Social Media Firms Move to Capitalize on Popularity in Middle East

Abstract: DUBAI — For its most recent advertising push, the Saudi Arabian telecommunications giant Mobily did not turn to the street or television to engage with customers. Mobily paid to promote itself on Twitter. The use of social media exploded during the Arab Spring as people turned to cyberspace to express themselves. On the back of that, social media networks, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, have moved into the region commercially, setting up offices to sell advertising products to companies like Mobily, which has over 200,000 Twitter followers, to capitalize on the growing audience. “In Saudi, social media gets everyone talking to everyone, which is something we just don’t have in the streets here,” said Muna AbuSulayman, a Saudi development consultant and formerly a popular television talk show host, who has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. “It’s a unique opportunity that lets people have conversations in a boundary-less way that wasn’t possible before,” Ms. AbuSulayman said. “In addition to promoting social and political discussion, it carries a powerful economic incentive for businesses, too.” The rise of social media in the Arab world is changing the game for regional advertisers, pushing growth in digital advertising in a part of the world where traditional methods like television and print advertising have so far remained dominant. Digital advertising in the Middle East and North Africa accounts for only about 4 percent of the region’s total advertising spending, at a value of $200 million, according to the most recent available estimate, but it has become the fastest-growing media platform in the region, said a study by the business services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, published in 2011. Deloitte’s Arab Media Outlook projected growth in digital advertising spending in the region of 35 percent a year over the next three years, generating about $580 million across the region by 2015. “The fact is that consumers are online, so brands need to be online,” said Reda Raad, chief operating officer of TBWA\Raad, the Middle East arm of the global advertising agency TBWA. “The use of digital channels has continued to increase dramatically after the Arab Spring and advertising on social media has become a highly targeted, cost-efficient way of communicating with consumers.” Major brands, including Pepsi Arabia, are taking note. Saudi Arabia has the highest number of Twitter users in the Arab world, holding 38 percent of the region’s two million users, according to a report by the Dubai School of Government’s Arab Social Media Report released in June. In the past year alone, the number of Twitter users in the Arab world tripled, according to Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s vice president for international operations. Thanks to the platform’s popularity in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Arabic is now the fastest-growing language on the Twitter platform. “We prioritized a list of regions where we wanted to have a business presence, and the Mideast rises toward the top because the region’s user base is one of the fastest-growing in the world,” Mr. Rao said during an interview. “This represents a huge opportunity for brands looking for a large audience that is rapidly growing.” Twitter has formed a partnership with the Egyptian digital advertising company Connect Ads to market and sell advertising services across the Middle East and North Africa region. Connect Ads will offer brand managers and marketers Twitter’s products, which include promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends. Through these, a brand can reach broad Twitter audiences or more narrowly defined geographic or demographic segments. They can even target users of specific smartphone brands, like iPhones. Brands that have signed up so far include Mobily, Pepsi Arabia, the resort company Atlantis The Palm, and the events portal Dubai Calendar. “Companies can learn a few things about their customers by optimizing for country and targeting those with specific interests,” said Mohamed El Mehairy, managing director of Connect Ads. “They can probably uncover this type of information through market research,” he added, but it would come “at a higher expense and with more time and effort.” For Facebook, the number of Arab users nearly tripled in two years, to 45 million in June 2012 from 16 million in June 2010, according to a report on Arab social media by the Dubai School of Government. Facebook began commercial operations in the region in May, when it opened an office in Dubai. Similarly, LinkedIn, a professional social networking and job search site with five million Arab users, started advertising services in the Middle East in October, after identifying the region as one of its fastest-growing. The site sees tremendous potential in the region’s combination of rising Internet use, one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, and a characteristically young demography with 40 percent of the region’s 380 million population under 30 years old, according to a report by Booz & Co. “Nearly 90 percent of Internet users are on social media, and add to that the economic stability in the Gulf and young demographic, and you can see why it was important for our business to have a presence in the region,” said Ali Matar, head of talent solutions at LinkedIn in Dubai. The social media networks are aggressively moving into smartphone marketing in the region as well, where mobile penetration rates are as high as 190 percent in Saudi Arabia — meaning, on average, nearly everybody has two phones — according to a research report by a Madar Research and Development team on technology adoption. Global data from Google show that mobile ads are noticed by 93 percent of smartphone users, 39 percent of whom follow up by making purchases online. With Pepsi Arabia focusing on adding to its 1.6 million “likes” on Facebook and Mobily pushing to add to its 200,000 Twitter followers, the introduction of commercial operations by the social media networks aims to monetize the interest for themselves and the brands. “We let the brands have a conversation with the relevant audience,” said Mr. Rao, of Twitter. “Our products allow them to reach a broader, more specific audience — that’s the key.”

Middle East
Arab Spring
advertising,marketing
Facebook
LinkedIn
Saudi Arabia


Prosecutors Describe an Extensive Drug Ring in Affluent Pennsylvania Schools

Abstract: HAVERFORD, Pa. — Boldly describing their enterprise as the “Main Line Take Over Project,” two former students of a private school in this affluent suburb of Philadelphia took on an ambitious business venture, prosecutors said. The goal: control the marijuana trade at local high schools and colleges in the picturesque, wealthy corridor of towns known as the Main Line. They enlisted local students to act as dealers, pushing them to sell at least one pound of marijuana a week, prosecutors said. During an investigation into the operation this year, detectives seized marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and several weapons, including a loaded assault rifle and a semiautomatic pistol, according to the Montgomery County district attorney’s office. Image Timothy C. Brooks Credit Office of Montgomery County District Attorney, via Associated Press On Monday, prosecutors announced the arrests of eight people on charges of distributing drugs in five public and private high schools and in three Pennsylvania colleges. They identified the main drug suppliers as Neil K. Scott, 25, a 2008 graduate of the $35,000-a-year Haverford School, and Timothy C. Brooks, 18, a 2013 Haverford graduate. Both men had played lacrosse for the school and had returned home to the Main Line after leaving college, prosecutors said. Mr. Scott dropped out of Connecticut College after being penalized for using marijuana, prosecutors said, and Mr. Brooks left the University of Richmond in Virginia after one semester. Prosecutors said that the marijuana was shipped in bulk to Mr. Scott from a supplier in California. Mr. Brooks allegedly told the dealers that it was important to make sure there was a constant supply of marijuana in each school because he remembered it was not always easy to buy marijuana when he was in high school. “Parents across our community have chosen to send their children to these schools and colleges because they are some of the finest institutions of learning in the United States,” District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said in a statement. “These drug dealers, motivated by their own greed, sought to create a network to push poison into our educational institutions and take over drug distribution on the Main Line.” On Tuesday, local school officials were reviewing their drug policies and determining whether to step up efforts to educate students about the dangers of drug abuse. Image Neil K. Scott Credit Office of Montgomery County District Attorney, via Associated Press The headmaster of Haverford School, John Nagl, said in an interview that he was “shocked and appalled” by the charges and would re-examine the school’s drug policy. “We will make sure that something like this never, ever happens again,” he said, adding that it was too early to say how the drug policy, which includes expulsion for drug distribution, might change. Mr. Nagl suggested that drug use at his school was not widespread, noting that prosecutors said one of those charged, Daniel Robert McGrath, 18, a student there, had sold only about $40 to $50 of drugs a week. “We didn’t believe we had a significant problem, and we honestly still don’t believe we have a significant problem,” Mr. Nagl said. Image Mr. Brooks and Mr. Scott are both graduates of the $35,000-a-year Haverford School. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times On the wooded campus of Haverford College, Dan Schwartz, 21, a junior, described the college authorities as being “relatively lax about marijuana.” Although the elite college’s policy is that students should not take any illegal drugs, it recognizes that its students are adults and that it cannot control every aspect of their lives, Mr. Schwartz said. “Their first and foremost policy is always ‘Be safe,’ ” he said. “If you have a drug problem, the school will not seek to punish you, it will seek to help you.” In the nearby Lower Merion School District, a public school system where one suspect allegedly sold drugs, the drug policy has zero tolerance for even the smallest quantity of marijuana, said the district spokesman, Doug Young. He said offenders would be suspended immediately, or might be expelled, depending on the severity of the offense. But he said the district might step up its efforts to educate students about the dangers of drug use. He described the district’s exposure to the charges as “a call to action that we can be doing more to support better decision-making.” Still, he said, “The reality is that it’s virtually impossible to prevent every student from making poor choices.”

Drug Abuse
Organized crime
Private Schools
Philadelphia
K-12 Education
Marijuana,Pot,Weed
Ecstasy,MDMA,Molly
Timothy C Brooks
Neil K Scott
Haverford PA


Manchester City Avoids Liverpool’s Fate in Champions League

Abstract: England avoided a second consecutive nightmarish night on Wednesday as Manchester City beat host Roma by 2-0 on the final day of group-stage play to advance to the first knockout round of the UEFA Champions League. Manchester City, the defending Premier League champion, was in danger of following Liverpool, the runner-up in the Premier League last season, to an early exit from the competition. Liverpool was ousted on Tuesday when it was held to a 1-1 tie by Switzerland’s Basel at Anfield. Manchester City, which was without the injured stalwarts Yaya Touré, Vincent Kompany and Sergio Agüero, dodged a similar elimination with goals from Samir Nasri and Pablo Zabaleta at Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Roma, which is currently in second in Italy’s top division, will make do with a place in the second-tier Europa League tournament, where it could run into Liverpool. “People wrote us off without our key players, but we’re a strong unit; we believed in what we could do,” said Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart, who made two key saves to preserve the lead. “You don’t win two Premier League titles in three years easily. We have resolve, character and fantastic players — add that together, and you’ve got a chance.” Manchester City’s frantic finish to the group stage — it concluded with victories over Bayern Munich and Roma in its last two games — pushed the team to a second-place finish behind Bayern in Group E. That means City will be drawn against one of the first-place finishers in the Round of 16, a set of teams that includes juggernauts like Barcelona and Real Madrid. Manchester City will be joined in the knockout rounds by familiar compatriots. Chelsea advanced to the knockout rounds for the 12th time in 13 years (it won the Europa League in the one season it missed out), and Arsenal qualified as well, finishing second in Group D behind Borussia Dortmund. Pleasant as Arsenal’s consistency may be — this is the 12th consecutive season the Gunners will play in the knockout rounds — there is also an ever-growing sense of malaise among Arsenal fans over what has been a fairly predictable path: In each of the past four seasons, Arsenal has qualified out of the group stage only to be promptly eliminated in the Round of 16. The 16 teams who qualified for the next round are, generally, the teams one might expect. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid qualified from Spain; Bayern Munich, Dortmund, Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen from Germany; Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City from England; Paris St.-Germain and Monaco from France; and Juventus from Italy. Less-heralded teams to make it through were Basel, Porto from Portugal and Shakhtar Donetsk from Ukraine. The draw for the Round of 16 will be held on Monday in Switzerland. Teams from the same country or those who met in the group stage cannot be drawn against one another, and each group winner is guaranteed to face a runner-up. M.L.S. HOLDS EXPANSION DRAFT The longtime Major League Soccer goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts of the Portland Timbers was the first player taken in the league’s expansion draft, by Orlando City. New York City F.C. took midfielder Ned Grabavoy with its first pick, reuniting him with his former coach at Real Salt Lake, Jason Kreis. In addition, the Red Bulls traded defender Jamison Olave to Real Salt Lake, with whom he previously played five seasons, for allocation money. (AP) AUCKLAND CITY ADVANCES Auckland City of New Zealand advanced to the quarterfinals of the Club World Cup, beating the local champion Moghreb Tetouan in Rabat, Morocco, on penalty kicks after a 0-0 draw. Real Madrid, the favorite, enters the tournament in the semifinals on Wednesday. (AP) RIVER PLATE WINS River Plate of Argentina won the Copa Sudamericana, South America’s second-most important club competition, by beating Atlético Nacional of Colombia, 2-0, in the second leg of the final. (NYT) U.S. WOMEN TIE CHINA The United States women’s team conceded a second-half equalizer in a 1-1 draw against China in the opening match of the International Tournament of Brasília. Carli Lloyd put the United States ahead in the 22nd minute, but Hang Peng scored in the 66th minute of the game, the opener of the four-team competition. Lloyd’s goal was her 57th with the national team. China’s equalizer came on a remarkable right-footed shot from the right side of the box. (AP)

Soccer
UEFA Champions League
Manchester City Soccer Team
Roma Soccer Team


Associate Says Mayo Received Gifts

Abstract: LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former associate of the Southern California freshman guard O. J. Mayo says that Mayo received thousands of dollars in cash and other gifts from an event promoter over the past four years, a violation of N.C.A.A. rules, ESPN reported Sunday. Louis Johnson told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that Rodney Guillory, a event promoter based in Los Angeles, gave Mayo about $30,000 and other benefits while he attended high school and U.S.C. Mayo has decided to forgo his sophomore year and enter the N.B.A. draft. Guillory received monthly payments from the Northern California sports agency Bill Duffy Associates, the network reported. Mayo signed with the agency last month shortly after declaring that he would enter the June 26 draft. A telephone message left for the agency was not immediately answered Sunday. Johnson said the agency provided Guillory with about $200,000 before Mayo arrived at U.S.C. Guillory used most of the money to support himself, but also gave a portion of it to Mayo, Johnson told ESPN. Mayo then entered into an oral agreement that allowed the agency to represent him when he turned pro, Johnson added. “I have not engaged in any wrongdoing,” Mayo said in a statement to ESPN.

Mayo O J
University of Southern California
National Basketball Assn
National Collegiate Athletic Assn
Athletics and Sports


A Ballpark Tour, in Every Major League City

Abstract: Each spring, the start of the major league baseball season brings a fresh slate for teams and their fans, from the Green Monster in Boston to Dodger Dogs in Los Angeles. But as summer fades into the shorter days of autumn, the memories of a season past extend beyond the field, reaching into the slanted seats of the upper deck, onto the crowded sidewalks in front of a ballpark. Photographer Ray Whitehouse, a graduate student at North Carolina, traveled approximately 18,000 miles over 85 days to visit the 30 major league ballparks to try to capture the game-day experience in each of these cities. The opportunity to watch each team on its home field, in front of its home crowd, kept Whitehouse on the road at one stretch for 43 days as he visited 21 stadiums. At each park, he purchased the cheapest available ticket. Armed with two cameras, he set out on a simple mission: to compile a portrait of America through a pastime that has so strongly influenced its identity. Image May 18, Chicago: Cubs 4, Brewers 2 A rooftop view from Sheffield Avenue shows that some of the best seats to catch a game at Wrigley Field are on the outside looking in. Image May 24, Detroit: Rangers 12, Tigers 2 A man who said his name is Art collected bottles outside Comerica Park as fans filed into the ballpark. Image May 25, Chicago: Yankees 7, White Sox 1 Becky Goldrick, left, and Virginia Day cooled off at the fan favorite Plumbers Union Local 130 UA shower, a holdover from the original Comiskey Park. Image May 31, Milwaukee: Cubs 8, Brewers 0 The shadows at Miller Park, with its windows and retractable roof, have become its signature. Image June 8, Kansas City, Mo. Royals 2, Yankees 1 The Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat behind home plate at Kauffman Stadium is named for O’Neil, a player and manager for the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs who later spent many nights at the ballpark supporting the Royals. It is designated each game “member of the community who, on a large or small scale, embodies an aspect of O’Neil’s spirit.” Image June 14, St. Louis. Cardinals 4, Nationals 1 Fans took in the action from the upper deck in right field at Busch Stadium. Image June 21, Cincinnati. Reds 11, Blue Jays 1 Entertainment at Great American Ball Park was not limited to the action on the field as jugglers on stits made their way from one outfield section to another. Image June 22, Cleveland. Tigers 10, Indians 4 One young fan followed the action as the Indians scored a run at Progressive Field. Image June 29, Toronto. White Sox 4, Blue Jays 0 An usher at Rogers Centre received a playful greeting from Ace, the Blue Jays’ mascot. Image July 1, Pittsburgh. Pirates 3, Diamondbacks 2 The Roberto Clemente Bridge, named for the Pirates’ Hall of Fame outfielder, is closed to vehicular traffic on game days, providing a pedestrian route across the Allegheny River PNC Park. Image July 2, Baltimore: Orioles 6, Rangers 4 Social worker Joy Aisha Bell, left, shared a laugh at Camden Yards with Joann Wilson, who was attending her first baseball game. Image July 5, Washington: Nationals 13, Cubs 0 A banner outside Nationals Park displayed part of the team’s slogan for 2014: Nothing But Natitude. Image July 7, New York: Mets 4, Braves 3 A father and son catch a divisional matchup at Citi Field. Image July 9, Boston: Red Sox 5, White Sox 4 Sly Egidio, owner of the Yawkey Way Report, sells programs outside Fenway Park. Image July 11, Philadelphia: Phillies 6, Nationals 2 Fans took a post-game train ride toward downtown Philadelphia from Citizens Bank Park. Image July 13, St. Petersburg, Fla.: Rays 3, Blue Jays 0 Dave Clarke enjoyed a cigar at the Cuesta Rey Cigar Bar at Tropicana Field. Image July 18, Miami: Giants 9, Marlins 1 The concourse behind home plate at Marlins Park features a bobble head museum that includes figurines from all 30 major league teams, 588 in all. Image July 20, Atlanta: Braves 8, Phillies 2 David Caudell, who has been an usher for 16 years at Turner Field, is an Army veteran. His brother served in the Navy and his son is a marine. Image July 22, New York: Yankees 2, Rangers 1 (14 innings) Tyler Clarke threw batting practice at the site of the former Yankee Stadium, across the street from its successor. Image July 24, Oakland, Calif.: A’s 13, Astros 1 O.co Coliseum is the only stadium that operates as the full-time home to both an M.L.B. team and an N.F.L. team. Image July 25, San Francisco: Dodgers 8, Giants 1 Fans tried to persuade Giants outfielder Hunter Pence to toss them a ball before a game at AT&T Park. Image July 27, Denver: Pirates 7, Rockies 5 Ushers walked the seats just after the gates opened at Coors Field. Image July 29, Houston: Athletics 7, Astros 4 Tony Solis wore a chain with a medallion in the shape of the Astros logo - a gift from his father for his birthday - to Minute Maid Park. Image July 30, Arlington, Texas: Rangers 3, Yankees 2 Giant foam cowboy hats drew attention on the concourse at Globe Life Park. Image Aug. 1, Phoenix: Pirates 9, Diamondbacks 4 A man dressed as Superman walked around Chase Field, at times stopping to take photographs or exchange high-fives with other fans. Image Aug. 3, San Diego: Padres 4, Braves 3 Members of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot stand at attention before a game at Petco Park, where the Padres honor members of the military at each Sunday home game. Image Aug. 5, Los Angeles: Dodgers 5, Angels 4 Fans waited to enter Dodger Stadium, which is freshly painted in Dodger blue each offseason. Image Aug. 6, Anaheim: Dodgers 2, Angels 1 Beyond the wall in left-center field at Angel Stadium is the Outfield Extravaganza, modeled after the rocky coastline of California. Image Aug. 8, Seattle: Mariners 4, White Sox 1 The image of Robinson Cano, the Mariners’ big offseason acquisition, hovered above a Safeco Field entrance.

Stadiums Arenas
Baseball
Ray Whitehouse
Photography


Ahmadinejad Fires Mottaki as Iran’s Foreign Minister

Abstract: TEHRAN — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired Iran ’s foreign minister on Monday, a move that caught many here by surprise and appeared to reflect a strengthening of the president’s power. Mr. Ahmadinejad said in a presidential order that he had dismissed the minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, a career diplomat who for many years has been Iran’s face to the West. Mr. Mottaki was on an official visit to Senegal and did not immediately react to the news, which appeared to catch even the state-run Iranian news media by surprise. The firing seemed to represent a victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has been embroiled in a power struggle with a faction of moderate politicians centered in the Parliament and headed by the speaker, Ali Larijani. Political insiders said that after the 2005 election, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, forced the newly elected Mr. Ahmadinejad to accept Mr. Mottaki as foreign minister, even though Mr. Mottaki had backed Mr. Larijani’s presidential campaign. They said Mr. Khamenei had until now blocked the president’s efforts to replace him. Lawmakers loyal to Mr. Ahmadinejad had recently been threatening to seek Mr. Mottaki’s dismissal if the United Nations approved more sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program . But the foreign minister was never involved in the nuclear negotiations, a factor that led some analysts to dismiss the nuclear issue as a pretext for pushing him out. Other experts said the move signaled the rising prominence of nuclear matters in Iran’s foreign policy. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s choice for acting foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, is the head of Iran’s nuclear program and has served as ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Mr. Salehi, who is fluent in English, has a doctorate from M.I.T. With a new round of talks over Iran’s nuclear program scheduled for January, and the prospect of sanctions, it was not yet evident how the new appointment would affect Iran’s posture in negotiations over its nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at producing nuclear weapons . Tehran says it is for peaceful purposes only. It is possible that Mr. Salehi is only a fill-in. Some Iran observers speculated that Mr. Ahmadinejad might try to replace him with a permanent candidate from his inner circle. The firing of Mr. Mottaki could also be related to the recent release of United States diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, which made clear that many of Iran’s Arab neighbors remain deeply hostile to it. “Clearly, Iranian foreign policy has failed here and someone needed to pay the price for it,” said Trita Parsi, an Iran expert and founder of the National Iranian American Council in Washington. Last week, after multiparty talks with Iran in Geneva produced no discernible progress in halting its nuclear program, “In the wake of the Geneva talks, we and our allies are determined to maintain and even increase pressure,” Gary Samore, President Obama’s chief nuclear adviser, said Friday. “We need to send the message to Iran that sanctions will only increase if Iran avoids serious negotiations and will not be lifted until our concerns are fully addressed.” In a letter that was issued Monday, Mr. Ahmadinejad expressed gratitude to Mr. Mottaki for his years of service as foreign minister. “Hereby, I thank you for your services as efforts during your tenure in the Foreign Ministry,” it said. Asked about the dismissal, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was meeting with her Canadian and Mexican counterparts just outside Ottawa, said that she had no comment or insight about it. But she said that “whether one person or another is foreign minister is not as important as to what the policy of the Iranian government is.” The latest round of sanctions, imposed by the Security Council in the spring, is making it increasingly difficult for Iran to conduct business around the world, and the United States and its allies said Friday that new sanctions were planned in an effort to test “Iran’s pain threshold.” Also on Monday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador , Simon Gass, over accusations that Britain has interfered in Iran’s internal affairs, Iranian state media said and The Associated Press reported. Mr. Gass has been critical of Iran’s human rights record and, in an article posted Thursday on the British Embassy Web site, wrote that the British government “will continue to draw attention to cases where people are deprived of their fundamental freedoms.”

Iran
Ahmadinejad Mahmoud
Mottaki Manouchehr
International Relations


With Loss to Mavericks, 76ers Set Franchise Record

Abstract: Tyson Chandler had 20 points and 13 rebounds to help Dallas beat host Philadelphia, 110-103, on Saturday, sending the 76ers to a franchise-record 16th straight loss to start a season. Michael Carter-Williams had a triple-double with 18 points, 16 assists and 10 rebounds for the 76ers, who eclipsed the 1972-73 club, which began 0-15 on the way to setting an N.B.A. record for fewest victories in an 82-game season by finishing 9-73. Philadelphia became the fifth team in league history to open with at least 16 straight losses, joining the 1994-95 Clippers (0-16), the 1998-99 Clippers (0-17), the 1988-89 Heat (0-17) and the 2009-10 Nets (0-18). The 76ers will try again Monday for their first win when they host the Spurs, the defending N.B.A. champions. If they lose to San Antonio, Philadelphia could tie the N.B.A. record for defeats to begin a season Wednesday at Minnesota, and they could set an N.B.A. record Friday at home against Oklahoma City. WIZARDS 83, PELICANS 80 Marcin Gortat had 24 points and 13 rebounds, a season high, and Washington beat New Orleans at home. The Wizards trailed only once, when Anthony Davis, who led New Orleans with 30 points, dunked to give the Pelicans a 78-77 lead with 3 minutes 48 seconds remaining. Paul Pierce hit a layup and a 3-pointer to give Washington an 81-77 lead with 2 minutes 13 seconds left. Tyreke Evans missed a 3-point attempt that would have tied the score with 1.7 seconds to play. New Orleans has lost a season-worst three straight. Davis had 13 rebounds but did not block a shot for the first time in 15 games this season. The Pelicans had a season-low 12 assists. HAWKS 105, HORNETS 75 Paul Millsap scored 18 points, Mike Scott added 14, and host Atlanta handed Charlotte its ninth straight loss. The Hornets trailed by 20 early in the second quarter, by 32 late in the second and by 44 early in the third. Al Jefferson was the only Hornets scorer in double figures until the reserve guard P. J. Hairston scored his 10th point in the fourth. Hairston ended up leading Charlotte with 15 points. CAVALIERS 109, PACERS 97 Kevin Love scored a season-high 28 points, Kyrie Irving had 24, and Cleveland defeated Indiana at home. LeBron James added 19 points as Cleveland won its third straight, improving to 8-7. Love scored 16 points in the first quarter. He was 9 for 13 from the field and had 10 rebounds. Irving added a season-high 10 rebounds and had five assists. The Cavaliers built a 19-point lead in the first quarter, but the Pacers chipped away and trailed by only 52-49 at halftime. Cleveland regained control in the third as James scored 11 points in the quarter. The lead reached 20 points in the fourth quarter. CLIPPERS 112, JAZZ 96 Blake Griffin scored 28 points, and Chris Paul had 17 points and 10 assists to help Los Angeles beat host Utah for its fourth straight win. Jamal Crawford scored 22 points, and DeAndre Jordan grabbed 12 rebounds for the Clippers. Gordon Hayward scored 30 points, and Derrick Favors had 19 for the Jazz, who have lost a season-high five in a row. ROCKETS 117, BUCKS 103 James Harden had 19 of his game-high 34 points in the third quarter, and visiting Houston beat Milwaukee. Jabari Parker scored 19 points, and Ersan Ilyasova added 18 for the Bucks. Harden and Bucks center Larry Sanders jostled near center court with 3:19 left in the game, after an offensive foul was called on Harden, who held the ball as he was walking down the court. Giannis Antetokounmpo slapped Harden and knocked the ball away. Harden gave Antetokounmpo a slight shove, and Sanders ran to confront Harden. Harden, Sanders and Antetokounmpo were given technical fouls after the referees reviewed the video.

Basketball
Michael Carter-Williams
76ers
Mavericks


Review: ClipR Makes Any Headphones Bluetooth

Abstract: It’s hard enough to find a great-sounding set of headphones; finding a set that sounds great and connects wirelessly is nearly impossible. But what if you could make the wired headphones you enjoy connect by Bluetooth? Musemini offers that option with the ClipR , a Bluetooth transceiver about the size of a short stack of poker chips that makes any set of headphones Bluetooth wireless. Plug the headphones into the ClipR, which then receives sound from any Bluetooth phone, computer or tablet, and sends it to headphones of your choice. The sound quality was astonishingly good. It’s so close to the sound I get with the headphones plugged directly into the laptop that I’d be hard pressed to describe the slight differences. The $40 ClipR, true to its name, has a clip to attach to a belt or pocket, making it convenient to carry. Because the ClipR is a transceiver, you can also use it when making phone calls if you prefer a headset with a built-in mike. If you are at all familiar with pairing Bluetooth devices, it was easy to connect. Even though the audible directions the ClipR gave were in a foreign language, it was easy to figure out. (To change language, press the volume-up and volume-down buttons at the same time.) The one disadvantage over buying headphones with built-in Bluetooth is that you still have all of that cable to deal with. It wasn’t elegant, but it was simple enough to coil the cable and zip-tie it into a bundle.


New Violence Reported in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract: MOSCOW — A military sweep ended in bloodshed on Monday in an area of the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh where residents’ protective barricades had been removed by force, with two residents dead and about two dozen hospitalized with injuries from beatings. Over the weekend, Kyrgyz troops removed the barricades , which residents had built during four days of ethnic violence that started June 10. At dawn on Monday, security forces began a house-to-house sweep of the area, the Uzbek village of Nariman, demanding information about a Kyrgyz police official who was killed there this month. Witnesses said the troops kicked men and severely beat them with rifle butts during interrogations. One died of a gunshot wound, another died later of his injuries, and 25 were hospitalized, said Telman A. Badalov, a supervising hospital doctor. Regional officials at first denied that there were casualties, but at a news conference later in the day, they acknowledged that two residents had been killed and 23 wounded, saying that troops fired because they faced armed resistance and that their actions were justified. A law enforcement official told the Interfax news service that seven men were arrested on suspicion of being “hired snipers.” But the list of confiscated weapons released by the Osh regional superintendent’s office — two grenades, 40 rifle cartridges and two Molotov cocktails — included no firearms. The episode underlines how close to the surface violence remains, despite the Kyrgyz government’s assurances that its forces now control the situation. Hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks died during the violence earlier this month; more than 100,000 fled to the Uzbek border or crossed it. Many witnesses told reporters that uniformed Kyrgyz troops had taken part in the violence . On Saturday, the government ordered its forces to remove the barricades that the remaining Uzbeks had built around themselves, saying it would not allow “zones where the government does not have power,” as the mayor of Osh put it. Residents of some enclaves, like Nariman, refused to remove the roadblocks. Anna Neistat, a researcher from Human Rights Watch, said that Nariman’s barricades were breached on Sunday, and that troops entered at 6 a.m. on Monday. She said troops faced no resistance as they went from house to house demanding passports and information about the killing of the local police chief. “Many people told us they opened their doors — they didn’t believe they would be beaten into a pulp,” Ms. Neistat said. “It’s a very clear illustration of the remaining hatred and tension between the ethnic groups, and between the population and law enforcement.” A witness told Human Rights Watch that her husband, Sharabiddin Dosmatov, 58, died of his injuries after soldiers beat him with their rifles. Kyrgyzstan ’s government is planning to carry out a nationwide referendum on a new constitution on Sunday, despite the enormous displacement of voters in the south. The justice minister, Aida Salyanova, said Monday that if stabilization continued, the government would lift the state of emergency before the vote.

Kyrgyzstan
Defense and Military Forces
Uzbeks (Ethnic Group)


As a British Pastime Is Revived, Some Critters Get Second Lives

Abstract: LONDON — “Now pull the skin up over the skull like a hood,” Margot Magpie instructed her students. They were hunched over wooden tables, each holding a scalpel in one hand and a white mouse, gutted, in the other. “I’m afraid mine’s got its paw hanging by a thread,” said Mark Ross, one of the students. Ms. Magpie responded cheerfully, “If you accidentally tear off a limb, use Super Glue to glue it back.” Anthropomorphic Mouse , recently held above an American cabaret in what used to be the Bank of New York in London, is not a taxidermy class in the strictest sense: It is more like a cross between taxidermy and arts and crafts for beginners, using mice. The aim is to create scenes that look as if they are out of Beatrix Potter’s “Peter Rabbit” books, in which small animals wear clothes and hats and enjoy picnics, tea parties and lives of their own. For some people, the course is eccentric or downright macabre. To others, it is an opportunity to pursue a very British hobby. Lily Yourell, a social worker, said she hoped to hone her skills in class so she could work on mice and other, bigger animals at home. She has decided on a picnic and a bedroom scene, and has already sewn a handkerchief-size picnic blanket laden with tiny fruit and minuscule pork pies. “My colleagues think it’s a bit mad,” she admitted. “But as adults, it’s nice to play, like with a doll’s house.” Using the animals through taxidermy “gives them a second opportunity to be enjoyed and to be present in your life.” The classes, which began a year and a half ago, fill up months in advance, said Ms. Magpie, 31, a former veterinary nurse and a member of the Guild of Taxidermists. She travels around the country to teach the course; more sophisticated lessons have involved rabbits, or how to make decorations for hats, using bird wings. While her workshops are popular, they are also controversial; she began to use a pseudonym after receiving death threats and would not give her real name. Image Before mice can be posed in scenes that look as if they are out of a Beatrix Potter book, their pelts are cleaned, treated and stuffed with cotton and wire. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times “I think that people are interested in the bizarre,” she said during a recent class as she bared a tattoo of a rat on her arm, its bright red tongue matching her hair. “They sit at their desks all day and they stare at a computer, and they want to get into something else and do something manual with their hands and be creative.” There is a bit of a taboo around dead animals, she said, which adds to the thrill of the class. People want to have a “hands-on experience with death.” “We don’t have that at all in our culture. It’s sort of Victorian, and it’s quirky,” she said. “Dressing up death is in a way reviving life into something, and that’s what I think is the art in it.” Ms. Magpie and her co-organizer, Suzette Field, turned what began as a pop-up class into a series of workshops after the first two sold out in hours. The pair also wrote a do-it-yourself taxidermy manual, which has sold more than 2,500 copies since its release four months ago. In the four-hour beginners’ course, participants learn how to skin the mice, which are bought frozen. The pelts are washed, dried with a hair dryer, treated with preservatives and stuffed with cotton and wire before being stitched up. Black beads replace the eyes, and brooms and baskets are glued to the paws. Before handling the mice, however, Ms. Magpie asks her students to draw a portrait of their faces. “How often do you look into the eyes of a mouse, dead or alive, really?” she asked. “Probably not that often.” Most students at a recent class were not older than 32. They have revived a practice that had its heyday in Victorian times more than a century ago. It fell out of favor in the aftermath of World War II. And Ms. Magpie’s is not the only class going in the field. In 2010, the London Taxidermy Academy opened its doors with a small bird taxidermy workshop and quickly expanded to include moles, gerbils and foxes. The academy said it attracted more than 1,000 students in its first two years. The Curious Menagerie followed in 2012 with its own classes, including a class in butterfly taxidermy. Image The pelts are washed, dried with a hair dryer and treated with preservatives. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times Contemporary British artists, including Damien Hirst, Polly Morgan and Jake and Dinos Chapman, have used dead animals in their installations, making taxidermy popular and accessible again, Ms. Magpie said. Mr. Hirst is most famous for preserving cows, sharks and sheep in formaldehyde, some of them sliced in half. A business has also emerged at the intersection of taxidermy and fashion: Ms. Magpie sells hair clips and headbands adorned with small mice to clients in Britain, Ireland and Germany. Reid Peppard , based in London until recently, sells fox handbags, crow headdresses and even coin purses inserted inside rats. And there is renewed interest in Walter Potter, the man who pioneered anthropomorphic taxidermy in Victorian Britain. (He is no relation to Beatrix.) In September, the British novelist Kate Mosse is scheduled to publish “The Taxidermist’s Daughter,” a psychological thriller inspired by visits to a museum of Mr. Potter’s works. Patrick Morris, a taxidermy enthusiast and retired university lecturer in zoology, published “Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy” last year. Mr. Potter, who died in 1918, became popular for his whimsical tableaux featuring stuffed animals in human settings. They included rabbit schoolchildren scribbling on slates, squirrels smoking cigars and kittens playing croquet or dancing, wearing ruffled dresses and bead necklaces. He was particularly attentive to detail — his kittens wore frilly underwear beneath their petticoats. His masterpiece, “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,” displays 98 species of British birds, including a robin widow, weeping, and an owl gravedigger. He also opened a museum that housed 10,000 of his stuffed animals, visited by tens of thousands of people each year until it closed in the 1970s. “We’re riding the crest of a wave,” said Mr. Morris, who wrote about Mr. Potter’s creations. “There’s a whole new generation discovering this stuff, and people are being much more sensible about it rather than rejecting it,” he said. “Taxidermy is an important part of British natural history that has been neglected.” Back in class, Oliver Morley-Leacock, another participant, said his first lesson in taxidermy reignited a fascination with biology and anatomy. “You kind of get a godlike feeling by ripping apart a little animal,” he said dryly. “But it’s fascinating from a scientific standpoint when you put it in the context of human anatomy.” Alastair Metcalf, a banker, said he planned to take his mouse to work to show to colleagues. “Banking is interesting,” he said as he carefully glued a top hat onto its head and stood it behind an old-fashioned movie camera. “But not as interesting as this.”


With Scattershot Comments, Blagojevich Wagers All

Abstract: After sitting in the witness box for a few minutes at his federal corruption trial last week, Rod R. Blagojevich shared with jurors a bit of personal insight about himself. Mr. Blagojevich, the twice-elected governor of Illinois, said he was flawed, insecure, vain and narcissistic. Prone to risk or recklessness is another description he might have used. The former governor has, at almost every turn, bucked all legal conventional wisdom in favor of nonstop politicking. Beginning shortly after his arrest in 2008 with appearances on every news, talk show and entertainment venue that would have him — prompting a veteran defense lawyer, Edward Genson, to walk away from the case — and culminating with his decision to testify, he seemed to be taking serious chances, lawyers who have followed the case say. “I am fascinated by the train wreck that is this trial,” said Lisa Noller, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who now does criminal defense work. “He has been on the circuit so long he doesn’t realize the inconsistent statements he’s made. He doesn’t realize the admissions he’s made.” But the prosecutors know them very well, Ms. Noller said, adding that they have studied his every public utterance, whether from the lobby of the federal courthouse, the pages of his book, speeches to college students or his television and newspaper interviews. “If there’s an inconsistency to be found, they’ll know what it is,” she said. “It wouldn’t surprise me that in his heart of hearts, he doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. It’s textbook narcissistic behavior. He winks and nods at the jurors. He says, ‘Hi, I used to be your governor.’ I think he believes he’s got a shot.” Mr. Blagojevich is charged with 20 counts of corruption that allege he tried to trade official state action for personal gain, including the appointment to fill the Senate seat vacated by President Obama. In August at Mr. Blagojevich’s first trial, a jury found him guilty of one count of lying to federal authorities but could not reach a verdict on the more serious counts. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence, saying he was merely negotiating his way through the political thicket of state politics, focused only on doing the people’s work. The issue of pretrial publicity was raised early in the case, when Mr. Blagojevich’s lawyers complained that too many prospective jurors had negative preconceived notions about him. Judge James B. Zagel of Federal District Court made pointed observations just before the jury was impaneled. “This is an unusual case in all respects,” he said, adding that in most high-profile criminal cases, the accused “sits quietly in prison.” In this case, however, Mr. Blagojevich engaged in a “consistent pattern of inviting public opinion,” Judge Zagel said. “Much of the dilemma he faces was created by himself.” Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor turned defense lawyer, had a more colorful analogy. “He’s the Charlie Sheen of criminal defendants,” he said. “He goes out and does what he does. Half the world is amused and half the world is appalled.” What Mr. Blagojevich is betting on, Mr. Cotter said, is that just one person on the jury will be amused or impressed. No matter how solid the prosecution’s case, if Mr. Blagojevich’s nice-guy polished narrative resonates emotionally with just one juror, the evidence may not matter. “He’s a politician, and he was a good politician. You have to respect that,” Mr. Cotter said. “Is it a high risk? The fact is, when you decide what is high risk and what is not, you have to ask yourself, ‘Compared to what?’ “To flap your arms and think you’re going to fly is ridiculous. But if you’re falling out of a window anyway, you might as well flap.” In high-profile cases, some jurors may get lost in the drama swirling around them and start thinking in ways that are inconsistent with the common sense that guides them in the real world, Mr. Cotter said. Mr. Blagojevich intimated from the witness stand that what he was doing as governor was common in political circles. But Judge Zagel has ruled that prosecutors will be permitted to play a recording of a 2009 interview with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, in which Mr. Blagojevich said he knew that trading a Senate seat for personal gain would be wrong and criminal. “This is an admission,” Judge Zagel said of the interview. It shows what “the state of mind was of the defendant, who is a lawyer.” The prosecution, which concluded its case last week, has to prove that Mr. Blagojevich knowingly and intentionally violated the law. But the public’s attitude about politicians could create a situation where pretrial publicity might work in his favor, Mr. Cotter said. “The best thing he has going for him is the unbelievable cynicism about elected officials,” he said. “Millions of citizens presume that all of their politicians are crooked. And because of that, when Rod Blagojevich says it’s just political horse-trading, some people will believe that a certain amount of it is inevitable and there’s something unfair about picking on one politician and not others.”

Blagojevich Rod R
Chicago (Ill)
Genson Edward


Russia Gives Roy Jones Jr. Citizenship

Abstract: A decree published on the Kremlin’s website in the name of President Vladimir V. Putin said that Roy Jones Jr., a 46-year-old American who was once widely regarded as the world’s best boxer, had been given Russian citizenship. Jones asked Putin for citizenship in August over a cup of tea when they met in Crimea, saying it would make doing business in Russia much easier. ■ Jermall Charlo wrested the International Boxing Federation junior middleweight title from Cornelius Bundrage, who at 42 had been the sport’s oldest champion. Charlo, 25, improved to 22-0 with a third-round stoppage in Ledyard, Conn. (AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE)

Russia
Roy Jones Jr
Citizenship
Boxing
Vladimir Putin


Feral Pigs Plaguing Upstate New York

Abstract: PERU, N.Y. — They roam by night, picking cornstalks clean, making off with apple crops. They have almost no natural predators, but they have razor-sharp tusks and a seemingly bottomless appetite for plants and animals. Their population can triple in one year. They are feral pigs, and while they have long plagued parts of the Southern and Western United States, now they have become a problem in the peaceful Champlain Valley of New York, an agricultural heartland on the edge of the Adirondacks. Actually, they are rarely spotted. Since they hunt at night and steer clear of humans, few people ever see these pigs. But a pack of them was captured on camera foraging on Bob Rulf’s farm here, their eyes eerily aglow in the light of the flash. “I have yet to see one myself,” Mr. Rulf said. Mr. Rulf, 82, thought he had a deer problem. But when he dispatched a hunter to take care of them last spring, he learned the more disturbing truth. Alternately called wild boars and feral swine, the pigs are not the gentle, pink cousins of Wilbur from “Charlotte’s Web,” E. B. White’s children’s classic. They start to breed as early as 6 months of age, bearing litters of as many as 10 piglets. They carry disease and can be aggressive toward people. They have even inspired a new television series, “Hogs Gone Wild,” about efforts to hunt them from Hawaii to Alabama. Perhaps most worrisome is their reputation as eating machines: the pigs devour ground-nesting birds and reptiles, fawns and domestic livestock, native vegetation and crops. Feral pigs have already proliferated in parts of western New York. But state officials are drawing a line in the topsoil, so to speak, determined to protect both the agrarian economy and the fragile ecosystem from the nascent herd — or “sounder” in swine-speak — in the town of Peru. “There’s a real sense of urgency,” said Ed Reed, a wildlife biologist for the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation . “Once the pigs get established, they are very difficult to eradicate completely.” Hunting the animals is tricky, given their nocturnal nature. State officials have settled on trapping as the best way to capture an entire sounder of swine. To that end, two technicians have been slowly assembling traps on Mr. Rulf’s property — corrals, 30 feet in diameter, in which dried corn and doughnuts laced with Jell-O powder are luring the estimated half-dozen pigs troubling his farm. With each extension of the traps, the pigs here have grown wary, staying away for a couple of nights before returning to nibble the bait. Officials hope that by the end of March, the pens will be finished and the pigs sufficiently acclimated to allow technicians to set trip wires closing the gates. The traps are circular because feral pigs have been known to crowd into the corners of other traps and climb atop one another to escape. Last year, the state set a similar corral trap too soon, catching only three pigs. After that, none of the others returned to the area, even after the trap was dismantled. “I’ve never worked with an animal this smart,” Mr. Reed said. Farmers in the region are nervously following the clash between the boars and the bureaucrats. “With all the agriculture here, the pigs have plenty of food,” said Peter Glushko, supervisor of Peru, a town of 7,000 on Lake Champlain, nine miles south of Plattsburgh. “Who knows where they’ll end up? Other farms should be concerned.” The growing population has a number of origins: domestic livestock and pet pigs that were either released or escaped captivity; Eurasian boars imported for use on hunting ranches; and a hybrid between the two. Some researchers believe that pigs were most likely introduced to North America by Christopher Columbus in the West Indies; American settlers later brought more pigs as livestock. The practice by farmers of allowing pigs to roam on open ranges continued in some states until the 1960s, furthering their expansion into the wild. So far, feral pigs have infiltrated 5 of 62 counties in New York State. They first showed up about a decade ago in neighboring Onondaga and Cortland Counties, and the statewide population is estimated to be a few hundred, according to Justin Gansowski, a wildlife disease biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture in Castleton, N.Y. By contrast, the feral pig population nationwide is a staggering five million, with the animals present in 35 states. Texas, Florida, Alabama and California are among the states with the highest concentrations of pigs, which benefit from warm climates and year-round availability of food. New York State’s swine population has grown more slowly, possibly because of the cold climate’s impact on litter size. The Peru group, once estimated at 18 pigs, has been whittled by collisions with cars, hunting and trapping. While most pigs weigh between 100 and 150 pounds, one pig captured in Peru was an impressive 300 pounds. Wildlife managers and researchers nationally are exploring various control measures, from contraceptives and poisons to snares and aerial shooting. Some are even taking cues from the military by employing night-vision equipment and thermal imaging to track and kill the pigs. In New York, the state’s ordinarily strict hunting rules have been relaxed for feral swine. The Department of Environmental Conservation’s Web site advises those with small game licenses to “shoot and keep feral swine at any time and in any number.” Rumor has it that Mr. Rulf’s pigs are descendants of Eurasian boars raised by a local man to sell to hunting preserves, although state and local officials have not confirmed that. Regardless of their origin, officials are not taking chances in halting the pigs’ progress, especially toward the six-million-acre Adirondack Park, the largest swath of pristine wilderness in the Northeast. “They eat everything,” Mr. Reed said. “They’ll eat the understory in a forest and dig up plants by rooting the ground for insects and roots. They compete with wildlife for food. They’re the most destructive mammal out there.”


Mets Send Braves Closer to Elimination

Abstract: ATLANTA — The slumping Atlanta Braves were shut down by the Mets’ Jon Niese and lost, 4-2 , on Saturday night, a blow to their flickering playoff hopes. The Braves have lost seven of eight to drop to 4-13 in September. Any combination of two Pittsburgh wins or Atlanta losses will eliminate the Braves from the National League wild-card race. Niese (9-11) allowed two runs and seven hits in seven and a third innings. He also struck out five and walked one while improving to 1-1 with a 2.14 earned run average in his last three starts. Dilson Herrera and Curtis Granderson each homered for the Mets, who have won three of four. Niese, who was just 2-4 with a 5.65 E.R.A. in his previous six road starts since June 21, retired nine straight batters before allowing consecutive singles to load the bases with one out in the eighth. Mets Manager Terry Collins brought in Josh Edgin, who gave up a two-run single to Freddie Freeman. But Carlos Torres, who replaced Edgin, retired Justin Upton and Chris Johnson to end the threat. Jenrry Mejia then worked the ninth for his 27th save in 30 chances. Braves starter Mike Minor lasted just one inning, leaving with left shoulder discomfort after the Mets went ahead, 1-0, on a Lucas Duda sacrifice fly. Minor (6-12) dropped to 0-8 in his last nine September starts. David Hale came in for Minor and fell behind, 3-0, in the second on Herrera’s homer, a two-run shot just inside the left-field foul pole. Granderson’s home run, his 19th of the season, came off David Carpenter in the eighth and gave the Mets a 4-0 lead. The Braves (76-78) fell two games under .500 for the first time since April 12, 2012, when they were 2-4.

Baseball
Mets
Braves
National League
Jon Niese


In the Lab: Robots That Slink and Squirm

Abstract: MEDFORD, Mass. — The robot lies dissected on the black slab of a lab table, its silicone rubber exterior spread and flattened like a trophy snakeskin. Hair-thin wires run in a zigzag line along the inner length of its pale artificial flesh. Barry Trimmer flicks a small switch and the wires contract, causing the silicone to bunch up; the skin crawls, so to speak. So does mine. “It’s very organic,” Dr. Trimmer says with a smile. Apparently, “organic” is a technical euphemism for “creepy.” But it is eerily lifelike, and that is the point. Robots, once the stuff of science fiction, are everywhere. Robotic geologists are puttering around on Mars, little Roombas suck up dirt in the breakfast nook. But most robots are made up of hard components and don’t much resemble the creatures that walk, crawl and squirm all around us. At Tufts University, a multidisciplinary team of researchers wants to take a softer approach. The Biomimetic Technologies for Soft-bodied Robots project is trying to make an ersatz caterpillar that will move around in pretty much the same way as the real thing. The researchers see the potential to use the squishable, relatively simple creations to find land mines, repair machinery in hard-to-reach spots and even diagnose and treat diseases. The project, part of a wave of interest in life-imitating robotics, is a collaboration of seven Tufts faculty members from five departments in the schools of engineering and arts and sciences. Dr. Trimmer comes from the field of neurobiology, where he has been studying the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, since 1990. He has long been fascinated by the way that a seemingly simple creature like the hornworm (which, confusingly enough, is not a worm but a caterpillar) can twist its body in almost any direction and climb among the tree branches. He pulls a box from his backpack and takes out one of the caterpillars, and puts it on the back of my hand; the caterpillar, oddly hairless and the greenish-blue color of classic Crest toothpaste, has a slightly raspy feeling to the grippers at the ends of its many legs. It rears up and twists to face backward. “How do you make a machine move with that kind of versatility and dexterity?” Dr. Trimmer asks. The problem with motion and conventional robots is that hard joints don’t just allow movement, and they restrict the range of motion. “Each joint adds exponential problems of control,” he says. The multiple-jointed arm of the space shuttle, for example, can take cameras, equipment and astronauts to an astonishing array of positions, but the process of planning every movement is enormously complex. Yet, the Tufts researchers point out, a caterpillar needs no postgraduate training before it begins to slink across a leaf. Remove the hornworm’s primitive brain, and it still trudges forward. So Dr. Trimmer suggests that much of the secret of locomotion is inherent in the muscles and the body. The hornworm has just 70 muscles per segment, with just one nerve controlling each muscle, for the most part. The researchers suspect that the wonderfully flexible locomotion of the caterpillar might emerge naturally from relatively simple rules. The researchers are seeking a similar elegance in their creations. The initial creatures are hollow tubes. The “muscles” are wire springs made from shape-memory alloy. Electrical current heats the springs, causing them to constrict; once the current stops, the elastic skin stretches the wire back into its resting shape. “It’s almost childish, the simplicity of the design,” Dr. Trimmer says. The skin is a silicone rubber that goes by the brand name Dragon Skin, and its composition can be manipulated so that it can be leathery-tough or so supple and clammy that it gives a sense of what it must be like to shake hands with Gollum. Eventually, the researchers hope to build on the work of David Kaplan, a Tufts professor of biomedical engineering who has pioneered the creation of tough, flexible materials based on spider silk so that the creatures would be largely biodegradable. Aside from the dissected caterpillar on the table, there is just one other completed model, but it is inert, having pulled a muscle, as well as bits of squirmy this and that. The research, which is financed by the W. M. Keck Foundation, “is very preliminary,” Dr. Trimmer admits. The researchers have gotten a wave to propagate across a robot’s body; that wave picks up the feet in a way that already resembles the foot motion of a real caterpillar. By the end of the year, they hope to have robots capable of full locomotion that emulate the action of the caterpillars, he said. The puzzle of coming up with computer code to coordinate the movements, they suggest, will be greatly accelerated using the rapid trial-and-error approach that, in the world of computing, is called genetic algorithms. They see a day when the cheaply built machines — less than a dollar apiece, Dr. Kaplan predicts — could be crammed into a canister and shot into a minefield. The hollow bodies would contain a simple power source and mine detectors; the caterpillars would wriggle across the terrain at random, stopping when they detect a likely mine. “There’s no need for high speed,” Dr. Kaplan said. “Slow and steady is fine.” The team suggests the caterpillars could similarly be used in hazardous, hard-to-reach spots in nuclear reactors and spacecraft. They also see a role in internal medicine as crawling probes and sensors, a prospect that patients might find difficult to accept, but which might eventually help doctors navigate some of the body’s trickier passageways. In trying to reproduce the caterpillar, the Tufts researchers are taking part in one of the biggest trends in robotics and locomotion studies, which are increasingly taking inspiration from the world of biology. Joseph Ayers of Northeastern University has created an artificial lobster. Ian Walker of Clemson University has a robotic arm that draws its inspiration from the elephant’s trunk and the octopus’s arm. There are robotic salamanders, snakes, cockroaches, fish and geckos. “It’s a hot topic,” said Auke Jan Ijspeert, head of the Biologically Inspired Robotics Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He created the “salamandra robotica” as a way to prove theories about how a salamander makes its twisting course. “I’m basically amazed by nature,” he said, “and how impressive animals are at solving the problem of locomotion control.” Dr. Ijspeert called the Tufts project “very exciting, very new.” At the same time, he pointed out, animal models can only go so far. He tells his students, “You should not aim at blindly imitating nature.” Evolution, the engine of development, is brilliant but not necessarily efficient, he said. “The biological solution is always a little bit messy — it’s based on previous systems,” he said. Working without precedent, he said with a touch of hubris, a researcher can shape a more elegant solution than nature has. That blended approach helps to guide researchers at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, where the “Superbot” can configure itself to squirm like a worm, crawl like a turtle, roll like a tire and more. Their work is financed in part by NASA, which wants robots for future missions that can get around in any number of ways. “Wheels are a marvelous invention, but they have their place,” said Peter Will, a U.S.C. researcher. Bicycling on sand is hard, he said, while walking on it is easy. The U.S.C. institute has another layer of natural influence, said Wei-Min Shen, the director of the institute’s polymorphic robotics laboratory: communication among robots that is inspired by hormones . “Because there’s no fixed brain, we need a signal that will circulate within the system,” he said. Like Dr. Ijspeert, Dr. Shen says nature can be a bit limiting. When he has to get up to write on a whiteboard, he says, he thinks, “If I can reconfigure myself and take off my left arm and connect it to my right arm, I can do so without standing up or leaving my chair.” Robotics researchers talk like that. The road ahead could be far longer and more difficult than it seems today for the Tufts researchers, said Dr. Walker of Clemson. While expressing enthusiasm for the project, he cautioned that soft is hard. When he embarked on a project to create the flexible robotic arm more than five years ago, he had hoped to stick with soft materials. But “it’s very hard to engineer with all-soft components,” he said. “We had to make compromises along the way” to get the strength and force that the arm needed. There were other challenges. Designing computer programs to operate the arm was something “we thought we would spend six months working out,” he recalled. “Two or three Ph.D. theses later, we finally understood the problem. Not that we had solved the problem. We understood the problem.” “So,” he said, “I’ll be interested to see how closely, when all is said and done, the Tufts group are able to meet their goals.” Dr. Trimmer said, “I’ve got a lot of confidence it will work.” And besides, he added, “If we don’t make the exact robot that you and I are discussing, what have we got? What we’ve got is an entirely new approach to motion control.”


Air Force Passes Muster as At-Large Entry. Soft Schedule? You Try It.

Abstract: SAN DIEGO, March 15 - The hard-liners who say Air Force does not belong in the N.C.A.A. tournament point to the team's strength of schedule, rated 158th by the computers. The sentimentalists who say Air Force does belong in the N.C.A.A. tournament also point to the team's strength of schedule, starting every day at 6 a.m. That is when the Air Force Falcons put on their uniforms -- sometimes dress blues, sometimes fatigues, sometimes flight suits. Most of their sport is still asleep. Generally, college basketball players are like any other college students, hitting the snooze button and skipping breakfast. At Air Force, players march with their squadron to the mess hall for a buffet of eggs, potatoes and orange juice. They need a head start. Most players take six classes each semester, including Practical Advanced Aeronautical Engineering. They spend the summer flying planes and jumping out of them. They participate in combat survival training and ponder whether they will be sent to Iraq after graduation. If time permits, they manage to shoot some hoops. Of course, the N.C.A.A. tournament selection committee is not supposed to take curricular activities into consideration. In theory, the selection process is devoid of emotion, based mainly on power ratings and conference indexes. But by selecting Air Force as an at-large entry, the committee recognized a program that faces some of the stiffest challenges in college basketball, even if those challenges are not reflected in the Falcons' strength of schedule. Air Force is playing under its third coach in three years. Most members of the team did not get a scholarship offer from another Division I college. A few did not even start in high school. Yet they are achieving more than any basketball team from a service academy has since David Robinson was throwing down dunks for Navy. Air Force is seeded 13th in their bracket, the lowest of any at-large entry, prompting inevitable backlash. The Falcons (24-6, 12-4 Mountain West Conference) have been criticized for playing too soft a schedule, for losing in the first round of the conference tournament, for taking a bid away from a more deserving team. "I think it's funny when people hate on us," Antoine Hood, an Air Force guard, said Wednesday. "We do so much more than your average college basketball player." Take, for instance, the week that Hood was ordered into a forest with a rabbit, a chicken and nothing else. He had to sustain himself for eight days on only the rabbit and the chicken -- killing them, skinning them, cooking them. "You call your boys at other schools and they tell you about the parties," Hood said. "You don't want to make those calls too often." Jeff Bzdelik, the Air Force coach, might have the toughest sell in the country. His recruiting pitch has to go something like this: Come to an isolated academy in Colorado Springs that is 10 percent female, does not allow underclassmen to be off campus after 7 p.m. on weekdays and requires a permission slip to wear a T-shirt to a football game. Graduate and begin a mandatory five-year military obligation, leaving little chance to ever play professional basketball. The few who signed up for the deal will face fourth-seeded Illinois (25-6, 11-5 Big Ten) on Thursday in a first-round game in San Diego. "Most of us know that basketball will only take us so far," forward Jake Burtschi said. "We are setting ourselves up for something more." Uncommon foresight is required. Air Force routinely loses recruits to Division III programs. They lost one head coach, Joe Scott, two years ago to Princeton. They lost another, Chris Mooney, last year to Richmond. Princeton, with its high academic standards, can seem a difficult place to recruit, but "it's still a lot easier than at Air Force," Scott said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Like every service academy, Air Force reserves most of its fanfare for football, that most militaristic of sports, with its complex formations and convenient war metaphors. Basketball used to be viewed as a sideshow, a bunch of individuals going one-on-one and freelancing in midair. But to watch the Air Force basketball team is to behold a unit in action. On offense, the Falcons are in constant motion. On defense, they are throwing elbows and slapping hands. They have qualified for the N.C.A.A. tournament twice since the football team last made a bowl game. "Football is the most interdependent sport," Scott said. "But that's what our basketball program was founded upon, too. If you have your own agenda, it won't work." Air Force has little in common with the N.B.A., except, of course, for its new coach. Fired by the Denver Nuggets last season, Bzdelik refused to sell his house and slink out of town. His teenage daughter, Courtney, was recuperating from successful surgery to remove a brain tumor. He would not make her switch doctors. So he took a job about as close to home and about as far from the N.B.A. as he could get. Air Force plays 40 minutes south of Bzdelik's house in Denver, in an arena that sits under the same roof as the hockey rink and the football practice facility. "I enjoy the disciplined lifestyle," said Bzdelik, who spent six years in the Army National Guard. "It's a very timely fit." His team travels with six tutors, who fanned across the lobby of the team hotel Wednesday afternoon, helping players with their homework. Last year, the academy was accused of religious intolerance on campus. Then the football coach, Fisher DeBerry, was reprimanded for saying that he needed to recruit more black players to increase team speed. Now, the Falcons are rehabilitating their image, one backdoor cut at a time. Air Force should be more talented next season than this. Recruiting is becoming easier. The system is being polished. But history is always working against the service academies, at least when it comes to basketball. "It's sustainable, but it's difficult," said Paul Evans, who coached Navy within one game of the Final Four in 1986. "When we recruited David Robinson, he was only 6-7. When he graduated, he was 7-1. That's what it takes. If a guy is that good coming out of high school, you don't get him." For this one week, though, Air Force seems to have it all. The Falcons are playing in a city flanked by military bases, on a court they visit every season, just a few miles from where the movie "Top Gun" was filmed. With one victory, they will go from the team that did not belong in the tournament to the team that symbolizes perseverance, patriotism and all that is old-fashioned in college basketball. Strength of schedule could take on an entirely new meaning.

AIR FORCE
NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
BASKETBALL


Markets, Distracted by Lehman’s Woes, Close Mixed

Abstract: Stocks finished another volatile session narrowly mixed Friday, as gains in the energy, utilities and materials sectors offset some of Wall Street’s angst over the fate of Lehman Brothers Holdings . The three major indexes all managed to end the week higher. The troubles of the financial sector dominated trading, as investors tried to glean insights into Lehman’s race to sell itself or otherwise regain Wall Street’s confidence. The company’s shares have spiraled lower this week, heaping pressure on executives at the company to line up a buyer or source of fresh cash. Lehman’s shares, which tumbled 42 percent Thursday and are down more than 94 percent for the year, fell another 74 cents, or 16.8 percent, to $3.65 on Friday. The market is anticipating that Lehman will arrive at a deal over the weekend, said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management. Lehman, the government and other banks have been declining to comment officially on the issue, but bankers and industry executives have been saying that Lehman is working feverishly to find a buyer. Closure on the issue would help, but the market is likely to remain turbulent, Mr. Larson said. “Once this deal gets done, you’ll see sentiment shift to: Who’s next?” he said. An unexpected slowdown at cash registers last month also weighed on the stock market Friday, particularly on shares of retailers and other consumer discretionary stocks. The Commerce Department said retail sales fell by 0.3 percent in August. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 11.72 points, or 0.10 percent, to 11,421.99, after falling more than 150 points in the early going. Broader stock indicators also came well off their lows. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 2.65 points, or 0.21 percent, to 1,251.70, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 3.05 points, or 0.14 percent, to 2,261.27. The Dow finished the week up 1.79 percent; the S.& P. finished up 0.76 percent; and the Nasdaq ended up 0.24 percent. Bond prices fell. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note was down 20/32, at 102 10/32 and the yield, which moves opposite the price, rose to 3.72 percent, from 3.64 percent late Thursday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose. Light, sweet crude oil rose 31 cents to settle at $101.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after briefly crossing below the $100 mark for the first time in five months. Investors tracked Hurricane Ike , which churned across the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast and refining and drilling operations in the region. Worries about risky debt have been hitting other financial stocks this week. The American International Group fell $5.80 on Friday, or 33 percent, to $11.75, making it by far the biggest decliner among the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average. Merrill Lynch & Company fell $2.38, or 12.3 percent, to $17.05, while Washington Mutual slipped 10 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $2.73. The economic outlook is also keeping the markets volatile. After the Commerce Department’s report on retail sales, investors turned cautious on retailers and other companies that rely on discretionary spending. Macy’s fell $1.04, or 4.8 percent, to $20.81, while Best Buy fell $1.51, or 3.3 percent, to $44.49. Not all the economic news was unwelcome Friday. Another government report showing a bigger-than-expected drop in wholesale inflation, the steepest decline in nearly two years, at least eased some worries about pricing pressure. And a Reuters/University of Michigan survey on sentiment showed consumers were more upbeat than they were earlier in the summer when energy prices were higher. Beyond the financial sector, energy and materials companies advanced. Dow components Exxon Mobil rose $1.94, or 2.6 percent, to $77.50, and Alcoa rose $1.05, or 3.8 percent, to $28.67.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc
Stocks and Bonds
Nasdaq Composite Index
Dow Jones Stock Average
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Energy and Power


Italy: Police Strike at Crime Families

Abstract: The police seized assets worth $561 million and arrested 47 people, including Sicilian businessmen, politicians and public officials, in an overnight anti-Mafia raid on Wednesday in Sicily and in several other regions, including Lazio, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia. The arrests were based on four years of investigations into three Mafia families in the Catania area, in eastern Sicily, a police statement said. Separately, the police arrested 50 people accused of having links to the Camorra, a Naples-area crime group, including four municipal police officers, and seized $84 million in assets.


Sri Lanka: Court Convicts Ex-Army Chief of Fraud

Abstract: A Sri Lankan military court on Friday convicted the former army chief, who ran for president this year, of fraud. He could be sentenced to jail time. The army chief, Sarath Fonseka, left, was dishonorably discharged after an earlier court-martial conviction. He has described the prosecutions as a political vendetta and has said their aim is to persecute him for daring to challenge President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the election. General Fonseka carried out a successful counterinsurgency campaign that ended more than two decades of war against the Tamil Tiger rebels, and he had been a close ally of the president. Mr. Rajapaksa won handily, and soon after General Fonseka was arrested.

Sri Lanka
Rajapaksa Mahinda
Defense and Military Forces
Frauds and Swindling
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam


Patriots-Giants Game Now on NBC and CBS

Abstract: The Patriots - Giants game, which was to be broadcast Saturday night to less than half the country by the NFL Network, will be available to fans throughout the nation under an agreement reached Wednesday by NBC and CBS to simulcast it. The 15-0 Patriots are attempting to become the first N.F.L. team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to finish the regular season unbeaten. Miami went on to win the Super Bowl and finish at 17-0. The decision to have NBC and CBS give the NFL Network the exposure it has so far lacked came in the face of mounting Congressional pressure, a threat to examine the antitrust exemption the National Football League has to negotiate its television contracts. “I think the pressure was one thing and that had an impact,” said Pat Bowlen, the owner of the Denver Broncos. “But you look at the significance of the game, of New England possibly going undefeated, and we wanted it to be seen by the whole country.” Representative Joseph Courtney, Democrat of Connecticut, praised the decision by N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell to expand the game’s availability. Without the simulcasts, tens of thousands of fans in the state — which has loyalties divided between the Patriot and the Giants — would not have seen the game. “It was the right pressure point for Congress to step in and say to the N.F.L., ‘You’re a protected industry and you have to look out for the best interests of the fans,’” he said. The NFL Network is available to 43 million cable and satellite subscribers, but it is not carried by major cable operators like Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter. Comcast carries the network only on its digital sports tier, which requires an extra fee. NBC and CBS will use the NFL Network’s game production, including the announcers Cris Collinsworth and Bryant Gumbel. They will not pay an extra rights fee — together the networks pay the league a combined average yearly fee of $1.2 billion — and will divide revenues from selling 18 30-second commercials with local stations. The simulcast will mark the first time since Super Bowl I in 1967 that the same N.F.L. game will be carried by more than one network. In that instance, when Green Bay beat Kansas City, CBS and NBC produced their own versions of the game. If the NFL Network had not existed, the Patriots-Giants game almost certainly would have been on CBS; but it might have been a Sunday night game on NBC. “I’m intrigued by the historic nature of two over-the-air networks carrying the game,” said Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports. “It’ll be fun and will give the NFL Network a chance to exhibit their wares.” Ebersol said that he suggested a simulcast to Steve Bornstein, the NFL Network’s chief executive, in October but felt as recently as last week that the idea might not come to fruition. In recent days, conversations accelerated among the league, Ebersol and Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS. Without CBS and NBC, the game would have been seen only by the NFL Network’s 43 million subscribers and 10.8 million other TV homes in the Patriots and the Giants’ designated home markets of Boston-Manchester, N.H., and New York-New Jersey. Bornstein said the decision to broaden distribution for the game came after his realization that cable operators did not want to negotiate a deal. “We were optimistic they would come to their senses, but it just didn’t happen,” he said, then added: “I thought they’d react to the fans’ interest; I was wrong. I thought they wanted quality programming to sell and promote and differentiate themselves, but I was wrong.” He played down the impact of pleas made by the Congressional delegations of Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island, who wrote to Goodell asking that the game be made widely available on local broadcast stations in New England outside the Patriots’ primary market. “We had some of the same interests as the politicians, but this was a reaction to our fans,” Bornstein said. As recently as Dec. 21, in a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Goodell wrote that “despite Vermonters’ affection for the two teams,” Vermont “is not — and never has been — a ‘home market’ of either the Patriots or the Giants for purposes of our cable simulcast rules.” Under those rules, ESPN must make its games available to stations in the teams’ home markets for those residents who do not or cannot get cable. But unlike the NFL Network, ESPN is available virtually everywhere. When ESPN’s games are simulcast on local stations, fans of the two teams outside the home markets (like Giants fans in Albany) are almost certain to be able to see them on cable. The league’s refusal to stretch the boundaries of the home market for the Patriots-Giants game would have left many viewers in the dark. Bornstein insisted that efforts at fully distributing the NFL Network are hamstrung because as an independent network it is not owned wholly or in part by a major cable operator.

Television
Football
New England Patriots
New York Giants
NFL Network
National Broadcasting Co
CBS Corp
National Football League


When an Economic Cure Fights Itself

Abstract: ALMOST every day, a few letters arrive, saying that a group in some city or town is about to have a “tea party.” The gist, in case you haven’t received any of these invitations, is that President Obama’s taxing and spending plans are far too lavish. The United States will be burdened with immense debts, the protesters say. Taxes will be far too high for comfort, and we will decline as a nation. The tea parties are aimed at stopping all that. These tea parties strike me as off-base, in some respects, though they evoke a certain principle that rings true, or at least possibly true. First, I don’t quite get the taxation uproar. As far as I know, no new taxes of any size have been enacted. The only new tax I can spot immediately in front of us is the “cap and trade” levy on carbon emissions, which would be a tax on energy consumers. And even that, based on a questionable idea, doesn’t seem imminent. When the recession ends, though, we will be facing very large budget deficits, even under the best projections. Unless the Federal Reserve is just going to print money — usually a dangerous road to inflation — how will we pay for government, except through taxes? And who has the money to pay, except the rich? So unless I am missing something, don’t we have to tax the rich, defined in some sensible way? That’s just arithmetic. I wish that lowering spending were an option, but it’s not. Politicians talk about cutting spending and going through the budget, line by line, looking for waste. It never happens — except that sometimes, the military budget is cut, which is the last thing we should cut in a world as dangerous as ours. And right now, over all, the military budget isn’t being cut, although some programs are being reduced while others are expanding. So, I don’t quite get the tea parties, although I do applaud citizen activism. But one aspect of the criticism of the Obama stimulus and spending proposals raises a legitimate concern. That is the fact that the proposals for more spending seem to be upsetting — rather than encouraging — many Americans. This connects directly with an important economic theory — the theory of “rational expectations,” which holds, among other things, that if people in a free society expect to face a large financial obligation in the future, they will act rationally and save to meet that obligation, or at least try to do so. For example, if a young couple want to buy their first home, and they know they need a large down payment, they will save for it, if they can. But this theory goes further. In some forms, it says that if citizens know that the government is running up an enormous debt, and if that debt has to be serviced, taxpayers will save more to pay off that debt or its service costs. Not all theories work well in practice, and certainly not all the time. This theory didn’t seem to have a big connection with reality in the recent boom years. Americans spent a lot, and saved little even as the public debt mushroomed. Still, the theory of rational expectations seems to have some traction in downturns like this one. People anticipate worse times ahead, including possible unemployment, and they spend less and save more. This is typical of recessions and depressions. It is happening now. Spending is down and savings are rising rapidly. If many people feel that the government stimulus program is bad for them, that sentiment could lead to more savings and less spending — the opposite of what we need today. Think of it this way: The stimulus program is like borrowing from our grandchildren, without their permission, so we can buy now. If some of us want to help posterity, and help it survive the tsunami of debt, we might be more likely to save when our mood is low (as against the times when we are all happy and positive about the future). Of course, we do not really know whether consumers in a downturn act out of rational expectations or simply out of fear. But even if the cause is just plain fear, restraint in consumer spending has a big effect. Somehow, this restraint has to be eased. We have a master orator in the Oval Office. We can add this to his speech topics. Maybe he could even go to a tea party and speak soothingly. I’D like to bring up one more little bijou about the economic crisis. I read that Lawrence H. Summers — wonderful guy, fine economist, former Harvard president, high-ranking economic adviser to Mr. Obama — was paid about $5 million last year by a large hedge fund, D. E. Shaw. Some other high-ranking Obama advisers were also fantastically well paid by the finance sector. Of course, this phenomenon didn’t begin with this administration. The last Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., was the head honcho of Goldman Sachs and was paid hundreds of millions by it. (Yes, that’s one of the banks that we as taxpayers supported with many billions, via the A.I.G. conduit.) I know people and I know money, at least the basics. If anyone thinks that a man who has had a taste of honey from Wall Street on that scale will ever really crack the whip on Wall Street, he’s dreaming. Wall Street knows how to get its hooks into government. This is how the world works. Money talks.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009)


Norilsk Nickel Pays Strzhalkovsky $100 Million Severance

Abstract: MOSCOW — He once worked for an agency that arrested “speculators.” But that did not stop Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a mining executive and former K.G.B. agent, from accepting the largest golden parachute payout in Russian history. Under an agreement approved by the board of the Norilsk Nickel mining company Monday evening, Mr. Strzhalkovsky received $100 million for stepping down as chief executive, a position he took four years ago. The payment was granted as part of the settlement of a shareholder feud at the company, one of Russia’s largest and most profitable. But it is likely to be remembered most as another data point in the shift of corporate wealth and influence away from the first generation of former Soviet businessmen — known as the oligarchs — and toward a coterie of well-connected former security service agents who made their mark under President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Strzhalkovsky is a longtime associate of Mr. Putin’s; the two served together in the K.G.B. in St. Petersburg, called Leningrad at the time. Mr. Strzhalkovsky ran a travel agency, served as a deputy minister of economy and led a government department to promote tourism before he was appointed chief executive of Norilsk in August 2008. “Board members expressed their gratitude to Vladimir Strzhalkovsky for the years of fruitful cooperation,” the company said in a statement for shareholders posted on its Web site. It highlighted his accomplishments, including bringing Norilsk back into profitability, but did not mention the $100 million severance package. Norilsk shares trade in Moscow and in London. Mr. Strzhalkovsky confirmed the severance payment at a news conference in Moscow after it was reported by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, but said he would donate 10 percent to a charity that buys housing for the widows and orphans of agents of the F.S.B., the successor agency to the K.G.B. “He’s a former K.G.B. officer, and so giving this amount of money to the families of F.S.B. and K.G.B. guys who died in conflict is meaningful for him,” a representative of one of the shareholders in Norilsk said of a reason Mr. Strzhalkovsky had negotiated for the severance package. The representative was not authorized to speak publicly about the payment. Mr. Strzhalkovsky’s departure originated in a dispute between the oligarchs Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin, both Norilsk shareholders, which centered on dividend payments. Mr. Deripaska had wanted the chief executive out, saying he had sided with Mr. Potanin. Under the settlement, Mr. Potanin will take over as chief executive of Norilsk, though under a new board structure that prevents him from voting all of his own shares. During the feud, Mr. Strzhalkovsky had the Norilsk mine buy 17 percent of the company’s shares for about $9 billion. Mr. Strzhalkovsky held the shares he was acquiring with the company’s proceeds in a subsidiary, in a circular form of ownership not uncommon in Russian corporations. It made him a player in the boardroom dispute, though he had not started his career at Norilsk with any significant holding in the company. As part of the settlement, in which Mr. Strzhalkovsky agreed to step down effective on Wednesday, this holding of Norilsk shares in a “quasi treasury” arrangement will be canceled. Though ending this arrangement will surely benefit Russia’s investment climate, the big payment that made it possible raised a new set of questions. “Paying $100 million in a golden parachute amazed even me,” Mikhail Prokhorov, a former part owner and chief executive of the Norilsk factory, wrote in a post on the Web site of the Echo of Moscow radio station. “I think the owners of Norilsk Nickel should explain their decision to the public — for what service to the company is this payment made?” Representatives of Mr. Potanin and Mr. Deripaska referred questions to the Norilsk Nickel press office. A spokeswoman there said the management had not authorized her to discuss the settlement beyond what was noted in a published news release, which did not mention the $100 million payment. But she said it should not elicit surprise. “In principle,” she said, “all of this is normal.” The payout is comparable to some of the notable exit pay packages offered to American executives over the last 15 years, according to a list compiled by Equilar, an executive-compensation data company. Usually, most of the amounts due American chief executives are in stock or deferred compensation. According to Equilar’s list, Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard received a severance payment of $33.1 million in 2010, and Lee Raymond of Exxon received about $393 million when he retired in 2006. In one of the largest such payments ever, also in 2006, William McGuire of the UnitedHealth Group received $1.2 billion. Mr. McGuire’s deferred compensation and benefits totaled $103 million, with the remainder in stock options. Mr. Raymond’s pension and benefits totaled $101 million, excluding company equity. The Norilsk payout, however, was all cash; the RBK Daily newspaper reported $50 million would be paid immediately, and the remainder over the next year.

Strzhalkovsky Vladimir
Russia
Norilsk Nickel
Executive Compensation
Nickel


Lockheed Is Said to Buy Maker of Black Hawk Helicopters

Abstract: Lockheed Martin has agreed to buy Sikorsky, the maker of the Black Hawk helicopters used by the United States military, people with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday. The deal, which one person said would be worth more than $8 billion, could be announced as soon as Monday. Buying Sikorsky would give Lockheed a major new line of business apart from a number of already hugely popular military equipment, notably the F-35 fighter jet. The company is already the biggest military contractor worldwide, noticeably ahead of Boeing and other major manufacturers. The acquisition of Sikorsky, which had more than 15,000 employees and net sales of $7.5 billion at the end of last year, would be the biggest by Lockheed since its $10 billion takeover of Martin Marietta 21 years ago. Shares in Lockheed have risen about 4.5 percent so far this year, compared with a 13 percent rise in Boeing stock. By contrast, shares in United Technologies, the parent of Sikorsky, have fallen about 3.7 percent. A sale of Sikorsky would conclude a monthslong effort by United Technologies to determine what to do with the company after owning it for nearly seven decades. United Technologies acknowledged last month that it was exploring a sale or spinoff of the division. Divesting Sikorsky would somewhat simplify the business mix of United Technologies, which already makes products like Otis elevators, Carrier air-conditioners and Pratt & Whitney jet engines, the last of which are used by the F-35 aircraft. Any combination of Lockheed and Sikorsky would likely be scrutinized by the Defense Department, which has indicated that it wants to preserve competition among military contractors. News of the pending deal was reported earlier by Reuters.

Lockheed Martin
Sikorsky Aircraft
Mergers and Acquisitions
Military aircraft
Helicopter
United Technologies