In a Fight Over Names, Russia Vetoes a U.N. Mission Inside Disputed Territory

Abstract: MOSCOW — Russia and the West found themselves deadlocked once again over the status of Georgia ’s breakaway territories on Monday, as Russia vetoed the extension of the United Nations monitoring mission in Abkhazia. The United Nations mission was created 16 years ago to monitor a cease-fire between Abkhaz separatists and Georgia, and it consists of about 130 military observers. Their departure will mean that no international observers will remain inside the conflict zones that set off the war between Russia and Georgia last August. A similar standoff has forced the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to begin shutting down its mission, which has been monitoring South Ossetia, another breakaway enclave, since 1992. Russia was the only member of the Security Council to vote against a measure to briefly extend the Abkhaz mission’s life, in the hope of negotiating a more long-term solution. Ten countries voted for the extension, and four countries — China, Libya, Uganda and Vietnam — abstained. At issue is Abkhazia’s status after Russia recognized it as a sovereign nation, a step that only Nicaragua has followed. Georgian leaders say the mission should remain the “United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia.” But Russia, and separatist authorities, say they will not allow the mission to remain unless its name and its mandate are changed to reflect Abkhazia’s independence from Georgia. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations, said a draft resolution offered by Western members was “blatantly unacceptable” and “political poison,” because it contained references to the “U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia” and commitments to Georgia’s territorial integrity. “It was beyond anybody’s imagination that it could be accepted by the Russian Federation and Abkhazia,” Mr. Churkin said, according to a transcript from the Federal News Service Inc. United Nations officials have made it clear that they want to continue their work. Johan C. Verbeke, the special representative who leads the mission, told Reuters that its removal would “basically leave the population on their own.” As officials tried to seek a middle ground, Georgia made its dissatisfaction clear. The most recent report on Abkhazia from the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, released in May, does not refer to “Abkhazia, Georgia” as previous reports did, but instead mentions only “the Mission” rather than the “Mission in Georgia.” Alexander Lomaia, Georgia’s ambassador to the United Nations, reacted angrily, saying, “It is very unfortunate and alarming that the Secretariat has submitted to Russian blackmail.” Mr. Ban “categorically rejected” Mr. Lomaia’s claim in a statement released the next day, saying his wording “reflected his view of what all members could live with.” Georgians, including many who fled their homes in Abkhazia in the early 1990s, followed news of the Council’s vote, worried that new language would open the door to Abkhaz independence. Outside the United Nations office in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where several dozen demonstrators gathered, Ada Marshania said she planned to pelt the office with eggs if the organization “dares to keep this title that Abkhazia is not a part of Georgia.” Rusudan Lobjanidze, 60, stood and wept silently. “If they declare Abkhazia independent today, we will never return,” Ms. Lobjanidze said. “My 90-year-old mother asks, every morning, to be buried in her homeland.” On a separate front, Tbilisi was jolted by violence again on Monday when police officers used clubs to disperse a crowd of about 100 anti-government demonstrators, arresting 39. Officers also attacked journalists and seized their equipment. Eka Zguladze, Georgia’s deputy interior minister, said the protesters were blocking the entrance of Tbilisi’s central police station, and officers had identified some as activists who had thrown eggs at members of Parliament last week.She apologized for injuries to journalists and said the police should not have taken away their cameras. “This is our mistake, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs wants to acknowledge it,” Ms. Zguladze said. “It is our duty to protect the right of journalists to work.” Diplomats from France, the United Kingdom and the United States condemned protesters’ attacks on members of Parliament, which occurred last Friday. The United States Embassy released a statement, saying their actions “crossed a line from free expression of opinion to criminal activity.” Opposition leaders said foreign diplomats should not involve themselves in internal politics. “This is considered as interference in domestic political processes, which they are not entitled to do,” said Salome Zurabishvili, Georgia’s former foreign minister and the leader of the Georgia’s Way Party, according to the Interfax news agency.

Georgia (Georgian Republic)
Demonstrations and Riots
Police
Saakashvili Mikheil


Henry Louis Gates, Race, Anger and Privilege

Abstract: BOSTON — The arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer is playing out along racial lines. But it’s also about power and machismo — on both sides. Professor Gates, a noted Harvard scholar who is African-American, was busted for a bad attitude. That isn’t grounds for a mug shot. But, black or white, sometimes it leads to one. Earlier this year, a Wellesley businesswoman was arrested after a run-in with a state trooper at Logan International Airport. The trooper asked Margaret Greer, a 57-year-old portfolio manager, to move her Mercedes because it was obstructing a bus lane. She refused and sped off, hitting him with her car’s side mirror. Ms. Greer was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. She ultimately apologized and agreed to perform 200 hours of community service to resolve the charges. Then there was the case of Randi Goldklank, the now ex-general manager of WHDH-TV in Boston, who went on an alcohol-and-prescription-drug-fueled tirade at Logan. As she was taken into custody, she threatened to call a news crew and put the arresting trooper on TV and “ruin his life.” She, too, apologized. In the Gates incident, there was no physical contact, drugs or alcohol. All Mr. Gates did was allegedly shout at a police officer. Mr. Gates was in his own home when a Cambridge police officer responded to a call about a possible break-in at that address. The professor had just returned home from filming a documentary in China. His front door was stuck and his taxi driver helped him pry it open. Then, Sgt. James Crowley appeared at his door and demanded to see identification. Mr. Gates provided it, although some facts about how and when are in dispute. The police report states that Mr. Gates was arrested after exhibiting “loud and tumultuous behavior, in a public place, directed at a uniformed police officer who was investigating a report of a crime in progress.” Mr. Gates disputes some information provided in the police report, but does acknowledge that he responded with anger. In anger, Mr. Gates brought up race, according to the police report. When Sergeant Crowley told him he was investigating a report of a break-in, the professor said, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” The report also states, “Gates then turned to me and told me that I had no idea who I was ‘messing’ with and that I had not heard the last of it.” If a white person displays an attitude like that, it is O.K. to call him arrogant. If a black person is called arrogant, it is considered code for “uppity” and an invitation to be labeled as a racist. So let’s just say that according to the police report, Mr. Gates sounds like what he is: a renowned Harvard academic who is used to deferential treatment. In this case, he didn’t get it, he didn’t like it, and he let it show. Sergeant Crowley didn’t like what he heard. He arrested Mr. Gates on a disorderly conduct charge, which has since been dropped. Human beings of all races have a tendency to react as Mr. Gates did, especially when they are tired, frustrated and privileged. Police officers usually don’t like it. The question is whether this police officer responded more harshly because of skin color. Mr. Gates shouldn’t have yelled at the police officer; still, what he did was irritating, not criminal. Once the officer determined Mr. Gates did live in the house, he should have left, no matter what the professor was shouting. Harvey A. Silverglate, a criminal defense lawyer, civil liberties defender, and Harvard Law School graduate, believes Mr. Gates’s arrest should be investigated, but not only because of its racial implications: Was Mr. Gates arrested and held as a way to teach him a lesson? If so, asks Mr. Silverglate, “Is this acceptable, regardless of whether the citizen is white or black?” In an ideal world, no. When it happens to a black man, racism may be the easy explanation, but that doesn’t make it the only explanation. Life and power in 21st-century America are more complicated than that.

Race
Police
Cambridge (Mass)
Harvard University
Gates Henry Louis Jr


Rally Stuns Five-Time Snooker Champion

Abstract: Mark Selby beat the two-time defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, 18-14, in the World Championship final in Sheffield, England. Selby, who was down, 10-5, won his first world title. It was the first time O’Sullivan, a five-time world champion, had lost in the final.


Commissioner of a Powerhouse Conference, SEC’s Slive Will Retire

Abstract: Mike Slive said Tuesday that he planned to retire as commissioner of the Southeastern Conference in July after serving in that position for 13 years and rising to become one of the most powerful people in college sports. Slive, 74, also announced that he would begin treatment for a recurrence of prostate cancer, for which he was first treated in the late 1990s. His prognosis is good, according to the SEC. “I consider my health situation a temporary detour in a remarkable road that has allowed me to meet amazing people, experience incredible events and celebrate historic victories,” he said in a statement. “I will relish my final year in this position and look forward to being the biggest fan of the SEC for many years to come.” After his retirement, Slive will be a consultant to the conference for four years. A national search for his successor will begin this fall, said Nicholas S. Zeppos, the chancellor of Vanderbilt, who serves as chairman of the SEC presidents and chancellors. During Slive’s tenure, the SEC rose to pre-eminence in football and started its own network; the sport of college football grew more lucrative, with the introduction of a playoff; and the major conferences, including the SEC, realigned and consolidated, then gained increased autonomy to set their own rules. Slive was an instrumental figure in all three developments. “He’s had a long and hugely successful career there,” said Larry Scott, the commissioner of the Pacific-12 Conference. As the seventh commissioner of the SEC, Slive oversaw perhaps the greatest era of success since the league was founded in 1933, highlighted by a run of seven consecutive Bowl Championship Series titles in football that ended this past January. During his tenure, the conference’s universities won national championships in 17 of its 21 sponsored sports, from men’s and women’s basketball to baseball to women’s gymnastics. Under Slive, the conference added Missouri and Texas A&M, and this past August started the SEC Network in partnership with ESPN. Within a month, the channel was being seen in more than 62 million households, and its annual revenue was expected to keep pace with the more than $300 million that the older Big Ten Network brings in. Slive was central to pushing for the College Football Playoff, which will debut at the end of this season. “Mike got together with the other gentlemen to craft a consensus that ultimately was put into place,” said Bill Hancock, the playoff’s executive director. “He has been a real, true leader.” Slive was also a leading force, both as a public advocate and a behind-the-scenes dealmaker, for the revamped N.C.A.A. Division I governance structure that passed in August. It granted increased power to the Big 5 conferences and their 65 members. For more than a year, Slive led a Collegiate Commissioners Association working group dedicated to thinking about governance reform. Scott confirmed that Slive was among the most crucial people in the reform push. Critics contend that autonomy has assured the increasing commercialization and professionalization of the highest level of college sports. Slive disputes that. “Now that I think about it, the word autonomy sounds a bit selfish,” he said in July. “All the things we’re trying to get to with the 65, each one is tied to the well-being of the student-athlete.” Mark Emmert, the president of the N.C.A.A., said: “I am grateful for the contributions Mike Slive has made to college sports and wish him the very best. It has been a joy and privilege to work with him and witness firsthand his dedication to the success of student-athletes.” Paul Finebaum, a close friend of Slive’s who hosts a football-themed radio show that now airs on SEC Network, said Slive told him that his proudest moment as commissioner came when Mississippi State hired Sylvester Croom Jr. in 2004, making Croom the first black head football coach in the conference. “He felt like that moment opened the door and showed the rest of college sports that the SEC was just like everyone else,” Finebaum said. N.C. STATE SUSPENDS SEVEN North Carolina State has suspended seven football players, including two starting defensive players, for Saturday’s game against Louisville after a BB-gun fight at an off-campus apartment last week. The suspensions were announced Monday and were the latest in a string of BB-gun incidents involving football players this season. Florida State players have been involved in several BB-gun fights in the past two years, according to police records examined by The New York Times. East Carolina suspended three players last week, and four Kentucky players sat out a game in early October after their BB-gun shots caused a two-hour campus lockdown. Dave Doeren, North Carolina State’s coach, said he did not hesitate to suspend his players for participating in the incident, even though the police were not summoned and no damage was apparent or reported. “I believe in holding guys accountable and treating them fairly, and helping them learn from their mistakes and keep building our program in the right way,” Doeren said at a news conference Monday. Among those suspended, linebacker Jerod Fernandez and safety Josh Jones start on defense, and Fernandez leads the team in tackles. The others being disciplined are receivers Johnathan Alston and Jumichael Ramos, defensive tackle Justin Jones, defensive end Pharoah McKever and cornerback Mike Stevens. LYNN ZINSER

College football
North Carolina State
Southeastern Conference
Dave Doeren
Michael L. Slive


Boston Bomb Victims’ Hidden Injury: Hearing Loss

Abstract: Initially preoccupied by the severe injuries sustained by victims of the Boston bombings, hospitals are now grappling with a more subtle medical consequence: widespread hearing loss among those closest to the blasts. Acoustic trauma of this sort can rupture the delicate eardrum, and hearing experts at several hospitals in Boston said on Wednesday that torn eardrums accounted for most of the hearing loss they have seen among those near the explosions. In most of these cases, the eardrum will heal in a few weeks or months. If not, a tear can be repaired with an outpatient surgical reconstruction called a tympanoplasty, which can restore normal hearing. But proximity to an explosion also can cause “sensorineural” hearing loss: damage to hair cells in the inner ear, which is potentially permanent, said Dr. Daniel Lee, an ear surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Hair cells cannot be regenerated. “We’re generally seeing patients who have a conductive hearing loss associated with traumatic eardrum perforation,” he said. “Some of the patients may develop a progressive sensorineural hearing loss in the future.” At present, most of the patients with sensorineural damage have suffered only mild to moderate hearing loss. There is great variability in the hearing loss experienced by people exposed to acoustic trauma, based on things like which way they were facing or what was between them and the explosion. Nick Yanni, 32, a student at Bunker Hill Community College, and his wife, Lee Ann Yanni, 31, a physical therapist, were 10 feet from the first bomb when it went off. Ms. Yanni said she immediately lost hearing in her left ear, but at the time was far more worried about her broken left fibula. At the emergency room at Tufts Medical Center, she struggled to answer doctors’ muffled questions about her leg. Mr. Yanni discovered at the E.R. that he could not hear in either ear and tried to read lips. An hour or two later, his ears became painfully sensitive to background noise, so he put in earplugs. By nightfall, his hearing had returned. Image Nick and Lee Ann Yanni were near the first bomb. She broke her leg and both suffered hearing loss, but his has come back. Credit Evan McGlinn for The New York Times “We were standing right next to each other,” Ms. Yanni said. “His hearing loss turned out to be temporary, and mine is lasting.” After three operations for her leg fracture in five days, she was discharged on Monday. “I know I can function even if my hearing isn’t perfect, but I’d like to get it back,” Ms. Yanni said. Within 24 hours of the bombings, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston began auditory evaluations of bombing victims after several mentioned that voices sounded as if they were underwater or that their own voices seemed louder. Dr. Selena E. Heman-Ackah, medical director of otology, neurotology and audiology at Beth Israel Deaconess, has evaluated roughly 20 patients with hearing loss in wake of bombings. All but two suffered perforations of the eardrums, she said. Given the loudness of the explosions, Dr. Heman-Ackah said she expected to see more patients with nerve-related hearing loss. She believes that the eardrum perforations might have been protective against the more permanent neural loss. The night of the bombings, Dr. Alicia M. Quesnel, an ear specialist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, began doing consultations with some patients injured by bomb blasts, once they had been stabilized, using a tuning fork to gauge the type of auditory loss. If patients can hear the tuning fork touching their skull, the hearing loss is probably conductive — related to a torn eardrum or damage to the tiny bones behind it. But if they can hear a tuning fork held in front of the ear better, or cannot hear either one, Dr. Quesnel said, “you worry about inner ear hearing loss that’s neural.” “Most of what we are seeing is conductive hearing loss,” she said. “It will either heal on its own, or down the line they won’t end up with a huge hearing loss because it can be fixed.” Dr. Jonathon Sillman, an ear specialist at Tufts Medical Center, has evaluated about 10 bombing victims for hearing injuries. All were given audiograms as soon as they could sit in a wheelchair in a soundproof booth. “One of the most striking things about this experience is how variable the injuries were,” Dr. Sillman said. One patient was standing next to a person who lost her legs, he said, yet “her only injury is one perforated eardrum with no neural hearing loss.” He suspects the person who lost her limbs must have shielded his patient from the energy of the blast.

Boston Marathon Bombings
Hearing
Bombs
Nick Yanni
Lee Ann Yanni


Wall Street Scion Is Accused of Faking Investments

Abstract: A 39-year-old Wall Street executive, Andrew Caspersen came from a life of privilege and opportunity: Groton, Princeton and then Harvard Law School, where the student center is named after his family because of a generous gift from his father. But the father had a secret that emerged only after he committed suicide in 2009: Finn M.W. Caspersen, a noted financier and philanthropist, was at the time being investigated by federal authorities, suspected of hiding tens of millions of dollars in a tax shelter. Now it appears that his son, a former Blackstone Group managing principal, may have had his own secret. Andrew Caspersen was arrested at La Guardia Airport on Saturday evening. On Monday, federal prosecutors working for Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for Manhattan, charged him in a criminal complaint with securities and wire fraud in what they called a “brazen” scheme to defraud investors — including a foundation affiliated with a major New York hedge fund — of up to $95 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed parallel civil charges. The authorities contend the executive used a fraudulent investment vehicle and fake emails to dupe the unidentified hedge fund foundation to sink $25 million into the scheme last fall. Up until last week, Mr. Caspersen was still trying to persuade other institutional investors to give him money. So persuasive was his pitch that an employee at the hedge fund firm also invested $400,000 with Mr. Caspersen, who lives with his wife in a home they recently bought in Bronxville, N.Y. But the authorities said that he blew through most of that money “as a result of aggressive options trading” in his personal brokerage account. Daniel Levy, Mr. Caspersen’s lawyer, declined to comment. Mr. Caspersen was a partner at the Park Hill Group, which specializes in raising money for private equity firms and hedge funds. The Manhattan firm fired Mr. Caspersen on Monday and promptly removed his profile from its website. Fraud Charges for Financial Executive The S.E.C. said that Andrew Caspersen, a partner at Park Hill, solicited $95 million to invest in a shell company. Until last fall, Park Hill was part of the sprawling empire of the private equity giant the Blackstone Group. It is now part of PJT Partners, the advisory firm that was spun out of Blackstone and is run by the investment banker Paul J. Taubman. PJT said in statement that it was “stunned and outraged” to learn of the allegations. The firm added that it was cooperating with the authorities. The case highlights the broader issue of how much research and checking institutional investors actually do when making an investment, and how much of it comes down to a personal connection and trust. “This action amply demonstrates that even sophisticated institutional investors are not immune to financial scams,” said Andrew M. Calamari, director of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought a civil complaint against Mr. Caspersen. It may also raise questions about the internal controls in place at Park Hill, given that the authorities say Mr. Caspersen’s scheme went on for months before it was detected. Shares of PJT Partners plunged nearly 11 percent on the news of the charges. Late Monday, Block & Leviton, the securities litigation firm, said it was investigating whether PJT and its officers and directors violated federal securities laws. The firm represents large institutional investors. PJT said it believed Mr. Caspersen acted on his own. After learning of potential improper behavior, the firm conducted an internal investigation and reported the matter to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Mr. Caspersen grew up mainly in an exclusive suburb in western New Jersey before attending the Groton School in Massachusetts, one of the most expensive boarding schools in the country. He was a captain of the football team and he also rowed. After graduating from Groton in 1995, he went to Princeton University where he met Catherine F. MacRae, who was the daughter of a founding partner of the law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, which later merged to form Dewey & LeBoeuf. The two dated for several years. Ms. MacRae, a research analyst at Fred Alger Management, was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center. She had worked in Fred Alger’s offices on the 93rd floor of the north tower. Together with Ms. MacRae’s family, Mr. Caspersen created a memorial fund to benefit education programs for children from low-income families. Mr. Caspersen’s father, Finn M.W. Caspersen, was a prominent philanthropist and the heir to the Beneficial Corporation fortune. The elder Mr. Caspersen was chairman and chief executive of the consumer finance company for nearly two decades before selling the firm in 1998 for $8.6 billion to Household International, which was later acquired by the London-based bank HSBC. In 2008, Finn Caspersen pledged $30 million to Harvard Law. A year later, he killed himself at age 67 with a single gunshot to the head. About 800 people attended his funeral in Morristown, N.J. Mr. Caspersen was known to be battling kidney cancer when he killed himself. But soon after it emerged that his name had surfaced in a federal government crackdown on overseas banks that were helping wealthy Americans shelter money to avoid paying taxes. Finn Caspersen was an active supporter of New Jersey Republicans like former Gov. Tom Kean. Mr. Caspersen was also well known in equestrian circles and was said to have competed with Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, in Windsor, England. The scheme of the younger Mr. Caspersen, federal authorities say, began last summer and ended only a few weeks ago. It is not clear why the executive, who arguably was successful and wealthy in his own right, may have needed the money. Still, last summer Mr. Caspersen, who had previously lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, set up a shell company called Irving Place III SPV LLC that he soon began seeking to raise money for from institutional investors, the authorities said. The shell company was similar to the name of a legitimate investment vehicle that Park Hill was raising money for at the time called Irving Place Capital Partners III SPV. Irving Place Capital was originally a private equity fund of Bear Stearns, the Wall Street firm that imploded in 2008. Mr. Caspersen, who previously worked for Coller Capital, a fund that buys private equity fund assets, never told prospective investors the shell company was controlled completely by him, the authorities said. Mr. Caspersen made up email accounts and invented employees and even went as far as to create a fake domain name to further the scheme, they said. The scheme began to fall apart this month when the foundation affiliated with the hedge fund asked for its $25 million plus interest to be returned, the authorities said. On March 11, Mr. Caspersen said the funds would be returned by the end of the month. The foundation has not yet received the money, the authorities said. A few days later, on March 14, Park Hill learned that Mr. Caspersen was raising money for his own investment vehicle when an unidentified firm complained about it. Park Hill then hired lawyers from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, including litigation partner Aidan Synnott, to conduct an internal investigation. The law firm notified federal prosecutors of its findings the next day. By March 18, authorities said the account where the hedge fund’s foundation had wired its $25 million had a balance of roughly $40,000. Mr. Caspersen was released on Monday after he posted a $5 million bond co-signed by three people and secured by two residences.

Andrew Caspersen
PJT Partners
Securities fraud
Fraud


In Okinawa, Talk of Break From Japan Turns Serious

Abstract: NAHA, Japan — In a windowless room in a corner of a bustling market where stalls displayed severed pigs’ heads and bolts of kimono silk, Okinawans gathered to learn about a political idea that until recently few had dared to take seriously: declaring their island chain’s political independence from Japan. About two dozen people of all ages listened as speakers challenged the official view of Okinawa as inherently part of homogeneous Japan, arguing instead that Okinawans are a different ethnic group whose once-independent tropical islands were forcibly seized by Japan in 1879. Then, to lighten the mood, the organizers showed “Sayonara, Japan!”, a comedy about a fictional Okinawan island that becomes its own little republic. “Until now, you were mocked if you spoke of independence,” said one speaker, Kobun Higa, 71, a retired journalist whose book on the history of the tiny independence movement has become a hot seller online. “But independence may be the only real way to free ourselves from the American bases.” Mr. Higa and other advocates admit that few islanders would actually seek independence for Okinawa, the southernmost Japanese island chain, which is home to 1.4 million residents and more than half of the 50,000 American troops and sailors based in Japan. But discontent with the heavy American presence and a growing perception that the central government is ignoring Okinawans’ pleas to reduce it have made an increasing number of islanders willing to at least flirt publicly with the idea of breaking apart in a way that local politicians and scholars say they have not seen in decades. In May, a newly formed group led by Okinawan university professors held a symposium on independence that drew 250 people. A tiny political party that advocates separation from Japan through peaceful means has been revived after decades of dormancy, though its candidates have fared poorly in recent elections. And on his blog, a member of Parliament from Okinawa recently went so far as to post an entry titled “Okinawa, It’s Finally Time for Independence From Yamato,” using the Okinawan word for the rest of Japan. “Before, independence was just something we philosophized about over drinks,” said Masahide Ota, a former governor of Okinawa, who is not a member of the movement. “Now, it is being taken much more seriously.” The independence movement remains nascent, with a few hundred active adherents at most. But Mr. Ota and others say it still has the potential to complicate Japan’s unfolding contest with China for influence in the region. That struggle expanded recently to include what appears to be a semiofficial campaign in China to question Japanese rule of Okinawa. Some analysts see the campaign as a ploy to strengthen China’s hand in a dispute over a smaller group of islands that has captured international headlines in recent months. Some Chinese scholars have called for exploiting the independence movement to say there are splits even in Japan over the legitimate ownership of islands annexed during Japan’s imperial expansion in the late 19th century, as Okinawa and the smaller island group were. Okinawa has long looked and felt different from the rest of Japan, with the islands’ tropical climate, vibrant musical culture and lower average incomes setting it apart. Strategically situated in the center of East Asia, the islands, once known as the Kingdom of the Ryukyus, have had a tortured history with Japan since the takeover, including the forced suicides of Okinawan civilians by Japanese troops during World War II and the imposition of American bases after the war. For years, Okinawans directed much of their ire over the bases at the United States. But that changed four years ago when the Japanese prime minister at the time, Yukio Hatoyama, reneged on campaign pledges to move the bustling Marine air base at Futenma off Okinawa, rather than to a less populated site on the island as previous governments had approved. After that, many Okinawans shifted much of their anger toward the rest of Japan, which wants the United States military presence to offset China’s growing power, but is unwilling to shoulder more of the burden of bases for fear of crime, noise and accidents. Local leaders and scholars say the last time Okinawans spoke so openly of independence was during a period of sometimes violent unrest against American control before the United States ended its postwar occupation of the islands in 1972. “There is a growing feeling that Okinawans just exchanged one colonial master in Washington for another one in Tokyo,” said Shinako Oyakawa, 32, a doctoral student at the University of the Ryukyus and a co-founder of Okinawan Studies 107, a group promoting research into Ryukyuan ethnic identity. Such discontent has helped nurture groups like hers, which seek to promote the idea that the islanders form a distinct ethnic group. It has also led to the creation of places like Ryukyu Hall, a privately run school that opened last year and offers classes on Okinawan language and culture. On a recent weekend, about 30 people gathered at the school, a small, sparsely furnished two-story building, to hear accounts in the Ryukyuan language by survivors of the American invasion of Okinawa in 1945. “Regaining our identity is the first step toward regaining independence,” said Midori Teruya, 41, a co-founder of the school in Ginowan, the site of the Futenma air base. The talk of independence has grown enough that it is being heard in Tokyo, where some conservative newspapers have begun calling the Okinawan independence activists “pawns” of China. Whether or not the activists are pawns, there is certainly some discussion in China about using the independence movement. Recently, an editorial in The Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, said China could pressure Japan by “fostering forces in Okinawa that seek the restoration of the independence of the Ryukyu chain.” Few believe China is about to pursue ownership of Okinawa. But Japanese analysts see the informal campaign as the latest gambit in China’s attempts to take over the smaller group of islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, by essentially warning that China could expand its claims beyond those islands if Japan ignores its arguments. “It will create problems for us if the Chinese government tries to use this issue,” said Masaki Tomochi, a professor at Okinawa International University who helped organize the symposium on independence in May. Mr. Tomochi and other activists said that in the remote event that Okinawa became independent, they felt little fear of a Chinese takeover because the Ryukyus had held friendly ties with China for centuries before the Japanese takeover. Mr. Tomochi’s group is planning a second symposium to present research on how Pacific island nations like Palau could serve as a model for a future Ryukyu republic. The idea is to try to overcome what he sees as the main challenge his movement faces: winning over Okinawans who seem content with their Japanese-style living standards. “People are talking independence now, but how realistic is it?” asked Yoshinao Hiyane, 22, an economics major at Okinawa International University. “My generation has grown up Japanese.” At the movie screening in the market, independence supporters tried to bolster the notion that their idea is more than a fantasy by handing out color-copied “currency” of a Ryukyu republic. They stood before a blue banner with three stars that the organizer, Chosuke Yara, called its flag. “Recently, the interests of the Japanese people and the Ryukyu people have clearly diverged,” said Mr. Yara, 61, the head of the tiny Ryukyu Independence Party. “Independence is an idea whose time has come.”

Ryukyu Islands
Military Bases
Japan
China
Senkaku Islands Diaoyu Islands
US Military


Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park Is Dedicated

Abstract: With audio clips of President Franklin D. Roosevelt ’s seminal Four Freedoms speech scratchily underscoring the day’s theme, the television newsman and World War II historian Tom Brokaw presided over the dedication of a park devoted to Roosevelt on Wednesday, almost 40 years after it was designed. The ceremony included a Who’s Who of the political elite: former President Bill Clinton , Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg shared the podium, while former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Henry A. Kissinger and a sprinkling of Roosevelt’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren were arrayed on the lawn of the park, whose triangular shape at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island evokes the prow of a ship. (The island was named for Roosevelt in 1973.) The speakers hailed Roosevelt as a native son of New York who successfully led America through the crises of the Great Depression and World War II. Born in Hyde Park in the Hudson Valley, Roosevelt got his start in politics in Albany, first as a state senator and then as governor. With the churning waters of the East River framing the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park , Governor Cuomo announced that the site would officially become New York’s 214th state park when it opens to the public next Wednesday. The creators of the park, developed mostly with private money, had hoped for such an outcome, but until Wednesday, nothing was final. “New York was the incubator and demonstrator of F.D.R.’s philosophy and vision,” said Mr. Cuomo, citing the power of the push for women’s equality in Seneca Falls, public-works projects like the Erie Canal and the exposure of urban poverty in the writings of Jacob Riis. “New York became the laboratory of progressive democracy, and F.D.R. was the scientist creating formulas for a broad range of national problems and social ills.” Mr. Clinton noted the park’s vista of the United Nations, whose Secretariat Building peeked over a row of linden trees. And he connected contemporary problems with the freedoms Roosevelt articulated in 1941 — freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. A passage from that speech is engraved in the granite enclosure of Roosevelt’s bust. “As we look out on this bright new day, we are close to the U.N., which he, more than any other soul, created,” Mr. Clinton said. “We are also close to ground zero, which reminds us that we are not free from fear.” The memorial was almost left unrealized. The sudden death in 1974 of Louis I. Kahn, the park’s architect, and the city’s slide toward insolvency halted the project for decades. And this week, on the eve of the park’s dedication, it hit another snag, as two foundations took the park sponsors to court over where their acknowledgments would be inscribed at the site. It was largely William vanden Heuvel, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations and an ardent student of Roosevelt, who revived the park plan several years ago, helping to raise $53 million to pay for construction. In his remarks, Mr. vanden Heuvel, whom Governor Cuomo called a “juggernaut of determination,” said: “President Roosevelt made clear that the four freedoms were no vision of a distant millennium. This park will be a constant reminder of that challenge.”

Roosevelt Franklin D Four Freedoms Park (NYC)


Extending His Sway, Putin Names Loyalist to Head Russian Central Bank

Abstract: MOSCOW — Asserting further personal control over the Russian economy, President Vladimir V. Putin nominated on Tuesday a close political ally, who is now serving as his chief economic adviser, to become the new chief of the Russian central bank. The nomination of Elvira Nabiullina signals strongly that the bank will lower rates in the months ahead, something Mr. Putin has been pressing for against the advice of the bank’s current leadership. Worryingly for investors, Mr. Putin nominated a confidante despite a consensus among global economic policy planners that countries with independent central bankers tend to do better economically over the long term. Yet Mr. Putin already controls other ostensibly independent institutions in Russia, like Parliament. Mr. Putin’s government has also advocated for more seats on the bank’s board and plans to combine the functions of the stock market regulator, the equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission, with the central bank, further centralizing financial regulatory control. “The central bank isn’t simply a commercial bank, it is above all the regulator of our financial system and the most powerful institution responsible for state economic policy,” Mr. Putin said in making the announcement, in comments carried by news agencies. Supporters of a more independent institution had hoped a deputy central bank chairman, Aleksei Ulyukayev, might take over as a candidate representing continuity and independence. Mr. Ulyukayev in January had taken the unusual step for a Russian state official of defying obvious demands from the Kremlin. It wanted lower interest rates; Mr. Ulyukayev argued that such a move risked further stoking inflation, now at 7.3 percent. Image Elvira Nabiullina will take the helm of the Bank of Russia. Credit Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters But members of Mr. Putin’s economic team, including Ms. Nabiullina, have been openly pushing for lower rates that might stimulate faster growth closer to the 8 percent or so common during Mr. Putin’s first two terms. Still, speaking at his country residence, Novo-Ogaryovo, Mr. Putin suggested on Tuesday some compromise with supporters of the current bank leadership by announcing that Sergey M. Ignatiev, the current central bank chairman, would remain as an adviser to Ms. Nabiullina. Investors are likely to react negatively to the appointment, which was announced after the close of the market Tuesday in Moscow, said Ivan Tchakarov, the chief economist for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, at Renaissance, a Moscow investment bank. “She is often seen as a close political ally of Putin,” Mr. Tchakarov said of Ms. Nabiullina. “This will certainly be perceived by markets as a signal that the central bank of Russia in the future will be much more subject to pressure. This is a blow to the independence of the central bank.” Mr. Tchakarov said the appointment was a signal of higher inflation and a weaker ruble to come. That is what the government has wanted. In February, Dmitry A. Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister, released an economic policy statement calling for 5 percent annual growth, up from 3.5 percent last year. At the same meeting, Mr. Putin obliquely blamed the central bank, formally known as the Bank of Russia, saying current bank rates were not conducive to growth. That seemed to seal Mr. Ulyukayev’s fate. While a policy of lower rates might work to boost economic growth in large, stable economies like the United States or European countries with so-called safe haven currencies, the calculus is different in Russia, where lower interest rates risk turning away currency traders, who will dump the high-risk ruble if returns drop. This occurred in Belarus, Russia’s neighbor, during a balance of payments crisis two years ago when the Belarussian currency, also called the ruble, collapsed. Still, Belarus’s central bank on Tuesday cut its main interest rate below 30 percent, against the advice of the International Monetary Fund. That cut, to 28.5 percent, was seen as a sign of a loss of central bank independence. In Belarus, the country’s authoritarian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, had flatly threatened to fire the central bank leadership if they did not lower rates. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, recently made a similar move, naming his economics minister and ally, Gyorgy Matolcsy, to head the central bank.

Russia
Vladimir Putin
Central Bank of Russia
Banking and Finance
Ruble
Elvira Nabiullina


U.S. and Philippines Bolster Air and Sea Patrols in South China Sea

Abstract: MANILA — Philippine and American forces began conducting joint naval patrols in the South China Sea last month and will immediately start air operations over the area, United States Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said during a visit here on Thursday. The naval patrols were agreed on during a meeting in Washington in January between the defense departments of the two countries. The air operations will include aircraft and pilots currently participating in joint military exercises by the two countries in the Philippines. The United States will position 200 pilots and crew members, as well as six aircraft and three helicopters, at the former Clark Air Base, north of Manila, part of which is now a Philippine Air Force facility. What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea China has been feverishly piling sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new islets in the region and straining already taut geopolitical tensions. The aircraft will include five Warthog ground-attack planes, three search-and-rescue helicopters and a plane often used to transport Special Operations forces. The initial air contingent will “conduct flight operations in the area, including the South China Sea, and lay the foundation for joint air patrols to complement ongoing maritime patrols,” Mr. Carter said. The United States will also establish a command-and-control center in the Philippines to coordinate the joint operations, he said. In January, the Philippine Supreme Court approved a sweeping 10-year military cooperation agreement with the United States, allowing it to build military facilities and to station personnel, planes and ships on existing Philippine military bases. In March, the two countries identified five areas, including four air facilities and the country’s largest army base, for use by the United States military. When Mr. Carter arrived in the Philippines on Wednesday, he said that more Philippine bases would open to the American military in the future. Mr. Carter said on Thursday that the joint air and sea patrols were a response to concerns by the Philippines and other countries about China’s increasing assertiveness in the region. China claims most of the South China Sea as its territory and has built artificial islands in areas that the Philippines and other countries have long considered their own. “In the South China Sea, China’s actions — in particular — are causing anxiety and raising regional tensions,” Mr. Carter said during a visit to the Philippine presidential palace. “Countries across the Asia-Pacific are voicing concern with China’s land reclamation, which stands out in size and scope, as well as its militarization in the South China Sea,” he said.

Philippines
US Military
South China Sea
China
Ashton Carter
Military Bases
Military aircraft
US Foreign Policy


Prosecutor Asks to Be Removed From Trooper Sex Assault Case

Abstract: TRENTON — The New Jersey attorney general said on Thursday that the prosecutor investigating accusations by a college student that she was sexually assaulted by state troopers asked to be removed from the case because of comments he made to a newspaper. In an interview that appeared in The Star-Ledger of Newark on Thursday, the Mercer County prosecutor, Joseph L. Bocchini Jr., was quoted as saying that the investigation was a “nightmare,” and that any prosecutor who wanted a case like it “has a psychological problem.” On Thursday night, Attorney General Anne Milgram said that she transferred the case from Mercer County, where the matter was reported, to neighboring Middlesex County. In a letter that Mr. Bocchini sent Ms. Milgram, he asked that she assign the case to another prosecutor’s office. “I am concerned that statements attributed to me were, upon reflection, inappropriate,” he said. “Those statements could very well create a public perception that my office should not handle this investigation.” Ms. Milgram said on Thursday that she agreed that Mr. Bocchini’s comments were not appropriate. For two weeks, the Mercer County prosecutor’s office has been looking into accusations made by a 25-year-old Rider University student that she was sexually assaulted by a group of state troopers. Seven troopers have been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the investigation. So far, prosecutors have been tight-lipped about the case. According to lawyers and people familiar with the case, the woman and a friend left a nightclub here in the early morning hours of Dec. 7 and went to the home of one of the troopers. Later that day, she went to a nearby hospital and reported that she had been sexually assaulted while her friend was asleep in another room.

Assaults
Colleges and Universities
Sex Crimes


Birds Found to Have Emotional Reactions to Song

Abstract: The human brain responds to music in different ways, depending on the listener’s emotional reaction, among other things. Now researchers report that the same holds true for birds listening to birdsong. “The same regions that respond to music in humans, at least the areas that can also be found in the bird brain, responded to song in our sparrows,” said an author of the new report, Donna Maney, a neuroscientist at Emory University. Primed with estrogen to simulate their state during breeding, female white-throated sparrows responded to the songs of male sparrows in the same way as humans listening to pleasant music, she said. Females in a nonbreeding state responded no differently to birdsong than to generic tones of the same frequencies. “So during breeding season, birdsong is received differently by females,” Dr. Maney said. Moreover, male birds treated with testosterone showed a response in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, when they heard other males singing. The response is akin to the reaction humans have when they hear the sort of music used in a scary movie scene. “If you’re a male and you hear the song, it means that you’re invading territory or being invaded,” Dr. Maney said. “It’s an aggressive signal.” She and her co-author, Sarah Earp, report their findings in the journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience . Ms. Earp came up with the idea for the study as an Emory undergraduate studying music and neuroscience. She is a medical student at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience Journal


With Help of Nascar Ruling, Stewart Wins at Talladega

Abstract: TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) — Tony Stewart eased his frustration Sunday by ending a 43-race winless streak and earning his first Sprint Cup victory at Talladega Superspeedway, after Nascar ruled that Regan Smith’s last-lap pass was illegal. Smith, a rookie, was in second and trailing Stewart for the final three laps of the Amp Energy 500. He desperately ducked inside Stewart on Lap 190, the final time around the 2.66-mile track. When Stewart blocked him, Smith drove below the yellow out-of-bounds line at the bottom of the track to make the pass. He beat Stewart to the finish line, but Nascar reviewed the move and declared it illegal. (A driver is allowed to make a pass below the line only if officials believe he was forced there.) Smith said he thought he was within the rules, and he went with Max Siegel, the president of Dale Earnhardt Inc., to defend himself to Nascar. “I knew I was only going to get one shot at him,” Smith said. “I knew where I was going to make my move. I don’t know. I was always told that the rule is if you get forced down there, then you are the winner of the race, and on the last lap, anything goes. That’s what I was going with. “I got forced down there, man; I had a nose inside of him and I could have piled up the whole field.” The ruling gave Stewart his first Cup win at Talladega, where he had finished second six times. The race had a Nascar-record 31 lead changes and several tire failures, and it lived up to its reputation as the wild card of the 10 races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Because of its white-knuckle racing conditions, Talladega is the Chase race drivers fear could ruin their title hopes. It most certainly did for Denny Hamlin, who was taken to a Birmingham hospital after his tire exploded while he was leading and his car slammed into the outside wall. He finished 39th and dropped to last in the Chase field. With six races remaining in the Chase, Jimmie Johnson leads the standings by 72 points over Carl Edwards. Greg Biffle is third, 77 points behind Johnson.

Stewart Tony
Automobile Racing
Talladega Superspeedway
National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing


A Fairer System: Tax the Annoying

Abstract: IT’S tax season and an election year, so again our thoughts have turned to change. Not political change. I’m talking about scrounging up enough change in the sofa cushions and gutters to live on after paying taxes. We can’t all be Wesley Snipes, after all, and just say na na na boo boo to Uncle Sam. Well, it turns out he can’t, either. But you get my point. And my point is that politicians are, to use a term favored by economists, a bunch of wussy-heads. Republicans say they want to cut our taxes and accuse Democrats of wanting to raise them and kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The Democrats say that they really don’t want to raise anybody’s taxes unless they really, really have to, and that the Republicans want to give a free ride to the rich at the expense of future generations. And then both parties spend like Donald Trump in a toupee shop. The only politicians who have really wrestled with the question of what the tax system ought to look like — say, a Steve Forbes or a Mike Huckabee — haven’t done very well in the vote-getting department. And why? I think it’s because they don’t think big enough. They talk on and on about simplifying our taxes — like Steve Forbes with his flat tax, from a few elections ago, and Mr. Huckabee with his current proposal for the so-called “fair tax.” Mr. Huckabee would kill off the income tax and set up a national sales tax to make up for the lost revenue. No more 1040 forms, just an increase in the price of every single thing you buy. It would raise the cost of a $1 soda to $1.30, and that $1 million Ferrari would cost $1.3 million. Ouch. But it’s sure simple! With all due respect to Mr. Huckabee, that doesn’t butter the toast. If we’re going to get rid of the deficit, pay off the national debt and rebuild our treasury, we’re going to have to take some truly bold moves. So here are a few modest (yet, as I said, truly bold) proposals. The first element of the plan is simple: make the tax system more complicated. With politicians, it’s always cut, cut, cut. But there are things on which you can raise taxes — cigarettes, for example — without fear of a huge voter revolt. Here are just a few of the new categories of taxable vices: OBNOXIOUS CONSUMPTION Now, I’m all for the kind of consumption tax that Mr. Huckabee is talking about, but I think he’s got it backward. He wants to apply the same tax to all purchases. I want to tax the kind of purchases that make you shake your head and say, “That dude has way too much money.” So I’m not talking about merely conspicuous consumption, but crass consumption, maybe even pharaonic consumption. The buyer of a Ferrari should pay a much higher tax rate than people buying Camrys, because money obviously doesn’t mean anything to him. I would never keep someone from buying what he loves, but making purchases like that is like wearing a big sign that says “I have more dollars than sense.” A $100,000 Persian rug? Gorgeous. Now pay up. Shoveling your vast personal fortune into a run for the presidency? Best of luck — but feed the Treasury while you’re at it. The problem with this brilliant idea, unfortunately, is that this is not the way the world works. But a boy can dream. SPAM Now let’s go after an easy target. Sure, we all want to string up the people who send us unsolicited commercial e-mail messages about our body parts. But regulators haven’t made much of a dent in the spam problem. So why not tax the spammers at an even higher rate than the in-your-face spendthrifts? FRIENDS AND FAMILY JUNK E-MAIL The guys hawking opportunities in bigger body parts, penny stocks and plundered national treasuries aren’t the only ones who will have to pony up under the new plan. If a loved one passes along urban-legend spam — the messages about dying kids needing get-well cards, crazed killers flashing their headlights at you, money from Bill Gates for forwarding this message — then he will pay the tax. It’s time to put an end to the threat from Uncle Walter. Also, his taste in jokes is awful. EMOTICONS While we’re at it, let’s tax emoticons, too. After all, we’re decades into the Internet age, and emoticons, like the ;-) or the :-( punctuating so many thoughts in our e-mail, do not communicate anything except “I’m too lazy to find another way to tell you that I’m trying to be funny.” As we say to small children, Use Your Words. Or pay the price. Perhaps you can already sense that this plan is the product of vision. It might seem a peyote vision, but it could work. Oh, I can hear your objections. “Schwartz, you moron” — and how many times have I heard that? — “This is unenforceable.” But if you think that e-mail or text messages are private, you’ve been missing the stories about Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., the district attorney in Harris County, Texas, and Detroit’s mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick. Supposedly private and amorous messages to a female employee have gotten both officials into very hot water. (I’d tax messages like theirs, too — a sort of icky-hanky-panky levy.) BESIDES, the government has moved with equal boldness to make my plan possible. You must know about the increased ability of the feds to use wiretaps and Internet surveillance after 9/11. Sure, it’s only supposed to be used to fight terrorists, but that’s what mission creep is all about, right? Many experts have suggested that terrorists are too wily to be trapped through such surveillance. Without those guys to catch in the digital dragnet, that just leaves the rest of us to travel what David Banisar, an expert on privacy issues, has called the “Information Snooperhighway.” Shouldn’t the nation derive some benefit from all the technology we’ve paid for? It’s true that Louis D. Brandeis once said, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding,” but he was probably just some kind of hippie. My fellow Americans, we must take this step swiftly. It will be the equivalent of fiscal v1agr@, and increase the size of our national treasury, which is, after all, a financial body part. It’s a small price to pay for doing our patriotic duty. Please copy this and send it to all of your friends!

Taxation
Income Tax
Politics and Government
Computers and the Internet
Presidential Election of 2008


Kit Murray, Test Pilot Who Reached New Heights, Dies at 92

Abstract: “I begin to feel weightless, and I’m flying so fast my instruments can’t keep up — they show what happened two miles ago. I’m climbing so steeply I can’t see the ground, and I feel confused. I have a sense of falling and I want to grab something for support.” It was May 28, 1954, and Maj. Arthur Murray, test pilot, would wrestle for the next 15 terrifying seconds with a rocket plane racing over 1,400 miles an hour and spinning wildly, supersonically out of control. In the turmoil, he would fly higher than any human being had ever been, 90,440 feet over the earth. Finally, Major Murray’s plane, a Bell X-1A , sank back into heavier air, and he had time to look at the dark blue sky and dazzling sunlight. He became the first human to see the curvature of the earth. At the time, he was called America’s first space pilot. Arthur Murray, known as Kit, died on July 25, in a nursing home in the town of West in Texas, his family said. He was 92. He requested that his ashes be scattered over the Mojave Desert, where some of his fellow test pilots crashed and died. Tom Wolfe marveled at the test pilots of Edwards Air Force Base in his 1979 book “ The Right Stuff ” exclaiming, “My God — to be part of Edwards in the late forties and early fifties!” Mr. Wolfe wrote of how a plane at supersonic speed and high altitude could “skid into a flat spin like a cereal bowl on a Formica counter.” That left a pilot only one question, he added: “What do I do next?” That was exactly the experience Mr. Murray described in The Saturday Evening Post in 1955, an experience he shared with the legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager , who flew a chase plane behind Major Murray when he broke the altitude record. Mr. Yeager started the space race when be broke the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947. In 1957, the Soviet Union would put the first satellite in orbit, and in 1961 it sent the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, who orbited the world. Alan B. Shepard Jr. , a test pilot, became the first American in space in 1961. The next year, John Glenn, another test pilot, was the first orbiting American . Major Murray’s many test flights, including 14 in the Bell X-1A, helped build the foundation for America’s exploration of the heavens. He further contributed as manager of the Air Force’s program to develop the X-15 , a more advanced rocket plane, from 1958 to 1960. Two X-15 flights exceeded 100 kilometers in altitude (or 328,084 feet), meeting the international definition of space flight. One of Major Murray’s test pilots in the X-15 program was Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Arthur Warren Murray was born in Cresson, Pa., on Dec. 26, 1918, and joined the Army as a cavalry soldier in 1939. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, he volunteered for flight training. He flew more than 50 combat missions in a P-40 fighter in World War II, before returning to the United States to be a P-47 flight instructor. He became a test pilot, the first one assigned to the base that was later named Edwards. He tested the Bell X-1A, X-1B, X-4 and X-5. Mr. Murray retired from the Air Force in 1961 as a colonel and worked for Boeing and Bell Helicopter. He later worked for a Texas company that leased hunting land and as a civil servant for the City of Dallas. He lived in Clifton, Tex., for about 20 years. Mr. Murray’s first marriage, to Elizabeth Ann Strelic, ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife of 41 years, the former Ann Humphreys; five sons; a daughter; three stepdaughters; 16 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; three step-grandchildren; and a step-great-grandchild. The last thing Mr. Murray’s wife told him before he left for the edge of outer space was to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home. He remembered.

Murray Arthur (Kit)
Pilots
Deaths (Obituaries)
Military Aircraft


Sprain Causes Isner to Withdraw From Winston-Salem Open

Abstract: John Isner’s preparations for the United States Open hit a setback when a sprained ankle led him to withdraw from the Winston-Salem Open hours before his quarterfinal. ■ Petra Kvitova made the semifinals of the Connecticut Open in New Haven with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Barbora Zahlavova Strycova.


C.D.C. Has Begun Work on Vaccine for New China Flu

Abstract: Federal health officials have begun to make a seed vaccine against the mysterious new H7N9 flu circulating in China, they said Thursday. While it is being made “only as a precaution,” a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized, an agency virologist said the agency was “fairly worried” about the new virus. China reported that it had confirmed 14 cases of the new flu, and on Friday it reported that six cases were fatal. No cases of human-to-human transmission have been confirmed, even though China’s disease control agency has traced hundreds of people who had contact with the 14 known cases, the news agency Xinhua reported. The flu, previously found only in wild birds, was isolated for the first time in domesticated birds on Thursday; after it was found in pigeons in a Shanghai live bird market, the authorities began culling every bird there. It will take at least a month to create the seed vaccine, even though the agency is speeding the process by building it from synthetic DNA rather than waiting for a virus sample to arrive from China, said Michael Shaw, associate laboratory director for the C.D.C.’s influenza division. Because China has posted the genetic sequences of the virus on public databanks, it is possible to build the genes for the virus’s outer spikes in a laboratory and attach them to a viral “backbone” that has already been proven to grow well in labs and in the sterile chicken eggs in which flu vaccines are made. Then the seed vaccine must be tested in ferrets. They will be vaccinated and given some time to grow antibodies, then a solution of the H7N9 flu will be squirted into their noses. Doctors will then have to wait a few days to see if they get sick. “If everything works smoothly the first time, we could theoretically have it ready to send to manufacturers within four weeks,” Dr. Shaw said. “But some things, like ferrets, you can’t speed up.” By that time, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the agency, it would have a clearer idea how dangerous the new flu is. It is still not clear how lethal it is, Dr. Shaw said, “because we may be seeing only the serious cases, the ones who go to hospitals.” How many mild cases went undetected will be known only by testing hundreds of blood samples for antibodies. It is also not known how people are getting infected, he said. The few known cases are spread out in a wide area around Shanghai. Exposure to infected poultry is an obvious suspicion. That is the risk factor for H5N1, another bird flu that has killed 371 people since 2003 but recently has been found only in Cambodia, China and Egypt. With the new flu, only two of the 14 known cases are poultry workers; a third was a cook. Finding it in pigeons is novel, Dr. Shaw said. “It’s clearly not making the pigeons ill, since no one’s seen large numbers of pigeons dying. Pigeons usually aren’t tested. And this could make control harder. Chickens are easy to round up.” According to the World Health Organization, preliminary tests in China suggest the new virus is susceptible to the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. Several countries have acted against the flu. Vietnam banned imports of Chinese poultry. Japan posted airport notices urging people to report flu symptoms. Hong Kong banned the import of live birds from the mainland.

Bird Flu
Vaccines Immunization
China
CDC


Crime Wave in Egypt Has People Afraid, Even the Police

Abstract: CAIRO — The neighbors watched helplessly from behind locked gates as an exchange of gunfire rang out at the police station. Then about 80 prisoners burst through the station’s doors — some clad only in underwear, many brandishing guns, machetes, even a fire extinguisher — as the police fled. “The police are afraid,” said Mohamed Ismail, 30, a witness. “I am afraid to leave my neighborhood.” Three months after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak , a crime wave in Egypt has emerged as a threat to its promised transition to democracy. Businessmen, politicians and human rights activists say they fear that the mounting disorder — from sectarian strife to soccer riots — is hampering a desperately needed economic recovery or, worse, inviting a new authoritarian crackdown. At least five attempted jailbreaks have been reported in Cairo in the past two weeks, at least three of them successful. Other attempts take place “every day,” a senior Interior Ministry official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. Newspapers brim with other episodes: the Muslim-Christian riot that raged last weekend with the police on the scene, leaving 12 dead and two churches in flames; a kidnapping for ransom of a grandniece of President Anwar el-Sadat ; soccer fans who crashed a field and mauled an opposing team as the police disappeared; a mob attack in an upscale suburb, Maadi, that hospitalized a traffic police officer; and the abduction of another officer by Bedouin tribes in the Sinai. “Things are actually going from bad to worse,” said Mohamed ElBaradei , the former international atomic energy official, now a presidential candidate. “Where have the police and military gone?” The answer, in part, is the revolution’s legacy. Public fury at police abuses helped set off the protests, which destroyed many police stations. Now police officers who knew only swagger and brute force are demoralized. In an effort to restore confidence after the sectarian riot last weekend, the military council governing the country until elections scheduled for September announced that 190 people involved would be sent to military court, alarming a coalition of human rights advocates. After an emergency cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf reiterated a pledge he made before the riots: The government backed the police in using all legal procedures, “including the use of force,” to defend themselves, their police stations, or places of worship. It was an extraordinary statement for a prime minister, in part because the police were already expected to do just that. “This may be the first time a government ever had to say that it was fully supporting its police,” said Bahey el-din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies . “It is an indication of the seriousness of the problem.” Many Egyptians, including at least one former police officer, contend that the police learned only one way to fight crime: brutality and torture. Now police officers see their former leader, Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, serving a 12-year prison term for corruption and facing another trial for charges of unlawful killing. Scores of officers are in jail for their role in repressing the protests. “They treated people like pests, so imagine when these pests now rise up, challenge them and humiliate them,” said Mahmoud Qutri, a former police officer who wrote a book criticizing the force. “They feel broken.” Mr. Hassan, who has spent his career criticizing the police, said he sympathized. Police officers who defended their stations from protesters are in jail, while those who went home to bed are not facing any trial, he said. “So the police are asking, ‘What is expected of us?’ It is a very logical question, and the problem is they don’t have an answer,” he said, blaming higher authorities. Shopkeepers say the police used to demand goods for just half the price. Now, said Mr. Ismail, the witness to the police station jailbreak, the officers who visit his cellphone shop murmur “please” and pay full price. “The tables have turned,” he said. The change in public attitudes is equally stunning, said Hisham A. Fahmy, chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt . “It’s: ‘Talk to me properly! I am a citizen!’ ” The spike in crime is a remarkable contrast to life in the Mubarak police state, when violent street crime was a relative rarity and few feared to walk alone at night. “Now it is like New York,” said Mr. Fahmy, adding that his group, which advocates for international companies, had been urging military leaders to respond more vigorously. At a soccer match pitting a Cairo team against a Tunisian team, police officers ringed the field until a referee made a call against an Egyptian goalie. Then the officers seemed to vanish as a mob of fans assaulted the referee and the visiting team. Five players were injured, two of them hospitalized, and the referee fled. “When the violence erupted, the police just disappeared,” said Mourad Teyeb, a Tunisian journalist who covered the game. The one policeman he found told him, “I don’t care, I don’t assume any responsibility,” Mr. Teyeb said, adding that he feared for his life and hid in the Egyptian team’s dressing room. Some see a conspiracy. “I think it is deliberate,” said Dr. Shady al-Ghazaly Harb, an organizer of the Tahrir Square protests, contending that officials were pulling back to invite chaos and a crackdown. “I think there are bigger masterminds at work.” Interior Ministry officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the security situation, said the destruction of police stations had contributed to the disorder. The remaining stations are overcrowded with prisoners from other facilities. Of the 80 escapees from the police station, 60 have been recaptured, an officer said. Mansour el-Essawy, the new interior minister, has called the lawlessness an inevitable legacy of the revolution. Of the 24,000 prisoners who escaped during the revolution, 8,400 are still on the run, and 6,600 weapons stolen from government armories have not been recovered, he said in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper, Al Masry Al Youm. After the revolution, he said, the police justifiably complained of working 16-hour shifts for low pay. Bribery customarily made up for the low wages, critics say. So the ministry cut back the officers’ hours, and as a result also cut the number on duty at any time. And the sudden loss of prestige made it harder to recruit. “People are not stepping forward to join the police,” he complained.


Jury Finds Gang Member Guilty of Trenton Murder

Abstract: TRENTON, Oct. 11 — A Mercer County jury has convicted a member of a local faction of the Latin Kings street gang in the murder of a female gang member and the attempted slaying of her male companion. After 70 minutes of deliberations, the jury on Wednesday found the gang member, Angel Hernandez, 22, guilty in the 2004 shooting death of Jeri-Lynn Dotson, 23, who was killed in front of her 2-year-old daughter. “It’s really gratifying,” Thomas Meidt, the assistant prosecutor who handled the case, said of the verdict. “The family has been struggling with this, so I’m happy to see them get a little bit of closure.” The case underscored the challenges facing law enforcement officers when trying to persuade potential witnesses to testify while being intimidated by gangs and other suspects. The day before she was killed, Ms. Dotson saw fellow members of her gang kidnap a man who was later choked and left to die. The man, Alex Ruiz, her companion, survived. After Ms. Dotson was killed, the authorities said, other gang members tried to pressure witnesses who had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. One of four gang members who had agreed to testify against Mr. Hernandez, Roberto Rodriguez, was scalded in the face with hot oil by a gang member while he was in protective custody in the Mercer County jail. Other witnesses were also threatened, but each testified during the trial, which lasted seven weeks. Mr. Meidt said the testimony of the gang members — who were among nine defendants indicted in the case and who are expected to receive reduced sentences in exchange for their cooperation — was crucial. Citing the difficulties in gaining witness cooperation in the case, Mr. Meidt also said that local prosecutors needed more money and other resources to ensure the safety of potential witnesses. During the trial, Mr. Meidt went to great lengths to protect his witnesses: He persuaded a judge to bar photographers from the courtroom when the gang members testified for fear that publishing their pictures would put them in greater danger. “We need a better system,” Mr. Meidt said, observing that unlike federal prosecutors, local authorities often have few additional resources to keep witnesses safe. “One of the hardest things is protecting these people.” The killing of Ms. Dotson, called Latin Queen by gang members, was one of the more chilling slayings in a city that has been ranked among the most dangerous of its size in the country. In a taped confession that was played in court, Mr. Hernandez said he shot Ms. Dotson in the head at the request of a gang leader, Jose Negrete. The authorities said that Ms. Dotson had been singled out because the gang believed she had been sharing internal gang information with Mr. Ruiz. The authorities said Ms. Dotson lived with Mr. Ruiz, who the authorities said was a member of a rival gang, the Netas. In addition to the charges related to Ms. Dotson’s death, Mr. Hernandez was convicted on Wednesday of attempted murder in the choking of Mr. Ruiz. Mr. Hernandez faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 17.

Gangs
Murders and Attempted Murders
Latin Kings


Governor of Puerto Rico Warns of Looming Default Without Bankruptcy Plan

Abstract: The governor of Puerto Rico redoubled threats on Wednesday of a major bond default, as an effort to help the struggling commonwealth use bankruptcy to shed debt headed for defeat in Congress. Gov. Alejandro García Padilla warned in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington that Puerto Rico would probably miss debt payments in January or May because its government had run out of cash. “There is no money,” he said. “I don’t have a printing machine.” The governor’s comments came as Congress omitted from a federal spending bill any measures to allow Puerto Rico to restructure its roughly $72 billion of debt in Federal Bankruptcy Court. Mr. García Padilla and his Democratic Party allies in Washington have been pushing for months to allow the island to take shelter from its creditors through bankruptcy. Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which is available to cities, counties and other local governments on the mainland, specifically excludes Puerto Rico as well as states. Many Republican leaders are opposed to giving Puerto Rico access to Chapter 9, in part because of concerns that the island would blaze a trail that severely troubled states might try to follow. The proposal was also vehemently opposed by bondholders, including hedge funds, that have bought billions of dollars of Puerto Rico’s debt, under the assurance that it could not be cut in bankruptcy. The omnibus spending bill , hashed out by Republican and Democratic House leaders late Tuesday, offers one of the last chances this year for Congress to assist Puerto Rico. It is expected to be put to a final vote on Friday. Supporters of bankruptcy authority for Puerto Rico vowed to keep fighting for such a measure, which requires congressional approval. In a statement, Speaker Paul D. Ryan said that “while we could not agree to including precedent-setting changes to bankruptcy law in this omnibus spending bill,” he had instructed various House committees to work with Puerto Rico to come up with a “responsible solution” by the end of the first quarter of 2016. The Treasury Department has been among those pushing for Congress to create an orderly legal process for Puerto Rico to restructure its debts, rather than leaving it up to a free-for-all among creditors. Some analysts fear that a major default could result in just such a scramble, as creditors file a series of lawsuits seeking to protect their claims to the island’s increasingly scarce cash. The Puerto Rico governor has previously raised the specter of default, saying in June that the island’s debts were “not payable.” On Wednesday, he did not specify whether Puerto Rico might default on all or only a portion of the debt coming due on the first of the year. Mr. García Padilla said it was becoming increasingly difficult to make debt payments while also providing essential government services. It will “probably be on Jan. 1 that I will not have money to do both things,” he said. “And if I have to choose between Puerto Ricans and creditors, I will choose Puerto Ricans. There is no question.” Puerto Rico has already defaulted on a small amount of its debt — skipping a $58 million “moral obligation bond” payment last August — but the Jan. 1 payments are seen as an important test of whether Mr. García Padilla and his advisers are willing to default on general obligation bonds. That type of debt has historically been marketed as virtually default-proof, and Puerto Rico’s general obligation bonds are guaranteed by its Constitution. On Jan. 1, Puerto Rico owes bond payments of as much as $902 million, according to the Center for a New Economy , a nonpartisan research institute in San Juan. About $332 million of that bond payment is for general obligation bonds. Other large payments are due on the same day from the public corporations that operate the island’s water, electricity and highway systems, among others. The omnibus spending bill detailed some additional assistance for Puerto Rico, though critics said those measures would have minimal impact on the island’s severe cash shortage. One provision would increase Medicare payments to Puerto Rico’s doctors and hospitals by about $900 million. The bill also authorizes the Treasury to provide “technical assistance,” like helping the Puerto Rico government with its budgeting, forecasting, cash management, information technology and tax collection — enhancing the Treasury’s current engagement. Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he welcomed further assistance from the Treasury. “We can now begin the process of improving basic bookkeeping in the territory and end the opacity and lack of transparency in their finances,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. Republican senators on committees with jurisdiction over Puerto Rico have complained that the island has not provided enough information to warrant anything like a cash bailout. “Providing blank checks without oversight or fiscal responsibility is not my preferred approach,” Mr. Hatch said. “Congress missed an opportunity to do the right thing,” Mr. García Padilla said on Wednesday. “Hedge funds proved more persuasive over Congress than the well-being of 3.5 million American citizens living in Puerto Rico.”

Puerto Rico
Alejandro Garcia Padilla
Debt
US Politics
Bankruptcy


California: Governor Asks Judges to Lift Order on Reducing Prison Population

Abstract: Gov. Jerry Brown asked federal judges on Tuesday to lift a court order for more releases of state prisoners to reduce overcrowding, saying that such a move could harm public safety. California has been under court orders to reduce the population in the 33-prison system since 2009. The remarks by Mr. Brown, a Democrat, came after a Monday deadline for prison officials to explain the steps they would take to lower the inmate population to 137.5 percent of capacity. Reaching that level would require the release of an additional 9,000 prisoners.


Mechanical Issue Cited in Crash That Killed Nascar Driver

Abstract: The New Jersey State Police said a mechanical problem was to blame for the dirt-track crash that killed the Nascar driver Jason Leffler. The state police released findings from a not-yet-complete report on the June 12 crash at Bridgeport Speedway.

Accidents and Safety
Car Racing
Jason Leffler


Without a Constitution, ‘Brexit’ Is Guided by a Prerogative. But Whose?

Abstract: LONDON — For hundreds of years, the royal prerogative has allowed Britain’s leaders to mint coinage, requisition ships, send troops into battle or authorize the mining of precious metals. But should a set of archaic rules also be used to take Britain out of the European Union? At the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, that question was being tested last week at the start of a legal case that could — just possibly — keep Britain inside the 28-nation bloc, at least pending a more comprehensive plan for withdrawal, known as Brexit. To date, the Conservative government has dismissed the case as legal “camouflage,” a thinly disguised effort to frustrate the will of the people expressed in a June plebiscite . Dominic Raab, a Conservative lawmaker and Brexit supporter, told the BBC that the challenge was designed to “steal the referendum by the back door.” But not so fast, experts in British constitutional law say. “I think it’s enormously important,” said Jeff King, a professor of the law at University College, London, “probably one of the most significant — if not the most significant — cases of its kind of the century, and the 20th century.” “Rarely has the legality of the execution of prerogative power had such political significance,” added Professor King, a Canadian national who sympathizes with the legal arguments of the challengers. At issue is whether Prime Minister Theresa May is entitled to use the age-old powers of royal prerogative to start the two-year process of Britain’s disengagement from the European Union, thus sidestepping a parliamentary vote. Mrs. May believes that the referendum vote in June to quit the bloc gives her the clear democratic mandate to start Brexit talks (she says no later than the end of March). In doing so, she argues, Britain will sever an international treaty, which is a decision properly for the executive, not Parliament. But that attempt to bypass Parliament may be taking Mrs. May into a legal, political and constitutional quagmire. The case illustrates the peculiarity of Britain’s unwritten constitution, which has evolved over the centuries, rather than being codified like that of the United States and most other democracies. Though Britons tend to like the constitutional flexibility this fuzziness provides, it also leaves gaps on questions that might be clearly answered had earlier generations written things down. And arguments about the royal prerogative are nothing new. In the 17th century, they formed the basis of bitter and violent disputes between Parliament and the sovereign, culminating in the English Civil War and, in 1688, the Glorious Revolution. “The conflict was resolved only after the execution of one king and the expulsion of another,” says a research note from the House of Commons library, referring to the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and the ouster of James II in 1688. Nowadays, such battles take place in court, and the current challenge is being mounted by several individuals, including Gina Miller, an investment fund manager, and Deir Dos Santos, a hairdresser. They are challenging royal prerogative powers that, in modern times, are exercised by the government, not the monarch. In this case, Mrs. May argues that, because it covers international treaty-making, the royal prerogative can be used to activate Article 50 of the European Union’s treaty without the approval of lawmakers. The step is significant because, once invoked, Article 50 sets a two-year deadline for the conclusion of exit talks, after which Britain is likely to be outside the bloc. Mrs. May’s critics argue that Parliament would be turned into a bystander in the process of starting Britain’s disengagement from more than four decades of European integration. It would then be forced to pass legislation simply giving effect to a decision taken by executive fiat. Even if Parliament gets the chance to vote at the end of the two-year period on any exit agreement, it may face a Hobson’s choice between endorsing an agreement it dislikes or being outside the bloc without any trade deal at all. In a wood-paneled, chandeliered courtroom, the language was legalistic, and the case could hinge on an interpretation of what actually happened when Britain joined the predecessor of the European Union in 1973, a step that was approved by Parliament. One question is whether lawmakers effectively legislated to join (in which case, one could argue, they need to legislate to leave). Or did Parliament simply put into domestic British law the result of an international treaty (in which case it probably need not legislate to quit)? In courtroom No. 4, one of Britain’s star lawyers, David Pannick, outlined the basis for the challenge, pointing out that the referendum in June was, in strictly legal terms, advisory. Through the parliamentary act that in 1972 approved Britain’s membership in the European Economic Community (the predecessor of the European Union), Parliament had, he said, given Britons a range of rights, some of which had been augmented over the decades (such as the right to live and work on the Continent). The government, he argued, proposed to use prerogative powers to do something that “defeats” rights given by the British Parliament. “Our legal claim is in support of parliamentary sovereignty,” he told the court. “What Parliament does with its sovereignty is, of course, entirely a matter for Parliament.” Given that many who campaigned for Brexit did so in the name of parliamentary sovereignty, the question is delicate among some supporters of withdrawal within Mrs. May’s ruling Conservative Party. In recent years, the prerogative powers have been in retreat, particularly the prime minister’s right to take the country to war. By deciding to consult Parliament in 2003 over the Iraq invasion, Tony Blair, the Labour prime minister at the time, made it almost impossible politically for his successors to avoid doing the same. When asked, a decade later, British lawmakers prevented British participation in the bombing of Syria. Were the government to lose the Article 50 case, it would pose a new parliamentary hurdle to Mrs. May at a moment when the pound sterling has fallen and the business community has become jittery about the prospect of losing preferential access to lucrative European markets. But it is far from clear that even a defeat for the government would ultimately do anything more than complicate the process of Britain’s departure. While the majority of its lawmakers, including Mrs. May, wanted to remain in the European Union, most of the Conservative Party has now united around Brexit, and some opposition Labour representatives would also be reluctant to oppose the outcome of the referendum. Nevertheless, the legal action poses a test for Britain’s rickety constitutional arrangements, and also for the man formally named as the defendant in the case: David Davis, the secretary of state for exiting the European Union. Mr. Davis, you see, is a fierce advocate of civil liberties, and campaigned, unsuccessfully, in 1999 for some crown prerogative powers to be curbed.

Brexit
EU
Theresa May
Great Britain
Europe


Many Ski Areas Lack an Essential Ingredient

Abstract: WEST DOVER, Vt. — There were far too many skis on hand this week at High Altitude, a rental shop on the road to Mount Snow here, and Andrew Glover, the manager, was far too lonely. The problem was the weather. Week after maddening week of unusually balmy temperatures have made snowfall scant in New England, and, worse, wreaked havoc on snowmaking at ski resorts that like to have a healthy base of, at the least, manmade snow by Christmas. Many ski areas opened late this year, and the slow start is threatening the fragile economy of towns that rely heavily on the ski traffic that usually starts in earnest over the holidays. Hundreds of seasonal workers have been unable to start their jobs, while some innkeepers report far more empty rooms than is customary during the holidays. “We opened two weeks before Thanksgiving , and to this point we haven’t even done $2,500 worth of sales,” said Mr. Glover, whose shop also sells ski and snowboarding gear. “It’s been wacky weather, and it’s been really tough.” Nor is the frustration limited to the Northeast. Out West, some of the country’s more famous ski resorts have been waiting for the steady snowfall that made last year an epic season, dumping seemingly endless amounts of fresh powder. At Squaw Valley in Olympic Valley, Calif., near Lake Tahoe only 15 percent of the mountain was open this week. Just 12 inches of snow had fallen at the base of the resort and 26 inches on the upper mountain, by far the lowest in a decade for this time of year. (By this point in 2010, the resort had received 135 inches at the base and 246 inches on its upper mountain.) At Alta Ski Area , near Salt Lake City, the base depth was 34 inches, compared with 105 inches last year at this time. “People are just ready to sacrifice someone to the gods,” said Bill Clifford of Cumberland, Me., who plans to spend the holiday week with his family at Sugarloaf , where 15 out of 153 trails were open on Thursday. “Everyone’s depressed, knowing those limited trails will be crowded and not very much fun.” On the few days and nights that temperatures have dropped and lingered below the mid-20s, ski areas in the Northeast have gone into manic snowmaking mode. Bill Stenger, president and chief executive of Jay Peak Resort in Jay, Vt., said the resort had been able to make snow on about 15 days this season, about half the usual number. “We’re going like hell” on days that are cold enough to fire up the snow guns, he said. “Our guys are working 24 hours a day.” But those efforts have been foiled at times — as on Wednesday, when temperatures rose into the 40s in southern Vermont. “If Mother Nature’s not going to give us the snow, she’s got to give us the temperatures,” said David Meeker, a spokesman for Mount Snow, where 16 of 80 trails were open on Thursday. Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort , in Hancock, Mass., opened on Dec. 10, a few weeks later than its usual Thanksgiving start, delaying paychecks for hundreds of seasonal workers. Brian Fairbank, president and chief executive, said that about 800 skiers had visited the ski area by mid-December, down from 3,000 by that point last year. “The Valium bottle in my drawer — I haven’t taken it out yet or opened it yet,” Mr. Fairbank said. “But it’s close.” Mad River Glen, a ski area in Waitsfield, Vt., which prides itself on making minimal snow and relying almost entirely on the natural kind, has yet to open at all. “There’s probably about 45 people waiting just to start work,” said Jamey Wimble, Mad River’s president and chief executive. At Okemo Mountain Resort in Ludlow, Vt., 33 trails were open on Tuesday, compared with 70 or 80 this time last year, said Bonnie MacPherson, the resort’s spokeswoman. Okemo has focused on where it is easiest to make snow, she said: high on the mountain, which means intermediate and advanced trails. In Colorado, ski areas like Keystone and Arapahoe Basin had opened less than half of their terrain, although colder temperatures were allowing snow-making machines to keep runs open and both had a few inches of snowfall this week. In both the East and the West, ski industry workers said it was too soon to predict how the season would shape up, because December snowfall is typically fickle. Parts of Vermont and Massachusetts were eagerly expecting a few inches overnight Thursday and Friday morning. “We know the snow will come,” said Jennifer Rudolph, spokeswoman for Colorado Ski Country USA, a trade association that represents 22 of the state’s ski resorts. There is a bright spot: northern New Mexico, where Taos Ski Valley has received more than 50 inches of snow this month, compared with only six last December. “This is the best opening we’ve had since 2002,” said Adriana Blake, a spokeswoman. At Vermont’s Mount Snow, an arsenal of some 250 fan guns and 800 air water guns have built the base depth to 10 to 18 inches and, thanks to cold temperatures over the weekend, doubled the resort’s skiable terrain between Friday and Tuesday. Mr. Fairbank, of Jiminy Peak, said he had flown a small plane over a number of ski areas in the region on Monday, snapping pictures of slopes covered with (manmade) snow to send the 100,000 people on his resort’s e-mail list. Still, he and others said it was famously hard to motivate people to venture north on a ski trip if their home turf was still grassy. “When people are still able to play golf down in Connecticut,” said Mark Wallace, owner of First Trax Sports Shop in West Dover, “they’re not thinking about coming up here.” Deb Buehler, who owns the Red Oak Inn in West Dover, a few miles from Mount Snow, said she had 22 guests last Christmas but no bookings until Dec. 29 this year. But Mr. Meeker said the resort’s hotel and condominiums were mostly booked for the week after Christmas. At Stratton Mountain in southern Vermont, where 18 of 94 trails were open on Wednesday and the afternoon temperature was 39 degrees at the summit, Myra Foster, the marketing manager, said there had been a few cancellations for the Christmas week. “People are really waiting to see,” she said. “Everyone’s keeping their fingers crossed.” T. J. Raab, a skier from Hoboken, N.J., who coordinates a ski-house share with 17 other people in Killington, Vt., said he had skied there last weekend but that with limited terrain open, the trails felt crowded. “We skied from 8 to 10, and by then we were like, We need to get off this mountain,” Mr. Raab said. “You feel like you’re going to get crushed.” But Tristan Grush, 14, of West Dover, said he had skied 10 trails at Mount Snow last weekend and found the terrain “really nice.” The ribbons of white on the otherwise brown mountain lift his spirit, he said. “When I’m skiing, I feel like it’s winter,” he said. “You go to the mountain and it reboots your faith.”

Skiing
Snow and Snowstorms
Weather
New England States (US)
Economic Conditions and Trends
Vermont
California
Salt Lake City (Utah)
Maine