spaces owned by the city. The effort failed partly because the Miroitiers were poorly organized, but also because they refused to compromise. “The City Council has always respected and admired what was done at La Miroiterie, but we never supported them” financially “because they never wished for their project to be institutionalized,” said a spokesman for the council, who said he was not authorized to give his name. Anne-Sophie Devos, a 37-year-old Miroitier who has been squatting in a small, misshaped yet cozy room at La Miroiterie for five years, said, “We’d rather be wild, hands free.” Mr. Ktu, who also opposes the city’s involvement, said, “They are willing to help us, but they want to have a hold on us.” The two of them are considering opening “La Miroiterie No. 2” and already have a vacant building in mind. Since his election in 2001, the city’s Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, has supported the arts in Paris. The city prevented several artist squats from disappearing by buying the buildings. One example is the 59, a six-story Haussmannian building located at 59, rue de Rivoli, a stone’s throw from the Louvre. The 59 was taken by squatters in 1999 and the owner quickly threatened eviction. But because the place was gradually gaining a reputation as an important artistic center, the city decided to buy it in 2005, and the artists were able to stay. But many things inevitably changed with legalization. Artists now have to pay a modest rent, utilities and insurance, they can no longer live or sell their work in the building and the city has a say in the choice of the artists. Slimane Hamadache, an artist who has worked at the 59 since 2002, supported the arrangement. “What we lost was necessary,” he said. What matters, according to him, is that the space still exists and is a success — more than 60,000 people visit it each year. “We are still the same,” he said. “We didn’t change.” Mr. Hamadache said it was a “youthful mistake” that the Miroitiers refused to come to a similar compromise, but Mr. Ktu does not agree. He is convinced that the City Council, despite itself, is promoting a certain kind of official culture. “They destroy everything, these fools,” he said. “They just don’t get it.” Swan Moteurs, a Miroitier who organized the rap concerts, agrees that official involvement would have killed La Miroiterie. “If you plant a seed in it, it’s no longer an ecosystem,” he said. For others, it is entirely appropriate that an artistic ecosystem be ephemeral. Benjamin Sanz, for one, who organized jazz jam sessions at La Miroiterie, said he was neither sad nor nostalgic about La Miroiterie shutting down. “It’s the law of the squatter,” he said.

Paris France
Art
Squatting
Bertrand Delanoe
Urban Planning
Jazz
Rap and Hip-Hop
Oliver Lake
David Murray


Microsoft’s Profit Rises Despite Xbox Charge

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO, July 19 — Microsoft reported a 7 percent rise in quarterly profit and earnings that matched Wall Street’s forecasts on Thursday, despite a substantial charge for fixing defects in its Xbox video-game machine. The company, the world’s largest software maker, attributed the strong performance to continued brisk adoption of its Windows Vista operating system and the newest release of Microsoft Office, as well as to overall strong demand from business customers. Microsoft’s profit for the fourth quarter was $3.04 billion, or 31 cents a share, compared with $2.83 billion, or 28 cents a share, in the quarter a year earlier. Without the charge, earnings were 39 cents a share, a 26 percent increase from the period last year. Revenue was $13.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, a 13 percent increase over $11.8 billion in the period last year. Analysts had forecast a profit of 39 cents a share on $13.28 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Financial. The results were announced after the stock market’s close. Shares declined 2 percent in after-hours trading, after rising 59 cents, to close at $31.51 in the regular session. “It was a pretty robust quarter,” said Charles Di Bona, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “There were no surprises and they cleared the air on all the near-term issues.” Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at Global Equities Research, said the stock was most likely down because some investors were still looking for Microsoft to continue the heady growth of its early days. “The company did well despite being a mature company in a mature market with falling prices,” he said. For the fiscal year, Microsoft posted revenue of $51.12 billion, a 15 percent increase over the prior year. Earnings for the year were $1.42 a share, or $1.49 excluding one-time items. “Our results this quarter cap off an extremely strong fiscal year for the company,” said Christopher P. Liddell, Microsoft’s chief financial officer. “We have healthy core businesses and are strategically investing in growth opportunities.” For fiscal year 2008, Microsoft raised its forecast for earnings by a penny a share, to a range of $1.69 to $1.73, and for revenue by about $300 million, to $56.8 million to $57.8 million. Microsoft executives said the company expected to earn 38 cents to 40 cents a share on $12.4 billion to $12.6 billion in sales during the first quarter, on the high end of Wall Street’s forecast of 38 cents a share on revenue of $12.51 billion. Strong momentum in Microsoft’s core products continued through the fourth quarter. Revenue in the Client unit, which includes Windows, increased 14 percent, to $3.81 billion. Sales of Microsoft Office 2007 increased 20 percent in the fourth quarter to add $600 million to Microsoft’s revenue. Much of the growth was driven by large-volume business customers, the company said. Colleen Healy, senior director of investor relations, said in an interview that renewals of long-term contracts were up 25 percent, a sign of continued growth. The company incurred a charge of $1.06 billion for the anticipated cost of repairing a hardware defect in some of its Xbox 360 game consoles, a problem that may have affected as many as a third of the 11.6 million units sold. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that its top gaming executive, Peter Moore, was leaving Microsoft to run the sports division of Electronic Arts, the independent video game publisher, though company executives denied that his departure was related to the Xbox’s engineering problems. Don Mattrick, a former Electronic Arts studio chief, will take Mr. Moore’s job at Microsoft. Microsoft’s online business reported an increase in sales but a widening loss, as it continued to battle Google and Yahoo. The division’s loss in the fourth quarter grew to $239 million from $187 million in the period last year. Ms. Healy said the revenue in the division had met Microsoft’s goal, as the company recorded a 33 percent increase in advertising. Microsoft’s server and tools division posted sales of $3.08 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $2.69 billion a year ago.


After Victory Lap for Second Avenue Subway, M.T.A. Chief Will Retire

Abstract: A day after presiding over the opening of a subway line in Manhattan that had been discussed for nearly a century , Thomas F. Prendergast announced on Monday that he would retire as head of the New York City region’s sprawling transit system. Mr. Prendergast has led that agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , since 2013, staying on in no small part to help complete the first phase of the Second Avenue subway, which opened to the public on Sunday. He spent New Year’s Day with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and thousands of riders, many of them emotional about witnessing transit history. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Prendergast declined a request to discuss his departure. But a news release said he would retire early this year. The new line is expected to offer long-needed relief to subways on the East Side of Manhattan, the most crowded lines in the nation. “Opening the Second Avenue subway this weekend was a crowning achievement for the M.T.A., and I’m proud to have been a part of such a historic moment,” Mr. Prendergast said in the release. “It has not only changed the daily commute for hundreds of thousands of customers; it has helped change the face of the M.T.A., showing the public we can meet the deadlines we set for ourselves.” During a news conference in Manhattan on Monday, Governor Cuomo called Mr. Prendergast “an extraordinary public servant” and described the effort to open the first segment of the Second Avenue line as “superhuman” and “a beautiful accomplishment.” “I can’t say enough good things about him,” Governor Cuomo, a Democrat, said. “I don’t think you can fill his shoes. I don’t think you find another Tom Prendergast.” Widely seen as a gregarious and open man who could pull the levers of power in the state, drive a bus and make the trains run as close to on time as possible, Mr. Prendergast also received a round of praise from union chiefs and an often outspoken community that campaigns for riders. “What’s unique about Tom Prendergast is that he not only understands the politics and finances of transit, but also the operations,” said John Raskin, executive director of Riders Alliance, an advocacy group. “He came up as a transit professional, and he understands all the details of what’s involved in moving millions of people around the region every day.” Mr. Prendergast, 64, has spent more than 25 years at the authority. His term at the helm brought stability to an agency that had had three leaders in the four years before his ascent. His current term is set to expire in 2021, although few recent leaders have served more than a few years in the demanding job. Mr. Cuomo said Mr. Prendergast was leaving to deal with personal matters. Mr. Prendergast, who grew up in Chicago, often seemed more comfortable with the technical aspects of running the authority’s vast network of subways, buses and commuter railroads than with the difficult political questions he often encountered. His top priority had been persuading state and city leaders to fund the agency’s roughly $29 billion capital spending plan to pay for the system’s maintenance and expansion. The plan was approved last year after months of heated debate between Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio . As president of New York City Transit, leading the city’s subways and buses, Mr. Prendergast was praised for overseeing the system’s swift recovery after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. He became the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chairman after Joseph J. Lhota , a Republican, resigned to run for mayor, losing to Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat. Despite Mr. Prendergast’s transportation experience, some have criticized his acquiescence to Mr. Cuomo, who appointed him to the job and has effectively controlled the authority. Mr. Prendergast oversaw the agency at a time when many subway and bus riders said service was getting worse and were frustrated by regular fare increases. Mr. Cuomo said he had a few weeks to find a replacement for Mr. Prendergast. He declined to discuss possible candidates, but he said the successful candidate must have experience operating a transit agency as well as deep experience as a developer “because a lot of what the M.T.A. does is also build.” “We’re building on the Long Island Rail Road, Penn Station, Farley Station, so it’s a difficult mix of talents,” Mr. Cuomo said. John Samuelsen, the president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents subway and bus workers, said it would be difficult to find someone with Mr. Prendergast’s deep operational knowledge. “The chairmen before him have been political appointees,” Mr. Samuelsen said. “They’ve been real estate developers and politicians. In my time, there’s never been an operating boss in charge of the M.T.A.” Mr. Samuelsen said that Mr. Prendergast “understands work,” that he never made a decision that compromised worker safety and that he kept even the most tense negotiations professional. “The system is going to be hampered without him there, and whoever replaces him is going to be constantly compared to him because that’s just the type of guy he was,” Mr. Samuelsen said.

Second Avenue Subway
MTA
Thomas F Prendergast
Andrew Cuomo
Manhattan


Mexican Protesters Demand Ouster of President Enrique Peña Nieto

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — As President Enrique Peña Nieto prepared for the beginning of Mexico ’s Independence Day celebrations, protesters took to the streets of capital on Thursday to demand his resignation. Chanting “Peña out,” several thousand mostly young demonstrators marched peacefully past the glass towers of the city’s main boulevard, Paseo de la Reforma, in the waning afternoon light, hours before the president, whose government has been buffeted by a series of scandals and a weakening economy, was to formally start the long Independence Day weekend by ringing a bell on the balcony of the National Palace. “I am here because I want my country to have a political system that holds an official accountable for bad performance,” said Alberto Serdán, 37, a public policy researcher and blogger. With each crisis, Mr. Serdán added, the government “simply loses any notion of dignity and capacity to rule.” Mr. Peña Nieto has become Mexico’s most unpopular president in a quarter-century, opinion polls show, as frustrations mount over entrenched corruption and anxiety rises over economic stagnation and an increase in murders to the highest level since he took office. Even so, Thursday’s protest was not nearly as large as past demonstrations. City officials said they had expected only 1,000 people. Many more showed up but were blocked from entering the Zócalo, the central square that is the site of the National Palace. Anger has crystallized over the past two weeks after Mr. Peña Nieto invited Donald J. Trump to Mexico and treated him like a fellow head of state. Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is reviled here for, among other things, accusing Mexico of sending drugs and rapists over the border. Mr. Peña Nieto’s finance minister, Luis Videgaray, resigned a week later after news media reports described him as the person who had proposed the visit. But the departure of Mr. Videgaray, a close associate of Mr. Peña Nieto’s and the architect of many of his policies, did little to quell the discontent. As Mr. Peña Nieto enters the final two years of his six-year term, there is a sense among his many critics that the country is adrift and that he cannot change course. “The country does not deserve two more years of political distrust and limitless uncertainty,” Ricardo Raphael, a journalist and commentator with the newspaper El Universal, wrote on Thursday. Last week, Mr. Peña Nieto tried to brush off his critics. “Political decisions are sometimes subject to enormous polemic,” he said at the inauguration of a park. “And maybe today they are not understood, but I am sure that the time will come when the reason for each decision will be comprehended.” At the protest, some said their patience had run out long ago. “I am sick of this government, of this disastrous president,” said Alicia Mercado, 66, who joined the march in a wheelchair. “With Trump’s visit, he couldn’t or didn’t even want to defend his own people.” Although Mr. Peña Nieto began his presidency in 2012 with a series of drastic changes designed to revive economic growth, he has stumbled repeatedly over the past two years. His government bungled an investigation into the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students at a rural teachers’ college in Guerrero State, an inquiry that was sharply criticized in April by a panel of independent experts who reviewed the case. The chief investigator, Tomás Zerón, resigned from the attorney general’s office on Wednesday in an apparent acknowledgment of the doubts regarding his handling of the case, which is the subject of two internal inquiries. But Mr. Zerón was not out of a job for long. A few hours later, the president appointed him as the technical secretary for Mexico’s National Security Council. The appointment to a post that keeps Mr. Zerón close to the president’s inner circle rekindled the anger. “It’s making a mockery not only of the 43 and their families, it’s making a mockery of all Mexicans,” said Mario González, a father of one of the missing students. In recent weeks, Mr. Peña Nieto has also faced new accusations over his integrity, with evidence that he plagiarized part of his undergraduate law thesis and that a wealthy Mexican businessmen paid the property taxes for the Miami apartment of his wife, Angélica Rivera.

Civil Unrest
Enrique Pena Nieto
Mexico
Economy
Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election


Earthquakes Hit Area of Northwestern China

Abstract: HONG KONG — A series of earthquakes shook mountainous areas of Gansu Province in western China on Monday morning, triggering landslides across a wide area. State news media initially said that 22 people had been confirmed dead and that more casualties were still being counted. The official Xinhua news agency attributed the deaths to an earthquake that the Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau had estimated at a magnitude of 6.6. The United States Geological Survey listed three fairly strong earthquakes in Gansu Province on Monday morning, with magnitudes of 5.9, 5.6 and 4.7. Xinhua reported that most of the townships in Minxian county in Gansu Province had suffered damage from the quake. Image People stood outside their homes after an earthquake in Gansu Province on Monday. Credit China Daily/Reuters The China Earthquake Administration said that it was sending disaster-relief teams to the area. Xinhua reported that the People’s Armed Police had already sent 500 people to the area, including 120 rescue workers, and that military units in the area were being prepared to help in relief work. Communications were disrupted across a wide area, and mudslides were a continuing problem even after the initial earthquakes. The weather service in nearby Lanzhou, the provincial capital, also warned of extremely heavy rainstorms on Monday. Initial estimates for the death tolls for earthquakes in western China have often tended to be far less than the final total, because of the difficulty in reaching communities that may initially be cut off if the temblor triggers rock slides that block roads. The 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province, south of Gansu, was initially reported as having killed a half-dozen people, but the final figure reached 87,000. That earthquake was far more powerful, however, with a magnitude of 7.9, indicating that the Sichuan earthquake had 100 times the force of the initial American estimate for the most powerful of the three earthquakes on Monday. One of the biggest issues after the 2008 earthquake lay in the substandard construction of many schools and other buildings that collapsed; there were allegations that developers had cut corners in collusion with local officials. Gansu Province is one of the poorest in China, with many older buildings of simple construction.

Earthquake
Fatalities,casualties
Gansu Province China


Shhh, and Not Because the Fauna Are Sleeping

Abstract: MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — At times, deep within this vaulted chamber of redwoods, it is almost quiet enough to hear a banana slug slither by. For the National Park Service , that stillness is as vital a component of the site as the trees’ green needles, or the sudden darting rays of sunlight. A decade after the agency resolved to restore natural sounds to this park in a metropolitan area of seven million people, managers at Muir Woods, in Marin Country just north of San Francisco, have made big strides in vanquishing intrusive noise. Now the background sounds are dominated by the burbling rush of Redwood Creek, the soft sibilant breeze that stirs the redwood branches, the croak of a crow. Humans do contribute, too, but, with the exception of toddlers’ squeals, their voices tend to be pitched lower than usual. The impact of noise on wildlife ranging from birds to whales to elk has been a growing focus of scientific study. Increasing evidence suggests that animals in natural settings modify their behavior, though sometimes only briefly, in response to human commotion. In a 2009 article in Park Science , researchers explained that animals react to human intrusions as if they were suddenly being threatened by predators. “These disturbances evoke antipredator behaviors and interfere with other activities that enhance fitness,” the article said, like foraging for food, mating and tending to the young. When such disturbances grow frequent, the researchers warned, “population consequences may result.” By 2001 or so, Muir Woods had in fact long been abandoned by otters and pileated woodpeckers, and park managers had grown concerned that sightings of a pair of northern spotted owls, an endangered species, were becoming more and more infrequent. There were other worries besides noise levels. An asphalt walkway was cramping the growth of the redwoods’ surprisingly shallow roots in some places, causing at least one tree to topple. And park visitors were straying from the path into the groves, compacting earth that was meant to be loose and harming the redwoods further. But the noise question was the most vexing. The pathway could be altered, and was: in many places a slightly elevated boardwalk has replaced it. Visitors are firmly advised to stay on the paths. But the clatter and rumble of garbage can lids and maintenance vans remained. Today, no Dumpsters or garbage cans are to be found along the trails. Maintenance vehicles powered by electricity glide by almost silently. Workers in emergency vehicles do not idle their engines while resolving whatever problem brought them to the park. Once the diesel engines had been stilled, visitors began falling into line, heeding a subtle signal that human noises are superfluous here. But some of the signals are hardly subtle: signs posted near Cathedral Grove in the heart of the park call for silence. Near the entrance to the food and gift shop close to the park’s entrance, a decibel meter measures the sound of a visitor’s voice. “I could see myself crunching potato chips,” Chris Mueller, a New York City tourist interviewed in the woods, said, referring to the digital readout on the decibel meter. “Out here it is very quiet,” Mr. Mueller added appreciatively. “The mumbling of the tourists and the babbling of the stream, it has a very calming sense to it.” What is more, the nocturnal spotted owls have responded: Muir Woods now has two breeding pairs instead of one. The decade-long campaign for quiet in national parks has been little heard or noticed. The park system provides considerable autonomy to the individual parks, and officials at some parks have worried about noise and taken stronger steps more than have others. Karen Treviño, the chief of the natural sounds and night skies division of the National Park Service, a system that includes hundreds of parks, monuments and historical tracts, said the noise issues varied widely. In the Florida Everglades, the rhythmic thudding of electrical generators has been stilled at a campground, and park officials are negotiating with operators of airboats, whose revved-up fans can sound like miniature jet engines, to see how their impact might be reduced. They have also approached officials at Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami about the timing of the sonic booms that shake the saw grass. For about a decade now at Zion National Park in Utah, a shuttle bus service has replaced most private cars on the main loop at the heart of the canyon. And Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado has now ensured that some campground areas are generator-free and is weighing the best way to tackle motorcycle noise. The progress at Muir Woods has been largely overshadowed by highly publicized noise battles between managers at the highest-profile parks and companies that pilot small planes and helicopters full of aerial sightseers. This month, park managers at the Grand Canyon proposed requiring the operators to shift gradually to quieter aircraft, fly higher above the North Rim and refrain from flying at dawn and dusk. Yet Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, introduced legislation last week that could forestall the park’s plan. The measure, in the form of an amendment, specifies that noise standards “shall be considered to be achieved in the park if, for at least 75 percent of each day, 50 percent of the park is free of sound produced by commercial air tour operations.” Bill Hedden, the executive director of the Grant Canyon Trust, an Arizona environmental organization, denounced the McCain proposal. “This is an amendment that essentially gives the entire game away to the air tour operators,” Mr. Hedden said. “It redefines what constitutes natural quiet and lets them do any thing they want.” Asked about the amendment, Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for the senator, warned that tighter regulation by the Park Service “could dramatically threaten tourism jobs and the tax base in Northern Arizona.” “Senator McCain’s amendment would simply codify the existing definition of natural quiet that has been in place for the past 17 years,” Ms. Buchanan said. Muir Woods has airplane noise, too — it is within 30 miles of the Oakland and San Francisco airports — but officials here do not worry much about tourist flights because the tree canopy masks the view from above. The park also contends with the whine of cars and especially motorcycles making their way up Mount Tamalpais on roads just above the park. Before the park quieted its maintenance fleet and other staff-generated noises, managers at Muir Woods had conducted a yearlong inventory of all sounds, natural and otherwise, in four places in the park, said Mia Monroe, a park ranger. To her surprise, Ms. Monroe said, noise from the parking lot and gift shop “bled a quarter-mile into the forest.” Administrators moved the parking lot about 100 yards farther from the entrance, eliminated the ice machine and installed the decibel meter. The new concessionaire agreed to make coffee in a way that minimized the odor and to bake its scones and muffins in nearby Mill Valley rather than on site. “So when you walk in the forest, you smell the wonderful fresh air of the forest” — not blueberry scones, Ms. Monroe said. Mr. Mueller, the New York tourist, savored the smells on his visit. “The scents are extraordinary,” he said. “There’s an intensity to the aromas one associates with dining. You can almost taste the air here, it’s that rich.” Managers and rangers are careful nonetheless not to attribute specific improvements in the park’s wildlife directly to policy changes like the new boardwalk or sound management or elimination of some invasive weeds. “It’s very, very hard to say what do the peace and quiet, what does the boardwalk, what do any of these things relate to,” Ms. Monroe said. “We don’t know.” Still, she noted, otters have returned after a 75-year hiatus, and chipmunks are on the rebound. And if a tree falls in this forest, it is likely to be heard.

Noise
National Parks Monuments and Seashores
Animals
National Park Service


Defense Calls Manning’s Intentions Good

Abstract: FORT MEADE, Md. — A defense lawyer for Pfc. Bradley Manning on Friday portrayed his client as “young, naïve, but good-intentioned” when he sent databases of secret documents about American military and diplomatic activities to WikiLeaks, and he urged the judge in his court-martial to be lenient when she decides his fate. A day after a prosecutor had delivered a closing argument portraying Private Manning as an “anarchist” and a “traitor,” David E. Coombs, the defense lawyer, offered a rival narrative. His client, he said, was a “humanist” and a “whistle-blower” who released only those sets of files that he believed would not cause harm but set off debate and prompt change. “Is Pfc. Manning somebody who is a traitor who has no loyalty to this country or the flag and wanted to systematically harvest and download as much information as possible for his true employer, WikiLeaks?” Mr. Coombs asked, summarizing the prosecution’s contention. “Is that what evidence shows?” he went on. “Or is he a young, naïve, but good-intentioned soldier who had human life and his humanist beliefs center to his decisions — whose sole focus was, ‘maybe I just can make a difference, maybe make a change?’” Arguing that the latter narrative was the truth, Mr. Coombs cited what Private Manning, 25, wrote in Internet chats that he never knew would become public. For example, the lawyer said, in one set from shortly before Private Manning’s deployment to Iraq in 2009, he talked about how he felt an almost familial duty to all human beings and wanted everyone to be safe. “That is not anti-patriotic,” Mr. Coombs said. “That is something that is not anti-American. That really is what America is about — that we take everybody. That is the promise of the Statue of Liberty.” There is no jury in the case, so Mr. Coombs directed his argument at the judge, Col. Denise R. Lind. He also played excerpts from an early file WikiLeaks released from Private Manning: a video of an Apache helicopter airstrike in Baghdad in which American forces gunned down a group of largely unarmed men on a street — including two Reuters journalists — and then shot up a van with children inside that pulled up to assist the victims. Image Pfc. Bradley Manning at Fort Meade, Md., on Friday. His lawyer said he leaked documents to try to “make a difference.” Credit Cliff Owen/Associated Press “When the court looks at this, the defense requests that you not disengage, that you not look at this from the eyes of ‘this happened on a battlefield,’” he said, adding that those in the courtroom had just watched at least nine lives being extinguished. “Did they all deserve to die? That is what Private Manning is thinking as he is watching this video he is seeing and he’s questioning.” Private Manning has already confessed to being WikiLeaks’ source for some 700,000 military and diplomatic documents that brought that organization global fame and notoriety after it began disseminating them through traditional media outlets — including The New York Times, for some of them — in 2010. He has pleaded guilty to lesser versions of the charges that he is facing that could expose him to up to 20 years in prison. But the government pressed forward with a trial on a more serious set of charges, including violating the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy. If convicted on those, he could face life in prison. Colonel Lind will take an undetermined amount of time to consider the evidence and come up with a verdict. After one break, Colonel Lind announced cryptically that someone had been banned from attending the rest of the trial over intimidating actions. She was apparently referring to Clark Stoeckley, a credentialed courtroom sketch artist who drives a truck emblazoned with messages of support for Private Manning and WikiLeaks. He wrote on Twitter, “I’m banned from the court-martial.” It was not immediately clear what happened. An Army official said a “member of the media” had been barred “for posting threatening messages regarding some of the court-martial participants.” The judge sealed the order, so no other details will be released. Mr. Coombs began his closing argument by ripping into the one delivered the day before by one of the prosecutors, Maj. Ashden Fein, as a false “diatribe” that relied on “child logic” to portray his client as nefarious. Over several hours, he marched through a close reading of the evidence in an effort to pick holes in the remaining areas of dispute, including whether the documents had a market value sufficient to justify certain theft charges, and whether the disclosure of their contents was truly harmful. He also addressed the government’s theory behind several of the charges that have implications for investigative journalism — that by sending information to WikiLeaks for publication online where the entire world, including Al Qaeda, could read them, Private Manning aided the enemy. Mr. Coombs said WikiLeaks was a legitimate part of the news media that was “no different” from organizations like The Times, The Guardian or Der Spiegel that also publish information online. And where the prosecution had stressed the enormous volume of documents Private Manning leaked — some 700,000 — Mr. Coombs portrayed that number as small relative to the many millions he had access to on his classified computer system. He said that if Private Manning had not been selective and seeking to avoid harm, he would have leaked much more — like reports from confidential sources. “He did give it to a journalistic organization,” Mr. Coombs said. “He did not act wantonly. He selected information he believed the public should know.”

Court-martial
Classified Information
WikiLeaks
David E Coombs


A Northern Ireland Town Is a Shoppers’ Paradise

Abstract: NEWRY, Northern Ireland — During the decades of the “Troubles” here, long lines of traffic at the Irish border usually were a sign that the British military was searching vehicles on the road ahead. But these days the lines of traffic leading off the main highway north to this city just inside Northern Ireland are not about guns as much as butter: shoppers from the south are heading north to spend their euros in the malls and supermarkets here. Since the onset of the financial crisis, the euro has surged in value against the British pound, which circulates in Northern Ireland, making prices in northern stores so irresistible that southerners are flocking over the border in record numbers. So popular has this picturesque city 65 miles north of Dublin become that it has lent its name to the phenomenon, the Newry effect. Newry has always been a commercial center, but since the Good Friday peace accords of 1998, which ended most of the violence, the city has cashed in on its location, building a bevy of shopping malls. And as sterling has slid, Newry has become the hottest shopping spot within the European Union’s open borders, a place where consumers armed with euros enjoy a currency discount averaging 30 percent or more. It seems the only ones complaining about the cross-border trade are senior political officials in the economically strapped south, who are bemoaning the loss of sales tax revenues and questioning the “patriotism” of the bargain hunters. Ireland’s finance minister, Brian Lenihan, said in a recent interview on Irish television that by shopping in Northern Ireland, southerners were “paying Her Majesty’s taxes” and not “paying the taxes to the state that you live in.” The paradox of questions of patriotism from senior Irish ministers from the main governing political party, Fianna Fail, which espouses Irish political and economic unity, has not been lost on many in the south or the north. On a recent busy Sunday, patriotism and shopping were hot political topics in the parking lots around Newry. “It’s still Ireland, that’s the way I look at it,” said Cerrie Byrne, 24, a teacher from north Dublin who was parking beside the crowded Newry malls. Political considerations aside, Ms. Byrne expected to save more than $140 on the $700 she and her mother had budgeted to spend in Newry. Unpacking a shopping cart of liquor, cat food and a single bag of potatoes, Denis Connaughton, 59, a postman who lives near the Dublin airport, about an hour’s drive away, dismissed the talk of patriotism, saying his major concern was the crowds. “They were saying there was a four-mile tail-back yesterday,” he said, speaking of the traffic backup. He added, though, that the bargains were worth the irritation. Some weekends the traffic jams stretch up the hill from the sprawling parking lots around Newry’s malls southward onto the main Dublin-Belfast highway to the scenic border crossing at Ravensdale Glen. It was once marked by a huge British Army base, which has since been dismantled to allow for a widening of the highway. Newry, like many border towns, fell on hard times during the Troubles. The small city lies at the end of the beautiful Carlingford Lough waterway, dominated on one side by the Mournes, mountains that in a famed ballad “sweep down to the sea.” On the other side rise the Cooley Mountains, central to Celtic legends. But scenery is not on the minds of drivers, who circle the two big malls searching for places to park. An overwhelming majority of the cars are from the south: the large four-wheel-drive vehicle from 30 miles away is parked alongside family cars from Dublin and the surrounding counties, while the big white van and the excursion bus registered in Monaghan, used by American tourists in the summer, had evidently found profitable work out of season. In the main large supermarket this month, shelves were being emptied. The buckets of charity workers, who were collecting for an accordion marching band from a nearby town, were filling mostly with euros, not British pounds. Southern shoppers were doing pleasing calculations of the euro equivalents of prices marked in sterling. A recent retail industry survey suggests that one in four households in counties as far west as Galway — on the Atlantic coastline, about four hours away — shop for groceries in Northern Ireland. Making the trip even more profitable for hundreds of thousands of southern shoppers, sales taxes on some goods have been cut in recent weeks in the north, while the government in Dublin has increased taxes on goods in the south. Alan Trainor, 49, a Newry local who works in O’Neill’s, a sporting goods store that sells merchandise of the Gaelic Athletic Association, said some of its best-selling jerseys were from counties like Kerry and Cork, far to the south, not those nearby, like Armagh or Tyrone. “A lady was telling me last week that she bought a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream that was 9.95 euros in Newry,” the equivalent of $14.24, he said. “She showed me a bottle she had bought in Cork, and it was 35 euros. That speaks for itself. She would have a round trip of 400 to 500 miles. It must be worth her while.”

Northern Ireland
Retail Stores and Trade


With Drilling Near End, Chile Rescue Enters Risky Phase

Abstract: SAN JOSÉ MINE, Chile — After more than two months living nearly half a mile underground, the 33 miners trapped below this scorching desert could be just a few short days from emerging into what will seem like a blinding sun. A powerful drill, twisting and pounding its way through the abrasive volcanic rock, was only about 130 feet from breaking through to the miners on Friday afternoon, nearly completing a rescue hole for them to be hauled to the surface, according to Chile ’s mining minister. If all went well, he said, the drill could reach the miners early Saturday. But a rescue would still be days away, and officials here warned that the operation was entering its most dangerous phase. Every decision, they said, carried a risk that the inspiring story consuming the Chilean government and captivating the world could quickly turn toward disaster. “We have done everything that technology permits,” said Miguel Fortt, a consultant on underground mining rescues in the Atacama region. “If the Lord doesn’t send us an earthquake, we’ll be O.K.” The miners themselves may have to set off dynamite to widen the hole at their end so that the rescue capsule — named the Phoenix — has enough room. Engineers at the surface also need to decide whether to line the rescue hole with steel pipes to prevent loose rocks from falling into the shaft and damaging or blocking the capsule. But whatever the approach, it is going to be a very tight fit. The rescue hole is only a little more than two feet wide and it is not even straight, which could create potential snags as the capsule shimmies up, carrying one man at a time. “There’s only about two inches clearance around it,” said John E. Urosek, chief of mine emergency operations for the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration. “And they’ll have to pull it out of that depth so many times, it could get wedged.” Much of the uncertainty stems from how unusual the rescue effort is, turning it into a case study for experts around the world. “The Chileans are really writing the book on this kind of rescue,” said Clint Cragg, an engineer who was part of a NASA delegation to the mine in September. “There haven’t been this many guys that deep for this long. It just hasn’t been done before.” Laurence Golborne, the mining minister whose ubiquity during the crisis has made him a household name in Chile, said the rescue could begin as early as Tuesday. Lining the hole could set the schedule back further, but for some of the families waiting anxiously above, any delay in the name of safety is worthwhile. “I prefer a thousand times that the process drags on two more days than to not line the hole,” said María Cortez, the sister-in-law of Mario Gómez, the oldest of the trapped miners. But lining the hole with tons of heavy steel pipes also presents a risk if they slip and fall, officials said. Medical officials continue to prepare the miners for their moment in the sun. They have been keeping their weight under control so they can fit in the capsule, which is about 21 inches wide and built with suggestions from the NASA team. The men are also receiving media training to answer questions from the hundreds of reporters here at Camp Hope, the makeshift commune here where families have been living since the collapse on Aug. 5. After the drill breaks through, engineers will send down a camera to evaluate the hole and begin the process of prepping the rescue and capsule teams. But before any of the miners come up, at least two rescuers will be sent down first, to stay in the mine and assist with the capsule. Then there is the question of who is rescued first. The miners are being divided into three teams, Mr. Golborne said, depending on their physical and mental condition, and on their “skills.” The first group to come up are likely to be the most talented and healthiest group, who will assist the rescuers at the top with the remainder of the operation. Among those will probably be Edison Peña, a fitness buff who has been running several kilometers a day inside the many winding tunnels still accessible to the trapped miners. The second group will be the less physically fit, like Mr. Gómez, who has a lung condition and José Ojeda, who has diabetes. And then the rest will follow. The trip in the Phoenix could take as little as 11 to 12 minutes, according to Manuel Montesino, the superintendent for production for Codelco, the state mining company. The miners will be on their feet inside the capsule, with a monitor to check their vital signs and a hands-free phone. Retractable rollers will also help prevent the capsule from hitting the walls of the mine shaft. Once at the surface, the miners will receive wrap-around sunglass used by mountain climbers and surfers to protect against sudden exposure to the bright sun, and then be treated for first aid on site before being whisked by helicopters to a nearby hospital. Many of the miners have complained of dental pain and skin irritation that will require treatment when they emerge, officials said. Rescuing the miners has become an obsession for President Sebastián Piñera and his government, which has spared no expense, technological consultation or innovation. Mr. Piñera’s approval rating has risen steadily since the miners were found after more than two weeks during which their fate was uncertain. And Mr. Golborne has become the most popular minister in the Piñera government, a recent opinion poll suggests. Three efforts were organized to drill holes that could accommodate a rescue capsule. Known as Plans A, B, and C, they proceeded simultaneously. It was Plan B that was on the verge of breaking through to the trapped men on Friday, at a spot more than 2,050 feet below the surface — roughly twice as deep as the Empire State Building is tall. But for many family members, with the uncertainty to come, the end still seemed far away. “We are reaching the final chapter, but it feels like the first day,” Mrs. Cortez said. “We didn’t know if they were dead or alive, when we didn’t know anything and, just like now, we were filled with anxiety, sadness.”

National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Derek Hutchinson, Pioneer of Sea Kayaking as a Sport, Dies at 79

Abstract: Derek Hutchinson, who took a one-day course on sea kayaking as a young high school teacher, fell in love with the sport and went on to become one of its grand old men, died on Oct. 10 at his home in South Shields, England. He was 79. The cause was cancer, said his friend Wayne Horodowich, the founder of the University of Sea Kayaking in Mill Creek, Wash. Mr. Hutchinson, an instructor, author, boat designer and hero of treacherous voyages in kayaks, became involved in sea kayaking in the 1960s, when people were beginning to see sporting possibilities in the vessels Eskimos had long regarded as primary transportation. He and other early enthusiasts experimented with new materials like fiberglass and new designs to increase the stability and range of homemade kayaks. Mr. Hutchinson dreamed up ever longer and more dangerous expeditions for kayakers. He taught safe, efficient techniques, first in Britain and then around the world. He wrote more than a dozen books and added a sprinkling of poetry, hailing sea kayakers as “the last true free spirits.” A half-century later, Eric Soares , a kayaker who wrote about the sport (and who died this year), said of Mr. Hutchinson, “We consider him our Sea Daddy.” Mr. Hutchinson entered kayaking lore in August 1975 with a spectacular failure. He was leading five kayakers in one-person kayaks in an attempt to cross the capriciously perilous North Sea from England to Belgium, a distance of more than 100 miles, when things began to go wrong. They found they had to paddle continuously to maintain control of the kayaks. They could not sleep, because unattended kayaks could easily flip and they could drown. But with only primitive navigation equipment and a rough sea, they ultimately had no idea where they were. They hallucinated, vomited and suffered hypothermia and dehydration. After 34 grueling hours in which they veered eight miles off course, a passing ferry spotted their last remaining signal flare and picked them up. But redemption came the next June, when Mr. Hutchinson and two companions, Tom Catsky and Dave Hellywell, completed the crossing in 31 hours, setting a world record for distance traveled in a kayak. They succeeded by recognizing the surging, dangerous currents that had thwarted them the first time and tying up to a giant buoy until the tide changed. The expedition proved the seaworthiness of kayaks Mr. Hutchinson had designed. “The North Sea crossing was a milestone,” Mr. Hutchinson said years later. “It took the kayak out of the toy-boat class and put it into the serious deep-sea craft category.” Derek Charles Hutchinson was born in South Shields on June 30, 1933. As a youth he was a lifeguard, and he later applied that experience to saving lives with kayaks. After serving in the British Army as a military police officer, he went to work in the local shipyard as a plumber and pipe fitter. Tiring of that work, he began teaching shop courses at a public high school. The school encouraged teachers to try different pastimes so that they might then introduce them to students. In 1963, Mr. Hutchinson took a one-day kayaking course in a swimming pool and was enthralled. He eventually grew so skilled in the sport that he became an instructor for the British Canoe Union , which had a division devoted to kayaks. He also helped develop one of the first kayak lifeguard units in Britain and was soon designing the craft, creating 17 all told. Many of his designs were used around the world. Among the innovations he helped introduce and popularize were bulkheads, the watertight compartments in front of and behind the boat’s cockpit. In 1976 Mr. Hutchinson wrote and illustrated “Sea Canoeing,” which was later retitled “The Complete Book of Sea Kayaking.” Translated into several languages and now in its fifth printing, it came to be regarded as a bible for the sport. Mr. Hutchinson’s wife, Helene, died in 2004. He is survived by his partner, Maureen Cook; his sons, Clive and Graham; his daughter, Fiona; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Mr. Hutchinson was known to disdain protective clothing, saying good kayakers do not get wet. But Mr. Horodowich said Mr. Hutchinson had actually worn a wet or dry suit in his later years and expected students to follow his lead. His gift for the colorful phrase was indisputable. “Hold your paddle like a fairy holds her wand, not how a witch holds her broomstick!” he exhorted his pupils. And his opinions were firm. He asserted, for example, that the proper length for a sea kayak was exactly 16 feet 10 inches. When questioned about this by a dubious kayak designer, he explained that the length could not be any greater because his garage was 17 feet long.

Hutchinson Derek
Kayaks
Deaths (Obituaries)


A Measure of Protection for Skiers

Abstract: A FEW seconds may be barely long enough to take a deep breath. But for someone trapped under an avalanche, wondering whether help will ever come, the time can seem like ages. The engineers at Life-Link International kept that thought in mind as they designed the Speed Probe 300, the company's top-of-the-line avalanche probe. Life-Link says the Speed Probe 300, which took two years to develop and sells for $75.95, can be assembled faster than any similar product on the market -- even though the time difference is just a matter of seconds. "But when you've got someone buried under snow, every second is important," said John Scott, executive vice president at Life-Link, a manufacturer of winter sports equipment in Jackson Hole, Wyo. The product's purpose is simple: to poke holes in the snow left by an avalanche. If the probe comes into contact with something substantial, rescuers use shovels to excavate the spot. (According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder, Colo., there were 28 fatalities because of avalanches in the United States last winter.) Bamboo rods were once used to probe avalanche areas, but skiers and snowmobilers found it burdensome to haul these into the backcountry. Modern probes break down into smaller sections connected by wires, much like a magician's trick wand that goes limp at the utterance of "presto!" Unassembled, the Speed Probe 300 is a jumble of 16-inch-long, gold-hued shafts that together weigh less than a pound. But when a rescue is required, the probe can quickly be deployed as a 10-foot pole: First, Mr. Scott said, you hold the T-shaped handle and toss the probe forward in a slight arc -- a bit like casting a fishing rod. Then you jiggle the probe so that the individual shafts snap into one another, and tug the handle to lock everything in place. Mr. Scott acknowledges that the jiggling, in particular, requires a delicate touch. "You're going to have to practice a good 20 to 50 times," he said. But once the technique is mastered, Mr. Scott said, the 300 "will be completely rigid and tight before it touches the ground." The other major consideration for Life-Link's engineers was the durability of the metal. The company's previous probes had been constructed from an aluminum alloy called 6061 -- tough, but not the toughest available. There were concerns that in the harshest conditions, probes made of 6061 might bend before reaching their maximum depth, and perhaps not reach a deeply buried victim. For the Speed Probe 300, Life-Link upgraded to aluminum alloy 7075, which is often used for aircraft components. This alloy scores a 150 on the Brinell hardness test, which measures how well a metal resists the impact of a steel ball; the 6061 alloy scores only a 95. Before the probe was brought to market in the fall of 2004, prototypes were distributed to members of ski patrols in Jackson Hole; they tested the 300 during their frequent search-and-rescue drills, in which they cause controlled avalanches with dynamite or mortar shells. Mr. Scott estimates that Life-Link has sold 15,000 of the probes, primarily through specialty retailers like REI, a chain of outdoor-gear stores. He also advises winter sports enthusiasts to invest in an avalanche beacon -- a wearable transceiver that can transmit an avalanche victim's general location. After all, no matter how many precious seconds the Speed Probe 300 can save, it's still just a long stick.

LIFE-LINK
ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY
RESCUES
AVALANCHES
SKIING


Rally Keeps Cleveland Indians Alive in Wild-Card Race

Abstract: Yan Gomes hit a three-run homer, Michael Brantley had three hits, and the host Cleveland Indians stayed in the American League wild-card chase for at least one more day with a 6-4 win over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday night. A loss would have eliminated Cleveland. After blowing a 3-0 lead, the Indians rallied and moved to four and a half games behind Kansas City and Oakland in the wild-card standings with four days left in the regular season. The Royals, who have not made the playoffs since 1985, fell to one game behind first-place Detroit in the A.L. Central. ANGELS 5, ATHLETICS 4 Howie Kendrick doubled and drove in three runs as Los Angeles, the A.L. West champion, held off host Oakland. The Athletics are tied with the Royals for the top A.L. wild-card spot. TIGERS 6, WHITE SOX 1 Justin Verlander pitched eight impressive innings as Detroit clinched a postseason spot, rallying after the benches cleared to beat visiting Chicago. Seattle’s loss later in the night ensured that the Tigers would finish with at least a wild-card spot. BRAVES 6, PIRATES 2 The visiting Pittsburgh Pirates, whose only runs came on an Andrew McCutchen homer, missed a chance to move up in the N.L. Central race, falling to Atlanta. The Pirates, who clinched a playoff spot Tuesday night, stayed one and half games behind division-leading St. Louis. CUBS 3, CARDINALS 1 Jake Arrieta pitched seven strong innings to lead host Chicago over St. Louis. The Cardinals’ magic number for clinching the division title is three. Image White Sox pitcher Chris Sale after hitting Victor Martinez. The benches emptied. Credit Duane Burleson/Getty Images BREWERS 5, REDS 0 Kyle Lohse threw a two-hitter and drove in a run as visiting Milwaukee staved off elimination from playoff contention with a win over Cincinnati. Milwaukee would be eliminated from the wild-card race with a loss or with a San Francisco win. BLUE JAYS 1, MARINERS 0 Mark Buehrle pitched eight shutout frames to reach 200 innings for the 14th consecutive season, and host Toronto pushed slumping Seattle closer to playoff elimination. Seattle remains three games behind for the second A.L. wild-card spot with four to play. RED SOX 11, RAYS 3 Anthony Ranaudo pitched seven strong innings as Boston beat visiting Tampa Bay. The Red Sox twice batted around, scoring five runs in the fourth inning and four more in the sixth. RANGERS 5, ASTROS 1 Lisalverto Bonilla became the first pitcher in Texas’ history to win his first three career starts with a victory over visiting Houston. PHILLIES 2, MARLINS 1 Kyle Kendrick pitched seven innings, had three hits and drove in a run as Philadelphia beat host Miami. TWINS 2, DIAMONDBACKS 1 Phil Hughes set a single-season major league record for strikeout-to-walk ratio (11.63 to 1), pitching eight strong innings for Minnesota in a home win over Arizona. METS-NATIONALS IS RAINED OUT The Mets’ game at the Washington Nationals was postponed because of rain. The teams will play a day-night doubleheader Thursday.

Baseball
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland Athletics
Kansas City Royals
Cleveland Indians


Trial of Americans in Egypt Shakes Nations’ Ties

Abstract: CAIRO — Egypt will begin criminal proceedings on Friday against 19 Americans and two dozen others in a politically charged investigation into the foreign financing of nonprofit groups that has plunged relations between the United States and Egypt to their lowest point in three decades, state news media reported Saturday. The trial escalates a confrontation that has shaken the 30-year alliance between Cairo and Washington, a cornerstone of the American-backed regional order since the Camp David accords were signed in 1978. American officials have said the prosecution jeopardizes the disbursement of more than $1.5 billion in foreign aid to Egypt, the bulk of which is assistance to the military, which has governed the country since the ouster of the longtime leader Hosni Mubarak a year ago. The 43 defendants have been charged with operating local offices of international organizations without the requisite licenses and illegally receiving foreign funds, state news media reported. The American defendants work for four United States-based groups, two of which, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, are chartered as democracy-building organizations and have close ties to leaders in the United States Congress. The other two organizations are Freedom House and the International Center for Journalists. The state news media report said that the groups’ operations “infringe on Egyptian sovereignty.” Seven of the 19 Americans are in Egypt and have been barred by the government from leaving. The prosecutions come against a backdrop of rising xenophobia and a drumbeat of anti-American statements from top officials, suggesting that the country’s problems are the work of American agents handing out cash to sow chaos in the streets. American officials have sought to resolve the crisis through diplomacy, urging Egypt’s military government to throw out the case or at least allow the Americans to leave. President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have all met or spoken with Egypt’s military leaders in recent weeks. Senator John McCain is expected to lead a Congressional delegation to Egypt this week. A State Department spokeswoman said the United States had not received official confirmation of the trial date. “We’re still working with the Egyptians on this,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. American officials have threatened to cancel over $1.5 billion of annual foreign aid to Egypt, a central pillar of the bilateral relationship. In retaliation, leaders of the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party, the largest bloc in Egypt’s recently elected Parliament, have threatened to review the country’s peace treaty with Israel. State news media reported Tuesday that Fayza Abul Naga, the minister of cooperation who is seen as the driving force behind the prosecutions, told prosecutors in October that the United States used the nonprofit groups to hijack the revolution for American and Israeli interests. The revolution surprised the United States and “slipped from its control,” she said. The United States responded by using “all its resources and instruments to contain the situation and push it in a direction that promotes American and also Israeli interests.”

Egypt
United States International Relations
Nonprofit Organizations
Suits and Litigation
State Department