At Hearing, a Dispute Over Banking Provision in Reform Law

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The unity of regulators who have to put the Dodd-Frank financial reform law into effect was put to the test at a Congressional hearing Thursday as squabbling emerged over a provision affecting lenders. The disagreement involved a measure requiring lenders to keep at least 5 percent of the credit risk when they bundle and sell debt. Before the housing market collapsed in 2007, many mortgage originators made reckless loans, in part because they were able to quickly sell them to other investors to lay off the risk. The new law required regulators to change that. So on Monday, the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation voted 4 to 1 to approve a rule that makes “risk retention” by banks a condition for any bank that wants protection under new accounting rules if the bank were to fail. In principle, the rule was consistent with the new law, but because other agencies needed to adopt their own, similar regulations to conform to the law, the timing of the vote rankled other regulators and some lawmakers. “I know you sort of jumped out in advance of everybody in that regard, and I’m just wondering if you’ve had any input from the other agencies,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, asked the F.D.I.C. chairwoman, Sheila C. Bair, at the hearing. Ms. Bair replied that the F.D.I.C. had no choice but to act because it faced a deadline relating to new accounting standards. “If we didn’t do something we would have disrupted the securitization market,” she said. But John Walsh, acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, who sits on the F.D.I.C. board and was the lone opposition vote, testified that the deadline could have been extended, and that “we didn’t see any great downside” to doing so. Mr. Corker wryly observed, “I sense a slightly less playing-well-together than appeared.” The F.D.I.C. vote irritated the Treasury Department, whose leader, Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, has occasionally clashed with Ms. Bair. In addition, the American Securitization Forum, which represents 350 companies involved in the packaging and sale of loans, said the F.D.I.C. had “acted ahead of other regulators in an uncoordinated manner.” The issue is hardly the most urgent one requiring regulatory coordination, but members of the Senate Banking Committee made it clear Thursday that they were concerned that the process be harmonious. One of the crucial questions in the months ahead is whether the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission can overcome an entrenched rivalry and jointly develop rules governing over-the-counter derivatives . “Mark my words here this morning: there will be another crisis, as certain as we’re sitting here,” said the committee’s chairman, Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and one of the leading authors of the act. “Greed and recklessness will rear their heads again.” Mr. Dodd said that “we have provided regulators with the tools they need to see it coming and to put a stop to it in time,” but cautioned, “Whether they will actually do so largely depends upon the foundation laid by those of you who are before us today.” Among its many provisions, the law created a body of regulators, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, led by the Treasury secretary, which will meet for the first time on Friday. Over the long run, the council, which is supposed to watch out for future risks to the financial system, will test the ability of regulators to work together. The initial meeting — to be streamed live on the Treasury Department’s Web site — will touch upon two big areas that will require regulators to cooperate. The council will begin a discussion of which criteria to use in determining whether a nonbank financial company is “systemically important” and therefore needs to be supervised by the Federal Reserve. The council will also start a process for hashing out details of the Volcker Rule , a much-debated provision of the law that is intended to restrict banks from making certain kinds of speculative investments if they are not on behalf of their clients. Neal S. Wolin, deputy Treasury secretary, testified that the council was required under the law to commission four studies: two relating to the Volcker Rule, one concerning the risk-retention issue that the F.D.I.C. had already acted upon; and a final one concerning “the overall economic effect” of the Dodd-Frank law. But Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, who opposed the law, criticized the whole enterprise. “By delegating the major policy decisions — and therefore, most of the real work — to the regulators, the Dodd-Frank legislation undermines the effectiveness of our regulators by asking them to do too much,” Mr. Shelby said.

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010)


At Paralympics, First Thing Judged Is Disability

Abstract: LONDON — Anthony Dawson, who has cerebral palsy and little muscle function on his right side, rode for South Africa in the first round of the equestrian dressage competition at the Paralympics on Thursday, guiding his horse through an intricately choreographed series of movements. Last summer he had to perform an altogether different set of exercises in front of a medical professional, a way of determining what for many is the most crucial and potentially fraught aspect of the Paralympics: the disability category in which he would compete. There are five grades for Paralympic equestrians , ranging from 1A, for the most severely disabled riders, to IV, for the least impaired. Dawson, 17, was put in Grade II, the group to which he has been assigned in every evaluation he has gone through. He is confident that he belongs there, though some of his competitors clearly are not: so far in his brief career, Dawson said, he has been the subject of eight official complaints about his classification. “They were saying that I’m too able for Grade II,” he said. “But Grade II is by far the most diverse grade, and that’s where I’ve always been placed.” He added dryly, “I have really gotten to know the classifiers.” The London Paralympics, which opened Wednesday, are no less competitive than the Olympics held here earlier this summer. The Paralympics are the largest ever, with 4,200 athletes competing in 20 sports. Some are in wheelchairs, some are wholly or partially blind, some have three, two, one or no limbs, some have dwarfism, some have intellectual deficits, some have complex coordination and muscle-control problems and some have multisymptom conditions like multiple sclerosis. The classifiers, as they are called, must ensure that athletes compete against others with similar levels of ability — an exercise in physical examination and assessment that exists nowhere else in sports. “Its not always as simple as if you’re just dealing with amputations, for example — one arm, one leg,” said Christine Meaden, chief classifier for the International Paralympic Equestrian Committee. “We have people with coordination problems, paralysis, amputations and visual impairments — and people who have a mixture of types of disabilities.” Paralympians have to be assessed by international classifiers before arriving at the Games. But, said Peter van der Vliet, the International Paralympic Committee’s chief medical classifier, some 245 athletes here have been deemed borderline — hovering between one grade and another — and have been reassessed at the Games. Forty have been moved to different classifications, and eight athletes (in track and field, swimming and judo) have been ruled ineligible and sent home because, he said, they did not meet “the minimal disability criterion.” The classification process is multifaceted and different for each sport. Riders in international equestrian events are observed riding in competition. They also have to undergo face-to-face medical evaluations from two international classifiers, involving a range of movements that tests for strength, coordination and flexibility. The exercises can be as straightforward as touching a finger and thumb together, moving the shoulder, or placing a heel in set spots on the ground. “They seem like simple tasks,” said Dawson, “but when I started doing them I was like, ‘Oh, my life — this is so difficult.’ ” The system is meant to focus on the athletes’ physical abilities and on the limitations their disabilities impose, not on their riding prowess. But it can anger competitors who believe that they are being forced to compete against people who are less disabled than they are. “People will say, ‘You shouldn’t be in grade 1A — you ride so well,’ ” said Donna Ponessa, a rider on the United States team. She has multiple sclerosis and is paralyzed from the chest down. She uses a wheelchair and a ventilator, except when she rides. “But I’ve given up a year and a half of my life for the Olympics,” she said — time almost entirely spent riding, exercising at the gym or working. Riders with fluctuating conditions like multiple sclerosis are frequently re-evaluated, and athletes unhappy with their classifications can appeal. “There are two reasons for this,” Mr. van der Vliet said. “First, it’s a fundamental right that if an athlete believes a wrong decision is taken, he has a right to protest. And with some athletes their default mode is that they will challenge a decision any time they can when they are not in agreement with it.” Swimming has 10 classifications for athletes with different physical impairments, plus three more for visual impairments and one for athletes with intellectual deficits. For that reason it is particularly prone to challenges, and swimmers say they sometimes suspect that athletes have not been classified correctly. Three weeks before she was set to compete in the London Paralympics, Mallory Weggemann, an American swimmer who is paralyzed from the waist down, learned that officials from the International Paralympic Committee had questions about her level of ability and were requiring her to submit to reclassification in London. Weggemann has always swum at the S7 level, against athletes who, for instance, might have double leg amputations or paralysis down one side of their bodies. But after a physical evaluation by two examiners four days ago, she was abruptly moved to level S8, a class in which the athletes are less disabled. “I have no function or feeling from the belly button down, and now I’m competing against people who are, say, missing just one arm or have leg amputations below the knee,” Weggeman said. “I think there’s a significant difference in functional ability between myself and the new competitors.” It works both ways, and athletes say they have all heard of instances of people trying to game the system. “I think I’m in the right class, but always there are some people who — how do you say this? — lie a little more than others and pretend to be worse than they are,” said Amaya Alonso , a Spanish swimmer who competed Thursday in the women’s 400-meter freestyle S12 class , for swimmers with visual impairments. One competitor, who did not want to be identified talking about cheating, said: “You hear people say, ‘Well, I know what it takes to be a I or a II.’ Everybody is in search of that win, present company included, and I’m told that some people are less than scrupulous.” Asked if the system was vulnerable to abuse, Mr. van der Vliet said: “I can counter that one with a question: can I eliminate doping from the Games?” (The answer is no.) The most notorious example of Paralympic classification manipulation took place at the 2000 Games in Sydney. The Spanish men’s intellectual disability basketball team was stripped of its gold medal after it emerged that many of its members were not intellectually disabled at all . After that, mentally disabled athletes were barred from the Paralympics while officials revised the classification process; they are back again this year. The athletes say they sympathize with the difficulties faced by the classifiers, who are forced to determine how to sort people who have several hundred different types and degrees of disability. “No system is perfect,” Dale Dedrick, a U.S. para-equestrian who has systemic lupus and competes at Level II, said in an e-mail. “Before I would wish to challenge someone else’s disability, however, I would consider carefully the old adage of walking a mile in their shoes.”

Paralympic Games
Disabilities
Horsemanship and Equestrian Events
Swimming


Santander to Pay $6.4 Million in Puerto Rico Bond Settlement

Abstract: For the second time in less than a month, a global bank with operations in Puerto Rico has agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle accusations that it violated industry rules when selling the island’s bonds to customers. Santander Securities, a subsidiary of Banco Santander, will pay $4.3 million in restitution to clients on the island who lost money on Puerto Rican bonds, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, known as Finra. Finra also said that the brokerage unit would buy back Puerto Rican bonds from a limited group of customers who still hold them, and would pay a fine of $2 million for failing to properly supervise its employees. It estimated the total restitution and penalties at $6.42 million. Finra’s settlement letter said it was relevant that the Santander unit had already been disciplined in 2011, and was required to pay $9 million to resolve other “deficiencies.” A spokeswoman for Santander said that the brokerage unit was “pleased to resolve this matter” and would comply with the settlement terms. “The firm has taken steps to enhance its controls in connection with the activities described in the Finra letter,” she said. For many years Puerto Rican bonds were a popular investment, both on the island and the United States mainland, because they offer tax benefits and often a higher yield than comparable bonds issued by American states and cities. Puerto Rico is now in deep financial trouble, however, and its governor, Alejandro García Padilla, has been calling for a debt moratorium. In this environment, its bonds’ values have plunged. Finra’s enforcement action grew out of the way Santander Securities brokers bought and sold the bonds in the firm’s dealings with customers over about three and a half years, starting in 2010. Some of the violations began in December 2012, when Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds to one notch above junk, saying that the island was carrying a large, growing debt; that its pension system might run out of money; and that it was issuing bonds to raise cash for day-to-day operations, a practice that is not sustainable. Just one month earlier, the Santander brokerage unit had begun selling off its own inventory of Puerto Rico’s bonds. The downgrade prompted it to accelerate the process, Finra said, reflecting the firm’s heightened concern about the risk. But at the same time, the Santander unit did nothing to change the internal, color-coded system that its brokers used to assess the risks of various securities. The system made it seem as if nothing had happened, and the brokers kept selling the bonds to their clients. Retail customers bought about $180 million of the bonds directly, and another $101 million of them through Santander’s closed-end funds. In addition, the Santander unit failed to supervise its clients’ use of margin loans to buy even more of the bonds than their own resources would permit. That meant some clients not only bought the shaky debt instruments, but ended up increasing their own indebtedness as well, Finra said. In a falling market, a brokerage firm is expected to have systems for tracking its clients’ margin purchases and making sure they are still suitable. Finra said some Santander brokers who received “buy” orders from their clients sold them Puerto Rican bonds out of their personal portfolios. Finra said the brokerage unit was required to monitor such transactions to make sure the customers knew there was a potential conflict of interest, but it had no procedures in place for doing so. It said the clients bought about $50 million worth of the bonds in such transactions. The settlement calls for Santander to buy back the bonds that were sold out of employee accounts, for a total $121,000. Finra earlier took an enforcement action against the Puerto Rican operations of UBS, the large Swiss bank. It agreed to pay a total of $34 million in fines and restitution after Finra, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission, found improprieties and conflicts of interest in the underwriting and marketing of Puerto Rican bonds. Neither enforcement action affects American investors on the mainland who have purchased Puerto Rican bonds.

Banco Santander S A
Puerto Rico
Government bond
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
Securities fraud
Alejandro Garcia Padilla


Europe Approves Microsoft Purchase of Skype

Abstract: BERLIN — The European Commission on Friday approved Microsoft ’s $8.5 billion purchase of Skype , saying it had no objections to a deal that would link the world’s largest software maker with the leading Internet communications service. While the assent from the European competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, is not the final antitrust hurdle for the transaction — regulators in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan are still deliberating — the positive review from Brussels was considered the last significant threat to what would be Microsoft’s largest takeover to date. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the transaction in June. In voicing no objections to the deal, Mr. Almunia, a Spanish economist, chose not to act on a complaint from an Italian competitor to Skype, Messagenet of Milan, which had asked that the deal be blocked unless Microsoft opened Skype’s 124-million user network to competitors. Mr. Almunia in February approved Microsoft’s purchase of the search advertising business of Yahoo. This time, the competition commissioner said he was approving the purchase of Skype “because the deal would not significantly impede effective competition,” according to a statement by his office. In the consumer communications business, the commission said Microsoft and Skype overlapped only in video communications, which Microsoft offers separately through its Windows Live Messenger program. “However, the commission considers that there are no competition concerns in this growing market where numerous players, including Google, are present,” the commission said in its statement. In the sale of Internet communications to businesses, Skype had only “a limited presence,” the commission concluded, which did not overlap with Microsoft’s Lync Internet communications software, used by large companies. Microsoft, in a statement, called the European approval “an important milestone. We look forward to completing the final steps needed to close the acquisition.” The approval from Brussels will expedite the fusion of Microsoft, maker of the ubiquitous Windows computer operating system and Office business application suite, with Skype, an Internet seller of free and low-cost audio and video telephony founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom, a Swede, and Janus Friis of Denmark. During the past eight years, Skype has become the largest provider of Internet-based communications. But profitability has remained elusive. A previous owner, eBay, which bought Skype for an estimated $2.6 billion in October 2005, was not able to integrate Skype profitably into its online auction business. In October 2007, eBay took a $1.4 billion impairment charge reflecting what it estimated that it had overpaid for Skype. Last November, eBay sold a 70 percent stake in Skype to an investor group led by Silver Lake Partners for an estimated $2 billion. Microsoft, which announced its agreement to buy Skype on May 10, is paying nearly three times Skype’s market value, as measured by the sale of eBay’s stake almost a year ago to private investors. Leif-Olof Wallin, an analyst in Stockholm for Gartner, said Microsoft would use Skype to bolster its push into Internet-based telephony around its Lync software for businesses. With Skype’s huge user base, Microsoft will be able to greatly expand the availability of low-cost Internet telephony, Mr. Wallin said. He added that Microsoft’s distribution of Skype through its Windows operating system would improve the image of Internet calling, especially among businesses, which are increasingly encouraging workers to use their own computers and software for company business. That will make Microsoft more of a direct competitive threat to Cisco Systems and Avaya, the two biggest companies that sell Internet-based telephone service software for businesses. But it will also accelerate downward pressure on long-distance and international calling prices, Mr. Wallin said. “Once it is preloaded on a device, whether it is a computer or a phone, it becomes more convenient to use,” Mr. Wallin said. “That will make consumers more likely to discover and try it.” Whether Microsoft can generate a profit from Skype, or create profitable synergies with its other software services and products remains unclear, said David W. Cearley, an analyst for Gartner in Stamford, Connecticut. “I do not believe that direct revenue was the main reason for the purchase,” Mr. Cearley said. “The main thing that Microsoft is buying with Skype is brand presence on the Web and a customer base.”

Skype Technologies
Microsoft Corporation
European Commission
Antitrust Laws and Competition Issues
Almunia Joaquin


With Harvey Less Than Perfect, the Mets Are Less Than Successful

Abstract: Matt Harvey’s persistent dominance this year may have lulled some fans and observers into idle expectancy, a mental state in which a merely serviceable outing from the young ace, like the one he offered Wednesday night, feels oddly jarring. Even when the Mets were struggling earlier this year, losing games at an alarming rate, Harvey was their every-five-days salve. And yet here he was on a muggy night at Citi Field, struggling to keep alive his team’s newfound midsummer momentum. Pitching before a sellout crowd — only the second one this year for the Mets — Harvey allowed five runs, tying a career high, over six-plus uneven innings. His struggles were relative, considering he notched nine strikeouts, and at times he appeared overpowering, as he generally does. But for once he was inadequate, as the Mets fell, 5-3, to the Arizona Diamondbacks. “He just didn’t have command of his stuff — you know, a lot of deep counts,” Manager Terry Collins said. “We’ve seen him pitch a lot better, that’s for sure.” The Mets, who began the day 11-6 over the previous 17 games, fell to 35-46 over all and will play one more game at home before embarking on a three-city trip to close out their first half. Harvey threw his first pitch at 9:01 p.m. — after rain delayed the start by 1 hour 51 minutes — inside a packed stadium. The Mets, on the night before the Fourth of July, were promising a postgame fireworks display, and there was a festive mood around the park, where chants were spreading quickly across noisy stands. During one between-innings scoreboard interlude, Mrs. Met, a female counterpart for the team’s longtime mascot, was reintroduced after nearly a decade away, to much applause. But the most compelling draw was on the mound. Less than a year into Harvey’s big-league career, his excellence has become taken for granted. The question before any start now seems to be whether he might pitch a no-hitter. On three occasions this year, he put together no-hit bids that exceeded six innings, and last Friday, he retired the first 14 Washington Nationals batters he faced. But the intrigue was punctured quickly. After recording one fast out, Harvey allowed two quick singles and then issued a walk to load the bases. This prompted David Wright to jog toward the mound to deliver a quick, encouraging word, and Harvey induced a double play to end the inning. Collins said he did not know whether the delay harmed Harvey, but he knew it did not help him. “You’ve just got to block it out and try to do everything normal,” Harvey said of the delay. “I prepared for 7 o’clock. I’m not one to make an excuse. I should have been more prepared. I obviously didn’t do a good job of that.” Image Harvey took his second loss of the season. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times After that hiccup, it seemed Harvey was bouncing back. He appeared to find a short groove, striking out a chain of batters, riling up the crowd. The 92-miles-per-hour slider he used to slip away from a minor fifth-inning jam seemed unhittable. And as he stabilized somewhat, the Mets provided him a lead on a fourth-inning power surge against Randall Delgado, the Diamondbacks’ starter. Wright slammed his 13th home run — his first since June 23 — into the left-field stands, crouching ever so slightly as he slashed at a 3-2 changeup near his kneecaps. One out later, first baseman Josh Satin battled through a nine-pitch at-bat before whipping a full-count inside fastball just inside the left-field foul pole. Satin, a minor revelation for the Mets since the team sent Ike Davis to the minor leagues earlier this month, increased his hitting streak to nine games and his on-base streak to 14. “That was really the last thing left that I hadn’t done,” Satin said of his homer. “It was great feeling.” But the ballpark grew hushed — the buzz felt extinguished — during the sixth, when Cody Ross belted a hanging slider from Harvey over the left-field wall for a three-run homer. Suddenly, the Mets were behind, 3-2. It was only the sixth home run Harvey has allowed this year and, just like that, he was positioned for just his second loss this year. Harvey could not gather himself after that. He came out for the seventh, but allowed a walk, a single, and a double off the left-field wall. Through that sequence, the Diamondbacks increased their lead to 4-2 and sent Collins to the mound to fetch his ace. The Diamondbacks added another run, charged to Harvey, on a sacrifice fly. “Pretty much all night, I wasn’t; making good pitches,” Harvey said. “I wasn’t hitting my spots too well. The ball was up a little bit, and they took full advantage of that.” Harvey allowed nine hits over all and walked three batters. His earned run average crept up to 2.27, while his record fell to 7-2. Once he was pulled, the Mets inched back, getting an eighth-inning solo home run from Daniel Murphy. But it was not enough to salvage a night when their ace — a player for whom brilliance has felt commonplace — pitched below his own lofty standard. INSIDE PITCH Shaun Marcum this week experienced a recurrence of the shoulder and neck tightness that plagued him during spring training and forced him to the disabled list at the start of the season, Terry Collins said. After throwing 101 pitches over six innings on Monday night, Marcum informed coaches about the discomfort. On Tuesday he was sent for a magnetic resonance imaging exam, which showed no structural damage. Collins said Marcum would still make his next scheduled start Saturday night against the Milwaukee Brewers.


A Thud of Retribution Reverberates in Russia

Abstract: So the bear will be left to wander the athletic wilderness this August. For years, haltingly at first and now with eloquence, some elite athletes have spoken of ridding their sports of doping and the accompanying clouds over grand accomplishment. Last March in Oslo, I talked with the American biathlete Lowell Bailey. “Are we supposed to just accept that we’re not nearly as clean as we thought?” he said. He answered his question with a shake of the head: “You want repercussions, some sort of retribution.” Repercussion and retribution arrived Friday with a thud. The chiefs of international track and field barred the participation of Russia in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. A global superpower, Russia had engaged in top-down and systematic doping of its elite athletes and covered it up, they said. Video Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said on Friday at an economic forum that the actions of a few athletes should not affect those from an entire federation. Credit Credit Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press Rune Andersen, an antidoping specialist for the International Association of Athletics Federations, which governs track, took a seat in a room in Vienna and spoke in soothing Scandinavian-accented English. His message was unyielding. “The system in Russia has been tainted by doping, from the top level and down,” he said. In a system this broken and corrupted, he added, you cannot know who is clean and who is not. That there was justice to be heard in Andersen’s every word was indisputable. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow lab that tested thousands of Russian Olympians, has turned whistle-blower. He recently spoke to The New York Times of his handiwork. He described concocting exotic doping cocktails with the brio a top bartender brings to mixing a mean mojito. Victories in the war on doping come encoded with risk, and worry. Olympic politics are inseparable from national and global politics, and President Vladimir Putin, a cobalt-eyed sort, has embraced sporting dominance as a symbol of Russia’s re-emergence as a global power. Video The International Association of Athletics Federations upheld its ban on Russia’s track and field team from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Credit Credit David J. Phillip/Associated Press “The whole doping scandal is a painful blow for the Kremlin, and humiliation for Russia,” Lilia Shevtsova, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me. “In a situation of gradual exhaustion of resources, Putin has been especially keen on making sport a building block of Russian greatness.” Putin did not stamp his foot and rumble on Friday, as he is in a conciliatory phase of late. He did sound indignant as he made clear his displeasure. “There was not and cannot be any support for violations in sport, or in doping on the state level in Russia,” he said in St. Petersburg, Russia. “This cannot be a foundation for building anti-Russia policy.” Putin prides himself on strategic unpredictability and mixes the statesmanlike with the frankly intimidating. So long as the international sports chieftains hold strong, Russia could feel pressure to reform its laboratories, the better to get its runners and high-jumpers swiftly back on the world stage. Video A former Russian Olympic ice skater, Svetlana Zhurova, and Moscow residents criticized the barring of Russia’s track and field team from the Rio Games. Credit Credit Paul Sancya/Associated Press As ever, it’s worth noting that doping is a problem afflicting athletes in every nation, and that many Americans have been suspended over the years. Russia, however, remains among a relative handful of nations plausibly accused of having state-run doping programs. To compete as a clean Russian athlete is to risk the anger of your coach, and discipline from your federation. Andersen and the I.A.A.F. president, Sebastian Coe, had no sooner finished talking than eyes turned to Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee. Bach wears his imperial hauteur like a winter overcoat. During the Sochi Olympics in 2014, he shared a flute or five of champagne with Putin. Bach, who is German, was defensive of his Russian friend, and he pointedly warned the world to keep its nose out of Russia’s business. “People have a very good understanding of what it really means to single out the Olympic Games to make an ostentatious gesture which allegedly costs nothing but produces international headlines,” Bach said. Next week, Bach and his committee must ratify the decision of the I.A.A.F. Perhaps with an eye toward uncertainty, Coe set down survey sticks on Friday that demarcated his power. “It’s entirely the decision of the I.A.A.F,” he declared of the decision to bar Russia. “It is a very clear proposition that the eligibility sits and lies with the I.A.A.F.” Coe and Andersen were careful Friday to murmur encouragement, noting that the Russians had made progress in their rehabilitation. The reality is that they are at best surly reformers. Yuriy Borzakovskiy, a former middle-distance runner and Olympian, coaches the Russian national team. To listen to Russian Ministry of Sport leaders, he is just the man to lead a new generation of clean athletes. To embrace that notion requires a double dose of amnesia pills. As the I.A.A.F report released Friday noted, the same Borzakovskiy repeatedly insisted that no particular doping problems afflicted Russian athletes. He attributed an unfortunate spate of adverse findings to poor biometric analysis. The coach and his fellow Olympian Yelena Isinbayeva dismissed a damning World Anti-Doping Agency report on Russia as “groundless.” Isinbayeva recently wrote an op-ed essay for The New York Times in which she argued that she and clean Russian athletes should be allowed to compete in the Olympics. How do we know that they are clean? They passed all their urine tests, she said. This elides the fact that investigators found that her nation’s laboratory had tinkered with many hundreds of urine tests, substituting the clean for the dirty. “In interviews with the task force,” the I.A.A.F noted dryly, “it emerged that neither of them has ever actually read the report.” The rehabilitation of the bear could prove a lengthy and imaginative process.

International Assn of Athletics Federations


Sorry, Jose, This Joe Batt Came First

Abstract: JOE BATT’S ARM, Newfoundland — At first glance at a map, you wonder if this little fishing hamlet on a remote island off the northern coast of Newfoundland is playing a gag on everyone. After all, Canadians are discovering amusing ways to celebrate the Toronto Blue Jays’ return to the playoffs for the first time in 22 years. The CN Tower in Toronto is lit in blue, and a famous coffee chain is selling Blue Jays doughnuts. So why couldn’t Joe Batt’s Arm, a little town on Fogo Island, have changed its name to honor the team’s biggest star, Jose Bautista, a.k.a. Joey Bats? Perhaps the island residents who watched Game 5 of Toronto’s American League division series saw the dramatic pose that Bautista struck after hitting a mammoth three-run home run. He chucked his bat defiantly toward the Texas Rangers’ dugout, his left arm remaining shoulder high, parallel to the ground and curved like the cove that defines the shape of this town. The name could also refer to Joey Bats’s cannon of a throwing arm that he unleashes from right field. It’s a natural. Draw up the papers, a quick proclamation at Town Hall and voilà: Joe Batt’s Arm. Who would notice in a country with towns named Saskatoon, Stoner, Skookumchuck and St.-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! There is only one problem. “It’s not named for him,” said Edmund Decker, a 72-year-old retiree and former fisherman who was born on Fogo Island. “The name is over 200 years old. But Bautista is a great player. Wouldn’t it be nice if the boy’s from home?” Image Edmund Decker on the ferry to Fogo Island. “The name is over 200 years old," he said of Joe Batt's Arm. "But Bautista is a great player." Credit Ian Willms for The New York Times “The boy,” in Newfoundlandese, is pronounced “buy” and is a common refrain used to describe a male of virtually any age. So, no, Joe Batt’s Arm is not named for Joey Bats and his bat-wielding or fireballing arm. “But we like to have fun with it,” said Rita Penton, a volunteer at the local post office. “There was a funny thing on YouTube after he threw his bat and it said, ‘Joey Bat’s Arm.’ ” Quite a coincidence. Imagine a town in upstate New York called Joltin’ Joe’s Leg, or a Vermont town called Big Papi’s Fist. But if Joe Batt’s Arm is not named after Bautista and his mighty arm, then where did the name come from? On the day before Game 6 of the American League Championship Series — a 4-3 loss to Kansas City in which Bautista homered twice but allowed the winning run to score with a questionable throw as Toronto was eliminated — it had to be investigated. “You’ll never find out the true story of Joe Batt’s Arm,” said Dennis Adams, a 74-year-old retired fisherman. “I’ve been trying for the last 74 years, and I haven’t found out yet.” The most accepted version of the story involves a poor, wretched sailor named Joe Batt, who was said to have served aboard ship for one of the most famous seafarers, Captain James Cook, in the mid-18th century. When Cook was charting Newfoundland, Batt was somehow jettisoned overboard — whether he was tossed or he jumped as a deserter is in dispute. Batt ended up on Fogo Island and was said to be very popular with the local residents. But Joe Batt, unlike Joey Bats, was poor and shoeless. He stole some shoes and was arrested and sentenced to 15 lashes. But the townspeople liked him so much that they stormed the magistrate’s office and rescued him. They all went off happily together to the nearby cove with a shoreline shaped like the arm of a person drinking a pint of lager, known in these parts as an arm, and they named it after Joe. Image Cod left out to dry in Joe Batt's Arm, Newfoundland, Canada. Cod was once so plentiful there that fishermen could stand on shore and scoop the fish up in nets. Credit Ian Willms for The New York Times It is unknown how long Batt remained there, or if he ever threw anyone out at third base. Joe Batt’s Arm is said to have been settled in 1685. The early settlers were joined by others from the West and North of England and many Irish. Most islanders seem to have inherited distinct characteristics of certain Irish accents, including pronouncing “th” as “t” and pronouncing words like “decided” as “duh-soyded.” And, of course, “the buys.” Adams and his brother, Benedict, said they were descendants of scalawags and thieves on the run from British authorities. The brothers discussed many aspects of the history and culture of Joe Batt’s Arm while at their house along the arm (or inlet). A medium-size fishing vessel, full of holes, sat on stilts nearby. “That’s where we caught all our fish over the years,” Dennis Adams said. They offered two passers-by pieces of potent salt cod drying on racks, just down the road from the Fogo Island fish plant and co-op, and demonstrated how they cured it. Cod was once so plentiful, Benedict Adams said, that they could stand on shore and scoop them up in nets. Today there are restrictions. “We’re allowed to catch five pieces a day for five days,” Dennis Adams said. “But we’re not allowed to wait one day and catch 25. You figure it out.” Benedict Adams said that today the boats hauled a lot of mackerel, shrimp and Atlantic snow crab. In addition to abundant fishing, Joe Batt’s Arm is the home of the recently built Fogo Island Inn, a modern, environmentally friendly luxury hotel with a stunning view of the North Atlantic. The hotel and the island are accessible by ferry or helicopter. Joe Batt’s Arm is not the only unconventionally named town on Fogo. South of Joe Batt’s Arm is Seldom, and next to that is Little Seldom and then Seldom Come By. Next to Fogo Island is Change Island (no, it was never called Changeup Island). There are also many towns in Newfoundland with similar names: Cobb’s Arm, Aaron Arm, Goose Arm and Coney Arm. On New World Island just west of Fogo Island, there is Too Good Arm. It just has to be named after the Mets’ pitching staff.

Baseball
Geographic Names
Jose Bautista
Newfoundland
Canada
Blue Jays


Japan's Automakers Scale Back Production in China as Sales Drop

Abstract: BEIJING — Japanese automakers, including Toyota and Nissan, are cutting back production in China after anti-Japan protests that closed dealerships and darkened the sales outlook in the Chinese car market, one of the world’s largest. Production slowdowns are a normal feature of the auto industry in mature markets like the United States and Japan, where inventories are kept from ballooning, keeping pressure off automakers that would push them into offering discounts, at a cost in profitability. But steps by the Japanese automakers to cut output in China are an anomaly in a market that has driven the industry’s global growth over the past decade and where most automakers had been adding capacity until China’s economic slowdown in recent months. The slowdown caused production to outpace sales, resulting in larger-than-normal inventories for many car dealers. “For the time being I think you’re going to see Japanese automakers’ sales in China down by 20 to 30 percent,” said Koji Endo, auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan, a firm dealing in investment information. “The last time we had protests like this, in 2010, the effects only lasted about a month, but I think this time is going to be different. This is going to have a serious impact.” Nissan, one of the top Japanese automakers in China, said that it would halt production at a joint venture in China starting Thursday, three days earlier than planned, and would extend the halt through the national holiday period next week. Toyota plants in Tianjin and Guangzhou will also suspend production, from Wednesday through the holiday, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman, Shino Yamada, said. That closing will be a few days earlier than planned. Production at factories in China may be curtailed further, depending on market conditions, she said. A senior Toyota executive in Beijing said that as a result, the company probably would not be able to meet its goal of selling one million cars in China this year. Toyota and its local Chinese partners sold about 900,000 cars in the country last year. “It’s very difficult to sell cars right now, but that’s true with every Japanese brand. Not just us,” said the executive, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. In addition to Toyota and Nissan, Mazda has decided to halt production in China on Friday and Saturday, giving workers two extra days off in an extension of the production shutdown for the national holiday. Suzuki Motor said that it also had stopped one of two shifts that it runs in China. Anti-Japan sentiment in China intensified earlier this month after Japan said that it would buy a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea, called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, from a private owner. Tension between the Asian neighbors have smoldered since the end of World War II . In protests across China, angry demonstrators vandalized the properties of Japanese companies, including a Toyota outlet in the eastern city of Qingdao that was burned. The latest production adjustments follow cutbacks that Japanese automakers had been making before the protests to cope with slower-than-anticipated sales in China this year. In the second quarter, the Chinese economy grew at the slowest pace in more than three years. In the Chinese auto sector, Japanese automakers had a share of about 19 percent of the passenger car market in August before the protests. That was down from 20 percent in July, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. An analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bin Wang, said that Japanese auto dealers in Guangdong province had seen sales fall about 60 percent since the protests, adding that the slowdown had bolstered sales for German, American and Korean brands. Mr. Endo of Advanced Research Japan said that he expected Japanese automakers to continue to adjust production if sales remained weak and would take measures like cutting shifts or slowing production speed to keep inventory from building. As a result, he said, parts suppliers in both China and Japan would have to cut output as well.

Automobiles
Toyota Motor Corporation
Nissan Motor Co
Japan
China
Senkaku Islands


Tug of War Between Republicans Seeking Same Base Support

Abstract: FORT WORTH — One week before a grand jury in liberal Travis County indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts, he and United States Sen. Ted Cruz were in friendlier territory, speaking at a conference hosted by a conservative blog here in the largest reliably Republican community in Texas. Mr. Perry walked onto the stage of the RedState Gathering to warm applause, his regard among conservative activists having been bolstered by his recent activity related to the border, particularly his decision to send National Guard troops there in response to an influx of migrants. “If Washington won’t act to secure the border, as governor of Texas, I will,” Mr. Perry said. Eight hours later, Senator Ted Cruz walked into the same hotel ballroom, greeted with the kind of rapturous cheers fitting a military commander returning home from a combat victory. “The grass roots are winning fight after fight after fight,” Mr. Cruz said , adding later, “I believe we have laid the foundation for winning the war to repeal Obamacare.” Mr. Perry’s presidential ambitions have since been overshadowed by the news Friday of his indictment related to a 2013 veto of funding for the state’s anti-corruption prosecutors. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who oversees the public integrity unit, refused Mr. Perry’s calls to resign after she pleaded guilty to drunken driving, prompting the governor’s veto. Mr. Perry was indicted on counts of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant. His office has said he has only acted within his authority as governor, and Mr. Cruz called the indictment politically motivated. Even before his recent legal troubles, Mr. Perry was already operating in Mr. Cruz’s shadow, as most conservative activists in attendance made clear they would rather see the freshman senator vie for the White House in two years than the three-term governor. Image Gov. Rick Perry spoke to supporters at the 2014 RedState Gathering in Fort Worth this month. Credit Cooper Neill for The Texas Tribune “When I look at you, I imagine you would be just like one of the founding fathers of this country,” a female attendee told Mr. Cruz after his speech. The dynamic underscored a growing tension in Texas politics. As the state’s two highest-profile Republicans are contemplating bids for the White House, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Perry are at the start of a period where they are likely to be constantly jockeying for favor among the same audiences. The legal troubles that have surfaced for Mr. Perry could scuttle his hopes of running again for president before they gain traction. “This will — depending on how it plays out and how long it lasts — will certainly be detrimental to that nascent campaign for the presidential nomination in 2016,” said Cal Jillson, a political-science professor at Southern Methodist University said. (S.M.U. is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) While Mr. Cruz is vying for the favor of Tea Party voters, Mr. Perry could still be a powerful draw to a segment of conservatives more interested in a candidate with executive experience, Mr. Jillson said. “He’s going as an experienced executive, governor of the second largest state in the country with an economic success story to tell,” Mr. Jillson said. “And the immigration issue brings him to attention among conservatives.” In Mr. Cruz’s speech, he promoted recent conservative victories in Washington, including the Democrats’ failure to pass gun control legislation after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., as signs of a shift in the relationship between grass-roots conservatives and elected officials. “I’m convinced the biggest divide we’ve got in politics in this country is not between Republicans and Democrats,” Mr. Cruz said. “It is between entrenched politicians in both parties and the American people.” Mr. Perry’s speech was reminiscent of ones he gave during his 2012 bid for president in the way it focused on the robust Texas economy, and his belief that the federal government should follow the lead of Texas and other conservative states by lowering taxes and balancing budgets. Image Ted Cruz spoke as well before the two likely candidates went to Iowa. Credit Cooper Neill for The Texas Tribune “You all know I brag a lot about Texas,” Mr. Perry said. “That’s kind of been part of my job description for the last 13-plus years. But frankly, we have a lot to be proud of.” Bob Guzzardi, a conservative activist from Ardmore, Pa., told Mr. Perry after his speech that he hoped a man with his message would run for president. Asked about it a day later, Mr. Guzzardi stopped short of saying he would support Mr. Perry in a second presidential run. “I liked the emphasis of what he is talking about, but frankly, I’m more of a Ted Cruz guy,” Mr. Guzzardi said. Kathleen Wazny of Denton echoed a similar sentiment, praising Mr. Perry’s record and noticing an improvement in his delivery from his first presidential run. Yet there was no question whom she hopes to support in 2016. “Cruz has been in Washington, and he’s seen the petty politics there,” Ms. Wazny said. “Running the chessboard in Washington is very different from running the chessboard in Austin.” The enthusiasm gap even extended to Erick Erickson, editor in chief of RedState.com and the conference M.C., who seemed to favor Mr. Cruz in his introductions. While he praised Mr. Perry as “a man who, while the president is at the golf course, is leading the nation at the border,” he compared the excitement around Mr. Cruz to that of the Beatles and introduced him as “the leader of the conservative movement in the United States of America.” As Jeff Tucker of Round Rock and Michael Pemberton of Radcliff, Ky., poured themselves cups of coffee ahead of another day of RedState panel discussions and speeches, they compared impressions of the day before. Mr. Pemberton described Mr. Perry as more passionate but said that Mr. Cruz’s arguments were sharper. “I think of the two of them, together, they make one great politician,” Mr. Pemberton said. He then wondered aloud: Could the two Texas leaders possibly run on the same ticket? “I’ve thought a lot about that,” Mr. Tucker admitted. But who should be at the top of the ticket? The two men considered the question for a moment. “Probably Ted Cruz,” Mr. Tucker said, his friend nodding in agreement. “He fights those guys. He doesn’t back down.”

2016 Presidential Election
Ethics Misconduct Malfeasance
Republicans
Rick Perry
Ted Cruz
Texas


Court Order Allows Rallies in Capital of Zimbabwe

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG — A Zimbabwe court ruled Saturday that opposition rallies planned for this weekend in Harare, the capital, should not have been banned by the police and may take place, Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the political opposition, said. But the court’s action has limited impact, Mr. Chamisa said. It was issued too late for two of the rallies, which were scheduled for Saturday in crowded urban townships, and it does not affect a nationwide police ban on opposition rallies, he said. “We still have to deal with a ban put in place nationally, which is making it difficult for us to campaign,” said Mr. Chamisa, of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Two rallies will be held Sunday afternoon in Harare, he said. The party’s standard-bearer, Morgan Tsvangirai , won the most votes in presidential elections in March, and he faces President Robert Mugabe , who has been in power since 1980, in a runoff that is now less than three weeks away. The government detained Mr. Tsvangirai twice in recent days for hours at a time and blocked his rallies. It also suspended operations of all humanitarian groups, on which millions of people depend for food and other basic needs. As the government prints more money to pay its bills, hyperinflation is now putting staple foods further and further out of reach in a country where more than 80 percent of the people are out of work. The price of a loaf of bread has skyrocketed to 350 to 700 million Zimbabwe dollars in many shops, the state-owned newspaper, The Herald, reported Saturday. Last month, the price was 100 million. In 2006, it was one million. Bright Matonga, the deputy minister of information, told The Herald, a mouthpiece for ZANU-PF, the governing party, that the nongovernmental organizations had been acting like political parties supporting the opposition. He accused some of the groups of threatening to cut off food to those who voted for Mr. Mugabe, and he contended that they had received $6 million from the American government to destabilize the country and support Mr. Tsvangirai’s campaign. The aid groups adamantly deny that politics has influenced their distribution of food, and they say the government has yet to back up its accusations with any proof. No specifics were offered in the article published Saturday in The Herald. Human rights groups and aid officials say Mr. Mugabe’s party is trying to clear the countryside of independent witnesses to its campaign of violence against the opposition and to control the flow of patronage, especially food, to win votes.

Zimbabwe
Politics and Government
Mugabe Robert
Tsvangirai Morgan
Demonstrations and Riots


Small-Business Owners Learn to Handle Slow Payers

Abstract: When credit markets seized up more than a year ago, many small businesses were caught flat-footed. Their clients were not paying, or were paying more slowly, and the owners were left emotionally stressed and financially damaged. But after the initial shock wore off, those owners have come up with a variety of ways to make sure they do get paid. The National Federation of Independent Business, which has 350,000 members, signed up 200 members for a Web seminar on collections, said Karen Harned, executive director for the organization’s small-business legal center. “This is always a big issue for small-business owners.” Arne Salkin, an account executive with Transworld Systems, a 39-year-old national collections agency, said the problem was felt by owners in an array of businesses. “Our clients include cigarette wholesalers, pest management companies, nursing homes and private day schools,” he said With 150 offices and 75,000 customers across the United States, Transworld sends out customized demand letters, he said. Its customers, most of them small businesses, pay $750 for a series of five letters asking for payment, each escalating in intensity. Typically, they are sent out every two weeks, matching a standard pay period. This system worked, in one instance, for David Neal, assistant corporate controller for Hoover Treated Wood Products, a lumber wholesaler in Thomson, Ga., when a client owing $15,000 paid the entire amount after receiving two letters. “I was shocked,” Mr. Neal said. “We were very surprised that it worked.” But another client — a longtime customer, Mr. Neal said — was in arrears for $45,000, ignored all five letters and then went out of business in late October. “It will have to be written off,” he said. That is painful for a low-margin industry like his, which typically bills within 15 days and in which 95 percent of clients pay promptly, Mr. Neal said. His firm typically has $4.5 million a week in receivables, he said, and payments started slowing in November 2008. Geoffrey Wilson, owner of 352 Media, a 10-year-old Web development firm in Gainesville, Fla., lost $165,000 in early 2008 when three clients did not pay. The three firms were start-ups, he said, two in Florida, one in Michigan. “It was devastating,” he said. “It damaged our cash flow and really hurt us.” The company, with major companies like Microsoft and American Express, did not have to lay off any of its 40 employees, but the experience left scars, Mr. Wilson said. “It makes you really angry,” he said. “These were clients we had extensive interactions with over several months, sometimes with as many as 50 meetings. It felt very personal. Suddenly you have to threaten them, sue them.” Today, Mr. Wilson is much more cautious about accepting new clients and is clear from the outset about payment terms — 33 percent upfront, raised from 25 percent in August 2008. Clients are now classified as standard or preferred, the latter being firms with 15 employees and at least two years in business. Standard clients must pay in full before material is delivered, and the business owner will be asked for a personal guarantee, he said. Some customers are newly candid about their own financial woes, “which we’d never seen before,” he said. “They’ve become very truthful. As a business owner, I really appreciate their honesty. It allows us to better plan our situation. I need an accurate understanding of what’s coming in instead of having a client simply go silent.” Lisa Brock, head of Brock Communications in Tampa, Fla., is taking a personal approach to managing late payers, recently visiting the chief executives of two local clients to negotiate payment. Now, more than ever, Ms. Brock said, she wants to know whom she is dealing with before entering into any business deal. A free consultation allows her to decide if a client’s values match hers. If so, she delves deeply into their references. “We’ve done more of this recently than in the 14 years we’ve been in business,” she said. “There are a number of ways to check people out: annual reports, a Dun & Bradstreet report, ask for personal and professional references.” Cindy White, whose 11-year-old company manufactures knitted ribbon jackets that are sold in 40 high-end boutiques nationwide for $800 to $1,000, has been owed $5,000 for six months from several clients, forcing her to lay off employees. She has also fallen behind in the rent on her Phoenix design studio. “I have a lot of stores out there who owe me money, but they’re my bread and butter. You don’t want to upset them by suing or sending out collection letters.” The decision whether to hold back or escalate demands for payment was made for her recently after a seven-year client, a store that closed, refused to communicate with her and did not pay for the jackets she had shipped. “I was furious,” Ms. White said. “This was a store I had a longstanding relationship with.” Ever since, she said, “I have been on the phone every few days with all the stores that owe me money, just keeping tabs and making sure they are still viable.” She said she is hopeful that the economy will come back, and “I am willing to work with them because they are my lifeblood.” Such attentiveness is necessary, agreed Ms. Brock. “I look at our profit and loss statements biweekly.” She advises scrutinizing client lists to predict potential trouble spots. “Even having two slow payers is significant.” When a client refuses to pay, last-ditch options include hiring a collections agency — which typically recoup in full only 11 percent of the time — hiring a collections lawyer, who may claim one-third of what they recover, or filing a case in small-claims court. Joshua Friedman, a collections lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., said his business had been booming since last fall, with clients coming to him “in every field you can imagine.” “Sometimes people can’t pay. Sometimes it’s a matter of straight-out fraud, where buyers are not doing enough due diligence. People are desperate to do the deal,” he said. Mr. Friedman takes on only cases worth more than $10,000. “I try to resolve everything without filing a suit,” he said. His success rate is still only 20 percent, he warned. “My clients know better than I do if the client is really likely to settle.”


Elizabeth F. Rohatyn, Supporter of Education and the Arts, Dies at 86

Abstract: Elizabeth F. Rohatyn, a major supporter of numerous arts and educational organizations, including the New York Public Library, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 86. Her death was confirmed by Heather Kelly, her nurse. Ms. Rohatyn, the wife of the financier Felix G. Rohatyn , was a former chairwoman of the library, a board member of Lincoln Center, a former president of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association and the founder of Teaching Matters Inc., a nonprofit to help teachers use technology in the classroom. She also worked with New Visions for Public Schools and WNET/Channel 13. She and Mr. Rohatyn sponsored an I Have a Dream Foundation project, which followed more than 50 low-income children through six years of middle and high school, graduation and four years of college. (The foundation reports that almost 90 percent of its more than 2,500 participants in the New York area have graduated from high school, and 87 percent have gone on to higher education.) When Mr. Rohatyn was ambassador to France, from 1997 to 2000, Ms. Rohatyn created Frame, the French Regional & American Museum Exchange , a consortium of museums in American cities like Dallas, Minneapolis and Cleveland and French cities like Lille, Montpellier and Lyon. She was named a member of the Legion d’Honneur in 2002 and an officer in 2007. Elizabeth Fly was born on May 11, 1930, in Memphis, the daughter of D. Wilson Fly, a stockbroker, and the former Louise Campbell. She graduated from the Foxcroft School in Virginia and attended both Sarah Lawrence College and the College of Santa Fe. Her first two marriages, to Charles C. Renshaw Jr., an editor and publishing executive, and to Alexander Vagliano, ended in divorce. She married Mr. Rohatyn in 1979. As chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, created by New York State, he engineered the rescue of New York City from insolvency in the 1970s. Besides her husband, her survivors include a daughter from her first marriage, Nina Griscom; three stepsons, Nicolas, Pierre and Michael; and several grandchildren. Children were not allowed, however, at Ms. Rohatyn’s annual Easter egg hunt at the couple’s home in Southampton, N.Y. The guest list was more likely to include Oscar de la Renta, William S. Paley, Marella Agnelli and Henry and Nancy Kissinger.

Elizabeth F Rohatyn
Obituary
Philanthropy
NYPL
The arts
NYC


Iran: Nuclear Talks Interrupted

Abstract: Iranian diplomats involved in nuclear talks with six world powers in Vienna interrupted the discussions on Friday after the United States announced an expanded list of companies and individuals whose trading activities it would try to block for evading sanctions against Iran. The Iranians, suggesting that they needed to consult with officials in Tehran, responded angrily to what the Obama administration characterized as enforcement actions. They said the measures undermined the interim deal reached last month, when Iran was given sanctions relief in exchange for suspending some parts of its nuclear program for six months. “This two-sided game and confusion we are witnessing is not beneficial for the atmosphere of the talks,” Iran’s top negotiator and deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency on Friday. A spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and the coordinator of the negotiations with Iran, said the discussions were expected to resume in the near future. But in Tehran on Friday, some politicians called for the acceleration of Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran
Nuclear weapon
International relations
Vienna


Advisory Against Visiting Caves

Abstract: Federal officials are asking people to stay out of caves in states from West Virginia to New England, where as many as 500,000 bats have died from a disease called white-nose syndrome. The Fish and Wildlife Service made the request to guard against the possibility that people are unwittingly spreading the mysterious affliction when they explore multiple caves. There is no evidence that the disease is a threat to people. White-nose syndrome is named for the sugary smudges of fungus on the noses and wings of hibernating bats. White-nose bats appear to run through their stores of winter fat before spring. The disease was confirmed in eight states this winter from New Hampshire to West Virginia and there is evidence it may have spread to Virginia, said a wildlife service spokeswoman, Diana Weaver. Some estimates of deaths are as high as 500,000 bats. Researchers worry about a mass die-off of bats, which help control the populations of insects that can damage wheat, apples and dozens of other crops. The advisory seeking a voluntary moratorium on caving would also cover states adjacent to affected states, Ms. Weaver said. That swath stretches from Maine south to North Carolina and west to Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. Recreational cavers, who have supported past efforts to control white-nose syndrome, seemed bewildered by the breadth of the request. Peter Youngbaer, white-nose syndrome liaison for the National Speleological Society, said the advisory covers tens of thousands of caves and would affect a large array of activities including organized caving events and equipment sales. “The ramifications are mind-boggling, and I guess we’re all just trying figure out what to do,” said Mr. Youngbaer, who is based in Vermont.

Bats
Infections
Caves and Caverns
Fish and Wildlife Service
West Virginia
New England States (US)
North Carolina
Kentucky
Ohio


Jackson and Lakers Are Facing an Abrupt Ending

Abstract: EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Phil Jackson is not wavering, unlike the Lakers in their first two games against the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals. It might be appropriate if here, in the limelight surrounding Hollywood’s team, Jackson changed his mind and returned to the Lakers if this season’s ending is deemed too swift and unfulfilling. After all, Jackson took breaks after coaching the Chicago Bulls and after his first Lakers stint. Each time, he said he was retiring. But after some traveling, crisp Montana air and internal debate, he returned to coaching. Now, however, Jackson remains intent on retiring from the Lakers at the end of the playoffs, even if the ending for the book he plans to write about the season is not Hollywood perfect. “It’s winding down,” said Jim Cleamons, a longtime assistant to Jackson in Chicago and Los Angeles. “We certainly didn’t want or expect to be down two in a series where you have the home court, but it happens sometimes. This is not a reality show. Sometimes, there’s not a happy ending. This is real life. If it’s not the way you want it to end, there’s not a retake.” The Lakers are set up for a comeback, if only they could show signs of one against the Mavericks, who defeated the Lakers, 93-81, on Wednesday at Staples Center to go ahead, two games to none. The Lakers, Andrew Bynum said, have trust issues, but they also have basketball problems. Forward Ron Artest was suspended for Game 3 in Dallas on Friday. Only three of the 18 teams that have held home-court advantage and lost the first two games have come back to win the series. No team has rallied from a 3-0 deficit. The Lakers remained confident, if not steadfast, in refusing to address the chance that Jackson had coached his final game at Staples Center, where he, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher have had five championship seasons. This is the team that trailed the San Antonio Spurs, 2-0, in 2004, won the next two games, then benefited from Fisher’s miraculous shot with 0.4 seconds left in Game 5. But the Mavericks, a more seasoned team than in years past, can win the best-of-seven series without returning to Los Angeles. Jackson was calm on Thursday, often cracking jokes, and said that deciding whether to return after last season had been consuming enough. “That was long enough for me to think about it,” Jackson said, and, just to make sure it was apparent that he did not believe the Lakers were doomed, added, “We’ll be back on Tuesday night.” That is when a Game 5 would be played in Los Angeles. Bryant maintained the same philosophy. “I just don’t believe we’re going to lose,” he said. “I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about the next game and going from there.” To do so, the Lakers must adjust. Pau Gasol is losing confidence, and Dallas presents a separate set of issues than New Orleans, which played the Lakers capably in the first round. The Mavericks, who like to use the pick-and-roll, present three capable distributing guards — Jason Kidd, J. J. Barea and Jason Terry — instead of just one like New Orleans’s Chris Paul. With Dirk Nowitzki excelling, the Lakers’ interior is hesitant to help off of him, leaving the lanes accessible to the guards. That is the trust Bynum referred to Wednesday: one teammate being able to help another on defense. “Obviously, we have trust issues, and unless we come out and discuss them, nothing is going to change,” Bynum said. Artest guarded Nowitzki for stretches Wednesday, but with the game out of reach in the closing seconds, he struck Barea in the face. On Thursday, the N.B.A. upgraded the call to a flagrant foul penalty-2 and suspended him for Game 3. Artest started every game this season. Jackson did not say whether he would start Lamar Odom, the N.B.A.’s sixth man of the year, or Matt Barnes in Artest’s place. They combined to miss 11 of 14 shots Wednesday. Jackson is seeking the opportunity for his 12th title as a coach, but he was lighthearted Thursday. If the end is near, it will come with a laugh and not tears. After the loss Wednesday, Jackson joked that he would flog the team as its punishment. “I thought the flogging message was really important last night that I imparted,” he said Thursday. “I didn’t flog them physically, but I did a little mental flogging today. There was a little bit of that.” And of the series, he said: “I’d like to cry, but I can’t right now. It’s a game and we know it’s a game and we play it and we play it hard, and we anticipate winning in Dallas.”

Jackson Phil
Los Angeles Lakers
Basketball
Dallas Mavericks
Playoff Games
Artest Ron
Bryant Kobe


After Lewis, Who Can Take Charge at Bank of America?

Abstract: Who will lead Bank of America out of this mess? That question is reverberating through Wall Street and Washington after the abrupt resignation of Kenneth D. Lewis , the bank’s beleaguered chief executive. On Thursday, a day into this remarkable boardroom drama, bank insiders and a rapt audience in the financial community were grasping for a clear answer. No sooner did news of Mr. Lewis’s resignation break Wednesday evening than the handicapping began. Wall Street odds-makers tossed out the names of half a dozen possible successors. But Bank of America directors, many of them stunned by the turn of events, have only just begun to consider their options. The search is expected to take weeks. For all the names being floated, few banking executives have the skill and experience to run Bank of America, a coast-to-coast giant with nearly $1 trillion in deposits — and a bunch of giant-size problems. Some executives with the right résumé have, like Mr. Lewis, fallen from grace during the financial crisis . Few would come without baggage. While federal regulators will not handpick the successor, they will effectively have veto power of the board’s choice, according to a person briefed on the matter. Whoever gets the job will face the daunting task of guiding Bank of America into its post-bailout future. The bank has yet to repay the many billions of taxpayer dollars that propped it up during the worst of the crisis. Its controversial takeover of Merrill Lynch, which nearly undid both companies, remains problematic. And the bank’s legal troubles — and Mr. Lewis’s — are formidable. So while Mr. Lewis transformed Bank of America into national behemoth, his successor must grapple with this troubled legacy. The new leader must repair the bank’s strained relationship with its regulators, and perhaps, set it on a new course. “It is not only the choice of who is going to be the captain, but also what direction the ship needs to sail,” said Rakesh Khurana, a leadership and corporate governance professor at Harvard Business School. Mr. Lewis, who intends to leave on Dec. 31, did not groom an heir. Indeed, his resignation came just two months after Bank of America’s board drew up a list of deputies who might fill the top job — but then refused to select one, believing that Mr. Lewis would stay, according to two people with knowledge of the board’s actions. Now the board, in a state of upheaval, is moving quickly to interview several internal candidates. It plans to designate a group of directors on Friday to lead the search for Mr. Lewis’s replacement. It also plans to hire an executive search firm to review outside prospects. One controversial option under consideration would be to name an interim chief executive, someone who might stay in the position for two or three years. An interim leader might be viewed as a lame duck — a significant risk, considering the bank’s challenges — but it would give Bank of America time to cultivate another executive to take over. One possible interim chief is Gregory L. Curl, the bank’s chief risk officer and the architect of Mr. Lewis’s biggest deals. Mr. Curl, who is about 60 years old, has avoided the spotlight for years. He served as Mr. Lewis’s chief negotiator in the ill-fated Merrill deal, which prompted Bank of America to seek a second financial lifeline from Washington. The list of internal candidates is long. Brian T. Moynihan, 49, the head of the bank’s big consumer unit, is perhaps the top contender. Mr. Moynihan, an adviser to Mr. Lewis who has rotated through four top jobs in the last year, has a background in law and appears to have the confidence of some members of the board. After he refused to move to Delaware to take over Bank of America’s credit card unit, Mr. Lewis, who is said to believe that bank executives should do whatever it takes to serve the company, first told him there no option other than to leave. Under pressure from several directors, Mr. Lewis reversed course and named him the bank’s legal chief. Like Mr. Curl, Mr. Moynihan was closely involved with the Merrill deal, and both would probably be carefully vetted by regulators. The odds, analysts say, are longer for Thomas K. Montag, 52, who runs the investment banking business; Barbara J. Desoer, 56, the head of mortgage operations; and Joe L. Price, 48, the chief financial officer. The board will almost certainly consider outside candidates as well, but few of them would come without problems. Among the names that have surfaced are Robert K. Steel, 58, who has held discussions about the possibility with some of the bank’s investors. Mr. Steel, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Treasury under secretary in the Bush administration, is a North Carolina native. But there are lingering concerns related to his time leading another North Carolina-based bank, the Wachovia Corporation. Among them are a television appearance where he promoted the company just before it was sold to Wells Fargo in duress and at least one open regulatory inquiry. A spokesman for Mr. Steel said he declined to comment on the search. Other possible candidates have close ties to Bank of America, including Alvaro G. de Molina, 52, a former finance chief who now runs the finance company GMAC, which has also received extraordinary government support. Another is Gregory J. Fleming, 46, the former Merrill Lynch president, who negotiated a great deal for Merrill Lynch shareholders in selling the brokerage company to Bank of America. Bank of America’s board must make its choice amid looming questions about the bank’s future. The board has been reviewing the bank’s businesses, weighing the risks and opportunities for every area of the company, including those businesses that might suffer severe losses if the economy worsens. Management is also conducting a stress test similar to the one the bank provided for regulators last spring to help determine the shape of its businesses. The conclusion of those reviews is bound to influence the choice of a new leader. But many see the Lewis era fading. “Ken Lewis had a very clear leadership style — it was his way or the highway,” said Meredith A. Whitney, a prominent banking analyst. “Now you have a weak, undefined and to-be-determined leadership operation.”

Bank of America Corp
Lewis Kenneth D
Banks and Banking
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
Steel Robert K
Molina Alvaro G de
Fleming Gregory J


The New Bioplastics, More Than Just Forks

Abstract: MEG SOBKOWICZ was on a fast career track in the oil industry. A bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Columbia landed her a job at Schlumberger running wireline logs on oil wells in New Mexico. Next stop was to be Casper, Wyo., the heart of the interior West’s oil and gas boom. But she jumped off the track. “I knew that working in the oil industry was not in sync with my values,” said Ms. Sobkowicz, 28. “I wanted something with an alternative-energy connection.” Now, as a doctoral student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Ms. Sobkowicz is one of a growing number of chemists who are developing bio-based plastics that can supplant those made from oil. Ms. Sobkowicz is working on improving the durability of plastics derived from corn and other plants, developing nanoscale fibers from cotton to reinforce them. Bioplastics can offer several benefits: reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the production process, minimizing toxic waste in the environment and promoting rural economic development by using local crops. They can also be biodegradable. While disposable cutlery, food packaging and even fabrics made from corn have been on the market for several years, companies are now moving toward applications where performance, heat resistance and durability are more important. These applications typically require that biopolymers be reinforced with kenaf fiber (similar to jute) or other fillers. Products based on durable biopolymers have begun appearing in the marketplace. Japanese companies like NEC Corporation, Unitika and NTT DoCoMo are manufacturing cellphones with casings made from bioplastics. Toyota Motor Corporation uses bioplastic reinforced with kenaf for the rear package tray in its Lexus ES300 model. The largest commercial producer of bioplastic is NatureWorks, which is owned by the food-processing giant Cargill. The company’s plant, in Blair, Neb., uses corn sugar to produce polylactide plastic packaging materials and its Ingeo-brand fibers. It churns out white pellets that other manufacturers use. The second largest biopolymer producer is Metabolix of Cambridge, Mass. It makes a different form of polymer for applications ranging from rigid molded items to flexible film for shopping or garbage bags. Metabolix claims that its plastics are biodegradable in such varied environments as backyard composting bins, wetlands and the ocean itself. (According to the Biodegradable Products Institute, bioplastics should decompose into carbon dioxide and water in a “controlled composting environment” — a municipal facility, for instance — in under 90 days.) “A lot of bio-based products are tossed out like cigarette butts, and for various reasons never decompose,” said James J. Barber, Metabolix’s chief executive. “I can’t conceive of a system that’s so perfect that none of this stuff will escape into nature. For the stuff that does escape, we’re a backstop, ensuring that it won’t last thousands of years.” But representatives of the petrochemical industry point out that plastics made from fossil fuels can be biodegradable, too. And they note that most bio-based plastics, if tossed in a landfill rather than a municipal-scale composting facility, might as well be a tin can or a conventional plastic bottle. “It’s not just bio-based versus petroleum-based,” said Judith Dunbar, director for environmental issues at the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council, which represents hundreds of plastics manufacturers. “I believe conventional plastics would probably be better than renewables over a full life cycle.” Even some scientists who are creating bioplastics caution against overstating their benefits. John Warner, director of the Center for Green Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said it was unlikely that bioplastics would offer advantages in every application. “It’s not about finding the magic material that’ll replace all bad materials,” he said. “That home-run mentality will kill us, because we’d never move forward. But if you promote a replacement material, it’s got to do as good of a job, not just sell itself as a swell biopolymer. And it’s got to be cost effective. We’ll get there.”

Science and Technology
Containers and Packaging
Engineering and Engineers
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Environment
NEC Corp
NTT DoCoMo Incorporated


Does Pumping Result in Reduced Breast Milk Production?

Abstract: Q. Does a woman who is pumping breast milk and bottle-feeding it to a baby make as much milk as someone who is breast-feeding ? A. “A woman can make as much milk pumping as she does breast-feeding directly,” said Dr. Susan Bostwick , chief of general academic pediatrics at the Komansky Center for Children’s Health at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “The body makes as much milk as it is told to based on the stimulation to the nipple, either from a baby or from the pump,” Dr. Bostwick said. “How often and how long the nipple is stimulated determines the amount of milk made by sending a signal to the brain that the milk is being taken from the breast.” The brain, in turn, sends a signal in the form of increased hormones back to the breast, telling it to make more milk. This is why a woman can breast-feed twins or triplets . On occasion, Dr. Bostwick said, the suction from the pump can cause more stimulation than a nursing baby, leading to the production of even more milk than with actual nursing. There is an emotional component in nursing, but Dr. Bostwick said she did not know of any scientific studies that show its relationship to how much milk is produced. “In other parts of the world and other times in history,” she said, “the traditional nursemaid was hired to breast-feed someone else’s child, and while a bond may grow, it was a job.” C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Breastfeeding
Medicine and Health
Science and Technology


Ukraine: Leader Gives War’s Grim Toll

Abstract: Nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists since fighting erupted last year, and more than 1,000 people remain unaccounted for, President Petro O. Poroshenko said Friday. The figures are a sharp increase from the most recent United Nations tally of about 6,100 people killed. The president also said that 1,657 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in combat.

Civilian casualties
Ukraine
Petro Poroshenko


It's Close, but No Celebration for Jagr

Abstract: Jaromir Jagr was on the verge of breaking one of the Rangers' most cherished records, and the last thing he wanted at Madison Square Garden last night was an on-ice celebration. Then he was treated to one he did not deserve. With 47.6 seconds left in the second period, Jagr was showered with a standing ovation, chants of "M-V-P!" and an announcement over the public address system that he had broken Adam Graves's team record for most goals in a season with his 53rd -- a goal, it turned out, that Jagr did not score. At the end of the period, Jagr skated over to the referee Stephane Auger. "I said I didn't touch it," Jagr said later, referring to Martin Straka's centering pass. "It wasn't my goal." Television replays confirmed Jagr's display of conscience, clearly showing Straka's pass had banked off the skate of Islanders center Wyatt Smith in the slot and then through the pads of goaltender Rick DiPietro for what would be the game-winning goal, as the Rangers defeated the Islanders, 3-1. "I feel like if I'm going to break the record, it should be on some good-looking goal," Jagr said. The Islanders (33-38-5) dropped their sixth consecutive game. With their fourth victory in their past five games, the first-place Rangers (43-21-12) extended their lead in the Atlantic Division to 5 points over the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers, who did not play last night, have seven games remaining; the Rangers have six. Jagr has six more chances to break Graves's record, but if and when he does, he has made it clear that he does not want any over-the-top celebrations by his teammates. "I don't like that," Jagr said. "It's good with the fans. If I would score 900 goals, then that would be different." Rangers Coach Tom Renney said: "He doesn't want any major league celebration by people leaving the bench and all that kind of stuff. He'd rather just deal with it and away we go. And I think that's pretty professional of him. There's another team out there that's trying to play and win. That's pretty noble of him." So was Jagr's reaction to go to Auger and tell him the goal was not rightfully his. When it was announced before the start of third period that there had been a change in scoring, and that the goal belonged to Straka, a groan was voiced by the sellout crowd. "I felt bad when the fans booed me when they said I scored the goal," Straka, who scored again in the third, said with a smile. The Rangers also heard boos after they skated through a sloppy opening period, which ended with the Islanders leading by 1-0 on Miroslav Satan's 31st goal. Just 21 seconds into the second period, the jeers turned into cheers. Jarkko Immonen, the 23-year-old rookie center who was playing his first N.H.L. game because Steve Rucchin has a fractured bone in his right foot, scored his first goal. That led to a seasoned move from the 23-year-old rookie Petr Prucha, a veteran of 62 N.H.L. games. Prucha, who has scored 29 goals, remembered his first. He quickly burrowed into the goal to retrieve the puck as a keepsake for Immonen. For a few seconds late in the second period, it appeared Jagr would be receiving his own souvenir puck. Jagr, whose streak of recording at least 1 point ended at 12 games, has been stuck on 52 goals for four games. Not that Jagr has seemed concerned with the record. "If I get it, then I get it," said Jagr, who has two years remaining on his contract. "If I don't get it, then I told you, I've got six games and two years left to do it."

NEW YORK RANGERS
NEW YORK ISLANDERS
JAGR JAROMIR
HOCKEY ICE


Bearing Aid, U.S. Vows to Tread Lightly in Bangladesh

Abstract: DHAKA, Bangladesh , Nov. 23 — As an American warship with more than 3,000 troops arrived off the coast of Bangladesh to help deliver food, water and medicine to the most remote corners of this cyclone-battered country, United States military officials took pains on Friday to say they would not take any steps that might seem intrusive. Speaking to reporters, Adm. Timothy J. Keating, the commander of American forces in the Pacific, said American troops would work alongside Bangladeshi troops and make joint decisions about where American military assets would be helpful. “This is not a U.S.-only operation; it’s in support of Bangladeshi operations,” he said at a news briefing after meeting with Bangladeshi Army officials here in Dhaka, the capital. “We are not just going to come storming ashore.” The approach illustrated how tricky it has become for American troops to deliver even humanitarian aid to a friendly Muslim-majority nation. The Bangladeshi Army’s chief of general staff, Maj. Gen. Sina Ibn Jamali, acknowledged that there was “sensitivity” to American military involvement in the nation’s relief operations. He said the Americans had been invited because his own military-backed government lacked the aircraft, in particular, to distribute aid swiftly to areas that needed it most. “They will be working with us, uniform and uniform,” the general said. The Associated Press reported that members of a small Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, protested the American military presence after Friday Prayer at Dhaka’s largest state-run mosque. The American vessel, Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship equipped with 20 helicopters and three landing craft that can maneuver in coastal areas, was stationed Friday about 30 miles off the southern coast of Bangladesh. United States military officials said that only a handful of American troops would be on Bangladeshi soil at any time, with most marines and Navy personnel staying aboard the Kearsarge and coming ashore to deliver supplies. Admiral Keating said the troops would stay as long as they were needed. A second American ship was on its way, packed mostly with supplies. The Americans said they expected to start delivering aid as early as Saturday. The Kearsarge arrived as aid workers warned of an imminent risk of water-borne disease from the Nov. 15 cyclone and, eventually, a worsening of childhood malnutrition, which already hovers around 48 percent, according to Unicef. Although the cyclone’s death toll was put at nearly 3,200, according to Bangladeshi Army officials, with 1,700 more people still missing, the government estimated that the storm had affected more than six million Bangladeshis by destroying homes, fields and fish ponds. The Bangladeshi military continued to ferry food and clothing to the cyclone zone. On Friday afternoon, a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter made its last run to a small town called Nalcity, where the cyclone had uprooted tall trees, blown off tin roofs and flattened acres of rice fields. The birds scattered and the dust blew furiously as the helicopter descended, bearing dried dates and biscuits as well as saris and lungis, the basic clothing for Bangladeshi women and men.

Cyclones
Bangladesh
Foreign Aid
Armament Defense and Military Forces


Blockbuster Reports Loss and Restructures Its Debt

Abstract: Blockbuster , the movie rental chain, posted a quarterly loss of $359.7 million on Thursday, but beat Wall Street earnings estimates and said it had reached agreements with creditors to reorganize debt due in August. But the company warned that the its new loans would be expensive, and it planned to pull back temporarily on plans to spend on stores to conserve capital. Blockbuster said the loss came to $1.89 a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $41 million, or 8 cents a share. Results in the most recent period were hurt by a noncash charge of $435 million to write down the value of Blockbuster’s chain of retail stores and other assets. Excluding one-time items, Blockbuster earned $80.4 million, or 40 cents a share, up from $57.8 million, or 26 cents a share, a year earlier, and better than the 25 cents expected by Wall Street analysts. Revenue in the period, which ended Jan. 4 and was the fourth quarter of Blockbuster’s fiscal year, fell 12 percent, to $1.38 billion from $1.57 billion a year earlier. The company said its results were affected by a shorter fiscal year, by a decline in rental revenues, negative foreign currency exchange rates and a smaller store base. In a preliminary report this month, Blockbuster said quarterly domestic same-store sales increased 4.4 percent, with a 36.5 percent increase in consumer electronics sales offsetting a 2.6 drop in rental revenue. Blockbuster’s chief executive, James W. Keyes, said the company had reached agreements with the JPMorgan Chase Bank and two of the largest lenders under its existing revolving credit facility to amend and extend the facility through Sept. 30, 2010. The principal amount of the facility will be reduced to $250 million, Mr. Keyes said. Blockbuster is also working to revamp a term loan due in August, Mr. Keyes said. He said that Blockbuster’s financial statements and auditors’ report most likely would “include reference to going concern risks until our financing is complete.” Stock in Blockbuster, which is based in Dallas, rose 6 cents, or 7 percent, to 89 cents a share.


Israel Responds to Hamas Mortar Fire With Airstrikes in Gaza Strip

Abstract: JERUSALEM — In response to mortar rounds fired by Hamas toward Israeli defense forces operating outside the Gaza Strip, Israel hit five targets in Gaza with airstrikes on Wednesday, a military spokesman said. Hamas’s military wing complained in a statement that Israeli forces had been excavating enormous areas east of Gaza. Israel has been using the excavations to help search for new warrens of tunnels that Hamas is believed to be digging beneath the border between Gaza and Israel. Israeli military commentators said that the mortar fire – a total of six rounds on Wednesday – was clearly intended to discourage Israeli attempts to find the tunnels. Although missiles and other weaponry are fired sporadically from Gaza, Israel has seldom named Hamas as the source since a cease-fire in 2014 that ended 50 days of fighting, and other rogue groups operate in the area. In this case, though, Israel said Hamas fired more than five mortar rounds at its defense forces, adding that Israel would continue to guard against “all terrorist threats above and beneath ground.” An Israeli military commentator, Roni Daniel, said on Israeli television that the mortar fire did not seem intended to hit the military engineers searching for the tunnels, but only to warn Israel and disrupt the work. The area has been fairly quiet since the 2014 war, and while neither side is eager to set off a new escalation, the exchanges of fire could have unpredictable consequences, Mr. Daniel said. Witnesses in Gaza saw one Israeli airstrike hit a tower used by Hamas’s military wing. At least two schools were evacuated and Hamas police officers streamed from their stations in Gaza City. Hamas claimed that the Israeli excavations had caused unspecified damage to Gazan land.

Military
Hamas
Gaza Strip
Israel
Palestinians


At Spoon, the Emphasis Is on the Japanese

Abstract: SPOON is full of surprises. During the day, the restaurant could escape detection, disappearing into the undistinguished strip of shops anchored by a D’Agostino’s. But after dark, the storefront glows with a prism of color slowly shifting its way through the spectrum. Inside, the large space is at once stylish yet comfortable. A pleasing dimness emphasizes lighting that defines the restaurant’s areas: long full bar to the right, dining space to the left and, dramatic under brighter hanging lamps, a busy sushi station straight back — stage center for Spoon’s star performers, the sushi chefs. Billing itself as Japanese-Asian fusion, the restaurant leans more toward Japan, with its sashimi in particular. Blue lights glowing through the bottles behind the bar — so Hollywood — and an insistent techno beat of background music hardly provide a fitting atmosphere for the kind of zen mindfulness that tasting fine sashimi might require. Yet, as it has with the design of the place, Spoon went for a bit of glitz in its eye-catching table presentation of sashimi, illuminated by a blue light tucked beneath the bed of crisp rice noodles supporting the dewy cuts. The best of our sashimi sampling included white tuna, maguro tuna, salmon and yellowtail. Acidic lemon clobbered the flavor of sea scallop. Show interest in what fish are available in the refrigerated case and management might appear to give a tour of the stock and to introduce Stanley Yong, the artist in charge of the station, who knows the muscle and skeletal structure of every fish he cuts. Slicing techniques vary according to texture, from soft and fragile to firm. The best slices are usually saved for sashimi. The least perfect pieces are tucked into rolls, perhaps along with rice, cucumber, avocado or other flavorings. Chef’s special rolls took a back seat to the sashimi, but for diners who prefer combinations, our sampling of Spoon roll (similar to California roll), classic dragon roll and golden roll topped by pale salmon roe suggested that others would be just as good. Sashimi is not Spoon’s only strong suit. Among possible starters were the dynamite wasabi-seaweed crackers topped with spicy tuna and black tobiko (five tuna-heaped crackers for $12) and deeply flavorful, fabulously tender baby back ribs. Chicken “wraps,” enfolded in lettuce leaves, were nicely sparked by orange, crunchy jicama and fresh green pepper. But skip the muddy-flavored tuna tortilla pizza and pointless Asian pancakes with curry chicken sauce. Chunks of roasted pineapple garnished the Asian duck salad , inspired by Peking duck. The sweet-sour fruit balanced the richness of duck strips and the saltiness from hoisin sauce — all waiting to fill six hot and steamy pancakes. Seaweed salad was all it should be. Diners who crave spicy heat might enjoy an entree modestly called Sichuan tofu . Seared egg tofu, soft as custard, came with loads of finely chopped vegetables, peas and chicken, slices of steamed rice bread on the side ($15 and plenty for two). Other entree favorites included tender Vietnamese barbecued pork loin with a rice pyramid and a small shredded lettuce and cucumber salad; and good and slurpy Japanese seafood udon with calamari, scallops and shrimp atop the noodles ($15). A few entrees were less successful. At $31, spicy-hot Indian curry seafood was brought down by seriously overcooked lobster tail, shrimp and scallop. Sesame beef with broccoli was indelibly tough; mango chicken, bland. And only size distinguished five jumbo prawns. But we enjoyed a couple of sweet endings: crepe with apple and “ambrosia,” a harmonious composition of vanilla ice cream and bits of coconut and fruit alongside a wedge of dark chocolate cake, dense and delicious as a truffle. Spoon 415 King Street Chappaqua (914) 238-1988. spoonasianfusion.com WORTH IT THE SPACE New dining room with upholstered booths running the length of one wall and an attractive bar stretching along another. Spotlighted sushi station at the rear. Handicapped accessible. THE CROWD Casually dressed and multigenerational. Service ranges from efficient to aimless, with untrained staff inattentive about clearing plates between courses and the table for dessert. THE BAR Inventive cocktails range from $9 to $12. On a cold night, try the ginger blossom martini, $11. Drinks at the bar are half-price during happy hour (Monday through Saturday, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.). THE BILL Reasonably priced, especially at lunch, when a set menu (soup, appetizer and entree) is $12 to $14 and dim sum goes for $2.50 to $4 per steamer basket of two or three pieces. A much bigger range at dinner (entrees, $12 to $31). Major credit cards accepted. WHAT WE LIKED Sashimi, wasabi crackers with spicy tuna, chicken wraps, seaweed salad , Asian duck salad, baby back ribs, Vietnamese pork loin, Japanese seafood udon, Asian duck with pancakes, Sichuan tofu , chocolate truffle cake with ice cream (ambrosia), apple crepe. IF YOU GO Lunch: Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dinner: Monday through Saturday, 4:30 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 to 10 p.m. Reservations a good idea on weekends. Easy parking in front of the restaurant. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, In a Pinch, Don’t Bother.