House Republicans Under Attack on Medicare Overhaul

Abstract: FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — In central Florida , a Congressional town meeting erupted into near chaos on Tuesday as attendees accused a Republican lawmaker of trying to dismantle Medicare while providing tax cuts to corporations and affluent Americans. At roughly the same time in Wisconsin , Representative Paul D. Ryan , the architect of the Republican budget proposal, faced a packed town meeting, occasional boos and a skeptical audience as he tried to lay out his party’s rationale for overhauling the health insurance program for retirees. In a church theater here on Tuesday evening, a meeting between Representative Allen B. West and some of his constituents began on a chaotic note, with audience members quickly on their feet, some heckling him and others loudly defending him. “You’re not going to intimidate me,” Mr. West said. After 10 days of trying to sell constituents on their plan to overhaul Medicare, House Republicans in multiple districts appear to be increasingly on the defensive, facing worried and angry questions from voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies. The proposed new approach to Medicare — a centerpiece of a budget that Republican leaders have hailed as a courageous effort to address the nation’s long-term fiscal problems — has been a constant topic at town-hall-style sessions and other public gatherings during a two-week Congressional recess that provided the first chance for lawmakers to gauge reaction to the plan. An example of the response came Tuesday as Representative Daniel Webster, a freshman Republican from Florida, faced an unruly crowd at a packed town meeting in Orlando , where some people, apparently organized or encouraged by liberal groups, brandished signs saying “Hands Off Medicare” and demanded that he instead “tax the rich.” Mr. Webster, shown in video from station WFTV, sought to defuse the situation by saying that any changes were years away and that current retirees would not see a difference. “Not one senior citizen is harmed by this budget,” he said, noting that his new granddaughter was “looking at a bankrupt country.” Under the Republican proposal, Medicare would be converted into a program that would subsidize health coverage for retirees rather than provide coverage directly, a change that many Democrats say would risk leaving the elderly with inadequate health care as costs rise over the long run. The Republican budget would also transform Medicaid , which pays for nursing homes for low-income residents, into a grant program to states, raising the possibility that states, under budget pressure, would cut back on coverage. Democrats face political pressure as well to show that they can bring spending under control and rein in the growth of the national debt, and there are fissures within the party about whether to back tax increases and raise the national debt ceiling without concrete steps to bring down the budget deficit. Before the release of Mr. Ryan’s proposal, Republicans had expressed confidence that public opinion had turned in their favor, and on Tuesday House leaders sought to reassure Republicans that their budget approach would eventually carry the day. Led by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio , Republicans held a conference call urging House members to tell voters that it is the Obama administration’s spending plan that would cost jobs and ration health care. Officials familiar with the call said that rank-and-file lawmakers did not seem alarmed at the response they were getting, and that Mr. Ryan told his fellow Republicans he had been successful in making the case that Medicare would go bankrupt without intervention. Mr. Ryan said he stressed with his constituents that those over 55 or currently on Medicare would still be covered under the existing program. But news reports noted that Mr. Ryan himself faced a mixed response Tuesday as he held tense meetings with voters, some of whom were turned away because of overflow crowds. It was another indication that Republicans still have a big selling job to do on their budget, especially to older constituents who tend to turn out to vote at higher rates than younger people. “I think what we have in Washington right now working on Medicare are a bunch of clowns,” said Robert Murphy, 73, a retiree in Fort Lauderdale . “I think they should leave Medicare alone. But I know they can’t leave it the way it is.” At Mr. West’s meeting on Tuesday evening here, he took only written questions submitted by the audience. The queries were largely friendly, but some people did pipe up loudly about Medicare, accusing him of making misleading remarks. Several were escorted out by security. Democrats and their allies are stepping up their efforts to organize opposition at public events. They hope to put Republicans back on their heels much as Republicans did to Democrats in the angry town-hall-style meetings conducted during consideration of the health care law. “We have said from the moment the gavel came down on the vote to end Medicare we would hold them accountable every day in every way,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “That is precisely what we are doing. We encourage everyone to attend these meetings.” Democrats and other interest groups are mobilizing a campaign that includes automated phone calls, radio and television ads and protests to keep the pressure on Republicans. Americans United for Change , a liberal group, was running automated calls in 23 Republican House districts and television ads in four districts in Iowa , Minnesota and Wisconsin, in which an announcer says that a House-approved budget amounts to “ending Medicare so millionaires can get another tax break.” Republicans began to hit back this week, with efforts in the districts of conservative Democrats to change the subject from Medicare to overall federal spending. A new radio ad against Representative Mike Ross, Democrat of Arkansas , paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, tells Arkansans that he would continue “to spend your money recklessly.” As they begin a lengthy battle for public opinion on budget issues, many Republicans say much of the outrage at their meetings stems from Democratic plants sent by MoveOn.org and other liberal groups. “My town halls are being disrupted by Democrats,” said Representative Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania , whose meetings have been peppered with complaints about Republican policies. “They are apparently being sent to us to do just that. I am not sensing the general public is angered over Medicare reform. When I explain that people over 55 are not affected there is almost a sigh of relief.” He added, “I am not going to do anything different.”

Federal Budget
Republicans
Medicare
House of Representatives
US Politics
Reform
Paul D Ryan Jr


Oversupply Changes Face of Housing Market Cycle

Abstract: TO judge by the overall level of home sales in the United States, the housing market has stabilized at a level well below the peak period of 2005 and 2006 but still higher than the sales rates that characterized prosperous periods in the 1980s and 1990s. Still, few of those sales are of new homes and a rising proportion are forced sales of homes no longer worth the amount that was borrowed. As can be seen in the accompanying chart, during the 12 months through February, about 46 homes were sold for every 1,000 households in the country. At the peak of the housing boom, that figure rose above 75, but the current level is significantly higher than the lows reached during the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. The sales rate for existing homes — about 4.9 million over the last 12 months — is virtually the same as in mid-1999. Yet sales of newly built single-family homes have plunged to the lowest levels seen since the government began collecting statistics on such sales in 1963. The Census Bureau reported this week that only 17,000 new homes were sold in February, for an annual rate of 250,000 after taking seasonal factors into account. Both of those numbers are the lowest on record. The February sales pace was undoubtedly depressed by harsh weather in the Northeast, and a rebound in March or April is possible. But the total number of homes sold over the 12-month period — 349,000 — is lower than in any comparable period. As a result, this cycle has been very different from previous ones. Home sales plunged in the early 1980s, when a combination of severe recession and high interest rates devastated the housing business, and they also suffered in 1990 and 1991, another recessionary period. But in each of those recessions, sales of new and existing homes declined at about the same pace. It was decreased demand that hurt sales in previous downturns. Now demand is down, in part because some would-be buyers cannot qualify for mortgages that would have been available during the boom. But oversupply is also a major problem now. Too many houses were built in many areas during the boom, and now housing starts have plunged, as can be seen in the bottom chart. There are fewer newly built homes available, and in some areas, buyers complain that builders have not been willing to cut prices to meet the prices available on used homes in the same area. But there is a large number of used homes available. The National Association of Realtors estimates that almost two of every five used homes sold in February were on the market because the previous owner was in trouble. It says 26 percent of sales were from foreclosures, and an additional 13 percent were “short sales,” in which the lender agrees to allow the homeowner to sell the home for less than the outstanding balance of the loan. Sellers often have little say in the timing of such sales, and are in a poor bargaining position. The percentage of forced sales rose to nearly half of all sales in early 2009, at the height of the credit crisis, but fell to around 30 percent as the economy began to improve and banks imposed moratoriums on foreclosures. Now it is on the rise again, producing new pressures on prices and increased competition for home builders still trying to sell homes built in more optimistic times.

Housing and Real Estate
United States Economy
Sales


Injured Alberto Contador Maintains Overall Lead at Giro d’Italia

Abstract: Alberto Contador’s dislocated shoulder stood up to the mountain test as he retained the overall lead through eight stages in the Giro d’Italia. Contador, injured in a fall during the final sprint on Thursday, was clearly in pain at times on the 116-mile leg from Fiuggi to Campitello Matese. But he held off his closest challenger, Fabio Aru, on the climb to the finish. Contador even extended his lead after picking up bonus seconds during an early sprint, moving four seconds ahead of Aru and 22 ahead of Richie Porte. Beñat Intxausti won the stage, attacking with just over two miles remaining and steadily increasing his advantage to win the second summit finish of the Giro.

Giro d'Italia
Alberto Contador
Fabio Aru


British Government Sells More of Its Stake in Lloyds Banking Group

Abstract: LONDON — The British government has further reduced its stake in the Lloyds Banking Group , the bank said on Monday. In December, the government announced that it would engage in a measured sale of a portion of its stake as part of a prearranged trading plan with Morgan Stanley that runs through the end of June. The British government took significant stakes in Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland after the banks received billions of pounds as part of a bailout during the financial crisis. On Monday, Lloyds said that the government reduced its stake in the company to 23.9 percent. The British government had a 24.9 percent stake in the bank when it announced the new trading program in December. “Today’s announcement shows further progress made in returning Lloyds Banking Group to full private ownership and enabling the taxpayer to get their money back,” a Lloyds spokesman said. “This reflects the hard work undertaken over the last four years to transform the group into a low-risk and customer-focused bank that is committed to helping Britain prosper.” The government held as much as a 40 percent stake in the British lender, but it had previously reduced its stake through two sales to institutional shareholders since September 2013. Lloyds received 17 billion pounds, or about $26 billion, from the British government in the bailout. George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, has said it was a priority to reduce the government’s holdings in both Lloyds and R.B.S. The government still owns 81 percent of R.B.S. Separately, a Lloyds spokesman declined to comment on reports over the weekend that the lender was preparing to resume paying a mostly symbolic dividend to shareholders — its first since the bailout. Lloyds has requested permission from regulators to resume paying a dividend to investors. The Sunday Times of London reported that Lloyds could receive approval from the Prudential Regulation Authority this week to pay a dividend of 1 pence a share to investors. Lloyds is expected to announce its fourth-quarter results on Friday.

Prudential Regulation Authority Great Britain


Robots Teach Robots to Beat Them at Pac-Man

Abstract: Computer scientists at Washington State University have created robots that can teach other robots — in this case, to play the 1980s video-game sensation Pac-Man — and ultimately to outperform their teachers. The teacher robots advise the student robots on what moves to make, and the students must accept the advice. Soon, the students surpass their teacher, racking up points faster. “At the very beginning, the student knows nothing, and anything you can use to jump-start that process is extremely helpful,” said Matthew E. Taylor , who along with colleagues described the work in the journal Connection Science. “Even a mediocre teacher can increase the speed at which the student learns.” Advice helps the student robots learn faster, but the teacher needs to know when to stop. “If it gives too little advice, the student doesn’t learn,” Dr. Taylor said. “If it gives too much advice, the student can’t try new things and improve on its own.” He and his team developed algorithms that determine how much advice a teacher should give, and when. The model has many applications, Dr. Taylor said. One day, for instance, a housecleaning robot could train its replacement. He and his team are also working on a similar model for robots to train humans, and humans to train robots. “Robots are going to be coming into our homes and offices,” he said. “It’s a matter of how well they can work well with each other and work with humans.” SINDYA N. BHANOO

Robot
Computer and Video Games
Matthew E Taylor
Connection Science


France: Remains Found at Home of Missing Family

Abstract: The French police have exhumed five bodies from a freshly dug grave at a house in the northwestern city of Nantes. The remains were believed to be those of a family who lived in the house and disappeared almost three weeks ago. The discoveries began Thursday when investigators dug up a human leg from under a porch overlooking the family’s backyard. The Nantes public prosecutor, Xavier Ronsin, said the bodies were believed to be those of Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès, 49, and her four children. The whereabouts of the father, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, were unknown, the prosecutor added. Bullet wounds were found on the bodies. The entire family disappeared without trace in early April. Carcasses of the family’s two dogs were also found.

France
Murders and Attempted Murders
Nantes (France)


Karzai Demands U.S. Hand Over Afghan Banker

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan blamed foreigners on Sunday for the corruption of Afghan officials and demanded that the United States extradite the former chief of the Afghan Central Bank in connection with the collapse of Kabul Bank , the country’s largest financial institution. The former governor of the Central Bank , Qadir Fitrat, is living in Virginia. He fled Afghanistan, saying he feared for his life after he was involved in making public the massive fraud at Kabul Bank and removing its senior management. Neither of the top bank officers nor any of the major shareholders, who include a brother of Mr. Karzai’s and a brother of the first vice president, Marshal Fahim, have been prosecuted, although all of them are still in Afghanistan. Referring to Mr. Fitrat, Mr. Karzai said, “The government of the United States should cooperate and hand him over to us.” “Bring Fitrat and hand him over to Afghanistan to make clear who is to blame,” he said. “But our hand can’t reach to America.” Mr. Karzai made the remarks at an event sponsored by the United Nations to mark International Anti-Corruption Day . Afghanistan is one of the world’s most corrupt countries, tying for second worst in rankings by Transparency International, which tracks perceptions of global corruption. Several Western diplomats and officials working with the Afghan government said they were disappointed by Mr. Karzai’s speech, in which he appeared to again shift much of the blame for corruption to foreigners. While foreigners are unquestionably involved in some of the corruption, they shared responsibility with the Afghans and were only peripherally involved in the Kabul Bank debacle . Mr. Karzai also asked that foreigners who give aid to the country tell Afghan officials if government officials or their relatives ask for bribes. Foreign governments have helped finance anticorruption efforts, but the Afghans have often squashed high-profile corruption prosecutions of senior officials. That has been a continuing effort by NATO to comb through military contracts with Afghan businesses to detect corruption and terminate contracts in which there has been manifest abuse. That effort has gone on largely behind the scenes, so it is difficult to tell if it has had much success. Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador, said he believed that corruption was now being taken more seriously, although progress was slow and none of the main people responsible for the Kabul Bank fraud had been prosecuted. The Afghan government lost more than $850 million in the bank’s collapse. While some of that money has been recovered — more than expected, according to several officials — the government will probably have to pay $450 million to $500 million to cover losses. “I am told they have a series of indictments that have been kept in the pending file as they concentrate on asset recovery,” Mr. Crocker told reporters on Saturday. “Look, it’s hardly a perfect world. And it isn’t going to be for quite some time. What I look for is a trajectory: Is the line going up or down? Very cautiously and very incrementally, I see it going up. In other words, corruption is being taken more seriously at higher levels.” “Does that mean we’ve turned the corner? We’ll see,” he added. Mr. Karzai’s focus on Mr. Fitrat and his jab at the United States are the latest in a series of similar comments he has made about the fraud at Kabul Bank. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel last week, he also blamed the United States for Kabul Bank’s troubles, saying, “The Americans never told us about this.” “We believed a certain embassy was trying to create financial trouble for us,” he said. “We felt the whole bank scam was created by foreign hands.” Mr. Karzai declined to be specific, but the American Embassy is the only one that has deeply consulted with the Afghan banking system.

Kabul Bank
Afghanistan
Karzai Hamid
Fitrat Qadir
Corruption (Institutional)
Banking and Financial Institutions
Politics and Government
United States International Relations
Fitrat Abdul Qadir


Obama Won’t Stay at Waldorf Astoria for U.N. Event; Security Concerns Are Cited

Abstract: WASHINGTON — With Chinese spies rummaging through White House emails, President Obama has decided not to risk making their spying any easier: He will break with tradition and abandon the Waldorf Astoria , which was bought last year by Chinese investors with deep ties to Beijing’s ruling elite, when he attends the United Nations General Assembly next week. Mr. Obama and other officials will instead take up residence a few blocks away at the Lotte New York Palace , whose owners are South Korean. The White House and the State Department, while vague about the reasons for the change, cited several factors, including security concerns. Why else “would you not stay at the Waldorf?” said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk openly about the new arrangements. “Who would make that choice for any other reason?” The hotel’s owner, the Anbang Insurance Group, may not be a household name in China or the United States, but it is highly connected in China. Its chairman is the husband of the granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping , who was China’s leader from 1978 to 1992. Its board of directors includes Chen Xiaolu , a former officer in the People’s Liberation Army who is the son of Marshal Chen Yi, a revolutionary military commander who later served as foreign minister. Image Former President Herbert Hoover welcoming President John F. Kennedy at his Waldorf Astoria suite in 1961. Credit Marty Lederhandler/Associated Press Anbang’s deal to buy the hotel called for a major renovation, raising concerns in Washington about whether it would remain a secure location for official functions, despite the fact that its previous owner, Hilton Worldwide, agreed to manage the hotel for the next 100 years. Frustration has risen in Washington over hacking attacks on government databases and email servers that officials have linked to China, including a breach that exposed the personal data of millions of federal workers. While officials have not specified what they fear could come of the renovation, which has not yet begun, hotels have long represented a weak link in security for traveling officials and others. When the president stays in hotels, his security detail sets up a structure that a former government official described as “something like a minisubmarine,” but no setup can be entirely secure. The Lotte New York Palace, like the Waldorf Astoria, is a luxury hotel on the East Side of Manhattan, but the similarities end there. For decades, the president and hundreds of other American officials have descended on the Waldorf each September for the General Assembly, securing whole floors for meetings. The Waldorf is among the world’s best known hotels, and its guests regularly include celebrities and world leaders. Every Chinese leader has stayed there since Mr. Deng first visited the United States in 1974. An apartment on the 42nd floor of the hotel’s Waldorf Towers has served as the official residence of the United States ambassador to the United Nations for more than 50 years. Apart from its guest register, the Waldorf is known for its lavish décor. Its artwork, crystal chandeliers and gold doorknobs prompted President Herbert Hoover to declare the Waldorf’s opening as “an event in the advancement of hotels, even in New York City.” That was in 1931, when the hotel was owned by the Astor family. It eventually ended up in the hands of Hilton Worldwide, which last year sold it for $1.95 billion to Anbang . The State Department has not yet said whether it will renew its lease on the ambassador’s residence, which expires this year. But good enough for an ambassador does not necessarily mean the hotel is up to presidential standards. When Mr. Obama and his family visited New York in July, they stayed elsewhere. “Obviously, there are a range of considerations that influence where the president will stay when he’s not at the White House,” Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, told reporters on Friday. “Those considerations include everything from available space to cost and to security.” Pressed on whether the General Assembly decision was primarily driven by security concerns, Mr. Earnest said: “At this point, I’m not at liberty to detail the security considerations that may or may not have factored into this particular decision.”

Barack Obama
Waldorf Astoria Hotels
China
UN
International relations
Beijing


Another Spying Scandal in Germany Adds to Political Crisis for Merkel

Abstract: BERLIN — Eleven years ago, as the Iraq war raged, the National Security Agency quietly turned over to its German counterpart a sprawling electronic spying station in Bavaria. The transfer came with a deal: In consultation with the Americans, German spies would continue operating the station to intercept communications in Europe and the Middle East and share what they picked up. For the third time in less than two years, Washington and Berlin are at loggerheads over that arrangement. After a month of intelligence leaks, awkward telephone calls between top aides to President Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany , and demands that the government here release data about what spying Germany did at America’s bidding , Ms. Merkel is once again seeing the practical and political difficulties of disentangling intelligence relationships between the two countries. Ms. Merkel’s critics accuse her of being the N.S.A.’s lap dog , and her intelligence services of perhaps facilitating spying on at least two European companies, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company and Eurocopter, both part of what is now the Airbus Group. Adding to the political pressure, emails between American and German officials have been leaked, all but confirming that a much-publicized effort in 2013 and 2014 to create rules that would halt any American snooping on German soil was largely a sham . The Germans who pushed for the agreement optimistically called them “no-spy” rules; the Americans considered them impossible from the start. In the middle is Ms. Merkel, who has maintained that the partnership with the United States is essential to Germans’ safety. In 2013, after documents released by Edward J. Snowden strongly suggested that the N.S.A. had been tapping Ms. Merkel’s personal cellphone for a decade, Ms. Merkel seemed to be the victim of American spying overreach. Last summer, tensions flared again, and Ms. Merkel’s government expelled the C.I.A. station chief in Germany after Berlin said it found evidence of American spies’ recruiting at least one German official. This time is different. With German officials now being called to answer to parliamentary committees almost daily, and Ms. Merkel’s inability to strike an intelligence deal increasingly evident, the pressure on her and her allies is mounting. Mr. Obama is planning to attend a Group of 7 meeting on June 7 and 8 at a Bavarian castle about 70 miles from the old N.S.A. station. In the days before his arrival, Ms. Merkel is under pressure even from partners in her coalition government to hand over a list of thousands of search terms and other “selectors” the N.S.A. is said to have given to German intelligence officials to conduct electronic monitoring. Gerhard Schindler, president of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known as the BND, conceded before a parliamentary committee on Thursday night that oversight of his agency had been “insufficient.” But he defended Germany’s cooperation with the United States, insisting in an opening statement that “we need them more than they need us.” As for allegations that Germany helped spy on its neighboring countries, he implied that it sometimes occurred, arguing that if it was done in Germany’s national interests, it did not violate German law. American officials have declined to discuss the latest allegations, other than to provide assurances that the work the N.S.A. asked Germany to do did not violate the American ban on industrial espionage. The officials would not confirm whether conversations or emails at the companies had been intercepted, but they have hinted at a pressing national security issue, perhaps counterespionage investigations, at a time when Russian and Chinese hackers and other spies are seeking defense technologies. In conversations between Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, and the head of Ms. Merkel’s office, Peter Altmaier, the Obama administration has indicated that the information is secret for a reason. Parliamentary committees are unlikely to see a list of selectors. Other information they received, including emails between German officials and their National Security Council counterparts in the White House from 2013, was leaked to the German news media. Moreover, American officials, eager to put the Snowden revelations behind them after two years, said that helping Ms. Merkel by producing a list of spying targets could create a perilous precedent for other countries to make similar demands. That has left Ms. Merkel with little to offer but broad statements about the importance of intelligence cooperation at a time when Europeans are concerned about potential attacks by Islamic extremists. Her adversaries — and some coalition partners — have seized on Germans’ concerns about privacy and civil liberties, an issue that resonates in a country with a Nazi and Communist past. (Mr. Obama halted the practice of tapping Ms. Merkel’s cellphone after she reminded him that she had grown up under the Stasi, the East German secret service.) But Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, said last week that cooperation with Washington could suffer. “When, over months and months, secret documents repeatedly become public, then I worry that the Americans will be more hesitant to supply information,” Mr. Maassen warned, adding that the situation would hurt Germany’s security. And so far, he continued, there is “no proof that American intelligence services are spying on top German companies.” “The Americans were, are and remain a very important partner for us,” he told a security conference in Berlin this month. Intelligence officials caution that it is not easy to disrupt cooperation, and it is not clear how the German curtailment is affecting day-to-day intelligence operations or national security. Douglas Frantz, the American assistant secretary of state for public affairs, who visited Berlin last week, referred briefly to the uproar. “We need to find the right spot in our relationship with Germany,” he said of balancing tensions between surveillance and civil liberties. “Cooperation shouldn’t be held hostage to what people are calling a scandal.” The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the public broadcasters WDR and NDR added to the debate this month with coverage of large parts of the email exchanges about reaching a “no-spy” agreement. The exchanges started in the summer of 2013, with Ms. Merkel’s top foreign policy adviser worrying that the Snowden revelations could affect her re-election bid that year. The adviser, Christoph Heusgen, conveyed to Karen Donfried, who was senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council at the time, that “this issue remains crucial in turbulent domestic times at a critical juncture.” Ms. Donfried replied that “everyone here understands the very difficult position the chancellor is in” and “wants to do our very best to be helpful.” Over July and August, however, the only concrete action on the “no-spy” issue was the cancellation of a 1968 agreement between Britain, Germany and the United States on intelligence sharing — an outdated and largely irrelevant document. Senior German officials visited Washington early in August 2013 . A confidential summary of their conclusions, seen by The New York Times and mentioned in Süddeutsche Zeitung, cited James R. Clapper Jr., then the director of national intelligence, as mentioning a possible working group to study a broad intelligence agreement with the Germans, similar to the memorandum governing the Bad Aibling operation. He emphasized, however, that this was a political decision, and not his to make. Within days, Ronald Pofalla, head of Ms. Merkel’s office at the time, assured reporters that the controversy was “off the table.” Senior politicians started talking of a “no spy” accord, despite explicit warnings from the Americans that nothing concrete had been agreed. Mr. Heusgen reported to Ms. Donfried that Mr. Pofalla, after meeting lawmakers with oversight of intelligence services, had “succeeded in calming down the different storms.” “It would be great,” he added, “if you could somehow give your public blessing to the start” of talks on an N.S.A.-BND agreement. By January 2014, several email exchanges later, it was clear to Berlin that no such accord would emerge. “As you know,” Mr. Heusgen wrote to Ms. Donfried on Jan. 9, 2014, “we started the exercise with a view to conclude a ‘no-spy agreement.’ (I promise not to use the term again in the future.) We have realized that this objective will not be reached.”

Germany
Angela Merkel
Government Surveillance
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
Corporate espionage
Barack Obama
Classified Information


Of Pride, Prejudice and Harassment on Twitter

Abstract: LONDON — It began as a genteel campaign featuring period drama costumes and polite open letters to assure that British bank notes would continue to carry images of women. It ended up as a fierce national debate over money, power, rape threats and the limits of free speech in the era of social media. This being Britain, it also featured Jane Austen as a central character. Three months ago Caroline Criado-Perez, a blogger and co-founder of the Women’s Room Web site realized that there might soon be no women, save Queen Elizabeth II, left on British bank notes. Among the five historical figures featured on the notes, only one, the social reformer Elizabeth Fry, was a woman, and she was to be replaced soon by Winston Churchill. Surely, Ms. Criado-Perez argued, there were enough women of stature in British history to find at least one more? In case the Bank of England lacked inspiration, she led a group of campaigners dressed up as the suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst, the novelist George Eliot (born Mary Anne Evans) and Boadicea, the Celtic warrior queen who fought Roman invaders in 60 A.D. Ms. Criado-Perez hand-delivered pages containing more than 35,000 signatures supporting her cause to the bank in the City of London. And she collected £13,000, or nearly $20,000, in donations to mount a legal challenge if the men who ran the bank did not respond to the public campaign or to the 2010 Equality Act obliging public institutions to keep in mind the goal of gender equality in all decision-making. The departing central bank governor, Mervyn A. King — fond of pointing out that one woman features on the back of every bill and coin in her kingdom — appeared to have little time for the debate. But in July he was succeeded by Mark Carney, a Canadian and the first non-Briton to run the bank in its 319-year history. Mr. Carney seized the opportunity to make a gesture. Saying that it had always been the bank’s intention to include a woman in the line-up of historical characters, he picked an uncontroversial one: from 2017 Austen, the author of “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility” will replace Charles Darwin on the £10 note. Mr. Carney then vowed to review the whole process of choosing bank note characters. Ms. Criado-Perez said it was “a brilliant day for women.” But on the same day, harshly negative commentary started appearing on Twitter, a trickle of abuse that at one point grew into a shower of crude and explicit rape threats against Ms. Criado-Perez at a rate of nearly one post a minute. By this week, several other women who had backed her campaign, including at least one member of Parliament, had also been targeted. “I will rape you tomorrow at 9 P.M.,” read one of the few printable threats by a Twitter user with the handle @rapey1, said Stella Creasy, a Labor and Co-operative Party legislator from northeastern London. “Shall we meet near your house?” A 21-year-old man was arrested and then released on bail. Police officers in the London borough of Camden investigating the abuse against Ms. Criado-Perez said the Twitter attacks appeared to involve several people posting anonymously, or so-called trolls. What is perhaps most striking about this reaction, said Caitlin Moran, a columnist for The Times of London and author of the 2011 feminist manifesto “How to be a Woman,” is how little it took to set it off. “If even a small thing like this, a nice middle-class debate about putting Jane Austen’s picture on the opposite side of a bank note from the queen causes a storm of abuse like this, what will happen when we get to the bigger issues?” she said in a telephone interview. Herself a frequent target of abuse on Twitter, Ms. Moran is lobbying to make this Sunday a “trolliday” — a holiday from Twitter trolls — urging users to boycott Twitter for 24 hours to protest what she perceives as a lack of responsiveness to the cyberharassment. Twitter has pledged to create a new button to report abusive comments. But the company has come under pressure from 64,000 signers of an online petition to do more, showing how the same technology that exposed people to the abuse has given them tools to combat it. “It is just as essential that in seeking to enhance our freedoms we do not in fact diminish them,” Tanya Gold wrote in a column for The Guardian. She warned against asking social networking sites to “police our debate,” suggesting that “misogynists on Twitter should be shamed rather than criminalized.” Mr. Carney and his colleagues at the Bank of England may be relieved to find that the attention of equality campaigners has for now shifted focus away from the still overwhelmingly male world of finance. If the banknote campaign was about stopping women from being “airbrushed” out of history, in banking history “you don’t need an airbrush,” said Niall Ferguson, the economic historian and Harvard professor, by e-mail. In the 19th century, female members of the powerful Rothschild banking family were never allowed to look at the books, much less play a part in managing the family firm, he said. Even today, only 6 percent of today’s central bankers are women, according to Mr. Ferguson, and to be sure, as the debate in Washington surges around the candidacy of Janet Yellen to head the Federal Reserve, there has never been a female governor of the Bank of England, nicknamed nevertheless “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.” If feminists have been surprised at the force of the reaction, so have employees of the Bank of England, an economist at the bank said on condition of anonymity. The economist was not authorized to speak publicly. Jane Austen was picked precisely because of her broad appeal. She was not a feminist symbol and nobody had foreseen that selecting her would ignite controversy. “She has a wide popular and a varied political appeal,” said Devoney Looser, a professor of English at Arizona State University and an Austen specialist. “Unlike someone like Emmeline Pankhurst, it’s more difficult to slot Austen politically. She’s embraced by conservatives and progressives both.”

Cyberharassment,Online harassment
Jane Austen
Women and Girls
Bank of England
Caroline Criado-Perez
Great Britain
Social Media


Bible for C.S. Lewis Fans May Add to His Following

Abstract: Who, since the time of Jesus and his apostles, has brought more people to Christianity than anybody else? A short list would include the Roman emperor Constantine, who legalized Christian worship in 313, and Pope Urban II, who began the First Crusade in 1095. But it would also include C. S. Lewis, who moved more hearts with a pen than others have with armies. The afterlife of Clive Staples Lewis, the Oxford and Cambridge scholar who died the day President Kennedy was shot, gets more vibrant all the time. The seven books in his “Chronicles of Narnia” are being made into movies; “The Narnian,” a highly readable biography by Alan Jacobs, appeared in 2005; a stage adaptation of his book “The Screwtape Letters” is touring nationwide; a college is being founded in his honor; and his name is being used to sell Bibles. Born in Belfast in 1898 and called Jack by his friends, Lewis, who converted to Anglicanism in his 30s, would worry that this attention put him at risk for pride, which he saw as the worst sin. Michael Maudlin, an editor of the new “C.S. Lewis Bible” — a Bible annotated with Lewis quotations — says he does not want to make of Lewis a “personality cult.” But the cult is here, and growing. This Bible edition does not diminish the cult, but it should not get the blame, either. Lewis is best known for his “Narnia” children’s books, written between 1949 and 1954. But today his legacy depends less than ever on his fantasy literature. Harry Potter and the “Lord of the Rings” cycle seem more present in the culture, partly because they have yielded better cinema. And Lewis’s adult books have passionate followings. Lewis intended “Narnia” as Christian allegory, a fact his juvenile fans learn only when they grow up. By then, they may have encountered Lewis’s explicitly Christian works. His most famous apologetic is “Mere Christianity,” based on radio talks given during World War II. That book has helped convert Christians as dissimilar as the Watergate felon Charles W. Colson and the National Institutes of Health director, Francis S. Collins . In “Mere Christianity,” Lewis writes of Jesus: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.” This famous passage does not, on a second read, make much sense. After all, could not a great moral teacher have messianic delusions? But on a first read, it is quite persuasive, and classic Lewis. It is clear, confident and a bit humorous, and it offers a stark choice as it firmly suggests the right answer. According to Mr. Maudlin, an executive editor at HarperOne, the “Narnia” books are still “huge backlist sellers that dominate everything else” his company publishes by Lewis. But “Mere Christianity” still sells about 150,000 copies a year, as does “The Screwtape Letters” (1942), a satirical correspondence from an uncle demon to his nephew demon about how to lead a human astray. “I would say in the last 10 years, C. S. Lewis has sold more books than any other 10-year span since he started publishing,” Mr. Maudlin said. “He’s not only not declining, he is in his sweet spot.” No wonder HarperOne, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, repackages Lewis so. The Lewis Bible, available in cloth (18,000 copies sold since its November debut) or leather (6,000), shares a recycling genre with “A Year with C. S. Lewis,” a collection of 365 Lewis readings, which since 2003 has sold 200,000 copies. The new Bible splices in quotations from Lewis’s books and unpublished papers. For example, in Genesis, next to the story of Noah’s drunkenness, appears an excerpt from a 1955 letter to one Mrs. Johnson. “One can understand,” it reads in part, “the bitterness of some ‘temperance’ fanatics if one has ever lived with a drunkard.” But, Lewis suggests, teetotalers are wrong if they write alcohol out of the Bible . To the Book of Matthew, where Jesus denounces the outwardly but not truly religious, there is added a quotation from “Mere Christianity”: “How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious?” They are “worshiping an imaginary God.” Mr. Maudlin became an evangelical Protestant after reading Lewis in college. “But you meet Mormons or Catholics, and their favorite author might be C. S. Lewis,” he said. One can understand Mr. Maudlin’s worries about marketing Lewis, who habitually overshadows books he loved, like the Bible. The problem will only grow in May, when Lewis’s unfinished translation of the “Aeneid” appears, or in 2012, when C.S. Lewis College opens in Northfield, Mass. “He would be uncomfortable if it were sold as a personality cult, or him as mentor or guru,” Mr. Maudlin said of Lewis, whose name looms larger than the word “Bible” on the book’s cover. “So we had to make it dignified.”

Bible
Christians and Christianity
Lewis C S


Brazil: House Speaker Is Charged

Abstract: Prosecutors on Thursday filed corruption charges against Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the lower house of Congress and one of Brazil’s most powerful political figures. Investigators said that Mr. Cunha, 56, a conservative evangelical Christian radio commentator who broke from President Dilma Rousseff’s governing coalition, was involved in a money-laundering operation that was part of a graft scheme at Petrobras, the national oil company. His problems intensified in July when a consultant for a Petrobras contractor testified that Mr. Cunha had solicited and accepted a $5 million bribe. Mr. Cunha says that he is innocent and that he will remain in his post. The Supreme Court will decide whether he will stand trial.

Brazil
Eduardo Cunha
Corruption
Bribery and Kickbacks
Petrobras
House of Representatives
Congress


The Bread Basket Takes a Hit

Abstract: NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. BAGEL ZONE, like so many other regional food shops, is apologizing to its customers. In a lengthy letter posted on its front door here, the store’s owners explain that prices have gone up, fueled largely by the rise in the cost of wheat as well as other commodities. “We are aware of the financial hardships everyone is experiencing due to increasing oil and other costs,” the letter says. “However, in order to remain viable we are now forced to pass some of these increases to our customers.” These increases in the cost of ingredients are anything but incremental, approaching 300 percent over the past year, according to John DiMartino, a co-owner of Bagel Zone. He said he posted the letter in March because “there’s a perception out there it only costs a couple of pennies to make a bagel. But it’s just not the case anymore.” As a result, Mr. DiMartino said, a bagel that sold for 70 cents a year ago now sells for 95 cents. The increases in the cost of wheat have affected all types of flour — the semolina and durum used in pasta, the high-gluten flour used in pizza and bagels, and the lower-gluten flour used in cakes and pastries. The impact has spread throughout the metropolitan area on baked goods from bread to brownies, and consumers are feeling the pinch. Even the price of pizza is nearing $3 a slice at many locations. An unusual set of conditions has led to shortages, and the gyrating markets have turned bakers into commodities experts. Global demand for wheat has spiked — especially from developing countries like China and India — while droughts, most notably in Australia, and crop failures worldwide have decreased supply. Additionally, many farmers are altering their mix of crops, planting more corn to meet the growing demand of ethanol producers. Some countries have taken steps to protect their own citizens; on April 15, Kazakhstan, the world’s fifth-biggest wheat producer, suspended exports until September. Ephraim Leibtag, an economist with the Economic Research Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, said the average price of wheat in 2007 was up 48 percent over 2006. “In December alone, prices jumped 112 percent,” he said. “Since the end of 2007, wheat prices have increased another 27 percent over the last two months.” The cost of other ingredients, like eggs and milk, has also increased, on top of increases in the price of gasoline that inevitably get passed on to consumers. Joe Filc, president of Villarina Pasta, based in New Rochelle, said that while he has passed along some of the increases, he has also absorbed some and, as a result, his profit has fallen by 20 percent in the last year at his 16 stores in Connecticut and Westchester. “Our same-store sales are down 10 percent from last year as a result of both the economy and pricing,” Mr. Filc said. “People are cutting back where it’s easiest — first by not going out as much, and second by cutting down on gourmet goods, which is what we have. We’re sacrificing profits in hopes that the market will adjust itself. I don’t want to turn customers away. I’d like to keep my consumer base.” Similarly, Richard Reinwald, a third-generation baker and the owner of Reinwald’s Bakery in Huntington, N.Y., said that he faced increases of more than 200 percent in the past 16 months. “Ingredients used to be 22 percent of total cost; now it’s up to 30 percent,” he said. “We have had three price increases since the summer. Sometimes in the past we didn’t raise our prices for over a year and sometimes for two years.” To make matters worse, some shortages are occurring. Rye bread is particularly at risk, Mr. Reinwald said, because “you cannot purchase rye flour anymore.” “If you want a rye sandwich, you better get it pretty soon,” he said. “We have enough in the industry until May. The imports might make up for it, but it will be at a much higher price.” The price increases are historic, business owners say. Stew Leonard, the well-known Connecticut grocer, who has been in business for more than 30 years, said he had “never heard our farmers talking about the price of food as much as they are now. Everybody I talk to, it’s the topic.” Businesses with diverse foods are changing their suppliers or their recipes to cope with the prices. Mr. Leonard, for example, said, “We can save money by using great local farms, so we’re buying more from the local farms.” Others, like Paul Liscio, the chef and co-owner of La Casa Bianca in Whitehouse Station, N.J., said he is using “semolina, corn and polenta, blending some flours and some grains and adjusting the recipes a little.” “You get creative so you can still make a profit,” he said, adding that he had not raised his prices in four years. But for those companies for which flour-based products are their bread and butter, tinkering is not an easy answer. Noel Labat-Comess, the president of Tom Cat Bakery, in Long Island City, Queens, which supplies bread throughout the metropolitan area, said he had experimented with cheaper varieties of flour to hold down costs, but it “entails tweaking the recipe.” “We make a lot of different products, and we have high quality expectations,” he said. “Making a change that seems small really trickles down; making sure it’s right is complex.” Often overlooked is the unanticipated impact that price increases have on food banks. Mr. Reinwald said he gives his leftover bread at the end of each day to the local food pantry. But he has changed his inventory, baking closer to anticipated demand, and has fewer loaves to contribute. “I always overproduce to take care of the soup kitchen,” he said. “Now I need to underproduce, and they ask if that’s all I have. The pressure is on the soup kitchen when more people need their services.”

Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Economic Conditions and Trends
Agriculture


Earnhardt Claims Pole

Abstract: Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the pole for the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway with a blistering speed of 192.761 miles per hour. It will be the first time Earnhardt has taken green at the head of a Sprint Cup field since the April 2008 race at Texas. He is coming off a miserable season in which he failed to win a race, cracked the top 10 only five times, led a mere 146 laps in 36 races and finished 25th in the overall standings — despite racing for Hendrick Motorsports, the best team in the series.


William Christie Opens Gate to World All His Own

Abstract: Thiré, France WILLIAM CHRISTIE , among his many accomplishments, has managed to merge his vocation and his avocation. Having founded one of the world’s best Baroque orchestras, he has brought its music to his extraordinary garden here, which he has designed, shaped and cultivated over the last 30 years. The garden mixes whimsy and formality and has been listed by the French government as a historical monument. It was the first time a garden has been officially listed during its creator’s lifetime since Monet’s Giverny. The garden has been a private retreat, Mr. Christie said, a “secret garden” for himself and a few friends, where he found solace, contentment and privacy in a life filled with travel, rehearsals and performances. He spends half of his life on the road, directing and playing with the orchestra he founded in 1979, Les Arts Florissants , giving master classes at the Juilliard School and other institutions and, as he travels, coming up with ideas for his 37-acre garden, which is never quite finished. The latest, he said, is a design for a chicken run. The garden contains different styles and settings — a formal Baroque courtyard, for example, and a topiary theater shaped like a pagoda, designed as living stages for performances. But only this year did he establish a music festival here, where for several days last month he and the orchestra, joined by singers and recent graduates of Juilliard, played selections from Handel, Charpentier, Corelli, Couperin and others. “It’s an important part of my life, to construct something where I can feel comfortable and protected, and away from something else, which is what gardens historically were for,” Mr. Christie said. “The idea of creating a whole world of one’s own, that’s very important. So I’ve always been ambivalent” about opening it to strangers, he said. “This garden has a Baroque exuberance, or extravagance, and I’ve been holding on to this for a long time, so that when it started to get presentable I decided I would do something more open to the public.” The revelation of any private place is wrenching for any private person, he said, but it has also been a gesture to some of his closest collaborators. “Very old friends have suddenly discovered a facet, an aspect of my music, of my life,” he said. MR. CHRISTIE, 67, came to France in 1970 to escape the Vietnam War and a period of American history he says he found unbearable. Born in Buffalo, he signed up for the Army Reserve to stay in graduate school at Yale and spent a summer training at Fort Benning in Georgia, which horrified him. “Seeing beaches full of ladies in white gloves applauding mock attacks on mocked-up Vietnamese villages and someone calling out the body count and people applauding, it was pretty grotesque,” he said. He taught music at Dartmouth, and his contract was not renewed. At the height of the Vietnam War, and after the killings of student protesters at Kent State, “I was fed up,” he said. Then serendipity struck. In Vermont, he met a man named John Evarts, who had been a senior Unesco official involved with music. “He was bigger than life, an American Brahmin,” he said, a descendant of William Evarts, a secretary of state, attorney general and senator in the years after the Civil War. “You’ve got to get out of this place,” he said Mr. Evarts told him, because Dartmouth was no place to begin a music career. He introduced Mr. Christie to the orchestra of the BBC. Equipped with a music degree from Yale and an untested talent, Mr. Christie, a harpsichordist, got a contract with the BBC and then built a new life in France. Here he has become a famous figure who has restored to the French their Baroque repertory and has been repeatedly honored by the government for his work. The garden is considered a clue to the private Mr. Christie. “Bill has been making this garden for 30 years,” said John Hoyland, a garden consultant who has Glyndebourne, in England, as one of his clients. “This is a man who knows what he wants and has a vision. Who would dream of planting yew and turning it into a Chinese pagoda?” The garden is a palette of greens, with relatively few flowers, Mr. Hoyland said, built on four basic plants: yew, hornbeam, box and lime trees. “But the range of greens and their vibrancy, and the way the wind moves through it, and the light, it’s just magnificent,” he said. “It’s a garden that calls me back.” “The French had turned their back on their own musical tradition, and their gardening tradition, too,” Mr. Hoyland said. “Bill has shown the French their own heritage.” BUT relations with the neighbors have not always been easy for such a flamboyant foreigner, who is both appreciated and resented. Mr. Christie described a meeting of the Thiré council to discuss some houses he had bought. One was to be a rehearsal space, and a council member said, “That means you’re going to make noise.” He wanted to say that he would make less noise than her yapping dogs, but restrained himself. “I thought I’d be cute and amusing and said, ‘Well, I get paid for the noise I make, and sometimes rather well!’ ” he said. “But that went down very badly.” He said he felt it was important to open his sanctuary to his neighbors, and he also played concerts in the Thiré church. But his beautiful house, which dates from the 17th century and was an abandoned wreck when he discovered it in 1985, is off-limits except to friends. One of Mr. Christie’s friends and sponsors, Dena Kaye, said that “to fill his garden with his music is a very great thing; this is monumental for him.” Ms. Kaye, the daughter of the actor Danny Kaye, runs a foundation named after her parents, and she and her husband stayed in the house for the festival. She is working with Mr. Christie on plans for a French-American nonprofit foundation to continue the work of his orchestra and to preserve the garden and the festival. “I’m 67, going on 68, and I can see where I’m going now,” Mr. Christie said. “I’m talking about the garden but also the Arts Florissants, and that’s far more important.” He fears that the French government, in these budget-crunching days, can no longer provide as much support to culture, and he feels a bit in a hurry. “I haven’t had my say yet,” he said, staring out over the garden toward the grotto, on the hill beyond the river, as a fountain splashed and birds called to one another in the trees. “There’s an immense amount of music I want to do, to share and play with others.” He used the French word “pérennité,” or sustainability. “How do we keep things going?” he said. “And this has to do with this garden, the epicenter of my life.” It is inspiring to open his garden to visitors, he said, but it is also a great relief when they leave. “You look forward to the moment when, ah, you can walk out into the garden at any moment of the day or the early evening,” he said. “And there you are, all by yourself.”

Christie William Lincoln
Gardens and Gardening
Classical Music
Arts Florissants
Music
Thire (France)
Arts Florissants Les


Ideology Seen as Factor in Closings in University of North Carolina System

Abstract: An advisory panel of the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors has recommended closing three academic centers, including a poverty center and one dedicated to social change, inciting outrage among liberals who believe that conservatives in control of state government are targeting ideological opponents in academia. Conservatives are cheering the move, seeing it as a corrective to a higher education system they believe has lent its imprimatur to groups that engage in partisan activism. “They’re moving in the right direction, though I don’t think they went far enough,” said Francis X. De Luca, president of the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh. “A lot of these centers were started up with a specific advocacy role in mind, as opposed to an educational role.” But critics say the moves by a panel whose members were appointed by a Republican-dominated Legislature reflect the rightward tilt of state government. “It’s clearly not about cost-saving; it’s about political philosophy and the right-wing takeover of North Carolina state government,” said Chris Fitzsimon, director of NC Policy Watch, a liberal group. “And this is one of the biggest remaining pieces that they’re trying to exert their control over.” The impassioned response is the latest manifestation of a deep ideological rift in North Carolina that was exacerbated by the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. They soon enacted an ambitious conservative agenda in what had been one of the South’s more moderate states. The fate of the 17-campus public university system was bound to be affected: While many here take pride in its carefully cultivated rise to the top tier of American public education, conservatives have long groused about some campuses, particularly the flagship school at Chapel Hill, as out-of-touch havens of liberalism. Since the recession began, the state government has also subjected the system to budget cuts leading to the loss of hundreds of positions. Twenty-nine of the 32 university board members were appointed by the Legislature after the Republicans’ 2010 gains. Last year, lawmakers instructed the board to consider redirecting some of the funding that goes to the system’s 240 centers and institutes, which focus on topics ranging from child development to African studies. The advisory group’s report, which is likely to be considered by the full Board of Governors next Friday, recommends closing the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at Chapel Hill; North Carolina Central University’s Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change; and East Carolina University’s Center for Biodiversity. Jim Holmes, the chairman of the advisory group, said the three centers were not doing much work and were not encouraging multidisciplinary efforts as intended. “This is not a political issue or a political report,” he said. “Everybody wants to make it that.” Representatives of the civic engagement institute and the poverty center defended their work as substantive; officials at the biodiversity center did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. The report urges all of the centers to include in their regulations references to an existing university policy that prohibits employees from engaging in political activity on duty. It also recommends a review of the Center for Civil Rights, affiliated with the University of North Carolina School of Law, to “define center policies around advocacy.” Steven B. Long, a member of the advisory group and a former Civitas board member, said that the center had engaged in “inappropriate” activism. He also criticized it for filing costly lawsuits against local governments. The head of the poverty center, Gene R. Nichol, a law professor, said that Republican lawmakers had made it known to him, through university officials, that they would shut the center if he did not stop criticizing them and Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, in his columns for The News & Observer of Raleigh. Mr. Nichol said the center’s only agenda was to raise the profile of poverty in the state through research, teaching and advocacy. He added that the center did not receive any money directly from the Legislature, relying solely on private donations for its $120,000 annual operating budget. The problem was not the center’s work, Mr. Nichol said, but the focus of its work. “The poverty center is an immensely productive operation,” he said. “They just don’t like what we produce.”


Trainer's Hard Road Back Will Not End at the Derby

Abstract: ARCADIA, Calif., April 14 - He wants it to be about the horse, about how this chestnut that is snatching the carrot from his hand has become a favorite to win the Kentucky Derby. Instead, Dan Hendricks knows that every morning until the first Saturday in May, when reporters come calling, it is going to be about the wheelchair. It is a six-wheeler with a motor that zips him through the soft dirt of the backside and into the shedrow of his barn here at Santa Anita Race Track. Hendricks has used the chair, and loathed it, since July 2004, when he crashed his dirt bike on a groomed motocross course and was paralyzed from the waist down. He is quick to say that the chair has not affected his horse training. Brother Derek, the colt who has just snatched a $30 glove off his hand, is Exhibit A. The colt, a son of the little-known sire Benchmark, has won four races in a row. In the last, the Santa Anita Derby on April 8, he powered to a three-and-a-quarter-length victory despite the fact that his jockey, Alex Solis, was holding him back with all his might for the better part of the mile-and-an-eighth race. Hendricks, 47, listed the trainers in the sport who rarely mounted a track pony, headed by Charlie Whittingham, the Hall of Famer and two-time Kentucky Derby-winning legend. He told of the boyhood years he spent around his grandfather's riding stable near Del Mar Race Track in California and of his 31 years around racehorses. "I'm like a baseball manager now," Hendricks said. "I wear the uniform but never step on the field or take a turn at bat." He is not as scripted about what he misses. "I did a lot of the exercise riding in the mornings, 10 miles a day for 30 years," he said. "Do the math. I came up with, well, a lot." Or how depressed he often feels. "There's no doubt that it is there," Hendricks said. "It's not one thing. It's everything you have to think about to get through your day. Then there's the times you think that you're in this chair, and it's not fair. I put myself here, and there's no one else to blame." The emotions of his wife, Samantha, are more raw. They have been married for 19 years and have three sons. They have worked hard to build a nice life for their family. In 1987, Hendricks left his job as an assistant to another Hall of Famer, Richard Mandella, with six horses. More than 70 stakes victories later, he has 25 horses in his stable and an impeccable reputation as someone who prizes the health of his horses over the purse money they earn. Samantha Hendricks is a horse trader; she buys and sells mostly California-bred horses, like Brother Derek. She has the kind of horse sense that is valued at tracks across the country. So when she says the colt that her husband trains is a threat to win not only the Derby, but also the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes -- the Triple Crown -- folks listen. They ought to listen, too, when Samantha says that her husband's difficult convalescence should not be mixed up with Brother Derek's quest. The whole family is hurting. "Every single story is about this guy who gets paralyzed, and now he's the favorite to win the Kentucky Derby," she said. "It's America's sap story, when really it's a big farce is what it is. Dan is going to the barns every day, and he is enjoying the attention with Brother Derek. But his spirits are not up yet. We have a long way to go." She says she wants people to know that what has happened to her family in the past 21 months cannot be encapsulated in a newspaper article or a television feature. Hendricks was by himself when the accident occurred. He had been an accomplished motocross competitor as a teenager and returned to the sport after his boys -- Chris, 15; Matt, 13; and Greg, 10 -- embraced the thrills of racing motorcycles on rough terrain. As soon as the doctors told Hendricks that he had crushed a vertebra and would not be able to walk again, he told his wife to sell all of his horses because he never wanted to return to the track. Samantha said she knew her husband did not mean it. She also knew the cut-throat world of the backside. If the family did not project a united front, other trainers would make entreaties to the owners of the horses that Hendricks had trained. For months, she and her husband's top assistant, Francisco Alvarado, were at the barn at 5:30 a.m. Samantha picked up and delivered training charts, and Alvarado got on the horses and prepared them for the racetrack in the afternoons. "I knew Danny would eventually want to come back," said Alvarado, who is also a former Mandella assistant. "He just needed some time to figure out that this is what he loves to do." Hendricks really does want the upcoming weeks to be about Brother Derek. His road back to feeling like a whole horse trainer is tied to the colt. He bought him on behalf of the owner Cecil Peacock for $275,000 at a California 2-year-old-in-training sale. It was one of Hendricks's first forays back into the life of an active horseman for an owner who had been far more loyal than any client he had ever had. Peacock, a 79-year-old Calgary-based oilman, had won some substantial Canadian races. But Hendricks is the one and only trainer he has ever employed in the United States. Theirs is more than a business relationship. For the past 10 years, when Peacock has visited Southern California, he has always stayed in Hendricks's guest room. In fact, as soon as he heard about the accident, he offered to install an elevator in the home. Instead, Samantha sold their house and bought a one-story spread near here while Dan was still in the hospital. "I knew it would, and still is, going to be a tough road back for Danny," Peacock said. "And I'm more thrilled than anyone that we're going to the Derby. But this is about so much more than a horse race. I never doubted his capacity to train a horse. This is about a young man -- a friend -- finding a way to carry on." When Hendricks adopts the horsemen's perspective, he is brutally honest about what Brother Derek has accomplished and what is left for the colt to do. "He has been special to me in the sense that he was one of the first horses I bought at sales in this chair, and that I knew he might be my first Derby horse," Hendricks said. "But he's not special yet. He hasn't even run in the Derby, let alone won it. I think I know what he is capable of, and I'm looking forward to seeing him do it. I do know what he has done for me to this point." What has Brother Derek done? He has kept Hendricks at the barn most mornings far longer than he used to stay before the accident -- sometimes until noon or later. The colt has made him appreciate his other horses, too. Hendricks scoots down his shedrow and reaches out to scrub the necks of his horses, whether a $40,000 claimer or a Derby favorite. For Hendricks, it is, indeed, about the horse. But no matter what his colt does on the first Saturday in May or in the rest of the Triple Crown, Hendricks knows it is going to be about the wheelchair far beyond the five weeks of televised horse races. "It's here, right out in front," Hendricks said. "I know everyone has to deal with it. But nobody does more than me."

HENDRICKS DAN
HORSE RACING
KENTUCKY DERBY
JOCKEYS DRIVERS AND TRAINERS
PREAKNESS STAKES


Iran: MERS Virus Reaches Its 20th Country

Abstract: A deadly respiratory virus that originated in Saudi Arabia two years ago has reached Iran, infecting two sisters in the southeast province of Kerman, the health ministry reported. In a statement posted on the ministry’s website , it said two other members of the same family had the symptoms of the disease, known as Middle East Respiratory Syndome or MERS, but their cases had not been confirmed. According to the World Health Organization , 636 laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS have been reported, including 193 deaths. Most of the deaths have been in Saudi Arabia. Iran is the 20th country to report MERS.


Ex-President of Brazil Faces New Corruption Charges

Abstract: SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Federal prosecutors filed new corruption charges on Monday against Brazil ’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , raising pressure on him and his family over dealings in Angola, the oil-rich country where Brazilian companies have aggressively raised their profile over the last decade. The charges are the latest blow to Mr. da Silva, 70, who has been one of Latin America’s most influential politicians. In the scandal around the national oil company, Petrobras , he is already facing two separate trials on obstruction charges and charges that he illegally benefited from ties to O.A.S., a Brazilian construction company. Opening a new legal front against Mr. da Silva, who was president from 2003 to 2010, prosecutors said that he helped the Brazilian engineering giant Odebrecht obtain lucrative contracts in Angola that benefited Taiguara Rodrigues, the nephew of Mr. da Silva’s first wife. In addition to the charges related to Mr. da Silva’s time as president, prosecutors said that he continued seeking advantages for Odebrecht in the form of coveted financing from Brazil’s national development bank for projects in Angola, a former Portuguese colony controlled by José Eduardo dos Santos, one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders. In return, the prosecutors said that Odebrecht paid large sums to Mr. da Silva for speeches in recent years while also financially helping the former president’s brother, José Ferreira da Silva, in the form of paying for his private health insurance and gasoline. While a judge still needs to accept the charges for Mr. da Silva to go on trial in this case, the move by prosecutors adds to his mounting troubles and those of his leftist Workers’ Party. Voters across Brazil turned against the party in municipal elections this month. Despite such reversals, Mr. da Silva, who is universally known as Lula, still ranks among the leading contenders ahead of the presidential election in 2018. Many voters remember him fondly for expanding programs that lifted millions into the middle class, before the impeachment and ouster this year of his successor, Dilma Rousseff. Mr. da Silva’s lawyers argued on Monday, as the former leader himself repeatedly has done in recent months, that prosecutors were politically biased. Mr. da Silva has also insisted that he did nothing illegal as president or after he left office. “Prosecutors want Lula out of the next election,” Cristiano Zanin Martins, a lawyer for Mr. da Silva, said at a news conference. Mr. da Silva is not the only politician on edge over ties to Odebrecht. Brazilian news organizations are reporting that executives from the construction giant are in talks to forge a leniency deal in which they would divulge bribes and kickbacks for dozens of political leaders from across the ideological spectrum. Marcelo Odebrecht, the company’s former chief executive and one of Brazil’s richest men, is already serving a 19-year sentence for his conviction on corruption and money laundering charges. Prosecutors charged him again on Monday in the Angola case, claiming he oversaw illegal payments for Mr. da Silva and his two family members.

Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva
Brazil
Petrobras
OAS
Corruption
Dilma Rousseff


Cantor’s Loss a Bad Omen for Moderates

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The House Republican leadership, so solid in its opposition to President Obama, was torn apart Tuesday by the defeat of its most influential conservative voice, Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader. His demise will reverberate all the way to the speaker’s chair, pull the top echelons of the House even further to the right and most likely doom any ambitious legislation, possibly through the next presidential election. Conservatives who have helped fuel some of the most contentious showdowns over the last three years on issues such as immigration and raising the federal debt ceiling are likely to be emboldened by Mr. Cantor’s shocking loss as they seek to replace him with someone even more closely aligned with their views. Further, House Republicans began to immediately plot a new leadership structure that before Tuesday night had hinged merely on whether Speaker John A. Boehner would seek to keep his post next year. Video Jonathan Martin on the reasons behind Eric Cantor’s surprise defeat in Virginia. Was he just a weak candidate? Credit Credit Steve Helber/Associated Press One measure of the extraordinary defeat could be seen in the candidate’s finances. Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Cantor’s campaign had spent about $168,637 at steakhouses compared with the $200,000 his challenger, David Brat, had spent on his entire campaign. With Mr. Cantor out, members from solidly Republican states will almost certainly be vying for one of the top jobs, if not Mr. Boehner’s gavel. The current Republican leadership slate is filled with members from swing states where the pressure to moderate views on topics such as immigration looms. Conservatives who were part of some of the recent showdowns now see potential spoils: Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for example, has been laying the groundwork for the last several weeks to slide into an open slot should Mr. Boehner retire and, it was assumed, Mr. Cantor take his spot. While the most conservative members saw immediate validation in Mr. Cantor’s defeat, more conciliatory members saw deep trouble ahead. A chastened House leadership will struggle to do the most basic functions of governance — increasing the debt limit, funding the government and passing routine bills — further alienating Congress with the middle of the electorate, said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. Mr. Cantor’s defeat will put an immigration overhaul even further out of reach, something that would hurt Republicans in the next presidential election when they will need to cut into the Democrats’ lead with immigrant and Latino voters. “The results tonight will move the party further to the right, which will marginalize us further as a national party,” Mr. King said. Video Excerpts from the concession speech by Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia and the victory address by David Brat, the Tea Party candidate who won Virginia’s Republican primary. Credit Credit Steve Helber/Associated Press The message from the most conservative primary voters was that even Mr. Cantor, who fashioned himself as the tip of the Tea Party’s spear, was not safe. His position in favor of a modest relaxation of immigration law became the rallying cry for the right. And in a year when the Republican establishment was supposed to finally conquer its Tea Party wing, the upstarts wound up with perhaps the biggest victory of any primary season. David Wasserman, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said another, more local factor has to be acknowledged: Mr. Cantor, who dreamed of becoming the first Jewish speaker of the House, was culturally out of step with a redrawn district that was more rural, more gun-oriented and more conservative. “Part of this plays into his religion,” Mr. Wasserman said. “You can’t ignore the elephant in the room.” Mr. Cantor’s demise is mildly Shakespearean. Along with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, Mr. Cantor helped elevate Tea Party candidates in 2010 across the nation by giving them financial and political support, only to be done in by the very type of newcomer he once groomed. Mr. Cantor can still mount a write-in campaign ahead of the November election, but he would face long odds. Mr. King said no one saw the defeat coming. Mr. Cantor was spending money, at least $5 million through the middle of May, lining up an array of the Republican consultants and pollsters. He was a prodigious fund-raiser and a well-liked ambassador to many of the party’s top donors. Lawmakers thought he was simply trying to run up the score to establish dominance in the district, and he had evinced no concern whatsoever, lawmakers said Tuesday night. Mr. Wasserman predicted “a free-for-all” when House Republicans assemble after November to pick their new leaders. At the least, Mr. McCarthy, the No. 3 Republican, will seek to move up to majority leader, but he also could challenge Mr. Boehner. Where Eric Cantor Won and Lost Map of the results and charts of his margins in previous elections. More broadly, Mr. Cantor’s defeat will embolden conservatives like Representative Tom Price of Georgia, who has openly complained that the leadership positions are occupied by swing-state Republicans. Candidates to move up could include Mr. Price, Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, or brash newcomers like Representative Tom Graves of Georgia, Mr. Wasserman said. The message is that the House must be run by even more conservative leaders. At the least, Mr. Obama’s push for a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws now seems even more elusive. Mr. Cantor’s opponent, Mr. Brat, had virtually no money to conduct a true campaign, but he focused on immigration. His megaphone was conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham, who criticized Mr. Cantor’s positions on immigration. “The world just changed,” said Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a fierce opponent of the immigration overhaul.

Primaries
Eric Cantor
Republicans
Tea Party movement
US Politics
Virginia
Dave Brat


For Buckyballs Toys, Child Safety Is a Growing Issue

Abstract: Three years ago, two pals from Brooklyn came up with the idea of creating a desktop toy out of powerful magnets. Their creation, Buckyballs, became an instant hit. And by this year, the two — Craig Zucker and Jake Bronstein — had expected annual sales to reach about $25 million. But their business plan has hit a major, unanticipated snag. Buckyballs are made from rare-earth elements, which makes them much more powerful than most magnets — and potentially more dangerous when ingested. Though the product is marketed to adults and festooned with warning labels, regulators have moved to stop sales because children keep swallowing Buckyballs and similar products made by others. An administrative complaint filed last month by the Consumer Product Safety Commission seeks to require the company — officially called Maxfield & Oberton Holdings — to tell the public about the problem and offer customers a refund. The safety commission also asked 12 other manufacturers of rare-earth magnets to voluntarily recall their products and stop sales; 11 have complied. Besides Buckyballs, Zen Magnets, a small company in Denver, refused. Last week, the safety commission filed an administrative complaint against Zen Magnets too.“The labeling, the warnings, the packaging does not work,” Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the safety agency, said of the products. “You have young children who come into a room and get their hands on a loose magnet or two.” The action involving Buckyballs and Zen Magnets is unusual because the safety commission rarely files an administrative complaint, which is essentially a request for a mandatory recall. The last one, filed 11 years ago, was against Daisy Manufacturing, which makes BB guns. In Buckyballs’ case, a hearing will be scheduled before an administrative law judge, who will decide whether to grant the safety commission’s request. In the meantime, Mr. Zucker has started an aggressive public campaign to win support for Buckyballs. Using the cheeky slogan “Save Our Balls,” his company has taken out newspaper ads in Washington, directed at President Obama and lawmakers, and stoked a campaign on social media Web sites like Facebook and Twitter. In doing so, Mr. Zucker has found enthusiastic support from those who believe the Obama administration has pushed regulation too far. “When an adult, a 28-year-old, can’t buy this for their desk, then this agency has run amok,” said Mr. Zucker. “This is government gone absurd.” There were an estimated 1,700 incidents of rare-earth magnets being swallowed and requiring emergency room care, in some cases surgery, in the three years beginning in January 2009, according to the safety commission. It was not clear how many of those incidents involved Buckyballs, the dominant vendor in the United States. Mr. Zucker, 33, said there have been 2.5 million sets of Buckyballs sold and the company has confirmed 12 swallowing incidents. A set of 216 Buckyballs, which are about the size of BBs, costs $35 (colored Buckyballs cost $40). Swallowing two or more rare-earth magnets is particularly dangerous because they attract each other in the intestines and can cause blockages, tissue damage and even perforation. “Kids do swallow all kinds of stuff, but few pose the kind of risk that these magnets do,” said Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Texas Children’s Hospital, who treated a toddler whose bowel had been perforated after swallowing rare-earth magnets. “These are very unique magnets. They are incredibly powerful.” While expressing sympathy for the victims, Mr. Zucker maintained that the complaint against his company was a case of selective enforcement. He noted that the safety commission has not banned many other products that cause far more injuries, and even deaths, to children, including all-terrain vehicles, button-cell batteries and window blinds. “You can’t say warnings work on some products but not others,” he said. But this is not the first effort by the safety commission to crack down on magnets. In 2006, for instance, the agency announced the recall of several million toys because children were swallowing magnets that had fallen out of them, causing injuries and at least one death. Toy manufacturers are now required to encase magnets so they will not fall out. Initially at least, Mr. Zucker worked with the safety commission to try to educate consumers that the magnets were dangerous to children. The company voluntarily recalled 175,000 sets of Buckyballs in 2010 because they were labeled for “Ages 13+.” The warning was changed to say that Buckyballs should be kept away from all children. A year and half later, the safety agency and Mr. Zucker created a safety alert video to warn consumers about the dangers of ingesting magnets. Mr. Zucker said his company also created a Web site, called magnetsafety.com , for the same purpose, and required retailers to agree not to sell the product to children. But the injuries continued, leading to the newest action against the 13 manufacturers. In a statement on its Web site , Zen Magnets’ founder, Shihan Qu, noted that there had been no reports of children ingesting its magnets. “Obviously we are being punished because children have regretfully misused our competitor’s magnets,” he said. “I urge those within the C.P.S.C. to think twice before applying the death penalty to innocent corporate citizens.” Daniel Peykar, co-founder of Magnicube, said his six-month-old company agreed to voluntarily stop selling its rare-earth magnets, at least temporarily, because it did not want to pay the legal fees associated with an administrative complaint. “Hopefully, they will come up with a resolution on labeling and that will apply to everyone in the industry,” he said. But Mr. Peykar, of Pine Brook, N.J., said he did not agree with the commission’s actions. “The C.P.S.C. has gone to great lengths to try to ban a product rather than come up with a reasonable resolution,” he said. The safety commission and consumer advocates maintain that the ban is warranted because rare-earth magnets are irresistible to children, even if the packaging says the toys are intended for adults. In the past, the commission has banned toys that it deemed too dangerous, like lawn darts, Mr. Wolfson said. Not surprisingly, Betty Lopez, whose 12-year-old daughter swallowed four Buckyballs in March while pretending to have a pierced tongue, supports the commission’s actions. “There were kind of three portions of the bowel that were stuck together by the Buckyballs,” said Ms. Lopez, who explained that her daughter required two operations and missed a month of school. “Knowing what my daughter went through, I don’t feel that Buckyballs serve any true purpose.” Such injuries have marred what may have been a feel-good business success story that started in a Williamsburg apartment in Brooklyn in 2009. Mr. Zucker was an entrepreneur who started, among other things, a bottled water business that sold New York City tap water. Mr. Bronstein wrote a blog, zoomdoggle.com , that offered tips about workplace fun. After they saw rare-earth magnets on YouTube, they bought some inventory and repackaged them as Buckyballs (the nickname of a spherical carbon molecule that resembles the geodesic dome popularized by the inventor R. Buckminster Fuller ). At first, the two packed the magnets themselves and walked orders to the post office. Before long, they struggled to keep up with the demand. This year, they were on pace to sell 1.5 million sets, at least before the safety commission’s actions. “We put $1,000 each into it,” said Mr. Zucker, whose cause to stay in business has been championed by the conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin, among others. “We never put in another dime. No loans. No investors. We exceeded every single expectation.” But now, Mr. Zucker says he is fighting for the survival of his business, which is in a cramped office with eight employees and a “We Love Our Jobs” sign, made out of Buckyballs, on the front door. And he is hoping customers will rally behind his unconventional campaign. For instance, last week his company urged its Facebook fans to contact the agency “that is trying to take away our balls,” and it listed the names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of Mr. Wolfson and the commission members, along with unflattering caricatures. Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety at the Consumer Federation of America, said the Buckyballs campaign was simply an effort to shift the focus away from safety. “The essence here is safety, that children are being injured in horrendous ways,” she said. “It is classic industry strategy: changing the subject, attacking the messenger.” Mr. Zucker prefers to cast the issue as one of fairness. “This is an issue about when can consumers make a decision to buy an adult product?” he said. “It’s a good fight. And it’s a fight I think we can win.”

Magnets and Magnetism
Toys
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Babies and Infants
Accidents and Safety
Zen Magnets LLC
Maxfield & Oberton Holdings LLC


Long-Time Boston University Coach Retires

Abstract: Boston University Coach Jack Parker is retiring after 40 years on a job in which he won 894 games and 3 national championships. The program was damaged last season by sexual assault charges against two players and an ensuing report that said there was a “culture of sexual entitlement” on the team.


From Netflix, a Step Toward Any Movie, Anytime

Abstract: Any movie, any time. Is that too much to ask? It’s technically possible. It’s what the people want. It will make the movie companies rich. And yet not a single legal source of movies — hotel, plane, pay-per-view, video store, Apple TV, Vudu box, Internet downloads, nothing — offers instant delivery of any movie you want. Netflix comes close. It’s got the “any movie” part covered, since it stocks virtually every movie ever released on DVD — about 100,000 titles. As for “any time,” well, Netflix is best known as a DVD-by-mail company. You can freely rent and return DVD movies all month long for a fixed monthly fee ($9 to check out one movie, $14 for two at a time); they come and go in bright red, postage-already-paid mailing envelopes. There are no late fees or penalties. But “any time” boils down to “in a day or two,” because you have to wait for the movie to come in the mail. But Netflix has been clawing its way out of its dependence on the postal system with a feature called Watch Now — and it’s especially worth watching now. Phase 1. Twelve months ago, Netflix revealed the original Watch Now. It let you, a regular Netflix subscriber, watch any of 1,000 streaming movies on your Windows PC, on demand, without having to download them first. In the following months, the catalog grew to 12,000 movies; more are constantly added. Mac software came next. The monthly hours-of-watching limit was eliminated; now any Netflix member with a plan of $9 or more can watch unlimited streaming movies, for no extra charge. No extra charge is a crazy, game-changing concept. It transforms movie consumption from à la carte into all you can eat. You can watch favorite scenes of individual movies, or try a movie for 15 minutes and then change your mind. In short, you can movie surf, without ever worrying about running up your bill. Still, a desk chair in front of a PC is not what most people would call the ultimate home theater setup. Phase 2. Eight months ago, Netflix and Roku introduced a tiny TV-connected box ($100) that does only one thing, but very well: it lets you watch Netflix streaming movies on your TV instead of your PC. Since a remote control and a TV screen make a clumsy system for browsing and searching the catalog, you still pick the movies you want using your Mac or PC, at Netflix.com . Whatever assortment of titles you choose online appears instantly on your TV’s list of available movies. The Roku box is great. But let’s face it: It’s another remote to learn, another gadget to connect and more wires around the TV. Phase 3. About six months ago, things began to get really interesting. The Roku box was basically just a plastic box o’ software — software that could be built into machines that are already connected to your TV. One by one, the announcements came: Netflix instant movies became a TiVo feature. An Xbox 360 feature. A Blu-ray DVD player feature (LG and Samsung). Even a feature built right into the TV sets themselves (LG and Vizio, starting this spring). There’s genius to this master plan; everybody, apparently, wins. Consumers get a better on-demand movie deal than they’ll find anywhere else: $9 a month, unlimited. Netflix attracts millions more subscribers. And the equipment manufacturers gain a marketable new feature without having to spend another nickel on hardware. You shouldn’t be surprised, in other words, if this instant Netflix thing becomes a huge, megalithic hit, a dominant movie delivery system, a more-or-less standard feature of home theater setups. To find out what that future will look like, I’ve made an enormous sacrifice in the name of science. I’ve spent several months watching movies, using three of the first Netflix-enhanced products: my own TiVo, an Xbox 360 and an LG Blu-ray player (the BD300). Here’s what I found. TiVo: The Netflix feature quietly installed itself in the TiVo’s menus one night, without my awareness or involvement. On the TiVo menu, you choose Video on Demand; you’re shown a list of services like YouTube and Amazon Unbox. Choose Netflix, and bam: there’s your list of Watch Now movies, in a scrolling vertical list. Hit Play to play one. (This works on TiVo HD, HD XL and Series 3 models.) Xbox 360: Assuming you’ve upgraded your Xbox with Microsoft’s most excellent November software update, Netflix is now part of your game console. Log in, choose the Video Marketplace page, click Netflix and there’s your Netflix movie list, gorgeously represented as colorful DVD cases, which flip past as you browse (something like Apple’s Cover Flow feature in iTunes). There’s one crushing downside, however: you have to pay Microsoft $50 a year for this feature, which is absurd. (That gains you a Gold membership, which also includes other perks.) LG BD300: The BD300 is a Blu-ray DVD player ($333 bought online). It’s black and shiny and slim, with a beautiful main menu that offers five icons: Movie, Netflix Streaming, Photo, Music and Setup. You don’t need a manual to figure out where to go to see your Watch Now movie list. On all of these machines, each movie remembers exactly where you left off watching, even if it was on a different machine. Amazing. Now, instant fixed-fee access to 12,000 movies and TV shows is giddy and life-changing. There are, however, some disappointments. First, you need a high-speed Internet connection to your TV setup. The faster the service, the better video quality you get; hi-def TV shows, in particular, look fantastic on a decent cable modem. Second, remember that these movies are streaming. They’re not stored on a hard drive (unlike the Apple TV, Vudu box or Blockbuster’s rival MediaPoint box). So every time you fast-forward or rewind, there’s a 10-second pause for “rebuffering.” Fortunately, most people don’t scan through movies often; usually, you just sit back and let them play. And when you do scan, little thumbnail images of the movie scenes flash by, one for every 10 seconds of movie, so you have some guidance as you skim. The third problem is that, as with all Internet downloads, you miss out on a lot: surround sound, subtitles, alternative endings, director’s commentaries and other DVD supplements. Fourth, and biggest, problem: not all of those 12,000 movies are, ahem, what you’d call Oscar material. There’s an awful lot of chaff, and no new DVD releases at all. (Thanks to the ridiculous Hollywood system of “release windows,” Internet services can’t offer new movies until after they have had their runs on pay-per-view, hotels, DVD “new release” periods and so on.) On the other hand, that still leaves several thousand great marquee movies to choose from (including the entire Starz Play catalog of 1,200 fairly recent hits: “Ratatouille,” “Superbad,” “No Country for Old Men” and the like). Furthermore, you’re still a Netflix DVD-by-mail customer; if you’re craving a movie that just came out on DVD, you can still get it by mail. Actually, there’s one more point worth noting — not a technical one, but a psychological one. There’s a side effect of “any movie, any time” that not many people consider. Once you stop having to pay for movies individually, once you’re able to freely movie surf, you lose the risk of making the wrong decision — and some of the joy at having made a good one. In short, movies become a little less special. Nonetheless, the industry has been trying to sell us on Internet movie downloads for years, and yet it’s remained a techie niche until now. It took Netflix to figure out how to crack the technology code, bringing us tantalizingly close to the “any movie, any time” future that’s surely just around the corner.

Motion Pictures
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)
Computers and the Internet
Netflix Incorporated
Digital Video Recorders
TiVo Incorporated
Roku
YouTube.com